Single Daddy To Go: A Holiday Single Dad Romance

by Adams, S. C.

  What? I don’t want to believe her. Rob has always been so confident and self-assured. Why would he care about measuring up to Lindsay’s bald eighty-year old husband? What difference does more money make, when everyone’s already a billionaire?

  But Lindsay just keeps cackling, and the doubts keep creeping in. What if she’s right? He did ask me out right before the fair. He did tell me how impressed he was that I could “handle” Lindsay. What if he is just using me to play out some stupid drama with his bitchy ex? What if our “relationship” has been based some horrible manipulation?

  My heart sinks into the widening pit in my stomach. I feel like the air has become suddenly heavy, pressing down on my chest so hard that I can barely breathe. I feel as if I have grown even smaller beneath Lindsay’s condescending gaze.

  I shake my head.

  “You’re wrong,” I manage in a shaky voice. “Rob’s not like that. He doesn’t need to compare himself to your husband. He doesn’t need to compare himself to anyone.”

  “Then why did he buy the new penthouse?” she shrugs.

  I pause for a moment. This is true. Last week, Rob closed on a penthouse just a block away from his old one. This one is bigger and grander, with unobstructed views of both Central Park and the Hudson River. I asked him why he bought it when he already had so much space, and the billionaire merely smiled with a secret look in his eye. So I take a deep breath.

  “He bought it because he can? Why not, if you have the money?”

  She rolls her eyes.

  “Please, you silly girl. He only bought it because Sheldon and I just bought a new trophy penthouse. He’s jealous of us, can’t you see it? Sheldon bought a new Rolls Royce, and the next day, Rob’s down at the dealership test driving Lamborghinis. Sheldon buys something, and Rob’s at the store the next day asking for the same model. My ex just can’t handle that my new husband is more of a man than he is. Sad, isn’t it?”

  My mind whirls. Rob did just bring home a new Aventador, a flashy red sports car that looks like something out of a superhero movie, with acceleration so crazy quick it makes my head spin. He told me he got the car on a whim, because he felt like it. I told him I was worried he’d crash it, and he laughed, promising to be careful.

  I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now, I can’t but help wonder. Was there some ulterior motive to buying that car? After all, Rob’s got a fleet of luxury vehicles already. Why did he buy this one just recently? Did it have something to do with Sheldon and Lindsay?

  As if reading my mind, his ex holds up her keys. Sure enough, there’s the telltale Aventador logo on her car key.

  “See?” she says smugly. “Sheldon got one, so Rob had to get one too. That man has no imagination.”

  I swallow, fighting the lump forming in my throat. I try to breathe through the compression in my chest. I feel like I’m one of those cartoon animals who has walked out into mid-air with nothing beneath its feet, and hasn’t yet noticed. So I long I don’t look down, I can stay standing even if my legs are treading air.

  But Lindsay’s on a roll and not about to give up her lead.

  “Don’t you get it?” she yawns, feigning boredom. “He’s just trying to keep up with the Joneses, except in this case, the Joneses are the Stys. Don’t get caught up in his little game. You think he’s so charming. Trust me, I thought so too. But all he cares about is himself. He’s a sick man, sick in the head. He’s using you, like he uses everybody in his life. Has he told you he wants a baby yet?” she asks casually, tapping her red nails together. “It’s his modus operandi, if you will. He says that he wants a baby with you, and that you’ll be a happy family together. Don’t fall for it, sweetheart. I gave him that baby, and look where I am now: married to another man.”

  I don’t know what to say. I just stand there, staring, like a deer caught in a car’s headlights.

  Lindsay stretches a hand towards me, as if she might touch me. She stops just short, flicking her hand away. “I’m sorry,” she purrs. “I don’t mean to judge or anything like that. He is a very attractive man, and I can understand why you’d be blown away. Plus, I quite loved him once myself, or at least I thought I loved him. I just want to save you from what happened to me, that’s all.”

