The Single Daddy Situation

by Layla Valentine

  Their second time had started off slower, more languid, before increasing in intensity. Her calves had rested on his shoulders at the start, but he flipped her around like a rag doll, and she loved every second of it. He had taken a fistful of her hair as he thrust in and out of her, and Mariah had to muffle her cries of pleasure by jamming her face into a pillow.

  At the thought, she flicked open her eyes and took in a sharp breath. She had snuck out of his room as the sun crested the horizon that morning. Though she had no reason to think the sex was a one-off, she didn’t want to try to explain her sharing a bed with Logan in the event Emily woke before them.

  She was dressed in the same running shorts and T-shirt, and even though she’d taken a shower the night before in order to wash off the sand and dirt from the beach, she knew she would need another before she started the day.

  Maybe she should have stayed in Logan’s bed—they could have showered together. She could picture the droplets of water rolling down his smooth skin, his hair matted to the sides of his face as he fixed those slate gray eyes on her.

  Damn. She should have stayed in his bed.

  Pushing aside the mental imagery, she picked out her clothes for the day—a white, button-down blouse, black-and-white striped cardigan, and slacks. The suite was quiet as she tiptoed to the bathroom sandwiched between her and Emily’s rooms.

  When she emerged after blow-drying her long hair, the place was still silent, but Emily’s door was open. Checking her phone, Mariah found a text message from Logan, advising her that he and Emily were on their way to the hotel’s restaurant for breakfast, and that she was welcome to join them if she wished.

  The flutter in her stomach was unrelenting as she collected her handbag, phone and room key. How would he react when he saw her? Would they share a knowing grin, would he send her a text message as they sat at the table, or would he pull her aside to express his regret? With all the raw passion that had been prominent in their movements last night, she doubted the latter. As she neared the restaurant, she became more and more certain that his reaction would be positive.

  But when she spotted their table and approached, he hardly hazarded a sideways glance in her direction. His gray eyes were fixed on his smartphone, though he found time to spear a couple pieces of fruit between text messages, or whatever he was doing.

  She expected him to snap out of the trance to acknowledge her presence, but as the minutes dragged on and she ordered her own food, her disappointment mounted. There was no trace of regret, of uncertainty, there was just nothing. Based on his demeanor, and if she didn’t know better, she would have thought that last night hadn’t even transpired in the real world.

  When his eyes finally flitted up to hers, the expression on his face didn’t change. “I have a meeting in a half an hour, and I’d like you to come with me. Emily’s going to stay with the daycare staff.” His tone was clipped and matter-of-fact, almost like he was a commander giving her an order.

  Rather than make an attempt to vocalize a response, Mariah merely nodded.

  Based on what he’d told her last night about the client and the series of meetings that had been scheduled, he was under a great deal of pressure. Pressure to not only represent Harfield and Wellner, but to represent Jordan’s tech firm and the advancement in mobile technology that they had to offer. Mariah didn’t doubt that the stress was immense, and every person reacted differently to stress. Pressure helped her to focus, but for some people, pressure turned them into a complete jerk.

  For the time being, she would give Logan the benefit of the doubt. Ever since they had run into one another at the MMA match in San Bravado a couple weeks ago, he had been nothing but kind to her.

  That couldn’t have all changed because of one night. Could it?

  Chapter 26

  Mariah

  Adjusting in her seat beside Logan, Mariah took in a deep, steadying breath and exhaled slowly. For what felt like the fifteenth time, Logan and the head of the Singaporean firm restarted their negotiations.

  Mariah liked to think she was well-versed in the art of concentration, but her mind had wandered more times over the last day and a half than she cared to count. Each sentence, each word that Logan and his potential client spoke had to be translated from English to Malay, or from Malay to English. Even if the translation hadn’t been necessary, she wasn’t sure she could have kept herself focused enough to stop the drifting thoughts.

  Only a little over twenty-four hours had elapsed since she gave in to the temptation that had plagued her since she was first shown to Logan’s office in San Bravado. At the time, each movement had felt so purposeful, so amazingly good that she thought there was no way she could possibly regret the decision.

  But now, without so much as a glance from Logan to acknowledge what had occurred between them, she wished she had kept walking when he approached her that night. At least then she wouldn’t have to mull over the possibility that he had used this entire job opportunity to string her along for an occasional, convenient lay.

  If that’s all he had wanted, why couldn’t he have picked a different woman? A woman that didn’t get the stupid butterflies in her stomach whenever he looked at her, or whenever she thought of him.

  Why did he have to pick her?

  Grating her teeth together, Mariah forced her thoughts back to the sunny conference room. He was a jerk, but she had a job to do.

  One way or another, she would eventually have a time and a place to confront him. For the time being, she would maintain the façade of professionalism that he seemed so intent on keeping up.

  As the meeting wore on—and wore on was the only adequate descriptor—Mariah understood less and less of what was said. At times, Logan and the potential client seemed vehement, and at times, they seemed calm and understanding. There were terms exchanged that she was unfamiliar with, and she had to fight to keep her expression neutral as they threw around numbers she had never heard used in serious conversation before.

