Ryder Lockhart and his lovely wife Nicole have a son, two dogs, and a very happy ever after.
It’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
I also have a date with my wife tonight, so after the little man and I head inside and I mix up a pasta dish for my wife, I answer the door. Her friends are here, since both Penny and Delaney said they’d babysit tonight.
Penny scoops my son into her arms and coos at him. She loves kids and Delaney does, too. Nicole and I have a running bet on who will be the first among her friends to follow in her footsteps. I say Penny, but Nicole says Delaney.
“You are the cutest little guy in the entire universe,” Penny says, then plants a huge kiss on his forehead.
Robert squeals with laughter. “Doggie!”
Penny cracks up. Ruby races over to greet Penny, and my son mixes in another word. “Ruby!”
Delaney leans in to kiss him, too. “Are you ready to go shopping with your aunts?”
I groan. “You’re taking him shopping?”
“We need to train him early to be a good boy when the ladies shop,” Penny says. “Besides, Delaney needs shoes.”
“It’s true,” Delaney says with a straight face. “I do need shoes.”
After they leave, I take my wife for a round of mini golf, since we still try to find interesting dates. After she wins, she suggests we grab a drink at the bar at Grand Central.
But she doesn’t order champagne. She orders lemonade. After she finishes it, I learn why. She takes me to the Whispering Arch, and when she’s on the other side, I hear some of my favorite words from her.
“I’m pregnant.”
And I’m the happiest man on the face of the earth.
Nine months later, we have a girl, and we name her Rosemary.
She is an absolute angel.
THE END
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Acknowledgments
I’m grateful to Lauren McKellar for all she sees. I owe so much to my early readers — Jen, Dena and Kim. You ladies are my inside gals and I’m so lucky to have you. I’m not letting you three go! Karen, Tiffany, Janice, Virginia and Marion provided eagle eyes, and I appreciate them immensely. Nelle O’Brien serves as my New York City eyes and ears. Katie Ashley checked the tadpole details! Huge thanks to Helen Williams for the amazingly stunning cover. This woman knows hot men and what to do with them. I am always grateful for KP Simmon for strategy, insight, guidance and friendship. Thank you to Kelley, Keyanna and Candi for everything every day. I am delighted to have the daily support of writer friends like Laurelin Paige, Kristy Bromberg, CD Reiss, Marie Force, and Lili Valente. Big love to my husband, children and four-legged family members.
Come As You Are
For Candi—for everything, and for the stories.
1
Flynn
I’m used to whispers.
Little voices rustling around me. Asking, wondering.
That guy looks familiar.
Is he . . .?
Is that . . .?
Yes, I am that guy.
Sometimes they figure it out. Sometimes they don’t. If they do, a pitch comes next.
Today, the locker room attendant at my gym mutters under his breath—I think that’s . . .—then studies me like a philosopher studies the meaning of existence.
Good thing I’m mostly dressed.
As the short, stocky guy collects towels from the floor and tosses them into a hamper, he stares at me then pretends not to. He looks down then glances up again, and I swear I can see the pieces sliding into place as I slip the final button through its hole in my white dress shirt.
No, he’s not about to hit on me. He’s about to hit me up.
I sling my messenger bag across my chest, snick the locker closed, and run a hand through my still-damp hair. Grabbing my towel from the bench, I carry it over to him and toss it in the hamper. Lifting my chin, I nod at the dude and thank him for all he does in keeping the locker room at this high-end racquetball club sparkling clean.
He tilts his head, wags a finger, and turns his whispers into words. “Excuse me, but aren’t you Flynn Parker?”
Called it.
Bonus points that he identified me as me, and not as my identical twin. This guy has a good radar.
“Yes, I am.”
A smile lights his face, and he practically vibrates with excitement. “I’m Dale, and I need to tell you about an app I developed. I think you’d dig it.”
If I had a beer for the number of pitches my ears have heard . . . well, I’d be able to stock all the pubs in Manhattan forever. I’d be a beer supplier, rather than a high-tech CEO.
