Knocked Up by the Dom Read online

  So I don’t.

  The place she works is one of those depressing, glass boxes that house multiple businesses. I was planning to run by my office later, so I’m still wearing my suit, which draws attention as I step inside what appears to be a business casual kind of place. After a little asking around, I’m told the data entry center is on the third floor. The elevator opens up to a wide floor plan full of cubicles not quite high enough to hide the eyes of the men and women sitting at their computers, clacking away on keyboards with bored expressions.

  One by one, pairs of eyes dart up to follow me as I move through the space, searching for Kylie. I don’t make it far before a scrawny little man in a puke-yellow button-down stops me. He rakes a hand through his thinning hair and plants his hands on hips that are a little too prominent to belong to a man. “Can I help you?” he asks.

  “Yeah. You could move so I don’t have to pick you out of my shoes later.”

  His face pales a little, but to his credit he straightens his back, clearly used to being the top dog around this depressing place. “Right. I’m just going to have you stay right here while I call security.”

  “Do what you need to do,” I say, pushing past him to continue my search.

  “Hey!” He calls after me.

  Everyone stops working now to watch with curious eyes over the tops of their cubicles.

  A woman I don’t recognize hops up and comes to stand beside me. She’s a little taller than average with dirty blonde hair and a long, willowy neck. Pretty, but I can already see from the way she carries herself she’s not my type. Hell, I haven’t seen any woman was my type since I met Kylie. I guess my type is Kylie.

  “Steve, look at him,” she says, eying me appreciatively. “You can’t just throw a man like this out to the curb.”

  “Amen,” yells a woman from somewhere across the room, which is met with a few chuckles.

  I ignore all of them, craning my neck to look through the cubicles. I see the back of a head, which catches my attention in the room full of people who are half-standing at their desks to stare my way.

  “Kylie?” I ask.

  The person with their back to me twitches. It’s her. I’d recognize her dark, curly hair anywhere.

  “Kylie,” I say again more firmly. I have to push past the woman who confronted the manager and the little man who is trying to forcibly shove me back toward the exit now. I sweep my arm in front of me, knocking him aside so that he stumbles into a cubicle wall, eyes bulging with rage.

  “If you don’t--” he starts

  “Back the fuck off,” I growl, turning slowly to face him. “Go call security if you want, but if you come near me again I’ll be happy to knock your tiny ass out.”

  Kylie is hastily shoving things into her handbag. She shoulders it and tries to hurry from her cubicle. I reach out, taking her by the arm.

  Everyone still watches us, but I don’t care. Just being near her again has my heart hammering. “Kylie,” I say quietly.

  She turns toward me with eyes red from crying.

  “Who fucking hurt you?” I ask, lunging forward to cup her cheek and look her over. “Was it someone at the party? Give me a name.”

  “Stop,” she says, voice shuddering. “Just stop.” She pulls back, visibly gathering herself and squeezing her eyes shut. “Nobody hurt me. Nobody gets to hurt me anymore. You’re the last one with that honor.”

  I clench my teeth so hard it hurts. I could fucking kill Faleena for this. If I had known Kylie was carrying around this much pain from what happened back on my private plane three years ago, I would have torn down every city in the fucking country until I found her and set this straight, I would’ve spent my fortune running ads and billboards telling her what a crock of shit Faleena fed her. “It shouldn’t have taken me this long to find you,” I say. “But I’m here now. Let me show you she was lying. Just give me a chance.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “He’s over here!” shouts Steve, who is guiding two security guards toward me from the elevators.

  “We can make it that easy. Meet me. Give me one chance. Five minutes, even. That’s all I ask. I’ll be at Baker’s coffee in an hour. It’s just a block from here on the corner.”

  Her eyes well with tears, but she fights them back. The conflict is written so clearly on her face it tears at me like rusted knives. I can’t stand that I put her through this. I shouldn’t have ever let her from my sight back then and given Faleena a chance to fuck things up.

