Single Dad's Surprise (Wilder Brothers #1)

by Lisa Levine

  I walked into my office without even realizing that I had left the conversation, with Lucie still hanging in the midst of it. That tended to happen when I thought about Annika—I got distracted. I had just sat down at my desk to start some work and found myself wondering about how Poppy was doing at school and what Annika did during the day while she had time to herself, but my thoughts were quickly interrupted as a commotion began in the lobby. I heard Lucie trying to prevent someone from coming in until she had a chance to speak to me about it, but as usual, Maleah ignored her and came barging through my office door.

  “I thought you were on tour,” I said, unfazed by the obvious look of discontent on her face.

  Maleah always looked discontent.

  “It was postponed,” she sighed dramatically as she flopped down onto a chair on the opposite side of my desk.

  Behind her, in walked her loser boyfriend, Blake. I couldn’t stand the guy. She had only been dating him for a few months, but it seemed like way too long from day one. Blake was bad news. He was rumored to dabble in the illicit drug scene while he was trying to break into the rap music venue. He already had a pretty decent following, but he was the kind of guy who was going to burn through all of his money, fame, and health real quick. He also didn’t love Maleah. I had tried to warn her about him when she had first started dating him. I told her that he was just using her as a beautiful trophy, but she didn’t want to believe me or didn’t care. That was on her; she was an adult. The part that upset me the most was that he seemed to have zero patience for Poppy.

  Okay, I’ll bite…

  “Why was your concert tour postponed?” I asked as Blake walked in and sat down in the chair beside her.

  “Because she needed to come and cancel her contract with you first,” Blake answered for her before Maleah had a chance to speak.

  “I wasn’t talking to you, asshole,” I said. I looked back over at Maleah, ignoring the angry and offended look in his eyes.

  This guy was no threat to me. He looked like a wannabe child actor with his overly thin stature and his platinum-blond hair that always seemed dirty and disheveled. His blue eyes were bloodshot, which I was sure was a side effect of his being an addict. Maleah and I had made a deal that she didn’t bring Poppy around this loser, and as far as I knew, she had upheld her end of that agreement. Even she knew that this guy shouldn’t be allowed around kids.

  “Yeah, he’s right,” Maleah answered. “I want to break my contract with Soundz. Your company hasn’t been doing enough to bolster my career lately, and it shows. I need to get a new record label to represent me.”

  I sighed. We’d been over this before. It wasn’t the first time Maleah had gotten pissed off and tried to break our contract. She usually came to her senses before she actually tried to file anything legally, though. Honestly, it would be much easier on me just to let her break it, but I knew that without my company—and without me—watching out for her best interests in the industry, Maleah would be taken advantage of before she could realize what was happening. I was upholding our contract for her benefit only; I got nothing out of it except for a stress headache. Yet somehow, she always acted like she was doing me a favor.

  “You can’t break your contract with my company, Maleah,” I said. “It’s legally binding and air-tight.”

  “Why are you so damn controlling all the time? Why can’t you just let me go?” Maleah shouted like a child. She was even worse than Poppy when it came to having tantrums.

  “I’m not trying to control you, Maleah. I’m trying to keep you from being taken advantage of and have your career used as tinder for someone else’s fame.”

  “Taken advantage of by who?”

  My eyes rested on Blake.

  “You’re a prick,” Blake said as if his words had any effect on me at all. “I’m looking out for her more than you ever did.”

  That was laughable.

  “Look, Maleah, I have no love left for you or your career if we’re being honest. But I’m trying to help and protect you since you are still Poppy’s mother. And in accordance with our contract, since I run my company with integrity, I’ll always do my best to make your career as successful as possible regardless of my personal feelings. Therefore, I will not be releasing you from the contract.”

  “Fine,” she pouted. “Then Blake and I will be forced to take legal action to force the absolution of the contract.”

  “You can try,” I said calmly.

  None of this intimidated me. Blake was a coward trying to play at being a bully and failing miserably. Maleah was just his confused and strung-out puppet. Our contract, like all of the contracts I entered into, was unbreakable.

  Maleah stood up quickly and smacked her hand against the top of my desk. I could see that it hurt. I could also see that Blake was trying not to laugh at her outburst from under his breath. I wanted to punch this guy in the face so badly. Nothing to do with Maleah, I just couldn’t stand people like him.

  “You’ll be hearing from my attorney,” she threatened as she turned to leave.

  “You mean your new attorney?” reminding her that her current attorney worked for me.

  “Ugh!” she screamed indignantly as she stomped to the door.

  Blake got up to follow her, pulling his dragging jeans up onto his barely existent waist.

  How did she find these losers?

  After they had left, Lucie came in to assess the aftermath. “Everything okay?” she asked as she looked over the top of her glasses at me.

  “Yeah, everything is fine. Just the usual ‘Maleah storm.’”

  Lucie rolled her eyes. “I tried to keep them from coming in, but you know how she is. Honestly, I don’t know why you ever married that woman, to begin with. She just doesn’t seem at all like someone you would get along with.”

