Daddy's Big Package

by Emma Roberts

  "It was unprofessional of me, and I shouldn’t have done it," he continued. "And I wanted to apologize to you."

  "Oh, uh..."

  "I’m very attracted to you," he continued breezily, as though this was the kind of conversation he had every single day of his life. "But I know that if we’re going to work together, we can’t let that get in the way of things, can we?”

  "Of course not," I agreed.

  "Maybe when this is over..." he trailed off, leaving the words hanging tantalizingly in the air between us.

  "What?" I prompted him.

  "Just thinking out loud," he replied. "Anyway, I wanted to talk to you today about where we go next with the project."

  "Uh-huh," I replied. The truth was, my mind was on something else entirely, something a whole lot less wholesome. The night before, I had ended up having a really hot dream about him – the details were a little blurry now, but I could remember how it had felt to have his hands roving all over my body, how strong he would be as he tossed me around the bed like it was nothing. Sitting here in the office, I shifted back and forth in my seat, trying not to think about how horny I was for him – and desperately trying not to focus on the fact that he had the most beautiful voice for phone sex.

  "If it’s alright with you," he continued, "I’d like to take you and your kids away for Christmas."

  "Wait, what?" I stopped him in his tracks. "What did you say?”

  "I know it sounds crazy, but bear with me here," he continued smoothly, as though he had planned for my second-guessing him like this. "I have a cabin in Colorado. I usually head up there for the festive season to enjoy some peace and quiet. Seems like you could use a little of that, huh?”

  I fell silent. Yeah, actually, the very thought of that was tempting to me, but it was crazy. I couldn’t just up and leave everything behind like that. I would land in so much trouble. And what about Adam? What would he say when he found out that some movie star was sweeping me across the country with the kids?

  "Morgan, I’m not sure—"

  "I just want to prove to you that I’m actually dedicated to improving the lives of the kids you’re dealing with," he explained. "And I want to start with you and your family, Kari."

  I was silent for a long moment. Part of me was pointing out how fucking crazy this is. I barely knew this man! What on Earth was I doing even considering the offer he was making me? It was crazy – spectacularly so – and I wasn’t going to take him up on it. Was I?

  Money was so tight, though, and I knew I couldn’t afford to do much with the kids this Christmas. It was a special time of year for all of us, but I didn’t have the cash to get them much more than a hug and a cheap plastic toy each. They wouldn’t even get to see snow, judging by the weather reports, over the festive season. A trip to Colorado could change that. They would be so excited to go away for a while, and it would make the holiday so special...

  "Kari?"

  "Uh, yeah, sorry," I replied quickly, realizing how long my silence had lasted.

  "How about I take you to see my place in Colorado first?" he suggested warmly. "You can get a feel for it, see if you think your kids would like it..."

  "I don’t know if I can take the time away from work," I replied regretfully.

  "Call it business," he suggested playfully. "You’re meant to work with me, right?"

  "I guess so," I conceded, and I couldn’t help but smile.

  "Well, then it’s settled," he replied firmly. I was taken aback by how keen he seemed to be to sweep me out of this place. I had assumed the kiss on our first meeting had been nothing more than a mistake, a little miscommunication on his part, but here he was, pushing for more. Maybe he did want me, after all.

  "I’ll get my assistant to sort out the flight details for you," he replied, oozing confidence. "I’ll see you soon, Kari."

  And with that, he hung up the phone, leaving me with nothing but the sound of my name on his lips coursing through my system. And the realization that I had really just agreed to take a trip with him.

  I managed to beg the time off work pretty easily, promising Adam that I was just meeting with Morgan again to try to lock him down to work with the charity – I supposed Adam thought I was so unattractive that it didn’t even cross his mind that Morgan inviting me on a cross-country trip might have been a little bit romantic. I let Clara know what was going on, and she agreed at once to look after the kids for a couple of days so that I could get away, declaring that I deserved the break and demanding to know the juicy details as soon as I returned.

  And within a couple of hours, some tickets had arrived in my inbox – first-class flight to Colorado, leaving later that afternoon. I had just enough time to drive home, pack up some stuff, kiss the kids goodbye, and promise that I would call them every day I was away before I was out the door and heading to the airport, my heart beating hard in my chest as I tried to make sense of what the hell was happening. I couldn’t believe this. There was no way it could be real, was there? I would get to the airport, and they would point out the hidden cameras and underline what an idiot I had been for thinking that a guy like him would even glance twice in my direction.

  But I got to the airport, and soon enough, I was through security and heading onto the flight that would whisk me away to Colorado. But when I arrived on the plane, I looked around and found that it was just me onboard.

  "Hey," Morgan greeted me, emerging from the other end of the small cabin area. I had flown a few times before, but never on anything as luxurious as this. It was beyond handsome, spacious and comfortable, with chairs that dipped all the way back and large windows that allowed the bright sun to trickle in. I couldn’t help but notice how good he looked in natural lighting, the sharpness of his jaw picked out by the glow of the sun.

  "I’m so glad you could make it," he remarked, greeting me with a kiss on the cheek. Alright, so that was pretty far removed from professional, right?

