Daddy's Big Package Read online

  I let Morgan know that I was up for an evening with him, and he told me he would pick me up at six at work. It was funny. As soon as I knew that I would be seeing him again, some of the stress lifted from my shoulders, and I was able to focus on work for a bit.

  At half past five, I pulled out the stack of makeup that I had stashed in my purse and started doing my face. I’ve never been great at putting on a full face, but I managed to figure something out – a subtle smoky eye and a neutral lip that flattered my skin tone. I even brushed through my eyebrows and put a little product in them to keep them in place, though I’d never been able to figure out why that was important. Did your eyebrow hairs do a lot of wiggling around when you weren’t looking? Man, I was almost delirious with excitement – my brain was bounding off on thrilled little side notes, trying to distract me from everything that this night might have in store.

  Just before it rolled around to six, I got up from my desk, slid into the pair of heels that I had managed to come up with, and headed to the front of the building to meet my date for the evening. I thought I looked pretty good, actually. Maybe not red-carpet ready, but fancy dinner prepped, at least. But just as I reached the door, I heard a voice call out from behind me, and my heart sank.

  "Kari?”

  I turned around to find Adam standing there, his hands on his hips, eyeing me with incredulity from where he stood just outside his office. His hair looked a little messy, and I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes at the notion that his girlfriend had slid in there and fooled around with him when he was supposed to be working. They always made such a show of their public displays of affection; I was surprised he hadn’t asked her to put lipstick directly on his collar to complete the cliché.

  "Is everything alright?" I asked, praying that he wasn’t about to call me back in to pick up some work that I didn’t realize I had missed. I needed this tonight. I needed to indulge in my addiction to Morgan, needed to see him, needed to see if he felt the same way about me.

  "I don’t know, you tell me," he replied, tracing his eyes up and down my outfit. I felt instantly aware of every lump, every bump, and every clinging bit of fabric. I didn’t know how he could still have this kind of effect on me, but he did. I had been so used to bearing the brunt of his full commentary on my body for so long that seeing him even looking at me this hard made me uncomfortable.

  "Where are you going?” he demanded curtly. There was jealousy in his voice. Not jealousy that someone else was taking me out – no doubt, jealousy that I was going out at all.

  "I’m going out on a date," I replied stiffly, glancing toward the door. Morgan would be waiting for me outside by now. I should—

  "And this date of yours," Adam continued, in no rush to let me get anywhere. "Does he know?”

  "Does he know what?" I asked, uncomfortable.

  "Does he know that you didn’t exactly always look like this?” he asked. My heart dropped. I hated that he knew so much about me. Adam understood exactly which buttons to press to get me riled up, and it was working.

  "Yes, he does, as a matter of fact," I snapped back. "And he said it doesn’t matter to him—"

  Adam snorted, cutting me off.

  "Yeah, trust me, he might be saying that, but he doesn’t mean it," he replied coolly. His tone was confident, as though he knew exactly what he was talking about.

  "Adam—"

  "If he’d really seen you when you were at your worst, he’d understand," he shook his head, sounding regretful, as though he didn’t want to have to be the one to break this to me. I clenched my fists at my sides. I wanted to shove him away from me, but that would have only proved his point.

  "You might be able to play the dateable type for a while, but we both know you’re not going to be able to maintain this for long," he continued, waving his hand over my body as though it was a product in a store he didn’t care to shop at.

  "Adam, please…"

  "And as soon as this guy figures that out, he’s going to drop you and move on to the next thing," he sneered. "Or I don’t know, maybe he’ll stick around for a while and give you time to put on all of that weight again.”

  I was speechless. I had no words for him. He knew exactly what to say to hurt me – and now, I hurt. But before I could open my mouth to muster up some kind of response, I heard a voice from behind me.

  "What did you say to her?”

  I turned to find Morgan standing just behind a pillar next to the door – I wasn’t sure how long he’d been standing there, but judging by the look on his face, he had heard everything. My eyes widened as he stepped toward Adam, and I watched as my ex-husband seemed to shrink to about half of his natural size.

