Baby's Daddy: An Enemies to Lovers Romance

by Aubrey Wright

  16

  Jax

  The Ox Grill was a rooftop café a few blocks from Liv’s bakery. I glanced at my watch again. It was quarter past six. I couldn’t wait to see her.

  I was known for being on time to the point of being irritating and expecting everyone to adhere to my high standards of punctuality. Liv was running late, and I wasn’t upset at all. I just wanted her to make it.

  I was desperate to see her, take her out for drinks later. Take her home with me, or let her take me home with her. I hadn’t seen her since last night, when I’d seen her naked. When I’d heard her soft cries while I fucked her. From the moment I’d woken up this morning, I’d watched the clock like a hawk. Waiting for six p.m., when Liv would come to meet me.

  “Hey.”

  I glanced at her, and when I smiled, my rusty jaws ached. I hadn’t been this happy in a long damned time.

  She smiled too, but it didn’t reach her eyes. I instantly dreaded whatever was coming. All the happiness drained right out of me. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. I’m just tired.”

  That reminded me of the long night we’d spent together. A chuckle escaped me, and she glared at me. Admonished me.

  She wasn’t responsible for all my eagerness and excitement. I didn’t deserve special treatment by her, I knew. But I was genuinely upset that she was upset. After what had happened last night, I’d assumed things would take a turn for the best. We’d finally be able to relax and be happy.

  Instead of asking her point-blank, I decided subtlety and humor was the better way to go. Knowing Liv, I knew she responded better to humor than questions, which she would only call interrogations.

  “Just so you know,” I said as casually as I could muster as I motioned to the waiter to take our order. “I woke up this morning feeling like a used slut.”

  She choked on a laugh.

  “You left in the middle of the night, while I was sleeping.”

  Her smile wavered. “I had to get home.”

  I got goosebumps trying to figure out her moods. “But Anna was sleeping over at a friend’s, wasn’t she?”

  “Yeah. I just needed some space.”

  Dammit. That I hadn’t expected. Liv regretted sleeping with me. How would I get out of this now? There was no way I could approach this humorously. I was freaking the fuck out. I thought we’d broken down a lot of walls between us last night. Apparently, Liv had built them right back up in the few hours she’d been away from me.

  Maybe if I continued joking about it, she’d relax enough to talk about it some more.

  “I didn’t realize that being left alone in bed, naked and thoroughly fucked, could be this soul crushing. Wish you’d woken me up. A goodbye kiss, perhaps?”

  Her eyes met mine. I couldn’t, for the life of me, gauge her feelings. These new walls she’d built seemed to be more fortified than the old ones I’d torn down.

  “It was a mistake.”

  My heart slammed against my ribs. And ached a little. I shook my head no even while I attempted to make sense of what she was going on about. “No, I don’t think so. Not for me.”

  “If you think about it,” she cut me off, but she was avoiding my gaze and every word she said felt like a farce.

  Stubborn girl.

  “It was stupid and irrational, and there’s no way this could ever work out. Right?”

  She was challenging me to say no. Even I knew that was not a fight worth fighting. I’d accepted that much even without her prodding, the fact that it was highly unlikely that we could make this work between us. There were too many obstacles in the way of being an actual couple. Our lives were on different tracks, and she knew it as well as I did.

  I was too old to want to deal with a long-distance relationship. Liv was clearly smart enough to feel the same way.

  “Let’s be practical.”

  I scoffed, folding the napkin on the table because there was nothing else to do. “Do we have to be?”

  She chuckled, but it sounded hollow. “You wanted me. I clearly wanted you. We had this electric thing going on that was telling us to get naked. Boom! We did. It was good too.”

  My gaze snapped to her face. “It was fucking amazing.” I was so done with her monologue. It was beginning to sound like a practiced speech without any feeling. I didn’t even have the patience to hear it anymore.

  “So,” she halted, dramatically taking a deep breath as if to get back on her practiced bandwagon of a speech. “It’s out of my system. It’s out of your system.”

  “Can you do me a favor?” I snapped. “Don’t speak for me. I can speak for myself.”

  “Right.”

  “And to make sure you really understand what I’m staying here. No. No is my answer.”

  I hated myself.

  She looked like a wounded little bird. The innocence and confusion on her face tugged at my heartstrings. I wanted to hug her but decided it was better to keep my hands off her at all costs. She was going through a lot of effort to make sure I wouldn’t touch her again. Ever.

  “No is your answer to what?”

  “No, it’s not out of my system. Wanting you would never fizzle out of my system. I’m stuck with it for freaking life!” I belatedly realized our waiter stood three feet away. He’d probably heard everything. But I was too into my response to back down now.

  I leaned closer to Liv, and even though I lowered my voice, the waiter could probably still overhear. I just couldn’t find it in me to give a fuck.

  “I still want you. I want you over and over again. I want to bury myself inside you and forget every fucking thing that’s wrong with my life. I want to help you forget everything that’s screwed up in your life. Do you get me?”

  I leaned back in my chair. I’d thrown off her composure. She was turning pale and tearing bits of tissue off a piece she’d been holding.

