Daddy's Big Package Read online

  I managed to convince myself that she was here for somebody else. Yes, that was it: some cruel twist of fate had landed her in the same place as me, but going out with somebody else. That would be just the most perfectly painful thing. But instead, she locked eyes with me and made her way through the tables toward me. Her eyes were carefully impassive, as though she was trying her best not to give a damn thing away to me right now. I watched her, stared at her, scared to pull my eyes away from her in case she flickered out of existence again. I had spent so long looking for this woman that there was no way in hell I was going to let go of her now that I had her in front of me.

  As she approached and it began to really sink in that she was here in front of me, I let out a long breath and allowed myself to take her in properly. She was wearing a gray dress, high-necked and boxy, carefully professional – but I knew the body that lay under wraps there. I got to my feet as she approached, my heart pounding, and managed to smile at her.

  "Evening," I murmured. My voice sounded as though it was coming from someone else entirely. She stared at me for a moment, took a deep breath, and then nodded.

  "Good evening," she greeted and then slipped into her seat. And just like that, the woman I had been searching for was here with me, out for dinner, and the entire world seemed full of possibility once more.

  4

  Kari

  "I don’t think I can do this," I moaned to my best friend Clara as she held my head still and tried to fix my eyebrows for what felt like the thousandth time since we had started this whole affair.

  "Of course you can," she soothed me. "You have nothing to worry about."

  "I have everything to worry about," I protested. "You know how much is riding on this? If I don’t get this right—"

  "And exactly what, pray tell, might you be getting wrong?” she asked, cocking her head at me and raising her eyebrows. I fell silent. She had a point. Maybe I was letting myself get ahead of my own racing thoughts a little.

  "I don’t know. What if he sees me and I’m not up to the standards of the women he usually goes to dinner with?” I pulled a face.

  "Kari, if he walks out on you for that, then he’s the biggest asshole in the world and he didn’t deserve to work with the charity anyway," she assures me.

  "So you think I don’t look like the kind of woman he goes out with?” I chewed my lip nervously. She laughed and shook her head at me.

  "Jesus Christ, Kari, you’re impossible," she teased. "No, I didn’t say that. I don’t even know what this guy looks like. But trust me when I say that he’s just a professional trying to get a professional job done as much as you are."

  "And that’s why you’re spending ages getting my makeup right, huh?" I remarked playfully. She grinned at me.

  "Hey, he’s a famous actor," she shrugged. "Even if I’ve never seen any of his movies. You want to look good, don’t you?”

  "Of course I want to look good," I sighed. "I just haven’t been out like this in so long..."

  "So? Maybe that’s a good thing," she pointed out enthusiastically. "Maybe you can actually make something happen between the two of you! You haven’t used up your dating energy on anybody else, so you can focus it all on this guy and—"

  "And what? Destroy him with my dating-laser-beams?” I shot back incredulously. She held my head and went for my eyebrows once more.

  "You’re going to blow him away," she replied firmly. "I just know it. Trust me, I have a feeling for these things."

  "Thanks for taking care of the kids, either way," I replied. "I wouldn’t have been able to get out of the house if it weren’t for you."

  "Yeah, and where’s Adam in all of this?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. I shook my head.

  "You know there’s no point in trying to open up that can of worms," I reminded her with a sigh.

  "Yeah, I just think he should actually step up and act like he wants to be a father once in a while."

  "Well, that’s the thing," I reminded her. "He doesn’t want to be a father. He wants to play sexy-young-thing with his sexy, young thing."

  "Hey, you’re a sexy, young thing!” she protested.

  "Hmm, okay. I’ll believe it when I see it," I replied, eyeing myself in the mirror. She had done her best with me, but I still felt as though I looked more like mutton dressed as lamb.

  "I’m seeing it right now," she told me firmly just as the kids made a little cluster of noise from next door. I got to my feet to deal with it, but she held her hand up.

  "I’m going to take care of this," she promised me. "You finish getting ready."

