Chapter Three
Present day, three years and seven months later . . .
“Mommy, when are we going to Leah’s? I want to give her the lollipop we bought for her.”
Katie put the last of the vegetables she’d bought at the market into the crisper and glanced at her nearly three-year-old daughter as she shut the refrigerator door. “In a few more minutes, honey. I still have one more bag to empty, and then we’ll go. I promise.”
Val let out an impatient sigh, because Katie had made it clear that she couldn’t have her lollipop until they’d given Leah hers. “Okay,” she said, her little legs swinging back and forth as she sat on one of the kitchen chairs.
While Katie finished putting the rest of the groceries away, Val played with her favorite My Little Pony figurine, Pinkie Pie, on the table. Her little girl carried on an imaginary conversation with the toy, asking Pinkie if she wanted a lick of her lollipop, which was still sealed in its wrapper, and of course the pony had to give it a few loud, slurping licks.
Katie tried not to laugh at the obnoxious sounds her daughter made and the stern way that Val told Pinkie not to be selfish and to leave some of the lollipop for her. Even though her daughter had been born prematurely at seven months old, by the time she’d turned two, she’d caught up to all the developmental milestones for her age bracket, and with her third birthday only a week away, she was actually ahead of where the pediatrician had predicted she’d be. She was talkative and bright, with an inquisitive nature and vivid imagination. And Katie couldn’t imagine her life without Val’s sweet innocence in it.
“Okay, I’m done,” Katie announced once all the perishables had been taken care of. She only needed to deliver the gallon of milk and loaf of bread that she’d picked up for her neighbor and good friend, Avery, who was also Leah’s mother.
“Yay!” Val squealed in excitement as she scooted off the chair, Pinkie Pie in one hand and the two lollipops in the other. “Let’s go, Mommy!”
Val raced to the front room of the house, her dark brown braid bouncing off her back as she came to an abrupt halt in front of the screen door. She waited, shifting from sandal to sandal, her big blue eyes sparkling with anticipation for Katie to unlatch the lock. As soon as the door was open, Val bolted out to the front yard, then stopped at the sidewalk, just like Katie had taught her to do so she didn’t run into the street.
They walked to the townhouse next to theirs, where Leah lived, and by the time Katie had reached their front porch, Val had already stood up on her tippy-toes to push the “ding-dong” button, as her daughter called it. The door flew open, with four-year-old Leah on the other side, who looked just like her mother, with auburn curls, freckles, and a cute button nose.
Leah clapped her hands together happily. “Val! You’re here! I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting!”
Avery came up behind her daughter and rolled her eyes. “You’d think they haven’t seen each other for weeks, instead of just hours,” she said in amusement.
“I bwought you a lollipop!” Val said, thrusting it toward Leah while glancing back at Katie, her struggles pronouncing the letter “r” coming through. “Can we eat them now?”
Katie exchanged a mom look with Avery, and after being given the silent okay by her friend, she nodded. “Yes. Just remember that you have to lick it until it’s gone, and don’t bite into it.”
“We know,” the two little girls sing-songed at the same time, then ran off to Leah’s playroom.
Katie stepped inside the house, indicating the items in her hands. “And for you, the bread and milk you requested from the grocery store.”
Avery took the heavy jug from Katie’s grasp and walked to the kitchen, where they could hear and see the girls playing through the video monitor set up on the wall. “Thank you. And for being such an awesome friend, you get the first piece of the coffee cake I just pulled out of the oven.”
Katie inhaled the scent of cinnamon, sugar, and rich, buttery goodness. “God, it smells heavenly.”
Avery put away the milk and set the bread on the counter. “Do you want coffee or iced tea to go with it?”
“Coffee, but I’ll make it while you cut the coffee cake,” she said, moving to the instant brewer and pulling out her favorite French vanilla pod to put into the machine. “Would you like one, too?”
“Yep. You know how I like it.”
Yes, Katie did, because they’d shared many cups of coffee together over the years. After finding out that she was pregnant with Val, Katie had moved from her apartment in the city and purchased the small, affordable townhome in a more residential area. Avery, a stay-at-home mom, had already been living next door with her then infant daughter and handsome, doting husband, and the two of them had become immediate friends.
