Single TV Dad: Billionaire Romance... Naughty Angel Style

by Alexis Angel

  I open the web browser and type “Little_Minx” into the search bar.

  The first results aren’t her. I have to sift through a couple of videos before I find her, but Paul was right. That butterfly is unmistakable.

  It makes me feel better that she’s not popping up right away. There’s a lot of porn that does the rounds on the net, and she said it was a long time ago.

  I click on one of her videos and wait for it to buffer. I don’t know what I’m feeling. Part of me is furious. Part of me is nervous about what I will find. Part of me is broken.

  When the video starts, her face isn’t in it. It’s only from her neck downward. Her hair is tied up so I can’t even see that. She starts off with sexy lingerie and music, moving to the beat in a sultry way.

  If I didn’t know her body as well as I do, it could be anyone. When she turns, the butterfly is visible, and it’s undoubtedly hers, but other than that, I can’t even tell that it’s her.

  The video is hot, though. I have to admit to that. I’m getting hard watching it. But Skylar has always had something about her that makes me want her, something that makes her one of the most desirable people I’ve ever met.

  When the video ends, I search for a date. When I find it, it’s dated ten years ago. This was when she was still studying, at the beginning of her adult life. We all make mistakes and bad choices, right?

  I’m starting to wonder if I was too hard on her. I know I’ve said terrible things that I deeply regret now. I made her believe I thought she was a slut, that her intentions with me were only to get back at Paul. But I was also unfair when I told her I believed it wasn’t for the money.

  I understand how hard it can be out there when you don’t have a trust fund like we did. I can just imagine how hard it must be to pay your own way through college.

  Paul made it sound like she was a porn star, like she did it because she wanted to. I was stupid enough to believe my brother, even though he’d lied to me and everyone else about his love for Skylar and his sexuality. Paul was a black-and-white person, and he could be very malicious if he wanted to be. If he was bitter about me knowing about his being gay, I can imagine why he would want to throw Skylar under the bus.

  Anything to draw attention away for him. And it worked, didn’t it? Since he’d told me, I hadn’t thought about him once.

  I also understand why Skylar married him. Again, it wasn’t the best choice, but the idea that he would keep her secret is something I can understand.

  I just wish she would have told me. Would I have told her if the roles were reversed?

  Probably not.

  I don’t know what to think, but I know I made a mistake. I kicked her out in a horrible way. I did to her what Paul had done. I said terrible things. I did a lot of things I shouldn’t have done. And I want to make it right.

  I don’t know if we’ll be together. I know where we’ll go from here. What I do know is that I need to get her back.

  First, I need to get some sleep. But before that, I search for the site admin and type a message. If there’s anything I can do, it’s throw around my weight because I have money and knowledge. And in this world, it’s all I need.

  After I send the message, I switch off the light and lie down. I close my eyes and finally fall asleep.

  When I wake up, I feel better. I’m tired as fuck, but I feel better. I know what I need to do now.

  I shower, shave, and get ready for work. When I arrive, I take care of a meeting. My employees are walking on egg shells around me, but they seem relieved that I didn’t shout at anyone by the time the meeting is over.

  I walk to my office and close myself in. When I dial Skylar’s number, my stomach rolls. I’m nervous to talk to her. I have to apologize to her. I need to find a way to make it up to her.

  Her phone rings a few times before it rolls over to voicemail. I try twice more, just in case she’s not with her phone.

  When she still doesn’t answer, I resolve to go to the shop at lunch.

  On my lunch break, I go to the bakery. It’s the one place where I know she’ll go.

  When I walk up to Flour Girl, it’s quiet. The doors are shut, and the “Sorry, we’re closed” sign hangs in the door.

  I frown. This isn’t right. Wednesday is a popular day for Skylar, and she’s been doing so well lately. She didn’t want to close for the weekend in Colorado. Why is she shut now?

  I try her number again. Again, I’m forwarded to her voicemail.

