Pretend I'm YoursA Single Dad Romance

by Vivian Wood

  Well, actually… it’s going to be four people soon. I told Charlie the second I found out I was pregnant, but Sarah doesn’t know yet. We’re waiting until the three month mark to try to explain to her, so we’ve got a few weeks to go.

  I find the remote and turn on the TV for Sarah.

  “Wan’ watch?” she asks, looking up at me.

  “I do… Let’s see.” I check the time on the phone in my dress pocket. It’s nearly five, which makes me a little worried. Charlie is facing off with Helen today in court. Today is supposed to be the final verdict. I wanted to be there to support him, but he felt that it was better if I stayed at home with Sarah. So I’ve been expecting to hear from him for the last three hours and biting my nails.

  “Sure, I’ve got time,” I say to Sarah.

  I sit down on the hideous yellow couch, and Sarah instantly cuddles up to me, leaning against me. She twines her little hand around my arm, which makes my eyes mist over a little.

  Sarah is just the best darn kid you could ever ask for. I drop a kiss on her head, but she is already absorbed in the TV screen. I swipe at my eyes, which tear up at practically everything these days.

  I hear footsteps on the porch, and then a key in the front door. Zach and Morris stand up, their tails wagging expectantly.

  Finally! I think, sitting up a little straighter.

  Charlie comes in, looking dapper in his dark suit and light dress shirt. He’s shed his suit jacket, and carries it casually over his shoulder. He always looks good to me, but seeing him in a suit makes my ovaries explode.

  The second we make eye contact, he lights up. I love that about him, that seeing us makes him so happy.

  “We won,” he announces in his deep timbre. He hangs his suit jacket up and pets the dogs, showing Sadie special affection. He seems to have bonded with her the most, which makes me happy enough that I could cry.

  “We did?” I ask, sitting up. “Come here! Tell me everything.”

  He walks over and sits down on the couch, greeting Sarah first. He touches her shoe. “Hey you.”

  “Hi,” she says, distracted by the TV.

  Then he greets me by sliding over until we’re touching, kissing me lightly. His lips are warm and sweet, as always. “And hey you.”

  I beam at him. “Hey right back! Now what happened? Don’t keep me in suspense.”

  “Well, Judge Mariner just said that she had considered all the evidence — especially my testimony about Helen’s behavior and attitudes toward us. She said she found that Helen’s complaint was not valid. And that was pretty much it.”

  My eyes widen. “All of this time, and that was it?”

  “Pretty much. Helen had to pay my court costs, too.” He shakes his head. “Helen freaked out and screamed at the judge that she was corrupt. Her lawyers hustled her out of there before she could further insult the judge. It was pretty satisfying.”

  “I can’t believe it!”

  “Well, believe it,” he says, taking my free hand. He gives it a squeeze. “And I have one more surprise for you.”

  “For me?” I ask.

  “Yes, for you,” he says. “I talked to my boss and told him that I want to move to New York. He was completely on board. I think that we should really think about moving soon, considering…” He nods at my still-flat stomach. “You probably won’t be in any condition to do it in six months.”

  My heart starts beating double time. The idea of moving to New York, of living my dream is just… My eyes fill with tears, hearing him say it.

  “I just… I can’t believe that I’m moving!” I exclaim, my voice filled with tears. “I can’t believe I get you, and Sarah, and I get my dream, too.”

  Charlie gives me the most heart-stopping grin. “And yet, you do.”

  I hug him as best as I can with one arm, my tears falling on his dress shirt. When I pull back, he kisses me, sealing his lips over my own. The kiss is slow and sweet, filled with just enough heat.

  I feel Sarah tugging on my arm, and break the kiss to look at her.

  “Snack?” she asks.

  I crack up laughing, because she’s so oblivious to all the turmoil happening around her.

  “I’ll get us all a snack,” Charlie says. “What do you want? Pudding cups? String cheeses?”

  “Pudding!” Sarah says jubilantly.

  “Alright. You two stay here,” he says with a wink.