“Give me your best thirty-second pitch,” I say, as I fix on a smile. Here’s the thing—in my field, you never know when you’re going to be pitched something worth listening to. Hell, if the guy has an app that warms your slippers before you come home, I might be interested.
Or maybe I’d just throw on a pair of socks instead.
Dale rubs his hands together. “Get this. It’s called How’m I Doing? And,” he says, shaking his head like his app is blowing his own mind, “it rates your sexual performance.”
I blink. Adjust my eyeglasses. Did he really just say that? “Excuse me?”
“You turn it on when you get it on, and based on your speed and your rate of thrust and the noises of your partner, it scores you. Like, are you a five? Are you an eight? Are you a—wait for it—a ten?”
Shockingly, I’m familiar with how a scale of one to ten works. “Does it do . . . anything else?”
Dale furrows his brow. “Besides give you a grade on how well you take care of business? What else should it do? That’s hella cool. Imagine all the ways it could integrate with online dating sites.”
Imagine all the ways no one would ever want to, one, use it, and two, learn the answers. Plus, if you need to use it, I’m guessing your score is on the low end.
But my role isn’t to fund him. It’s to give some feedback on the fly. Considering how much I enjoy a clean locker room that doesn’t smell like the inside of a sock, the least I can do is provide a useful tip. The number of great ideas that have launched from the detritus of bad ones is enough for me to say to him, “Keep working on it, Dale. Keep refining it. And don’t be afraid to pivot, either, and take it in another direction.”
Preferably an entirely new one.
He scratches his head. “A new direction. Let me think about that. Maybe it can make recommendations. Positions to try. Tips on speed and such.”
Yeah, I’m going to leave him with that thought knocking around his skull. “Good luck, Dale.”
“Thanks, Flynn.”
I leave and walk the ten blocks to my office, saying hello to Claude the doorman once I’m in the lobby.
The mustached man with the blue cap and matching tie greets me. “Good morning, Mr. Parker. Did I ever tell you about my cousin Charlie, the amazing miniature golfer?”
“I don’t believe you did,” I say, wondering if this is where Claude shares a family yarn about the time his cousin landed a hole-in-one in that impossible windmill obstacle. If so, I’d like to know how to pull off that shot.
“He started a GoFundMe campaign so he can become a pro,” he says. “If you can contribute to his fundraising campaign, we can get him some new five irons, an elite coach, and some state-of-the-art golf balls. Would you consider it, Mr. Parker?”
If he’d said his ten-year-old niece’s softball team wanted a sponsor to pay for a field, or that his nephew’s middle school science class desperately needed to finance a trip to the planetarium, I’d say yes in a heartbeat. I’m not opposed to sharing my wealth.
I am, however, adamantly against bankrolling vanity projects. “While I wish your cousin the best of luck, I prefer to support non-profits that have specific charitable goals rather than individual goals.”
Claude chuckles. “If you saw my cousin you’d see he’s
something of a charity case.” From his post behind the black marble counter, he slaps his thigh and guffaws at his own joke. “Thanks for listening, though.”
I give him a tip of the proverbial hat and head into the elevator. As the doors start to close, I breathe a sigh of relief. At last, I’m free from this morning’s pitch-a-thon.
“Hold the door.”
An arm thrusts forward, sending the doors swishing open again. A frazzled man in a rumpled suit wheels a suitcase behind him, the telltale sign of a salesman. Surely he has a great set of steak knives that also make julienned fries to sell me.
The guy looks me over and furrows his brow as the elevator chugs upward. “Hey, you look familiar. Are you who I think you are?”
“Han Solo, circa 1977?”
He snaps his meaty fingers. “I got it! You’re the guy in the personal injury ads that run on the local cable access channel.”
Thank fuck.
I laugh, shaking my head. “No, but I get that all the time. Great guess.”