  I did as I was told, taking my time to find something in my closet that would actually work for a night on the town with some famous actor. Not that I had a lot of outfits that fell into that category, but a girl had to try, right? I rifled through my dresses and eventually came across this lacy dove-gray number that I had purchased for my honeymoon. I had barely even looked at the dress since the divorce – far too painful and far too many memories – but I knew this one would be perfect. It covered just enough to play as professional without going too much on the side of conservatism. I pulled it on, looked in the mirror, and for a moment, I felt as though I was going to burst into tears.

  I just never looked the way I thought I should look. Even after losing all of that weight, I was still just shaped differently. My body felt different, and my mind felt different. I had worn this when I had believed that the man by my side would stay there forever, that he wasn’t going to dump me as soon as he got the chance and move on to something younger, skinnier, and prettier. I hated that I even thought of it in those terms, but I couldn’t help myself. I just hated what he had done to me, the shell he had left me. It wasn’t fair. I had spent so much of my life trying to make things easy for him, trying to show him what a perfect wife I could be if he let me, and he had decided to up and leave me with nothing instead.

  Clara wandered back into the room, having taken care of whatever it was that had been causing the kids to make such a racket. She had a smile on her face, and I felt a swell of gratefulness for her presence. The kids adored her, and she adored them. I might not have been raising them with their father, but honestly, sometimes I wondered if Clara wasn’t the better choice anyway.

  "Well, look at you!” she remarked, her hands planted on hips as she looked me up and down. "You look fantastic!"

  "I don’t know," I shook my head. "I think I look a little—"

  "You look a little incredible," she cut me off firmly.

  "I could still stand to lose a few more pounds," I muttered, running my hands over the shape of my body in this dress.

  "You couldn’t do with losing an ounce more," Clara shook her head at me and looked at her watch. "Now get out there. Go have a good time. You deserve it."

  "This is a professional engagement," I reminded her, but she just waved her hand.

  "Yeah, and it’s with a famous actor, and if you end up going home with him, I won’t be mad," she raised her eyebrows at me.

  "Clara!" I laughed. "I have work to think about. And the kids."

  "Just go out there and have a good time," she ordered me. "Go on, I’ve got everything covered on this end. You know that."

  "I sure do," I agreed, and she gave me a quick hug before hustling me out to the car and onto the road so that I could make it to the meeting in time. As I pulled out of the driveway, I couldn’t help but consider the notion that I wouldn’t mind too much at all if this guy were to toss me over his shoulder, take me home, and show me the good time that I‘d been missing out on since the kids had come along.

  But that was ridiculous. I didn’t actually want anything like that. What I wanted was a guy who was going to bring plenty to our charity, not to my bedroom. I had looked him up online before I’d left, but I hadn’t seen any of his films, so I probably wasn’t going to recognize him when I walked through the door. And that was alright, wasn’t it? I had a couple of kids to look after. He would understand that I h
adn’t made it out to see any of his R-rated flicks. But then again, what if he got really offended about it? Oh, hell. I was already starting to worry myself stupid, and I hated that I was allowing my brain to run at this stupid pace.

  But at least thinking made the time seem to pass quicker, since the traffic into the city was taking forever to move even an inch. I kept checking the time, cursing myself for not leaving a little earlier, but I had never been to this part of the city before, and my directions weren’t exactly on point.

  I finally made it to the outrageously fancy restaurant he had booked for the two of us. I had checked it out online – the menu didn’t even have prices on it, denoting the crazy-upmarket nature of the place. Smoothing out my dress over my knees, I climbed out of the car. I could do this. I could pull it off. He was just another client for the charity, right? And the fact that he was a movie star was just a by-the-way detail.

  I made my way into the restaurant, scanning the room for the man I was looking for. I recognized him at once with a jolt of familiarity that sent a shiver down my spine. He got to his feet as I approached, and I couldn’t help but notice the sharp cut of his suit that matched the line of his jaw and the way his blue eyes sparkled even in the dark of this place. He smiled at me, and there was a flicker of something in his expression, a flicker of something I couldn’t quite place but knew I wanted to.

