LITMIR.BIZ

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she could see a tiny nerve throbbing at the corner of his compelling mouth. His lips had grown taut. “If I haven’t made it clear before, let me say this again. My daughter is my life. That makes her my top priority.” She believed him.

      “I know,” Dottie murmured. “While I’m here, she’s mine, too.”

      A long silence ensued before he stepped away. “I’ve instructed Hector to make certain you’re comfortable while you’re here. Your dinner can be served in the small guest dining room on the second floor, or he’ll have it brought to your room. Whatever you prefer. Anything you want or need, you have only to pick up the phone and ask him and he’ll see to it.”

      “Thank you. He’s been so perfect, I can hardly believe he’s real.”

      “My brother and I have been saying the same thing about him for years.” The first glimmer of an unexpected smile reached his black eyes. He did have his human moments. The proof of it set off waves of sensation through her body she hadn’t expected or wanted to feel.

      “If you’ll eat your eggs, I have a surprise for you.” Zoe jerked her head around and eyed Alex in excitement. “I’m going to spend time with you this morning and thought we’d play out on my patio. That’s why I told Sofia to let you wear pants.”

      She made a sound of delight and promptly took several bites. The queen sent him a private glance that said she hoped this testing session with the new speech therapist wasn’t going to be a waste of time. Alex hoped not, too. No one wanted constructive feedback more than he did.

      After Zoe finished off her juice, she wiggled down from the chair and started to dart away. Alex called her back. “You must ask to be excused.”

      She turned to her grandmother. “Can I go with daddy, Yiayia?”

      The queen nodded. “Have a good time.”

      Alex groaned in silence, remembering the way his daughter had flown out of his office yesterday after one look at Dottie.

      Zoe slipped her hand into his and they left for his suite. She skipped along part of the way. When he saw how thrilled she was to be with him, he found himself even more put out with Stasio.

      As soon as his brother got back from Vallader, Alex planned to take more time off to be with his daughter. While he’d had to be here at the palace doing his brother’s work plus his own, he’d hardly had a minute to spend time with her. Maybe they’d go on a mini vacation together.

      The curtains to the patio had been opened. Zoe ran through the bedroom ahead of him, then suddenly stopped at the sight of the woman sitting on the patio tiles in jeans and a pale orange, short-sleeved cotton top.

      “Hi, Zoe,” she spoke in English with a smile. Dottie had put on sneakers and her hair was loose in a kind of disheveled bob that revealed the light honey tones among the darker swaths. “Do you think your daddy can catch this?” She threw a Ping-Pong ball at him.

      When he caught it with his right hand, Zoe cried out in surprise. He threw it back to Dottie who caught it in her left. Their first volley of the day. For no particular reason his pulse rate picked up at the thought of what else awaited him in her presence.

      “Good catch. Come on, Daddy.” Her dancing blue gaze shot to his. “You and Zoe sit down and spread your legs apart like this and we’ll roll some balls to each other.” She pulled a larger multicolored plastic ball from a big bag and opened those long, fabulous legs of hers.

      Alex could tell his daughter was so shocked by what was going on, she forgot to be scared and sat down to imitate Dottie once he’d complied. Dottie rolled the ball to Zoe, who rolled it back to her. Then it was his turn. They went in a round, drawing Zoe in. Pretty soon their guest pulled out a rubber ball and rolled it to his daughter right after she’d sent her the plastic ball.

      Zoe laughed as she hurried to keep both balls going. His clever little girl used her right and left hand at the same time and sent one ball to Dottie and one to him. “Good thinking!” she praised her. “Shall we try three balls?”

      “Yes,” his daughter said excitedly. Their guest produced the Ping-Pong ball and fired all three balls at both of them, one after the other, until Zoe was giggling hysterically.

      “You’re so good at this, I think we’ll try something else. Shall we see who’s better at jumping?” She whipped out a jump rope with red handles and got to her feet. “Come on, Zoe. You take this end and I’ll hold on to the other. Your daddy’s going to jump first. You’ll have to make big circles like I’m doing or the rope will hit him in the head.”

      “Oh, no—” Zoe cried.

      “Don’t worry,” Dottie inserted. “Your daddy is a big boy. It won’t hurt him.”

      So their visitor had noticed. Was that a negative in her eyes, too?

      Zoe scrutinized him. “You’re a boy?”

      “Yes. He’s a very big one,” Dottie answered for him and his daughter laughed. Soon Zoe was using all her powers of concentration to turn the rope correctly and was doing an amazing job of it. After four times to get it right he heard, “You can jump in anytime now, Daddy.”

      Alex crouched down and managed to do two jumps before getting caught around the shoulders. He was actually disappointed when their leader said, “Okay, now it’s Zoe’s turn. How many can you do?”

      She cocked her dark brown head. “Five—”

      “Well, that’s something I want to see. Watch while we turn the rope. Whenever you think you’re ready, jump in. It’s okay if it takes you a whole bunch of times to do it, Zoe. Your daddy isn’t going anywhere, right?”

      She didn’t look at him as she said it. He had a feeling it was on purpose.

      “We’re both in your hands for as long as it takes, Dorothy.” He’d read the background information on her and knew it was her legal name.

      “I never go by my given name,” she said to Zoe without missing a beat while she continued to rotate the rope. “You can call me Dottie.”

      “That means crazy, doesn’t it?” he threw out, curious to see how she’d respond.

      “Your English vocabulary is remarkable, Your Highness.”

      “Is she crazy?” Zoe asked while she stood there, hesitant to try jumping.

      “Be careful how you answer that,” Dottie warned him. “Little royal pitchers have big ears and hers seem to be working just fine.”

      Alex couldn’t help chuckling. He smiled at his daughter. “She’s funny-crazy. Don’t you think?”

      “Yes.” Zoe giggled again.

      “Come on and jump.” After eight attempts accompanied by a few tears, she finally managed a perfect jump. Dottie clapped her hands. “Good job, Zoe. Next time you’ll do more.”

      She put the rope aside and reached into her bag of tricks. His daughter wasn’t the only one interested to see what she would pull out next. “For this game we have to get on our tummies.”

      The speech therapist might as well have been a magician. At this point his daughter was entranced and did what was suggested without waiting for Alex. In another minute Dottie had laid twenty-four cards facedown on the floor in four rows. She turned one card over. “Do you know what this is, Zoe?”

      His daughter nodded. “Pig.”

      “Yes, and there’s another card just like it. You have to remember where this card is, and then find the other one. When you do, then you make a book of them and put the pile to the side. You get one turn. Go ahead.”

      Zoe turned over another card.

      “What is it?”

      “Whale.”

      “Yes, but it’s not a pig. So you have

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