Single Dad's Surprise (Wilder Brothers #1)

by Lisa Levine

  “No, Mom kept saying that we were on our way to lunch soon, but it got late, and I was getting hungry,” she explained before shoving another entire corner of sandwich into her mouth.

  “How did you end up getting lost?” Jake asked her.

  “Blake said that we were going to play hide-and-seek, but Mom kept getting tired and having to sit down. I was getting bored and hungry, and I thought that if I hid really good and made Mom come to look for me, that then maybe she would get tired of the playground, and we could leave and go eat lunch somewhere. Except that, once I went off to hide, I got lost, and when no one came to find me, I couldn’t find my way back. I got scared when it started to get dark, so I hid under the monkey bars and pretended it as a castle that nothing could get inside of.”

  “See?” I said. “Your imagination helped you. You should be so proud of yourself for being so brave and creative.”

  Poppy smiled as she finished her peanut butter and jelly. Her little face was so tired that she could barely chew. As soon as she was done eating, Jake and I both walked her up to bed. I helped her get into comfy pajamas, and then right after she finished brushing her teeth, she crawled into bed, and Jake pulled the blankets up over her. She was so happy to see Bear that she buried her entire face into his threadbare fur and stayed that way as she immediately fell asleep. Jake leaned over to kiss her on the top of her head and whispered in her ear as she slept.

  “I love you, Poppy,” he said before he straightened himself up with a small, painful groan, and we walked out of the bedroom. I turned back around to look in the room and marveled at how happy the sight of Poppy safe and sound and snuggled in her pink room made me feel.

  “Okay,” I said as soon as we had left her room. “You’re next.”

  “Next for what?” he asked.

  “For getting cleaned up, come on.”

  I walked with Jake into his bedroom. I knew where his room was since I had seen him going in and out of it, but I had never actually been inside his bedroom myself. The room was a dark forest green and had a giant four-poster bed in the center of it. It even had its own fireplace hearth that looked like it was in complete working order. It was luxurious and stately, but not superfluous. Quite the opposite, actually. It was simple and sparse, and it looked like everything in the room had been chosen for a particular utilitarian purpose. I would never have guessed Jake to be a minimalist, but maybe he was. Maybe the rest of the house was laden with all of the fancy extras for Poppy’s benefit and not for Jake’s.

  I told him to go sit down on the bed while I looked around for some first aid supplies in the bathroom. I found a whole bunch and brought them out to dump on top of the bed next to him.

  “You are seriously banged-up,” I said, wincing as I looked at the severity and depth of some of his cuts.

  “Blake took the bigger end of the beating, I assure you,” he said. His tone still sounded vehemently furious with Blake, rightfully so.

  “Even so…” I said as I shook my head and looked him over, trying to decide where to start first. “He managed to get in a few good hits.”

  Jake nodded. He was a mess. Blood was dripping from the corners of his split lip. His eye was so swollen now that it looked like he didn’t have one. And his knuckles were so purple that they looked almost black, not to mention all of the lacerations on his face and arms.

  “What was he fighting with besides a chair leg?” I asked. My question was intended to be rhetorical but ended up being an answer that I didn’t really care to hear.

  “Scissors.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, Maleah handed him a pair of kitchen scissors, too.”

  “Jesus, Jake. You’re lucky you weren’t hurt worse. What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking about Poppy crouched beneath the monkey bars in the dark, that’s what I was thinking.”

  Yeah, see? I would have done exactly the same thing.

  “What’s going to happen now?” I asked. “I mean, between Poppy and all of us and her mom.”

  “They’ll likely get an attorney and try to press charges against me for assault and battery. And then my own attorney will sink them and threaten them with ruin until they shrink away like the cowards that they are.”

  “And what about Poppy and her mom?” I knew that as awful as today was, Poppy couldn’t go without ever seeing Maleah. It would crush her, even if her mom was a shitty parent.

  “I don’t know the answer to that yet,” he said sadly. “I thought I could help Maleah, at least enough to be there for Maleah in some form or another. But I don’t think anyone can help Maleah right now.”

  “Okay,” I said as I opened a container of antiseptic. “We’ll worry about her tomorrow. Right now, let’s get you fixed up so that you don’t look ten times worse and scare Poppy to death in the morning.”

  There was blood soaking through his shirt, which made me think that there were cuts underneath there as well.

  “Take off your shirt,” I said as I knelt before him with cotton squares and an open bottle of antiseptic.

  Jake pulled his shirt over his head and flinched at the pain of his sore muscles and open wounds. There was a large gash cutting diagonally across his chest that looked like it had been caused by a swipe of the scissors. His poor body. All of a sudden, as I looked at how beat up he was and thought about how exhausted and scared Poppy was, the emotions that I’d been trying to hold in all flooded over me. I started to cry, and my hand started to shake as I tried to pour the liquid onto the cotton square and press it against his cuts to clean.

  “Annika,” Jake said as he reached up to take my shaking hand and gently pulled me toward him. I laid my head carefully against his chest and listened to his beating heart.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for being there for Poppy and me. I’m not sure if I’ve ever actually really thanked you for that, but I should have several times over.”

