Single Dad Next Door: A Fake Marriage Romance

  Single Dad Next Door

  Penelope Bloom

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Reid

  2. Sandra

  3. Reid

  4. Sandra

  5. Reid

  6. Sandra

  7. Reid

  8. Sandra

  9. Reid

  10. Sandra

  11. Reid

  12. Sandra

  13. Reid

  14. Sandra

  15. Reid

  16. Sandra

  17. Reid

  18. Sandra

  19. Reid

  20. Sandra

  21. Reid

  22. Sandra

  Epilogue

  Bonus Content: Protector - A Second Chance Romance

  Prologue - Protector

  23. Jesse

  24. Makayla

  25. Jesse

  26. Makayla

  27. Jesse

  28. Makayla

  29. Jesse

  30. Makayla

  31. Jesse

  32. Makayla

  33. Jesse

  34. Makayla

  35. Jesse

  36. Makayla

  37. Jesse

  38. Makayla

  39. Jesse

  40. Makayla

  41. Jesse

  42. Makayla

  43. Jesse

  44. Makayla

  45. Join My Dirty List

  Punished Sneak Peak

  Prologue

  46. Logan

  47. Emmaline

  48. Logan

  49. Thank you

  50. Join My Dirty List

  Prologue

  “No one can know,” she says, breaking the kiss just long enough to gasp out the words. “They can’t know the truth about us.”

  I find special pleasure in running my calloused, dirty hands across her smooth and flawless skin. Women like her are supposed to be off limits for guys like me. Her family is old money rich. Just imagining the look on their faces if they found out she was sleeping with a mechanic never fails to put a grin on my face.

  I kiss her while I guide her to the back of my truck.

  “In the truck, sweetheart.”

  She hops up, not taking her hungry eyes off me. I jump up beside her, sliding her back so I can lay her out like the prize she is in the bed of my truck. Long legs, long lashes, and an even longer list of reasons why I shouldn’t even be thinking of touching her. I strip her clothes unceremoniously, yanking her panties off in a single, hard jerk.

  She quivers, completely naked. She’s already wet for me.

  She has brown, curly hair that catches the moonlight through the open garage door. When I think about how much she must look down on me for being a lowly mechanic, I just want to give it to her that much harder, that much rougher. I want her to have to scream my name in this filthy garage and know it would enrage her parents. She should’ve known it would come to this when she moved in next door. She should’ve known she wouldn’t be able to stay away for long.

  I slide my calloused hand along her smooth leg, up the inside of her thigh. I trace the soft curves of her body with my eyes, from her full lips all the way down her slender neck and to the sweet swell of her breasts. She stretches out luxuriously, arching her back and biting her lip while squeezing her eyes shut tight.

  “Open your eyes,” I growl. “I want you to see who you’re fucking.”

  She obeys. I grip her chin and kiss her hard--relentlessly. Whether she knows it or not, and even if her rich parents would never approve, Sandra Williams is mine. She may think she’s too good for me, but I know exactly how to keep her coming back for more. And if she thinks we’re going to keep the truth about us a secret forever, she’s wrong. There’s only going to be one secret between us. There’s only one thing that she can never find out, that no one can ever find out about.

  If she knew… Fuck. I kiss her even harder, using my fingers against her pussy to make her squirm against me and gasp. Just thinking about what would happen if she found out makes me want to take her like it’s the last time. Because hell, if she finds out about the terms of my grandfather’s will, this will be the last time.

  1

  Reid

  Two Weeks Earlier

  I clutch the letter from my grandfather in my fist. The paper is soft and wrinkled from years of being handled. I know every word in it by heart. Every single fucking syllable is burned into my brain like a cancer. But the last line is the worst. It’s the one that haunts me. It taunts me every morning when I look in the mirror. It’s the line of text that hangs over me like a fucking time bomb, waiting to explode and tear everything in my life to pieces.

  I leave my shop and property to Reid William Riggins under the condition that he is married with children by the time he is thirty-five years of age.

  There it is in plain black ink. Children and a wife. I have one child and no wife. So that puts me in a very shitty place--one child, one ex-wife, and no prospects of that changing anytime soon. My grandfather went and threw me the shittiest curveball he could with his will. I shouldn’t even be surprised. My younger brother practically exiled himself from the family after college, and my grandfather was obsessed with the idea of the Riggins family name carrying on to a new generation. I’m thirty-three years old now, which doesn’t leave me much more time to satisfy the conditions. Either I marry someone and knock them up this year, or I lose my shop. I lose my house. Everything.

  I shove the letter back in the drawer and slam it shut.

  Tyler sticks his head in the small office at the back of my shop. “‘Ey, Reid. You’ll want to see this.”

  I’m not in the mood for Tyler’s bullshit right now, but if I stay in this office any longer, I’ll just keep getting more pissed. I push out of my chair and cross the distance toward him in two long strides. The shop isn’t much, but it’s mine. For now. I’ve run the place since grandpa died six years ago. We have two bays for cars, one of which I built myself on the weekends. It took close to a year, but it’s good, solid work. Everything is to code and sturdy.

