Single Dad Next Door: A Fake Marriage Romance

by Penelope Bloom

  “Wasn’t expecting that,” he says finally.

  I blush guiltily, quickly rummaging through Kennedy’s closet to find clothes for us. It looks like one of her exes left behind clothes big enough for Jesse, which I toss to him.. “I’m sorry. Maybe I just got carried away. I could get a morning after pill if you want.” The words ring hollow. I know I didn’t just get carried away. I want it. As absolutely insane as it is, I want this.

  “No,” he says, stepping into me and pressing a wide hand to my belly. “No,” he says more quietly, kissing me.

  43

  Jesse

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” says Makayla as we step into her stepfather’s building.

  I stop, pulling her to the side of the busy lobby and meet her eyes. It has been two days since the premiere party and the cops haven’t been able to find anything concrete on Hubert. It’s already looking like he’s going to avoid jail, and there’s no fucking way I’m letting that happen. I just have to make sure Makayla’s on board. He’s still her stepfather, so I need to be careful how I handle this.

  “He was going to sacrifice your life for money, Kay,” I say as carefully as I can.

  She forces a quick smile. “Yeah. No, I know. He deserves it.” She’s trying too hard to sound casual. Something’s wrong.

  I frown at her. Whether she likes it or not, I’m not letting this bastard get away with what he did. I hate to admit it, but it’s just not happening. Still, it would be easier if she’s on my side with this. “He’s a danger to you. I can’t let him continue to be--”

  “It’s just,” says Makayla, eyes distant. “I want to be the one to bring him down.”

  Her words take a second to process. “You… what?” I ask.

  “I actually cared about him. He made me feel like a fucking idiot,” she says, a sudden rush of anger entering her voice. “He lied to me and made a fool out of me. I want to get him back.”

  I grin. Damn. She has no idea how much this fiery temper of hers is turning me on. I have half a hard-on just from watching her intensity. “Hell yes,” I say.

  She smiles a little guiltily. “I sound a little crazy, don’t I?”

  “Not in the slightest. Do you have a plan?”

  She nods, licking her lips in a ridiculously sexy way. “I think I do.”

  “Good.”

  “Hey,” she says slowly. “Are the police going to come after you for shooting your gun at the banquet? There must have been cameras or something, right?”

  “There were four cameras in the lobby and a few scattered throughout employee areas. None in the alley.. I have a license to carry and I also have connections that run pretty deep with the local police. A few guys I knew from the war have worked their way up the food chain. It gives me a little freedom.”

  “Freedom to hurt people?” asks Makayla.

  “To protect them. We should get going before someone realizes we’re here and gives him a heads up.”

  “Let’s go then,” she says.

  We take the elevator to the top floor and blow past the secretary who calls for us to stop. We barge into Hubert’s office and find him standing beside his desk, face red as he yells into the phone.

  “Find it then. I don’t care how you do it. Just make it happen.” He looks up to us and slams the phone down face etched with surprise. It lasts only a second before the anger returns. He snaps his fingers towards his bodyguards and then toward us.

  The bodyguards are the same two clowns I dispatched a few weeks back when he tried to set a tail on Makayla. I realize now he wasn’t happy about me protecting her because he planned to have his own guys do the job to make setting her death up as easy as he could. Fucker.

  The bigger of the two reaches me first and reaches for my shoulder. I catch his wrist, turning it until I hear a snap. I uppercut the bottom of his elbow and break his arm, too. He falls backward, gasping in pain and clutching his elbow. The other one reaches for a gun, but I pin his arm to his side and connect three quick jabs with his face. His eyes glaze after the third punch so I let his arm go and send him spinning to the ground with a cross hook to his jaw that leaves my hand throbbing.

  “Go ahead, Kayla,” I say with a smirk.

  She raises her eyebrows and then rounds on Hubert, all the amusement draining from her face in an instant. “You tried to have me killed.”

