Single Dad's Surprise (Wilder Brothers #1) Read online

  I could tell by her face that she was bracing for a serious scolding. “I’m glad you did, too,” I said without taking my eyes off hers.

  Poppy looked astounded. “You are?” she asked.

  “Yep, absolutely. She deserved it. I would have done the exact same thing if someone had said something like that about my mom.”

  “You would have?”

  I nodded and then put my attention back on the road.

  “Aren’t you going to yell at me?” she asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I think you did the right thing. It was a crappy situation all around and hitting someone is definitely not the way to solve problems. But if I had been you, and someone said that to me, I would have protected my mom’s reputation, too.”

  “Am I going to get punished?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure what your dad will do about it once you tell him. But you’re not going to get punished from me,” I answered.

  “Are you just doing this to try to kiss up to me so that I’ll like you better?” Poppy asked.

  I laughed. “No. I’m just not going to punish you for something that the eight-year-old version of myself would do, too.”

  Poppy sat quietly for a few minutes and dried her tears. She seemed like she was thinking, although I wasn’t sure what she was thinking about.

  “Want ice cream?” I asked.

  “You’re rewarding me for getting into a fight with someone at school?” she said, even more surprised than before.

  “Nah, I just figured you needed ice cream after having such a crappy day.”

  “Sure,” she smiled. It was the first time Poppy had ever smiled at me.

  We went to the store and got as many different kinds of ice cream and ice cream toppings as our arms could carry, and when we got home, we shoved them all inside the freezer to save for the movie night that we planned on having later. It was an “ice cream and movie night” kind of day.

  “Do you want to play dolls with me?” Poppy asked as I was unpacking the last of the toppings from the grocery bag—hot fudge and cookie crumbles.

  “Yes, I’d love to,” was the calm and cheerful response that came out of my mouth with a smile. But inside my heart was shouting “yay”!

  I followed Poppy up the staircase as she led the way, and when we got into her bedroom, she asked me to turn on all the pretty light strings and nightlights in her room. Her whole bedroom glowed with magical pink lights, and I felt like I had just time-traveled back to my own childhood with all of the dolls and toys that Poppy had in every corner. She went to go sit down in front of her dollhouse and pulled out some of her dolls to spread across the floor.

  “Which one do you want to be?” she asked me.

  “Which one would you like me to be?” I said, not wanting to choose a doll that was special to her.

  “This one,” she said as she handed me one.

  I took the doll from her hand and held it up to look at. It was the typical blond-haired, blue-eyed girl with an unrealistic waist and feet that were arched so high it would make actual women look like centaurs if they tried to walk like that. It didn’t matter what my personal grown-up, feministic views on the dolls were right now, though, there was a nostalgia in the doll that made me feel like I was eight years old again. I was immediately pushed into an imaginary play mode. I lay down on my stomach with the doll in my hand, ready to play. Poppy looked at me sideways for a minute, and then she got down next to me.

  “Who’s going to be the boy?” I asked.

  “The boy?”

  “Yeah, you know, there’s always a boy or a prince or something. I always hated being the boy when I was your age. I always wanted to pawn that job off to a friend.”

  Poppy laughed, and then she pulled a boy doll out from the top of her dollhouse.

  “You can be him,” she giggled.

  I rolled my eyes playfully and took the boy doll from her. “Okay, but I get to keep the girl doll, too; I have two hands.”

  Poppy rolled over in a fit of laugher, and then when she turned back onto her stomach, we began to play.

  She was a very imaginative child with some really great and creative ideas. In no time at all, she had crafted an intricate and elaborate play scheme that took us a solid hour to run through and was so much fun that I wanted to go through it again. The time got lost as we gave ourselves over to Poppy’s imagination and then started a make-believe play with some of her dress-up outfits. I couldn’t fit into any of the outfits or costumes, of course, but I was able to pull off a tiara and a masquerade mask.

  “Okay, so you’re the wicked stepmother,” Poppy paused and looked at me with a strange face, almost like she was afraid of hurting my feelings now.

  I laughed to break the tension. “I’m just the nanny, remember?” I joked. “Not the stepmother.”

  She smiled and carried right on with the play idea. “You’re the stepmother, and I’m the princess. You’re trying to steal my crown, and I need to save the prince in order to defeat you.”

  I loved the part about saving the prince, very girl-power-esque.

  We played and played until we were so tired that we fell down onto the floor to giggle and roll around in the piles of costume changes that we had already used. We lay on our backs and stared up at the ceiling when we had finally calmed down. I was pretty sure that we both could have kept on playing for the rest of the night. It got quiet for a while, and I wondered if Poppy had fallen asleep, but when I looked over, I saw her still staring up with wide-open eyes. She’d had a good day today, despite the incident at school. It was the best day that I had seen her have since I had been here. She turned her head to look at me.

  “What movie are we gonna watch tonight?” she asked.

  “What kind of movie do you want to watch tonight?” I asked.

  “Something happy and not sad.”

  Chapter Ten (Jake)

  I listened to the voicemails as I walked quickly to my car and started heading home.

