Boss Daddy: A Secret Baby Romance

by Black, Natasha L.

  There was something strained in his voice.

  “Why don’t you sound like you’re actually offering?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t mean to sound like that. I’m actually offering. If you are comfortable here and want to stay, you are more than welcome to. Really. It’s just that I don’t trust Ethan. His private investigator was able to find you here in Astoria without any trouble, including where you live. We haven’t seen Ethan around here and don’t think he followed us, but I really don’t put it past him to find out where I live and find you here. I would just rather you be with other people, so I know you’re safe. Especially while I’m not in town to do it myself.”

  I smiled and squeezed his hand. “Thank you for caring so much. It means a lot to me. Right now, I don’t really know what I’m going to do. But I will be sure to lock up before I leave for work tonight.”

  “And after that?” Jordan asked.

  “I guess I’ll just figure out my game plan later. But I’ll let you know what I decide.”

  “Sounds good,” he said. “Just take care of yourself. I guess I should get going.”

  I let out a sigh and nodded. Walking him to the front door, I hugged him tight, wanting to delay him being gone for a few more seconds. He pulled back from the hug and kissed me.

  “Let me know when you get there,” I said.

  He nodded. “I will.”

  We shared one more kiss, and he left, his suitcase and duffel in hand. I watched him put the bags in the back of the truck, and then he walked to the driver’s door and opened it. Before he got in, he waved at me and blew me a kiss. I laughed and blew one back, waving until he was in the truck and had driven out of sight.

  When he was gone and I was sure this wasn’t going to be a rom-com situation where he would turn around and rush back to me, I closed the door and locked it. Turning around to lean my back against the door, I looked around. It already felt weird being alone in his house.

  He said I was welcome to stay, but I didn’t feel right being there without him. I got dressed and packed everything that had migrated over to his house aside from some bathroom stuff that I wanted to leave just because it made me feel good to know I had a toothbrush there. Making sure all the doors and windows were locked, I put my bags into the car. It wasn’t until I was sitting behind the wheel that a creepy feeling went up the back of my neck. I slammed my hand down on the lock and looked around, waiting to see Ethan coming out from between the houses or popping out of one of the cars on the street.

  Pushing the thoughts out of my mind, I pulled away from the house and started toward my own place. I hated that Ethan was getting to me like this. Even just being able to make me nervous felt like he was controlling me all over again. I picked up my phone and called Samantha.

  “Hey, Hannah,” she said. “Everything okay?”

  She didn’t sound as panicked or on edge as she did the first time we spoke after Ethan came to Astoria, but the tension was there.

  “Everything’s okay. I just wanted to be on the phone right now.”

  “You just wanted to be on the phone?” she asked, sounding confused.

  “I’m going back to my house,” I explained.

  “I thought you said you were staying with a friend.”

  “It was Jordan,” I admitted. She gasped a little, but I pushed right past it. “It’s been great, and I felt really safe there, but he had to leave for a business trip to Portland. He isn’t going to be in town for a bit. He said I could stay at his place, but it just didn’t feel right to be there without him. So, I’m going back to my house. That’s why I wanted to be on the phone. I know it sounds silly, but I don’t exactly want to go in for the first time completely alone. I wanted to be talking to you.”

  “That’s not silly at all. After what you’ve been through, it is completely understandable,” she said.

  “Well, thank you for talking to me. I really appreciate it.”

  “Of course. I just wish I could be there with you. Have you seen or heard from Ethan again?” she asked.

  “No. Not since the night he showed up at the bar. Have you?”

  “No. No one around here has. Nobody knows where he is. It’s actually really strange,” she said.

  That definitely didn’t make me feel any better. I pulled into my driveway and sat for a couple of seconds just like I did outside of Jordan’s house. As much as I wouldn’t want to think that Ethan would actually just hover around waiting for me all this time, I couldn’t honestly put it past him. He would do anything to get his way. Anything to scare me and make me feel under his control.

  But he didn’t show up.

  “Alright, I’m here,” I said. “I’m going to grab my bags and go inside.”

  “I’m right here,” she said. “If you see anything strange at all, you tell me, then get off the phone and call the police.”

  I didn’t like the way she said that. It made even more heaviness press down on me. I climbed out of the car and got my luggage, then headed for the door. With every step, I paid as much attention to everything around me as I could, waiting for even the slightest movement or indication of anything being off.

  When I got to the door, I unlocked it and pushed it open hard so it swung all the way and hit the wall on the other side. If he had somehow gotten in and was lurking there waiting for me to come through the door, that would have been a rude awakening for him.

  I took a step inside and tried to sense anything different.

  “Everything okay?” Samantha asked.

  “It seems like it.”

  “I want to stay with you until you walk through all the rooms. Just to be sure.”

  “Talk to me while I do it,” I said. “It doesn’t matter about what.”

  As I toured through the house, checking each room and closet, and hating Ethan a little bit more each step, I listened to Samantha tell me about her children and what they were up to that week. When I finished, I walked back to the living room to get my bags.

