Hot Daddy_A Romantic Comedy

by Lila Monroe

  “Nice to meet you, Jules Robinson.” He gives good handshake, firm but not bone-crushing, all long fingers and the faintest scrape of callus on his palm. His eyes are a deep, friendly brown. “So what brings you to Vegas?” he asks.

  “I’m with a girlfriend,” I explain. “Or I was, anyway. At the moment she’s out of pocket on an . . . exploratory mission.”

  Cal grins. “Sounds exhilarating.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it is,” I assure him. “What about you, huh? What are you doing in town?”

  “Auditioning for Thunder from Down Under,” he says immediately. Then, off my loud, raucous cackle: “Callback, actually. I aced the first round, they couldn’t get enough of me.”

  “Right, no, obviously.” The ads for the all-male revue were plastered all over the strip when we got here this afternoon: beefy, longhaired guys in bow ties, cummerbunds, and not much else. “So what’s your character?” I ask, rattling the ice in my mostly empty glass. “Sexy fireman, sexy cop . . . ?”

  “Sexy medical device salesman,” he deadpans, completely serious in the moment before his face breaks open into a grin. “See, you’re laughing, but I have a whole bit I do with the X-ray machine. It’s a real crowd-pleaser.” He motions to my cocktail. “You want another one of those?”

  I tilt my head to the side, pretending to think about it. “Sure.”

  I have two more, actually, and so does Cal, our knees just brushing underneath the bar as we chat about all kinds of things: his mom’s neurotic golden doodle, a Netflix documentary series both of us recently binged, how I want to do women’s rights work for a non-profit once I pass the bar. It’s the easiest, least awkward conversation I’ve had with a stranger in . . . well, years, actually, unless you count my weekly Outlander debriefs with Estelle, the nighttime security guard at the law library. My heart thrums with a quiet thrill inside my chest.

  Casino bars don’t ever really empty out, but this one is taking on a distinct after-hours vibe, low light and quiet conversations; the Bud-guzzling bachelor party bros are long gone. When I finally check my phone to see if Kelly’s texted—she has, she’s safe, and she’s having a truly epic time with her mountain man—I realize it’s after one a.m. “Holy shit,” I blurt. “How’d it get to be so late?”

  Cal raises his dark eyebrows over the rim of his glass, looking faintly tickled. “Am I keeping you up?”

  “What? No!” I blurt, immediately embarrassed by how eager I sound. “We just had an early flight out this morning, that’s all. I’ve been up for like twenty-hours.”

  “I’m teasing you, princess.” He smiles at me then, slow and easy. It’s the most intimate smile of my entire life. It’s a smile like sitting in front of a campfire in October and reading the paper in bed on Sunday morning; it’s a smile, frankly, like getting good and fucked by a man who knows you down to your most essential particles. “You want to get out of here?” he asks.

  I knew it was coming but still there’s something scandalous about the idea, being propositioned by a total stranger. I’m imagining it now, I can’t help it: that broad chest pressed against mine and his capable-looking mouth on my neck, long fingers reaching down between my legs and—

  “Tempting,” I tell him truthfully, laying a palm against my flaming face. “But I probably shouldn’t.”

  To his credit Cal keeps smiling, a little rueful; he doesn’t try to convince me, either, just touches my arm and catches the bartender’s eye to settle up. “Fair enough,” he tells me, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. “Well, it was really nice to be married to you for five minutes, Jules Robinson.”

  “Yeah,” I agree, feeling my whole body get warm. “It was nice to be married to you for five minutes, too.”

  I’m surprised by the sharp pang of longing behind my ribs as I watch him go a moment later, the strange sense that I’ve somehow given up more than just a roll in starchy white hotel sheets. Still, it’s not like I’m about to just get up and follow him out of here. He probably does this every night, sure. But I’ve never had a one-night stand in my entire life.

  I’ve never had a one-night stand in my entire life.

  The thought stops me—after all, I’m a grown-ass woman with a newly minted law degree, aren’t I? I’ve got nobody to answer to but myself. And this is Vegas. What happens here, et cetera. I swallow down the rest of my tequila, set the glass back down on the bar. “Hey, Cal!” I call, slinging my purse over my shoulder and hopping down off my barstool as quickly as my tiny dress allows. “Wait up.”

