Valentine's with the Single Dad (The Single Dads of Seattle Book 7)

by Whitley Cox

  “You’re fucking kidding me?” This time he actually did drop a glass, the sound of it smashing to the tile floor startling both of them. His mouth opened in surprise.

  She shook her head, completely unaffected by the shattered glass. “Nope. They don’t know that I know, but I do. Brody filed for divorce once it was declared I was cancer-free. He stated that although he still loved me, he was no longer in love with me. He also wanted to be a father and have children the traditional way. He just wasn’t sure I was the woman for him anymore. Three months after he filed for divorce, he and Doneen made their relationship public.”

  Mason was busy sweeping up the glass, his knuckles white around the dustpan handle as he swept the shards into a pile. Rage pumped hot through him at the thought of this Brody douche and Lowenna’s sister sneaking behind her back, all while she was fighting for her life.

  He dumped the glass into the trash bin, then turned to face her in utter astonishment. “And you’re going to their wedding?”

  She nodded, her smile stiff. “Oh, there’s more.”

  What else could there possibly be?

  “I own a chocolate shop, and my parents, who are paying for the wedding, asked me to do the guest favors. They want boxes of chocolates at each place setting. I was reluctant at first, but eventually agreed. Once my sister got wind of my generosity, she then piled on a big, gaudy chocolate feature for the dessert table—for free, of course. I’ve been told that this can be my wedding gift to them.”

  “Isn’t it going to be like thousands of dollars worth of chocolate?” he asked.

  “Yep. Sure is. But here’s the real kicker … it wasn’t until I agreed to do all the chocolate stuff for them that Doneen asked me to be her maid of honor. I nearly had a coronary I was so surprised.”

  “Are you the maid of honor, too?”

  She shook her head. “No. I was forced to decline her very gracious offer.” She rolled her eyes and smirked. “I said I couldn’t do her bridal shower, bachelorette party and all the chocolates for the wedding. I made her choose, and she said the chocolates were more important.”

  “Is your sister a psychopath?” he asked, completely serious in his question.

  Her lip twitched. “More like socially unaware, completely self-absorbed and a vapid narcissist. I’m not sure she has any empathy either.” She paused for a moment, then shrugged. “Maybe she is a psychopath. I have heard more of them walk among us than we realize. Not all of them are machete-wielding lunatics.”

  Oh, he knew that well. He’d met a fair few psychopaths in his day. Most of them high-powered CEOs that had zero qualms destroying lives, businesses and entire communities if it lined their pockets with more cold, hard cash.

  The bell in the kitchen dinged, and he stepped around the corner to the food window to grab their nachos.

  Lowenna’s eyes turned hungry as he plopped the big tray down on the bar in front of her, the top a delicious, steaming blend of cheddar cheese and black olives. His mouth watered.

  “So you run a chocolate shop?” he asked, handing her a plate and a few napkins. “Not that new chocolate place around the corner?”

  “Wicked Sister Chocolates? Yep, that’s me.” Her grin was just that—wicked. “Bit of an ironic name, which is why I picked it. Doneen told me, when I was in the middle of my chemo treatment, losing my hair and no more than a hundred pounds, that I was making everything all about me. She told me that I brought cancer into our family and that I was all our parents ever talked about. That they forgot her birthday because they were at the hospital with me after I had a bad reaction to the chemo. She said I was wickedly selfish and milking my illness, that women got uterine cancer all the time and lived through it. That I was clearly making it out to be worse than it really was.”

  “What the ever-loving fuck?” he blurted out, a chip loaded with guac and salsa falling from his hand onto his shoe. “What. The. Fuck?”

  All Lowenna did was her lift her eyebrows. “Yep. That’s dear ol’ sis for you. Nicest big sister I ever could have asked for.”

  “And you’re going to her wedding?”

  “Yes. I am. Albeit reluctantly.”

  “Why go at all?”

  “My parents—particularly my mother—has perfected the art of the guilt trip. She thinks that me going to the wedding will serve as the olive branch needed to begin mending the fence between my sister and I.” She rolled her eyes and scoffed. “A bit of a pipe dream if you ask me, but sure, I’ll bite.”