  Lucie walked back out to continue work, and I sat at my desk and thought about what she had said. She was absolutely right; Maleah and I were never going to work. And after our marriage ended, I had given up hope of anything ever working with anyone. I just didn’t want to have to go through it all over again. Hell, even now, I couldn’t get away from my ties with Maleah. Getting involved with her had been the best and worst mistake of my life.

  “Your client is here,” Lucie said as she appeared in the doorway again.

  “Great,” send him in.

  This client meeting would be an easy one. I had booked this star several months ago, and already he had produced a hit single that had succeeded in making us both a lot of money. He was young, in his early twenties, had a good head on his shoulders, and hadn’t been too poisoned by the industry yet. He had at least a few good albums in him, and every time he came to meet with me, we got a lot done and worked well together. Sometimes he brought his mom, and she was pretty nice, too. She frequently looked like she was undressing me with her eyes, but aside from that, she was harmless and sat quietly to the side to watch and take notes. It was meetings like these that reminded me of why I got into this business to begin with.

  I loved the creative process, and I loved working with talented musical artists. I couldn’t sing myself, but boy could I recognize talent when I saw it, even sometimes before they knew they had it. That was what had made my company so successful. I had an ear for the next biggest voices, and I acted on signing them as soon as I found them. I wasn’t like the typical record label; when I found a client that I wanted to work with, it was a complete collaboration from day one. I wanted to watch them create and to help their ideas bloom. Stifling an artist was the mistake that most reps made when they tried to fit a talented star into their own image, which quickly burned them out and left them standing on the outside of the industry, instead of rising to the top. I was patient; I watched and worked alongside them and waited for that moment when inspiration struck, and I could seize it and hold it up to the light for them to see. That’s when we had the epiphanies that made big money and carried the artists to the top.

  We spent hours thi
s afternoon, fleshing out a layout and theme for the new album he would start creating. The time seemed to slip away while he spouted off ideas, and I piggybacked on them, and his mom jotted down all the notes at a furious pace onto her notepad. She was like a built-in secretary for him so that was cool. We went well over our allotted time, and so Lucie kept popping her head in to see if she should reschedule my other meetings throughout the day, which I told her to go ahead and do.

  Each time she popped inside my door, I braced myself for hearing that it was Poppy’s school or Maleah’s lawyer, but Lucie said the incoming calls were having an issue that day, so she was doing most of the business on her cell phone until the tech got out to fix it. That was perfect, no needless interruptions and cell phones for emergencies. Mine was around here somewhere, too. The hours flew by, and by the time it was almost closing time, most of the album’s framework had been fleshed out. It was the most productive day I’d had in months, and it felt great. I thought a part of me had really missed being able to do my job without the lingering feeling that I would have to stop at any split second and get run completely off track. Having Annika around to take care of Poppy while I was at work was becoming a better decision by the day.

  I walked my client and his mother to the door. She lingered when I shook her hand as she always did. Then Lucie walked them the rest of the way out.

  “That was a good day,” I said with satisfaction after Lucie had returned. “I got so much done, and that kid’s album is going to rock the charts.”

  Lucie smiled at me with a “told ‘ya so” kind of smile. “I’m glad that the nanny is working out,” she said. “It’s good to see you back to doing what you love and do best.”

  I reached for my keys and went to look for my phone, which was around here somewhere. When I picked it up and saw four missed calls from Poppy’s school, my heart sank.

  Chapter Nine (Annika)

  I almost didn’t answer my phone because I didn’t recognize the number. I had been sitting in the coffee shop on my laptop and looking at some of the coolest Airbnbs to stay in when I in Europe as I started to put logistical details to my plans. I had a notebook and pen out and was jotting down how I was going to make this lifechanging trip happen in another eleven months. Even if I would be getting a lot of money from this nanny job, I still needed to be smart about meticulous planning. The more money I could save, the longer I could stay in Europe and work on the realization of my dreams, whatever they ended up becoming.

  I heard my phone ring and didn’t know who the number belonged to. Then I saw the same number call again; this time, it came through my laptop, too. By the third time in a row that the number had rung, I got a pang in my stomach that told me to pick up the call.

  “Hello?” I said as the call picked up.

  “Hello, is this Annika Miller?” a rather monotone voice on the other end of the phone said.

  “Yes, it is, who is this?”

  “This is Poppy’s teacher.”

  Uh oh.

  “We’ve been trying to reach Poppy’s mother and father, but since our repeated attempts to get a hold of them have failed, we are reaching out to you as the next person on Poppy’s emergency contact list.

  “Is Poppy okay?” I asked in a slight panic, hoping that she had just dumped glue in someone’s hair again and that she wasn’t hurt or actually sick this time.

  “Physically, she is fine,” her teacher said. “However, she is in a lot of trouble at school, and we need you to come to pick her up immediately.”

  “Okay,” I said, flustered. “I’m on my way right now.”

