Surprise Daddies: A Contemporary Romance Box Set

by London James

  “What the hell is going on here?” Rowan’s voice got deeper too, and the baritone sends shivers down my spine. My nipples bead, responding to him like they always did.

  I sigh and tighten my cardigan around myself to hide my breasts, hell, to hide my body. I glance up at him to see Rowan staring daggers at me. His friend is totally oblivious and waves at me. He takes a few strides and holds out his hand. “Hi. I’m Gray. I’m Rowan’s friend and business partner.”

  Right. Business partner. Rowan is all successful now.

  “I’m Everly.” Right as I reach out to shake his hand, Rowan pulls Gray back and curls his lip at me. Tears burn my eyes, but I don’t let them fall. I look down at my feet, wishing I had somewhere else to go.

  Gray gives Rowan a confused look, which tells me his friend doesn’t even know about me. I guess my plan worked. He has officially forgotten all about me.

  “What’s she doing here?” Rowan asks coldly, not even looking at me in the eye.

  “That’s no way to talk to your family, Rowan.” Mr. Michaels says, wrapping his arm around my mother.

  I thought we were here visiting. Just what is going on?

  “Oh, you crazy kids. You grew up together, and this is how you treat each other? I thought this would go a lot easier,” my mom grabs his father’s hand, making me gasp.

  “Yeah, let’s not talk about how we are supposed to treat each other,” Rowan huffs, and his eyes go down to look at their conjoined hands. “What’s going on?”

  “Well, while you were away at school, Barbara and I found each other and fell in love.”

  My mom stares up at Rowan’s father with adoration and holds up her other hand. “We are getting married!” she squeals. “I’ll be moving in here!”

  And at the same time, my stomach drops. This can’t be happening. The man I lost my virginity to, the man I’ve loved my entire life, is going to be my stepbrother? This day keeps getting worse and worse.

  And to add gasoline to already the burning blaze of fire? I still love him. And the worst part? I don’t even feel guilty for loving and wanting him. It isn’t enough to forget that amazing night we shared and the fantasies that one day, we would find our way to each other again.

  Now even that fantasy has been shattered.

  “You can’t be serious? Bringing them into our family?” Rowan shouts, his face turning red, and the vein bulging in his forehead. “What the fuck, Dad?”

  “You will not speak to my soon-to-be wife like that, young man. Where is your respect?” Mr. Michaels stands in front of my mother, protecting her.

  “It must have left two years ago when I went to school.”

  The words are a sword to the heart, almost making me cry. I know they are directed at me.

  “It had better change quick, or you won’t be welcome in this house.”

  Rowan doesn’t take his eyes away from his father. “Good because I won’t be here long.”

  He finally slides his eyes toward me, and the pain in those beautiful eyes takes my breath.

  “Show Everly her room,” his father says to him. “I can’t talk to you right now. I never knew my son could be so disrespectful.”

  “I wonder who’s to blame for that.” He never takes his eyes away from mine until he turns away and grabs his bag, “And I think she can find her own way. Let’s go, Gray.” Rowan goes upstairs taking two steps at a time, and Gray follows shortly behind.

  “Uh, it was nice to meet all of you, even if it was really awkward.” He waves, throwing his duffel bag over his shoulder.

  I rub my temples with my fingers and lean against the marble wall. Yeah, marble. I always felt so uncomfortable coming here because his dad is so rich. My head pounds with all the information, stress, and anxiety I’m feeling right now.

  “I’m sorry, dear. I don’t know what’s gotten into him.” My mom wraps me in a hug, and it takes all I have not to cry.

  I know exactly what’s gotten into him. “It’s fine. I’m going to go take a nap, though. It’s been a long day.”

  “Of course,” she says, but I can see the sadness in her eyes for their children not being happy for them.

  “You deserve love, mom. If Mr. Michaels brings you that, then that’s all that matters.”

  The little shine to her eyes returns, and she embraces me in another hug. “Thank you.”

