The Daddy Arrangement
Sugar 101 Book One
Paige Parsons
Published by Blushing Books
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Paige Parsons
The Daddy Arrangement
EBook ISBN:978-1-64563-023-4
v1
Cover Art by ABCD Graphics & Design
This book contains fantasy themes appropriate for mature readers only. Nothing in this book should be interpreted as Blushing Books' or the author's advocating any non-consensual sexual activity.
To all of the wonderful men in my life. You've filled many roles over the last forty-six years and I am beyond blessed and grateful for all of them. You will forever hold a special place in my heart.
Contents
From the Author
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Paige Parsons
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From the Author
Find your ideal daddy. Is he dark and dirty? Does he make you blush with the things he says and does? Is he about lavishing you with gifts or experiences? Or, is he healing a part of you long buried and forgotten? He can be your teacher, mentor, friend, supporter, snuggle partner, and yes, even a disciplinarian because sometimes you need to hear no even when you don't want to.
Asking for exactly what you want can be hard, but a good daddy somehow usually figures it out. His gift of discernment is what makes him special. He's fulfilling a need and being completed himself at the same time. He's creating the safe place you need to be the best you possible.
Keila had no idea what she was getting into when she embarked on seeking her own special arrangement, but once she met Jack, it all came together in her mind. Now, she just had to articulate her needs and her wants without fear. The fear was blocking her blessings, and the fact was after a long get to know you period, she knew Jack was for her, even if it was only temporary.
Jack was devastated after his wife's death and poured all his energies into work while ignoring his love life, beyond his physical needs. Just when he thought it would be this way forever, he meets a young woman who begins to consume his head and his heart quite unexpectedly. It is a slow building relationship that reignites things in the powerful man that he, too, believed to be buried forever.
It'll take time to shift friendship and mentoring into romance, but the best things in life are worth waiting for and often lead to the best results.
Keila and Jack meet through friends who have taken their arrangement to the next level. Now, they'll need to figure out what Daddy Arrangement is best for them.
Prologue
The brownstone at Pierrepont Place had been in her family for two generations. It was the only house she'd ever lived in, but Keila Soriano was still ready to leave. Brooklyn Heights, with its mix of city and suburban living, had given her a lot of great moments that she would remember and carry with her, but there was a reason she picked a school south of the Mason Dixon. The stress of growing up Soriano could only be alleviated through distance. Keila loved her mother and grandmother, but decreased proximity was going to do them all a world of good.
Sitting in front of her trunk, Keila placed the royal blue graduation robe, her honor cords, her stole, and her graduation cap on top of all of the other memories from high school that she wouldn't be taking with her to college. One memory that wasn't in the trunk, but also wouldn't be going, was of her father. It was the thing glaringly missing from this important moment in her life. The last conversation she'd had with her mother concerning him had not ended well. It was made perfectly clear that the nameless donor was an off-limits discussion and would remain so.
"Why are you trying to ruin a good time, Keila? Your father is not in the picture. He's never wanted to be in the picture. You have to stop asking and focus on the things you do have. Because in case you haven't noticed, what you have right in front of you is a lot and it's plenty good."
"Yes, Mother." Keila laced her proper words with all of the disdain she could conjure up.
"I don't appreciate your tone."
"I don't appreciate not knowing anything about my father, so I guess we both have something to get over. One question, maybe you can finally answer this one. Is it that he didn't want to be involved or that he wasn't given an opportunity? Knowing Grams, I have my suspicions. I'm guessing he wasn't a nice Jewish boy from the temple. Don't look at me like that. I have seen myself in the mirror, you act like I'm supposed to be okay with half an identity."
"You are a beautiful, strong, intelligent, Jewish woman. There's nothing partial about that. There's no half measure. You are destined to do great things. What more do you need to know?"
"You left out Black, Mother. I'm a Black-Jewish woman. That part is always conveniently left off by you and by Grams when you're spouting affirmations, but all I have to do is look in the mirror and I can see the truth as plain as day all over my face. You see it, too. My God, sometimes it's like you can't even look at me, because of how much you see him in my face. Is this why you look through me? Is it?"
"I can't deal with your hysterics today."
"I am not hysterical. I think I'm quite calm, considering the run around I've gotten for the last eighteen years."
"Please get ready to come down for dinner. Your grandmother is having guests and she won't be happy if she has to explain your late appearance at the table."
"I could just not come down at all. She could tell them I'm sick."
"Keila, I'm begging you. These social things are important to your grandmother. With everything she does for us, a few social functions aren't a lot to ask."