  “I had no other choice, honey,” he says, stepping toward her with a simpering look of apology on his face, like he didn’t just try to have bodyguards kill us.

  “Don’t even fucking dare call me that,” snaps Makayla.

  At the same time, I step between him and her, putting up my hand in warning. “Keep your distance,” I growl.

  Fear enters his eyes for the first time since we entered. He looks to his downed bodyguards and then back to me. “What do you want? Money? I don’t have any to give you.”

  “I want you to get what you deserve,” says Makayla. “I think prison would be good.”

  “I can’t go to prison,” he says, smiling nervously. “Besides. There’s no evidence against me. And don’t think you’re going to get me to make some admission of guilt out loud. I’ve seen the fucking movies. You’re probably recording this.” He looks toward me, eyes a little crazed. “I’m innocent. I had no part in any of this.”

  “I trusted you,” says Makayla, the hurt in her voice tearing at my chest. I want to break this fucker on her behalf, but I know it’s important to her that she takes care of it herself.

  Hubert spreads his palms. “You still can trust me, honey.”

  I see it coming before Hubert does. Makayla steps forward, getting just close enough to slap the shit out of him. The sound is like a thunderclap in the small office. His head jerks to the side like she just punched him and his small, meaty hand slowly rises to his already reddening cheek.

  “You fucking--” he starts.

  I feel his fleshy cheek against my fist before I realize I’ve punched him. “Oh shit,” I say. Hubert is squirming on the ground, clutching his face with both hands. “Sorry, Kay.”

  She ignores me, standing over him. “Here’s how this is going to work,” she says, surprising me with the authority in her voice. “You’re going to turn yourself in by tomorrow morning, or we’re going to turn over the evidence we have to the police and watch you get dragged kicking and screaming to prison.”

  His voice is a little slurred from his already swelling jaw. “You have no evidence,” he says.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” adds Makayla. “If, for some reason, you’re dumb enough to try to have me hurt again, Jesse knows where you sleep, and he has been begging me to let him kill you since he met you two weeks ago.”

  Hubert’s face pales a little. “You’re full of shit,” he says.

  “That’s up to you to decide. Maybe you’ll have a chance to avoid a life sentence if you come clean. You sure as hell won’t if we turn over what we have though.”

  With that, Makayla turns and delicately steps over an unconscious bodyguard and signals for me to follow. I wait until she’s around the corner and kneel to punch Hubert one more time in the face just for posterity’s sake and then follow her.

  Makayla is standing just outside with a strange look on her face. She puffs out a long breath of air and looks to me nervously. “How was that?”

  I laugh. “My favorite was the part about how I’d kill him.”

  She blushes a little. “Was that too much?”

  We start walking toward the elevator. “Not at all. Did I say I wanted to kill him, or did you just read my mind?”

  She smirks.

  “You don’t really have any evidence against him, do you?”

  “No,” she says a little dejectedly. “But maybe if I testified against him the police could get warrants to search his records and things. There could be something there.”

  “Yeah. Maybe,” I say. “Or I could give them Liam’s phone. I took his car when I escaped and there was enough evi
dence in there to send Hubert to prison for a long time.”

  We ride the elevator in silence for a few moments before she speaks again. “It still doesn’t feel over.”

  I put my arm around her shoulders and pull her to me, hugging her to my chest. “It will be soon. Nothing else is going to happen to you. I’m going to make sure of it.”

  I watch Makayla and Kennedy talking on the set between scenes. The set lights are brightest on her and she stands out, shining like something out of a fucking dream. It’s actually hard to look at her for too long because I know how sweet those lips taste and how good she feels against me. I can only handle seeing her without touching her for so long, and I’m getting real close to my limit.

  Camillo is pacing around the edge of the set, yelling at someone on the phone in Spanish. I speak a little Spanish, but only catch bits and pieces of the conversation. It sounds like someone isn’t happy with the terms of their contract and they’re not planning to show up. He hangs up the phone and stares at it, fuming. Finally, he raises an arm and manages to grab everyone’s attention with surprising ease.

