DADDY ISSUES: A SINGLE DAD ROMANCE

by Morris, Liv

  Tessa gave me a hug, and I met Barclay in the lobby. Part of my building was an actual hotel, so the traffic by the front desk was busy on a Saturday night. People were shuffling to elevators and the restaurant. Barclay didn’t see me at first. Standing at only five foot two, I blended into the crowd.

  I waved at him as I approached, and his eyes almost popped out of his head. I peeked over my shoulder to see if something was going on behind me. When nothing caught my attention, I scrunched my shoulders and kept walking.

  “What in the hell do you think you’re wearing?” Barclay whispered under his breath.

  “I know I look like a Manhattan hillbilly, but I didn’t think it mattered if I wasn’t all dressed up.”

  “But you need to be dressed. Like…covering your legs. And that shirt rides up above your waistline.”

  I put a hand on my hip, preparing to give him a reply. His assessment of my outfit made me sound like I was working the corner of Broadway and Get Lucky.

  “You’re not my father.” Actually, I had no idea who my father was, but that was a story for a different day. “Quit acting like it.”

  I tossed my bag at him, and he caught it before it dropped to the ground. “Pretty quick for an old man,” I teased.

  “Wait, Maggie…” Barclay didn’t move as I started for the lobby’s front door. I turned around to face him.

  “It’s okay. I get it.” My voice lost all the previous sarcasm. “You think this guy’s a dirty old man. Maybe he is, but I’m not going to wear a nun’s habit.”

  Though…maybe a chastity belt wasn’t a bad idea. Admittedly, I daydreamed about Herb pulling me into the coffee shop bathroom and introducing me to his version of wall sex.

  On the way to Lucas’s, Barclay repeated what Tessa had told me with one exception. Lucas had promised to keep his hands to himself, and Barclay had leveraged their lifelong friendship on Lucas giving him his word. Even my silly pipe dreams were too much to hope for.

  A few minutes later, Barclay and I stood outside Lucas’s building. I glanced up to the top, wondering which floor was his. It was one of the highest residential buildings in the city, according to Wikipedia. I sneaked a look on the way over in the car.

  Once inside the lobby, we were greeted by security. The guard knew Barclay by name but scanned over me from head to toe, then back again.

  “Is this your sister?” the guard asked, scratching his head. I laughed at the comparison. Barclay and I both had shiny, black hair, but other than that, we were worlds apart.

  “She’s—” Barclay stopped speaking and ran his fingers through his hair. “This is Magnolia Talbot. She’s my girlfriend’s best friend. I’m introducing her to Lucas to help with his new addition. You might have heard about it.”

  “Oh…yes. I’d opened the door for him. Some guy was taking photos of him and a lady was asking questions.” The security guard shook his head. I cringed, thinking the media was hot on his trail.

  “Well, she’s going to help him with his situation.”

  “Miss Talbot,” the guard addressed me. “I’ll need to see a photo ID and take a scan of your fingerprints.”

  I handed my Alabama license to the man, thinking maybe he’d understand my choice of clothing better. He gave it back to me and asked me to put my thumb flat down on a cell phone type screen. I wondered when they’d cuff me and lead me to the interrogation room. I guess the rich people who lived here were every thief’s bull’s-eye. For once, it made me glad I was a nobody.

  My ears popped from the pressure as the elevator shot Barclay and me up to Lucas’s floor. Once the car stopped, I held my nose and blew out my ears.

  “That was worse than taking off in a plane.” I moved my jaw back and forth, making sure my hearing was back to normal. “They need to work on the speed of that thing.”

  Barclay led me off the elevator and stopped a couple steps after we exited. His face had the serious look of a teacher giving a final test in college. I kept my mouth shut and waited.

  “Promise you’ll text or call me the minute you feel uncomfortable. You don’t owe him anything, but he owes you everything—mostly respect. Okay?”

  “I’m sure H—” Crap, I barely caught myself in time. “Lucas will be too worried about the baby and all to even notice me.”

  “Oh, Maggie. You’ve never seen him in action.” I wanted to tell him I had and he was nothing like the selfish man Barclay saw all these years.