  “You don’t need to thank me,” I said as I wiped the tears from my eyes. “I can’t imagine my life without you and Poppy now.”

  That might have been too much for me to say, but I didn’t care. My heart felt as though it kept getting ripped apart and pieced back together, and Jake needed to know how I felt. I sat up straight and looked in his eyes to see what he was feeling.

  “I’m scared, Annika. I’m so scared to get involved with another woman. My feelings for you have grown so deeply, and so have Poppy’s. But getting into a relationship after having been through such a turbulent marriage and divorce isn’t easy. And I know that you’re scared, too, I can see it in your eyes. My life situation with Poppy is a lot to handle, and I’m aware of that.”

  Everything that he was saying was true. Here I stumbled into this temporary nanny job and ended up getting so attached to him and Poppy that I no longer felt like I needed to run to Europe to find my purpose anymore. I felt like I had already found it right here with them. But damn was it ever scary. I had been through more craziness in the past few weeks than I had ever been in my life. I just wasn’t sure if I was ready to commit to anyone or anything yet, especially not a situation like this with a high-profile billionaire and his crazy ex-wife. I was so completely torn, and it seemed like Jake was, too. Neither of us had anything else to say about it right now because we were both struggling with whether to listen to our head or our heart. I cleaned and bandaged his cuts, put ice on his knuckles and swollen eye, and then lay down with him in bed in a complete sweep of physical and emotional exhaustion.

  “Tell me about your life,” Jake quietly said as I lay gingerly on his shoulder and his arm fell against me.

  “My life?” I asked. I was barely able to keep my eyes open and had no idea what part of my life he would want to know about.

  “Yes, tell me about your dreams of being a singer and why you abandoned them.”

  “That is a very long and uninteresting story,” I said. “Not something that you’d want to hear about.”

  “I think I’l
l decide that for myself,” he said. “Please, tell me why you didn’t want to become a singer.”

  As I lay against his shoulder with my hand placed gently over his heart, I told Jake about how passionately I had once wanted to become a professional singer and songwriter, and how my dad talked me out of it. I told him about how I had pushed that part of me down so far in order to get through college with a degree that I despised, that I hated myself for it, which was why it was just easier not to talk about it than it was to have to think about it.

  When I finished telling him all about it, he sighed.

  “Thank you for sharing that with me. For what it’s worth, you would have made it in the industry.”

  I wasn’t sure whether that made me feel better or worse, probably a bit of both.

  Chapter Fourteen (Jake)

  I thought about my life as I held Annika in my arms and saw the image of Poppy snuggled safely in her bed in my mind. I made a great many mistakes, which have led me to where I am right now. And I finally realized that I wouldn’t have changed anything along the way if that meant that I wouldn’t have Poppy. I loved that little girl more than anything. Now, I was starting to think that I wouldn’t have changed anything if that meant I wouldn’t have met Annika, either. I could see how good she was for Poppy, and I was starting to see how good she was for me, too.

  That night was an intimate one between us, not because of sex or anything physical (I couldn’t even move much aside from lay there and hold Annika against my chest) but because we talked about the things that scared us and the things that pushed us forward. We fell asleep in each other’s arms, and it felt like home.

  In the morning, I heard the noise of a cell phone snapshot and woke up to Poppy standing over our bed and taking a picture of Annika and me asleep together.

  “Poppy, what are you doing?” I asked her groggily.

  “I like how perfect you and Annika look together, and I wanted to have a picture of it.”

  “Okay,” I chuckled. “I’m glad that you’re not upset by it anymore.”

  “I like Annika, and I think she is the perfect nanny, or girlfriend, or whatever she is,” Poppy said just as Annika started to open her eyes.

  “The only thing she definitely is not, is a wicked stepmother. Those things are awful, and you can spot them from a mile away.”

  “Wait a minute,” Annika smiled mischievously as she looked at Poppy. Her eyes were trying so hard to be awake, but she definitely needed coffee. “Did you try to poison me when we first met because you were convinced that I was a wicked stepmother?”

  “Oh yeah,” Poppy laughed nervously. “I’m glad that wasn’t real poison.”

  “Me too!” Annika laughed.

  “Do I have to see Mom today?” Poppy asked me.

  “No,” I said quickly. “You’re not going to see your mom today.”

  “What if she asks to see me today?”

  “Then, the answer is still no.”

  “Am I ever going to see her again?”

  I looked into Poppy’s face.

  “Do you want to see her again?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, then you will. Just not today.”

  Poppy seemed content enough with that answer and went into her bedroom to retrieve her bear, whom she absolutely knew had crawled down underneath the blankets as if it were his own personal cave in the bed.

  “Was Poppy okay?” Annika asked as she started coming more online.

  “Yeah, she was fine. I think she actually really likes seeing us together.”

  “I’m glad,” Annika said. “Because so do I.”

  I leaned over and gave Annika a kiss on the forehead. I was sore from yesterday, but it was so worth it.

  Kids were much more resilient than I had thought. I felt like spending the day in bed, recovering from yesterday, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally, too. Poppy seemed to have put it all aside and was so happy to be back home that she just wanted to forget about yesterday and move on. If only everyone could have just been more like her.