  I scooped up my notebook and laptop and left my latte sitting on the top of the table as I rushed out the door. As soon as I got into the car, I sped off in the direction of Poppy’s school.

  During the short drive, I ran through all of the various scenarios in my head, in which Poppy could have possibly caused havoc at school. Things such as releasing the class pet from its cage, putting tacks on the teacher’s chair, and various other awful ideas came to mind. When I got there, I barely managed to pull into the parking spot straight without scraping the car beside me. I rushed into the school, remembering where the office was from the time that I had tried to drop Poppy’s lunch off to her.

  “Hi,” I said frantically to the receptionist at the front desk. “I’m here about Poppy.”

  The woman gave me a dirty look and told me to sit down in one of the chairs. As I waited, tapping my heels on the floor, she kept looking over at me and then picking up the phone and whispering into the receiver. The whole experience reminded me of how much I totally hated grade school. Why did they have to make everything so hard and stressful on the kids? Why did everything always need to be blown up to such epic proportions?

  “Mrs. Wilder?” a lady called from one of the large wooden doors that just opened up into the office.

  “No, I’m Annika, Poppy’s nanny. I’m on her contact list, and I was called to come in.”

  “Of course,” the woman said. “Please, come with me.”

  I stood up and followed the woman into her office. The nameplate on her door let me know that she was the school’s principal, which meant that whatever Poppy had done was bad enough to warrant the administration’s involvement. I braced myself to hear what atrocious act she had committed and to try and figure out both how to handle it with Poppy and how to tell Jake without having him completely freak out. When I got into the principal’s office, I saw Poppy sitting in one of the chairs at her desk. She didn’t look sad or scared or even defensive. She looked as if she were mad as hell.

  “So,” the principal began once she took a seat in her big, leather chair. She had a kinder face than the receptionist in the office, one that looked fair and even. But she was definitely in a stern mood, which I was sure had something to do with Poppy. “Poppy decided to resort to violence today in order to deal with a classmate’s behavior, instead of simply bringing it to the attention of the teacher.”

  “Violence?” I asked. What did that mean?

  “Yes,” the principal continued. “She punched another girl in the face. Thankfully, nothing was broken, but her parents are none too happy.”

  “What?” I stared over at Poppy, who still held on to her look of unbridled fury.

  “Why were the girls fighting?” I asked the principal.

  “They weren’t. The other girl didn’t put a hand on Poppy, nor did she attempt to.”

  “Then why did you hit her?” I asked as I turned back to Poppy.

  She didn’t answer me; she just sat there, looking mad.

  “According to the teacher, the other girl said something unkind, although I have not been successful at getting Poppy to tell me what exactly was said, so I’m afraid I don’t know. I do know, however, that the other girl was not being physically aggressive at all, which thereby makes Poppy the responsible party in this attack.”

  “Now hang on a second,” I said as I tried to untangle the mess of events. “Words are powerful, as I am sure you know since you are the administrator of a place of learning. Whatever was said to Poppy may very well have triggered her to react.”

  “And that may be so,” she said. “But the family is now coming after the school for hospital bills ensued and other various trauma. We all need to be held accountable for what we do, and there is never a reason to put our hands on anyone else. Poppy has caused a classmate a significant amount of physical harm and has caused the school a significant amount of headache and expense.”

  Ugh, she was right. I could sit here and argue the point all day, but even if the other girl had said something completely and inappropriately disturbing, Poppy still should have held herself back from giving the girl a beat down. I knew it was pointless to argue a losing battle.

  “You need to take Poppy home. As a favor to you, since you seem a bit frazzled and her parents are never available, I’m not going to suspend her.” She looked at Poppy. “Take the weekend to calm down and think about
what you did. I can’t tolerate any more of this poor behavior, Poppy. This is your last chance.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, if something like this were to happen again, her next consequence would be a three-day suspension and depending on the severity, expulsion.”

  Poppy didn’t look at all bothered by being sent home; in fact, she didn’t appear to be at all bothered by any of it. She just kept staring off ahead with anger flaring in her eyes.

  I signed the warning paperwork and took Poppy by the hand to leave. There were still a few hours in the school day, and since she didn’t have school tomorrow, I decided to take a long detour on the ride home.

  “Want to tell me what happened?” I asked as I looked into the mirror at Poppy in the back seat.

  “Do I have a choice?” Poppy asked.

  “Yes,” I answered. “You always have a choice. You’ll probably need to end up telling someone eventually, though.”

  I kept driving and waited to see if Poppy would stay silent.

  “That girl said she saw a picture of my mom’s new album cover,” Poppy started to explain without needing any further push. “She pulled it up on her phone to show me the one. Then she told me that my mom looked like a drug addict and that she probably slept with all of the record producers, and that’s how she became so famous.”

  I looked in the mirror and saw the tears start to fall down her cheeks as she tried to keep her voice steady and continue sounding angry so that the sadness didn’t take over instead.

  “So that’s when I clocked her in the face. I didn’t think it would break her nose, but I’m glad it did.” Poppy looked up and locked eyes with me in the rearview mirror.