  “All clear?” Samantha asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Doors locked?”

  “Double-checked,” I said. “Thank you for talking to me.”

  “Anytime. I really don’t like that you’re alone. Isn’t there somewhere else you can go?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to keep changing my life to suit him. This is my home. Until there’s a reason to leave, I’m going to be here.”

  We got off the phone, and I hauled my luggage to the laundry room to wash what I hadn’t gotten to at Jordan’s house. A little while later, my phone rang, and I smiled when I saw Jordan’s name appear on the screen.

  “I got here,” he said. “Lovely Portland.”

  I laughed. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

  “I’m glad you are, too.”

  I wanted to tell him I missed him, but I stopped myself.

  “You go and get settled in. I have a refrigerator I haven’t touched in far too long to wrangle back from disaster before I go to work,” I said.

  Jordan laughed. “Good luck with that. I’ll call you later. I miss you already.”

  My heart swelled, and I held back a sigh.

  As soon as I walked into work that night, Ava came up to me.

  “Are you doing okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Jordan said I can stay at his house while he’s gone, but I just can’t get comfortable there without him. So, I went home. But everything’s okay.”

  “Alright, so where are you going after work? Are you staying with Susan or me? My house is totally open to you. It’s full of toys, but it’s comfortable,” she said.

  I laughed. “Thank you. Toys sound like fun right about now. I really appreciate you welcoming me, but I think I’ll just stay home. I’ll be fine. There’s no sign of him. I’m not worried.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yes. I’ll admit, it freaked me out having him here, and I was a little scared leaving Jordan’s pla
ce and getting home for the first time. But nothing happened. I’m okay now,” I said.

  It might not have been one hundred percent true, but I was working on convincing myself of it as well.

  “Alright. Well, if there’s an issue, don’t hesitate to call me. Not for an instant. I already talked to Mason, and he’s all for having you with us for as long as you need to be. No worries,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  It felt good knowing I was surrounded by people who cared about me and were willing to go so far out of their way to help me. The rest of the night at work was uneventful, and I went home to my quiet, empty house. Even though nothing happened, and everything was exactly as it always was, I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being watched.

  23

  Jordan

  I snapped awake covered in sweat. I couldn’t place where I was; everything was different. It was a room, with a bathroom across from me and a little kitchenette. Other than that, I had no clue. I reached for my gun and realized it wasn’t there. I was naked. What the hell was going on?

  Slamming my hand on the nightstand produced a crashing sound as the alarm clock was swiped away and a glass with some sort of liquid spilled, but eventually I found a lamp. I crawled my fingers up it until I found a switch and clicked it on. The room filled with a white-yellow light.

  In the corner of the room was a coatrack. My coat hung from it as well as an apron. It had The Hollow’s logo on it. Suddenly, it all came rushing back to me, and I fell back into the pillows.

  I was in Portland. And I hated it.

  The nightmares had returned and were mixing with my current reality. Sometimes I woke up, like just then, thinking I was still in the desert. Other times I woke up thinking I was in Astoria and horrible things were happening. When I did sleep, it was fitful, and rest wasn’t happening. I hoped that I would sleep better during the morning hours when the sun was up. In the dark, the shadows came.

  Hannah was on my mind often. I worried about her and hated being away from her like I was. We hadn’t talked since I got in and told her I was there safe, aside from text messages simply saying good night. My mind raced as I tried to think of a way around all this. I couldn’t just ask her to move with me. Uprooting her life again, right after she had just started to settle down, to move with me, a person who she was barely just getting to know, seemed like an insane proposition.

  That left finding out if a long-distance thing could work. It would be stressful, and I would hate not seeing her in person as much as I had been, but at least we could video chat and I could see her on my days off. If we scheduled the same days off, one of us could come to the other and spend our time there. While I would most certainly do that, considering how recently she had gotten out of her relationship with Ethan and the drama that still surrounded that, I felt like a long-distance relationship might be too much for her.

  A few hours later, I was in the new restaurant with Matt. The building was really interesting and looked clean and new on the outside, but inside needed a lot of work. It had previously been another bar that had been very successful for some time, but the inside of the building came into disrepair and the owner retired. With no family and all his business partners uninterested in running a bar, he just sold it to Tom as it was. It had closed its doors for the last time under its old name only a week ago, and we had a lot of work to get it ready for us.

  Matt was pissed and stomping around with two by fours and hammers in various areas of the building as we found new things that needed to be fixed. I ducked into another room to get away from him, presumably the office, though it was junked up with ancient barstools and glassware. Sitting gingerly on a stool I wasn’t sure would hold my weight, I called Mom to check up on Hannah.

  Apparently, Hannah had decided to stay at her own place. Mom was still keeping a room open for her in case she changed her mind, but as it was, she hadn’t seen her since we left dinner. After promising I would call her again soon, I hung up with Mom and dialed Hannah, relieved when she answered on the second ring.

  “Hey, you,” she said.

  “Hi, Hannah,” I said. “I was just calling to check in.”

