Dom's Baby

by Melinda Minx

  Dominick opens the small little fence, and Clara starts squirming as we pass through. He ducks down and lets her off, and she runs jumping and skipping up the hill and into the flowers.

  Dominick pulls out his camera and starts snapping shots of her. She pulls a few flowers out, puts them into her hair, and runs back toward us smiling and laughing.

  Dominick crouches down and snaps shots as fast as he can, and Clara tugs on his arm. “Play with me in the flowers, Daddy!”

  “Hold on, honey.”

  “Come onnn!”

  He stands up and holds the camera out in front of me. “Look at this one.”

  I look at the shot, and it’s Clara in the diffused light of the midnight sun, she’s laughing so genuine and beautifully. The flowers in her hair are yellow like the sunlight, and she looks like a beautiful angel in a white dress, overpowering the majesty of the flowers behind her. I fall in love instantly with the photo, and I start imagining it enlarged and framed on the wall in our living room back home.

  I bury my head onto Dominick’s shoulder for a blissful moment, before Clara pulls him away. I follow them into the field of flowers, and I realize with tears in my eyes that our life together will hold so many more beautiful moments like this.

  Knocked Up and Tied Down (A Free Bonus Book)

  1

  Nikki

  The skirt is nice and tight, but it’s not short enough. I hike it up and tighten the belt even more. I can barely get air into my lungs, but at least my legs can breathe.

  This interview means everything to me. It’s my career, my love life, and everything in between that I’ve ever wanted wrapped all up into one fated encounter.

  It must be fate. I never thought I’d see Elijah Leeds again. But now—in less than an hour—he’ll see me for the first time in six years. I don’t just need to look good, I need to look stunning. I need to be like one of those harpies from the Odyssey, the ones that lured ships full of men to their deaths with their sweet songs. I can’t sing to save my life, so instead of a sweet song, I need a tight skirt that makes my ass and legs look amazing.

  I undo another button. Cleavage will help, too.

  I press my lips together. Is my lipstick too red? No, it’s got just enough pink in it to not look over the top, but it makes my lips plump and alluring. Elijah won’t be able to look at me as just an interview candidate. Looking like this, he’ll have to think of what else he could do with me. He’ll have to remember, with painful longing, exactly what he didn’t do to me six long years ago.

  Six Years Ago

  I step onto the freshly cut grass of the Oxford campus, and I gaze up at the surrounding buildings. Gothic-style towers and palisades surround a huge dome with a roof painted in a pale sky-blue.

  “It’s like going to college in a castle,” I whisper to Lily.

  Lily nods, a big grin filling her face.

  We’re the only two students from Penn State completing a semester abroad at Oxford, and we’ve decided to stick together since we have the same first class.

  A single semester abroad at Oxford can cost upwards of $15,000, and I know Lily’s parents paid for her to come. I had a scholarship that paid for most of it, but I had to pay the difference with money I earned working part-time jobs all through high school.

  It was worth it, I realize, watching the students flood across the lawn. The students here all look more sophisticated than the slobs I’m used to back in Pennsylvania. There’s not a single pair of ratty sneakers in sight.

  A hot guy with perfect hair and a blazer smiles at me as he walks past, and Lily elbows me.

  “I’m here for the studies,” I say, the excitement in my voice betraying me.

  “Foreign studies,” Lily says. “Imagine hearing that guy’s hot accent as he works his way down—”

  I slap her playfully on the shoulder. “Stop! We have to get to class.”

  Lily rolls her eyes. “German literature.”

  “What’s wrong with German literature?” I ask.

  She scoffs. “Heard of World War II? The Nazis burned books!”

  She grabs my hand and starts pulling me toward the castle-like buildings.

  We search around like idiots, not sure how to find the right classroom. As we search, the hallways and lawn clears out, until we are soon some of the only students still wandering around.

  “I’m going to fuck the first guy with a hot accent who smiles at me,” Lily says, just as we arrive at another dead-end.

