Boss Daddy: A Secret Baby Romance

by Black, Natasha L.

  “Oh, he stayed home with his daddy today. They are having some guys’ time,” she said with a hint of a laugh. “But I’m sure you’ll get a chance to meet him. What are you up to?”

  “It’s my day off, so I thought I would look around and try to get my bearings more in the area. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve mainly been going to the bar and to the grocery store, and that’s it. Now I think it’s about time I figure out where I am.”

  “Have you had lunch yet?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Come on,” Becca invited with a big smile. “I’m going to bring you to my very favorite lunch spot. My treat.” We took a few steps, and then she stopped suddenly. “My very favorite lunch spot other than The Hollow. Tyler would kill me if I didn’t specify that. He has worked so hard on the menu.”

  I giggled and nodded. “Understood. I won’t let your secret out.”

  “Oh, good. Come on. I need to put these down, and I am dying for a big glass of iced tea.”

  I grinned as I fell into step beside her and let her lead me down the street. We got to a small hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant, and when we stepped inside, the incredible smell of fresh dough, heavy spices, and rich cheese filled my nose.

  It was enough to make my stomach rumble, and I realized it had been hours since breakfast. The cook stepped up to the counter from the open kitchen and waved around the restaurant.

  “Have a seat,” he said. “Anywhere you want.”

  I followed Becca to the far side of the dining room, and we sat down in a booth. She looked crowded with all the shopping bags in the booth beside her, but her wide smile told me she didn’t mind. A waiter came to the table within seconds of us sitting down, and we ordered drinks.

  When the waiter left us with menus, Becca leaned slightly across the table toward me.

  “How are you liking Astoria so far?”

  “I love it here,” I said. “I feel like I finally found home.”

  She smiled and nodded. “It’s a pretty wonderful place.”

  “Have you always lived here?”

  “I grew up here, but then I left when I went to college. I was away for about five years before I came back,” she said.

  “Is that when you met Tyler?”

  “No. I’ve known Tyler just about my whole life. His best friend is my brother, Nick,” she said.

  My eyes widened. The waiter came by to set our drinks down in front of us and asked if we were ready to order. We made our orders, and when he walked away, I laughed, taking a sip of my water.

  “Your brother’s best friend?” I asked. “I bet that went over really well.”

  Becca shook her head. “It was quite a mess at first. It didn’t help that I came back here because my engagement ended, so everybody was scrutinizing when I was starting a relationship again.”

  “Your engagement ended?” I asked.

  I hadn’t talked about the awful relationship issues I left behind in New York to anyone, but it made me feel a little better to hear I wasn’t the only one who found solace in Astoria.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said with a laugh. “He all but left me at the altar. It was not pretty. But it got me back here, and I ran into Tyler again. We hadn’t seen each other in a long time, and it was really good to see him. My parents were way too protective of me and immediately wanted to lock me away in the tower and keep me from ever going out into the world again. Tyler and I got closer and one thing led to another… Anyway, suffice it to say Nick didn’t respond too well at first. He thought it was really weird that his best friend was sleeping with his little sister.”

  I laughed. “I can only imagine. Do you have a picture of your little boy?” I asked.

  “Of course I do.”

  She pulled out her phone and started showing me pictures of the little boy from the time he was born. He was absolutely adorable, and it was clear both his parents along with his grandparents and aunts and uncles doted on him. I found myself wondering what that felt like, to be a part of a family that was so sprawling and yet so close.

  I longed for something like that for myself someday, but it felt so far out of my reach I didn’t even know how I would begin to find it.

  Even though it was my night off, I decided to go up to the bar that night. It was another of the theme nights, and I wanted to check it out from a customer’s perspective. I knew what it was like to work one of the exciting, somewhat chaotic events, but running around waiting tables and tending the bar during them kept me from actually being able to immerse myself in the experience.

  That night was a car show night. I heard from Ava the bar had done one of these back early in the days of the theme nights, and it was extremely popular, so they revived it every few months. This event was particularly exciting because it didn’t just involve The Hollow.

  Two blocks of the street where it sat were shut down and filled with classic cars and car-related vendors. All the restaurants and bars on that stretch were offering specials and combining forces to create an almost carnival atmosphere that would benefit all of them rather than just being purely about competition.

  A long line at the front of the event waited to go through a station to purchase an admission ticket and get a wristband, but I was able to go through the employee entrance with a special wristband Ava gave me when she suggested I come check everything out.

  I walked out into the event and was blown away. Everywhere people were dressed up to match the eras of their cars, showing them off, eating, drinking, and dancing. I absolutely loved it.

  I was waiting in line to get a drink when someone came up beside me. I looked up and saw Jordan smiling at me.

  “Hey,” I said. “What are you doing out here among the regular people?”

  He laughed. “I could ask you the same question. It’s my night off. They actually sprung me for the evening because they got all the other guys on deck and a couple of the extra employees that are kept in their back pocket for just such an occasion.”