  "I asked you a question," Morgan demanded, glaring down at him. Adam sputtered a couple of times, looking to me as though for support, but he wasn’t getting any of that. Morgan put his hand on Adam’s shoulder, drawing his attention back around to him. Adam turned to look at him, and there was actual fear in his eyes – I know I shouldn’t have been pleased to see it there, but I was. He deserved this.

  "Just like I thought, you don’t have an answer for me," Morgan continued, his voice almost calm as he stared down at Adam. "Guys like you never do, do you? You just suck up to the most powerful person in the room and hope that you can ride their coattails to get what you want."

  Adam shook his head and started to speak, but Morgan wasn’t interested in hearing whatever it was Adam had to say.

  "You want to suck up to me, buddy? Make sure I never catch you talking to Kari like that, ever again. If I get so much of a hint that you’ve been anything other than sweetness and light to her, there’s going to be trouble, alright?"

  "Al-alright," Adam finally managed to sputter out after a long pause. Morgan removed his hand from his shoulder, his eyes still burning with rage. I had to clap my hand over my mouth to keep from letting out a giggle at the look on Adam’s face. I managed to keep it in, just in time for Morgan to turn his attention back to me. As soon as he laid eyes on me, his face cleared, and a smile spread across his lips, reaching his eyes.

  "Hey, Kari," he greeted me, striding toward me and planting a big kiss on my cheek.

  "Hey, Morgan," I replied, not bothering to look at Adam for a reaction.

  "You ready to go?” Morgan asked, and I nodded.

  "Well, I have a car waiting outside," he replied. "Let’s get out of here."

  And with that, I followed him out of the building and into the parking lot beyond. I tucked my arm through his, and as the cool evening air hit me, I couldn’t help but smile. Yeah, I knew that our encounter with Adam could land us in some trouble in the future – what if he tried to sabotage the project to make sure that Morgan didn’t get one over on him? What if he pushed me to work more to keep me away from him? There was so much that he could do, but I was honestly past caring about it. Morgan had stood up for me. Morgan had defended me against Adam. Morgan had made it clear that he wanted me and that he didn’t care who knew it.

  "You alright?" he asked as we reached the car. I nodded. Adam’s words should have been ringing in my ears, but instead, Morgan’s defense of me was running around my head.

  "Yeah, I am," I assured him as I slipped into the seat next to his. "Let’s get out of here."

  17

  Morgan

  As soon as we pulled away from her workplace, I felt the giddiness coming off of her in waves. I wasn’t sure if she was just glad to see me again or amused at the way that I had given that ex of hers the chewing out of his life, but either way, she couldn’t keep the smile off her face.

  "It’s so good to see you again," she finally told me, glancing over in my direction and smiling widely. I grinned back.

  "Yeah, it’s great to see you as well," I agreed. "I’ve been thinking about you so much since the trip. I was—"

  Luckily, my gushing was interrupted by her phone buzzing in her pocket. She drew it out swiftly and pulled a worried face when she saw who was on the other end
of the line.

  "Is everything okay?” I asked. I guessed that it might be her ex, throwing a tantrum of some kind to try and sabotage our evening. Well, he could just try. I would go back there and tell him off again if I had to. I rolled my shoulders back, already thinking about how much I wanted to land a punch on him. It had taken everything I’d had not to belt him one right then and there when I’d heard him telling Kari that I would get tired of her, but I had restrained myself because I didn’t want to get her in any kind of trouble.

  She answered the call, lifting her finger to keep me quiet.

  "Clara? Clara, hey.

  You okay? The kids okay?" she asked. I glanced over and watched her face drop as whatever Clara told her turned out to be anything but good news.

  "Really? You couldn’t – no, no, of course, I get it," she agreed, pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers and wincing. "Yeah. Yeah, of course, I’ll be back as soon as I can."