  “Good for you,” I say, feeling a little annoyed. Since her parents pay for everything, she’s free to use this as an extended vacation. I don’t have that luxury.

  We finally find the right door, and Lily shoves me into it. Since we’re late, she wants me to go in first. It’s a lecture hall, and it’s full. All the good seats—meaning the seats in back—are taken. Only the front row has open seats. Lily hides behind me as I push forward.

  I can hear the professor talking, but I keep my head down, hoping to God he won’t call me out. I know that having an American accent is nothing to be ashamed of, but when I’m late to class on the very first day, the last thing I want is to look like an ugly American in front of an entire lecture hall.

  As I near the front of the room, I see the professor. I really see him. I can’t take my eyes off the man, because he’s the single most attractive thing I’ve ever laid eyes on in my life.

  He’s incredibly tall, but his broad shoulders and wide chest fill him in enough that he doesn’t look at all awkward or lanky. He’s taken his jacket off and is wearing a crisp, freshly pressed white dress shirt. The sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, exposing his delicious and muscular forearms. Through the thin white sleeves, I can see his big biceps threatening to burst free.

  I realize I’ve stopped walking. I’m just standing there, staring at him, while Lily remains ducked in low behind me.

  He locks eyes with me. They are dark brown, with a fierce, burning intensity. His hair is dark, black and of medium length. Wavy, not quite curly, and each lock has managed to fall at just the right angle to strike a perfect haphazardness—like he’s too busy thinking about German literature to worry about his hair, and yet it just ends up looking perfect anyway.

  “Can I help you?”

  I feel an annoying tugging on my arm. I almost turn to Lily and hiss at her to stop, but then I realize the beautiful man isn’t just looking at me, he’s talking to me.

  “Oh,” I try to say—the most idiotic response possible. Luckily my voice just croaks, and nothing comes out.

  Lily starts pushing me again from behind, and I force myself to walk forward.

  As I feel my cheeks burning white-hot, I realize the man is smirking at me. His strong, square jaw is hiding perfectly straight, white teeth, and his eyes light up as he grins at me.

  I opt to point toward the open seats in the front row like some kind of mute caveman, and he responds with an equally silent response, simply smirking and turning a palm up toward the seats, gesturing for Lily and me to sit down.

  When I finally sit and look back up, I swear Mr. Hot Professor is still looking at me, but that’s impossible, because a man like him couldn’t possibly notice me, at least not in the way I’d want him to.

  2

  Elijah

  As I’m explaining the differences between Pablo and Hermine, I notice two girls standing to the side of the lecture hall. One is hiding behind the other, and the other is…

  Jesus. I can’t look at students like this, even if they are all adults.

  Technically.

  This one doesn’t look a day over eighteen, and her deer-in-the-headlights, profuse blushing act does nothing to make her look any older.

  “Hermine is the feminine version of the name Hermann, who is obviously…” I trail off as I zero in on her.

  She’s wearing a short, plaid skirt. Why that, of all things? Most girls are so happy to be in university and wear anything other than something that resembles their unifo
rms from girlhood, but this one looks like she thinks she’s still in grammar school.

  I find my eyes wandering down her long legs and then trailing back up, lingering on her full breasts, but I pull myself together enough to smile and say, “Can I help you?”

  Her eyes widen even more when she realizes I’m directing my comment to her, and I force myself to keep my own eyes focused intensely on her face. I’ve never been tempted by a student, especially not one so young. I’m not going to start now, my career is more important than that.

  She opens her mouth, but no sound comes out. Finally, she points toward the open seats in the front row, and I gesture for her and her friend to sit down.

  I catch myself staring at her even as she makes her way to the front of the room and takes a seat, but I tear my eyes away and continue on with the lecture.

