The driver will be arriving with Rossi and Lucia any minute.
It’s been a week since I left them back in Illinois.
A painful, tortuous one-hundred-sixty-eight hours.
I’d have brought them on the first flight back if I could, but Rossi wouldn’t have it. She wanted time to get her affairs in order. Break the big news to her family. Meet with a real estate agent. Figure out what to pack, what to store. Not to mention, she still needed to sign the final settlement with the fertility clinic. In my opinion, their screw-up was worth more than the two million they offered, but their legal team was holding firm and pushing back on it would’ve only eaten into our legal fees.
In the end, we both decided to place that money in an investment account for Lucia, bury the past, and focus on the future.
Besides, I’ve got more than enough money for the three of us.
“Appreciate it,” I say. “You’re good to take off for the night.”
“Text me if you need anything,” her voice trails as she heads for the back door.
“You know I will,” I call out.
For a moment, I debate stopping her. Rossi has only met Taylor via FaceTime once and it wouldn’t hurt to properly introduce them since Taylor’s still here. But I’ve been working her to the bone the last couple of weeks. She deserves a night off.
So I let her go.
Once Rossi gets settled, the two of them will have ample time to get acquainted.
I stare at the golden bottle of Cristal chilling in a silver-plated bucket of ice and the two pristine flutes Taylor set up on the kitchen island before she left. I hadn’t even asked her to do that—she took the initiative herself.
As soon as the dust settles, I’ll give her a raise.
It can’t be easy working for me, and already she’s proving to be worth her weight in gilded tennis trophies.
Heading to the front of my estate, I watch for the driveway gate to swing open and the chauffeur-driven Escalade to pull up with my precious cargo. I’d planned to meet them there, at the tarmac, but traffic this time of day is notoriously unpredictable, and I wasn’t sure when I’d be finished interviewing Coach’s replacement.
Turns out, he knew about Tatum’s pregnancy—and he was well-aware of the fact that the timeline didn’t add up. The two of them had conspired to try to pull one over on me, each with their own agendas. Tatum, of course, was hoping it’d make me “see the light” and reconcile with her. Coach was hoping it’d get me out of Illinois, which he felt was a distraction.
While I owe much of my success to Coach and it pained me to let him go, the betrayal and manipulation was a non-negotiable for me. I’ve worked too hard, come too far, and respect myself too damn much to tolerate that sort of behavior.
As much as I wanted to confront Tatum, per Phoebe’s advice, berating a pregnant woman wouldn’t be the wisest move. And I agree. So instead, she issued a public statement from me to the press, denying paternity and providing the proof that it couldn’t be me.
Tatum has since deactivated all of her social media accounts.
It’s only a matter of time before she springs back—a narcissist can only go so long without the affections of her loyal followers, but she’s the least of my concerns.
The driveway gate swings open and my lips spread into the widest grin as I wait for my favorite girls. The Escalade parks by the fountain, and I trot up to the backdoor, which swings open before I have a chance to get it for her. A second later, Rossi is flinging herself into my arms, and I’m swinging her around, like a scene from a damn romance movie.
I’ve never been this guy—until now.
Once we settle down, I place her feet on the ground and claim her rosy mouth with a slow, soft kiss. The taste of spearmint on her tongue and berry lip balm on her lips sends my heart into overdrive.
“I missed you so damn much.” I breathe in her sweet vanilla scent. The way we’re acting, you’d think we hadn’t seen each other in years. Funny how a single week can feel like an eternity when it’s keeping you from the one thing you want more than anything else.
Doesn’t help that I’m not accustomed to waiting for things …
“I missed you too,” she says. The intensity of her blue irises are magnified in the California late afternoon sun. From the car, Lucia giggles. “I think someone has been missing her daddy …”
Without hesitation, I unbuckle my daughter from her car seat, scooping her into my arms.
“Welcome to your new home, baby girl,” I say.
In the coming weeks, we’ll work on getting the rest of Rossi’s family out here, but for now, it’s just the three of us. And between training for my next tournament, I’m planning to devote every waking minute to these two.
The driver unloads the trunk, assembling a line of luggage and baby gear while we head in.
“Oh, guess what?” Rossi slips her arm around my lower back as we walk side-by-side. “You’re never going to believe this.”
“What?”
“We were leaving today when I saw a Realtor putting a sign in Dan’s front yard.” She bites her lip. “So I guess he’s moving?”
“Actually, I do believe that.” After the stunt he pulled two weeks ago, I pulled one of my own. Turns out I know someone who knows someone who knows Dan’s boss in the accounting division of the large “Fortune 500” corporation where he works.
All it took was a couple of phone calls and the bastard was canned.
“Wonder where he’s going to go?” she muses, a hint of sadness in her tone.
But I don’t feel bad for him. He got exactly what he deserved.
“As long as he keeps his delusional string-bean ass out of California, I don’t care where he goes,” I say.
Rossi swats me as we step over the landing and into the foyer of the expansive home that will no longer be quiet and smudge-free from this moment forward—something I’m one-million-percent okay with.
Gasping, she stops, clasping a hand over her chest. “Oh, my god.”
“What?”