  * * *

  “Mr. Wilder, this is Principal Hannikan from Poppy’s school. I need you to call me back as soon as you get this message regarding an incident that happened with Poppy today.”

  * * *

  Shit.

  * * *

  “Mr. Wilder, this is Principal Hannikan from your daughter’s school. We have reached out to Mrs. Wilder as well and are trying to get in touch with one of Poppy’s parents. We need you to give the school a call back as soon as you get this message.”

  * * *

  Ugh, no, not Maleah. I really hoped that Maleah was too busy to see that the school had even called. She was off on her tour now and would be a hellion if she got interrupted again.

  * * *

  “Mr. Wilder, this is our third attempt to reach one of Poppy’s parents. Honestly, I am surprised that in the event of an emergency, it would be so difficult to get ahold of a guardian. Rest assured that Poppy is fine. But we will now be calling the name of the nanny you have listed on Poppy’s emergency list in the hope that someone can come to pick this child up from school.

  * * *

  This couldn’t possibly get any worse, and today of all days, when I finally thought things were going well. I had no idea what my daughter could have done this time, but it must have been worthy of three voicemails from the principal. I prepared myself to speak to her as soon as I got home.

  When I walked through the door of the house, I slammed my keys down onto the table and headed straight for Poppy’s room. But when I got to her doorway, ready to burst into the room with my most stern face on, I saw a completely unexpected sight.

  Poppy and Annika were on the floor with their backs against a pile of princess dresses and with toys and dolls scattered all over the bedroom floor. They were laughing and talking as they looked up at the ceiling.

  “You want to have the ice cream for dinner or dessert?” Annika asked Poppy.

  “Di
nner, of course!”

  The two girls laughed and then sat up.

  “Hi, Daddy!” Poppy said as she got to her feet and ran over to give me a hug.

  “Hi, Poppy,” I said as I hugged her back. “How was school today?” I knew very well that school was not okay.

  Poppy looked over her shoulder at Annika, who smiled and gave her a slight nod.

  “She had a great day,” Annika lied. “We’ve just decided on ice cream for dinner tonight, if that’s okay with you?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Chocolate ice cream for me, please. It goes best with red wine.”

  Annika smiled, and Poppy ran out toward the stairs to go down and start pulling out the ice cream. I stood in the doorway as Annika walked closer to me.

  “We both know she didn’t have a great day at school,” I said as soon as she got close enough for me to whisper it.

  “But she had a great day after school,” Annika said. “Which is more than what she has had in a while.”

  She was right. Annika seemed to have handled and diffused the situation, whatever it was. So I decided to let it be. That night we all ate dinner together, granted it was a dinner of ice cream and sweets, but it was the first dinner that the three of us had together in which we all sat and talked at the table. And this time, none of the talking was bad.

  Later that night, after I had put Poppy into bed, I went to Annika’s room to thank her for picking up Poppy from school and for dealing with whatever the situation was today. I knocked lightly on the door, and instead of coming to open it, I heard Annika’s gentle voice call to “come in.” When I opened the door, I found Annika sitting in her bed with a cup of tea and reading a book. She had her legs pulled up against her so that she could prop her book on her knees and was balancing a cup of tea in one hand. She was wearing one of those thin T-shirts again, but this time she was wearing only a thin T-shirt and nothing else but the panties I could barely see from between her thighs. I didn’t think she was expecting to see anyone else tonight, and she just looked comfortable and relaxed and content about the way the day had ended. I must have been gawking or holding some sort of awkward expression on my face because she set her book and tea down on the nightstand when she saw me standing there for too long.

  “I’m sorry,” I said as she walked closer to where I was standing at the doorway.

  God, she was gorgeous. Not in the fake, plastic kind of way that so many of the music stars in Silicon Valley were, but in the beautiful and innately stunning sort of way. The soft fabric of the T-shirt moved against her body as she walked and clung to both the bottom of her breasts and the inner parts of her thighs. The shirt hung long enough to cover all of the naughty bits but just barely. I felt myself teem with excited anticipation, even though I knew I couldn’t touch her. Just the thought of it made me swallow hard, and that wasn’t the only thing that was hard. She stopped when she was standing in front of me, close enough to touch, and waited to hear what I had come in to say to her.

  “I just wanted to come to say thank you for answering the phone when no one else did and picking Poppy up from school. You dealt with whatever the situation at school was, and you were there for her when everyone else failed.”

  “It’s my job,” Annika said in a teasing voice.

  I was having trouble concentrating on anything aside from what was waiting underneath her shirt. The sexual tension in the small space that was between us was so heavy and so intense that I felt myself starting to choke on my breaths. I tried to think of something else to say, something benign that wouldn’t cause things to escalate, but my mind was swimming with desire. The moment dragged on longer than it should have as I stared at her and my eyes darted between her mouth and her beautiful hazel eyes that seemed to be a different color each time that I looked at them.

  “Was there something else you wanted?” she asked.

