by Roxy Wynn
She knew the daddy thing was the one chink in my armor because no matter how hard I tried, I could never be that for my kid.
But I did have an ace up my sleeve.
I glared at Aimee and tried to mimic her Cheshire Cat smile. “You see, Honey, Bailey is getting a daddy. In fact, I recently got engaged.” I held my left hand up in her face to show the ring.
The morning after the engagement, Calloway had me sign the contract, making everything legal… sort of. I had the ring on my nightstand at home, but she told me to wear it every day. The more visibility the better. At the time I rolled my eyes, but now I was glad I wore it.
Aimee’s mouth dropped and Eli looked from June to me in shock.
“That ring is huge!” Aimee said, looking down at the small chip of cubic zirconia on her own hand. “She wasn’t wearing that the other day.”
I looked at June. “Obviously we aren’t going to come to an agreement today. So if we are done here, I need to go to my wedding planner’s office, so we can discuss my vision of a beautiful wedding.”
She nodded her head and shuffled the paperwork into a tidy pile. “We’ll be contacting you shortly with your court date.”
Even though I felt defeated and enraged, I looked at Aimee, and waved with my left hand, making sure the large diamond glittered.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go meet the wedding planner, and then move all of my shit in with the complete stranger I’m about to marry.
Chapter Ten
Alfie
“I’m really sorry she’s late,” I said to a very beautiful and very impatient woman tasked with planning our wedding.
“I told her when the appointment was,” I added, tapping my fingers on her desk. “I’m sorry she’s not here yet.”
Kimberly, our wedding planner, continued typing like I hadn’t spoken to her.
“Maybe you could try to call her…”
“Or maybe you could Mr. Lane,” she said, cutting me off. “As you can see, I’m extremely busy.”
Weren’t wedding planners supposed to be happy?
I shrugged my shoulders. “Sorry, I don’t have a phone. If I’m not breaking it, or dropping it in the toilet, then I’m leaving it somewhere. There was this one time back home…”
Behind me, the door opened and Sarah came in, derailing my train of thought.
“Oh, there she is! There’s my ball and chain,” I said laughing.
Sarah sort of gave me a half smirk, before clenching her jaw and staring at Kimberly. “Sorry, I’m late. I got caught up a little longer than I wanted with the mediator. Your secretary told me to just come in.”
“Yes,” Kimberly said. “Take a seat.”
The office was quite a bit smaller than Oliver’s but very feminine and modern. The white walls were tastefully covered with pictures of weddings and couples in love. Instead of separate chairs, there was one off-white loveseat in the middle of the room that Sarah and I had to share.
I searched for a picture of that rascal, Cupid, but alas she seemed to be missing that one. Everything about the room screamed romance, except for the grumpy woman making the plans.
“So, how does this work?” Sarah asked. “Do you need to know our favorite colors and stuff like that?” She looked at me again and gave me a half-hearted smile before turning her attention to the stern woman behind the desk.
Kimberly took her glasses off and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “No. I am an associate of Mrs. Calloway, and as such I will be planning a wedding on your behalf in addition to all of the normal weddings I plan on a daily basis. My job is to throw a wedding that looks legitimate. Your job is to show up and say I do.”
As she ran through the protocol, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from my bride to be. We had been engaged for exactly three and a half days, and in that time I hadn’t been able to get her out of my mind. Every time I closed my eyes, there she was.
Next to me in bed in the morning…
In the mirror next to me when I brushed my teeth…
Sitting across from me in the studio in the new house…
I could look at her every day for the rest of my life and not get sick of her. And now here she was for real, looking like an absolute angel in her black shirt, and grey sleeveless blouse. If it weren’t for the sky-high heels, she could fit right in a professional office.
I had to admit that in most of my fantasies, she was naked, but the woman really did look good in everything. I stared down to her shapely legs tucked away under her a line skirt and thought about running my hand down the curve of her beautiful leg.
“… is that date alright for you?”
Suddenly everything was quiet and both women were staring at me. I couldn’t think straight with all the blood that was supposed to be in my brain now in my cock. “I’m sorry?”
“Does next Tuesday work for you?” Kimberly asked. She tapped her pen against her appointment book waiting for my answer.
“Tuesday…. for what?”
“The fitting,” Sarah said.
I laughed, trying to ease the tension. “Yes. Tuesday is perfect to fit me for the thing you were discussing.”
Sarah’s eyebrows creased, and she opened her mouth to say something, but decided against it, and closed it again.
Pay attention, you wanker.
“Apologies,” I said. “You know, it’s wedding things.” I waved my hand around to the framed photos decorating the office. “Hardly my area of expertise. Now this one here,” I tapped Sarah on the shoulder. “She’s the bride. She’s the one who should be picking things out and whatnot. After all, the day belongs to her, doesn’t it?”
The women stared at me confused.
“Mr. Lane, this is a marriage of convenience. Now is hardly the time to get sentimental. We are here today to plan dates and times for the things I will need your input on. Like clothes fittings and the engagement party. The rest of it is up to me. I will plan the day. All I need from the two of you is to show up when I say so. Is that clear?”
