“Hey baby girl,” Lincoln said, shifting his attention to Erin. The baby girl’s diapered butt rested on his forearm and his big palm around her tiny dark head, but the screaming didn’t stop.

“What do you know,” Julie Greene, another friend from Stiletto, said, taking a sip of her white wine and brushing a finger over the pissed-off baby’s cheek. “The only single female on the planet that’s not instantly in love with Lincoln Mathis.”

Not the only single female, Lincoln thought as he gave the baby a little bounce. Daisy Sinclair didn’t seem to be even remotely aware of him as a man. She’d made him go shopping, for God’s sake. Then somehow talked him into carrying her bags.

Which…

Lincoln hated shopping.

Hated. Shopping.

Not unusual, he supposed. Most men did. Sure, as a born and bred Manhattanite, he liked to dress well, but his fashion sense was 100 percent faked. Without his tailor and the cute blond stylist from Trunk Club who sent over new shirts and ties every few months or so, along with a note instructing him on what to wear with what, Lincoln would probably be more of an off-the-rack, white shirt/blue suit kind of guy.

And even if Lincoln were inclined to go shopping, he sure as hell wouldn’t do it on a busy Sunday afternoon. Roaming around from window to window, shop to shop, right alongside the tourists?

Nightmare.

Except it hadn’t been. Not really.

Lincoln told himself he’d gone along with it because he owed her, and because it would make a decent excuse as to why he and Daisy had spent time together today. But the truth was, hanging out with Daisy all day, buying her a late lunch, arguing whether eggplant was in fact delicious (his stance) or the most disgusting thing ever (her stance)…it had been fun.

More important, it had been distracting. The first time ever that he’d come home from visiting Katie and not spent the afternoon alone feeling utterly broken.

There hadn’t been even a hint of flirtatiousness from Daisy. Not from the moment he’d met her on Friday until the moment he’d dropped her off at her hotel a couple hours earlier to change for dinner. She was simply friendly. Comfortable. The other women he knew—excluding, of course, his happily attached friends at Stiletto—would have not-so-casually suggested that he pick her up before dinner as well, so they could arrive together.

Daisy had merely lifted to her tiptoes, pecked his cheek, and told him she’d see him tonight without a backward glance.

It had been refreshing.

And somehow unsatisfying.

He pushed away the treacherous thought before it could take root, even as his gaze idly scanned the room for Daisy.

“She’s not here yet,” Julie said, taking another sip of wine.

He’d already known that, of course. Somehow he’d known it the second he walked in the room.

He played dumb.

“Who?” Lincoln asked, giving her a wide grin.

Julie rolled her eyes. “Daisy. And don’t pretend that you weren’t just looking for her.”

Lincoln bounced the baby, grateful to have something to look at besides Julie’s prying gaze. Of all his female friends, he’d have thought bubbly, carefree Julie would be the least likely to bust his balls about him and Daisy leaving together last night, but apparently not.

The blonde leaned toward him, brown eyes sparkling with mischief. “Oh man, Emma’s going to killllll you. Can I watch?”

“Where is the darling bride?” he asked, scanning the room once more.

“Last I checked, making out with Cassidy in the kitchen.”

Lincoln glanced toward the kitchen, where, sure enough, his boss had his new wife backed against the counter.

“Do you think either of them even remember we’re here?” he asked Julie.

“Who cares? They ordered pizza.”

“I don’t know why they did that,” Julie’s husband said, coming up beside his wife. “They could have just had you whip up one of your frozen pizza specialties.”

“All right,” Julie said, holding up her hand and glaring at Mitchell with a mixture of irritation and adoration. “There has got to be a statute of limitation on that little mishap.”

Mitchell looked over at Lincoln as he adjusted his glasses. “Mathis? What say you?”

“I say someone above the age of twelve putting a frozen pizza in the oven with the plastic still on definitely deserves a lifetime of reminders on said mishap. And my God, does this baby never stop crying?”

“No, never.” This from Sam Compton, father of the crying baby. “Want me to take her? Free you up to grab a drink?”

“Maybe,” Lincoln said, swaying the baby a little from side to side in an attempt to get her to quiet down. “Did you bring any of the good stuff?”

Sam had his own distillery in Brooklyn—and what had started as a hobby and a passion had turned into one of the most highly acclaimed whiskey producers in the country.

“Depends,” Sam replied, tilting his own glass back and forth, watching the amber liquid slip from side to side. “How do you feel about barrel-aged rye with just a hint of maple?”

In response, Lincoln promptly extended Erin to her dad. “She looks more like Riley every time I see her. Acts like her too, with all that noise.”

Sam winced. “Please don’t say that. You forget that I knew Riley all through high school. I don’t think I can handle if my daughter has even a tiny sliver of her mother’s spirit.”