by E. A. James
“Melissa!” her mother said a little louder. “Did you hear me?”
Even though the story had changed, and the newscasters were talking about something completely different, Melissa couldn’t pull her attention back from the screen.
“Melissa!” her mother yelled, walking over to her concerned and placing a hand on her shoulder, spinning her around so she was forced to give her full attention.
“I have to call in sick,” she said quickly under her breath, pushing past her mom and heading to the kitchen.
“What?” her mom followed behind her. “Are you feeling okay?”
“No,” Melissa said dialing the number for the grocery store from memory.
After a quick, albeit heated, exchanged with her boss, she slammed the phone down. Ignoring her mother’s confused and border line angry glare she headed back upstairs. “Brandon!” she yelled out for him to follow her. “Grab your suitcase from the closet, sweetie. We’re going to take a trip!”
CHAPTER SIX
The hotel was the nicest she had ever seen. She felt extremely out of place, waiting in the lounge area in her cut off jean shorts and pink tank top. Everyone around her was dressed like they were going to a banquet, with flowing skirts and formal suits. “It’s the middle of the day,” she muttered under her breath. “And it’s almost 100 degrees outside!”
The judgmental stare from the waiter who hurried over to her table convinced her to order a $4 bottle of water. She waited for a while, Brandon busying himself with his coloring books, and began to think that her decision to go looking for him was foolish and not well thought out. Why would he be in this exact hotel, still? The news report she saw aired hours ago, and maybe the footage was previously recorded?
She was about to give up when something in the air suddenly seemed to shift. The voices of the people talking around them fell quiet, and even Brandon looked up to see what was happening. Coming out of the large double doors on the far end of the room was Danny—or Daniel—surrounded by men in pressed black suits and ties, all with briefcases in their hands and a sense of superiority hanging around them.
The entourage made its way past the onlookers, all eagerly trying to get a view of the “Prince of Manhattan” as he chatted casually with his associated.
“Stay here,” Melissa whispered to Brandon as she summoned all of her courage and hurried to follow them. “Excuse me,” she said quietly. No one heard her. She quickened her pace until she was right behind them. “Excuse me,” she said again, louder.
This time they did hear her. They all turned to face her slowly, their expressions showing their obvious surprise that someone would stop them, especially someone that looked like she did.
“Can I talk to Mr. Hightower?” she squeaked quietly.
They all looked at each other, no one saying a word. Danny pushed himself to the front of the group and looked at her for a second. “Mr. Hightower is very busy,” one of the men behind him said, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“I know. It’ll only be a moment. I just wanted to ask him…”
“You can call his assistant and set up an appointment,” the man said harshly.
“I know you,” Danny said quietly.
“Yes, we met before—about five years ago,” she stuttered.
“Let’s go Daniel,” the man said firmly.
“It’s really important,” she said looking over her shoulder back at her son. Danny’s eyes followed hers, and when he saw Brandon something changed drastically in his expression.
For a moment she felt like the confidence had been knocked out of him. His face softened and his eyes widened. “Is that…?” he whispered down at her.
“Can we talk in private, please?” she urged.
Turning to address the men he was with, Danny quickly and authoritatively dismissed them, ignoring the way they looked at the two of them condescendingly.
The group walked away slowly, and when they had exited the building, Danny turned his attention back to Melissa. He leaned in, placing his hand on the small of her back and whispered, “let’s talk in my office.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
When they were seated across the large mahogany desk from each other, Melissa felt a sense of fear wash over her. What was she supposed to say to him? She hadn’t really thought she would get this far.
“Melissa,” he said smiling at her before she even had a chance to remind him of who she was.
“You remember me?”
“I could never forget you,” he said with a sure nod. “And obviously you weren’t able to forget me either,” he said looking over at Brandon sitting on the couch, his chubby legs stretched out in front of him, busy once again with his coloring.
“So, you know?” she asked.
“That he’s my son? Yes,” Danny said confidently. Something about the way he looked at Brandon let Melissa know that he was sure, absolutely positive in fact. It was weird, she thought, that he didn’t even ask for a test or anything. Someone with as much money as he had surely wanted to protect his assets and get proof of something like having a child with a woman he met five years ago at a bar.
“I don’t want anything from you,” she said quickly, figuring that was where the conversation would logically go next.
“I know,” he said, pushing himself back in his chair and crossing his arms at his chest.
“You know?”
“Let’s just jump over the technicalities,” he said with a sigh. “You’re here because there’s something going on with him, isn’t there?”
