The Daddy Wish. Brenda Harlen

he said.

      “Go eat your cereal, then brush your teeth,” she told him.

      It had taken her almost twenty minutes to do her makeup and hair, and less than five to wipe the color off her face and tuck her hair into its usual loose knot at the back of her head.

      Dylan didn’t comment on the changes, which she interpreted to mean that she now looked as she usually did. She certainly wasn’t going to turn any heads when she walked into the office, and maybe that was for the best. Far too many women tripped over themselves trying to catch Nathan Garrett’s eye, and she’d always taken pride in the fact that she wasn’t one of them.

      After dropping her son off at school, she drove across town to the offices of Garrett Furniture, trying not to think about what had happened at the company Christmas party.

      Of course, her efforts were futile. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t seen or heard from Nathan in the twenty-three days that had passed since they’d connected under the mistletoe—she hadn’t stopped thinking about him or THE KISS.

      Which was ridiculous, because he really wasn’t her type. Not that she had a type—she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had a date. But if she did have a type, it would not be a too rich, too sexy, too good-looking and far too self-assured man who had a reputation for enjoying women of all types.

      She decided it was a good thing that she’d wiped off her makeup and tied back her hair. The last thing she needed was for Nathan Garrett—or anyone else in the office—to think that she was interested in him.

      Maybe her response wasn’t about the particular man so much as the fact that she hadn’t been kissed (even in lowercase letters) in a very long time. Maybe that was the real reason he’d stirred up desires so long dormant, she hadn’t been certain she was capable of feeling them anymore. Maybe she didn’t want her boss’s nephew so much as she wanted to connect with someone. Anyone.

      As a single mother, she didn’t have time to be lonely—except for every other weekend when Dylan was with his dad, and Dylan had been with his dad the night of the Christmas party. She never would have stayed out so late, or let herself drink so much, if her son had been waiting for her at home. Not that she’d had so much to drink—probably not more than three glasses of wine. But she’d decided that being under the influence of alcohol was a convenient explanation for her uncharacteristic behavior.

      And now she was acting like a schoolgirl with a crush on the most popular boy in class—trying to pretty herself up to get his attention. It was pathetic, especially when she wasn’t even sure that she liked the guy all that much.

      Not that she disliked him.

      Allison blew out a frustrated breath. This was ridiculous. She was being ridiculous—spending far too much time obsessing over THE KISS and in danger of starting to think about Nathan Garrett as THE MAN. He was simply a man—no more and no less. Even if he was a man who could kiss far better than any other man in her experience.

      She pulled into her usual parking spot and turned off the ignition. After the holiday, she was eager to get back into the familiar routines of work again, but she stopped by the break room first to grab a cup of coffee. While there, she wished a happy New Year to Melanie Hedley, who was doing the same.

      “How was your holiday?” Melanie asked.

      “Quiet,” Allison said. “Yours?”

      “Amazing.” The other woman fairly gushed the word. “I went to Vail before Christmas and stayed at this fabulous condo resort that had fireplaces in every bedroom and hot tubs on all the decks. And Nate and I discovered the most incredible little café tucked away in the foothills.”

      Allison sloshed coffee over the back of her hand and sucked in a sharp breath as the hot liquid scalded her skin. “That does sound...amazing,” she said, grabbing a paper napkin to wipe the spilled coffee off her hand.

      “Lanie—” Enrico Sanchez poked his head into the room “—we need you on that conference call.”

      “Oh, right.” Melanie smiled at her. “We’ll catch up more later.”

      Allison added a splash of cream to her cup, stirring mechanically while all the excited anticipation that had fueled her buoyant mood only a few minutes earlier fizzled out like air from a balloon.

      She wasn’t unaware of Nate’s reputation, but it still hurt to realize that, only a few days after he’d kissed her, he’d been dining with Melanie in Colorado. It shouldn’t. She had no right to be upset or disappointed or anything. He’d certainly never made her any promises, and she wouldn’t have believed him if he had.

      So why had she let her own imagination paint unrealistic dreams? Why had she ever let herself believe that THE KISS had been anything more than a kiss?

      She hated being taken for a fool. Worse, she hated being a fool. She sat down at her desk and turned on her computer, determined to put all thoughts of the man from her mind once and for all.

      John Garrett walked in while she was still reviewing email messages that had come through over the holidays. He was a good boss and a genuinely wonderful man, and she greeted him with a sincere smile.

      The smile froze on her lips when he said, “I’m glad you’re here—I need to talk to you about Nathan.”

      * * *

      Allison took her iPad into John Garrett’s office.

      Though he’d said he wanted to talk to her about Nathan, she didn’t think there was any way he could know what had happened at the Christmas party. But HR frowned upon personal relationships in the workplace, and her heart was hammering against her ribs as she perched on the edge of the chair facing his desk.

      The CFO looked uncharacteristically burdened and weary. She could practically feel the knots forming in her belly—twisting and tightening—as it occurred to her that she might very well be on the verge of losing her job because she’d had too much to drink and had foolishly and impulsively let herself get caught under the mistletoe by her boss’s heir apparent.

      “You’re no doubt aware that Nathan has been chosen to take over as CFO when I retire,” John continued.

      She exhaled slowly, reassured by his opening that whatever this was about, it wasn’t about the kiss. (The brief exchange with Melanie in the staff room had succeeded in relegating the event to lowercase status.) Her relief was so profound, it took several seconds longer than it should have for the rest of his statement to sink in.

      Retirement? Why was he mentioning it now?

      “But that’s not until June,” she noted. And only then if he didn’t decide to postpone it again, as he’d done twice already.

      “Actually, I’m going to be finished here as of the end of January.”

      “What? Why?”

      “I had a little bit of a health scare over the holidays,” he admitted.

      She was instantly and sincerely concerned. John Garrett might be her boss, but over the six years that they’d worked together, he’d also become a friend and something of a father figure to her. “What happened? Why didn’t anyone call me?”

      “It was just a minor blip with my heart—nothing too serious.”

      The fact that he was sitting behind his desk and not in a hospital bed confirmed that it wasn’t too serious, but she knew him well enough to suspect that he was downplaying the “minor” part.

      But what did this mean for her? Would she be let go? Was John telling her now as a way of giving her notice that she would be out of a job at the end of the month?

      “Nathan’s worked hard for the company for a lot of years,” he continued. “He’s not getting this promotion just because his name is Garrett but because he’s earned it.”

      She