  “But the woman is a fucking psychopath who started sleeping with your husband while you were still married to him and battling cancer. Do you even want to mend that fence?” He shook his head. He just couldn’t wrap his brain around why Lowenna hadn’t cut her sister out of her life with a broadsword.

  And then impaled her with that sword.

  If that had been Mason, he would no longer have a sibling. He would sever all ties and live his life as an only child.

  Thank God his sister, Nova, had the biggest heart in the world and was one of his best friends. It just sucked that she and her husband had moved to Australia last year for her husband’s job. He missed her madly.

  “I’m going because I need to show them that I’ve moved on. That I’m better than I’ve ever been now that I’m cancer and Brody free. And besides the fake boyfriend, the rest is true. I am doing awesome. Business is booming. My life is really good right now. But I just feel like a show-stopper of a date, one infinitely hotter than my ex, will help boost my confidence. Something that I’ve been lacking since, you know … my husband left me for my sister and all.” She shoved a chip heaped with guac into her mouth, chewed, swallowed and continued. “I have already booked dance lessons if he looks like Channing Tatum but doesn’t dance like him. If he doesn’t own a suit, I will rent him one. I will pay for his haircut. I will foot the bill for everything so long as he pretends to be madly in love with me and wins over every person at that party.”

  “But you said you want him to look like an underwear model and have a six-figure job, so he can probably afford all of that himself?”

  She shrugged, then dipped a chip into the salsa. “Perhaps. I just need him to be more successful than my ex-husband and more handsome.”

  “When’s the wedding?” he asked.

  “My birthday,” she said with a snort.

  He cocked his head and hit her with a probing gaze. “Which is?”

  She drained her wineglass and then snorted again. “Valentine’s Day.”

  2

  She’d been nervous at first, accepting Mason’s offer to share a plate of nachos. But now that she was sitting at the bar enjoying the olives, cheese and Mason’s muscular tattooed arms bunching and flexing as he worked, all her nerves were gone, replaced only with a sense of calm and gratitude. This whole ordeal trying to find a date to Doneen and Brody’s wedding was turning out to be an absolute nightmare.

  She’d also been working like a dog for the past six months, getting her business off the ground and training her staff. Then the Christmas season hit, with New Year’s Eve following on its heels, and now Valentine’s Day was only five weeks away. So many holidays where everyone celebrated with chocolate. It was good for business but bad for her blood pressure.

  In the end she wound up turning customers away, particularly those who wanted to place big chocolate orders for Christmas and New Year’s parties. She just didn’t have the time, space or manpower to do it all. They were slammed.

  Maybe next year she could hire more staff or rent a bigger space, but for now, she had to make do with the facility she had, even if it meant losing business in the process.

  She watched Mason’s muscular forearm stretch, the veins beneath his tattoos bulging as he slipped the martini and margarita glasses up into their holders above the bar. He was a handsome man for sure. Dark hair, dark, short-trimmed beard and mustache, dark blue eyes, thick brows. A lady-killer for sure.

  And tall.

  Boy, was he tall
.

  And not lanky tall either, no. The man had some breadth to him, and by the looks of things, it was all muscle beneath his black Prime Sports Bar and Grill T-shirt. Despite him being a bartender, danger and intrigue seemed to ooze from him, along with a fresh and manly scent she couldn’t quite place but found intoxicating.

  Tall, dark and dangerous.

  Yum.

  She licked her lips, tasting the salt from the nacho chips.

  “More wine?” he asked, lifting his eyebrow at her.

  She shook her head reluctantly and made a dismissive face. “No, I shouldn’t.”

  “On the house. After a story like that, I can’t charge you. Hell, I should be paying you.” He grabbed the bottle of pinot off the back counter and waggled it in front of her. “You sure?”

  She rolled her eyes and nodded. “I’m not driving, so why not?”

  “You live nearby then?” he asked, pouring what was left of the bottle into her glass.