"Nothing has changed for you, has it? She's still controlling you. Whatever money Grandpa left or whatever secrets she's holding over you can't be worth it. So what, you got pregnant in college. Big whoop! Who didn't?"
"I am not doing this. I know you're working me up on purpose, but I made my choices a long time ago and going over it every time you're in the mood to stir up trouble isn't going to change anything. She's my mother. She was right. I accepted that a long time ago. It would be great if, just once, you could follow my example."
"You mean I should blindly do what you say no matter how it makes me feel. I should be just like you, huh? That's a hard pass. I think I'll be my own woman. I'll ask what I want. I'll feel what I want. And, I won't become her second bird in a gilded cage."
"So disrespectful. Get your attitude together and get yourself downstairs. And, Keila, don't bring this up again."
Turning her back to her mother, Keila waited for the silence to eventually crescendo to the height of discomfort. Then she would hear her mother move across the room and the door shut behind her. It was how these talks always ended. Master avoider, that was the woman who raised her, guided her, and taug
ht her how to deal with the world and she couldn't wait to get away from her and try things in a whole new way.
Holding the tassel back, Keila decided she could make it part of her dorm room decorations. As she closed her trunk and locked it—respect for privacy wasn't her mother's testimony—Keila glanced around her current bedroom. Truly, it could've belonged to anyone. It wasn't decked out like a lot of the friends whose rooms she'd slept over in. Her mother and grandmother kept offering, sometimes threatening, to redo the entire thing when she was gone over the weekend. Her grams even entered her in one of those room makeover contests that the various DIY shows she watched ran. Keila counted herself lucky that the woman never won. She could imagine the ruffles and bows nightmare that would have been forced upon her. She liked beautiful things for sure, but taste between the two women who raised her and her own tastes ran down very different paths. The one thing that truly made the space her own was her collection of stuffed animals. It was no surprise that neither her mother nor grams were fans.
Having spent the last four years with her eyes on the prize toward graduation and college preparation, Keila thought the fewer frills and distractions was best. Her diligence had paid off in triplicate; all of her efforts had yielded a scholarship. She had a few more celebrations to grit her teeth through, and then she could put this particular chapter in her life behind her. Her endurance test was wearing the itchy and utterly out of character spring dress currently draping her curvy frame. It actually had crinoline underneath it and flowers splattered all over. As she bent over to look under the bed for her missing ballet flat, Keila felt the cool air-conditioned breeze kiss her upper thighs. Why couldn't the day just be over? More than ready for a new start, she wanted to get out of the smothering, loving, clutches of her mother and grams and set out on her own path, even if she wasn't entirely certain where it would take her.
Even though there was a glaring absence in her life and on this day, in particular, Keila's life wasn't exactly the makings for the lyrics of a country ballad. Today wasn't the day to focus on her rarely discussed and extremely absent father. She continued to work on letting that go and lived well in spite of it, but she wasn't leaping at the chance to relive the highlights of the last eighteen years, either. She lived in a nice home, in a nice neighborhood, and had gone to a great high school, but she didn't make time for anything extra that wasn't directly aligned to a goal toward her future. That goal was always freedom from her smothering and very loving family.
When it came to clubs, she did things that might garner her even a few hundred dollars more toward her tuition coffers. There'd been swimming, model UN, speech and debate, and two co-editor positions junior and senior year for the newspaper and yearbook. Although admirable and a point of pride for her family, it was one of the many things her mother and grandmother fought about constantly. Mom wanted her to be more social for the sake of socialization and Grams wanted good grades and singular focus on her future. There was plenty of time for her to date and to have fun just for the sake of fun. As she liked to remind her daughter, fun was how Keila had gotten here in the first place.
Knowing her mother loved her and never entertained not having her didn't mean she failed to see the fleeting look of regret that crossed the woman's face when that particular barb was hurled at her.
Her focus seemed, in part, a deliberate effort to avoid the typical teenage social life both women felt so strongly about. As far as she was concerned, she'd created sufficient balance in her life. The highly honored teen wanted a different balance, though. The balance of testosterone was more in line with what she felt would make things at home a little easier to bear.
Her father wasn't in the picture or any father figure, for that matter, but her grams always ran a consistent counterpoint to whatever her mother thought or wanted. Witnessing her mother practically bite through her tongue on so many occasions, at the dinner table, was only more fuel to the girl's fire of eventual full independence. She loved her grams but quickly learned that the woman got her way and her power from the fact that she held the purse strings. As tough as her mother was, Keila watched her wither under her gram's verbal assaults. She'd convinced her daughter decades before that without the help of Keila's father or a good husband, she was all she could rely on for a good upbringing for her granddaughter.