  4

  Cal

  It’s you.”

  In the marble-tiled hallway of the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court, Jules and I stare at each other with naked, horrified shock. “What are you doing here?” she asks, eyes searching my face like she’s trying to crack some secret code. She’s a few years older—hell, both of us are—but it’s definitely her: same soft-looking blonde hair, same intelligent, catlike green eyes. Same incredible body, dressed now in a tailored, responsible-looking skirt-suit instead of the most absurd—and absurdly sexy—black dress I’d ever seen in my entire life.

  “What do you mean, what am I doing here?” I shake my head. “What are you doing here?”

  “Are you the—” She breaks off, like she doesn’t want to say it.

  My eyes widen. “Are you the—?”

  Both of us figure it out at the same time. “Oh, fuck me,” she blurts, and I can’t help but laugh.

  “Well,” I admit, “this is awkward.”

  It’s the understatement of the year, clearly, but cut me some slack—what’s a more accurate description of the moment you find out that you accidentally hired the hottest one-night stand of your entire life to play your fake fiancée? I’m standing there like a fucking idiot, completely at a loss for how to handle this, but right away Jules clicks into practical mode. I can practically see the gears turning in her head.

  “Okay,” she says, laying a hand against her cheek—she’s blushing like a house on fire, which I probably shouldn’t find as stupidly endearing as I do. “It’s fine. I’ll call Olivia and tell her . . . something.”

  “Totally,” I agree quickly. This was a stupid idea anyway. I panicked the other night, lying awake in bed running through the million possible reasons why the judge might decide Lottie and Ez were better off never seeing my face again, let alone coming to live with me. In the moment it felt like I needed all the help I could get. But right now I just kind of feel like a creep. “If you’re not comfortable, I definitely don’t want—”

  “No, it’s not that I’m not comfortable,” Jules interrupts. “I wouldn’t have agreed to come here if I wasn’t comfortable. It’s just—” She breaks off, eyes widening meaningfully, and for a second I know we’re both thinking about that night in Vegas: her long thighs wrapped around my hipbones, her breathy moans echoing in my ear.

  Just then the door to the courtroom opens. “McAdams?” the clerk calls, looking down at her clipboard. “The judge will see you now.”

  My stomach turns over. Jules and I look at each other. “It’s fine,” I promise quietly. “No hard feelings, really.”

  She nods and for a second I’m sure she’s going to book it back down the hallway, that I’ll add this encounter to the year’s long list of bizarre and improbable losses. Then she slides her hand into mine. “Come on, honey,” she says, smiling warmly. “Let’s go.”

  So, okay then. We’re doing this.

  Basically everything I know about the legal system I learned from getting stoned and watching Law & Order reruns in college, so I was surprised when Lydia, my lawyer, explained that the judge would be meeting with us in her chambers instead of out in open court. “She’s notoriously eccentric,” Lydia explained at our prep session yesterday. “But she’s shrewd as all hell.”

  Lydia wasn’t kidding about the eccentric part: the judge is sitting behind her massive desk in a blouse instead of the robe I was expecting, a rhinestone-encrusted brooch in the sh
ape of a butterfly pinned near the collar. A pair of enormous plastic glasses takes up the entire top half of her face. “All right,” she says without the benefit of a preamble; she’s got a thick Boston accent, somewhere between Ted Kennedy and Whitey Bulger. “Let’s sort this out. We’ve got Vivian DuPuis bringing action against Caleb McAdams as custodian of two minor children, Carlotta age ten and Ezra age seven . . .” She trails off, looking at the notes in front of her, then glances up over the tops of her glasses. “The parents are deceased four months, is that correct?”

  I clear my throat. “That’s right, your honor.” I was wooing clients in Dubai when I got the call about Rob and Melissa’s accident, nine hours ahead and 7,000 miles away. By the time I got back to the states Vivian had moved into the house with the kids; she filed for custody two days later, and here we are. I’ll never forget the feeling of being so far and so powerless.