  When I don’t know what else to do, I phone Paul.

  “Do you know where Skylar is?” I ask when he answers.

  “Why would I know that?” he asks in a bored voice.

  “Don’t be a dick, Paul,” I say. “It’s important.”

  Paul sighs. “I don’t know where she is. I haven’t heard from her. We don’t exactly talk anymore, not since I kicked her out.”

  I’m starting to panic. I kicked her out, and now she disappeared. The shop is closed, and she’s not answering her phone. How the hell am I supposed to find her?

  I dial the number on the shop window. I hear the phone ring inside the bakery. I knew that it would happen, but I had to try.

  There’s no way I can find her. I don’t know her parents or where they live, and I’ve never met any of her friends. The only contact I had with her before was Paul. And now I have nothing.

  I might have lost her completely, and it’s all my fault.

  There’s nothing I can do to find her. LA is a big place, and I can hardly go around the streets searching for her. All I can do is go back to the office and make sure the rest of my world doesn’t fall apart because something in my personal life has gone wrong.

  I don’t want to go to the office, though. I want to find Skylar. I want to tell her that I was wrong and that I’m sorry. I want to tell her that I love her. I want to ask her for a second chance.

  Dammit!

  I don’t know where I’m going to find her. When she married my brother, it hurt like hell, but I could still see her. I was furious, but I got over that. All of that, as bad as it felt back then, was better than this because I could still talk to her, hug her, and laugh with her.

  What if I lose her forever? What if she never comes back?

  Skylar

  “He keeps trying to phone me,” I say to Lizzie.

  She’s home today. I’m sleeping on her couch while I have nowhere else to go. When I called her, crying, from Parker’s apartment, she came to pick me up right away. I didn’t open the shop today. I don’t feel up to it. I feel like my whole world has fallen part. I know that I shouldn’t lose the bakery, too, but today, I just can’t.

  I had to tell Lizzie everything. Now that it’s out there about my videos online and about Paul being gay, I might as well share.

  “Why don’t you want to talk to him?” Lizzie asks.

  “I told you what he said to me. I don’t think I can handle more. I thought he was different.”

  Lizzie nods. “I hear what you’re saying, but you also told me how easily he gets angry and how irrational he can be. What if it’s blown over?”

  She might be right. I’m too nervous to try, though. I’m scared that something else will go wrong, or that he’ll say something worse. Now that my guard is down, I won’t be able to bounce back. I’ve had about as much heartbreak as I can deal with for one lifetime.

  “I don’t know what to do anymore,” I say to Lizzie. I feel depressed. I feel like I mean nothing now. The people that matter know what I’ve done in my past. Parker just about called me a slut. I can’t deal with that.

  “I think you should open the bakery again. Do what you love. And I think you need to call Parker back.”

  I nod. “The bakery, I get. And I will. It’s just for today. But calling him back? I can’t.”

  Lizzie shrugs. “You can. You have to fix this with him, Skylar.”

  “Why?” I ask. “Why can’t I just walk away?”

  It would be the easiest. What if I
just never saw them again, live a life that doesn’t include them? Parker and Paul and their family have been a part of the picture for a long time, but that doesn’t mean I can’t walk away and never look back.

  Lizzie groans. “Because you love him, Skylar.”

  I blink at her. “Is it that obvious? I ask.

  Lizzie rolls her eyes. “You’re my best friend. Yes, it’s that obvious. But after what you told me, I’m sure even a stranger would agree.”

  I don’t know what to say to her. I know that I’ve fallen for Parker, but am I in love with him?

  “Sometimes, love is not enough,” I say to Lizzie. Sometimes there has to be more. Like respect. And truth. And communication. Things that matter.

  “And sometimes, it’s a good place to start,” Lizzie counters.

  She leaves to run errands in the late afternoon, and I’m alone at her place. I am still in my pajamas, huddled on the couch with my blanket across my knees. I stare at my phone. He’s tried to call me six times. A part of me wants to call him back, but I must admit to myself that I’m terrified.