After Val had been born prematurely, it had been Avery who’d been there for Katie, supporting her emotionally and helping with the baby. Three months later, when her maternity leave with the ad agency she’d been employed by as a graphic designer had come to an end and she’d had to return to work, Avery had become Val’s babysitter. But that childcare had only lasted six months, because Katie absolutely hated being away from her little girl for eight hours every day, and she never wanted Val to feel like she wasn’t there for her—like Katie’s parents had done. So, with the help of her boss at the ad agency, she’d started up a freelance business for graphic design, which enabled her to work from home. Best decision ever, as far as Katie was concerned, even if she had to budget carefully to make ends meet. Her daughter would always come first for her.
With two steaming mugs of coffee, with a splash of cream in each, Katie carried them to the kitchen table. She sat down just as Avery served her a slice of the coffee cake, then took the seat next to Katie. She moaned as the first bite melted in her mouth.
“I swear, you are the reason I can’t lose the last ten pounds of my baby weight,” Katie joked. “For over three years now, you’ve plied me with the most amazing cakes and cookies and sweets, and you know I can’t resist.”
“What are you talking about?” Avery said, dismissing the weight issue with a wave of her hand. “You look great . . . and there’s a certain someone who’s noticed what a hot momma you are with your fantastic breasts and curves.”
Katie frowned as she took a sip of her coffee, unable to imagine who Avery was referring to. “Do I want to know who you’re talking about?”
“Oh, my God!” her friend exclaimed, her expression and tone filled with exasperation. “Is your vagina that far into hibernation that it hasn’t noticed or lusted after Garrett?”
“You mean the gardener guy?” she asked incredulously.
Avery huffed out a disbelieving laugh. “He’s a great-looking landscaper who owns his own business, yet insists on taking care of your lawn instead of sending one of his minions to do the menial work. Trust me, that man is interested in more than pruning the bushes around your front porch.”
Katie coughed, nearly choking on the piece of cake she’d been swallowing. “How the hell would you know this?”
A devious smile curved the corners of Avery’s mouth as she set her cup back down on the table. “Because when I went out to check the mail the other day when he was mowing your lawn, he ‘casually’ asked me about you. I told him you were a single mom, that there was no father in the picture, and that you’re way overdue to get laid.”
“Avery!” Katie stared at her friend in horror.
“Okay, I didn’t say the last part about you needing to get laid, even if it is the truth and you are way past due,” she said, putting Katie somewhat at ease that her gardener wasn’t privy to the lack of sex in her life. “But seriously, Katie, what would it hurt to go out on a date with him?”
Katie immediately shook her head. “I’m just not interested right now.”
She hadn’t gone out with a guy since Brice, and she didn’t count her night with her fantasy man, Connor, as a “date.” God, that seemed like forever ago, but she thought about him all the time . . . It was hard not to when her daughter’s beautiful blue eyes were like a mirror of her father’s.
“You have to start somewhere,” Avery said, more softly now and with good intentions. “Don’t you want to get married someday? Have a husband and more kids?”
Her stomach gave a pained twist. Now that was something she didn’t like to think about. She already knew from her parents’ experience that marriage wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, and she never wanted to put one child through a custody battle and divorce, let alone a few more.
She finished the last bite of her cake and set her fork on her plate. “For right now, I’m good. I swear.” She gave her friend a genuine smile. “I like it being just me and Val.”
Much to Katie’s relief, Avery let it go. While Katie finished her coffee and checked on the girls through the monitor, her friend took the dishes to the sink and washed them. Val and Leah were busy having a tea party with her dolls and stuffed animals, so Katie reached for the Chicago Magazine on the table, which focused on the city’s politics, lifestyles, real estate, and culture. The glossy front cover featured the main spotlight for the month, “Chicago’s Hottest Properties.” Katie absently thumbed through the pages, checking out the advertisements like she always did. It gave her ideas for her graphic designs and kept her up to date on what kind of ads were most effective.
“So, is everything all planned for Val’s birthday party next weekend?” Avery asked as she closed the dishwasher and dried her hands on a towel.