  I pull away, tuck a piece of my long, brown hair behind my ear, and meander up the steps. I sigh, dragging my feet as I get closer and closer to the upstairs lobby. There are a million rooms in this house, let’s just hope I pick one far away from Rowan. I can’t wait until Christmas break is over. This is all too much.

  I drag my bag behind me, the roll of the wheels echoing in the hall. Gold chandeliers hang above me, the crystal dangling from the arms glittering along the walls. Old family photos decorate the wall with expensive wooden frames. I’m even in some of them.

  I do my best not to stop and look at them. I’ve seen them a hundred times, but this time is different. This time, Rowan and I aren’t friends anymore, and the only thing waiting in those pictures is pain.

  I reach for the silver door handle and twist, opening the heavy wooden door wide to expose a gorgeous room with a canopy bed. There is a Victorian-style chaise lounge in the corner and another chandelier hanging in the middle. To the left is a huge bathroom with a soaking tub and walk-in closet, but to my right is another door. It’s ominous and white. It doesn’t look like it belongs.

  I drop my bag to the floor and reach for the handle, only to find it locked. Damn, I really want to know what’s behind there. I give the mysterious door my back and step forward, when a murmur of voices has me peering over the curve of my shoulder again. The Nosey Nancy that I am, I press my ear against the door and listen.

  “What was the deal with that?”

  Oh, that’s Gray’s voice.

  A deeper voice that can only be Rowan’s follows next, “It’s a long story.”

  “I have all the time in the world. Who was Everly? She’s hot,” Gray says.

  “I don’t want to talk about her. Our friendship ended badly. That’s all you need to know,” Rowan says to him.

  My heart breaks a little more, and a tear finally falls down my cheek. I raise my hand to the door, holding it there, wishing it was his chest under my palm instead.

  “So, I can ask her out? You won’t care?” Gray asks.

  I wait, holding my breath to see what Rowan will say.

  “I really don’t care what you do, Gray. She isn’t my business.”

  The way he says it makes me stumble backward until the back of my knees hit the bed, and I collapse onto my back. I cover my face with my hands and sob silently. My shoulders shake, and my heart explodes into a million broken pieces. I flop over onto my side and grab the pillow to muffle my wails.

  I don’t want to give my location away. Not that it matters. He doesn’t care. I always knew he hated me, but a part of me had hope that he would forgive me. It is stupid; I know that. What I did to him doesn’t deserve forgiveness, but how he talks about me… there’s so much venom in his tone. And it hurts so damn bad.

  “What do you mean you don’t care?” Gray asks as they walk down the hall.

  The tears don’t stop falling, but I must be a glutton for punishment because I listen to see what Rowan will say back. This is why I really hate that this house echoes.

  “Ask her out. I don’t care but know she doesn’t really care about you if she says yes. You can’t trust her, okay? She’s not a good person. I wouldn’t waste my time if I were you.”

  Don’t waste his time? Okay, I deserved that, but it doesn’t make it hurt less. Am I unstable? Is it still supposed to hurt after two years? It’s the guilt that won’t allow me to move on, but Rowan won’t let me speak to him, not that I deserve it. I was a coward two years ago, and maybe I still am, but now all I feel is fear, rather than uncertainty. I don’t know Rowan Michaels anymore. Does he really think that of me? That I’m
not a good person?

  I know it’s my fault, but I didn’t think I deserved that. I can’t stop my thoughts from spiralling. I abandoned him, and now all I see in his eyes is rage. Deep in my heart, I know he would never lift a hand to me, and that the only way he would hurt me is with his tongue. Like he already has.

  Gray and Rowan’s voices disappear down the hall, and I sit up, wiping my tears away. No, fuck this. I’m not going to be this girl, even though I really want to be, and be hated because of a mistake I made two years ago. I’m not that woman anymore. I wouldn’t ever do that to anyone anymore.

  So, I do what any girl does to make a man jealous. They make sure their looks can kill, and that starts with shaving everything. I run to the bathroom and wash my face, shave my legs—twice—and put on my makeup. I never was the kind of woman to wear a lot of it, so just some mascara, gloss, blush, and a bit of brow gel to keep these caterpillars in place.