  I decide to call him, after all. While I push the numbers, I’m trembling. I cuddle deeper into the blankets and hold the phone to my ear, waiting for the calling tone.

  He answers almost immediately.

  “Skylar, thank God,” he says. “I’ve been trying to reach you all day.”

  “Hello, Parker,” I say

  “Are you all right?”

  I want to ask him to define all right, to tell me what it is he thinks I’m going to say. My heart is broken, my self-esteem is ripped to shreds, and I have nowhere to go.

  “I’m fine,” I say.

  He takes a deep breath, like he’s relieved to hear the news. I don’t see why he would worry about me. He was fine kicking me out on Monday.

  “I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he says. “When you disappeared, I got worried.”

  I take a deep breath and blow it out through my nose. “Really, Parker, I’m fine,”

  Am I going to lie about the same thing repeatedly, or is this conversation going to go somewhere?

  “What did you want to contact me about?” I ask. I’m being polite, and I’m impressed with myself that I’m managing so well. What I really want to do is snap at him and demand to know what he wants, and why he thinks it’s all right to phone me like this when he broke me.

  “I want to talk to you,” Parker says. “In person. Will you meet me for dinner?”

  I can’t believe he’s making it sound so simple. I shake my head and close my eyes.

  “Skylar?” he asks.

  “I’m sorry, Parker. I don’t think I can do that.”

  I can’t sit across from him in a restaurant and pretend everything is fine, the way he’s doing. The last time he got upset, he did the same thing to me. He snapped at me, pushed me away, and made me feel like he didn’t want me. And then he came back to me, being friendly as if nothing had happened.

  Why the hell was he being nice to me? This time, I was under no illusion what he thought of me. Before, I played along because he hadn’t been upset with me, after all. This time, everything is different. I know how he sees me. I know that he thinks I’m a dirty whore who sold sex for money. My morals and values, my purity, are being questioned now.

  He can’t call me and be as happy and forgiving as he sounds and think that it will all go away this time.

  I wonder for a moment if he did this to Paul, too, pretending that everything was fine after hurting him. I shake off the thought. I don’t care.

  “Skylar, please,” I hear him saying, and I realize he’s been talking to me. “Just one chance. Please come see me for dinner.”

  Why is he begging me? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? I have no intention of crawling back to him when he thinks I’m scum, but he’s going on like I’m the one that kicked him out and rejected him.

  “I want to fix it,” he says.

  “Fine,” I say. It’s not because I think things can go back to the way they were, now that I know what he thinks of me. I’m just curious about what he has to say, or how he thinks we’ll be able to fix this.

  “Thank you,” he says, sounding relieved again. “Bestia at eight. Tomorrow night.”

  I agree and hang up the phone. I drop the phone into my lap and hold up my hands. My fingers are trembling. I take a deep, shaky breath. I don’t know what to do or to think. The only thing that remains is to go there and find out what he wants before I close this chapter in my life and finally start over.

  I wake up without an alarm at four on Thursday, and I know I must get back to the bakery. It’s my passion, my life. I’ve worked so hard to make it happen, I can’t lose it now because of the men in my life.

  I get out of bed and hop into the shower. I’m ready to leave the house when Lizzie comes out of her room, bleary-eyed.

  “You’re up early,” she says.

  I nod. “I have to bake for the day. I’ll see you at the shop at seven.”

  She smiles at me and nods, turning back to her bed. I leave the apartment and make my way downtown.

  When I unlock the bakery, I realize how much I missed being away from it for just a day. I was thinking about giving it all up, and I realize now what a mistake that would have been.

  I click on the lights, roll up my sleeves, and start my usual routine. Being alone in the bakery, going through the motions, is liberating. I don’t let myself think about all the horrible things that happened. I ferment the yeast, knead the dough, and fire up the ovens. By six-thirty, when the first batches come out of the oven, the air smells of freshly baked bread and promise.