  “I’ll let you know if Lucas is too hard to handle.” I suppressed the smirk wanting to break across my face. It was a stupid joke and likely me just trying to relieve a tummy full of flittering butterflies.

  There were only two doors on the floor. Barclay and I stood outside 54 A.

  “Let me be the one to knock.” I had a plan. Barclay agreed, so I moved to stand in front of him. I closed my eyes and pictured Herb’s face. His strong jawline that fit his stubborn, gruff mood. Mesmerizing blue eyes hiding something sad behind the frozen ice.

  I formed my hand into a fist and tapped on his door. I took a deep breath and held it as the door swung open.

  15

  Maggie

  “Barclay. I’m so glad to—” Lucas stopped speaking the minute his eyes met mine. He blinked a few times and tilted his head, confusion written all over his face. It was if I was an apparition appearing at his door. He couldn’t believe it was me. I had a similar feeling when Tessa showed me his photo.

  He must’ve been at a formal event tonight because he was dressed in a black tuxedo, looking even more handsome than I’d remembered him. If I thought he was deadly in a suit. I was wrong. Lucas was lethal in a tuxedo with his black tie undone and his hair looking as if he’d jammed his fingers through it a million times.

  Lucas held a crying baby in a carrier seat, but all he did was stand and stare at me. I knew he would be shocked, but he was paralyzed and almost speechless.

  “Peaches?” he whispered so low, I barely heard it.

  “Wow,” Barclay exclaimed as he stood behind me. Thankfully, he didn’t hear Lucas’s slip of the tongue. “Looks like we arrived just in time. Lucas, this is Magnolia.”

  “Maggie,” I corrected. I hated being called Magnolia. The name made me think of a little old lady knitting and sipping a glass of sweet tea.

  “Yes, excuse me.” Barclay cleared his throat. “Maggie Talbot. Tessa’s best friend.”

  Lucas’s eyes darted between Barclay and me, but I ignored him. There was a distinct aroma drifting out of the apartment that didn’t leave much to the imagination on why the baby was upset.

  “Nice to meet you, Lucas,” I said as I walked forward, then squatted to unbuckle the baby from the seat. “Does she have a diaper bag?”

  “It’s Mr. Shaw, and the kid’s stuff is on the kitchen island.”

  Mr. Shaw? The kid’s stuff? What a jerk. He set the baby seat on the ground like he was already washing his hands of the child.

  My head popped up. I didn’t like the way Lucas was glaring down at me. He crossed his hands over his chest. The transformation from the Herb I met at the coffee shop, the one who gazed down at me with soft eyes after catching me in his arms, was gone. Poof. In his place was a man with a cold, ridged, and unyielding exterior—the one he showed the world and somehow neglected to wear the day we’d met.

  The ice in his eyes had only been the tip of his iceberg. Maybe he had let me peek behind his facade because he never planned on seeing me again. I believed the real Lucas was Herb and this incarnation was as fake as professional wrestling.

  “Of course. Mr. Shaw.” I put emphasis on his last name, playing his games.

  “I hope I didn’t ruin your evening.” Lucas opened the door wider for Barclay to enter the apartment. “My attorney just left. He’s making sure this situation gets sorted out on Monday.”

  Lucas was one coldhearted bastard. I didn’t care what he said to Barclay at this point. He was acting like having a baby land in his lap was the same as getting the wrong package i
n the mail—an inconvenience. What was going on in that thick skull of his?

  I turned my attention to the baby—the reason I was here. She had quit crying and was sucking her thumb. It was a built-in pacifier. Hallelujah. Dried spit up was crusted down the front of her cute little dress, but she didn’t seem to mind. Though, she smelled retched for being such a precious angel.

  When she locked eyes with mine, her lips puckered around her thumb, I froze. Whoa. Her icy blue eyes weren’t cold like the ones that matched hers, but warm like blue fire.

  How could Lucas deny this child was most likely his? His blue eyes were a one in a million color—two in a million now. It was almost as strong of a confirmation as a DNA test. Lucas was going to drown in his sea of denial. I shook my head.