  Will he look at me? Probably not. And I have to remember that, but there are bars in Spokane. And it is time to put the past behind me and live for me now. I’ll apologize to Rowan, maybe. I don’t know if it’s worth it, considering it won’t change anything and he doesn’t think I’m worth it, so why waste any more time?

  I need to move on. Rowan has my heart, but he doesn’t want it, and I need to do what I can to get it back. Maybe, one day, I can find the strength to give it to someone else again.

  I slip on a pair of leggings, cute brown boots that pull up to my thigh that have a very small heel, and a tight dark blue sweater dress. I always loved a deep blue because it brings the honey brown tones out in my hair even more.

  Flipping my hair over my shoulder, I grab my purse and strut out the bedroom door and down the steps. Raised voices echo through the lobby, and as curious as I am, I head straight to the front door.

  “Everly, wait!” I hear from behind me. I tense up for just a moment, but then realize it’s not Rowan’s voice.

  I turn to see Gray, his big blue eyes pleading.

  “You can’t leave me here!” Gray reaches for my arm.

  “I don’t even know you,” I say, trying to rip my arm free of his soft hold.

  “I know. I’m okay with that, but I need out of these stone walls. Please.”

  Right as I’m about to open my mouth, Rowan comes storming out of the living room and stops in his tracks when he sees me and Gray. His eyes go from my face, to Gray’s hand on my arm, and back to my face. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Out,” I attempt, with a shrug of my shoulder.

  “With Gray?” he asks, and the familiar deep rumble in his voice reverberates through the air.

  “No. Unless he really wants to.” Be nice, Everly. Be nice. Don’t say anything stupid.

  “You think you can put on a pretty dress and I’d forget anything ever happened between us?”

  I scoff and rip my arm free from Gray, “You’re going to find this hard to believe, Rowan, but the world doesn’t revolve around you. My world doesn’t revolve around you. Not anymore.” I open the door, turn on my heel, and walk toward the car. Snow has started to fall. It’s light, barely there, but it feels good.

  And it’s Rowan’s favorite season. I hate that I know that.

  “You made sure of that, didn’t you?” he shouts after me.

  I don’t say a word as I get into my car and spin out on the driveway until my tires gain traction. I don’t know where the hell I’m going. I don’t know what I’m doing, but what I do know is, I need to get away from Rowan Michaels as quick as possible.

  School break can’t end soon enough.

  Chapter Three

  Rowan

  I lean against the frame of my bedroom window and watch Everly burn rubber as she spins out of the end of the driveway. My fists clench together when I think about her. A lot of anger, a lot of regret, and so much pain, I can feel myself drowning in it. It’s like the biggest tease, fighting for a breath because the surface is right above me. It’s there, holding all the air I need, but my legs are weighted down, and I’m swallowing water with every attempt to get to the surface.

  No matter how hard I fight, I can’t reach it. And I just keep drinking it in—keep drinking her in.

  And don’t get me started on seeing my best friend’s hand on her. It made me see red. And that’s another thing that bothers me. It shouldn’t make me see red. I shouldn’t fucking care who touches her, but I do. The thought of anyone else pleasing her the way I did, making her moan the way I did, the way her nails scratched down my back…

  My own nails drag against the wall. The sound isn’t enough to unclench my jaw or stop the drywall from drifting into a cloud of smoke and leaving indentations in the wake of my madness.

  Once her taillights are out of view, I punch a hole in the wall. I pull my hand back, wincing in pain, to see blood decorating my knuckles.

  “You want to tell me why you’re being such an asshole?” Gray interrupts from behind me.

  “Not really.”

  “Too fucking bad. You brought me here, and I’ve never wanted to leave somewhere so much in my life. You’re going to sit down and tell me what is going on. Everyone seems so nice and that Everly chick is hot! If this is about her being your stepsister now, who cares, you aren’t blood related.”