  “Sir,” says one of the security guards who reaches for my arm.

  I pull my arm back, giving him a glare that clearly says he shouldn’t touch me unless he wants to be dragged out of here unconscious. He gets the message and motions instead for me to head to the elevator.

  “One hour,” I say again to Kylie, who says nothing in return.

  I’m escorted out of the building, drawing even more stares this time, but none of it registers. I can only think of the pain I saw in her face. Knowing I caused that makes me feel like the scum of the fucking Earth, and I know I’ll never be able to make it up to her completely, but I’m sure as hell going to try.

  I wait by myself in the coffee shop for two and a half hours before Kylie finally walks in. She looks self-conscious, and her vulnerability only makes me want her more. She spots me and walks over, slowly taking her seat but saying nothing.

  “You have four minutes left,” she says after a brief silence.

  I raise my eyebrows. “I’d say four minutes thirty seconds, but--”

  “Three minutes and fifty seconds,” she says coldly.

  Damn. “Ask me anything you want,” I say. “I’ll be a hundred percent honest.”

  “Was everything she told me a lie?”

  “I don’t know exactly what she told you, but Faleena was nothing to me. I met her at a club a few months prior to that day at the airport. We went on a handful of dates and I broke things off. No woman has ever held my interest for long, Kitten, except you. I’ve spent every day since we’ve been apart thinking of you, looking for you.”

  She shakes her head and looks out the window to our side. I can practically see the emotions at war inside her. She’s conflicted. Part of her probably wants to throw a coffee in my face and leave for good. The other part? I can only hope that part of her knows she feels something real between us, too, that all this talk isn’t just crazy.

  “Listen,” I say, reaching across the table to grip her hand. She doesn’t pull it back. “Some people think you need to go on a handful of dates to get to know someone. Me? I think that’s bullshit. I knew you the moment I looked into your eyes. I knew you were a strong woman. I knew you were intelligent as hell, and I knew nobody--especially any men--had ever taken care of you the way you deserve. All I wanted was to be that man for you. It’s still all I want.”

  She bites her lip and looks down at where our hands meet. “I want to believe you. That’s why I’m so afraid to give you a chance,” she says quietly. “I know it’s probably not fair to take a stranger’s word over yours, but then you’re basically a stranger, too, aren’t you?”

  My eyebrows draw down. “You know that’s not true. Look me in the fucking eyes and tell me I feel like a stranger to you.”

  She looks away, takes a deep breath, and sighs. I can see her coming to some kind of decision, one I hope involves a date with me. “If you knew the real truth about me you wouldn’t be saying all this. No. No… I can’t do this. You’ll only run away when you get close and I’ll be back where I started, except this time you’ll break me.”

  Her lower lip quivers and she looks at her phone. “That’s five minutes.”

  “Kylie,” I say firmly, but she picks up her bag and rushes out of the shop.

  I slam my fist on the table, making several nearby people jump and give me nervous glances. “The fuck are you looking at?” I ask at the college kid closest to me.

  He picks up his bag and hurries outside, glancing over his s
houlder before he leaves.

  I lean back in my chair and run my hands across my face with a groan of irritation. Fuck. She is not making this easy. If I knew the whole truth? What was she talking about? What truth could there be that would make me want to run from her? There’s nothing. I don’t care if she has a dead body in her trunk. She’s going to be mine, whether she believes it or not, and I’m just going to have to keep trying to convince her.

  7

  Kylie

  I lean my head against my apartment door and fight back tears for what seems like the twentieth time in two days. I’m not normally a crier, and I hate being such a mess right now, but I feel like I’m being pulled in a hundred different directions at once. Every atom in my body is screaming to reach out for Damian, to let him hold me and run his hands through my hair, to let him whisper those dirty thoughts of his in my ear and make my skin prickle with goosebumps. But I can’t stop the small voice in the back of my head that keeps asking “what if?” What if Faleena was really telling the truth? Wouldn’t a guy like the one she described to me lie and say whatever he thought would get him in my pants?

