Chapter 5 - The Daddy They Called
Two days later, Sloan was discharged from the hospital.
She expected Griffin to call a private car to take her back to the duplex.
Instead, he carried her bags to his own SUV.
Hazel and Iris were already strapped into the backseat, drinking expensive hot chocolate and playing with the tablets Griffin had bought them.
“Griffin, I can go home,” Sloan said as he opened the passenger door for her.
“You are going home,” he replied. “My home.”
“I have rent to pay. I have deadlines.”
“I bought your duplex this morning,” Griffin stated calmly. “You don’t have rent anymore. And I called your firm. You are on a mandatory, fully paid six-month medical leave.”
Sloan stared at him.
“You can’t just buy my life.”
“I’m not buying it. I’m protecting it.”
He stepped closer, backing her gently against the car.
“You spent eight years protecting them from my family’s worst impulses,” Griffin said softly. “Now it is my turn to protect you with my family’s best resources.”
Sloan looked into his gray eyes.
They were the same eyes she had fallen in love with eleven years ago. The same eyes that looked back at her every time Iris smiled.
“We don’t even know each other anymore,” she whispered.
Griffin reached up and tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear.
“Then we have a lot of catching up to do.”
He closed the door and got into the driver’s seat.
The Seattle penthouse was massive, but within an hour, Hazel and Iris had completely taken it over.
They were running down the glass hallways, pointing at the boats in the Puget Sound below, and asking Griffin a thousand questions.
Sloan sat on the velvet sofa, resting.
She watched Griffin Drake—the ruthless billionaire—sit on the floor in his tailored trousers, showing Iris how the telescope worked.
Hazel ran up to him and tugged on his sleeve.
“Griffin?”
He looked at her.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
Hazel shifted her weight. She looked at Sloan, then back at Griffin.
“Can we call you Daddy now? Or is it too soon?”
The room went silent.
Griffin lowered the telescope.
He looked at the little girl who had saved her mother’s life with a single phone call.
His eyes filled with tears, but this time, he didn't try to hide them.
He opened his arms.
“You can call me Daddy forever,” he said.
Hazel and Iris crashed into him, burying him in a hug that finally erased ten years of silence.
Sloan watched them, wiping a tear from her own cheek.
May you like
The emergency contact hadn’t just saved her life.
He had finally brought them home.