  “I’m fine. I decided to spend a little time at my place. I’ve got all the doors locked and the windows barred, just so you know,” she said. There was a hint of teasing in her voice, but I didn’t feel very humorous.

  “Good,” I said. “I don’t want to push you, but if you feel like you might not be safe for any reason, Mom’s keeping the room open for you.”

  “That’s very sweet,” she said. “Ava and Mason also offered to put me up if I need it. But I haven’t seen any sign of Ethan, and I think he probably went home. I think I’m okay here.”

  “If you say so,” I said. I loved that Hannah was so independent, but I was worried.

  “It’s okay,” Hannah said sweetly. “I’m safe.”

  Matt’s mood didn’t improve throughout the day. In fact, the entire drive up there the day before he had been a bear, and it hadn’t gotten any better with a night’s sleep. He was apparently handling being told to leave Astoria even worse than I was, and as I stood at the bar, wondering why in the world board game pieces were glued underneath the taps, he kicked a cardboard box across the room.

  “Hey, Matt, chill,” I said. “That box didn’t do anything to you.”

  It was meant as a joke, but Matt seemed to miss it.

  “Fuck that box,” he said. “And fuck Portland.”

  “Well, that’s certainly a take,” I said, giving up on the figures on the taps and moving to more pressing issues. Like the wood coming up from the floor.

  “It’s bullshit,” Matt continued. “We shouldn’t be the ones having to do this. If Tom wants a second bar so bad, he should be out here with us.”

  “I know you’re frustrated,” I said. “I am, too. But we don’t have families. And both Tyler and Mason thought this was a good idea, too. So, suck it up, Buttercup. Besides, Portland won’t be too bad. It’s Portland.”

  “It’s Portland,” Matt repeated mockingly. “Like you give a crap.”

  “Hey.” I put down the tools I had picked up and coming around the bar toward him. “I left Hannah back in Astoria. It’s not exactly easy for me either.”

  “So you finally gave in, eh?” he mumbled.

  “Yeah, well, we’re seeing each other. And it’s been really great. She’d been over at my house for the night multiple times, and something was starting to happen for us,” I said, realizing that emotion was starting to take over. I paused and took a deep breath. “But that had to get put on pause. I came here because we’re brothers, and we’re doing this together. I had to pack up and leave an extraordinarily rare chance for me to find someone and come here to be with you and open this bar. So shut up and help me do that.”

  “Your fault for getting involved,” Matt mumbled and then walked away. It was a good thing, too. I was liable to grab his head and put it through the extremely cheap glass windows that let in all the cold and let out all the heat.

  Choosing to ignore Matt for the rest of the day, I went to work on back of house. The kitchen was in pretty decent shape, and aside from restocking food in the pantries and doing some general cleanup, there wasn’t much that needed to be done. The office, on the other hand, that was going to need some work.

  We had rented a large dumpster for anything we didn’t think we could sell and a pod storage unit for the stuff we did. I began emptying the office and finding all sorts of trash and treasures hidden inside. A map of Portland from the early 1900s was rolled up in a corner, and I immediately envisioned it behind the bar in a frame. Several old flags from both the state and nation were kept reverently in a cabinet in the corner, along with a plaque that had the very first owner’s first dollar bill in a glass case on it. At that time it had been called “Maddow’s Pub.”

  Slowly, an idea for how to decorate the bar came into shape. Something that would acknowledge the history of the space while gi
ving way for evolution. Putting up the Maddow’s Pub plaque behind the bar would serve as a good-luck charm in a way. I felt good about the sudden idea, and if I wasn’t annoyed with Matt, I would have pulled him inside to pick his brain.

  As I was bringing some stools out to the dumpster that I was pretty sure were used in a riot at some point, my phone rang. I tossed the stools in and opened it up, seeing the call was coming from Tom.

  “Yo,” I said. He hated when I did that, which was precisely why I did it.

  “Jordan,” he said, completely ignoring my greeting, “how are things? Any updates on the space?”

  “Well, things are moving along,” I said. “I have a decent idea for what I want to do for décor. I found some really neat old stuff from when the bar had other names, and I was going to go for a whole nostalgia thing, while freshening it up and making it modern. Kind of like Cheers meets home-brew CBD hippie beer.”

  “Please don’t serve home-brew CBD hippie beer in our bar,” Tom said wearily.

  “It was an example,” I said. “For the mental image.”

  “Good,” Tom said. “Did all the furniture arrive?”

  “It did. All at once.”

  “Good. I was hoping they wouldn’t send them in two blocks. I asked for one but wasn’t sure they would do it.”

  “Well, it’s a mess in the front left room of the bar. Just chairs and tables and stools everywhere while we figure out where it all goes,” I said.

  “That’s fine.”

  “You might want to talk to Matt, though.”

  “What’s going on with Matt?”

  “He’s being a real dick.” “What’s he being a dick about?”

  “Just being here in general, I think,” I said. “He’s pitching a fit and kicking boxes and muttering to himself. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he didn’t like it here.”