  “No shoot today. Jason quit. We’re going to recast as quickly as we can, but it could be weeks.” He reacts to his own words, as if the full reality is just now setting in on him too. “All our promotions and advertisements will have to be reshot.” Camillo’s voice trails off as he walks toward the exit, one hand on his hip and the other spearing his hair. “Fuck!” he yells, kicking a prop chair over and stepping outside.

  There’s a tense silence that follows until Makayla looks at me with something in her eyes I don’t like, at all. She jogs over to me and draws my eyes to her deliciously bouncing tits. If shooting is canceled for today, that means I can get her back to my place even sooner and relieve the unbearable aching in my cock. I haven’t stopped thinking about the way she wanted me to cum inside her two days ago. Fuck. Just thinking about it gives me an instant hard-on. I knew it was beyond crazy to do, but I’ve never been a man of hesitation. I don’t have any doubts about Makayla and if she’s the right woman. I never have. The only thing standing between us has only ever been what’s best for her, and I’ve made the mistake of thinking distance from me would be best too many times. It’s not a mistake I’ll ever make again.

  “Jesse,” she says when she comes to a stop in front of me. She’s biting her lip, which is a bad sign. “You could play the part. Just come run through the lines. I know if Camillo sees you act he will be over the moon.”

  “No fucking way,” I grunt. I don’t want to admit it, but I actually kind of enjoyed reading through the lines that night Kennedy and Makayla were practicing a few weeks back. I don’t know if I was good at it, but there was something satisfying about it I couldn’t quite put my finger on. If not for the embarrassment, I would have asked to try again. But I don’t plan to let her know that. I’d never live it down. I might as well throw on a tutu and some make-up. Even if I do need something to occupy myself now that my involvement with Makayla is going to put an end to my personal protection career. The agency will find out sooner or later and cut me loose.

  “Please?” she asks.

  One word and my resolve threatens to shatter. Fuck. Oh shit, she’s doing the pouty thing with her lip, too. None of that bullshit ever worked from other women, but at times I feel like Makayla can control me with the smallest twitch of a muscle.

  “It’s not happening. No way.”

  Ten minutes later I’m wearing a leather jacket from props and shoes that are a size too small and jeans that are a little too tight. Jason wasn’t as big as me, and none of this shit really fits me right. A man with eyebrows that are far too perfect to be natural approaches me, arms bent at the elbow and hands dangling uselessly like a T-rex. He reaches to a nearby table and grabs a make-up kit.

  I jab a finger at him. “You touch me with that make-up, and you fucking die.”

  He claws his fingers at me. “Rawr.” He calls over his shoulder to Makayla. “He’s feisty, you sure he’s straight?”

  “Hands off, Andy.”

  Andy tsks, walking away and throwing me a look over his shoulder.

  What the fuck am I doing?

  I walk toward the set and notice most of the women on the crew and cast are looking at me strangely. “What are they looking at?” I ask Makayla, feeling uncharacteristically nervous.

  She grins, touching my chest affectionately. “Even people in show business aren’t used to seeing guys as gorgeous as you. They have probably all been wondering how long it would take for someone to throw you in front of a camera.”

  “Great,” I growl.

  “That’s good,” she says, still grinning. “Channel your inner Jack Carpenter. Gritty. Angry. Deadly.”

  I roll my eyes. “Let’s get this over with.”

  She hands me the script and I glance through the lines. There aren’t many of them, so I quickly commit them to memory and set the script aside.

  “You’re going to need that,” she says, pointing to the script.

  “I’m good,” I say.

  There is a slight commotion as the crew gets cameras and lights ready. Camillo reenters the studio, staring angrily when he sees everyone is still setting up cameras even though he called it a day. “What the fuck?” he asks.

  Makayla steps forward. “Camillo. I think we found the perfect actor for Jack Carpenter. Meet Jesse Slade,” she says, gesturing to me grandly.