  “Wait,” I say, grabbing Charlie’s wrist as he gets up. He looks at me, arching a brow. “I just… I love you so much.”

  My confession makes him lean back in, kissing my lips. “I love you too. Always.”

  I sit back, letting him go. Because I know that he will come back. I know Charlie means what he says. I snuggle Sarah a little closer, unbearably happy.

  The End

  The Baby Mission

  Chapter One

  Jett

  “I’m telling you, women are all the same,” I say. “They just want you to believe that some of them are different…”

  Mason and Alex, my two best friends, don’t even look at me as we climb the stairs leading to the roof. They’ve heard it all before, but they are listening anyway. They’re good friends.

  I huff a little as we hit the sixth flight of stairs. A small gaggle of women comes down the stairwell, their high heels making a sharp clomp-clomp-clomp sound on the concrete. I’m distracted for a second by the women, with their bright smiles and miles of long legs.

  I like the look of the one in the front, leading the pack. She’s a blonde in a pink minidress. She makes eye contact with me for a second, then blushes and bites her lip.

  She’s looking at me too, at me and Mason and Alex. Three tall, handsome men in plaid button downs and jeans. She’s probably trying to figure out which of us is the hottest.

  Alex is easily the tallest. At 6’6, he’s got a few inches on me and Mason. It made the college football scouts come knocking when he was seventeen, too.

  Mason has the whole dark and brooding thing going on, especially with that nose of his that’s been broken a half dozen times. He draws women who are attracted to his angsty don’t-fuck-with-me persona.

  And me? I’m pretty fucking tall, I’ve got a good body, and I’ve got a great face. I unleash one of my dangerous smiles on the woman making eye contact with me. She stumbles a little, reaching out to grab the wall to balance herself.

  Bingo, I think. It feels pretty damn gratifying.

  And then they’re out of sight. We come up to a plain metal door, and even though it’s closed, I can hear the party happening on the other side. The wub-dub-dub of the bass can be heard through the door.

  I push the door open, and step outside into the cool late spring night air. The party is on a rooftop, with lights strung overhead and a hundred plus people chatting and dancing below. Immediately, I’m engulfed in loud, poppy music and the big, bright colored lights that flash across the whole event.

  “Jett, come on,” Mason says, touching my arm and jerking his head towards a bar set up across the way from us.

  I follow Mason, threading my way through the crowd. Here and there I get glances from women, which makes me feel perversely hopeful. I don’t necessarily want their attention right now, but I might want it later. Once I get a few beers inside me, I may be able to forget about Emily and focus on what my body needs.

  At the thought of Emily, I frown. Emily is exactly my type: blonde hair, honey-brown eyes, and she has a dancer’s lithe frame. Emily is also the fucking bitch that ripped out my heart and stomped on it.

  So there’s that.

  Mason spots an ice bucket filled to the brim with beer, and all three of us grab one. It’s a Miller High Life, nothing fancy. I twist off the top and take a sip, feel the cool slide of the beer in my throat.

  Alex leads the way to an unoccupied spot along the wall, and we stand and look out at the party.

  “What’s this party for, again?” Mason asks.

  “It’s thrown by my manager,”
Alex says with a shrug. “Something about the rites of spring.”

  “You guys are still hunting for another NFL team?” I ask Alex.

  “Yep. I’m not quite ready to throw in the towel.”

  “You should be, after that nasty hit you took last year,” Mason says. “I was watching the game when those three guys took you down.”

  Alex shifts, and it’s clear from his body language that he doesn’t want to talk about it. I used to be someone in baseball, so I get where he’s coming from.

  “Hey, did I tell you that the guys from my office have made up these fake draft card things? Here, let me get one out…” I say, pulling a card from my wallet. “They’re supposed to look like baseball cards, but they’re for the sports agents at Sampson .”

  “That’s not a bad picture of you,” Mason says. Plucking the card from my fingers, he holds it up beside my head and squints. “You could really get some good pussy with this, you know.”