  "Morgan, what is this all about?" I asked nervously, still waiting for the rug to be pulled out from underneath me.

  "What do you mean?" he replied, settling into a seat and looking up at me expectantly.

  "I mean, the whole cabin is empty," I pointed out. "You’re flying me out, first-class, to somewhere I’ve never been before, on no notice at all..."

  "I wanted to make sure you were comfortable on this flight, not stressed out by a bunch of strangers," he replied. "And I wanted to do it now because I’m impatient, and I don’t like to wait around for anything."

  "Well, if you’re going to be working with kids, you’re going to have to get used to a bit of that," I warned him. I took the seat next to him tentatively, looking around again to make sure it was really just the two of us. This felt a little dangerous, as though other people might have acted as a barrier between me and my attraction to this man, but I supposed I would have to suck it up and act like a professional.

  "So, this place you have…" I decided it would be best if I shifted the subject a little bit.

  "Yeah, I’ve owned it for a few years," he reminisced. "I like to get out of the city when I can."

  "You don’t like being around your family for Christmas?”

  "Trust me, if you knew my family, you wouldn’t want to be around them either," he snorted with amusement. The plane began to move, and I shifted with discomfort in my seat. I might have flown before, but that didn’t mean that I actually enjoyed flying.

  "Do they have movies on there?” I pointed to the screen in front of us, pulling a face.

  "Yeah. You need the distraction?”

  "Very much so."

  "Let’s see what they have," he muttered as he started going through all of the titles they offered.

  "Hey, do they have any of your movies on there?” I suggested. "I still haven’t seen one."

  "You think you could take it?” he teased. I lifted my chin.

  "I think I can take it."

  He ran through the titles and finally picked out one that had
his face on the thumbnail next to the description.

  "Alright, this is a pretty old one, so don’t blame me if I don’t look much like that anymore," he warned me. I cast an eye over at the man sitting next to me, so outrageously gorgeous it actually stung a little to look him in the face, like I was staring into the sun.

  "I think you’ll be fine," I replied. He clicked the movie on, and we sat back as the plane began to move off the runway.

  The movie began to play, and I fell silent, glad that I didn’t have to worry about maintaining a conversation with this man because I wasn’t sure I could pull that off; I was struggling enough just to keep the dream I’d had last night out of my head. And of course, as my eyes focused on the screen in front of me, I found the movie opening with a damn sex scene.

  "Oh…uh..." I muttered. Most of the films I watched were kid-friendly and didn’t exactly feature much in the way of hot action, but I couldn’t deny that this was pretty sexy. He looked amazing, strong and built and bold, half-lit by candlelight, and this was the first time that it really hit home for me that this man was a movie star. This man, who’d kissed me, was a movie star. This man, who had invited me across the country with him, was a movie star, and he was watching me watch him like he was waiting to see what my reaction would be.

  "Sorry, I forgot it opened like this," he remarked as an attendant approached us and offered us a drink.

  "I’ll take a glass of white wine," I told her with a smile. She nodded graciously at me, and her gaze flicked over to Morgan. I could see the way she was looking at him, with something close to amazement, as though she was trying to wrap her head around the notion of him actually being there, right in front of her.

  "Scotch," he told her. She nodded and backed off, leaving us to our privacy once more.

  "I don’t normally indulge during the week," he confessed to me, as though it was some big secret.

  "But this is meant to be proto-Christmas, right?" I reminded him. "You’ve got to indulge a little bit."

  "Are you trying to get me tipsy, Kari?” he shot back. I giggled. The movie was still playing in front of us, but I was focused entirely on the man sitting next to me, the man who seemed determined to lavish me with as much attention as he possibly could.

  "So, what was it like shooting this?” I asked, pointing back to the screen. He was playing a gladiator, naked to the waist and lightly oiled so that the sheen reflected off his body and brought out the definition of each one of his muscles.

  "It was hard," he shrugged. "Not the worst, but it was one of the earlier ones I was in, so it was a hell of a lot to take in, you know?”

  "The action must have been so hard," I gestured to the screen once more.

  "I can show you a lot more action than that, if you want," he shot back, and I swear to God I felt myself flush bright red at the sound of those words coming out of his mouth. There was no way he had just said that to me, right? Or if he had, it must have been some kind of weird, twisted-up joke, not actual flirtation...

  And that was how the rest of the flight passed. The two of us chatting away, conversing about his career and mine and Vegas and LA and everything in between. We talked a little about his sex scenes – no, he and this girl hadn’t dated after the movie, and in fact, he had been forced to wear a sock over his junk while they were shooting, which had killed any vibe that might have existed in the first place. I found myself engaging with him in a way I hadn’t with anyone in a long time. Being around my kids so much meant that I didn’t get the chance to meet new adults very often, let alone ones who seemed intent on lavishing so much attention on me. I tried to ignore my attraction to him, how much I wanted to just lean over and snuggle myself against him, and to put it down to a learned response; I was attracted to him, I was close to him, and I just wanted to close the circuit and have him hold me, too.