  This is too much. In a strangled tone, I manage to say, “Would you like to take Katie now? I’ll go look for her.” I feel like everything is moving in slow motion and that I’m trying to fight my way through a heavy fog of misery.

  She laughs again, just two beats.

  “Ha ha.” She tosses her head again. “Yes, where is my little angel?”

  Just keep moving, I tell myself. I find Katie playing with the twins in the next room.

  “Katie, honey, your mom is here early to pick you up,” I say.

  Katie, thankfully, remains oblivious to the tension between us. I help her to get her backpack and gather her things. When she sees her mom, she runs over, squealing. “Mommy! Mommy!”

  She tries to give Lindsay a kiss, but the blonde dodges the contact.

  “What did I tell you about messing up Mommy’s makeup?” she scolds. Immediately, the little girl hangs her head and looks at the floor.

  “Oh, sorry Mommy,” Katie mumbles, shuffling her feet.

  “Thanks for taking such good care of her,” Lindsay says to me, her fake smile in full force. “I’ll see you later. Bye now!”

  “Bye Ally,” mumbles Katie, her little form small and dejected with one hand caught in her mother’s clasp.

  I watch them walk away. When they’ve left the building, the force of gravity at last overcomes me. I sink to the ground, unable to stand anymore.

  My whole world is spinning, like I’m drunk. I’m in shock, like I’ve just been hit by a car. Is it true? Is Rob engaged in some twisted game of one-upsmanship with his ex? Is our whole relationship just a sham to get back at her? Am I just a pawn in his schemes?

  I don’t want to believe Lindsay, but she makes a convincing case. And she knows him so much better than I do. Plus, the baby thing, or maybe I should call it the baby scheme. Was it just a practiced move on his part, designed to make me feel safe and secure? I feel so stupid, and utterly, absolutely devastated too.

  Lindsay’s right. I don’t measure up. Rob could have any woman he wants, so why would he pick some day care attendant who already has the mom body without even being a mom? He’s a billionaire, and I’m poor, pathetic nobody.

  This whole thing, this whole fairy tale romance, has seemed like something that couldn’t possibly be real. It all happened so fast, and it was so perfect too. I went from being a girl no one noticed to being the girl on the arm of one of the world’s most powerful men. I should have known it was too good to be true.

  Tears gather at the corners of my eyes, but I fight them back. I have to get through the rest of my day. My co-worker Emma steps out of the bathroom, whistling and blissfully unaware of the wretched interaction that just occurred. I’m glad that she didn’t watch my confrontation with Lindsay. It was bad enough without having a witness and I paste a smile on my face. But Emma can see that something’s definitely wrong.

  “Oh my god, Ally, are you okay?” she asks, running over.

  Slowly, I pick myself off the ground, ruefully trying to dust myself off.

  “Nothing,” I say. “I’m O.K. Just a little dizzy for a moment, but it’s nothing,” I offer as a lame excuse.

  Emma shoots me a look.

  “You don’t look O.K.” she says darkly.

  I hate that she can tell when I just want to suffer in silence. I look up at her, my eyes pleading. “Please, Emma. Don’t worry about me. It’s nothing. There’s just a big paste spill and I got overwhelmed trying to clean it up. I swear.”

  She nods, gravely. I think she gets it, that I’m not O.K. at all but I want her to pretend. “I can work on cleaning it. I don’t mind,” she offers. “Come on, I’ll get some paper towels.”

  “Thanks,” I say. My voice in my own ears sounds small
and far away.

  I know this feeling. It’s heartbreak. I’ve felt it once before, when my college boyfriend left for Europe, but it’s ten times worse this time. The other breakup was a natural thing. I felt wistful but not destroyed. After all, the guy was joining the Peace Corps in some remote rural area. The separation was just what had to happen at that point in our lives.

  But this time, my heart feels like a gaping wound, bleeding out inside my chest. I don’t know how I’m going to get through the rest of the day. I just want to run away and hide somewhere, but I have to keep it together for the kids and their parents.