  “Oh shit,” I said as I sat up in bed quickly and immediately wished I hadn’t since it sent all of my sore muscles screaming. “It’s Monday.”

  Yesterday had been so exhausting; the first part of the day had been so wonderful, and then the second part had been so terrible that I had completely lost track of which day it was and apparently what time it was, too. It was Monday, and it was already past nine o’clock, and we hadn’t even taken Poppy to school yet. Annika and I both jumped out of bed and raced to get Poppy ready.

  “You’re going to be late to the office, Annika said to me as she was sitting Poppy down with breakfast. “You should get ready, and I’ll take Poppy to school.”

  “It’s okay,” I said in a rush. “I’ll call Lucie and have her reschedule my morning meetings.”

  “No, Dad,” Poppy said. “I want Annika to take me to school today so you can get to work.”

  “You sure, sweetheart?” I asked.

  “Yep,” she nodded. “We’re a team, remember?”

  “That we are!” I replied to her as I grabbed the coffee cup that Annika was handing to me and hurried to go get dressed so that I could still make it to my first morning meeting on time.

  Annika and I both pulled out of the driveway at the same time and headed in different directions—her toward the school and me toward the office. I still had a lot to figure out regarding the situation with Maleah and Blake, and I was sure that there would be an aftermath of repercussions at some point today, but for now, things were good, and I needed to focus on work.

  When I got to the office, it seemed quiet enough for the most part. Lucie was shocked when she saw my bruised face and swollen eye, and when I described the previous night’s events to her, she was beyond mortified.

  “I am never letting that woman into this office again,” she said sternly. “I am so sorry that you and Poppy had to go through that, and Annika, too.”

  I noticed that she had subtly stopped calling Annika “the nanny” and was now referring to her by her first name as if she were a member of our family, which I felt like she was. Lucie went through the rundown of today’s clients and events, and within thirty minutes, my first client arrived.

  I went from meeting to meeting, collaboration to collaboration, and nothing seemed to be out of place for the day yet. There were no calls from Maleah or her attorneys, and things seemed eerily quiet, which I wasn’t sure was good or bad. I wondered how Poppy was doing at school after such an ordeal the night before. I had suggested to Annika when we first got up that maybe Poppy should just stay home with her today, but surprisingly Poppy seemed eager to go to school, and Annika thought it would be good for her to get back to normalcy. I was anxious for the workday to be over so that I could get back to them both and see how everyone was doing. I had even texted Annika a few times between meetings during the day, which wasn’t something that I normally did, just to check in and make sure things were still going smoothly. I think I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, which it did.

  I was in the middle of a meeting with a new client, one that had been a trending presence online and had reached out to my company for representation. I had a pretty huge client load right now, but I was always interested in signing another artist if they were spectacular and worth the extra time that it would cost me on top of my already busy schedule. This girl was pretty good, but not good enough to make me want to overstretch my workload further. I listened to her demo reel, gave her some good advice about the industry, and then let my mind drift off about Annika and the things we had talked about in bed last night. I really wanted to be with her, and I really wanted to sign with the company, too, both things that I had made mistakes on with Maleah.

  Just as this client was about finished and was packing up her things to leave, Lucie showed up in the doorway with a face so pale that I thought she was ill. I quickly walked the potential client out and then came back to find
Lucie still standing in my office, looking as though she was going to barf on the floor.

  “Lucie, are you all right?” I asked. “If you’re unwell, I can drive you home.”

  “It’s not me,” Lucie said. She really looked like she didn’t want to show me whatever it was on the tablet in her hands that she had brought in to show me. “It’s you and Annika.”

  Suddenly I felt like the other shoe had dropped, whatever it was that I had been waiting for was here, and if it had anything to do with the look on Lucie’s face, then it was much worse than I had imagined. But I had the best attorney in town, and Maleah and her boyfriend were definitely in the wrong. There was no way that they could successfully get me on anything, maybe a battery misdemeanor, but even that my attorney could get me out of with minimal consequence. Plus, I knew that Maleah and Blake were both all about the money and the show of it all. If they got a big pay-off and a fake apology, they would be fine with walking away from the rest of it, even Poppy. The thing that I had forgotten about, though, was that there had always been something else that drove Maleah, too, something besides money and fame. Something that made her act in the crazy ways that she acted—jealousy.

  “What is it, Lucie?” I asked as I braced myself for whatever it was that she was about to show me.

  “I’m sorry, Jake. But you need to see this.” Lucie turned the tablet around, and there on the screen was a large picture that filled the entire space. It was plastered on the front of the local paper in digital form on the landing page for their news website’s editorial content. It was the picture of Annika and me that Poppy had taken in bed this morning, except different.

  Chapter Fifteen (Annika)

  I had only been at the coffee shop for about an hour or so before I could see that people were staring at me. I had no idea why anyone was looking at me and turning to whisper to their partners and friends in hushed voices before turning back around with a look of disdain. It was making me extremely nervous and self-conscious, though. I looked around to see if there were anything obviously out of place, but I really had no idea what the people were staring at. I felt like I was in a fishbowl because, after a little while longer, it seemed as if the entire café was gawking at me.