  I think about little Dean and his sweet smile. I can’t do that to him. I can’t risk attaching myself to a guy who I’m not a hundred percent sure about. Two hundred percent sure. Even if he is my baby’s father. I don’t care how he makes my body feel or how good it would feel to simply be held again. I can’t. And even if Damian was telling the truth? Even if it was all sincere and he really does want to try to make things work with me?

  What’s he going to think when he finds out I have a son. That we have a son.

  “God,” I groan, clutching my temples and sliding down to sit outside my apartment with my back to the door. Most guys would probably turn and run as soon as they find out I have a kid. And even if he didn’t, what would he think if he found out I had his kid and didn’t tell him about it for all these years? It doesn’t even matter that I had no way to find him. Just the fact that I didn’t try will be damning enough.

  I hear little footsteps on the other side of the door and I’m suddenly falling backwards to bump into the ground, face toward the ceiling. Dean’s little smiling face hovers over me. He belts out a giggle. “Mommy home!”

  Angie, the nanny Alec paid for, comes from the kitchen with a crooked smile on her face. She’s in her forties and has exactly the kind of stern, motherly attitude Dean needs in his life. If she wasn’t way out of my budget, I’d snatch her up in a heartbeat to replace my normal sitter, but it’s not an option. Dean’s just going to be stuck with a pushover mom and a pushover babysitter once my time with Angie runs out.

  “Sorry,” she says. “He heard you coming up the stairs and wanted to surprise you.”

  “He succeeded,” I say, grunting a little as I sit up and rub the back of my head.

  Dean prods the back of my head when he sees me clutching it. “Oh no! Boo boo! Ice!” He screams before run-waddling to the fridge to get his little heart-shaped ice pack.

  “Are you okay?” she asks, concern splitting her features when she sees my eyes, which I assume are red and puffy with mascara smeared underneath.

  “I’m fine,” I say. “It was just a rough day.”

  “I can stay till his bed time if you want to go in and take a nap.”

  Dean comes rushing back with the little red frozen heart held up like a trophy. “Ice!” He declares moments before tripping and falling flat on his face.

  Angie and I both wince, hands going to our faces. Dean gets up, frowns down at his knees, as if trying to decide if this particular boo boo was tantrum worthy. “Oh no,” he says happily. “Boo boo.” With a self-satisfied smile, he plops down and presses the ice to his knee.

  I grin at Angie, who smiles back. “He’s a little trooper. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a tougher little guy.”

  “I wish I could say he got that from me,” I say carelessly.

  There’s an awkward moment of silence. I don’t talk about Dean’s dad with anybody, and Angie has probably already picked up on that. Thankfully, someone knocks at the door, saving me from the discomfort.

  I pull it open and see Damian, standing there in my hallway looking determined and so sexy it’s not even fair. I squeeze out as quickly as I can, before Dean sees Damian or vice versa. That’s not a conversation I want to have right now--or ever, for that matter.

  “What are you doing here?” I hiss once the door’s closed behind me.

  “I’m not giving up on you. You said there was something that would make me run? Try me.”

  “Can we start with how you even know where I live?”

  He flashes an unapologetic smirk. “Next time you try to run away from me, you might want to turn around every once in awhile to make sure I’m not following you.”

  “So you’re pretty much stalking me?”

  “If that’s what it takes,” he says.

  I sigh, even though I want to be pissed or creeped out, I can’t manage it. It’s not fair to all the average looking guys of the world, but somehow being “stalked” by a guy like Damian feels flattering and exciting, no matter how I spin it. To think he’s going to all this trouble just to get me to forgive him is going a long way toward making me want to give this thing a chance. I just hope I’m not being selfish and putting myself before Dean. If I knew I was doing this with his best interests at heart, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from practically begging Damian for a date. But my little guy on the other side of the door comes first. Before anything and everything.