  I slipped into my seat as we greeted one another, exchanging names, and he sat down opposite me. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of me once since I entered this place, and I felt as though he was trying to bore a hole in me with his gaze. Was he mad? Trying to outsmart me? I had no idea what the hell was going on, and I wasn’t even sure whether or not I disliked it.

  "Sorry I’m late," I finally offered in the hopes of quelling some of the intensity of his gaze.

  "No, no, it’s fine," he waved his hand. "I was a little early."

  "Well, good to know you value your punctuality," I smiled at him, and he finally pulled his gaze away from me, as though looking at me face-on had proved a little too much for him.

  "Yeah, sure," he replied.

  "I’m starving," I muttered as the waiter approached with our menus. "What’s good to eat here?"

  "Pretty much everything," he replied, opening the menu and casting his eye over what was being offered.

  "Man, they don’t have any prices in this place," I remarked. "Is it like an ‘if you have to ask, you can’t afford it’ deal?”

  "Oh, I’m paying for this," he told me firmly. I shook my head.

  "No, no, you’re doing us a favor by meeting with us," I replied, although I was secretly hoping he’d press the point – I wasn’t sure I could afford much, if any, of the food on the menu in front of me, and I would be glad to have an out if he was offering.

  "I’m trying to rehabilitate my image here, remember?" he pointed out to me. "It’s not going to look very good for me if I let you pay for dinner."

  "Well, I suppose if I’m helping you out…" I grinned playfully, and he chuckled.

  "Yeah, you’re doing me a real solid here," he replied with a return grin. "Letting me get the bill."

  "As long as we’ve cleared that up," I nodded, opening the menu and looking down at everything in front of me. I was ravenous, even more so now that I knew I wasn’t going to have to carefully curate my dinner options based on what I could afford and what I couldn’t.

  I peered at him over the top of my menu, trying to place him once more. I was sure that I knew him from somewhere, but I had checked, and I hadn’t seen a single one of his films. So what the hell was ringing the bell at the back of my head that told me I recognized this dude?

  He caught me looking and raised his eyebrows at me.

  "Enjoying the view?”

  "Sorry," I shook my head. "I just feel like I know you from somewhere. I was trying to place you, that’s all."

  "Yeah, I get that a lot," he replied flippantly, and I laughed.

  "I can imagine, what with being a movie star and all," I replied. "But I haven’t actually seen any of your movies."

  "Oh, really?" He looked a little disappointed by the revelation.

  "Yeah, sorry," I shrugged. "I have a couple of young kids, and they can’t go for anything that’s above PG right now."

  "Right, of course," he agreed with a chuckle.

  "And honestly, I’ve never been much good with gory movies," I confessed, feeling this sudden draw to him – I felt as though I could tell him anything, even though we had never so much as laid eyes on each other before. Damn, I really was starved of adult connection if I was treating this like a chance to spew everything about myself.

  "Okay, well, that makes a little more sense," he replied, lifting his menu and glancing down at it.

  "So, what do you recommend?” I asked. I had to admit, there wasn’t a huge amount of the menu here that jumped out at me; maybe I would have felt differently if I could actually understand much of what was written down, but I was coming up with a dead-ass blank.

  "What kind of food do you like?" he asked.

  "The kind that I don’t have to cook," I replied. He laughed. He had a nice laugh, strong but not overbearing. It sounded genuine.

  "Okay, let me see what I can do." He ran his finger down the menu, and I leaned back and decided it was best to let him take control. In fact, it felt pretty good to relax like this and allow someone else to step up and do the adult things. I felt as though I was always running at high-volume, high-stress adult levels, and I was thoroughly enjoying the chance to just sit back and let someone else do the hard part for a change.

