Page 4 of Playboy Husband

MAISIE

Brody was mid-flight between the couch cushions when I came downstairs, my red cocktail dress swishing against my legs. He landed on the last pillow with a victorious whoop, arms flung out like he’d just nailed a gold-medal routine at the Couch Olympics.

“Whoa,” he said, green eyes widening when he spotted me. “You look like a movie star.”

“Thanks, buddy.” I smiled despite the nerves swirling through me, smoothing the fabric over my hips and wondering if I should’ve pulled my hair up after all. “You’re still not supposed to be jumping on the furniture, though.”

He flashed me an unrepentant grin and launched right into balancing on the backrest like a tightrope walker. I didn’t call him out on it. Picking my battles with him had become something of an art form, and tonight, I was saving my energy for a different kind of challenge.

This wasn’t, by any means, a date. It was more like a meeting. With a businessman who claimed to want to skip the flowery crap and all the other nonsense people wrapped around romantic relationships. What he wanted was to talk and go straight to the point, and honestly, so did I.

I’d learned a long time ago that dating in San Francisco wasn’t really much of a romantic endeavor anyway. Mostly, it meant getting dressed up to go sit and listen to men who were busier than me, richer than me, and just as laser-focused on their careers.

Which was fine but only until the topic of kids came up.

To be fair, it usually didn’t. None of the men I’d gone out with recently could picture any kind of life that might require them to leave the office before midnight. As a result, parenthood wasn’t high up on their lists of priorities.

That was the part that worried me most about this meeting, the reason for the nerves that had been swirling through me ever since I’d received that email.

Brody.

I wasn’t ashamed of being a mom. Far from it, in fact, but men in my dating bracket just didn’t see fatherhood as a desirable add-on.

If this man and I saw eye to eye, however, there could be an agreement, a set of signed papers, and maybe a new chapter for both of us, but only if he was willing to accept the fact that I came with a child.

There could be no deal otherwise, which meant I would have to be upfront about it. New territory for me, for sure.

Jace, the babysitter, leaned against the kitchen counter, his long legs crossed at the ankles and his hair sticking out from under a backward baseball cap. A teenager who played hockey at the same rink Brody did, he was babysitting as a way to save up for new skates.

I snagged my purse from the counter and looked at him. “You’ll be fine here, right?”

“Yeah, of course,” he said like this was the easiest thing in the world. “Don’t worry about the couches. He was only testing the textile strength of the cushions because he plans to build some kind of fort for defensive purposes. We’re all good.”

Defensive purposes. That tracked.

Jace had not been my first choice of babysitter, but he was the only one so far who’d managed to last more than three hours with Brody. The two of them really seemed to understand each other. They had fun together, even, all without burning the place down.

My original babysitter had shown up with arms full of crafting supplies and first-grade-level books to read. I would’ve loved her as a kid, but she’d left in tears after only a couple hours because Brody had spent the entire time causing chaos. Her words, not mine.

He wasn’t a bad kid. He was just full boy. Rough and tumble. He survived on scraped knees and boundless energy, the kind of child who could turn a cardboard box into a construction project and eat half the contents of the pantry in the process.

It was no wonder he and Jace got along so well. I checked my lipstick in the mirror-finish of the fridge before turning back to him. “There are three large pizzas on the way. I’ll be back by ten at the latest.”

He grinned. “Got it. Good luck with your meeting.”

“Thanks.” I hesitated. “Don’t let him climb on the roof and just, uh, try to keep him alive. Everything else is fair game.”

“I play defense, Ms. Morgan,” he said with an easy shrug. “Trust me, we’re good. Brody won’t slip past me.”

I hung around for another beat, but that “assurance” would have to do.

Sending up a silent prayer that neither of them would break a bone tonight, I went to say goodbye to Brody and headed out, climbing into my sporty little SUV, the one and only massive purchase I’d ever spoiled myself with and it had only been because of the safety rating.

The purr of the engine did little to settle the knot of nerves in my stomach as I navigated the traffic downtown.

To my surprise, as my GPS directed me to the address the mystery man had sent, the neighborhoods around me shifted from suburban, to shiny storefronts and high-rises, to graffiti-tagged brick buildings and cracked sidewalks.

