Single Dad's Surprise (Wilder Brothers #1)

  Single Dad’s Surprise

  Wilder Brothers Book 1

  Lisa Levine

  Contents

  Prologue (Jake)

  Chapter One (Annika)

  Chapter Two (Jake)

  Chapter Three (Annika)

  Chapter Four (Jake)

  Chapter Five (Annika)

  Chapter Six (Jake)

  Chapter Seven (Annika)

  Chapter Eight (Jake)

  Chapter Nine (Annika)

  Chapter Ten (Jake)

  Chapter Eleven (Annika)

  Chapter Twelve (Jake)

  Chapter Thirteen (Annika)

  Chapter Fourteen (Jake)

  Chapter Fifteen (Annika)

  Chapter Sixteen (Jake)

  Chapter Seventeen (Annika)

  Chapter Eighteen (Jake)

  Chapter Twenty (Annika)

  Epilogue (Jake)

  Also by Lisa Levine

  Prologue (Jake)

  “Why did you pour glue into all of your classmate’s hair?” I asked Poppy as we pulled away from her school.

  “It wasn’t all of them,” she said with her big blue eyes looking at me expectantly.

  She was anticipating a punishment, and I’d be right to give her one. I had to pay for eight girls to get their hair washed at a salon, and Poppy would need to write eight apology letters over the weekend to each one of her classmates that she had decided to give a glue bath.

  “Poppy, you’re in third grade. You knew the bottle of glue was not shampoo.”

  She laughed and then pulled her caramel-colored hair over her face so that I couldn’t see her smirking from underneath.

  “I’m really sorry,” she said once she had calmed her giggles down and came out from behind her hair to apologize again.

  I sighed as I weaved through the Silicon Valley traffic at lunchtime.

  “You don’t need to be sorry,” I said. “You need to stop doing stuff like this. I had to have Lucie cancel all of my meetings today in order to come to pick you up from school early. And now it’s the weekend, and I didn’t even finish my work at the office. I know you think your mom will come back if you do something so absurd that it either impresses her or upsets her, but that’s the wrong way to think about this, kiddo. Your mom is on another concert tour right now; she’s not going to be back for a while.”

  “Again?” Poppy pouted. This time her pout was sincere, and she wore her heartbreak like a permanent fixture these days.

  “What do you want to do this weekend?” I asked, trying to change the subject and lighten the mood.

  “You mean besides writing apology letters?” she asked as she rolled her eyes.

  “Yes, besides that. Hey, actually, I think I have a good idea.”

  I took a slight detour on the way home, and we stopped in an eclectic little art shop downtown. The woman at the counter came around to greet us, and she knelt down on the floor as soon as she saw Poppy so she could talk to her at eye level. Poppy was immediately a fan.

  “You,” the woman said, “are a talented artist, I can tell that already. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “Really?” Poppy asked with a broad smile. “What kind of an artist am I?”

  “Well, that depends,” the woman said.

  “On what?”

  “On what kind of artist you want to be.”

  Poppy scrunched her nose, which was her usual indication that she was deep in thought. The woman looked up and winked at me, and I was grateful for the way she was acting with Poppy. Poppy needed a little magic and understanding today.

  “We need some creative supplies that will help to make writing apology letters a bit more fun.”

  “Ahh, I see,” she said as she stood. She held out her hand for Poppy to take. “Right this way, dear.”

  Poppy’s eyes lit up as she let the woman lead her through aisles of art supplies while I trailed a short distance behind and held the basket as they threw stuff in—glitter pens, stickers, rhinestones, even some sort of scented crayons that smelled like rhubarb and peppermint. Maybe Lucie wasn’t that far off track with her suggestion that a female friend would be good for Poppy. She seemed to like hanging out with the art shop employee. By the time we had left the store, we had a bag full of supplies, and Poppy was looking forward to making her apology letters almost as much as if it were baking cookies. Every once in a while, I nailed-it at being a cool dad.

  Most days, though, were a complete struggle. I’d be lying if I said single-parenting was easy. I knew a few other guys in the industry who lacked a co-parent, but they seemed to be pulling it off with finesse, and I didn’t get how they did it. The most logical explanation was that they didn’t have Maleah as an ex-wife.

  Maleah was beyond difficult to parent with. I could have dealt with her crazy schedule and even her flighty personality; it was her selfishness and apathy toward Poppy that I couldn’t handle. She had left that poor girl hanging more times than I could count. Poppy had been counting, too. And despite all the times her mother seemed to blatantly show how little she gave a shit, Poppy still idolized her.

  I never spoke badly of Maleah in front of Poppy—at least I tried not to—but sometimes it was just so obvious what an awful person she was that I just couldn’t understand why Poppy still even gave her the time of day. And especially why that poor little girl sat up all night, waiting for her mom to show up on days that she promised to be there when we both knew it wasn’t going to happen. It was as if each time were a fresh chance to brutally murder Poppy’s hopes again. Sometimes I wanted to grab Maleah by the neck and shake some sense into her, but then that would have made me the villain in Poppy’s story, and that wasn’t something I could do to my sweet little girl.