I make my getaway on the next floor, escaping safely into the confines of my office for the morning, and I don’t emerge until afternoon rolls around and it’s time to hightail it to a hotel in midtown for a technology conference. When I get there, I head to the backstage of the ballroom for my keynote address on leadership.
A cute redhead dressed in black rushes over to me. “Hi, Flynn. Let me make sure your handy-dandy mic is on,” she says, fiddling with the small clip-on device that’ll send my voice slinging across the room. Up close, I can see she has a spray of freckles across her nose and a sparrow tattoo on her neck. “Once I give the signal, don’t say anything inappropriate.”
I mime zipping my lips.
“Also, we’re tight on time so there won’t be any Q and A,” she says, and I could kiss her. No Q and A means no one can ask me about ShopForAnything and how the great white shark appeared in my calm tropical business waters a few weeks ago, jaws wide open, determined to eat my company for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a midnight snack. It’s the press’s question du jour, fascinating to every member of the business media.
“Too bad,” I say, like I’m bummed. Hey, maybe I can pass for an actor.
She raises her index finger and nods. “Now, your mic is hot,” she whispers.
And I don’t whisper back, So are you, even though she is, because, hello, that’s rude. Hitting on a cute chick at a conference is, one, uncool, two, douchey, and three, not my style. Besides, striking up conversations with women who know who I am is about as satisfying as watching a parade on a cold day.
Come to think of it, I don’t care for parades in warm weather either.
But the backstage woman is great, so I flash her a smile, and mouth thanks as the emcee introduces me.
“And now, it is with great pleasure and pride that I welcome Flynn Parker for our closing keynote address. His business reputation is unparalleled, having founded one of the most successful tech start-ups of all time and sold it for multimillions, earning him a reputation as a true internet superstar and visionary. He’s now become a key player in an exciting new technology sector. Please join me in welcoming him to the stage.”
Because I’ve given more keynotes than I can count, I stride onto the stage without breaking a sweat, and thirty minutes later, the audience claps and cheers.
“How’d I do?” I ask the girl with the sparrow tattoo once I’m offstage.
She shushes me and reaches for the mic. “You were still mic’d.”
I shrug. “Could have been worse. I could have said, ‘Free pizza tomorrow at the lobby of my office.’”
She wags a finger at me, whispering, “There’s no more appealing combination of words in the English language than ‘free’ and ‘pizza.’” She peers around the front of the stage. “Good luck making it through the crowd. Looks like they’re already lined up waiting for you to exit. Want an escort?”
I wave off the offer. “Nah, I’m good.”
If I stopped listening to ideas, I’d lose my edge. Edge is everything in business. It separates the visionaries from the has-beens. It’ll separate me from ShopForAnything if I play my cards right. That’s why I listen to every one of the pitches volleyed my way.
Once the crowd thins, I head out of the ballroom, making my way through the hotel’s lower floor.
“Hi, Flynn.” The bold, outgoing voice sounds like it belongs to a TV anchor, or maybe a politician.
I turn to see a brunette in a navy pantsuit walking by my side. Her dark hair is slicked back in a clip, and I’m going to bet my money on local TV reporter.
“I’m Nova Wilkins. I’m in market research,” she says, and I lose the bet with myself. “I have to say your speech was very inspiring, especially your top five keys to a successful partnership. I’ve been a huge fan of yours for such a long time.”
Fan?
Even though I’ve started a successful company and sold it for bank, I do know that I’m not shortstop for the New York Yankees or headlining a movie. I would never say I have fans, but I’m impressed Nova homed in on one of my “Top Five” lists. “Pleased to meet you, Nova. Glad to hear you liked that part of the speech. Have a favorite from among those?”
Her lashes flutter, and she brings a hand to her breasts as if she’s trying to use a time-honored trick to render me helpless, akin to Wonder Woman’s lasso of truth. Maybe she’s in superhero market research.