  She realized suddenly that she felt out of place. All the men—and they were all men—in the room were wealthy, successful businessmen. Though Logan had come from a rough upbringing, he was still a fabulously wealthy and successful venture capitalist. His company was valued in the billions of dollars, and over the past month, he had closed deals that totaled in the tens of millions.

  And then, there was Mariah. Mariah and her younger brother had been raised by a single mother. Her father bailed on their family when they were little, and they had never repaired the relationship. Neither of them held any feelings of malice for the man; they were indifferent.

  Sure, Mariah’s mom had worked her way up the corporate ladder to become a human resources director at the insurance company where she worked, but even her six-figure salary paled in comparison to the numbers that Harfield and Wellner raked in.

  These weren’t her people, and Mariah had known that since the day she accepted Logan’s offer. But until today, she had one tether to connect her to their world—Logan. Now, she was certain that bond had been irreparably shattered.

  After a couple more heated exchanges, the head of the client’s firm stood from his chair and motioned to the door. He said something, but before the hurried words could be translated, a tall, well-dressed man strode through the doorway. His strides were purposeful. Too purposeful.

  As the sunlight glinted off the silver object in his hand, Mariah all but leaped out of her seat. Time seemed to slow down as she closed the distance, clamped her hand down around his arm, and spun around to twist his wrist. At the same time the silver object dropped to the floor, she none-too-gently shoved him up against the drywall.

  In those next few seconds, she could have heard a pin drop in the conference room. When she snapped her eyes down to the item that had fallen to the carpet below, her blood turned to ice. Her mouth felt like it was stuffed full of cotton balls, and her palms were clammy as she released her vice-like grip on the newcomer.

  The item she
had been so sure was a weapon was, in fact, a leaf-shaped ornament.

  Each step backward felt like it had been made through molasses. The men had started to exchange a heated dialogue, but their voices sounded distant and tinny over the rush of Mariah’s pulse.

  She had heard those numbers, and now, she could see the indignation written plainly on the would-be client’s face. The failure of the negotiation meant the loss of the potential to earn millions of dollars, plus the recognition of Harfield and Wellner as a global enterprise.

  But the negotiations had failed.

  And Mariah was the reason.

  Chapter 27

  Logan

  On days like today, Logan wished he was a smoker. He had picked up the habit for a spell while he was at Stanford, but he’d ditched it not long before he and Caron got married. Despite the near-decade he’d spent smoke-free, if he was presented with a pack of cigarettes right now, he wouldn’t hesitate to light one up.

  He didn’t even want the nicotine, though its calming effect would be a welcome dose of relaxation. At this point, he just wanted something to do. Something to capture his attention, to redirect his irritability for even a minute.

  Mariah had offered a quiet apology on the short trip back to their suite, but all he had managed in response was a stiff “it’s fine.”

  Not only had he lost out on the potential to earn a hefty sum of cash for Harfield and Wellner, but he had wasted weeks, no—months on the preparation for this meeting. He’d dumped thousands into the plane tickets, and spent just about as much to rent the luxurious space for the weekend.

  He could live with the idea of wasting money on plane tickets and what was essentially a vacation. Even from beneath the ire, he could admit that the island resort was beautiful and serene. Hell, he thought he could have lived with the loss of the deal if he had been the one to screw it up.

  But in a way, he had been the one to screw it up, hadn’t he? He had hired Mariah. He had offered her a position as his personal assistant and bodyguard. He had been the sentimental one, and his personal feelings had just cost his company a hell of a lot of money.

  He thought she would be a good fit for the position, but he was wrong. He had made a mistake, and like any other mistake in life, he would learn and grow from it. In the meantime, he would be pissed, but eventually he would be better for it.

  This was the last time he would make the mistake of mixing his personal feelings with his prospects in the professional world.

  After Mariah apologized, they made the rest of the trip in silence. As soon as Emily spotted him and Mariah, any hint of contentment vanished from her face.

  “Come on, sweetie,” he said as he held a hand out to her. “We’re going to head back to the room so we can pack. We’re going to go home.”

  Wordlessly, Emily nodded her understanding.

  Logan couldn’t help the pang of guilt as her face fell. Mariah’s presence had been a comfort not just for him, but for his daughter as well. In the last week, he thought he had learned more about Emily’s personality and her interests than he had in the entire year before. The time he had spent with her didn’t feel forced or awkward, it felt… normal. Good. Just like he imagined a father should feel when they were with their child.

  But at the end of the day, had it been worth it? Had Mariah’s presence been worth the millions of dollars his business had just missed out on?

  At first blush, the answer seemed obvious. If it meant the wellbeing of his daughter, then the answer was yes.

  There was only one problem. In matters of the heart, nothing was certain. There was no guarantee that Mariah would stick around, no promise written in stone that she wouldn’t leave.