  I was struggling, though, which wasn’t something you’d expect to hear from a guy who was nominated as the “Sexiest Single Billionaire Over Thirty in Silicon Valley” and who repped some of the hottest rising musical artists in the industry. But it was the truth. My schedule was absolutely busting at the seams, and even with Lucie’s help, it was a quickly sinking ship. Lucie was acting as more than just a secretary; she had taken on the roles of office manager, personal assistant, publicity consultant, and hell, even Poppy’s babysitter on nights that I got called in for an emergency sound screening. I didn’t know what I would do without her, but even with all of Lucie’s help, the situation was escalating. Poppy was getting into more and more trouble at school in a misguided attempt to seek her mother’s attention, and I was getting further and further behind at the recording studio. I was focused on Poppy, and my company was taking a hit.

  I finally had to admit that I was in way over my head and needed help.

  Chapter One (Annika)

  Not a morning went by that I didn’t regret getting my degree in education. I knew my dad had meant well when he tried to steer me away from pursuing my dreams as a singer, and he was probably right about needing to have a stable career. But what good was it if I was miserable? After two months into my first teaching job, I knew I had to get out. Sitting through hours of listening to my dad lecture me about being twenty-four years old and still not having my life together wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was thinking that he might be right.

  I just needed to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life. It was too late to start a singing career now. I’d been out of it for too long and was too old to compete with all the eighteen-year-old pop stars who were cutting their teeth in the industry. That ship had sailed. I also knew I couldn’t go back to teaching and that my degree was relatively worthless for doing anything else. So, I resigned myself to searching the help-wanted ads to find something, anything
that would make me enough money to save up and get the hell out of here for a bit. Traveling overseas would give me a new perspective on things; at least I hoped it would, so that was my plan—work, save up, and take a long trip of self-discovery until I figured out my life.

  When I saw the ad in the paper for a live-in nanny, I immediately thought it was perfect. Not only was the advertised pay huge in comparison to most entry-level, hourly jobs, but I could probably qualify as a nanny since I had been a teacher for a hot minute and related well to kids. Plus, a live-in position would allow me to be able to save even more money.

  The online ad was pretty vague and elusive, with just an address and a shortly worded request for help. I called and set an appointment with a woman named Lucie, and she gave me a brief rundown of the scenario—single dad, eight-year-old daughter, busy schedule, needs help. When I asked her what the start date would be, she laughed and said, “Yesterday.” It sounded like this guy was pretty desperate for some assistance, which worked out perfectly for me since I was desperate for a job.

  “Really, Annika, a nanny?”

  “Why not?” I asked my dad over coffee that morning.

  I met him at a café about once a week to get my weekly lectures on how gloriously I was failing at life. He didn’t mean to make me feel so inferior, but it sure came off that way. I gave him a lot of credit for raising me as a single dad after my mom had died, but sometimes the condescending way that he talked to me made me wish he would just ease up a bit. It also made me constantly question whether I had done the right thing or not by listening to him in the first place and not following my dreams.

  “I don’t know Annie,” he said as he shook his head from side to side. He called me Annie when he was getting ready to treat me like I was in high school again. “I mean, sixteen-year-old girls take jobs as nannies, not full-grown adult women who should be pursuing a career. Why don’t you try to find another teaching job?”

  “Dad, I hate teaching. We’ve had this discussion before. It’s just not what I want to do.”

  “Well, sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do, Annika.”

  Yeah, and sometimes we needed to be able to live our own lives without our father trying to steer the ship.

  “Just think about it is all that I’m asking,” he said as he sipped his coffee and stared at me over the rim of his glasses.

  “I’m going for the nanny interview this afternoon,” I said defiantly. I wasn’t backing down, not this time. I had a plan. I was going to go to Europe and figure out my life all by myself.

  I had to check the ad again to verify the address when I pulled into the colossal driveway and looked at the towering mansion that sat at the end of it. “Wow,” I said out loud to myself in the car.

  This was the right address, and I was completely blown away. This wasn’t a house; this was a mansion, and I felt like a tiny and insignificant ant at the bottom of the biggest pile of dirt I’d ever seen. I had conflicting feelings about this interview as I started to get nervous before even stepping out of the car. On the one hand, how sweet would it be to live in this place for a year? No wonder the pay was so good; this guy was obviously loaded. On the other hand, I shouldn’t get my hopes up too much because there was little—if any—chance I was going to actually get this job. If the guy had enough money to live in this house, that meant he also had enough money to hire whomever he wanted. I was sure that he would end up hiring some beautiful Australian au pair instead of a teaching-field dropout.