“So, it is something from you. I mean, from your side?”
He smiled and chuckled a little. “Yes. It’s from my side.”
“That’s great!” she said with a rush of relief. If it was something that he had, too, it must not be that bad. He was a successful businessman, intelligent, attractive, and collected. It must be something that can be cured! Or, at least it can be controlled.
“Yes and no,” he said standing up and walking over to where Brandon was sitting. He knelt down in front of him and rested his hand on his knee. “Do you know what’s happening, little man?” he asked him.
“I’m coloring,” Brandon said bluntly.
Danny laughed and looked over his shoulder at Melissa, “he’s cute.”
She blushed and smiled. “He is.”
“I mean,” he said turning back to Brandon, “do you know what happens to you at night? Do you understand it?”
Brandon looked up at him, his amber eyes lighting up slightly. “At night?” he asked him quietly. For a second, Melissa thought she saw a moment of unspoken understanding pass between the two of them. It was like they shared a secret—a deep, hidden secret that only they could understand.
“He’s four, right?” Danny asked, standing to his feet and turning to face Melissa again.
“Four and a half,” Brandon corrected him from his spot on the couch.
Danny turned and smiled at him over his shoulder before walking back to where Melissa was sitting. He didn’t take his seat across from her, though. He stopped in front of her, took her hands in his and lifted her to her feet. “I would like to spend time with him—with both of you,” he said.
She didn’t know how to respond at first. The entire interaction so far had been so different than she expected. “All right,” she agreed quietly.
“You’ll stay here, in the hotel,” Danny said still holding onto her hand firmly.
“No,” she said quickly. “We already have a hotel. It’s over in Queens. My sister got a room, too and is staying there with us.”
“She can come here, too!” Danny insisted.
“No,” Melissa said again, more sternly. “I want to stay there.”
“I don’t like when people don’t do what I ask,” Danny said quietly but firmly.
“Well, I’m sorry,” she said, matching her tone to the firmness of his. “But if you want to spend time with me and my son, you will have to accept the conditions I set up.”
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He stepped back, dropping her hands and looking at her with a confused look. It was clear that not many people had ever spoken to him like that before, and he wasn’t sure how to respond. “I knew there was something special about you that night I saw you,” he said to her, his face softening slightly.
“Well, this is a lot bigger than one night in one bar. And then in a car,” she added quietly. “This is about Brandon my son—our son. And we have to figure out how to make this work.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Over the next few days, Melissa and Brandon spent every free moment that Daniel Hightower had, between business meetings and company dinners, with him. He took them around the city—for strolls through Central Park, and lunch at some of the fanciest restaurants in the city. While she enjoyed herself thoroughly and felt a sort of attraction beginning to spark up between them, she sensed that he was unsure of how to act around Brandon.
“This is all really nice,” she said to him one day as they strolled down the street, peering into shop windows. “But I think Brandon is a little bored.”
“What?” he asked, looking genuinely surprised.
“Yeah,” she shrugged as she watched Brandon meander down the street just ahead of them. “He’s a good kid, patient and quiet. But he’s still a kid, Danny.”
“Danny,” he repeated his name with a chuckle. “No one has called me that in quite a while.”
“I’m sorry, Daniel,” she corrected herself quickly.
“No,” he said stopping and grabbing her hand. “I like it. Call me Danny,” he insisted as they continued their stroll, now walking hand in hand.
This was the first real connection they had made since she found him in the hotel. They had exchanged a few flirtatious glances, a kind remark here, and blushing cheek there. But, since that day, they had spent most of their time trying to catch up on four years of their son’s life, and getting to know each other a little along the way.
“Okay, Danny,” she said again. “It’s just that Brandon, he’s only four. He’s not really impressed by fancy restaurants and afternoon strolls through high-end shopping districts.”
“You’re right,” he said almost like the realization just slapped him across the face. He let out a frustrated grunt and sighed deeply. “Damn it,” he muttered. “I have no idea what I’m doing, Melissa. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Damn it,” he said again. “This never happens to me. I always know what I’m doing. I’m always in control.”
“It’s hard to be in control of everything when you add a four-year-old to the mix,” she pointed out. She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze and smiled up at him. His eyes still had the same breath-taking effect on her they did the first night they met, and in that instant, walking hand in hand with him, staring up into those beautiful amber eyes she felt her heart skip a beat.
“What should we do, then?” he asked her, his voice once again filled with the air of self-assurance he so often had.
Just then Brandon stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes fixed on something in the window he was standing in front of. It was a toy store. “I say we let him decide,” she said with a giggle.
