The Match - A Baby Daddy Donor Romance Page 8

  “I wish there was a precedent for this kind of thing,” she says. “Or some kind of crystal ball, so we could know how this is going to affect her twenty years from now.”

  “Maybe,” I begin to say something I may come to regret. “Maybe we could stay in touch? I wouldn’t have rights to her, obviously, but maybe I could be a part of her life? In whatever capacity that makes you comfortable?”

  She bites her lower lip and her shoulders fall. “It’s a great idea. In theory. But it’s also a slippery slope.”

  “How so?”

  “What if everything’s great for a while—then you lose interest? When the excitement of all of this passes—”

  “—you think this is an excitement thing for me?” I laugh through my nose. “Nothing about this is exciting. Terrifying maybe. Unparalleled. Strange. You think I’m going to get bored with this and ghost her?”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  “What can I do to put your mind at ease then? How can I convince you that’s not going to happen?”

  She shrugs. “Like I said, Fabian, I don’t know you. And the only way I can get to know you is if we spend more time together … which is obviously out of the question. So—”

  “—wait,” I lift a palm. “Why don’t I fly the two of you to Atlanta next week? I can get you front row seats at the Rosemont Open. We’d have to be discreet about everything, but now that I’ve had a glimpse of your life here, this would be a chance for you to have a glimpse of my life.”

  “A nine-month-old baby at a tennis tournament?” She winces, clearly not a fan of the idea. “And having to sneak around to see you?”

  I steeple my hands at my nose.

  She has a point.

  “When’s your next tournament?” she asks.

  “Four weeks. Why?”

  “Maybe …” She hesitates. “Maybe you could stay here? With us? I have a guest room. And I know this isn’t exactly the Ritz Carlton, but you could spend a lot of time with Lucia and I could get to know you a little better? I don’t know if that’s even an option, but I’d be open to it if you were?”

  I’d have to fly my assistant out for a month. Coach too. We’d have to arrange access to a private tennis court for practices, which I doubt would be an issue given this is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country. It’d take a bit of finessing, but I could make it work.

  “Thoughts?” she asks with a slight laugh. “I know it sounds crazy, but we could condense a lot of getting-to-know-you into a short amount of time.”

  “It’s a brilliant idea,” I say.

  She tries to respond, but chokes on her words instead. Perhaps my enthusiasm caught her off guard.

  “That’s … that’s great,” she finally says. “So, um, I guess when you’re done with your match or whatever in Atlanta, you can just plan on staying here for a month? I’ll set up the guest room for you, and we can just keep things casual and cordial and …”

  Her voice trails.

  “Sorry,” she continues. “I don’t know why I added the casual and cordial part.”

  Yes, she does.

  She’s just as attracted to me as I am to her—she just won’t let herself admit it

  “Looking forward to this little … arrangement,” I say. “I’ll fly in next Friday and we’ll go from there. In the meantime, you have my number if you need anything.”

  I check my back pocket, ensuring my wallet is in the proper place, and then I head to the door. Rossi follows, her bare feet padding against the wood floor as she cinches her robe. In the small confines of her foyer, I can’t help but notice the way the top of her head would fit perfectly beneath my chin or the way her subtle lavender scent invades my lungs.

  Casual and cordial? I’ll try my fucking best.

  Chapter 9

  Rossi

  * * *

  “So? How’d it go?” Carina shrugs out of her khaki jacket the next morning and hangs it on the back of a kitchen chair.

  I lift a spoonful of oatmeal to Lucia’s lips. “He came over twice last night …”

  Squinting, she asks, “Wait, what?”

  “He forgot his wallet and had to come back.”

  “Forgot his wallet,” Carina speaks slowly, using air quotes.

  “No, I think it was legit.”

  “Whatever. So the second time, did he just grab his wallet and leave?”

  I fill another spoonful with mushy oats. “No. He stayed for a glass of wine and we talked. A lot.”