  I don’t need a man in my life to validate who I am. I have built a life for myself. I can live it alone.

  Lizzie comes in at seven.

  “You look better,” she says.

  I nod.

  “Did you talk to Parker?”

  I groan. “I did, but that’s not why I’m in a good mood. I’m in a good mood despite him.” I fill her in on the phone call, and she nods slowly.

  “Well, I think it’s good. If you know you don’t need him to be happy, it will make it easier for you to talk to him and hear him out with an open mind.”

  I nod, agreeing with her. My stomach clenches into a knot of nerves, now that I’m thinking about dinner with Parker.

  I don’t have time to focus on that too long, though. When we open the doors, I write on the chalk board easel that usually displays the specials outside. Everything is half-price today, to make up for being closed.

  Customers flow through my door, and we can barely keep up.

  Finally, when we close, Lizzie and I go to her apartment together. I need to get ready for the dinner I’m starting to dread. I choose black pants and a light gray blouse. It’s emotionless, which is how I want to come across. I do my makeup, pull back my hair, and put on earrings.

  “This is a mistake,” I say to Lizzie when I emerge from the bathroom.

  She shakes her head. “No, it’s not. You need closure, if nothing else. And you look nice.”

  I smile tightly at her. “I’ll see you later,” I say.

  She wishes me luck, and I leave.

  I drive to Bestia and walk in. When I search for Parker, he’s not sitting at any of the tables yet. I walk into the light wood room and sit down at one of the two-seater tables. I order a glass of bottled water and wait for him.

  The later it gets, the more I’m starting to panic. What if he’s not coming? What if he’s standing me up? He’s done worse things, but this feels like a final blow.

  The time creeps by. I finish my water. I order another. I feel like an idiot. When I look around me, the restaurant is filling up with families, couples, and friends. I’m the only one sitting alone, and I’m sure everyone can guess that I’m the lost lover, the one that’s been rejected.

  It’s so humiliating I can cry.

  Finally, twenty-five minutes late, Parker walks in. When my eyes fall o
n him, my heart skips a beat. I’m angry with myself for reacting this way when I see him, but he looks more than handsome.

  He’s wearing jeans that seem new, a light blue shirt that make his eyes stand out, and he’s shaved, his dark hair combed back. A pang shoots through my chest. I don’t have that anymore. He looks so good, and I’m going to walk out of here tonight without him in my life.

  He walks toward me. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” he says. My waitress appears, and he asks for a water to start with. When he turns his eyes back to me, they’re deep and serious, and I shiver.

  Parker pulls out a chair and sits down, moving it in. I’m so nervous, I can taste my heart in my throat. I came here angry, ready to tell him to go to hell. Now that I’m here and he looks the way he does, I don’t know what to think or what to do. I swallow hard and take a deep breath, trying to steady myself. I have my purse on my lap, and I hold onto it like it can anchor me.

  Parker

  “I owe you an apology,” I say, the moment I sit down.

  Skylar frowns at me. She’s nervous. I can tell by the way she’s sitting on the edge of her seat, her body upright, her face tense. Her lips are pursed together, and her eyes are white. She looks like she might bolt.

  This is my fault. I caused her to be this wary of me.

  “I said some horrible things that were completely unnecessary. I don’t think you’re a whore or that you do these things for fun.” I swallow hard. “I was a dick to say them. I was so angry, but that’s not an excuse.”

  She nods slowly.

  “I know you were angry,” she says. “And to be honest, I don’t blame you. I know I should have told you. I just didn’t know how.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t blame you. In fact, I forgive you for lying to me. I understand it.”

  She blinks at me like she doesn’t understand what I’m saying. Despite her nervous look and the way she’s clutching the serviette on the table like it’s a lifeline, she’s beautiful. She dressed up. I don’t know if it’s for me or because she’s trying to be invincible. I would have liked the former, but I’m betting on the latter.