  After only two minutes in Lucas’s presence, I hated his guts. If Herb didn’t appear soon, it was going to be a long couple of days.

  “Here, sweet little girl,” I spoke softly to the baby as I picked her up and brought her to my chest, barf and all.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Shaw.” Forget being nice. I added a big scoop of sarcasm to his last name. “What’s her name?” Surely we weren’t going to call her “kid.”

  “Pardon me, Barclay.” Oh, his ability to avoid reality was Oscar-worthy. He treated the baby and me like we were a sideshow. He turned toward me but didn’t look me in the eye. “Her name is Esmé. At least…that’s what Coco said in her letter.”

  “Oh. It was Coco who did this?” Lucas nodded as Barclay rubbed his chin. “That surprises me. I thought she was headed to Hollywood to be an actor.”

  “Who knows? She may have made up this entire scenario and the child isn’t even hers. My lawyer is preparing for every possibility. He’s turning over every possible stone to find her too.”

  “I’m assuming that’s not her real name,” Barclay added, an edge of disgust in his tone.

  My ears perked up. This Coco must’ve been one of his paid lovers. Lucas moved closer to Barclay, putting more distance between us. I didn’t care to hear anymore and headed toward the kitchen.

  His apartment was huge, massive, land-a-plane-in-it big, possibly even a 747. Clear panes of glass served as the outside walls. I spun around to see the lights of the city somewhere down below. I only saw a couple of buildings in the distance. How high up was the fifty-fourth floor? It appeared we were up in the clouds.

  Esmé fussed in my arms. Who cared about some playboy’s fancy pants apartment when an innocent child needed her pants changed? I decided then and there not to be impressed by his gilded cage in the sky. I lived in a messy room in an apartment that probably was smaller than his bathroom. I was strong. Passionate. Scattered. Messy. Underemployed. Uncertain about New York City. But I could hold my head up, because I wasn’t a fake. What a person saw of me during a corporate interview or at a coffee shop was the real Maggie. Unlike some people.

  The diaper bag was sitting on the island in the dark kitchen, but I had no idea where the light switches were located. Digging around in the bag, I found a fuzzy blanket and spread it out on the hard counter, giving the baby a soft place to lie. She didn’t look over three months, but I kept my hand on her stomach as I searched the bag for wipes and a clean diaper. I didn’t want her rolling off onto the tiled floor.

  “Hey, Esmé.” She smiled up at me, keeping her thumb in her mouth. It appeared they were best friends.

  I’d been changing diapers since I was a pre-teen and considered myself a semi-professional. I had a special system too. First, I decided how many wipes I would need. Since I didn’t know how long she’d been sitting in this diaper—poor thing—I pulled five wipes out and sat them next to her. Next, I placed the clean diaper under the one she was wearing. This way I wouldn’t have to grab the diaper while she was wiggling around uncovered. It eliminated cleaning up surprises.

  A minute later, she had on a clean diaper. But she still needed a new outfit. I found a sleeper with long legs and snaps from top to toe. The material was light enough for a late summer night.

  Once Esmé was cleaned up and wearing fresh clothes, I cradled her in my arms and wandered around the kitchen searching for a place to dump the gross diaper. There wasn’t a trashcan in plain sight, so I started opening the lower cabinets under the counter. Finding most of them empty, as if no one even lived here, I gave up and left the stink bomb on the counter as a thank you for Mr. Shaw being such a jerk. Just thinking his proper name in my head irritated me.

  “Let’s go exploring,” I whispered into Esmé’s ear. She looked at me and batted her lashes. She was a cutie pie. It was hard to fathom a mother walking away from such an angel. I adjusted her headband, fluffed up her wisps of blond hair, then kissed her forehead. Her skin was so soft.

  There were two hallways off the kitchen. I chose the one closest to me to start my adventure. The walls were lined with framed artwork. Each had geometric type shapes with various splashes of bright colors. They had probably cost more than my college education. I’d learned a few things while taking Justice to the Museum of Modern Art.