  Her dark brows lift sky high. “Mm hm. And what did you two talk about?”

  My cheeks warm, but I angle my face so she can’t see. All night I played our conversation in my head, again and again, until I was convinced I didn’t actually hallucinate any of it.

  “So … he told me I was beautiful,” I blurt the words. “And he wants to be a part of Lucia’s life—but he doesn’t want custody.”

  “Holy shit.” Carina collapses into a nearby chair with a plunk. “He was hitting on you.”

  “It wasn’t like that. He’s very … honest. Like no filter. He just says whatever he’s thinking and he doesn’t mince words. And weirdly enough, I found myself doing the same thing,” I say. It’s been a long time since I’ve been around a guy and didn’t self-edit every word coming out of my mouth before I said it. “It was nice, actually.”

  “Okay, let’s walk it back.” She spins her finger like she’s rewinding an old cassette tape. “To the part where he called you beautiful.”

  I stifle a laugh and roll my eyes. “He wasn’t hitting on me. It wasn’t like that. It’s hard to explain.”

  She rests her chin on her hand. “Yeah, okay, sure. Whatever you say.”

  “I need to get started for the day.” I rise and hand her the spoon and oatmeal. “And you’re officially on the clock, sister.”

  She takes the bowl, rising. “So that’s it? He came over and drank wine with you and told you you were beautiful and then he left? End of story?”

  I fight the tug that pulls at the corner of my mouth. “I may have invited him to live with me.”

  “What?!”

  “Just for a few weeks. A temporary, getting-to-know-you kind of thing,” I say. “Very casual and cordial. We’re not playing house, we’re just spending time together. All three of us. If he wants to be a part of Lucia’s life, I need to know him better.”

  “So he’s going to completely upend his life, leave his fifteen thousand square foot Malibu mansion … and move in here?”

  I nod. “Yup.”

  “Rossi …”

  “What?”

  “That is in—sane.”

  “This whole thing is insane.” I grab my phone off the charger, kiss my daughter’s chubby cheeks, and trek toward my office in the front of the house.

  “When’s he moving in?” she calls.

  “Next Friday.” Disappearing into my work zone, I close the door, slide in my ear buds, and pull up some study music so I can focus on today’s work. This weekend, I’ll make a list of all the things I need to do to prepare for his stay—fresh linens on the queen-sized guest bed. Maybe stock up on some of the foods he likes? Plan a few activities the three of us can do that won’t draw a crowd.

  This entire plan is crazy, but it could work.

  Checking my email, I load a message from a prospective client and formulate a quick response letting them know I’m booked out six months. And when I’m finished, I type Fabian’s name into a search engine—just to look at his face once more. Not that I need any help in that department given the fact that it was the only thing I could see every time I closed my eyes last night.

  This entire thing is surreal.

  And almost too good to be true.

  But we’re doing it.

  For four weeks, we’ll be one happy little casual family.

  Chapter 10

  Fabian

  * * *

  “Are you insane?” Coach screams into the phone. “You met some chick while you wer
e in Chicago and now I have to spend the next four weeks living in a hotel while you get your fucking rocks off? No. I’m not signing off on this.”

  It was easier to tell him I’d met “some chick” than to let him in on the truth. Not that I don’t trust him, but the fewer people who know about this, the better. Not to mention my ex-fiancée just so happens to be his beloved daughter and our break-up predominantly hinged on the fact that I don’t want a family.

  He wouldn’t understand, and the truth would only serve to infuriate him even more.

  And if any of this got back to my ex, she’d love nothing more than to make life a living hell for me any way possible. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” is the best way I know to describe Tatum Cartwright.

  “You don’t have a choice,” I remind him. He’s under contract, and while he’s technically the one who put me on the map, the man works for me now. He’s on my payroll. He goes where I go. Same with Taylor, who’ll probably shed an ocean’s worth of alligator tears when I break the news. God forbid she spends time away from her LA-trash boyfriend, some twenty-four year old douche with bleached hair and neck tattoos who thinks he’s going to be the next Machine Gun Kelly. “Anyway, I just got home so I’m going to need you to start calling around for a practice court we can rent for a month out there.”