“This view …” She takes a couple of steps before stopping, transfixed by the rolling ocean view out the two-story window ahead. “How do you live here? How is this real life?”
She chuckles ambling into the next room, her pretty mouth agape.
I’d given her a handful of tours over FaceTime, but apparently I didn’t do this place justice.
“Welcome home,” I say to my girls.
I think they’re going to love it here.
And how could they not?
It’s truly paradise on earth; nirvana.
Epilogue
Five Years Later
* * *
Rossi
* * *
“Where would you like this, ma’am?” A uniformed mover hoists a small box labeled BARBIES on his shoulder.
“Top of the stairs, second room on the right.” I point. “Oh, have you seen my husband? And was he with a miniature version of himself, by chance?”
“Just saw him out back on the court with the little guy,” he says before climbing the stairs to deliver the dolls to Lucia’s room.
I waddle toward the back sliding door, peering out onto the expansive grassy acre nestled under a shady grove.
For the past several years, we called his Malibu house our home, and we fell asleep every night to the sound of the ocean waves crashing on the shore, but with Lucia and little Frankie getting older and the newest baby Catalano on the way, we wanted more greenspace for them to run around, an extra bedroom, and a second office for me.
We also managed to find a smaller house a few blocks from here in an adjacent neighborhood. Fabian purchased the place as an anniversary present for my parents, who moved out here with us five years ago without giving it a second thought. No convincing necessary. My father’s in heaven with this weather, bragging to his friends back home that it’s like “being on vacation 24/7.” Mom has happily taken over Carina’s nanny duties while she gets her first
Plant Parenthood location off the ground.
Chuckling, I watch my husband attempt to place a miniature tennis racket into our two-year-old son’s chubby fists. He’s determined to make him the next Catalano tennis champ, but only time will tell.
Checking my watch, I head to the front of the house to wait for Mom to pull up with Lucia, stopping first to set out an afterschool butterscotch pudding cup for my busy, curious, pig-tailed kindergartener.
In a few short months, we’ll be a family of five—something I never dreamed possible.
“Mom! I’m home!” The sound of tiny sneakers tromping through the front door of our new house is music to my ears.
“In the kitchen,” I call out.
“I don’t know where that is …” she shouts back, sing-songing. Always yelling, this one. Like her father. I’m finding she’s got a temper to match, too.
“Follow my voice,” I sing-song in response.
A second later, she barrels around the corner, her glittery purple backpack bouncing as the biggest grin takes up half of her face.
“Did you remember to pack my pudding cups?” she asks.
I point to the one sitting on the island. “One step ahead of you, Luc.”
Ditching her bag, she sidles up to a bar stool and digs in as movers shuffle in and out of our house with boxes and sofas and questions.
“I can’t get over that view,” Mom says from the living room as she watches my two favorite fellas play tennis out back. “All those trees. That sparkling pool. All that space.”
It’s funny when I think back to the beginning of all of this, when fear and doubt paralyzed my every decision. Because this life? This beautiful, perfect, amazing, dreamy life? Was nothing to be scared of.
Nonna always said everything happens for a reason.
Who’d have ever thought my reason would be Fabian Catalano?
SAMPLE - ENEMY DEAREST
Chapter 1
* * *
Sheridan
* * *
I sink to the bottom of the glimmering midnight pool, the cashmere-soft water swallowing me whole. With a lungful of sticky night air held tight in my lungs, I wait until my toes scrape the concrete bottom before floating to the surface.
My father always says, “Nothing good ever happens after midnight.”
But it’s 1 AM.
And this is divine.
I brush a ribbon of chlorine-soaked hair from my face, take a deep breath, and close my eyes, letting the full moon paint my body as I float on my back. Muscles liquid. Mind emptied of the day’s worries. Naked as the day I was born and as free as a dove.
I could stay here forever—which is ironic because I shouldn’t be here in the first place.
Technically, I’m trespassing.
Eyes shut, I inhale the distinct scent of pool water and nearby rose bushes, and try to imagine what it must feel like to be a Monreaux, growing up behind these privileged iron gates, a world away from us ordinary locals.
Not that there’s anything wrong with being ordinary.
In fact, I’m quite content being a nobody.
There’s more to life than having the world at your fingertips. It’s okay to struggle, to want for things. Mama says it builds character; gives us the grit we need to get through the runaway rollercoaster that is life. Or maybe that’s what she’s had to tell herself all her life to get through the myriad of inflictions God saw fit to gift her—a rare vagus nerve disorder that makes her body overreact to even the mildest stressors, a weak heart that makes everyday tasks feel like scaling Everest, and just this year he thought it’d be fun to throw in a bout with Guillain-Barre syndrome.
And Mama also said no one ever promised life would be fair for everyone. We all have our crosses to carry and comparing them doesn’t do us any good. She also said that if all we have is each other, that would be enough. We don’t have much in terms of money or possessions or bragging rights, but we have our loyalty and love, and for us, it’s all we need to get through this life.
Squinting, I study the blanket of stars above, distracted by Cassiopeia’s flickering constellation and the rich section of Milky Way that runs through her—until a light flips on near the back of the Monreaux estate.