  “Not bad,” Alex says, sipping his beer.

  “Emily says it’s a bad picture of me,” I say, grabbing the card from him and putting it back in my wallet.

  “Oh my god. Well if Emily says it, then it must be true!” Mason says, rolling his eyes. “I am so sick of hearing her name. She dumped you for some stupid reasons, so let’s just move on.”

  “It’s not that easy,” I protest, but even to me it sounds weak.

  “It’s been a month, man,” Alex says, clapping me on the back. “She’s probably fucking someone new. You should take your cue from her.”

  “Whatever,” I say.

  “Seriously, stop whining and get some action. Just look around this party. There are sexy women everywhere you look,” Mason says.

  I take minute to assess, and find that Mason isn’t wrong. There are tons of girls at this party, dancing together or standing close to talk to one another.

  “I think I see who I’m going to hit on,” Alex says. “If you’ll excuse me…”

  He heads to the other side of the party, his sheer size forcing people to move out of his way as he shoulders his way through the crowd.

  “See? It’s that easy,” Mason says.

  “I can pick up any girl I want,” I say, raising a brow. “I’m Jett James.”

  “I don’t know about any girl.”

  “Seriously?” I ask, cocking a brow. “How about this? You pick the girl. And I’m willing to bet you Hawks floor seats.”

  Mason side-eyes me. “Alright, but you can’t just go home with whomever I pick. You have to go on a date.”

  “A date? Really?” I say.

  “It’s too easy to just go home with a girl and never see her again. Come on, it’ll be good for you.”

  “Fuck, all right,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck. “Just promise that you’ll pick someone good.”

  His brows rise. “I’m offended that you think I wouldn’t.”

  I just grunt and sip my beer. Mason is busy looking around.

  “What about her, the blonde in the red miniskirt? She’s my type,” I say.

  Mason looks at me, slightly exasperated.

  “You said that I got to pick. Besides, I am so bored of the blondes that you bring around. They are, as you say, all exactly the same. Short, skinny, and blonde.” He makes a face. “You need someone a little different. Consider this your palate cleanser.”

  “Psshhh,” I say, waving my hand at him. “You complain too much.”

  “Shh, let me look.” His brows pull down in concentration. “Ah. How about there? The brunette with the red sweater and the skirt.”

  I look where he is looking, and after a second, I spot her. She’s downright academic looking, in an attractive way. She has long hair, just the color of a raven’s wing, and olive-toned skin. A pair of black-rimmed sunglasses rests on her head. She is wearing an oversized red sweater, a black pencil skirt, and a pair of cherry red high heels.

  She’s also holding a big black purse and fiddling with her iPhone. She made a sour face suddenly, and started typing something into her phone. The way her thumbs were flying, I could imagine that someone was in trouble.

  She looks like she’s smart, but she wouldn’t be into the whole former-jock thing that I have going on. Which is just as well, because she looks like someone who is about to teach me English, not like someone who I’d go on a date with.

  “She’s pretty,” I admit. “But she looks boring. Look, her friends are trying to get her to dance. I bet she’ll say no.”

  A few seconds later, she politely rebuffed her friends’ entreaties, and she was left alone once more.

  “I have a good feeling about her,” Mason says. “She’s definitely the one.”

  “Come on, you have to pick someone more interesting,” I say. “Like… anyone else at this party.”

  “I thought Jett James could pick up anyone?” he says, a shit-eating grin on his face.

  “She looks like she just swallowed a whole lemon.”

  “And?” he said. “You said that you were betting court side Hawks tickets on it.”

  Fuck. “Alright, alright. I’m going.”

  I gave him the stink eye as I push my way through the crowd, heading over to the spot where she leans against the wall. I notice that she taps her foot along with the music, despite looking downright annoyed.

  “Excuse me,” I say, stopping in front of her.

  She looks up at me, her gray eyes uncertain. “Yes?”

  I like her voice, a throaty, velvet purr.