  She hung up the phone and tucked it back into her pocket, letting out a long sigh.

  "Look, Morgan, I’m really sorry to have to do this, but Clara’s got the flu, and she doesn’t want to give it to the kids," she sighed. "I’m going to have to go back there and look after them myself tonight. You mind if we take a raincheck on this evening?”

  "I mean, we can if you want," I replied. "Or I can come down with you and help you out with them."

  She gave me a hard look.

  "Are you serious?”

  "Why wouldn’t I be serious?” I replied. I wasn’t even sure what I was doing in that moment; I just knew that I wanted to spend this evening with her, and I didn’t want anything to get in the way of that. Not her ex, not her babysitter, not anything.

  "Because I just don’t think of you as the..." she searched for the right words, and apparently came back with a fresh blank. I was a little disappointed, given that I had picked out this fancy place in town for us to go eat at, but actually, the thought of being somewhere more private with her was way more tempting.

  "Are you sure you want to be around the kids?” she asked gently, giving me one last chance to back out of this if I wanted to. I nodded, even though I wasn’t really sure what in the name of hell I was actually saying.

  "Yeah, I do," I replied. "If you’ll let me."

  "Alright, but no funny business in front of the kids," she warned me playfully. "I don’t want them to think of you as anything other than my friend."

  "I’ll be on my best behavior, I promise," I swore to her.

  "Well, then, I think we should do it," she agreed, sounding excited and a little hesitant, as though she was maybe wondering if this was a good idea at all, but she had decided to run with it for now.

  "Give me the directions, and I’ll drive us there," I replied. She directed me back to her house, texting Clara on the way. Clara was dropping the kids back at their place after some afternoon activity. My heart was beating a little faster than normal, and I had no idea why. They were just kids, after all. Kids. Kids couldn’t do me any harm. They were too small for that.

  We drove back to her place, and I did my best to keep it together. I was starting to get a little nervous, if I were being honest, and I didn’t want to show that to her – not when I was supposed to be the man in charge here.

  She pulled her feet from her shoes and sighed as she stretched them out against the bottom of the car. I noticed, for the first time, that she had a tiny tattoo of a heart on the instep of her foot. I gestured down at it.

  "What’s that?" I asked, and she glanced down to see what I was talking about, as though she had forgotten it was there at all.

  "It’s my heart," she replied with a smile, reaching down to trace her fingers over the shape of it. It was a pale pink that almost matched the color of her skin. If you hadn’t been looking for it, there was no way you would have noticed the thin black outline that curled just below her foot.

  "I got it last year to remind myself to love myself," she explained. "I’m not sure it always works, but it’s good to have it there, you know? When I see it, I take a second to remember why I got it."

  "I think it’s really cute," I remarked as we took the last turn onto her street. Alright, it was show time – now or never. I was half-tempted to just turn the car around and shoot back home, but I was here now, and I wasn’t going to let her down.

  "Thanks," she replied, smiling at me. She hesitated for a moment once I’d drawn the car to a halt, putting her hand on the door and looking into her house.

  "You think this is a good idea?" she asked me again. I patted her hand gently.

  "Hey, look, I’m here now," I reminded her. "If you don’t want me to come in, that’s fine. But I just want to spend some time with you, and if this is the only way we get to do it, then I’ll take it. Any day of the week."

  She leaned over to me and planted a kiss on my lips, catching me off-guard but making me smile. Then she swiftly fixed her hair behind her ear and climbed out of the car.

  "Alright, let’s do this," I muttered to myself as I followed her. I was nervous, sure, but I could do this – I took in the exterior to her house, making like I was scouting out shooting locations. Yeah, it looked like the kind of place that you would use to shoot a warm family comedy. Not a horror movie, for sure. Now, I just had to find a way to get into character and stay there.

  She unlocked the door and stepped inside. Within an instant, a couple of kids came barreling in. A boy and a girl, the girl a little taller than the boy, both of them with Kari’s dirty-blonde hair. They hugged her tight, and she hugged them back. The look on her face was that of such bliss that I didn’t want to say a word to ruin it.