“Yep. I’ve got about twelve kids coming from the Stepping Stone Academy, and their moms,” she said of the preschool where Val and Leah went for a few hours in the morning, for socialization and developing cognitive skills, and so Katie had time to work uninterrupted. “The cupcakes and food will be delivered in the morning, along with the pink, girly bounce house. I even found a My Little Pony piñata that she’s going to flip out over.”
“Do you think she’ll want to hit it with a baseball bat to break it open?” Avery asked with a laugh.
“She will as soon as she finds out there’s candy inside,” Katie said with a grin as she turned another page of the magazine, to the featured article, “Chicago’s Hottest Properties.”
“So true,” Avery said as she put the rest of the coffee cake into a sealed container.
Katie skimmed through the article on the left-hand-side of the page, which lauded the city’s most prominent real estate companies and builders—how they started out and why they were now multibillion-dollar businesses. It was an interesting piece, and once she was finished with the first page, her gaze skimmed over to the second one, where a new headline read, One hot property, and one of Chicago’s hottest bachelors!
Beneath that caption was a picture of a guy standing next to a newly renovated home that he was obviously responsible for, located in a high-end neighborhood. Dressed in a dark blue T-shirt and faded jeans, he was leaning casually against a pillar, arms crossed over his muscular chest. She hadn’t even looked at the man’s face yet in the photo, but the tattoos on his arm riveted her gaze, not because of how intricate the ink was but how familiar those designs were, even three and a half years later.
The oxygen in the room seemed to evaporate as she forced herself to lift her gaze to his features to verify what her heart already knew. Her stomach bottomed out when she stared at those gorgeous blue eyes that had been at first so kind with her, then so hot and seductive. The charming smile on his lips seemed directed intimately at her, flooding her mind with a dozen different memories of their one night together before she’d snuck out of his room in the early hours of morning.
After all this time, she’d found him.
“Oh, my God.” Her throat was so constricted that the words came out like a croak.
Avery strolled up beside her to see what had caught Katie’s attention, her gaze landing on the magazine spread and Connor. “Oh, my God is right,” Avery said a bit breathlessly. “What a freakin’ stud.”
“That’s him,” Katie rasped again, knowing she probably wasn’t making any sense to her friend, but stringing more than two words together at the moment was proving to be difficult.
Avery gave her a peculiar look, her mouth quirking in amusement. “What, that’s the guy you want to end your years of celibacy with?” she teased, then lowered her voice in deference to the girls in the next room. “Yeah, he’s definitely fuckable. I’d do him, too, if I wasn’t happily married.”
Katie shook her head hard. “No,” she said, finally finding her voice. “That’s Connor.”
It took her friend a few extra seconds to process who Katie meant, and her eyes widened comically when it all became clear. “Connor as in . . . ” Avery’s gaze slid to the monitor and the dark-haired, blue-eyed little girl oblivious to the adult conversation about her father. “Holy shit.”
Avery sank into the chair next to her, looking as stunned as Katie felt as the two of them fell silent. Her friend was the one and only person she’d ever told about her impulsive one-night stand in Denver that had ended in an unexpected pregnancy.
At the time, Katie had been beside herself because she literally had no information to contact Connor to let him know he was going to be a dad. Between the birth control implant in her arm and his condoms, never would she have believed a baby was possible. She’d even tried doing a Google search for “Connor Chicago Illinois,” the only three things she knew about him—other than the fact that he’d given her the best sex and orgasms of her life—and quickly realized that Connor could have been his first or last name, which doubled the listings and references the Internet had supplied.
She’d been so overwhelmed, and knowing that locating her one-night stand was like trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack, she’d resigned herself to being a single mom. And she’d been okay with that. While she’d never deliberately keep her pregnancy a secret from Connor, she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that a part of her was relieved that she’d be raising her child on her own, because her greatest fear was that her daughter would be the one to suffer from a custody situation.
Her parents’ marriage had been based solely on her mother getting pregnant, not on love, which led to a nasty divorce and a custody battle for Katie—not because either one of them really wanted her. No, it was to hurt the other person, and to use Katie as leverage for something they wanted. For her mother, it had been money and child support. For her father, it had been about keeping her so he didn’t have to pay child support to the woman he’d come to despise. And for Katie, it had been about desperately trying to please both parents so they didn’t keep tossing her back and forth to suit their whims.