"Keila." Her eye roll response was on autopilot. Grams was calling her down, already. It was not a sound she would miss and she so wasn't ready to face the party portion of the day.
When Keila's mother had shown up pregnant the summer of her junior year of college, her grams had given her hell. Grams knew her daughter thought her upset was over her Black boyfriend, but truly it had been about the derailed future that was so painstakingly mapped out. Grams had dreamed of going to college herself, but it wasn't as forward an opportunity or expectation for her generation. She had made her daughter move back home and transfer to the local university. She wanted her daughter's degree completed and she wanted her grandchild, but her help would be on her terms as long as she footed the bills and provided all the support a son-in-law would've.
It was the deal with the devil her mother had signed and was basically held to through the present. Their fights were epic and her mother was no mouse, but her loss column was definitely longer than her win. Keila suspected that was why her mother didn't date much while she was growing up or have at least one serious relationship. She assumed no one passed her gram's sniff test, so to speak. Keila, although she would never have the guts to say it, didn't see her mother having any real relationship until, God forbid, her grams was out of the picture.
"Keila, I don't want to call you again."
"Coming, Grams!"
She gave herself another once over in the full-length mirror in the corner of the room and rolled her eyes in exasperation again. Another blasted graduation party full of folks she didn't know, this group, her grandmother's temple friends. A temple Keila had gone to until she was fifteen, but one she felt almost no connection to and didn't especially care about.
"And don't you go rolling your little eyes at me, young lady. These people are here to celebrate you."
"Grams, you scared me! Stop sneaking around."
"I don't have to sneak. It's my house. You just mind what I said."
"Yes, ma'am. I know they are, but they're your friends. They don't know anything about me or my plans, which means the whole night will be spent with me being interviewed like I'm on some daytime talk show round table. I really don't need this fuss made."
"Again, it was my fuss to make, and if your mother didn't insist on her fancy restaurant party, we could've done one big one. Besides, all those graduation gift checks will be worth the fuss. Now, let's go. You look fine."
It was a risk, but Keila couldn't resist one more little eye roll to the heavens as she said a silent prayer for strength. What in the world would the two women fight about when she was gone?
Turns out, she needn't have worried. Grams and her mother were pros, and finding something to disagree over, big or small, was a challenge they were up to, obviously. Why did the university give options? Both women did better with clear boundaries and decisions. First, it was on what day to take the trip to drop her off to college. Then it got laser focused down to what time of day to leave. Next, they debated the route. All they were going to do was plug it into GPS, but once they saw options, the fight was on.
When it came to what she would take, what she would get in December when she came home for the holidays, versus what she would leave altogether, it was a three-way war. That resulted in Keila being virtually dismissed, her mother screaming cuss words, which almost never happened, and her grams stricken to her bedroom with a migraine. It was never brought up again and no apologies were made. Whatever got into the car would go and the rest would wait. They didn't talk about things. They let things silently slip into the rearview and fade away.
Keila didn't grow up with a lot of warm fuzzies, other than the stuffed
variety. She didn't grow up mastering conflict resolution, and after seventeen years with the mistresses of passive-aggressive behavior, Keila grew up understanding that if you wait long enough, some things will simply go away and others will always remain a lingering question. The dust-up over what to bring to school was the former and who her father was, remained the latter. In the end, both were on a super high emotional shelf and she knew if she reached for it, it would come crashing down around her with unintended and unexpected consequences.
When they first pulled up to Rhoads Hall dormitory, she may have trembled a little. If she said anything memorable in the car on the drive up, she was sure it was with a quaking voice, but as she stood on the steps in front of the building that was her new home, her wave was powerful as she said the last goodbye. That power flowed from her fingertips as she sent her mother and grandmother on their way. Sure, there were a lot of questions and plenty of things she still wasn't sure of, but she was certain she was ready to tackle them all in her own unique way. She was finally ready for life to begin.
Chapter 1
Keila and Brianna, eventual roommates and best friends, met three years earlier when Keila moved into her freshman dorm. A year behind one another in undergrad, they became friends and surrogate sisters in the dorms during Keila's freshman year. Bri had been her resident assistant and neighbor, much to the chagrin of Keila's party girl first roommate. Their first few months were rocky, to say the least. Keila was in the room dubbed the second-floor sweet spot. A corner triple, a room meant for three residents, it was one of the two biggest rooms on the floor. Its duplicate sat at the other on the backside of the building. In the middle of the hall were the bathroom, laundry room, and a bank of elevators.
The Daddy Arrangement (Sugar 101) Page 1