Fake Marrying Her Dad's Best Friend Read online

Elia

  My heart sinks a little. Reality is intruding a little too fast for me.

  “I should get dressed,” I say, sliding out of bed. All my stuff is still downstairs. I can feel him watching me as I go down. I put on a bra and a dress that hides the bite marks on my breasts from the times that he woke me up last night. I tie a scarf around my hair and I’m ready to go.

  When I walk back upstairs, he’s wearing a t-shirt and shorts. He’s checking emails on his phone.

  “You look good enough to eat,” I say, pouncing on him. I gently grab the phone and put it on the nightstand before straddling his body and kissing his neck.

  “I thought you were getting ready for the day,” he says. It’s not really a protest, though, because his hands squeeze my ass.

  “Being away from Danny this long is making me anxious,” I say. I don’t know what’s going to happen when I’m in college. Maybe I’ll have to try to work something out like Camilla.

  “Me, too,” he says. “I’m glad that we had our wedding night.”

  “And I’ll be glad when we have our son at home.” I bite his ear and slide off. “Now let’s go to my aunt and uncle’s and get our son.”

  I text my aunt that we’re on our way over. By the time we park in the driveway, we can hear Danny’s screams.

  I knock on the door. A very frazzled version of my aunt appears with Danny on her hip, his little face as red as a fire truck. The second he sees Jeff, he’s trying to twist out of her arms. He’s babbling at Jeff.

  “Hey, buddy,” Jeff says. Danny finally quiets as Jeff kisses his forehead.

  “He cried all night,” my aunt says. I notice the dark circles under her eyes. “At least he’s securely attached.”

  “I don’t think he’s ever spent a night away from Jeff before,” I say. “And I didn’t give you the magic recipe for colic.”

  “No recipe could possibly fix the fact that he was missing his father. He didn’t sleep last night.”

  Danny’s little body is going limp now. I realize that he’s passed out in Jeff’s arms.

  “Let me get his stuff and you can take a nap,” I say, kissing her cheek. “We really appreciate it.”

  “Anytime,” she says, covering a yawn with her hand. “He’s cuter when he’s not screaming, though.”

  I gather Danny’s supplies, which seriously look like enough to sustain a whole family and not one tiny person who is nowhere near 50 pounds, and we go back to the car. Jeff has settled Danny in a car seat. I wave goodbye to my uncle before the three of us, our little family, are on the road back home.

  I feel warm contentment throughout my whole body. Yes, part of it is from the wonderful night I had. But a big part is the satisfaction of sitting in a car with my own family.

  Chapter 24

  Dismissal

  Jeff

  As soon as I park the car, Elia is hopping out to get Danny out of the car seat. My home office phone rings. I unlock the door and sprint inside, running into my office and picking it up before it stops.

  "Hello?"

  "Good news, Jeff." I can hear the smile in my lawyer's voice. "They filed a motion to dismiss their claim. I guess they heard about your wedding."

  "Thank you," I say. I sink into my ergonomic office chair. "What a relief."

  "Sure," my lawyer says. "Congratulations. I won't oppose the motion and we'll get this done. You have a nice day, now."

  The phone buzzes. A weight I didn't even know was pressing on my shoulders is lifted. I run outside so that I can tell Elia the good news.

  "No!" she screams. I ditch the phone right there and then and run out to the front to see something out of my worst nightmares.

  Elia has just lost the battle for Danny. Danny is screaming his lungs out, trying to squirm back to Elia, but there is a squad of men extracting the baby from my front lawn. I run towards them at full speed, but they're running to a van at the end of our driveway at an easy lope that's somehow at least fifty percent faster than my own sprint. As soon as the last one is in, the car is moving even though the door isn't shut. Those guys are professionals.

  "Jeff!" Elia screams. When she begins to run, I catch her hand. "We have to go after them! We have to save Danny!" She's crying, snot dripping from her little nose. I kiss her cheek. "We'll save Danny. Don't worry. I know who it is."

  "But what if they're going to hold him for ransom?" she sobs, burying her face in my chest. "I can't bear the idea of something bad happening to our little boy."