  But I managed to fight the urge to do anything more than talk over the course of the flight, even though I put away a couple of glasses of wine, knowing that I was playing with fire when it came to the possibility of getting tipsy and going a little too far. The flight landed just after the movie finished. He helped me out of the plane and with my bags and led me down into a car that was waiting for us right outside the aircraft.

  "How did you manage to make all of this happen on such short notice?” I asked, marveling at how easy everything was when I was traveling with him.

  "You’d be amazed at what the right amount of money can do," he replied, tapping his nose playfully. I grinned and settled my head back against the luxurious leather of the seats as we pulled away, heading off to our destination.

  This place was so different from Vegas, so far removed from my real life that I could almost forget it existed at all. And honestly, that was just fine by me. Between the stress of money, the stress of work, and the stress of my ex insisting on parading his new girlfriend up and down in front of me every chance he got, it was good to get away and pretend that none of it existed at all out here.

  It was crisper and cooler in Colorado, and I could see why he thought it would make such a perfect location for a Christmas break. As we headed into the woods to find his cabin, I could have sworn that I’d seen this place before on a quaint, little Christmas card or something. It was so pretty and so peaceful. I could already imagine the place doused in a thin layer of snow that the kids could play and frolic in. I couldn’t help but smile, despite myself. I knew it was crazy, coming all the way out here on a whim, but it had been a long time since I’d been able to indulge in anything just because I felt like it. I had forgotten how fun it was, how freeing.

  A little snow began to fall, and I couldn’t help but beam at the sight of it trickling down around us. This was what I had been waiting for; this was what I had been craving. A real Christmas for my family, a real little fantasy for the three of us. The only time I’d seen it before was when I’d gone to visit my cousin Tiffany and her husband Archer, and even that felt as though it had been a lifetime ago.

  "You know, I can’t imagine living with snow like this," I remarked, tracing my fingers over the window of the car as the snow fell around us.

  "Well, you could," Morgan replied, and I shot a look over at him.

  "What are you saying?”

  "I’m saying I called your work and told them I would need a full week with you to decide whether or not I wanted to join the charity," he replied with confidence. "And I got your friend Clara’s number from work, gave her a call, and told her all about this. She said she’d be happy to take care of the kids for the week if you want to stay."

  "No, but…the job—"

  "There’s Wi-Fi and laptops out here for you in case you want to work," he assured me. I stared at him silently for a moment. He really had thought of everything to make sure that I could stick around this full week if I wanted to.

  "So, what do you say?” he asked, spreading his hands wide. I couldn’t wrap my head around what he was saying to me right now. He had pretty much put this entire trip together for me without so much as a word in my direction asking if it was all actually alright. I could have shot him down right there and then, told him that there wasn’t a chance in hell that I was just going to sit back and let him dictate how things were going to be with us, but the truth was, I wanted to get away. I wanted an escape. I wouldn’t have come all the way out here if I didn’t. And the fact that he had gone out of his way to make sure that I could come here and leave everything behind for a little while? Well, who was I to say no to that?

  "Sure," I replied at once, excitement mixed with guilt mixed with nerves stirring in my chest. "Sure, let’s do this."

  7

  Morgan

  "So this is where you’re going to be staying," I explained to her, lifting her bags out of the car and heading down to the cabin below us. She was just standing there, gazing around like she was still trying to wrap her head around all of this.

  "And you own this?" she asked as she finally hurried to catch up with me. I nodd
ed proudly.

  "One of the first places I got after I made my first couple of million," I replied. "I knew I would need somewhere to come get away from it all, you know? Somewhere far from LA."

  "Well, this is about as far from LA as it gets," she agreed. And she was right; I had purchased this place not far from a ski resort in the Colorado Mountains precisely because it was so humanly distant from the world I normally inhabited back in the city. Oh, and because it was way too cold for my mother to ever bother coming out and bothering me here. She refused to go anywhere that might mess up her skin regimen, and I had a feeling her various oils and lotions would set solid at this temperature. Not to mention, I was good at skiing, and I loved indulging in stuff I was good at.

  "This place is amazing," she exclaimed as she ducked into the cabin for the first time; I was glad to see that the cleaners I’d hired to have a go over it before we arrived had done a decent job, and the place was looking appropriately spotless. It was an old-fashioned wooden cabin, the kind that passed for rural and rustic but was actually adorned with all the best of everything Colorado had to offer: fast internet, good booze, and under-floor heating. The exact kind of place where I could steal away for a few days and remind this woman exactly what we had shared together.

  "This is your room." I carried her bag to the guest bedroom next to mine. Her jaw dropped when she walked through the door.

  "This is where I’m going to be staying?" She laughed, looking around. "I don’t think I’ve ever stayed anywhere as fancy as this in my life..."

  The guest bedroom was nice – I had stressed to the cleaners to make it look extra-cozy, with candles burning on the side opposite the bed and the blinds thrown open to allow the snow-filtered sun to pour in through the window. The bed was a giant double, and she flopped down on it at once, tipping her head back and lying happily against the plush pillows.

  "Alright, I’m not leaving here. Come find me in a week," she waved her hand at me as I popped her suitcase open for her. I couldn’t help but chuckle when I saw the clothes she had with her.