The terrible memories were enough to make her stomach ache and anxiety to take hold, because she could no longer say that she couldn’t find Connor. She’d found him, whether she liked it or not. And he deserved to know that he had a daughter. This wasn’t about Katie and her feelings and fears. It was about Val, because Katie never wanted her daughter to one day resent her when she learned the truth, that her mother did know how to contact Connor but had instead kept Val’s biological father from being a part of her life.
She glanced back down to the article, and within the first few paragraphs, she knew more about him than she had minutes ago. All the pertinent information she needed to finally contact him was right there in front of her. She learned that Premier Realty was the business Connor Prescott co-owned with three partners. His role within the company was as a residential and commercial redeveloper who restored old homes and properties in the high-end areas of Chicago, then resold the real estate for a solid profit, and according to the writer, he’d done very well for himself in the market.
He was also being touted as rich, single, and available, with the magazine declaring him as being one of Chicago’s hottest bachelors in the real estate industry. And judging by that flirtatious grin on his face that the camera had captured, he didn’t seem to mind the title at all. He looked carefree, and like he was loving life as a bachelor.
Something in her chest tightened with a pang of disappointment. The night she’d met him, he’d claimed he didn’t do one-night stands, but the fact was, Connor was a gorgeous guy who probably had his pick of women—no doubt more so now that Chicago Magazine had just made him a target for every woman out there looking to be the one to tame the hot, rich bachelor.
Not that any of that mattered to her, she told herself. But the lie was hard to swallow, because despite the fact that she’d snuck out on him that morning in Denver, there had been many, many times over the years that she’d wondered what if. What if she’d stayed in bed with Connor instead of quietly slipping out of the hotel suite? What if she’d taken the same flight home as him instead of rebooking on another airline to deliberately avoid him? What if they’d dated once they returned to Chicago? And the big one . . . what if she’d been able to tell Connor she was pregnant right when she’d found out? Where would they be now? Together? Apart? Battling over custody of Val?
That last thought caused her stomach to pitch again.
There was no way of knowing the answer to any of those questions, but what Connor didn’t know was that she’d left him that morning because she’d felt too much for him emotionally. Beyond the mind-blowing and phenomenal sex, there had been a deeper connection between them from the moment he’d sat down at her table at the restaurant and he’d coaxed her humiliating story out of her, and the bond had grown stronger, and more intense, throughout the night. Every slow, sensual kiss, every erotic caress had elevated the intimacy between them. He’d been so selfless, her pleasure his sole focus—and oh, had he pleasured her, until her body had nothing left to give and her heart began to wonder about the possibilities with a man like Connor.
It had been those feelings that had scared her enough to make her bolt. At the time, she hadn’t been at a place in her life where she was ready to dive into another relationship so quickly. Not on the heels of what had just happened with Brice, and all the other guys who’d come before him. She’d no longer trusted her judgment when it came to men, and still didn’t, which was why being single and focusing on Val was all that mattered to her.
And now, she was staring at Connor, one of Chicago’s hottest bachelors. And all the information she needed to contact him was just a matter of a few quick searches on Google.
The soft touch of Avery’s hand on Katie’s arm brought her back around. When she glanced up at her friend’s face, she saw the worry and compassion directed her way.
“What are you going to do?” Avery asked, without any judgment.
Fate had finally decided to intervene, and now there was only one choice left for Katie, regardless of the apprehension and fears she was already battling.
“I’m going to call him and let him know he has a daughter.”
* * *
Beyond pissed, Connor barged into Wes Sinclair’s office without bothering to knock on the closed door—so it was his own damn fault that he found his business partner/brother-in-law making out with his wife, Natalie, who was also Connor’s sister. Eight months pregnant, Natalie was sitting on Wes’s lap, his hand just beneath the hem of her formfitting maternity dress while her fingers tangled in her husband’s hair as the two locked lips. Hell, they didn’t even stop at the interruption. No big surprise there. The two were insatiable.
“Jesus Christ!” Connor said irritably as he stalked up to Wes’s desk, his surly mood increasing exponentially. “Don’t you two ever stop?”