  “I even want you right now. Even though you’re probably right, and we can’t be together. To say I got it out of my system? Nah! That cannot happen. I’ll always want you. And that’s something I have to live with.”

  I pinned her with my gaze and derived great comfort when she sat there, flustered. The waiter reluctantly stepped forward and pretended he didn’t hear the whole passionate conversation. Very professional. He deserved a generous tip.

  Liv’s fingers shook as she held the menu and then handed it back to the waiter. She waited for me to order. I didn’t even glance at the waiter. I couldn’t take my eyes off Liv.

  I could see her laughing with me on her back steps. Shoving me away when she succumbed to desire and kissing me in her kitchen while hunting for a straw.

  I could see her holding my gaze when I slept on the floor of Anna’s bedroom.

  And I saw her riding my cock.

  Her head thrown back, her auburn hair a wild mess around her head. As she got rough with me, took what she wanted the way she wanted. I was the lucky bastard who got to watch her, who got to feel her pussy wrapped taut around his cock. I loved every second of it. Clearly, she did too.

  Out of her system?

  Bullshit.

  She couldn’t get enough of me. Just like I couldn’t get enough of her. It had always been this intense firepower of lust between us. She was trying to fight the crazy attraction she still felt for me. I got that. Totally understandable.

  Who said I had to allow her denial to get affirmation?

  “I’ll have whatever the chef recommends,” I said.

  The waiter nodded and couldn’t leave our table fast enough.

  Liv tried to smile, but the motion looked broken and lifeless. “What are your plans? When are you going back to Seattle?”

  “Not right now. “

  She sighed, hooking her hair behind her ears. “There’s no reason to be angry about what I said.”

  “I’m not angry. “

  “You seem pretty fucking angry to me,” she snapped.

  “It’s just that I don’t like it when you push me around.”<
br />
  She scoffed, her eyes glistening as she leaned over the table. “Has anyone ever been able to push you around?” Her eyes roved admiringly over my shoulders and chest.

  “You have. Always.”

  “You’re making this harder than it has to be. We’re adults.”

  “Which is why we should be honest about what happened between us. It was no fucking mistake. We wanted each other, and we still do.”

  “Do we have to keep discussing it?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry, not sorry. I don’t believe in sticking my head in the sand.”

  “What’s even the point? What do you want me to say? That we should keep fucking each other until you leave for Seattle? We’re friends with benefits now?”

  She had a point. I considered a way to make it work without it sounding like a tacky arrangement based on sex.

  There was no way. Fucking while being friends was the only thing that could work with our circumstances.

  Liv had her life here with Anna. I had my life in Seattle. Alone. Our worlds couldn’t co-exist any longer. The only thing I was sure of was that I desperately wanted to kiss her full, pink lips. But I didn’t. I didn’t have anything to offer her except this twisted relationship of friends with benefits.

  For more than a decade, I’d lived my life on my own terms. No attachments, no relationships, no dependencies. Maybe I had become so inflexible that I couldn’t bear for my life to change at all.

  I wanted to go back to Seattle. Start where I left off. Liv deserved better. I couldn’t stay here in this place and create a new life for myself from scratch. And I sure as hell couldn’t expect Liv to uproot for me. She wouldn’t want to, anyway. She wanted to be her own little family of two—her and Anna. There was no room for me in her life. And I wasn’t sure I was up for the uphill battle to make change that.

  “Is this why you asked me to meet you here?”

  “I wanted to get it over with. The conversation.”

  “Consider the conversation over.”

  “God! Why does it have to be so complicated? We fucked. It won’t happen again.”

  “We made love,” I interjected, watching her turn pale and loving every moment of it. “And it won’t happen again.”

  “Right.”

  No matter how miserable I felt about Liv demeaning what we had last night, I didn’t want to ruin what little time I had with her. Sex or no sex. I still wanted her company. “I’ll answer your earlier question now.”

  “Okay?”

  If I pretended that I was okay with the direction our relationship—or lack thereof—was taking, I might start believing it. “I’ll go back to Seattle when I get the green light from Diane. What are your plans for the future?”

  She shrugged, clearly grateful for the change of topic. “I’m going to expand my business.”

  Genuinely intrigued, I leaned closer. “How so?”

  A smile lit her face, her eyes shining with excitement. “So, I’ve wanted to set up a café next to my bakery. Sort of integrate the two. Bring a wall or two down and make one big space that’s bakery and café. I’ve been saving for it. I think I might finally be able to afford the big leap in six months.”

  “Wow.” I wished she was this excited about me. But I couldn’t help but admire her ambition. “You really do love it here, don’t you?”

  “I know it’s hard for you to fathom. But this is my home. I love it here.”

  Something died inside me. The more she talked about her undying love for Ashland, the more I cringed. That association with Ashland was exactly the thing that shattered whatever little chance we had as a couple. “I hate it here.”

  “So you’ve said. But I don’t blame you, really. You had a few tough months after your eighteenth. I see why you wanted to leave.”

  “Thanks.”

  Her small hand rested on my clenched fist. I hadn’t even realized my knuckles were so tightly fisted that they were white. Unthinkingly, I turned my hand palm up and held her fingers.