  And if there was one thing that stirred up anxiety in the back of Logan’s mind, it was uncertainty.

  Chapter 28

  Mariah

  Despite the muffled roar of the little plane’s engine, the silence that had settled in on Mariah and Logan since they boarded their flight was deafening. Even Emily hadn’t offered much in the way of dialogue. Mariah wanted to pose a straightforward inquiry to Logan—to ask him if she would still have a job when they returned to the United States.

  But whenever she glanced to where he sat beside his daughter, she swallowed the question before it could form on her tongue. Somewhere between his rigid posture and clenched jaw, she felt she had her answer.

  She didn’t know what to say, she hadn’t known what to say since Logan’s client had called off their deal. Not only had Logan wasted an entire weekend to negotiate a contract that fell through, but he’d likely spent thousands of dollars on the plane tickets and their lodging at the island resort.

  What in the hell was she supposed to say to assuage that? Aside from the stammering apology she had made at the meeting, she didn’t think there was anything she could possibly add that would lessen the pain of the blow. Nothing she could say would renegotiate the multi-million-dollar deal she had ruined.

  At the same time, there was a spark of indignation that simmered beneath all the anxiety. She had made an honest mistake. As time had slowed down during the man’s approach, Mariah had taken into account not just his seemingly aggressive demeanor, but the fact that his associates had been haggling with an American businessman for two days. They were in the middle of nowhere, and if anything happened to them, they’d be just another group of lost American tourists.

  How could she have known that the Singaporean firm’s signature move was to offer a physical token of concession? How was she supposed to know that they handed the same ornaments out to other strong leaders in their industry? Logan could have told her, that’s how. But did he even know?

  No matter how many ways Mariah justified the debacle in her head, she still wasn’t sure if the explanation would translate into an understanding between her and Logan.

  Plus, there was the subject of the sex that he hadn’t even bothered to try to broach. Her thighs were still sore from the impassioned night they’d shared together, and the bruises from where he’d bitten her were still present. She knew the scratch marks down his back hadn’t healed yet, and she knew the faint sting accompanied his movements.

  How did the sensation not bother him? How did those marks not serve as a reminder of all the dirty things he’d whispered in her ear, or all the times she’d begged him not to stop?

  He had used her, and now he was going to fire her.

  Great. Just great.

  The pilot’s sudden shout jerked Mariah out of her thoughts. When she flashed a questioning glance to Logan, their eyes met for the first time in what felt like an eternity.

  “What was that?” Logan called as he shifted his attention toward the cockpit.

  “Something’s wrong,” the other man returned. “The sensors, I don’t know. A few of them just quit working, and—what now! Another one just went offline!”

  Mariah’s blood turned cold. He couldn’t be serious. This was a joke, wasn’t it? The pilot was reciting a line he used on unsuspecting American tourists to get them riled up before he burst into laughter. He had to be.

  “We’re coming up on an island. It’s about ten miles off the mainland, but we’re going to have to land there before anything else starts to go.”

  “Oh, crap,” Mariah breathed.

  Emily turned her wide-eyed stare from her father to Mariah and then back.

  “I think it’s an electrical issue,” the pilot went on. “Hold on. We’ll be okay, but this might be a little rough.”

  Mariah clamped her hands down on the armrests of her seat and gritted her teeth. She had only flown a handful of times throughout her life, but this was only her second time in a plane this size. If she made it out of this, she was sure this would be her last time, too.

  As the plane bucked and sputtered down to a stretch of white sand, Mariah didn’t release her death grip on the chair. When she dared a sideways glance at Logan and Emily, he had wrapped one arm around her shoulders to pull her close. The su
nlight caught the glassiness in her blue eyes, but otherwise, she was quiet. Either she was scared to death, or she trusted her father when he told her that they would be okay.

  They were all jerked backward in their seats as the plane’s wheels touched down on the sandy beach. The impact rattled the structure of the plane itself as the velocity crashed in those first few seconds. Mariah was rocked back and forth in her seat a few times, and then, suddenly, the world was still again.

  The drone of the engine had ceased, and over the ringing in her ears, all Mariah could hear was… nothing. Aside from the screech of a tropical bird and the muted crash of the ocean waves, the cabin was quiet.

  “Are you guys okay?” the pilot called. There was a faint click as he unbuckled his seatbelt to turn around to face them. His dark eyes flitted from Mariah to Logan, and then to Emily. “Are you okay, kiddo?”

  Emily swallowed as she nodded.

  With a strained smile, the man returned the nod. “Okay, well…” He paused to run a hand through his thick hair. “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. We’ll go with the bad first, I guess. Something electrical is fried. I don’t know what it is, but it knocked out the radio before we even landed. Now, even if one of you is an airplane mechanic, there’s no way we’re going anywhere in this thing.”

  Mariah’s hand still shook from the rush of adrenaline. As she unbuckled her seatbelt, she arched an eyebrow at the pilot. “What’s the good news?” And if you tell me it’s that we’re alive, I swear to God…