  Coach blows a hard breath into the receiver. “You’re really something, Fabian. You know that, right? You’ve done a lot of stupid shit, but this takes the cake.”

  “I’m bored with Malibu,” I lie, sort of. You’d have to be a psychopath to get bored of the mild weather, palm trees, beautiful people, and ocean breezes. “A change of scenery might be good for me. You too.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever you have to tell yourself,” he sighs before hanging up. He’ll get over it. He always does.

  I hoist my suitcase onto the foot of my bed and FaceTime with Taylor to break the news—keeping details as vague as possible. And then I task her with arranging accommodations for Coach before informing her she’ll remain behind, assisting me remotely for the next four weeks.

  She nods, offering a wide smile that hardly contains her excitement, and tells me she’s on it.

  Less time in my shadow means more time with her cringey boyfriend, but I get it.

  I was young, dumb, and in love once, too.

  I unpack my things, collapse on my bed, and stare at the ceiling above. The house is quiet, and should be for the rest of the day. Which normally is a good thing, but today I’m not in the mood to be left alone with my thoughts—which have been all over the place the last twenty-four hours or so.

  I wasn’t expecting my child’s mother to be so easy on the eyes, but it isn’t her beauty that keeps me up at night. It’s her refreshing honesty. Her lack of desperately trying to impress me by being something she isn’t. It’s her down-to-earth nature, inherent and genuine. And her unconditional love for the child we created together.

  Climbing off the bed, I hit the shower to wash the plane smell off of me. Ordinarily I’d have taken my private jet to Chicago, but I’d loaned it out to a local college team as part of a charity arrangement this week.

  Eyes closed, I turn my back to the steaming water, letting it trickle down my body in teasing rivulets as I imagine Rossi’s hands palming my sides as she tongues her way down. Taking my throbbing cock in my hands, I bite my lip and go to fucking town.

  This is wrong—and I know it.

  Rossi made it abundantly clear she wants things to be casual and cordial between us.

  But something primal and animalistic stirs inside of me when I think about the fact that she carried my child inside of her.

  It’s sexy as fuck … and I don’t know why.

  I finish in record time, the proverbial fruits of my labor rinsing down the shower drain.

  Soaping off, I rinse, step out, and wrap a white towel around my hips. Only much to my dismay I’m still hard as a rock. Grabbing some gym clothes from my closet, I change up and head down to the lower level to play some racquetball, hoping the satisfying thwack of the ball against the walls will be enough to take my mind off that woman.

  It works—but only for a short while.

  As soon as I’m done, I’m right back where I started … obsessing over Rossi Bianco.

  And wondering if she could ever be mine.

  Chapter 11

  Rossi

  * * *

  I’ve never watched a tennis match in my life, but watching Fabian grunt and groan on my living room TV, I can’t look away. Who’d have thought watching two people hit a ball back and forth could be so … intense?

  Fabian serves, and I’m still trying to figure out this forty-love scoring thing. I don’t know why it can’t just be one, two, three, four … but his opponent misses and the crowd claps before returning to silence.

  The camera closes in on Fabian’s face as he paces his end of the court, and his expression appears angry almost. Or maybe he’s hyper-focused. Either way, I wouldn’t want to be on the opposite end of anything he’s serving.

  The doorbell chimes, pulling me out of my moment, and I check the clock before placing Lucia on her blanket and trekking to the foyer.

  Shoot.

  Every Wednesday Dan comes over for dinner—and I’d been so busy this week I’d completely forgotten.