Sarah hadn’t looked up from her lap while Kimberly scolded me, I wondered if this wedding planner had been a mistake. Oliver set up the appointment, so I came, but maybe it would have been better if Sarah and I had done it ourselves. After all, what little girl dreams of a wedding to a stranger that’s planned by someone else entirely?
“That’s fine,” Sarah said, slumping her shoulders and staring at her hands.
Something was wrong, and I wanted to make it better. This morning had been her custody appointment, and while I didn’t want to ask her about it in front of Kimberly, I did want to see her smile again. A real smile, not the half curved lip thing she’d been doing since the moment she walked in the door.
Kimberly turned her attention to me and crossed her arms over her chest, giving me a smug look. I’m an easy-going guy, but even I have my limits. I don’t even know Sarah, but I felt the need to protect her.
“No, it’s not fine,” I said, standing up from the loveseat and placing my hands on my hips. “It’s not fine at all, Kimberly.”
Sarah’s mouth fell open in shock.
“Mr. Lane…”
“Maybe my brushing bride would like to have a little input on her big day!” I walked around the room and looked at the pictures of happy couples on the walls. “Look at these two happy bastards,” I said pointing to a black and white photo near the door. “You think that little girl didn’t dream of her perfect wedding?”
Oliver was used to me causing a ruckus to be funny, Sarah was not. When we made eye contact, I winked at her.
I spun back to Kimberly. “And furthermore, who exactly is paying you?”
“Well… Mrs. Calloway pays…” She was blushing now, embarrassed by her behavior, but I continued.
“And who pays her?” I shouted.
Realizing I had her beat, Kimberly recoiled, her face red. While she took a moment to collect herself, I returned to my seat at Sarah’s side, patting her hand.
“My
apologies,” she said, her voice cracking. “I usually just set everything up how I think is best, but perhaps that was a little presumptuous. How can I cater this wedding more to your individual tastes?”
Without hesitation, I continued my ruse. “Clowns.”
Taken aback, the wedding planner glanced from Sarah to me, and then back again. “Clowns?”
Though she was still staring down at her lap, Sarah was beginning to crack. From the slight tremble of her body to the way she bit the inside of her cheek, it was obvious she was holding in laughter.
Excellent.
“Yes, Kimberly. Clowns,” I said, holding her suspicious gaze. “Sarah loves clowns.”
“I see. Well, I can… make a note and perhaps…”
“And sacrificial goats,” I added. “I will not walk down that aisle unless we are also slaughtering a goat. We need the whole set up, a goat, plastic sheets to protect our families from blood splatters…”
Sarah couldn’t hold it anymore. All that bottled up emotion came bursting out of her tiny body in violent, unapologetic laughter. The sound was music to my ears.
While Sarah laughed so hard, tears streamed down her face, I struggled to keep my composure. “It’s really the only way to cement our union as man and wife.”
Kimberly narrowed her eyes at me and slammed her notebook shut, leveling me with a murderous stare.
We did our best to stop laughing, like a couple of naughty school children.
“On Tuesday I expect you to both be at McClure’s for your fittings. He is not aware of your situation, so I expect the two of you will act accordingly in his presence,” Kimberly said, her voice dripping with anger.
When I glanced back at Sarah, the tips of her eyelashes were still wet from her tears of laughter, and her cheeks flushed pink.
I wanted to kiss her.
Instead, I took her hand in mine and laced our fingers together. The feel of her skin, warm and soft in my hand, made a wave of pleasure roll over my body.
I nodded at Kimberly. “We’ll be there.”
Chapter Eleven
Sarah
“I think I peed a little,” I said, stopping to catch my breath in the hall while wiping the tears from my face. I didn’t even know Alfie’s off the wall joke about ritual goat slaughter was what I needed until the words poured out of his mouth in his sexy British accent.
For a split-second, when he stood up and yelled about me having input on the wedding, I thought he was genuinely upset. I worried that he got the wrong idea about what we were doing here. But then he started going on about clowns and I realized he was joking.
Or at least I hoped he was joking.
After leaving mediation, I convinced myself I was the world’s worst mom for keeping Eli and Bailey apart. Aimee’s words stuck with me. My heart said I was doing everything right, but my brain was more pragmatic.
By the time I got to the wedding planner’s office, I had come to the conclusion my temper was the root of all my problems. If I had worked with Eli and Aimee instead of telling them to fuck off, none of this would have happened.
While the wedding planner from hell went on and on about the wedding that I, the bride, could have no input on, I resigned myself to the fact that my life wasn’t in my control at all. I had failed at everything, and this whole marriage sham was a divine joke.
And then an amazing thing happened, Alfie opened his mouth and said the most bizarre thing a grown man has ever said in an uptight wedding planner’s office.
“You think you peed?” He asked, clutching his side and gasping for air. “I know I peed.”
I scrunched up my face. “Gross. And I thought Bailey was bad. Now I’ll have to deal with two men in my life who piss themselves.”
The image was too much to take in and I clutched my sides in laughter again. When the secretary gave us the stink eye, I locked arms with Alfie and led us outside into the humid summer day. The moment the heat hit him, he crumpled.