  As I talk, I occasionally sneak a look in her direction. Her long, strawberry blonde hair spills onto her white blouse, drawing my eyes down her chest. Each time I look toward her, though, her eyes are locked on me, as if she’s enraptured by every word of my lecture.

  Even after I look away, the imprints of those green eyes remain burned onto my retinas, as if I’d been staring at the sun for too long.

  My chest gets heavier as I go on, and it gets harder and harder to keep my eyes off her. When I see her smile, I decide to take a risk.

  I look right at her as I’m making a point about Hermine, locking our eyes for a solid three or four seconds, and speaking directly to her.

  “When Haller stabbed Hermine in the chest,” I say, “he wasn’t really killing her, he was resolving an inner conflict within himself.”

  My heart races as she licks her thick lips. How will I resolve this inner conflict? She’s certainly too young, even if she wasn’t my student—and even if she is legal.

  The lecture finally ends, and the students all rush out, thrilled to not have to hear me continuing to prattle on.

  I open my dog-eared, heavily annotated copy of Steppenwolf and try to look busy, but I can’t focus. The printed words seem to just float on the pages of the book, and—

  “Professor,” a voice says. I recognize the American accent, and it cuts through the buzz in the lecture hall.

  I look up and am not surprised to see that it’s her.

  “Yes?” I say, my voice coming out much more skeptical and abrasive than I wanted.

  “I just wanted to introduce myself. I’m Nikki.”

  I reach out a hand, and as soon as her skin touches mine, it feels like electricity jolts through me. “Elij—” I cut myself off. “Professor Leeds,” I say.

  “Are you from Leeds?” she asks.

  I laugh. “No, no, I’m from the south. You’d know from my accent if I was from Leeds.”

  I’m standing behind a small desk, which is covered by a few papers and books. It’s not my desk, just the one provided for anyone lecturing a class in this room. And we’re not in my office either, as many students are still milling around behind us, waiting to speak with me.

  But the small desk separating me from the students may as well not exist. I can only hear her voice and see her eyes piercing into me. The shyness from before seems to have been washed away, replaced by some kind of raw intensity.

  I grab the sheet of paper listing the names of all the students off my desk, just to make sure she’s really in my class and not some figment of my imagination.

  “Nicole?” I ask. “Nicole Faria?”

  “Everyone calls me Nikki,” she says.

  I grin. “I’ll call you Nicole, or do you prefer Miss Faria?”

  She looks at me defiantly, but I pull my shoulders back so that I tower over her, daring her to question me.

  “Nicole is fine,” she says meekly.

  “So, Nicole, you just came up here to introduce yourself? You don’t have another class to get to?” I question.

  I find myself subconsciously treating her in the same way I would a much older woman I was interested in. Trying to keep her off-guard and unbalanced, giving me an edge over her. I like to be in control.

  “Oh,” she says. “I actually wanted to disagree with you.”

  I laugh. “About what?”

  “About Haller stabbing Hermine,” she says. “I don’t think Hermine is just, like, some kind of feminine part of Haller. She’s also much younger than him.”

  I feel my blood beginning to boil. I want to reach across the table and grab her. I want to tug her hands behind her, clasp her wrists together, and hear her dare to disagree with me again when I have her tied and bound.

  “So,” I say, keeping my voice calm, despite the storm raging within me. “She represents his younger self, and his feminine side, as well. The whole point of the book is that none of this is clear-cut.”

  “But Haller didn’t teach himself to dance,” Nikki says.

  “What?” I ask.

  “In the beginning of the book, Haller is a stiff old man, and he can’t dance to save his life.”

  I can dance, and I’m not even thirty years old. How old does she think I am? Is she even talking about me? From the evil glint in her eyes, I know she’s talking about me, and I know exactly what she means when she says “stiff.”

  “And by the end of the book,” Nikki says, “Haller is dancing like a madman to jazz, in a drug-fueled frenzy...did he teach himself to dance?”

  I shrug. “It’s not meant to be taken literally.”