  “Don’t talk about her,” I growl with warning and look at the window, hoping to see her headlights coming down the driveway again, but I know it’s useless. She isn’t coming back for a while. I drop to the bed and sigh, flexing my hand to make sure nothing is broken.

  “Ah, so it is her.” The bed dips next to me as he sits, and a large exhale leaves my lips.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “Can you let me in? Because this living situation is awkward as fuck.”

  I laugh before pinching the bridge of my nose. I really don’t want to talk about this, but she is affecting my mood, so it’s only fair. Gray knows nothing about Everly. I’ve never mentioned her. I never wanted to talk about it because she hurt me so bad.

  “Yeah, man.” I lay my hands on my thighs and push myself off the bed, going to my suitcase where I’d tossed her picture like it didn’t mean anything.

  I say the feelings are up to debate, but that picture means everything. I unzip the main section of my bag, take the picture out, and give a small smile to the people in the photo.

  “This was us four years ago,” I hand over the precious memory that money could never buy and sit down again as I wait to see his reaction.

  “This is you?” He rubs the glass to get more of the dust off. “Oh my god, it’s baby Rowan,” he jokes, but it dulls down to a soft, more serious chuckle. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so happy, man. On a real note, I’ve never seen you look at any other girl like that.”

  “Because there has never been any other girl like her, Gray. I’ve known her since I was five. Hell, I snuck into her bedroom window almost every night just to watch TV. I didn’t know how in love with her I was until I was seventeen.”

  He whistles and hands the picture back to me. “So what happened?”

  I run my fingers through my hair and tug on the strands a bit as my mind takes me back to the night of the bonfire. “What didn’t happen?” I say in a low breath as it escapes my chest. “I never wanted to tell her how I felt, but it was getting harder and harder to be around her. We acted like a couple anyway, always sitting next to each other, spending all of our time together, holding hands, my arm around her. It was just natural, being with her. Fuck, I don’t know man.”

  “Yeah, you do.”

  “Why aren’t you giving me shit for this? I figured you’d jump all over me for being all mushy.”

  He looks off into the distance and squints his eyes. “I know I can be a jokester, but I know when to be serious, and this issue between you guys is serious.”

  I stare at him for a minute, debating whether I should divulge my secret. Fuck it; maybe I’ll feel better when I let the cat out of the bag.
“We gave in. It was the night before we left. I went to Berkeley; she went to NYU. They were our dream schools.”

  “So, what happened? Stop pausing and get on with it,” he nudges my side.

  “We had sex. It was both of our first times. I had dated other people and fooled around, but she had never kissed a guy. She admitted she wanted all her firsts with me. Sounds cheesy, but it was the best night of my life. I felt like we finally found our way to each other, and we could finally be in love instead of exhausting ourselves being friends.”

  I take the frame from him and stare at the photo of us. “I decided then I wasn’t going to go to Berkeley. I had made up my mind lying next to her in the cab of my truck. I was going to talk to her when we woke up that morning, but I woke up, and she was just gone. She left, and she stopped talking to me. Completely ghosted me. I tried reaching out. I texted and called her just about every day, but she never responded. I stopped trying after six months. I don’t know what happened. And here we are. She hurt me, bad. She betrayed my trust. Everly has been the only woman I have ever loved, and probably will ever love.”

  “Then why hold on to all this anger? Why not try and fix it?”

  “Because she broke it. It’s up to her to fix it.”

  “Sounds like a lot of pride and stubbornness coming off you, man. I wish I could help, but I’ve never loved anyone like that. I envy you for having that experience. I can’t imagine that, though, loving someone your entire life just to give up on it after one bump in the road.”

  “It wasn’t a bump. I tried talking to her. She wouldn’t talk to me, Gray.”

  “Honestly, I think both of you are being kind of irrational about it. I think this will all pass. You’ll realize it. We are still young. I hope when you realize it or when she does, it isn’t too late. It’s just a shame. Thirteen years of love and friendship, ruined.”