Very reluctantly, Wes ended the kiss with his wife and smirked at Connor over Natalie’s shoulder. “Yeah, occasionally. To sleep or eat. Sometimes to work. Although if you haven’t noticed, it’s currently after hours, so it’s not like we’re fooling around on the company clock.”
As if that mattered, considering Wes co-owned the business with him and two of their other friends. “Yeah, well, you might want to give my sister a break. If you haven’t noticed, she’s about ready to give birth to my nephew, so should you really be doing all that . . . stuff?”
“Oh, my God, Connor,” Natalie said with a laugh as she glanced his way, though she made no move to get up off Wes’ lap. “Sex is perfectly fine while I’m pregnant, right up until I give birth.”
“And pregnancy has made her horny as fuck,” Wes just had to add. “So I’m just doing my part to keep her happy, which makes me an awesome husband.”
Connor grimaced at the TMI. “Stop. You two are going to make my ears fucking bleed. We’ve had this conversation before,” he said, more directed at his brother-in-law. “I do not want to hear these things about my sister, you asshole.” It was just wrong, and he hated having to scrub those too-intimate images from his brain about his sibling.
Wes frowned at him and gently rubbed Natalie’s substantial baby bump. “Hey, don’t talk like that in front of my kid.”
Connor rolled his eyes, forced to watch while his sister and Wes exchanged a more loving look before her husband pressed a kiss on her covered belly. Jesus. Connor never would have thought that a one-time player like Wes could settle down and become so domesticated. And with Connor’s sister, no less, when at one time the two of them had been hard-core frenemies.
But it was hard to deny that they were ridiculously happy and that Wes was a devoted and one-hundred-percent committed husband—which was a damn good thing, too, because Connor had no desire to end up in jail for murdering his brother-in-law.
“Jesus, what’s going on in here?” Max, their other friend and partner asked as he strolled into the office, too. “Well, other than Wes and Natalie messing around. Again,” he added derisively.
Wes shrugged unapologetically. “Hey, the door was closed and Connor didn’t bother to knock, so he should consider himself lucky that he didn’t see more than he did.”
Max nodded in agreement. “Good point, and it’s so not fair that you have access to your wife since she works down the hall from you, while I have to actually go all day without seeing mine, unless we make a lunch date.”
“Then why are you even here right now when it’s nearly five thirty?” Wes asked. “Even Kyle beelines it home to Ella the second it’s time to clock out for the day,” he said of their fourth partner, who’d recently gotten hitched and his wife had announced that she was pregnant, too.
Connor was surrounded by domestic bliss on a daily basis, and in a few months, there would be a trio of newborns added to the mix and he’d have to listen to each one of them brag about their babies. All three of his friends had settled down and gotten married in the past year, and were soon-to-be family men and fathers, and Connor, still being single, was totally the odd man out. He’d never thought he’d be the last man standing when he liked being in a committed relationship . . . but he was still waiting for the one to cross his path.
Then again, there were days, and nights, when he couldn’t help but feel that he’d let the one woman he’d wanted the most slip through his fingers. Or rather, she’d slipped out of his hotel room in the early morning, never to be heard from again. Yet three and a half years later and he still felt like he was hung up on Katie. Memories of her were the reason things hadn’t worked out with the last woman he’d dated for a few months.
Hell, he still found himself looking twice at blonde women that were her height or had her similar features. She was somewhere in Chicago, and there was a part of him, albeit a stupid part, that wouldn’t give up hope of finding her again.
He really needed to get the fuck over it, and her, and move on with his life. She’d probably moved on herself, and he was no doubt barely a blip in her memory bank.
“I was on my way out of the office to head home, too, when I heard Connor’s raised voice in here,” Max said, cutting into Connor’s thoughts. “That’s why I’m still here.”
“Yeah, you did come in here a little high-strung,” Wes added, goading Connor a bit more. “What’s got your panties all in a twist anyway, Prescott?”
Connor’s earlier resentment returned like a hot poker to his ass, and he glared at all three other occupants in the room. “Let me tell you exactly what’s got my panties in a twist,” he mocked in a sarcastic tone. “That fucking article in the Chicago Magazine that you all talked me into doing ‘because it would be good exposure for the company,’” he said, adding exaggerated air quotes. “I didn’t know I was going to be tagged as one of Chicago’s hottest bachelors.”