  “Hermine teaches him to love, too,” Nikki says, slowly licking her lips, and a devious expression fills her face.

  “But he never actually sleeps with her,” I say, gathering up my papers. “Not once.”

  I get the pile stacked neatly, and then turn to look up at her. I force out in my most professional-sounding voice, “Good day, Miss Faria.”

  3

  Nikki

  “You know what I hate?” I say to Lily over lunch.

  “No, what?”

  “The way British people can use words in ways we can’t,” I say, staring down at my food and frowning.

  “How’s that?” Lily asks absently, as she crams a fork full of potatoes into her mouth.

  “Let’s take...I don’t know...Good Day, for instance.”

  “Good Day means Good Day,” Lily says, her mouth still full.

  “No, Lily. First off, Americans almost never even say ‘Good Day’ anymore as a greeting. So British people get to use it as a greeting to make themselves sound all sophisticated.”

  “Uh huh,” Lily mumbles.

  “But you know what’s even weirder? They can use it to say good-bye, too. Like...imagine I’m creating a scene somewhere, and they want to ask me to leave as politely as possible—”

  “Why would you make a scene?” Lily asks, raising an eyebrow.

  “Just pretend,” I snap. “Imagine I’m making a scene, and some annoying posh British lady looks at me, pretends to care about whatever it is that I’m saying, and then she says while looking toward the door, ‘Yes, well, Good Day, Ms. Faria.’”

  I watch Lily to gauge her reaction, but she just looks at me like I’m an idiot.

  “Come on, Lily! Wouldn’t that be the most obnoxious way to ask someone to leave, to just dismiss them without even saying what they really mean?”

  Lily shrugs. “I guess. More importantly, don’t you think that German Lit professor was pretty hot?”

  I bite my lip and glance away from her.

  Lily laughs. “You do! You totally think he’s hot. What were you talking to him about after class...Oh. My. God. He said ‘Good Day’ to you, didn’t he?!”

  I shake my head. “No, that wasn’t—”

  “He totally dismissed you by saying, ‘Good Day, Ms. Faria,’ didn’t he? This whole what-if thing you were pulling on me, if you wanted me to get into this, you should have just told me it really happened to you!”

  “It’s really annoying,” I mutter, crossing my arms.

  “What the hell did you say to him? Did you make a s
cene? You slut!”

  I tell her the course of events, and she laughs in my face. “Nikki, he’s like thirty years old, and you’re not even nineteen. Just find a hot guy who is like twenty-two to fulfill your little older guy fantasy. There are so many hot guys here, and they seem to think our American accents are hot. God knows why.”

  “I actually Googled him,” I say. “He’s only twenty-eight. Not even thirty. You said he was thirty, but he’s much younger.”

  “Listen to yourself,” Lily says. “Let’s just go to a bar tonight and find you someone to get your mind off this guy.”

  “I need to study,” I say.

  While Lily goes to the bar that night, I study — Professor Leeds’ office hours. I also write down a list of topics I can argue with him about when I go to his office. I noticed that he got the most emboldened when I questioned and argued with him. I want to see that happen again.

  But I have to avoid another ‘Good Day.’ I shouldn’t push too hard, at least not at first.

  I had to wait until Wednesday morning for Professor Leeds’ office hours. That’s more than a full day without seeing him. A full day for my mind to wander and my imagination to get the best of me. I put on a really low-cut shirt and a nice short skirt, grab my annotated copy of Steppenwolf, and walk into his office ready to go.

  “Miss Faria,” he says, his accent nearly melting my insides straight away.

  “I thought we decided on Nicole,” I say, pouting.

  “Um,” he mumbles. “Of course. Have a seat, Nicole.”

  “You remember in Steppenwolf,” I say, “when Hermine and Haller first meet?”

  He nods.

  “Maybe my translation is bad, but I don’t really understand what they are talking about…”

  “Oh,” he says, leaning forward. “Let me explain.”