  “Hey,” I answer, shoving my hand on my back pocket. “Come on in. I’m so sorry, I haven’t started dinner yet. Been a crazy day …”

  And it has been. After busting my hump all morning to finish the Valdez project, I spent the bulk of the afternoon shopping the list Fabian’s assistant sent me. I had to go to three different grocers just to find his favorite brand of organic flax seeds, and then I called around to four health stores to find the exact flavor of protein powder he requested. When I got home, there was a delivery at the front door—a set of 1000-thread-count sheets and two expensive-looking pillows.

  I only pray this is as high-maintenance as the man gets or I might be regretting each and every one of our twenty-eight days together.

  Dan steps inside, a bowl of salad and bottle of wine in hand, and follows me to the kitchen. He helps himself to the drawer with the corkscrew and locates two glasses from the cupboard as I raid the pantry in search of something I can throw together in record time.

  I come out with a box of bowtie pasta and a bottle of olive oil, and by the grace of God I find a carton of cherry tomatoes, a bag of unexpired spinach, and a package of feta in the fridge.

  “Lucia, Lucia!” He makes his way to the living room and takes a seat by her blanket. “How’s my favorite baby doing today? You have a good day with that crazy auntie of yours?”

  He throws me a wink. Carina and Dan are strangely two peas in a pod despite being complete opposites in every way. Honestly, I don’t know why they haven’t dated yet.

  No, that’s a lie.

  I know exactly why.

  He has his sights set on me.

  I boil a pot of water and rinse and chop tomatoes while he keeps Lucia entertained.

  “Since when do you like tennis?” He points to the screen. “Or sports, for that matter?”

  I lift a shoulder as I run a colander of spinach under the faucet. “I’m trying it out, seeing if I can get into it.”

  He laughs. “Really? Because the other day, I could’ve sworn Fabian Catalano was in your driveway and now he’s on your screen. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  Busted.

  Most of the time Dan lives in his own blissful, ignorant little world where he can easily turn a blind eye to painful realities, but the man can be awfully astute when he wants to be.

  “Actually,” I say. “That was him.”

  His jaw slacks. “What? I was kidding … sort of. That was him?”

  I nod, turning to salt the water as little bubbles rise to the surface of the pot.

  “How do you know him?” Dan asks. “And how did I not know this before?”

  “We go back,�
�� I say, giving him an extremely abbreviated version of the truth. “Like way back. Just recently connected again.”

  He hands Lucia a stuffed ballerina, his shoulders deflating. “Ah. Good for you two.”

  Disappointment colors his tone.

  “You like spinach in your pasta, right?” I change the subject.

  “Fabian’s got quite the ladies’ man reputation, doesn’t he?” Dan asks, ignoring my question. I don’t think he means to. “Didn’t he date that supermodel a while back? The one that had that surgery that made her eyes look like a fox?”

  I laugh. “Probably.”

  Just another reason our worlds could never collide. I’ve got an accounting pining after me and Fabian dates women who look like wildlife.

  “I didn’t realize you were such a celebrity gossip buff,” I say.

  “Not me. The ex. She lived for that stuff. I’ll never forget the two AM notification she got when Prince Harry announced his engagement to Meghan Markle. Woke me out of a dead sleep. And for what?” He rolls his eyes. “Honestly, I’ve never understood why people care about the so-called lifestyles of the rich and famous. These people aren’t real. I mean they are in a physical sense, but the versions we get are curated by the media.”

  “This is true.” I dump half a box of pasta into the boiling water and give it a stir.

  I peek into the living room and catch a glimpse of the game. Fabian is winning. One more point—or whatever—and he’ll have the match.

  “If you ever want to play tennis, my boss has a membership at the LaGrange Country Club,” Dan says. “I could get us on the list for a court.”

  Chuckling at the idea, I say, “Don’t think I’ve ever touched a tennis racket in my life.”

  “I could teach you.”

  It’s a kind offer—but the thought of making a fool of myself in front of a bunch of strangers and hating every second of it holds zero appeal.

  Nevertheless, I let him down gently. “I’ll think about it and let you know.”