  I nodded and smiled as the line moved, and we took a couple of steps forward. “It’s my night off, too. I wanted to see what all the hype was about.”

  “And?”

  “And the hype is totally warranted,” I said.

  “I love coming out here on the rare theme nights I have off. It’s a completely different experience than working them, and I love to see the customers having such a good time. They really get into it. What’s really fun is seeing the ones who have come to a bunch of the nights interacting with the ones who this is their first one. There’s definitely a sense of membership, like they have some sort of inside knowledge because they’re seasoned.”

  “People certainly do like to feel special and like they belong,” I agreed.

  “That’s what Ava said, too. She’s thinking about doing something like a beer stein club or something where customers can have their own stein with their name on it that would be on display in the bar and give them special discounts or something,” Jordan said.

  I nodded. “That’s a really good idea. I bet people would love that.”

  I got up to the booth and ordered my drink. Jordan piped up beside me, ordering his own plus a couple of the food offerings. He whipped out his wallet before I could say anything, and the vendor waved him away. He knew who he was and wasn’t going to charge him. According to him, these theme nights were worth four or five regular nights at his place during this time of the year, so he was happy to show his appreciation.

  We walked around enjoying our drinks and sampling the food. As we did, we fell into easy conversation. Jordan told me all about his oldest brother buying the bar and how they had to get used to being bar owners.

  “I was still in the military then. I remember my brothers trying really hard not to let on how much they needed my help here because I was still on active duty, and they didn’t want me to be distracted. But they were having a hard time of it at first. My parents were both sick and needed the support. It was kind of scary times,
to be honest,” he said.

  “It sounds like it. I can’t imagine going through something like that,” I said. “At least you guys all had each other.”

  Jordan nodded. “That’s the only thing that really got us through. When our father died, I got an early release from the service and came home to be with the family. It was rough, but we did our best to focus on our mother and getting her through not only losing Dad but continuing her own fight.”

  “She sounds like an amazing woman to have raised all of you and to get through challenges like that,” I said.

  “She is.” Jordan was silent for a few seconds. “How about your parents? What are they like?”

  I shook my head slightly, looking down into my drink so I had something to do with my eyes other than looking at him. “I don’t talk to them much.”

  “No?” he asked.

  “No.” I shrugged and looked ahead as we kept walking. “We’ve had a lot of conflicts and just don’t see eye to eye on life. They send me money every once in a while, but I don’t keep it. I donate it all as soon as I get it because I don’t want anything to do with them. I don’t want to feel obligated or tied to them because of money.”

  I stopped short of telling him about my ex or the reason I completely separated from my family, but the rest of the conversation was smooth and comfortable. I had always been one to find it easy to talk to people, but there was something different about Jordan and in the very best way.

  5

  Jordan

  My eyes snapped open, and I sat bolt upright in bed, for a moment dazed and not knowing exactly where I was. It had been a few weeks since the last nightmare, but this one was even more intense and left me gasping for breath. The images still flickered across my eyes even when they were open. I struggled to make them disappear, to bring myself back into reality.

  When I was finally able to push the thoughts aside enough to get up, I decided I was going to need more than just a run around town and gorging on breakfast food to get my mind clear again. I needed to really force these thoughts away and work off the nightmare.

  Snapping up my phone as I made my way to the kitchen for coffee, I called my best friend, Luke.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “What’s up?”

  “Want to meet up at the gym for a workout?”

  “Absolutely. See you there in an hour?”

  “Yep. See you then.”

  I got off the phone and downed a couple of mugs of coffee to break through the fog of my late nights and relatively early mornings. It had been a couple of years since I got out of the military and started to adapt myself to the slower pace of life in Astoria, but there were still times when it caught up with me. It was like my body had been so trained and programmed to operate in military hours some of that compulsion was never really going to go away.

  When the caffeine started to hit me, I got dressed and made my way to the gym. Luke was already there warming up, and I joined him for a few stretches before we moved on to the cardio machines to do a real warm-up before the weights.

  “Tell me more about this new girl at work,” he said a while later when we were lifting weights.

  “Hannah?” I asked.

  “Yeah. The one you said they hired and you were showing the ropes.”

  “She’s the new cocktail waitress, and I’ve been training her on the bar just to have someone extra. She said she has some experience at bars and restaurants, but I don’t really know what or how much. She’s good and the customers like her, but I don’t know. There’s just something about her that doesn’t seem like she has actually spent her life bouncing from waitress job to waitress job.”

  Luke stared at me for a few seconds, then nodded. “Alright. Well, that was a good employee evaluation. Now, actually tell me about her.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “You know exactly what I mean.”

  “She’s a great girl,” I said. “Friendly, funny, smart. It’s easy to talk to her, and I like having her around.”

  “Alright, since you’re going to beat around the bush, I’ll just come right out and ask you. Have you slept with her yet?” Luke asked.

  I rolled my eyes. “Seriously?”