  I walked up to the massive door and rang the bell, which sounded like there was an entire bell choir inside. When the door opened, I expected to see a maid or a butler. I wasn’t sure why; it just seemed like something that happened in the movies. But instead, I saw Jake Wilder, the amazingly attractive CEO billionaire of Soundz, which was probably the most sought-after record label in Silicon Valley.

  Oh my God, if this is his house and his ad for a nanny, I’m going to die right here on this doorstep.

  He looked almost as flustered as I felt, which was weird. I didn’t think guys like him ever got frazzled. I worried for a second that maybe he was staring at me like that because I had forgotten to brush my hair, or my mascara had smudged at the coffee shop when I was trying to wipe the sting of disappointment out of my eyes during the weekly chat with my dad. Mascara made my hazel eyes pop, at least that’s what my friends in college used to say. They also used to tell me that my greige-blonde hair looked more ashy than flaxen, so I wasn’t sure why I even listened to them, to be honest. Whatever it was, though, Jake Wilder was definitely staring at something, and it was making me uneasy.

  “Hello,” he said in a voice that sounded like the forest at nighttime. “You must be Annika?”

  “Yes,” I said as I tried to pull myself together. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Wilder.”

  “Please,” he said. “Call me Jake.”

  He held out his hand for me to shake, and when our fingers touched, I felt like I might actually stop breathing. I also felt like the handshake lingered a moment longer than it should have.

  “Okay,” I said with a smile. “Thank you.”

  He stepped to the side of the doorway and swept his hand in a motion that bade me to come in. Although I was intimidated, I knew that this could be my chance to earn all of the money I needed, so I straightened my shoulders and walked right inside.

  If I could have drawn a comparison to what walking into that house would have been like, the closest thing that came to my mind was going through a doorway into Wonderland. There was no way that this guy and I even came from the same world, let alone the same city. I’d never seen anything so lavish and expansive in my life. This place would be more than just a step up from the tiny studio apartment with the broken washing machine that I was currently living in. This place would be like living in a palace.

  I followed Jake as he led me into a sitting area off of the main foyer that looked like its own mini-library, and we sat down in oversized armchairs that faced each other by the hearth.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Something in his voice made that question sound like the start of an epic adventure.

  Chapter Two (Jake)

  I can’t believe I let Lucie talk me into this. I knew she was right; I needed help with Poppy since her mother had completely checked-out. But now that it was the weekend and I was actually interviewing people, it started to seem like a bad idea all over again.

  I had interviewed three women already, one of whom seemed like she came to the interview hopped-up on painkillers. The other two were fine, but nothing spectacular. I got the feeling that I wouldn’t need to worry about them losing my daughter or setting the house on fire, but I also wouldn’t be expecting to come home to find that they had taught my daughter French or cooked a five-star meal for dinner, either.

  My expectations weren’t that high; I just needed someone who would be there for Poppy and allow me to get a little work done without constantly being interrupted. Poppy, on the other hand, had huge expectations that could never be met, no matter what kind of woman walked through that door to interview. She only wanted Maleah, and she hated any other female who wasn’t her mother. This was going to be impossible.

  She had already scared off all of the women who had come—except maybe not the painkiller one because she didn’t seem to know what was going on anyway. Poppy was one of the sweetest girls on the planet, but she was acting like a demon spawn to everyone who came into the house today. I didn’t even recognize her and felt like at any moment, her head was going to spin around on her neck, and she was going to start crawling on the ceiling. I had two more interviews to go for today, and then it was time for an imported beer to regain my sanity.

  This time when the door opened, Poppy sprinted up the main staircase toward her bedroom. I called after her to get her to stay, but she pretended not to hear me and just kept running. Honestly, the interview would probably be more comfortable and faster without her there, and it wasn
’t like anyone perfect was going to walk through that door—until I opened it and found myself staring into the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen.

  I got kind of transfixed for a minute while I tried to figure out if they were green, or gold, or brown—they were a combination of all three. Things got awkward for a second when I realized the young lady was waiting for me to say something. I quickly snapped myself out of it and remembered how much trouble falling for a beautiful woman had gotten me into in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade Poppy for anything in the world, but I would prefer to avoid going down that dramatic rabbit hole again. Besides, I didn’t have time for a girlfriend, which was exactly why I was hiring a nanny. And this woman looked much younger than me anyway.

  Finding a woman who wanted to be with a guy in his early thirties who already had a child, even if he was a handsome billionaire, was not an easy nor enjoyable task that I cared to undertake. Most of the women I met were more interested in my money or my fame than they were in my daughter.

  “Please, come in,” I said after I had shaken her hand and marveled at how soft and delicate her fingers felt against my palm.

  I showed her to the study, where we sat down to begin the interview.

  “So, Annika, do you have any experience with children?” I asked. It was such a generic question and one that you’d think someone coming to interview with a nanny would expect to be asked. Surprisingly, one out of three of the women this morning had somehow managed to fail that question.

  “Yes,” she said pleasantly. She looked nervous but also confident. “I have a degree in elementary education, and I taught third grade for a few months.”