21st of June
He drives through the gates that close automatically behind him, parks his car and gets out.
He's in a foul mood today. For no particular reason.
They're in the outside pool. His daughter and the little half-breed he hired to be her nanny.
When he's in a foul mood, he always assigns the term 'half-breed' to her. Often followed by the term 'bitch'. It doesn't bother him that she isn't full feral like him, but it bothers him that she takes some kind of serum to suppress it.
He walks over to them. She notices how cranky he looks and wonder if he ever smiles.
"Good afternoon mister Creed" she greets him heartily.
He growls something in return.
"We did not expect you to be back yet" she continues to try and converse with him.
"Why is she inside that rubber band thing?" he ignores her comment as he point at his daughter splashing around in the water.
Rae cocks a brow at him as she looks up at him from the pool. Is he being serious?
"Uhm... because she is four years old and therefore cannot swim yet?".
"Hm" he looks at Rae intensely "You're getting quite bold aren't ya?".
Her eyes widen a little "My apologies. I honestly thought you were joking when you asked me that about your daughter's swimming".
"I don't joke".
She chuckles "You don't say".
"Rae! Look at me!" Zoe cries out happily as she splashes around.
Rae smiles at the little girl "You're getting tired aren't you princess? Let's give you a nice bath and put you on the choo choo train to dream world city".
She takes the little girl in her arms and swims to the edge of the pool. After she lifts Zoe out of the water, she climbs out of the water herself and helps Zoe out of the swimming equipment.
She is completely oblivious about what goes on inside the head of the male feral behind her as she walks off with Zoe in her arms.
He can't help himself, his eyes slowly roam her almost naked body lustfully. Her bikini doesn't leave much to the imagination and he growls in frustration as he feels his pants tighten around his hard groin.
Bitch.
"Rae, will you sing me the song?" Zoe asks once she's crawled up in her own little bed.
"You want the song? No story this time?".
"No" Zoe shakes her head "The song".
Rae smiles and sits next to Zoe against the head board. It's not the first time she sings her the song to get her to sleep, but it still works. Her own mother used to sing it to her when she was younger. Now Zoe loves to drift off to sleep to it also.
I see trees that are green,
red roses too,
I watch them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
When she's half-way she looks down and sees that Zoe is already sleeping, mister Bear tightly held against her.
Rae pulls the covers over the little girl, kisses her forehead and turns off the bedside lamp.
In the living room, Victor Creed's enhanced senses enable him to hear what goes on in his daughter's room while he skips through the pictures on Rae's laptop.
This is probably an invasion of privacy. But she works for him, she left her laptop on the coffee table and also, he doesn't give a shit.
There are a lot of pictures on there. Pictures of Zoe and a lot of pictures of Rae and Zoe together. He wonders who took those.
There's pictures of them at the zoo, at the beach building sand castles, playing outside in several different parks and on playgrounds and the swimming pool.
He growls internally. She asked him twice now to come with them to whatever, he didn't really listen. But now, while he skips through the photo's in which his daughter looks so happy, something pains him. It's not jealousy, it's just... something.
She's his flesh and blood after all, not hers.
"Found what you were looking for on my laptop?".
She's suddenly standing in the doorway, her arms crossed and her brows raised as she looks at him.
Judging him.
He narrows his eyes. He doesn't answer to her.
She walks over to the table and closes her laptop "I don't invade your privacy either mister Creed".
"Don't flatter yourself frail, your life ain't that interesting".
She suppresses the urge to reply with a nasty comment about how boring her life must seem to him since she doesn't get blood on her hands on a daily basis.
"Sit down" he suddenly commands "Wanna show you something".
She clenches her teeth and does what he says, even though she hates it when he thinks he can command her.
He hands her a binder with several documents in it.
"The one on top" he tells her "That's the school I want her to go to".
Rae blinks, a little surprised by what's going on here. She sits back with the binder and opens it up.
He stares at her intently as she looks through the files of the school he picked. It seems he really put a lot of time and effort into researching the nearby primary schools and which one was best for his daughter. A small smile plays around her lips.
So maybe he does care.
"Made an appointment with them for next month. Want you to come".
"Okay" she replies as if he just made her a request, which he did not, since it was very much another command.
She's curious why he's always so goddamn cranky, and if he's like that with everyone or just with her. Though at the moment, she doesn't really care. Because cranky or not, he put in a lot of effort researching schools which shows that he cares about Zoe's future.
"One more thing" he says before she can pack up her laptop and go to her own room to do some work "That thing you once said about Zoe asking you why I didn't spend time with her... Did that actually happen or did you just make that shit up to humor me?".
Rae sits down again with a painful look "Mister Creed" she says as she takes a deep breath "I should not have been so sarcastic and mean about it... but Zoe did ask me about that. She wants to spend time with you. She wants a father, I mean, who wouldn't?".
"She seems to be doing fine with just you around".
"I'm not her mother, nor her father and I never will be. She wants you to be her father. I mean, you took her in... You could have just left her to rot in some shelter or orphanage. But you didn't. So tell me this: why did you take her in?".
"She's my flesh and blood. It's my responsibility".
Rae sighs deeply. It's partially the answer she wants to hear, but not all of it.
Fine, so Creed doesn't back down when it comes to responsibilities. That's a good trait. But Rae rather hears him saying that he cares about Zoe.
"Is that all she is to you? A responsibility?".
He doesn't answer.
"What did you tell her when she asked you about me?" he wonders as he narrows his eyes on her.
"I told her that you are very busy with work, that you care a lot about her and that's why you work so hard, to make sure that she has everything she needs".
Creed smirks as he moves a little closer to her, lowering his voice "But you don't really believe that do you frail?".
Rae straightens her back, hardly intimidated by his huge physique, and yet intimidated enough to put up her shield barrier "I believe that you simply don't know how to handle the situation, so you avoid it".
"Is that so?".
"Yes" she replies determinedly "You want to connect with her, but you don't know how. Because you're scared".
He scoffs out a sarcastic laugh.
"Four-year-olds don't scare me frail" he snarls into her face "And 24-year olds with shield barriers up every time I come this close, definitely don't scare me".
A smirks plays around her lips, she has him exactly where she wants him.
"Good" she replies softly as she removes the shield from around her "Then you'll have no problem proving that statement by spending time with her".