The corner of Max’s lips twitched with humor, but Wes more blatantly laughed out loud, because they’d all seen the article and the featured spotlight that focused on Connor being a wealthy bachelor—and the two jerk-offs clearly thought his new celebrity status was funny.
He glanced at his sister, who blinked at him more innocently. He wasn’t sure if pregnancy was genuinely making Natalie naïve or if she was just jerking him around in a subtler way. “Okay, so they might have taken some creative liberties with the article, but it is great exposure,” she assured him sweetly, while her husband smirked from behind her. “The phones and client requests have definitely increased since the magazine came out a few days ago.”
“So have mine, and not in the way I’d prefer,” he said through gritted teeth, indicating the phone in his hand, which was ringing with an unlisted, unidentified number as he spoke. “Take my cell phone number and contact information off the goddamn website tonight,” he said directly to Wes, who was tech savvy enough to get the job done. “I have women calling and propositioning me at all hours of the day and night since that article came out. Hell, I went to get my normal cup of coffee this morning at a place near the jobsite, and the barista wrote her name and number on my cup.”
“Geez, you sound a little ungrateful,” Wes drawled in a facetious tone. “Any other guy would be taking advantage of the surplus of women.”
That wasn’t his style. “These women are stalking me, and it’s goddamn creepy.”
“I’m sure it’s not as bad as that,” Natalie said, clearly trying to soothe him.
His cell phone beeped with yet another voice mail message, adding to all the other unwanted proposals, overtures, and indecent invitations from strange women. He decided to prove to his sister, Wes, and Max how bad it really was and show them just how shameless these women were in their approach.
“Since you all seem incredibly amused at my expense, take a listen to this last voice mail message so you can hear exactly what I’ve been dealing with.” He opened his voice mail and played the last recording that had just come through, watching his friends’ and sister’s expressions.
“Hi, Connor,” a woman’s soft voice said, almost reluctantly, when he was used to far more enthusiasm from his recent female callers. “This is Katie Kaswell,” she went on, and it was a name he hadn’t heard of before. “I’m not sure if you remember me, but we spent the night together three and a half years ago during the snowstorm that shut down the Denver airport. I saw the article in Chicago Magazine and looked you up, and I was wondering if maybe you and I could meet up for a drink? You can call me at . . . ”
She stated a series of numbers, but Connor’s heart was pounding so freaking loudly that he couldn’t hear any of it. Katie . . . Kaswell. After all this time, he finally knew her last name. And she wanted to meet up for a drink. Mind . . . fucking . . . blown.
Three pairs of eyes in the room stared at him in varying degrees of surprise (his sister), interest (Max), and hilarity (Wes, the asshole).
“Holy shit, Prescott!” his brother-in-law said enthusiastically, his gaze brimming with mirth. “Did you have a one-night stand in Denver after attending that conference on real estate investments well over three years ago?”
Connor’s jaw clenched, and he didn’t confirm or deny. He’d never told anyone about what had happened in Denver. For one thing, he wasn’t the kind of guy who talked about his conquests. And for the second, he never thought he’d see Katie again.
Wes hooted in laughter. “Oh, my God, you totally did, you dog!”
Natalie smiled at Connor, softening her husband’s more uncouth behavior. “I think it’s kind of romantic that this Katie woman contacted you after all this time. You must have left quite an impression on her.”
Connor had no idea what kind of impression he’d left Katie with, considering the abrupt way she’d ended their night together. In fact, his mind was still reeling over the fact that she’d contacted him. Now that she was just a phone call away, excitement mingled with an uncharacteristic bout of nerves and a heady sense of anticipation.
“So, are you going to call her back?” Max asked curiously.
“I think you should,” Natalie urged supportively.
Wes surprisingly didn’t have a smartass remark to make.
“Yeah, I’m going to call her back, but not in front of all of you.” He didn’t know what Katie wanted, but for what he had to say to her, he didn’t require an audience.
That said, he left Wes’s office and headed into the adjoining conference room, closing the door behind him. Then he dialed Katie’s number and waited for her to answer.