  I never want to feel that way again.

  “Ms. DuPuis,” the judge says, pushing her glasses up on top of her head. “What seems to be the issue?”

  “My client is a blood relative, your honor,” Vivian’s lawyer begins. “Mrs. Hunt’s only sister, and the children’s only aunt—”

  “Your honor, by all accounts this woman barely knew the children before their parents died,” my lawyer points out. “My client is their godfather and has had a much more active role in their lives up until this point.”

  “It’s true,” Vivian says, speaking up for the first time. I’ve known Viv most of my life, give or take; she works in fashion merchandising at a chain of high-end luxury stores based in New York. As kids, she never wanted anything to do with Rob and me, was forever disappearing down the hallway with a swish of her smooth red hair. “I’ve spent a lot of Carlotta and Ezra’s childhoods traveling for work, and that’s on me. But my sister and I loved each other very much. They’re all I have left of her. And I truly believe I can provide the kind of wholesome, stable family home that Mr. McAdams is just not equipped for, whatever his financial situation might be.” She opens a file folder. “I hope you don’t mind, but I figured you should have all the information, so I’ve pulled a few media clippings that speak to the kind of playboy lifestyle Cal enjoys.”

  I cringe. “Your honor, those clippings are years old,” I protest, already knowing what’s in them: naked sunbathing with Brazilian models, a bunch of dubious parties in Monte Carlo, plus an arrest for drag racing outside of New Orleans that was definitely supposed to stay a secret. Vivian’s not wrong that I spent most of my twenties chasing every fast car and fast woman I could find. But for God’s sake, I also used to wear skinny jeans. We all make mistakes when we’re young.

  The judge looks over the pages for a moment, humming quietly to herself—“Hound Dog,” I realize with a grimace. When she looks up her gaze lands abruptly on Jules, who’s been sitting attentively in the corner, sunlight through the window catching the gold in her hair. “Who are you?”

  Jules looks startled, but she musters a confident smile, and when she speaks her voice is steady and clear. “I’m Jules Robinson, your honor,” she says, laying one manicured hand on my arm. “I’m Cal’s fiancée.”

  “Cal’s what?” Vivian whips her head around to stare, first at Jules and then at me. “Since when are you engaged?”

  “I don’t tell you every detail of my personal life, Vivian,” I can’t resist saying; Lydia and Jules both nudge me, one on either side, in a way that almost definitely means shut up.

  The judge ignores me. “And how long have you and Mr. McAdams been together?” she asks Jules.

  Jules hesitates, and I feel myself cringe. We’re not under oath, but I can’t imagine she loves the idea of lying to a judge. Olivia mentioned that she’d recently left her job at a law firm down in New York and I wonder, not for the first time in the last twenty minutes, how on earth she wound up here.

  Finally she clears her throat. “We had a bit of a whirlwind romance,” she admits, then parrots off the cover story Olivia assigned to us: meeting at a benefit for Doctors Without Borders, our common interests in philanthropy and the arts. “I can only imagine the kind of trauma these kids have been through,” she says, going off-script for the first time, “but I’ve got a lot of experience with kids the same ages as Lottie and Ezra—I come from a big, tight-knit family. I feel really confident I’d be able to help give them the kind of home they deserve.”

  The judge nods at that—I can’t tell if she’s convinced or not, but at the very least she’s stopped humming Elvis songs. “All right,” she says, glancing down at the clippings one more time. “There’s certainly a lot to review here. Does anyone have anything they’d like to add?”

  “Rob and I were best friends since we were kids,” I hear myself blurt. I wasn’t planning to say anything—my lawyer told me not to, in fact—but it’s like I can’t actually help myself. “I don’t have children of my own, but the day Lottie was born was the best day of my entire life. I’ve been to all their birthday parties. I’ve cleaned up Ezra’s barf on two separate occasions.” I shake my head. “And I know that’s not a lot of times in the grand scheme of barf-cleaning, but I guess what I’m saying—what I want you to know—is that if you give me the chance, I’ll clean up that kid’s barf every day of the week for the rest of my life and be happy about it.”

