STEPPING UP (THE FORBIDDEN REVERSE HAREM COLLECTION #9) BY LISA CULLEN – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Lisa Cullen
- Language: English
- Genre: Contemporary romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 5.4 MB
- Price: Free
CARLY
Few operations are as delicate as getting a five-year-old ready to leave
the house in a hurry. Especially when you’re dealing with my
precocious, fiercely independent five-year-old, Ella.
“We need to meet Grammy at the airport soon, honey. Are you almost
ready?” I tried to call toward my daughter’s bedroom with the appropriate
level of calm urgency in my voice. One wrong tonal shift, and all hope of
cooperation would be gone. Parenting was not unlike defusing a small,
potentially deadly bomb.
“Almost, Mommy!” Ella’s sweet little voice piped up from behind her
door, high-pitched and with a tinge of a smile behind it. And of course, all
of my tension melted out of me in an instant, a tiny smile of my own
forming on my lips automatically. I loved this kid enough to deal with this
high-stakes scene a hundred times over. And honestly, I wasn’t looking
forward to our airport errand, anyway.
With a burst of energy and the ring of an enthusiastic “ta-da!” that filled
our small house, Ella emerged from her bedroom. Her outfit, which she’d
insisted on picking out herself to surprise Grammy with her fashion sense,
was fresh off the runway. That is to say, it was one I couldn’t see any sane,
practical person attempting to wear in real life. A child, though? Sure. My
child? Perfection.
Her blonde hair hung in baby-soft waves around her young face, her
bright green eyes and partially-toothless smile displaying her satisfaction at
the ensemble. She’d, unsurprisingly, picked her favorite shirt of the moment
—a pink T-shirt with a smiling green bug on it and the words “Buzz off,
you’re bugging me!” in glittering font—and tucked it into the rainbow tutu
she’d worn to be a unicorn for Halloween. Red tartan-patterned leggings
peeked out from underneath the layers of tulle, and her hot pink Crocs
completed the look.
The shoes were a tiny act of rebellion that gave me a
pang of sadness, wishing she were tiny again. They didn’t fit her anymore,
and I’d tried to get rid of them a few times, but Ella was too attached to her
favorite shoes even now that she’d outgrown them.
“You look beautiful, baby,” I started, telling the truth even through my
struggle to hold back a laugh, “but you need shoes that fit to go to the
airport. How about you put on those light-up sneakers that Grammy got for
you? I think they’d work great with all your colors, and she’ll be excited to
see you wearing them.”
A pause, and Ella’s smooth brow furrowed as she considered this.
Finally, she gave a short, decisive nod and ducked back into her bedroom to
switch shoes.
By the time Ella reemerged in her light-up sneakers and I finally
wrangled her into the car, we were definitely later than we told my mom we
would be picking her up. There was relief, at least, at having finally left the
house, Ella snug in her car seat, but that left me with the dread about
actually picking up Mom. Worse, she’d told me in her text with the details
of when her flight would be landing that she had a “surprise” waiting for us,
and knowing Jodie Sanders as I did, that was a scary prospect.
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