A second later, a door slides open with a jarring slick before slamming shut with so much force the sound echoes off the water. My heartbeat ricochets in my chest before whooshing in my ears so loud it drowns out my panicked thoughts.
Righting myself, I swim to the closest ledge, half-obscured by a manmade waterfall trickling over a boulder grotto.
Heavy footsteps pound the pavement, growing louder, closer.
I hold my breath—as if that could possibly make me invisible—and pinch my eyes shut.
“Show yourself,” a man’s voice booms over the trickling water splashing around me. “I know you’re out here.”
This morning I ran out for coffee for Mama and overheard someone talking about how the Monreauxs were on their annual trip to St. Thomas this week—which was partly why I saw fit to scale their six-foot fence and dip my toes into these forbidden waters. That and it’s been hot as Hades all week, and our air conditioner decided it’d be the perfect time to kick the can.
More footsteps.
I wince.
It has to be a property caretaker. Or maybe a house sitter. People like this don’t just leave their massive homes sitting empty while they’re snorkeling off some island in the Caribbean. Their staff doesn’t take a vacation just because they do. I know that. I guess I figured whoever was here would be fast asleep this time of night …
“You can’t hide in there forever,” he says with a voice too sharp, too young-sounding to be someone left to tend to a multi-million dollar estate in its owners’ absence. He exhales, shoes shuffling closer. “Come on. I don’t have time for this. Get your shit and get off my property.”
He must’ve spotted my dress, bra, and panties, resting in a heap on one of the lounge chairs.
I swim out from behind the waterfall, keeping everything below my neck beneath the surface. Scanning the length of the mystery man, I start at his designer sneakers and trail up his ripped jeans before stopping for a brief detour at his broad shoulders, which are hardly contained in his gray t-shirt. Lastly, I arrive at his moonlit glare.
His dark brows angle in as he captures my stare, his expression unreadable. A warm breeze plays with his mussed, sandy blond waves and star-cast shadows frame his chiseled features.
He’s beautiful, obscured in moonlight and all.
But his eyes glint, unamused.
And he doesn’t smile.
I brace myself for a lecture or a cruel handful of words to be thrown in my direction, but the handsome figure simply takes a swig from the thick beer bottle in his hand, keeping his attention trained on me. My gaze falls to the complicated mess of tattoos covering the exposed skin of his left arm. And when I dare to meet his cold stare, I discover two small barbells piercing his right eyebrow.
This is a man who gives zero fucks.
“I’m sorry.” I’m not above apologizing. I’m in the wrong. I shouldn’t have come here tonight. Shouldn’t have scaled his fence. Shouldn’t have stripped out of my clothes and dove into his luxurious swimming pool like I owned the place. “If you’ll let me get my things, I’ll be out of here in two seconds. You’ll never see me again. I promise.”
His full mouth arches into a devilish smirk, and his silence sends a shiver down the back of my neck.
I’ve got less ground to stand on than a mouse who wandered into the den of a ravenous lion.
“You’re August, aren’t you?” I take a friendlier approach.
There are three Monreaux boys. Soren’s the oldest and a bona fide rock God. I’d know his face anywhere thanks to the billboards all over town anytime they tour through Missouri. Then there’s Gannon. I’ve never seen him, but I know he’s quite a bit older than me. August is the baby of the family, though if it’s truly him standing before me, th
ere’s nothing infant-like about him.
He was only two when his mom died. She was jogging—near our house actually—when she was struck by a car and left to bleed out on the side of the road.
His father tried to blame my father for her death.
They have a history …
A dark, rooted, tragic, ugly history that I don’t dare discuss around him and Mama unless I want to see his eyes turn cloudy and send Mama off to the bedroom in a fit of tears. A history so shrouded, I don’t even know the half of it—I only know that we don’t talk about it.
If my parents knew I was here, they’d kill me. Figuratively, of course.
My entire life, it’s been made abundantly clear that the Monreaux family is off-limits in every sense of the word. I’m not to go near them, not to breathe their toxic air. Not to so much as even whisper their name under our roof.
Being here, in these waters, on this property, is blasphemous to the Rose family name.
I didn’t come here out of spite.
I didn’t come to hurt anyone or to prove some kind of point.
But if my parents found out, they’d be devastated.
“I’m the one who should be asking questions, don’t you think?” He takes another drink, his gaze all but penetrating my soul.
He isn’t wrong.
This isn’t the time to be friendly. Last thing I need is August telling his daddy that the Rose girl broke into their back yard and was skinny dipping in their pool. Word would get out. Phone calls would be made. Coronaries would be had. My parents probably wouldn’t believe it anyway, but that’s not a risk I’m willing to take.
Before I have a chance to utter a single word, August makes his way to a stone-covered cabana and returns with a fluffy white towel. Crouching by the ledge, he hands it to me. It’s a simple exchange, yet the uneasy flutters in my chest do double-time when our fingers graze.
“So what name should I give the police when they arrive?” He rises, towering as he peers down. “You look like a … Harper to me. Chloe. No. Addison. Definitely an Addison.”
The Match: A Baby Daddy Donor Romance Page 22