  I snap my jaws shut abruptly. My lawyer looks surprised. Jules is watching me with interest, her blonde head tilted just slightly to the side.

  “Well, all right then,” the judge says, the slightest twitch of her eyebrows. “I’ve heard enough here for today. Mr. McAdams, per the parents’ instructions I’m going to award you temporary custody while the court looks into this matter further. We’ll meet with each of you individually, I’ll interview both children, and we’ll all reconvene in ten days. Court adjourned.”

  It’s over so fast that I almost don’t register what’s happened until Jules pops out of her chair and wraps her arms around me, Vivian and her lawyer storming out of the judge’s chambers in a huff.

  “That’s good, right?” Jules asks, voice muffled in my shoulder and blonde hair tickling the side of my face. She smells like gardenias, just faint.

  “Um, yeah,” I say, relief flooding my body, like I’m actually taking a full breath of oxygen for the first time in months. “It’s good. It’s really good. Thank you.” I reach back for her hand as we follow my lawyer out into the hallway. “Sorry about that whole business with my sordid past,” I mutter. “I mean, it’s all true, but still. Probably not the best of introductions.”

  Jules shrugs, smirking a little. “I’m actually kind of impressed,” she notes. “With Vivian’s research, I mean. I googled you and I couldn’t find any of that stuff. I mean, I didn’t even realize you were—” She breaks off. “You know. You.”

  “I hired one of those services that scrubs your search results,” I confess sheepishly.

  Jules looks like she might be about to make fun of me in the moment before Vivian calls my name from down the hallway. “Can I have a moment?” she wants to know.

  “Sure,” I say cautiously, then squeeze Jules’s hand one more time. “I’ll be right back.”

  Vivian is standing by the elevators with both hands wrapped around the strap of her designer purse, like possibly she’s worried I’m about to mug her. For the first time I register her outfit, a flowy skirt and soft-looking pink sweater—the picture of maternal modesty, a far cry from the merciless black sheaths she normally wears. She’s a master of merchandising, all right.

  “Is this about you clearing out of Rob and Mel’s house?” I ask. “Because now would be a great time for you to go ahead and move back into your own place so the kids and I can get settled.”

  “Oh, Cal, that seems silly, doesn’t it? Before the judge makes her final decision?” She offers me a thousand-watt smile. “You know, I’ve been thinking. You and I have known each other way too long to be fighting like this.”

  “I agree,” I say cautiously.


  “My sister was a romantic,” Vivian continues, “and she was young. I can see why it might have seemed like sort of a . . . fun lark to name you guardian. I feel like you and I ought to be able to come to some kind of understanding.”

  My eyes narrow. “What kind of understanding?”

  Vivian makes a face, like I’m being dense on purpose. “Something mutually beneficial, Cal. After all, it’s not just the custody we’re talking about, but their estate, too.”

  “Estate—” I break off, feeling fury rise like bile at the back of my throat as I realize what she’s getting at. It’s definitely not the first time in my life someone has tried to shake me down for cash, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let this woman use my godchildren to do it. “You know what, Viv, I’m going to keep on pretending I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about,” I manage. “And from now on anytime you want to talk to me, you can go through my lawyer. I’ll see you back here in ten days.”

  I turn around before she can answer, striding away just as a door opens down the other end of the corridor and the kids rush out of it: grinning, gap-toothed Ezra and behind him serious, skeptical Lottie, a thick book clutched against her chest.

  “Cal!” Ezra hollers, all but hurling himself the last couple of yards into my arms.

  I let out a breath, filled with dumb animal relief at the sight of their faces. God, I’m more attached to these little snot factories than I ever thought he would be. “Hey, guys.”

  I hold one arm out and after a moment Lottie comes too, holding herself rigid before she collapses a little, burying her face in my shoulder. “Are we coming home with you?” she asks.

  “Yup,” I promise, swallowing down a sudden wave of emotion—grief and hope and terror, not to mention the bald fact that I haven’t slept a full night in months. I glance at Jules over the tops of their heads; from the expression on her face I can tell she’s wondering—same as I am, actually—what the hell she’s gotten herself into. “You sure are.”