  I shut myself into the bathroom and splash water on my face desperately. I look at myself in the mirror. The girl that stares back at me is fat and dirty, covered in paste with her hair a mess and no makeup. I can’t hold a candle to glamorous Lindsay Sty.

  What a silly girl I’ve been, living in a fantasy land. What a dumb, delusional girl. Rob Lockhart played me for a good one, and it took his ex to show me the light. Sure, the relationship was good while it lasted, but only before I realized that it wasn’t real. I take a deep breath, standing up tall and straightening myself out. I’m not all here, but I can get through this. It’s just a few more hours before I can go home and cry myself to sleep with the memories of what might have been but never actually were.

  14

  Rob

  It’s a beautiful day, the sun peeking through the gaps between the skyscrapers and shining through the windows of my top floor office. But on the inside, I feel as gloomy as the worst rainy day. Outside my window, pigeons are cooing as they walk around on the window ledge. I watch two of them snuggling, preening each other’s feathers. I feel a pang of jealousy. Those winged rats are doing better than I am right now.

  A week ago, I was thinking about a second marriage and another chance at fatherhood. A week ago, everything was right with my world. I felt like a king, but now I feel like shit. I’m trying to keep it together, because I can’t have my office staff noticing that their boss is falling apart. On the outside, I look my usual self: dominating and handsome in a sharp suit. On the inside, I’m an utter mess.

  In a daze, I try calling Ally again, and once again, she doesn’t answer. What the fuck? The phone clatters onto my desk, my fingers numb. It’s been a week, and she hasn’t returned any of my calls or texts. I know she’s alive, because I’ve seen the notification that she’s read my texts. I’ve tried calling her from my cell and the phone at my house and the phone at my office, with no luck.

  I’m so confused. Everything was going so well. One moment I was taking her out in my new sports car and introducing her to all the best spots in the city, and the next moment: radio silence. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

  I’ll confess, sometimes I really don’t understand women. They keep so much on the inside, and their motivations can be tangled like crossed wires. I think I have a firm grasp on how their bodies work, but their minds can be a mystery. I suspect I have done something to offend Ally, but I have no idea what it was. Really no clue. So what do I do now? I’m trying to get a hold of her to have a talk, but if the girl won’t answer, then what am I left with?

  Was I too cavalier about the issue of birth control? Did I scare her away by suggesting I wanted to get her pregnant? I wasn’t being flippant. I really do want to have a family with Ally. I bought that new penthouse down the street in anticipation of us, and the children we’re going to have together. Nothing would be better than watching her grow pregnant again and again, that curvy body getting heavier still. She’s so amazing with the child I already have, and I know she’s going to make a wonderful mother.

  But did it all come too fast? She didn’t really reply when I brought it up at the carnival, and I was nervous about pushing the issue. After all, my lover is quite a bit younger than me. Maybe she’s not ready. Maybe she wants to wait. You never know with women in New York City. They all have high-powered careers and seem to want to make a mark on the world before settling down to start a family.

  Shit. That must be it. I must have underestimated her career aspirations. After all, I was somewhat nonchalant about her job at Ladybug Tots, and I did fuck her during a school event. Goddamn. Maybe I should have taken things slower. She did tell me that she wanted a Master’s in Education, and don’t those degrees take years to get? Goddamit. The talk of starting a family together must have put her off.

  Shit shit shit. Or maybe it wasn’t that. Did I make some random, offensive off-hand comment? I just don’t know. I hate this feeling of uncertainty. If I knew what the problem was, I could fix it, but the communication breakdown is impossible, and I have no idea where to even start. I’m worried that I’m making it worse by continuing to call her, but I don’t know what else to do.

  This fucked up situation drives me crazy, and I sink back into my chair with a hand over my eyes. I’m used to getting what I want, but a woman is not like a company. I can’t just acquire her. There are women who can be bought, but Ally is not one of those. It’s part of what I loved about her, that she doesn’t seem terribly concerned with the material things in life. I have to charm her. I have to pay attention to her needs. I have to earn her love and respect. In fact, there’s nothing I want to do more in life, but now we’ve totally gone off the rails because I thought I was doing a great job, but obviously not.