“Bloody hell! It’s hot out,” he said, fanning himself.
“No shit, Sherlock. We’re in Louisiana in July.” Having been born and raised in Mont Clare, I was used to the heat. But to a man like Alfie, used to cold, rainy climates, it must be hell.
“Yeah, well it’s too bloody… sticky for me here. I need to go home and cool down; take a cold shower or something.”
His T-shirt clung to his body from the heat and I had to tear my eyes away. Now wasn’t the time to develop feelings or let lust take over. After the way he held my hand in the office, I had the warm and fuzzies already. My judgement alone over the past two weeks was questionable, drooling over his body would only make things a thousand times worse.
“Good idea,” I said, turning my attention back to the sidewalk.
Alfie stopped and placed his hands on his hips. “Listen, I was thinking. You and your boy should come over tonight to see the house. After all, it is yours technically. And you know, you should move in sooner than later. Ollie’s been nagging me to make everything official.”
I hated to admit it, but Alfie was right. I tried to put off moving in for as long as I could for Bailey’s sake, but now that I had a contract hanging over my head, it was time to make the move. The kid had already moved once this month, moving again felt like torture.
My laughter now gone, I took a deep breath. “You’re right. The two of you do need to meet.”
He tilted his head to the side, studying me. “You think he’ll like me?”
Most people only thought about their own feelings when it came to kids, so hearing his concern about Bailey liking him threw me off. “Of course. He likes everyone. He’s a sweet kid.”
Alfie smiled and exhaled the breath he had been holding. The idea he might not be as confident on the inside as he tried to appear was endearing.
“He won’t understand a word you’re saying,” I added. “But he’ll like you.”
“Come over tonight for dinner?” He asked.
I nodded. “Okay. Yeah, we can do that.”
He clapped his hands. “Brilliant! And what do the two of you eat?” I wanted to believe he was joking, kind of like the clown wedding scenario, but the man was dead serious.
“We both like eating food, Alfie.”
He rolled his eyes and laughed. “You cheeky tart. What kind of food do you eat? Left to my own devices I’ll end up feeding you and your lad boxed wine and crisps. Americans like that sort of thing, right?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Of course. We also enjoy ketchup and eating lard straight from the tub. You know, American stuff.”
We were both laughing and joking around, but now it felt a little different. I’m not sure if I was still raw from this morning’s meeting or not, but Alfie was starting to grow on me.
“American cuisine sounds dodgy.”
“Oh, it is. But it’s much better than spotted dick… whatever that is.”
Alfie clutched at his chest again in mock surprise. “I’ll have you know, spotted dick is a delicacy.”
“I’m not judging your dick and its spots,” I laughed. “Honestly, I’m down for anything, but Bailey is going through a chicken nugget phase right now. On the rare occasion I can get him to eat vegetables, I have to really finesse the situation.”
“How so?” He asked.
“Well, he’s four, so sometimes I come up with creative names for food. Broccoli becomes ‘tiny trees’. Carrots are ‘x-ray vision sticks’, and peas are ‘pterodactyl poop’.”
“Pterodactyl poop?”
“He’s obsessed with dinosaurs right now,” I laughed. “We watched Jurassic Park and that was like, the most important moment of his life.”
Alfie crossed his arms and stared past me, deep in thought. He really was a strange man. I hoped him and Bailey would like each other, or the next twelve months were going to be brutal.
By the time I unlocked my door, Alfie still hadn’t budged. I craned my neck, scanning the horizon for what was so interesting, but all I saw was do
wntown Mont Clare.
“Earth to Alfie,” I said, waving my hand in his face.
He jumped. “Sorry, Love. I was just lost in my thoughts for a moment.”
“Weird, but okay. So we’ll be over later…”
“Right, yes. That would be lovely. I’ll see you then.”
As I drove away, I glanced in the rear view to see Alfie wandering down the road.
Okay, so maybe he’s not so bad after all.
“Dude, you have to wear pants. It’s non-negotiable.” I held up a pair of shorts covered in rocket ships hoping the cool design would pique his interest.
Bailey, was in what I like to call, the ‘Porky Pig’ stage of male development. It consisted of a shirt, underpants, and if I was lucky, shoes, but nothing else. On a four-year-old mini-me, it worked. But I had my doubts as to how well a grown man could pull the look off.
“I’m hot. I want to stay with Auntie Sissy,” he said, ignoring my pleas.
“I know, but mommy has a new friend she wants you to meet.” When he didn’t pull his head away from his T-Rex toy, I crouched down in the corner next to him. “Remember how you met Auntie Chrissy’s friend Jax?”
That got his attention. His face lit up.
“You love Uncle Jax, right?”
He nodded his head enthusiastically. “Can we play with Uncle Jax tonight?”
“Oh man, I wish we could, but Uncle Jax is busy tonight.”
Busy railing my BFF on their babymoon.
The thought sent shivers down my spine. The two of them had been going at it like rabbits recently, like they knew a small human around would close up shop for a while.
I stood up and held the pants for inspection. “You want the blue ones or the red ones?”
He scrunched his face up in disapproval of both my choices. “Blue.”