  Luke shrugged and nodded. “Yeah.”

  “No. I haven’t. And I’m not going to. Like I said, she’s a great girl, and I like talking to her. She’s nice to have around the bar. That’s it.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “Yes,” I said, deciding not to elaborate on how gorgeous Hannah actually was. There was no need to fuel him.

  “Pretty. Funny. Good to talk to. Sounds like prime hookup material to me. You should go for it. As an added bonus, since she works there, if you can keep it going, you’ll have something to do on the slow nights,” Luke said, laughing.

  “Knock it off,” I snapped.

  “What?” Luke asked, sounding like he had no idea what he’d said.

  I got up from the bench press machine and grabbed my towel from where it was hanging.

  “When are you going to grow up?” I asked, stalking toward the locker room.

  I was still fuming when I left the gym and got in my car to go home. I would admit I used to not care about talking about girls that way with Luke. In fact, that used to make up a bulk of our conversations. But I was thirty-six years old now. I wasn’t some kid with too much libido and arrogance for my own good. I was over all that. Not to mention, hearing him talk about Hanna like she was just some potential hook up pissed me off more than it probably should have. But I decided not to dig too deep into that.

  I’d had a lot of one-night stands over the last two years since I got back to Astoria, but I’d had my fill. I was just over that whole thing and ready to put racking up the numbers of hookups behind me. I was ready for something serious.

  Later that day, I went into work. Ava was behind the bar, and two of the girls who occasionally came in to waitress were moving around getting the place ready for the late-lunch and early dinner crowd that would come in before we really shifted over to the bar atmosphere.

  “Hannah isn’t in today?” I asked.

  Ava gave me a brief look but didn’t acknowledge what was behind it. “No. She has tonight off. Before you get started on anything, Mason wants to talk to you. He’s in the office.”

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  “Tom called earlier today, and I think he just wants to talk to you about that.”

  I nodded and headed to the back of the bar where Mason set up the office. While all of us were technically equal in running the bar, we figured out early on that we would need some sort of hierarchy to make sure everything got done. Mason fell naturally into place as the manager, and when Ava came along with her business skills and impressive ideas, it just cemented their position.

  But to keep up with the sense that we were all in this together, the new location of The Hollow had dispensed with the tiny, cramped office of the last one and replaced it with a room much closer to a conference room. Big enough to accommodate a table where we could all sit, it also featured a computer, files, and everything Mason and Ava needed to do the day-to-day administrative tasks.

  Mason was sitting at the table with papers spread out in front of him. He was making notes on a pad of paper to one side and occasionally tapping something out on a calculator.

  “Hey,” I said when I walked in. “Ava said you wanted to talk to me.”

  Mason looked up. “Oh, hey, Jordan. Yeah, come in. Sit down.”

  “Is everything okay?” I asked as I took a seat at the table.

  “Everything’s fine,” Mason said. I relaxed a little, but my shoulders still felt tense. I didn’t think they would release until I knew for sure what was going on. “I got a call from Tom today. He’s been really pleased with the reports he’s getting from the bar and thinks we could do more.”

  “More?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

  “He th
inks that since we are doing so well drawing in the crowds, we should start looking into building up even more. Mom’s doing well now, and she has everything she needs, but he pointed out that three of us have families now and wants to make sure we can all make a good living for ourselves.”

  “So, what’s he talking about?” I asked. “Does he want to expand?”

  “Kind of,” Mason said.

  “It seems like most of Astoria comes out to the theme nights as it is. I don’t know how much more business we could actually get unless we’re bringing in people from other towns. Some travel in as it is.”

  “Well, that’s sort of the point. He’s not talking about expanding to another location here in Astoria. He had an idea to open another location in Portland.”

  “Portland? That would be a hell of a commute. Who would run it?” I asked.

  “He’s leaning toward you and Matt. Neither one of you have families that keep you locked here, and both of you know the ropes of running a bar. Together, you’d be able to build it up and get it running like this one,” Mason said.

  “Wow,” I said, sitting back. I felt a bit dumbstruck and a little blindsided by the whole thing. “That would mean I would have to relocate, wouldn’t it?”

  Mason nodded. “Yeah. Like you said, it would be too much of a commute. If you were really going to build the place up and get it successful, you would need to be right there, hands-on and involved. That would mean moving to Portland. At least for a while.”

  “Wow,” I said again. It was probably among the worst reactions I could have had. There had to be something more meaningful, but I couldn’t come up with any other words.

  “What are you thinking?” Mason asked a few seconds later when I had stared silently across the table without looking at him.

  “I’m trying to figure that out,” I said. “I love it here. Astoria is my hometown, and I’ve never planned on leaving it after I came back from the service. This was always going to be where I landed. But I understand where Tom is coming from. Getting another location going could mean huge things for the family, and if anyone should relocate to do it, it should be those of us who wouldn’t have to uproot entire families to make it happen. It’s just hard to really wrap my head around.”