  Camillo takes me in. “Your bodyguard?”

  Makayla nods. “My personal protection who is also an amazing actor.”

  Camillo frowns. “Fine. He gets one take. He definitely looks the part, at least. Probably can’t act for shit though.”

  They call for everyone to take their places. The script didn’t say anything about where to stand, so I have to let Makayla direct me to a spot just a few inches away from her. Not going to complain about that.

  I focus on Makayla, letting the lines become reality as I recite the character’s feelings for Makayla’s character. I talk about how I’ve loved her even though I haven’t always made the right choices or shown it in the right ways. I listen when she tells me how scared the thought of loving me makes her, how wrong it seems, but how she still wants it more than anything. And then we kiss.

  The scene goes by in a blur, and when the director calls cut in a hushed voice I feel my heart beating fast. I never thought I would enjoy acting. Hell, I never thought I would enjoy much of anything except fucking, fighting, and drinking after the war. But there’s a thrill to working through the scene, and if it gives me one more excuse to kiss Makayla, it can’t be that bad.

  There’s a delayed round of applause from the crew. I look to Makayla in confusion. They don’t normally clap after a scene. She squeals with excitement and cups my cheeks, standing on her tiptoes to kiss me. “You were amazing!”

  Camillo approaches, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “It doesn’t normally work this way. There’s paperwork, auditions, blah blah blah. But I want you for this part. The contract is yours if you want it.”

  44

  Makayla

  I lean into Jesse’s shoulder, watching the TV with rapt attention as a serious blonde woman speaks into the microphone. “I’m outside East Valley Courthouse today where the notorious real estate tycoon, Hubert Walsh, is being taken into custody. Our sources at WJXT News indicate the charges involve allegations of violence against Mr. Walsh’s step-daughter, Makayla Pierson, best known for her leading role in the popular TV show, Stalked. Early indications are that Mr. Walsh could be facing some serious jail time.”

  I look to Jesse. “He turned himself in?”

  Jesse smirks. “You did it.” He leans in to give me a quick kiss.

  I feel something blossom in my chest that’s not entirely sweet. As much as I know Hubert needed to find justice, I don’t think there was any way to find it without at least a tinge of regret. I don’t regret that he’s going to pay for what he did, but I regret that it came to this. As ho
rrible as it was to know there were people wanting to hurt me, knowing one of the few people I trusted was behind it all made a mark on me I don’t think will ever completely go away. But the positive to come out of all this is how Hubert’s betrayal has made me appreciate the remaining people I can trust, like Kennedy and Jesse. Even though I thought Jesse had betrayed my trust at times, I know now that all he ever did was try to protect me, and I love him so much for that.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  “I will be,” I say, closing my eyes and pressing my face into his chest, letting the sound of his heartbeat calm me.

  Epilogue: Two Months Later

  “You sure you don’t want to tell me what we’re doing?” I ask Jesse as we climb what seems like the fortieth flight of stairs. “I mean, if you thought I needed a workout you could just come out and say it.”

  He smirks, grabbing my hand and picking me up, holding me in front of his chest and climbing the remaining dozen flights of stairs with a spring in his step. I love how it feels to be carried by him, like I weigh nothing at all. He sets me down when we reach the roof and I gasp, taking in the view of the city stretched out beneath us. I feel a little rush of vertigo and swoon, but Jesse is right beside me to steady me on my feet.

  “This is beautiful,” I say, a little breathlessly.

  He pulls me close to his side protectively. “Yeah. See that?” he asks, pointing to a helicopter banking in the distance and heading our way.

  “Yes…” I say. “Why?”

  He says nothing, just watching and looking obnoxiously pleased with himself.

  What are you up to, Jesse Slade? I press a hand to my stomach, feeling a wave of fear and excitement pass through me. I want to tell him, but I’m terrified at the same time. I think I know how he’ll react, but I could be wrong. Maybe I’ll just say it. Just blurt the words out. I’m pregnant.