Oh, God. Kidnap and murder are becoming way more of a possibility than marriage. By the time the disembodied voice of the GPS told me that I’d reached my destination, I was very close to making a U-turn and hightailing it straight back home.

The place he’d chosen wasn’t a sleek hotel lounge or a candlelit restaurant. It seemed like a hole-in-the-wall dive bar, with a flickering neon sign outside and the kind of parking lot beside it that was perfectly suited to doubling as the set of a crime drama.

Half the streetlights on the block were little more than long forgotten memories, their bulbs probably last replaced in the fifties, and those that remained gave less light than a tea candle.

A shiver ran down my spine, but I parked, locked the doors twice, and mentally calculated the odds that my SUV would still have all its tires and windows by the time I got back. They weren’t good.

The second I walked into the bar, the scent of stale beer, fried food, and something vaguely smokey assaulted my nostrils. Conversation dimmed for a beat as heads turned, and I became acutely aware that I was horrendously overdressed, probably looking like I’d taken a wrong turn from a gala.

Perfect. Just perfect.

Even so, I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin, fully intending on meeting the mystery man, letting him know that I was sorry, but that I’d made a mistake, and then going home to eat pizza with the boys.

I looked around, searching for a guy around my own age wearing a gray button-down. In his return email, he’d told me that was what he would be wearing, but when I finally saw someone matching that description, it was not who I was expecting to see.

The man at the high-top in the back corner was wearing a pale gray button-down, the sleeves rolled up to expose sculpted forearms, his dark hair perfectly mussed. I knew he was the right age too, but no.

No, it can’t be him.

Except it was him.

Callum Westwood, Cal Poly’s favorite It Boy back in my day. The golden prince who’d had everything, looks, money, and charm, and who had known exactly how to use them. I remembered him, alright. Intimately.

The way his shoulders tightened when he slowly turned as if he felt me coming even reminded me a little bit of my drunken memories of him. Of that night.

My heels clicked on the sticky floor as I crossed the room toward him, each step tugging loose more of the fractured, fading memories I’d worked so hard to bury.

Memories of a party where the music had been too loud, bodies had been pressed too close, and I practically still felt the burn of cheap tequila as it slid down my throat.

His hands at my waist had been warm and sure, the press of his mouth on mine so much more intoxicating than the liquor. I swallowed hard, the pit in my stomach threatening to pull me under.

As he completed his turn, his eyes skimmed over me, curiosity and maybe even mild surprise flickering in them, but when he realized I was coming toward him, his gaze lingered.

I couldn’t make out the color of his eyes in the dim light of the bar but I remembered them with devastating clarity, the ice blue that had turned to twin flames in the heat of the moment.

His gaze dipped slowly as I came closer, like he was taking in the whole picture, starting with my ridiculous heels and dragging over the length of my dress before sliding back up to meet my eyes.

Callum looked the same as he had in college, too tall, too broad-shouldered, and too handsome for his own good. His inky hair seemed black in this light, but I knew it wasn’t completely. I remembered running my fingers through it, seeing hints of rich, chocolate brown.

My heart started racing, my palms clammier than they had been only a moment ago. I took the final few steps toward him. Will he remember me? Does he know who I am? Why in the ever-loving heavens did Callum Westwood put an ad in the paper for a wife?

When I was almost to him, he stood, wearing dark blue jeans with the pale gray button-down he’d told me to look out for. I hadn’t seen anyone else in the bar wearing that color, which meant that, as unlikely as it seemed, he really had been the author of the classified that had brought me here.

“Did you answer the ad?” he asked, and his voice was the same as I remembered it too, low, smooth, and way too confident.

My mouth went dry. “That depends.”

I’d been aiming for cool, but even I heard the slight hitch in my voice when I spoke. He tilted his head, studying me like I was a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out. “Depends on what?”

“On whether you regularly make your potential wives risk life and limb just to meet you.” I met his gaze fully for the first time, and I realized immediately that he didn’t recognize me.

Not really. There seemed to be a glimmer there, an almost light, but he definitely hadn’t put two and two together yet.

As I stood there, not really sure whether I should sit or run, I tried to decide whether it stung that he didn’t remember, or whether I should thank my lucky stars that Callum Westwood had absolutely no idea who I really was.