  “Yeah, about a fifteen-minute walk or so. Not too far. Makes commuting to work pretty easy.”

  “I bet.” He plopped the wine bottle into the blue recycling bin behind him, then returned to their well-eaten plate of nachos. “So, what are you going to do if you don’t find Mr. Perfect for your date?”

  She lifted both shoulders and shook her head at the same time she picked off a cheese-covered jalapeno slice from the plate and popped it into her mouth. “No clue.”

  “What about me?”

  She wrinkled her nose in confusion. “What about you?”

  “As your date?” He placed a pint glass beneath the spout for draft beer and pulled the lever. “I mean, I’m not trying to be conceited or anything, but I’ve turned a few heads in my day. Unless your ex-husband is a giant, I’m probably taller than him. I am six-foot-five. I have a six-figure job.”

  Lowenna nearly choked on her jalapeño. “As a bartender?”

  His blue eyes narrowed on her.

  Oh, crap, had she offended him? She hadn’t meant to, it was just that she had never met a bartender who made a banker’s salary. He’d also caught her entirely off guard with his offer to be her date.

  “I own the place. Didn’t you know that?” he said, his tone not quite harsh but still with a slight edge to it.

  Shit, she had offended him. Oh, no.

  She shook her head and reached for her wine. “No. I … I thought you … ”

  “Were just a lowly bartender who busted his ass for tips? No, not quite.”

  She lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to judge. I just … ”

  “Lowenna, relax. It’s okay.”

  She lifted her gaze once again to his face. His smile was warm, wide and so damn sexy.

  Thank God.

  “So you own the bar then?” she asked, her cheeks hot and her chest even hotter in embarrassment from her judgmental blunder.

  He nodded. “Yep. And before I bought this place, I worked for a Fortune 500 company as an investment banker. Boon Investments.”

  Her eyebrows nearly flew off her forehead.

  Every day on her way to work she walked past the skyscraper where Boon Investments made up the top six floors. They were a big company. Big and successful.

  “But my conscience got the better of me, and I left that about five years ago,” he went on. “Took off traveling to find a bigger and better meaning in life than money.”

  She swallowed. “And what did you find?”

  He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone, showing her the wallpaper, which was of the most adorable baby she’d ever seen, in a pink and purple polka-dot sleeper. “Her,” he said matter-of-factly. “Her name is Willow, and she means everything to me.”

  “You adopted her?”

  He shook his head, pulled his phone away and stared at the photo for a couple of seconds. His blue eyes softened, and a smile coasted across his lips before he stowed his phone back in his pocket.

  “Nope. She’s mine.” He scrunched up his nose for a moment. “Not that she still wouldn’t be mine if I adopted her, but Willow is my blood, is what I mean. Two of my best friends from college are married. They’re lesbians and don’t want children of their own. But Katya offered me an egg, and Delia offered me her womb. They’re Willow’s aunts and love her implicitly. But she’s mine. I’m the only one on her birth certificate. I’m the only parent that she knows. I wanted a child. I wanted a greater purpose in my life than the endless money-grubbing loop I was in. I wanted a family, someone to care about besides myself. I wanted a legacy and to look forward to getting up in the morning and spending my day with someone that I love and that loves me. I also wasn’t getting any younger and hadn’t found the right woman, so I went it alone.”

  Holy shit.

  She didn’t think there were men out there like Mason. Single dads, yes. But a single dad by choice? She’d never met such a unicorn.

  “She’s adorable,” she said, still in awe of the man in front of her. “And I love the name Willow. Willow Whitfield, it’s great.”

  “Willow Olivia Whitfield. Her initials spell out the word WOW. Apparently, it’s good luck for your initials to spell something.” He scratched the back of his neck. “At least that’s what my mom says. I’m Mason Otto Whitfield.”

  “MOW,” she said, grinning.

  He nodded. “And my sister is Nova Emily Whitfield. She didn’t take her husband’s name either because it would stop her from being … ”

  Her smile grew to the point where her cheeks hurt. “NEW.”