  When I see my little guy kneeling to watch Garry work on an old Acura’s brake lines, the hot anger in me cools a little. Roman is the only good thing that came out of the two years I spent married to Tara. His brown hair is a tangled mess of brown and he has a thick streak of black on his cheek. I smirk, spitting on a rag then cupping his cheek to clean the grease from his cheek. He scrunches his face and tries to escape, but I manage to get the spot before he can slip away.

  “You learning about brakes, bud?”

  Roman is turning five next month, but he probably knows more about cars than most adults already.

  “Yep!” he says cheerily.

  I ruffle his hair and move to follow Tyler. As soon as Roman is out of my sight, the heat of my anger rises up again. I see what Tyler was calling me out of the office to see now. The shop sits directly in front of my house. The house next door has been abandoned for years, but there’s a moving truck parked outside in the shade of two big oaks. I tuck the rag in my jeans and cross my arms. I have to squint against the sun to see, but there are three guys from the moving company bringing box after box inside while a woman with long legs and short shorts follows them around, fussing over everything they move.

  I take a few steps closer, eyebrows drawing down in frustration and confusion when I realize I recognize her. “Is that fucking Sandra Williams?” I ask.

  Tyler spits between his teeth, nodding. “Sure is. Ain't she like, best friends with your ex?”

  There’s a bad taste in my mouth as I answer. “Yeah. That’s the one.”

&
nbsp; “So your wife’s best friend is going to live next door. What’re you gonna do?”

  “I’m gonna set this shit straight. Keep an eye on Roman. This won’t take long.”

  Tyler nods, walking back toward the shop.

  I realize I’m not wearing a shirt when I’ve already crossed half the distance to her house. Fuck it though, I’m too pissed to go back and put one on. Besides, the shirt I had on is covered in oil. I don’t bother thinking about what I’m going to say. The message is simple. She’s going to keep her fucking distance and I’m going to keep mine, or we’ll have a problem. The last thing I need is a reminder of Tara and the crap she pulled living next door, let alone some rich daddy’s girl like Sandra Williams.

  She looks up when I’m only a few steps away.

  “Reid…” she says slowly. Her tone says it all. It’s a placating tone, like she has been planning what she would say to try to calm me down. She knew exactly who lived next door when she decided to move here. How could she not? She’s been best friends with Tara since long before I even met Tara. She’s also the one Tara moved in with after the divorce. Her old place was just a few miles away on the other end of town.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I demand.

  She crosses her arms, eyes flashing with anger. I can’t help noticing how the motion pushes her full tits up. I never paid much attention to her before because I could write a book on the reasons she’s wrong for me, hell, I could write a few books. I don’t need books to tell me why I should keep my distance from Sandra. Two words are good enough. Off limits. Simple as that.

  “I’m moving into my house. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “Like hell it isn’t,” I say. I half-turn, pointing to my house and shop that are less than fifty yards away. “Your business just came and took a huge shit all over my business.”

  The anger in her eyes falters briefly when they flick down to my bare chest and stomach. She sucks in a sharp breath and looks away and then back once more. “Can you put a shirt on or something?”

  “Sure. As soon as you pack your shit up and leave, I’ll put a shirt on. ‘Til then, I’ll walk around butt ass fucking naked if I want to.”

  “Look, Reid. I don’t want trouble. It was time for me to get my own place. Tara and...“ she winces, like she was about to say something she shouldn’t have.

  “Tara and what?” I ask. Stepping close and lowering my voice dangerously.

  “Forget it. It’s not my place to tell you.”

  Tara and...? I could give two shits about what she does or who she fucks. The only thing I care about is that she still gets Roman on the weekends. If she’s seeing somebody, I need to know he’s safe to be around my son.

  I clench my fists. She’s not going to pack up and move just because I told her to. I knew as much. The point is that she gets the message to stay out of my business. “Keep your fucking distance and we’ll get along fine.”

  She sighs, shaking her head in disbelief. “I don’t think that will be a problem, Reid. Can I get back to moving in now?”

  I scoff. “Yeah. You do that.”

  I storm back into the garage and have to tamp down the urge to break something. I won’t lose control while Roman is watching, though. If there’s one thing I can do for him, it’s teach him to be a better man than I am. I may fuck everything else up in my life, but I won’t fuck that up. Not a chance. My son deserves better.

  I think back to the defiant way Sandra talked to me. Even though I only want to be pissed at her, I can’t help also remembering how good she looks. Women with a little fire always tempt me. Maybe it’s the challenge. I don’t pretend to understand it. All I know is I need to lose that thought, and fast. Tara and I are history. And the truth is I only stayed with her because of Roman. To say he was unplanned is putting it mildly. A condom must’ve broken and we didn’t realize. Once I knew she was pregnant, I sucked up my pride and did the right thing. I planned to stay with her and give him the family he deserves. I was willing to put up with her shit if it meant we could give him a good life, but she had other plans.