  I’m trying to focus on work, but all I can think about is how much I miss Ally as my mind spins out different scenarios to explain what might have gone wrong. I feel cold on the inside, worried that I’ve somehow managed to ruin such a good thing.

  My secretary’s voice interrupts my thoughts. “Mr. Lockhart, your eleven a.m. is here.”

  I notice that Ann is standing in front of my desk, looking sharp in a blue skirt suit. She’s a very tall woman with her light brown hair tied back in a tight bun, her expression expectant. Fuck. I’m so distracted that I didn’t even notice her entrance. This isn’t good.

  “Um, excellent. Send him in,” I clear my throat, not feeling at all excellent. I gather myself, focusing on the task at hand instead of thinking about the girl I’ve somehow managed to lose.

  Mr. Fred Hwaung is a businessman from Hong Kong, and a billionaire in his own right. His line of work revolves around setting up shell companies, getting them listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and then selling them to other companies who want to get listed quickly. I need one of those companies, for an Eastern subsidiary of Lockhart Industries. This is an important meeting, which I can’t fuck up.

  Mr. Hwaung walks into the office. He’s a portly guy with a smiling, sweaty face and a very expensive suit. I shake his hand, ushering him in to sit down. “I’m so glad you could make it today,” I say.

  “I squeezed you in,” he wheezes. “I have to fly back to Hong Kong in four hours, so let’s make this quick. You want to buy. I want to sell. This should be easy.”

  I am grateful for the urgency. I’m not in the mood for small talk right now. The truth is, finding out what’s going on with Ally is more important to me than this meeting, but I can’t let Hwaung know that. Business has to come first, or the empire I’ve worked so hard to build over the course of my life will collapse like a fucking tower of twigs.

  “Yes, Mr. Hwaung. It should be easy,” I say smoothly, spreading some papers out on the desk. “Let’s go over these figures.”

  The meeting proceeds. It’s tough to focus, but I make myself hone in on these negotiations. It takes perhaps half an hour to hammer out the details of our transaction. We agree on a price of $20 million for the company, and shake hands on the deal. We put our respective signatures to some important paperwork and shake hands again after he hoists himself to his feet. Was it a good deal? A bad one? Probably something in the middle given how thoughts of Ally kept running around the back of my mind even as I crunched numbers with Hwaung.

  “Would you like me to have my driver drop you off at the airport?” I offer courteously.

  “No, I have my o
wn driver,” the fat man says. “My car is waiting outside.”

  I watch him walk away, escorted by my secretary. I sit back down and make like I’m going to get to work, but of course, my fingers don’t obey. Instead, to my mortification, I try calling Ally from my office phone again. What the fuck is wrong with me? I’m like a fucking fifteen year old boy caught in the throes of some hopeless unrequited crush. It’s embarrassing to be honest.

  And yet, as I press the phone to my ear, my heart beats with rapid thumps. I hold out hope that she will answer, but it rings straight to voicemail. Fuck! I’m so fucking pathetic! I’ve already left Ally a bunch of messages, so I just hang up. I’ve never felt so powerless as I do right now.

  Viciously, I pull up a shareholders’ report from one of my investment holdings. I read the same page about five times, taking nothing in. The words crawl before my eyes like tiny ants. I tell myself to get it together and focus, but it’s no use. I can’t do this. I’m too distracted by worrying about what has happened with Ally and it’s affecting my ability to get my work done. I’d fire myself, if it was possible.

  I push the button on the intercom and page my secretary. She comes rushing in, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor. “How can I help you, Mr. Lockhart?”

  “I want you to clear my schedule for the rest of the day,” I growl.

  “Are you sure, Mr. Lockhart?” Her face flashes concern. “You have several more meetings today.” Not to mention that I never cancel work. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

  “It’s a family emergency, Ann. Reschedule what you can, and have Robert Johnson deal with whatever you can’t reschedule. I think he’s ready for the responsibility.” My voice is hard, my mind having already been made up.