  "Olivia, Sammy," Kari pulled away from them and turned to me. "This is Morgan."

  "Hi," I greeted them as I stepped forward and smiled. I wasn’t sure if it looked natural. It didn’t feel natural. What if they recognized me from one of my movies? They would have been a little out of the age range, but kids these days could find anything online...

  "He’s a friend of mine, and he’s going to be helping out around the house tonight," she continued, and then she shot a look at me. "Right, Morgan?”

  "Right," I agreed. I had no idea what helping out around the house actually looked like, since I had a cleaner and I tended to eat out instead of cooking, but I looked forward to finding out exactly what that meant.

  "Alright. Let’s get inside, shall we?” Kari suggested, hustling the kids back into the house. "We have a lot to get done tonight. But I need something to eat first."

  I slid inside the house behind them and took the place in once I was on the inside. It was so different than anywhere I’d been in a long time, so normal. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I had lived somewhere like this growing up. My entire life, I had been wrapped up in this crazy world that had nothing to do with real life, but here I was, in this little house, with a real family. And it felt more real than ever.

  I was surprised at how nice the place looked, which I knew was my natural fancy-ass instincts kicking in and not a reflection of how she was as a person. I knew that her cash situation wasn’t exactly perfect, but the house was cozy and nicely-decorated, clean and tidy and neat. On a few walls, pictures that the kids had drawn were hanging, brightening up the dark corners with color and light. The house had an open-plan living room and kitchen and dining area, and the kids had a few books and toys scattered in front of the couch where they had been playing before we had arrived back.

  Kari headed straight to the kitchen, but I caught her arm and shook my head.

  "Let me cook," I suggested. She raised her eyebrows at me in amusement.

  "You’re serious?” she asked, her voice incredulous.

  "I wouldn’t have been able to keep myself alive all of this time if I hadn’t been able to at least cook something," I pointed out to her. She shrugged and gestured for me to lead on.

  "Well, show us what you can do," she replied. I headed to the kitchen and got myself acquainted with it – I had
n’t had to cook for myself for a long time, but the nanny I’d had growing up had shown me how to make a couple of pasta dishes back in the day. I could just about remember her recipe for a vegetarian bolognese, and it was made of enough pantry staples that I guessed I would easily be able to knock it out for them.

  I started to cook, chopping the onion roughly and trying to guess how much little kids would eat apiece. Behind me, Kari had started hanging out with the kids, and the bunch of them were giggling and laughing as they chatted and drew and shifted toys around. I kept on stealing looks at them over my shoulder, and I wondered how many times they’d spent their evenings doing this, just the three of them. Was that ex of hers involved? She hadn’t spoken to me much about him, but judging from the way he had treated her earlier this evening, I would wager a guess that he wasn’t exactly making an effort to treat her exceptionally well.

  Once the food was on the stove and bubbling away – making the house smelled beautiful, all fresh and savory – I made my way over to join them, crouching down a few inches away so that I didn’t intrude.

  "How’s it going?” I asked a little nervously. Olivia looked up at me, and I started – she had her mother’s eyes, so striking that it was almost uncanny.

  "Well, I’m getting some homework done, but they’re just playing," Olivia replied, gesturing to her mother and her brother. She was sitting in front of an open notepad, doodling on it.

  "Looks like you’re being very productive," I agreed with her. She beamed at me, and Kari reached over to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

  "Looks like you’re just drawing to me," Kari remarked gently, and Olivia snapped her head up to look at her mother, instantly on the defensive.

  "That’s not true!” she protested, and Kari laughed.

  "Hey, it’s fine. Why don’t you come help us?” she suggested, pushing the blocks that she had been playing with toward Olivia. Sammy was a little younger than Olivia, and he kept on stealing glances at me, as though he could hardly get his head around being near me at all.