  He eventually ordered a selection for us, along with a glass of wine – just one, to help me loosen up a little and relax in the face of a guy as outrageously handsome as this one. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to ask him, but I got the feeling he was doing his best to impress me, to make a point about what a great asset he would be to our charity.

  "I’m really interested in working with a group like yours," he told me earnestly. "Actually making a difference, you know?”

  "Of course, right," I nodded. "And rehabilitating your image as well, yeah?”

  "Well, that too," he grinned at me. He had this undercurrent of amusement to him, as though he was constantly on the brink of doing something crazy.

  "That’s what my husband told me," I replied, temporarily forgetting that Adam and I were divorced. I did that sometimes, the reality sliding from my mind and then coming back around to slap me upside the head when I least expected it. I grimaced.

  "Your husband?” He cocked an eyebrow. "You’re husband sent you out on this date?"

  "No, my ex did," I explained quickly. "We work together with the charity."

  "Wow, that’s really mature of you guys," he raised his eyebrows at me. "I don’t think I could stick around next to any of my exes for more than five minutes."

  "Yeah, well, trust me – if I had a choice, I wouldn’t," I muttered before slapping a hand over my mouth.

  "Shit, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that," I admitted. He seemed amused by my little outburst.

  "I just value the charity so much," I explained swiftly. "I don’t want to lose it, no matter what, you know?"

  "That’s really strong of you," he smiled at me, and I felt that little fuzz of warmth spreading over my chest. Once more, I felt like I knew him from somewhere. Maybe a billboard? Maybe I had just seen him on the front page of some gossip magazine. Yeah, that was likely it.

  "Well, thanks," I replied, a little flustered by his attention being focused entirely on me. He knew how to charm, that much was obvious, but then again, that was very much part of his job, right?

  "So, what about you?" I turned the conversation around quickly, knowing that much more focus on me after a glass of wine would expose my weak spots.

  "What about me?”

  "What kind of stuff do you like? Apart from your work?" I asked.

  "Uh, I just focus on staying in shape for roles," he
shrugged. "I have to stay in good form to make sure I can take anything that comes along, whenever it comes along. So mostly, going to the gym..."

  "Oh, but that’s part of your work!” I pointed out. "What do you do that has nothing to do with your job? There must be something."

  "I don’t know," he replied, furrowing his brow, and it seemed as though he was genuinely searching for something in the back of his mind that didn’t relate to his career.

  "Come on, there must be something," I prompted him. He eyed me for a moment, and then he grinned and let out a long breath.

  "Well, I guess I really enjoy skiing," he admitted. "Which I know is fitness-related, but I don’t think it counts as work. If you can accept that answer?”

  "I can accept that answer," I agreed, and I felt myself begin to loosen up. He had a sharp conversational style and kept things flowing comfortably between us. He was probably used to small talk, after dozens of interviews about his movies and his job and his fame. Still, the dialogue felt organic enough that I could let go of the last of the tension that had been hanging over me and just give myself over to everything that this night could be.

  Not that it was anything more than a meeting for work, but still, that didn’t mean I had to pretend like I wasn’t getting anything out of this, right? He seemed keen to impress me, which was a surprise as I’d imagined he was only coming on this meeting to do the bare minimum of what he had to. He was charming and interesting, and he asked questions about me – even if he had seemed a little deflated that I really didn’t know him from anywhere. My mind darted back to the conversation Adam and I had had before he’d agreed to give me some time off to get ready for the meeting: Sure, but all the time in the world isn’t going to get him to look at you twice. I wanted to punch the air and rub this in his face. This actor, this famous star, was talking to me like he gave a shit. To anyone paying attention, I could have been his date. And that was just fine by me.

  As the evening drew to a close, I found myself in more of a flirtatious mood than perhaps was entirely appropriate for the given situation. It had been a long time since I had felt anything like the flattery of this connection with someone else. There had been that dude back when I had been out with Clara, but I had been so tipsy that I was hardly able to remember what he’d looked like, let alone what it had felt like to be around him.