  Why did touching her hand feel like I’d come out victorious in battle?

  “I understand why you feel the way you do about Ashland. But this is just one thing of many that makes me think that last night was really a mistake.”

  “You can keep saying it. I’m not convinced.”

  “Hear me out.”

  I waited as she smiled. There was affection and love shining in her eyes even as she said the words that completely contradicted that emotion.

  “Even if you had known about Anna, it wouldn’t have worked. My life is here, and yours is in Seattle. You live and thrive in the public eye. I want family time with my child to feel like I’m living a full life. I’m not available for a fuck-buddy relationship.”

  That’s the last thing I want with you. I want you! All of you. Forever.

  My thoughts conjured up fantasies of Liv and Anna in my house in Seattle, in my vacation home in Milan, and in the Hamptons.

  Liv and Anna made my family.

  I didn’t know what I wanted. I could never ask Liv to follow me to Seattle. It would be selfish to request she uproot her life and Anna’s and follow me home.

  Liv and I had ventured too far apart to ever find our way back again.

  No matter how badly I wanted us to, we could never work.

  17

  Liv

  I’d decided to take Saturday off. Samantha was covering for me.

  I needed some me-time to get Jax out of my head, and a spa date with Anna and Clara was the perfect way to help me do it.

  The doorbell rang as I was clearing away my breakfast plate.

  “Coming!” I hurried to the front door and opened it.

  Clara looked like she’d seen a ghost. She was pale, her hairspray-laden hair coiffed perfectly in place even though she looked like she was about to break down.

  “Is everything all right?”

  Wordlessly, she handed me the morning paper she held clutched to her chest.

  “You’re acting weird.” My ears began to ring as I read the headline.

  Playboy Turned Sweetheart

  Jax Decker Back with His High School Girlfriend

  The words seemed to scream at me, even though they were just words on paper. That wasn’t even the worst of it.

  Beneath that damning headline, a photo of me and Jax at the Ox Grill. Holding hands, and looking like we were about to make out.

  “What the fuck?” I whispered, my eyes wide as I looked at Clara.

  She bit her lip, walked inside, and closed the door behind her. We both silently absorbed the shock of the headline while Anna sat on the barstool at the kitchen island.

  “This is bad.” I pushed my shaking hand through my hair. I could feel myself breaking out in a cold sweat.

  “Is this true?” Clara’s eyes searched my face for an answer.

  I didn’t have an answer. Was I back together with Jax?

  I shook my head and glanced at Anna. She was busy fishing bits of cereal from her bowl.

  My shock and panic receded only to be replaced with another emotion. Anger. I clenched my teeth and Clara shook her head.

  “I don’t like the look on your face.”

  I turned to Anna as I grabbed the doorknob. “Anna, sweetie? You go to the spa with Aunt Clara, and I’ll meet you guys there.”

  Clara leaned close so Anna wouldn’t overhear. “I suggest you stay away from him.”

  I rolled the newspaper in one hand like I was getting ready to swat a fly. Striding through the front yard, I was almost at Jax’s front door when I spotted him running toward the end of the street, wearing shorts and a blue T-shirt.

  I ran after him in my flip flops. As he turned off the road and toward the trail that led up a hill behind the houses, I took a shortcut. I bolted through the back of my neighbors’ homes and cut across his path as he entered the trail.

  “Jax!” My voice was like a whip in the silence.

  He turned around, panting, and his brows furrowed togethe
r. “What are you doing here?”

  I did the only thing I could. I slapped the paper onto his chest and crossed my arms as I waited for him to get the same heart-stopping shock I had received moments ago. He deserved it.

  My jaws grinding, I waited for him to open the newspaper.

  His eyes scanned the news, and to my utter disbelief, he chuckled.

  I snapped. Now there was one thing I hadn’t stopped to even consider. But it seemed highly likely now. “What the fuck? Did you do this?”

  His smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Whoa, hold on. You think I’m responsible for this?”

  “Of course you are. Look at the quality of that photo. Like it was a proper photo op. It’s a PR stunt that’s pulled off perfectly. The entire article is basically praise about the new and improved Mr. Jax Decker.”

  “That’s an ambitious assumption.”

  I laughed in his face. “You can’t even pretend. You’re happy to see this. You’re using me to fix your image. Give yourself a PR overhaul so you can go back to Seattle. As a goddamn saint.”

  “Hanging out with you doesn’t make me a saint. It just shows that I’m incredibly patient. And fucking out of my mind.”

  “Nice. Considering your tarnished reputation, I’m assuming you’re using this simple, boring, high school girlfriend to make you look like a romantic. Right?”

  “Boring? Are we still talking about you?”

  Angry tears burned my eyes, and I fought them as I poked my finger into his chest. “Jax Decker, you get out of here. I don’t want to see your face. You get your ass right back to Seattle before the day is over. I’m done with your games!”

  His expression faltered, and he hurled the newspaper toward a bush. “It doesn’t matter how the news got in there.”

  “You planned this.”

  “I didn’t,” he snapped. “That’s crazy. Do you hear yourself? You’re the one who told me to come see you at the Ox Grill.”

  “That doesn’t prove shit. You tipped off the press.”