  “I just came over here to say that you’re stunning,” I say. I wince a little, as the music suddenly got louder about halfway through my sentence. My words were lost.

  She scrunches up her face, which is sort of comical. “What?”

  I lean closer to her, and catch a faint whiff of her perfume. “I said, you’re stunning.”

  Her expression turns disapproving in a heartbeat. There is a second where I can feel her eyes on me, feel her assessing my clothes and my height, feel her calculating something. She takes in the tattoos that are visible, too. And then I see dismissal in her expression, without knowing me at all.

  She’s essentially decided that I’m not worthwhile, based on some kind of metrics that I’m not privy to.

  It doesn’t feel good.

  “Oh, uhh— thanks?” she says. I can tell that she’s about to end the conversation.

  Where’s that famous Jett James charm? I wonder.

  “Hey, would you do me a favor?” I say, without really thinking about it. “My ex Emily is here, and she’s sort of slyly watching me. Is it cool if I just pretend that you and I are hitting it off?”

  Her eyes have wandered down to her phone screen, but they snap back up to mine. She examines me for another second, her dark grey eyes like watching a gathering storm.

  “Ummm…” she says, obviously torn between me and whatever is on her phone.

  Damn, am I that uninteresting?

  “Sure,” she finally says, but it feels like I’ve only just got her to look at me. Time to be dazzling, I guess.

  I grin at her, moving a little closer. “You’d tell me if this fake relationship was inconveniencing you, right?”

  I see her worry her lip a little and furrow her brow. She doesn’t mean to, but she shifts towards me very slightly. I take that to mean that my smile worked.

  I’m in, I think.

  “So I just say the word, and you back off?” she asks, keeping things light.

  “Sure. I’m hoping you won’t, though. Only to spare me the embarrassment.” I put my hand over my heart, but stop shy of giving her a pleading face.

  She seems to take that at face value, nodding.

  “Alright. Which one is she?” she asks, looking around the party.

  Shit. I should’ve been prepared for this. I scan the crowd, looking for someone who looks vaguely like Emily.

  “Uhhh… she’s over there,” I say, nodding to a pretty, skinny blonde by the exit door. “In the black romper thing.”<
br />
  “Ah,” she says, nodding. “She’s pretty.”

  I pull a face, and she goes pink.

  “Sorry,” she says. “I would ask why you guys aren’t an item anymore, but I don’t want to pour salt on the wounds.”

  “You can make it up to me, I’m sure,” I say with a smile.

  Her eye roll is particularly epic. My smile turns into a grin. I take a sip of my beer, which is pretty stale and warm by now.

  I look over my shoulder to see what Mason is doing, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Fucker.

  When I look back, she is frowning at her phone screen again, her brow puckered. Shit, she is losing interest again. Why the fuck did Mason have to pick her?

  I need a new approach.

  “Hey, what’s so interesting on your phone?” I ask.

  She looks up at me. “An email from my boss. I’m a lawyer, and my boss is a little verbose. Try as I might, I can’t make heads or tails of this email.”

  I cock my head. How should I tackle this? I guess I haven’t tried being blunt yet…

  “Can I ask you a question?” I say.

  “Sure. Ask away,” she says, turning the screen of her phone off. She looks at me.

  I lean in, dropping my voice low, using the full force of my dark blue eyes. “Do you have a boyfriend, or a husband?”

  She blushes, the pale pink tinging her high cheekbones. “No.”

  “Okay. How about this, then? You put your phone away for twenty minutes, and let me be entertaining.”

  The pale pink spreads out to her cheeks. “Alright…” she says hesitantly.

  She drops her phone into her handbag with a satisfying thunk. I grin and stick out my hand.

  “Jett James.”

  “Cady Ellis,” she says. Her handshake is firm, domineering even.

  I get a mental image of me dominating her in bed, and her fighting it for every second until she’s screaming my name. A lick of heat stirs my cock.

  It’s in that moment that I decide that I like her.

  “A pleasure,” I assure her. “It looks like you’re done with your drink. How about we go over to the bar and get another one?”