  At the end of the hallway, there was a door cracked open. I peeked inside the room and saw a large bed with a low black headboard extending from wall to wall. Above the headboard was a solid wall of glass, like the living area and kitchen. If I was lying on the bed, I could sit up on my elbows and look out the window.

  I walked toward the window and stood beside the head of the bed, wanting to see the view for myself. It felt like I was looking down at New York City from a helicopter. It made me dizzy at first.

  Esmé became still in my arms, so I looked down to see if she was all right. Her eyelids closed and opened, slower and slower by the second. I rocked her back and forth in my arms to help her fall asleep, staring again out at the billion-dollar view.

  Hearing a noise behind me, I raised my eyes, meeting Lucas’s reflection in the glass. He loomed behind me in his slick black tux, his hands on his hips, his jaw tight and chin held high.

  I pretended not to see him and continued to rock the baby. Her eyes were fully closed and her breathing was even.

  I waited for Lucas to speak. I wouldn’t give him any help. He needed to break the ice and win back my respect—if that was even possible.

  “You shouldn’t be here, Peaches. I’ll find someone else.” His voice was distant, matter-of-fact.

  I turned around to face him, my shoulders standing tall with the baby nestled next to my chest. So what if I’d never seen a man more beautiful than him, it was only skin deep.

  “I have three things to say.” I took two steps closer to Lucas, tilting my head back to look into his icy blues. “One, you’ve lost the right to call me by that name, Mr. Shaw. Two, I’m not going anywhere. Esmé needs someone to care for her and that someone will be me. Three, I wasted the word ‘serendipity’ on you. I should’ve kept it at goodbye.”

  I placed a hand on my hips, giving him a stare that could peel paint off a wall. Someone needed to call him out on his crap and that someone was me.

  16

  Lucas

  Peaches’ emerald eyes flashed at me like jewels, stirred on by the passion she felt against me. She had no idea how right she was on all accounts. I didn’t deserve to be in her presence after how I acted when Barclay was here. Dismissive and cold, to downright rude, but I had succeeded.

  She loathed me—Lucas—not the Herb version of me she met two weeks ago. He didn’t exist in this version of my world or any for that matter. Her lip curled into a slight snarl before falling into a straight line, like she wanted to throw more condemnation at me, but it wasn’t worth her energy.

  Her stubborn chin, tipped up in defiance, showed me she wasn’t afraid and would bravely endure my cruelty for the kid. It also told me any hope that she’d hand the child back to me and run from the apartment was lost.

  There was no escaping her for the next two days. And being around her and hiding my feelings required more determination than an Olympic athlete. Fortunately, I had twenty ye
ars of training as a selfish prick.

  Peaches had no idea how beautiful she was in her righteous anger. A part of me wanted to fall at her feet, admit my wrongdoings, and beg for her forgiveness. But I was a rotten man, unworthy of being with an honest soul like her. I was a fucked-up playboy whose paid ex-lover dumped a kid in his lap.

  God, how I wished I’d never walked into the coffee shop and met her. The memory of our encounter has tortured me with regret. The regret of walking away and knowing it was my only choice. Now, she had to see the reality of who I was—the broken version of me, not the man I could’ve been before the accident twenty years ago. I’d sealed my fate in life that day.

  I was curious about something, though.

  The look on her face as I opened the door and our eyes met. I couldn’t get it out of my head. Her face was turned up and her eyes danced with excitement.

  Me? A punch to the gut would’ve been less than the force of seeing her standing outside my door. It was like the breath was knocked out of me.

  “You didn’t look shocked to see me?”

  “Tessa showed me a photo of you. She and Barclay gave me a warning too. I’m sure you can imagine what they said.”

  I raised my brow, though I was certain what the two of them had told her about me, especially since Barclay had made me promise not to touch her. He had been right to demand that of me. She was the kind of woman a man didn’t want to just touch, but devour.

  “Yet you came anyway.”

  “I was hoping to meet Herb again. I like him. But he’s been abducted by a rich, selfish billionaire.”

  I couldn’t argue with her there. “The man you met before doesn’t exist, Maggie.” I gazed at her with cold eyes, convincing myself it was for the best.

  “Apparently not. And I’ll go by nanny. Less personal.”