And that’s exactly what they did. Danny took Brandon into the store and let him pick out any toy he could possibly want, and then another, and then another. Melissa felt a little apprehensive letting him spend so much money on them. But watching the two of them run together up and down the aisles, both of them acting like four-year-olds, pulling the toys off the shelves and pushing the buttons to see what they did, something reached down into her chest and deeply and truly warmed her heart.
As much as Danny said he was unfamiliar with how to be a father and act around their son, it was clear that he did know how to relax and have a good time. Over the next few days, instead of restaurants and shopping trips, they went to the park and played catch, spent an afternoon at the zoo, and even spent more than four hours in an arcade.
The topic of what was wrong with Brandon didn’t come up. She tried, but Danny never gave her any real answers. She didn’t care, though. Not in those moments. In those moments, they were all so wrapped up in the pure bliss of just being together—being a family. It didn’t matter that they were a family that was thrown together because of circumstance, and in reality, they had only spent a week together. They were together then, and that was all that mattered.
CHAPTER NINE
One night, after several days of non-stop on the go “family fun” Danny asked Melissa if she would join him for a dinner alone—just the two of them. The invitation immediately made her knees shake and her hands go sweaty. She hadn’t been alone with him for the entire week she had spent in New York. She would be lying if she said she didn’t want to spend time with him, get to know him better. But still, the thought made her stomach turn to knots.
He picked her up outside of the low-end hotel she was staying in with her sister and Brandon. When he pulled up in his car—the same car from the first night they met—she couldn’t believe that she didn’t notice before that it was a Mercedes Benz.
“Hello,” he said smiling at her as he pulled open the passenger side door and waited for her to slide in. “You look lovely,” he added. She was wearing the nicest thing she had—a dress that hugged her curves and accentuated her figure. It was green and offset her dark hair and eyes nicely. But it was still subtle, and nowhere near as elegant as the dresses she was sure the women he usually spent time with wore.
They drove in an awkward silence that he didn’t seem to notice. Aside from the one day they were out shopping, he never seemed frazzled or overwhelmed; he never seemed uncomfortable or taken off guard. “Do you like Italian?” he asked finally.
“Who doesn’t?” she replied.
“Good,” he smiled at her and pulled into the parking lot of one of the most elegant restaurants she had ever seen.
When they walked in, every eye turned to look at them. They weren’t looking at her, though—not entirely. They were looking at him. They were looking at the “Prince of Manhattan” and his less-than-suitable guest. He didn’t take notice of their stares and with an air of confidence, he walked past the hostess stand and over to a table, positioned in the far corner of the room, up against the large, floor-to-ceiling window with a view of the entire city.
“Shouldn’t we wait to be seated?” Melissa whispered to him as she quickened her step to keep up with him.
“Wait?” he asked turning to her with an amused look on his face. “I have a table.”
“You ‘have a table’?” she asked.
He did—he had a table. The table was in a state of permanent reservation under his name. The waiters served them graciously, and even though they stole some side-glances in her direction, Melissa was too enthralled by the situation to care.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” she said after their meal had been served.
“Ask away,” he said taking a sip from his wine.
“Why were you in the bar that night? It just doesn’t seem like a place someone like you would go.”
He smiled and nodded, knowing what she meant. “It may surprise you, but I liked to get away from this life from time to time. I knew that one day when my father handed down the business to me, it would be almost impossible to have a normal life. So, I took advantage of it while I could.”
“And why did you come over and talk to me?” she asked the other question that had been burning in her mind.
“Like I said before, there’s something about you—something special. You’re shy and quiet, but still strong and outspoken. You’re a mix of chaos.”
“Chaos?” she asked a little offended.
“I don’t mean it in a bad way,” he said setting his glass down and reaching across the table to take her hand. He looked at her intensely, his eyes seeming to light up in a mischievous but innocent way. The feeling of his strong hand wrapped around hers and his eyes staring intently at her sent a rush of excitement surging through her.
; “It’s refreshing,” he continued. “When I’m with you, I never know what to expect. One minute you’re passive and blushing, the next you’re outspoken and challenging. I’ve never met someone that can catch me off guard the way you can. I like that about you.”
“But you didn’t know that about me the day you sat down next to me in the bar.”
“No,” he agreed. “But I figured it out very quickly.”
The rest of the night they talked about Brandon, and how much Danny had enjoyed spending time with them. He told her that he wanted them to come to the hotel, and stay there long-term. He wanted to take care of them both.