  It was such an innocent question. I knew that Annika meant it as an innocent question, and I struggled to hold on to my restraint as I felt my body begin to shake. I opened my mouth to tell her that there wasn’t anything else, that I had said all that I had come to say. But her lips still stayed slightly parted while she waited for my answer, and when I opened my mouth to give it to her, I lost control. My mind was screaming at me as I was unable to stop myself. I knew better, but I couldn’t resist, and to be honest, I didn’t want to.

  There was a split second in which my better judgment tried to reign my instincts back in, but I couldn’t fight it. I reached forward and pulled Annika into my arms and against my body. I put my mouth over hers and pushed my tongue between her open lips. There was a part of me that hesitated as I tasted her and wanted more but tried to hold myself together out of the sheer fear of scaring her away. I couldn’t do that to Poppy, not now after she had finally let Annika in.

  But Annika didn’t hesitate, and she didn’t pull away; instead, she wrapped her arms around my neck and wove her fingers through my hair. And when my tongue met with hers, she twisted it back around my own in a sensual dance of arousal that made the space between my legs throb.

  I pushed myself up against her, not trying to be animalistic about it, but losing control completely. I felt myself between the tight space of her thighs, which made the pulsing engorgement grow. I kissed her and lifted Annika up onto my hips as I carried her back toward the bed, and when we got there, I laid her down on her back and climbed over her.

  At any moment, she could have pulled away, and I would have stopped and forced myself into calm no matter how much it killed me to do so. But she didn’t. Instead of pulling me away, she pulled me down on top of her and wrapped her legs around me.

  I pulled her shirt over her head, and when I saw her beautiful breasts fall against her ribcage, I leaned down to kiss them. Annika squirmed with pleasure, which made me hunger for her even more as she pulled off my shirt and tossed it to the side of the room. As soon as she started to tug at the waistband of my pants, I knew that neither of us wanted to stop. I slid her panties down, and she kicked them off beside us as she used her toes to pull my pants the rest of the way off my ankles.

  I knew better than to do this. This was how Poppy had happened and how I had ended up being tied to a crazy pop star for eighteen years. But right now, all I could think about was being inside Annika. I hadn’t let myself feel anything ever since my divorce, and now, I suddenly felt everything at once.

  Annika opened her thighs and arched her back, and without pause, I pushed my swollen cock into her with such a pleasurable force that it made my teeth ache. Annika let out several small gasps as I moved inside of her, and each time she did, I moved more. I held her beautiful body beneath me and felt each space of her intimately and with a revered adoration. When the climbing sensation had reached its pinnacle, and we allowed ourselves to release to it, I lay down over her and kissed her soft lips as though I still couldn’t get enough of her. Then, I lay down beside her and pulled her up onto my shoulder, where she rested her head and sighed with contentment. She reached down to pull a blanket up over us as we both lay there together in the satiated and stunned aftermath of what we had just done.

  I didn’t know what to say or what to do now. So I just said the truth. “I have wanted to kiss you and hold you since the moment that I saw you,” I said nervously. “I hope that doesn’t come across as really pushy and weird.”

  “It doesn’t,” she said. “Because I have felt the same way.” She paused for a minute, and I could feel her taking a deep breath in. “Is this going to make things uncomfortable now?” she asked.

  “If you mean uncomfortable in the sense that I am going to want you each and every time that I see you, then yes, definitely.”

  She laughed. “Well, yes, that, too. But I meant more along the lines of you being my boss and me being your nanny. Is this going to complicate things? If so, we can pretend that it never happened.”

  “Do you want to pretend that it never happened?” I asked her.

  “No.”
r />   “Neither do I. Life is messy, Annika. Surely, you’ve noticed how ridiculously complicated my life has been. You walked into this situation with Poppy and me and you’ve seen first-hand what a shitshow it is. I can handle complicated if you can.”

  She didn’t respond to me right away, and it started to make me worry a little. “Have you slept with a lot of women since you and Poppy’s mom got divorced. I mean, I know there’s a ton of beautiful women in the music industry and that you’re around them every day. Even the woman at your office sounds like she’s incredibly gorgeous from over the phone.”

  “Who, Lucie?” I laughed, and I realized that I hadn’t really had a good laugh in a while. It felt good. “Lucie is great, and yes, she’s very pretty. But I’m fairly sure her fiancé would want to kick my ass if I ever tried anything with her. Aside from the fact that I never would. Lucie is much younger than me and has been a trusted friend and employee for a long time.”

  “I’m much younger than you, too,” she said.

  “I don’t care.”

  “And in answer to my question?” she said.

  “None.”

  Annika’s eyebrows rose in surprise as she lifted her head to look up at me. “None? You haven’t been with a woman since Poppy’s mother? Forgive me for asking, but why? I mean, it’s not like there aren’t plenty of women who would want you.”

  I supposed that her comment should have been flattering, but instead, it just made me kind of exposed, like a raw nerve, which wasn’t something that I liked to feel. “In all honesty,” I answered. “I never wanted to go through that again. I never wanted to fall in love, or have a child, or tie my future or my heart to anyone ever again. So I steered clear of women and focused on my company.”

  “Then what changed now?” she asked.

  “You.”