  Even so, making a move on her best friend would be dirty and low. Sandra’s not my type, anyway. I’m not interested. Sandra’s parents are old school blue bloods, and she probably gets the world handed to her on a golden spoon studded with diamonds. I don’t have time or energy to deal with a pampered woman who thinks the world should bend to her will.

  Fuck that, and fuck her.

  2

  Sandra

  I’m still seething from my run-in with Reid. Reid freaking Riggins and his stupidly hot body. I can’t stop seeing the way he looked with the sunlight highlighting every single line of his chiseled torso. The way his dirty hands left smeared fingerprints down his chest and abs was distracting, to say the least. All I have to do to push that image from my head is to remind myself what an asshole he is.

  He was never exactly Mr. Social, even when he and Tara were dating and later married. He seems happiest tucked underneath a car, covered in grease and grime. I may have briefly had a crush on him when he moved here to live with his grandpa during high school. The rumor was that his mother passed away from complications giving birth to his little brother, and then later their father died from heart disease. We were sophomores and he was the new, mysterious senior with the sinfully hot body and a face like he just hopped out of a GQ magazine. My fascination with him faded pretty much as soon as I got to know him, though.

  Reid Riggins has, and always will be arrogant, selfish, and abrasive. He’s not my type in the slightest. To be honest, the fact that this house is next door to his was the only thing holding me back from buying it. The price was ridiculously good because it’s been on the market for so long and needs fixing up. I needed a new place and the price was right. Tara started dating Reid’s brother, a fact which I almost let slip to Reid earlier. She talked me into letting him stay with her every once in awhile, which pretty quickly turned into all day, every day.

  Needless to say, I wanted space. I may still be in the same small town I’ve always lived in, but it is time to for a fresh start. The bakery has been doing well lately, so I can afford the luxury of a little privacy and a bigger place for me and my cat, Charles.

  I huff out a long, exhausted sigh and plop down on the couch, which is in the middle of the hallway right now. I hear a loud bang from outside and wince as the movers continue their apparent mission to ding, dent, or scratch every last thing I own before it comes inside the house. It may not be much, but I work hard for everything I own. Charles watches the chaos from the top of the refrigerator with a look of disinterest. I know better though, he’s loving this. I’ll be up all night from the sounds of Charles rampaging around his new domain. He just acts like an old grump by day. Just like he didn’t care when I spent a hundred dollars to buy him a six-foot-tall cat tower off Amazon. He used that tower one time. One time. And all he used it for was to pee on. At least that’s what he wanted me to think. A few weeks after I got it, I caught him in the middle of the night having the time of his life playing on it.

  Sometimes I wonder why I wanted a cat.

  Just like I wonder why I try so hard to be independent. If my parents had their way, I would sit back while they funnel an endless stream of money into my bank account. They were both trust fund kids. Their parents arranged their marriage, and they dutifully followed through with it. In their social circle, working for a living is something to be embarrassed about. When I made it clear that I didn’t want to take their handouts, they distanced themselves. A lot. We talk over the phone sometimes, but they have no idea what I’m really doing. I’ve spun a few convenient mistruths just to get them to keep their distance. If they knew the full truth, they would start having airplanes drop money on my house until I gave in and took some.

  At least they still have Vanessa to dote over. She’s the perfect daughter. She never minded being given all the money in the world for doing nothing. She’s curr
ently engaged to Edmond Bartley, who was my father’s top pick for me. When it became clear I wasn’t going to agree to what was basically an arranged marriage, he did the only logical thing left to do, he set Edmond up with Vanessa. She spends her days lounging poolside, sipping drinks, attending social events, and planning her obscenely expensive wedding. Which I still haven’t been invited to. Then again, she has been planning the wedding for over a year already, so she may not even have an official date.

  Not for the first time, I try to push past the bitterness that rises in my chest when I think about my family. Most families would be proud if their daughter found the amount of success I have. Mine acts like I joined a three ring circus to fulfill a life-long dream of becoming a clown. Screw them though. I’ve made it this far without them, and I’ll keep going on whether they like it or not. All I need is my bakery. And Charles, I guess.

  Except there’s no point lying to myself. More than anything, I want a guy. I may not need a guy. But it sure would be nice to have someone around who could make me feel safe and maybe even help shoulder some of the responsibility once in awhile. Even more than a guy, I want a baby. I’m turning thirty-one next month, and my biological clock is ticking like a time bomb. Every time I see babies at the store I feel like my heart is breaking. I can’t help running through the numbers. At thirty-one, I’ll almost be in my fifties by the time my child graduates high school. A few more years and I’ll be fifty before they even start high school. A couple dozen more and I’ll be pushing their stroller with my motorized old lady scooter.

  Yeah. I never said my biological clock was reasonable.

  It doesn’t help that my love life is a long list of trainwrecks, disasters, and catastrophes. I went through a few phases. Early on, there was the safe stage, where I dated guys I thought my parents would approve of. Then I moved on to the defiant stage, where I dated guys I knew my parents would hate. That lasted a while until at some point I realized I was only hurting myself.