  Damian is obviously into some kind of crazy BDSM scene, if the place he took me to at the party is any indication. That, and the fact that he commands obedience like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and he somehow makes submission feel so sweet. How could I knowingly bring a man like that into my son’s life?

  There’s a thump at the door and the muffled sound of Dean’s voice. “MeeeeOWWW,” he yells playfully.

  My eyes goes wide.

  Damian squints past me. “Big cat…” he says.

  I shift on my feet and tuck a hair behind my ear. “Yeah. I really need to put him on a diet.”

  “HeeeHAWWW,” yells Dean.

  I close my eyes in defeat. There’s no way I’m convincing Damian I have a donkey in there, even if Dean’s impression of a donkey wasn’t terrible.

  “Big cat and a little donkey…” says Damian slowly. He moves closer to me, eyes taking me in with a fiery intensity. “Invite me inside.”

  I’ve already seen how persistent Damian is. I know there’s no use saying no to him now. If he knows I have a child, he’ll never stop until he finds out the truth. My best hope is to let him see Dean, hope he doesn’t see the resemblance, and then wait for him to decide he doesn’t want to deal with the baggage like any other guy.

  I open the door slowly.

  Dean stands there in his cute little “Mommy’s Best Man” shirt, which is tucked into his jean shorts. He looks up at Damian with wide eyes, then notices the tattoos on Damian’s arms.

  “Oh no!” he says. “Dirty!” He runs toward the kitchen where we keep the wipes.

  Damian looks to me with an amused glint in his eye. “I promise, I washed up before I came.”

  I give him a wry smile. “He has never seen tattoos.”

  “His dad doesn’t have any?” asks Damian. His tone is light, but I can practically feel the weight behind the question.

  “His dad isn’t in the picture anymore.”

  Damian nods, relief clear in his features.

  Dean comes waddling back with way too many wipes clutched in his small fist. “Sit!” he practically yells at Damian.

  To my surprise, Damian sits down on the floor cross-legged. His sleeves are rolled halfway up his forearms, but he pulls them back above his biceps, giving me a mouth-watering view of tanned, tattooed skin pulled tight over perfectly formed muscle. Dean climbs into Damian’s lap and frowns in consternation as he tries uselessly to wipe away the tattoo
s.

  “Sorry, bud,” says Damian with a grin. “I’m a dirty man. I don’t know if any amount of wipes can fix that.”

  “Fix,” repeats Dean, who still isn’t giving up.

  I lean in the doorway, watching the two of them together, trying with all my might not to get teary eyed and failing. I’ve never thought I’d see them together, and I didn’t expect it to look so right. God. I didn’t even realize they have the same smile, but I can see it so clearly now. Dean is so obviously Damian’s son I’m surprised Damian didn’t call me on it at his first glance.

  “Go ask your mommy if you can have a marker,” says Damian suddenly.

  Dean pops up, dropping his wipes. He comes to stand below me, craning his neck to look up at me. “Markuh?” he asks.

  “Fine,” I say with a smile. “Go get one. But be careful with it.”

  He hurries off to the drawer where we keep the arts and crafts. I give Damian a long, curious look. “Do you have kids?” I ask.

  “Hey, I think we’re getting somewhere. She’s asking me questions now.”

  I glare. “Do you?”

  “No. But I’ve always wanted them.”

  “Well, you’re really good with Dean,” I say.

  “Dean?” he asks. “It’s a good name. Strong and a classic.”

  “Thanks,” I say, blushing and feeling more relief than I should that he likes it.

  Dean returns with a green washable marker. “Markuh,” he declares, holding it up like the holy grail.

  “See this?” asks Damian, who points to part of the tattoo on his arm. “This is a tattoo. Do you want one?”

  “Yes,” says Dean with an emphatic nod.

  “Come here.” Damian sits Dean on his knee and uncaps the marker. “Do you like cats?”

  “MeeeOWW,” says Dean.

  Damian chuckles. “That’s a yes if I’ve ever heard one. We’re going to give you a cat tattoo on your arm.”