“I do,” Nova continues in her perfectly modulated tone. “I loved what you said about how both partners need to come to the table with clarity on what they each bring to a deal. With that in mind, I was hoping you had a second to listen to a pitch of mine?”
I stop walking and give her my full attention. “What have you got?”
“I’d like to propose I become your wife.”
I snap my head back. Must have heard her wrong. “Excuse me?”
She nods, her expression business-like. “I have my top five reasons why I’m not an ordinary trophy wife. First, I have a master’s degree; second, I’m studying Japanese, which was your minor in college. Third, I’m a judo master. And the fourth reason why I should become your wife—we have similar taste. I also like watching The Mindy Project and Silicon Valley, and I know those are your favorite shows,” she says, and damn, she does her research. “And the fifth reason—I’m a fine cook, especially when it comes to Italian, and that’s your favorite cuisine.”
“It is.” She’s really researched me, as if I’d posted a request for a proposal online.
“I do hope you’ll consider my application to become your wife, Flynn.” She says it all with a straight face as if a clear and concise proposal is what it takes to get down the aisle.
The floor is mine, though, and I give her an equally clear and concise response. “While I’m immensely impressed with your research and attention to detail, especially the very clever way of presenting it as a top five list, I’m not in the market for a wife.”
She knits her brow, a flash of worry in her eyes as I pick up the pace again, walking toward the lobby. “I understand. Though, I hope you’ll reconsider because I have many other skills you might find useful. Shall I share my top five things I’m willing to do to please you in the bedroom?”
And that is one hell of a 180-degree turn in tactics.
Before I can answer with an even firmer no, a boxy security guard stalks over, drops a hand to Nova’s shoulder, and barks at her, “I told you, you’re not welcome here. I don’t know how you slipped in, but I’m going to escort you out once more. You must actually pay to attend the conference.”
She wails, changing her approach yet again. “Flynn, don’t let them take me away. I want to marry you. I’ll let you spank me. I’ll let you bite me. Pull my hair. Call me names. You can dress me up like a doll. See? That’s five things. Just marry me. I’ll give you all the free pizza you want.”
Oops. Guess that mic was still hot.
I give her a goodbye wave as I deadpan, “That’s o
kay. I can afford pizza.”
“I’ll be in the lobby at your office to propose to you again. I love you madly. I have ever since you were on the cover of Business Insight’s ‘Hottest Tech Nerds Under Thirty’ edition.”
“That was a good photo,” I say drily, thinking of the shot from two years ago when I was twenty-seven. “So that’s understandable.”
The security guard yanks the woman’s hands behind her back. “Time to go, miss. No pizza where you’re going.” He turns to me. “I’m so sorry about this, Mr. Parker.”
“Hey, no worries. It’s all in a day.”
As he drags her away, she twists around to face me and shouts, “Pepperoni. You can eat pepperoni off my stomach.”
“Tempting, but I’ve never cared for pepperoni.” I give the latest gold digger a “good riddance” wave. Props to her—she used a different angle before throwing herself at me.
Once I exit the hotel on Sixth Avenue, I pop in some earbuds. Time to use the shield of the modern New Yorker, since it’s clearly another day, another marriage proposal.
Maybe I sound calloused. Maybe I am.
I have nothing against marriage, nothing against women, and nothing against love. In fact, I wouldn’t mind settling down one day. But I don’t know how I’ll ever find the right one. As soon as someone knows who I am, all I am is a bank account.
Yeah, yeah, woe is me. Grab the violin and sing a lament. I deserve zero sympathy for my mega first-world problem. Poor little rich boy can’t find love.
I don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for me. I’m one of the luckiest bastards around, but being ridiculously successful sure does make dating hard. I honestly can’t remember the last time a woman was interested in me—just me, and not my wallet.
Today’s impromptu proposal might be the epitome of my biggest dating challenge because I wasn’t just hit on. I wasn’t merely pitched. I was dug.
Gold dug.
And I’m tired of it.
The One Love Collection Page 58