  “Exactly. His last name is Atkinson, and that just doesn’t fly. NEA doesn’t mean squat.”

  Lowenna giggled, instantly cringing from how girlie and flirty she sounded.

  Gah, that was not her at all.

  Mason didn’t seem to mind it though and simply smiled, continuing on with his explanation. “So when Willow came along, I had to keep the trend going.”

  She giggled again, but this time she didn’t care. He made her smile. He made her laugh, and she liked how it felt to be around him. “I like it,” she finally said. “What would you have chosen if Willow had been a boy?”

  “Wyatt Otto Whitfield. My children will always wow me.” His smile made heat pool in her belly and dirty thoughts instantly flood her mind.

  Was it wrong that she immediately checked to see if her initials spelled anything?

  Lowenna Amélie Chambers. LAC. Nope. Nothing. At least not in English.

  Then she checked her former married name. Lowenna Amélie Hawthorne. LAH. Nope.

  Now, what if she married Mason and became Lowenna Amélie Whitfield? LAW. Yep. That worked.

  Hmm.

  Then out of sheer curiosity, she checked her sister’s name. Her maiden name initials didn’t spell anything, but once she married Brody she would be …

  She tossed her head back and began to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” Mason asked, his voice a touch shaky, as though he was unsure if he was allowed to laugh with her or not.

  Her eyes opened and she wiped the tears from beneath them, she’d been laughing so hard. Oh, boy, did she ever need that laugh. Taking a much-needed sip of her wine, she smiled against the rim. “Sorry, I just checked to see what my sister’s initials would spell, and right now with her maiden name, they spell nothing, but once she marries my ex-husband, she will be Doneen Ursula Hawthorne.” She snickered and waited for Mason to spell it out too.

  His face split into a grin just as big as hers. “Your sister will be DUH.”

  She snorted, most unladylike in the back of her throat, smiled like an idiot and nodded before breaking out into yet another fit of laughter.

  It was a stupid thing to laugh about. Foolish, really. But she had to take the little victories where she could find them. And knowing that her sister was going to be DUH for the rest of her life made Lowenna just a touch happier.

  “So what do you say?” Mason’s voice cut through her laughter.

  She reached for h
er wine and took another big sip, allowing her breathing to settle before she replied, otherwise she’d surely get the hiccups.

  “Say to what?” she finally asked, setting her wineglass back down and reaching for a nacho chip.

  “To me being your date?” he replied. “You never did answer me. We got a bit off topic.”

  She blinked, then slowly, her eyes drifted down his body. His very toned, tanned and tall body. Oh boy, he was a triple threat. A triple T and all with that aura of danger surrounding him. She’d never dated a man like that, but always wanted to.

  Could she take Mason to the wedding and steal the show? Would he steal the show? He would certainly stop traffic. And he was tall. And he had a good job. And he was a devoted father to boot.

  “Can you dance?” she blurted out before she could stop herself.

  Something unidentifiable flashed behind his dark blue eyes, but he quickly snuffed it out and took a sip of his beer, shaking his head at the same time. He wiped the back of his wrist across his mouth. “Not really. No more than club grinding, not that I’ve done that shit in years. But I have some friends who are professional dancers, so they could probably swing us some lessons.”

  “I’ve already booked lessons with Benson School of Dance.”

  “Oh, that’s where my friends work.”

  That smile of his was going to be the end of her for sure. It was definitely going to make women—and a few men—at the wedding swoon. Her nipples pebbled beneath her baby-blue sweater. “You know Violet?”

  He nodded and reached for a nacho chip. “Yep. I’ve known Vi since we were kids. Her brother, Mitch, was my best friend in high school. And now Mitch and Vi’s man, Adam, and I all play poker together on Saturday nights. Single dads club. Mitch and Adam’s ex-wife are together now too.”

  Lowenna’s head suddenly hurt. What did she just hear?

  “Mitch is with his sister’s boyfriend’s ex-wife? Did I hear that right?” she asked, squinting at him as if that would somehow help her make sense of what she’d just heard.