  I kiss her temple. "They're not trying to hurt him. It's not going to be a conventional ransom demand."

  "What do you mean?" she asks, leaning away from my chest. Her eyes are still full of tears.

  "It's his grandparents," I tell her. "Danny is going to be fine." "Possession is nine tenths of the law." She steps back from me.

  "It isn't, actually, but they just dismissed the case that they had to get custody legally."

  "So they decided to kidnap him?"

  "This whole thing is about money," I tell Elia. "Danny won't be physically harmed, but they're going to try to get financial custodianship of his inheritance anyway."

  "It'll be under duress. You're being coerced."

  "I know," I say. "They must be desperate. I need to look into their current financial situation."

  ***

  Two hours later, I have a short answer and it's not pretty. I sit back and sigh.

  "What did your investigator find?"

  "My former in-laws are up to their necks in debt. I had no idea, but my dead wife had been regularly slipping them money that we could easily spare to keep them afloat. She didn't talk to me about it at all. And when she died, they lost their gravy train."

  "That's terrible." Elia touches my hand, trying to comfort me even though both of us are still devastated by the sudden kidnapping of our baby.

  I swear and use an expletive that I can't use around my infant son. "If she'd told me about it, I probably would've kept up the payments. It wasn't as if I wanted to see my son's grandparents on the street. They had always had a mountain of debt behind them. They'd raised my dead wife as a princess without having the money to do so. They'd borrowed themselves into a hole that was hard to get out of."

  "Then she married you..."

  "I wasn't a billionaire when we got married. It's mostly paper wealth, as you know. But I've always trusted...well, I always used to trust her. I knew that she liked to spend a lot but had no idea she was a lifeline for her parents."

  "My primary concern is Danny," Elia says. "I want him back."

  "So do I. I'm not sure if we should call the police or not." "They abducted our son. I think that merits a call to the police."

  "He's not being hurt. They haven't presented a demand yet."

  "Still," she says. "I don't want to wait around for them to get in contact with us. Let's be proactive."

  I look at her and then call the police on my cell phone.

  "Not an emergency, but my son has been kidnapped," I tell the dispatcher.

  "Please hold," she tells me. In a few minutes, there's a sympathetic officer listening to what I have to say.

  "And when did this happen?"

  "Two hours ago."

  "And they haven't returned your son, Danny?"

  "Correct." My voice breaks on that one word. They stole the sun out of the sky.

  "Do you have their home address?" the officer asks.

  "Yes." "So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to ask you to give an official statement at the police station. Then I'm going to their home to see what I can see. You said that they dismissed the case against you?" "Yes."

  "Okay. Here's the address of the station. The sooner you get here, the sooner we can get started."

  "See you soon."

  I hang up the phone, go to my car, key in the address, and motion for Elia to hop in.

  "We're going to make a statement and she's going to get our baby back."

  Elia scrambles into my car and barely
buckles her seatbelt before we go tearing out of the driveway. The car seat in my car feels incredibly empty.

  I feel like I've failed my son by letting him be abducted. It wasn't as if we'd let him out of our sight. Elia was holding him when that team of men literally pulled him out of her arms. I didn't know what kind of men would tear a baby from his mother's arms, but they obviously had.

  I have a military background. Women and children are off limits. Always. But those guys apparently didn't have a moral compass or could shut it off for enough money. The funny part was that my in-laws didn't have the money to pay them, so I didn't know what exactly they were working for.

  Chapter 25

  Hot Tub

  Elia

  ONE HOUR LATER

  We’ve been at the station for about an hour now. I’m tired and stressed out. Jeff’s visibly frustrated by how casual the police officers are about his in-laws kidnapping Danny. Because he’s not in physical danger, they aren’t taking this whole episode seriously. I can see that Jeff’s about to blow. They took all of our statements separately. I’m done, though, so I walk over to Jeff and put a hand on his arm.

  “You’ve told them our story, right?”

  “Yeah,” he says, glaring a little at the police officer’s notepad. “They know everything.”

  “We’ll get your kid back, safe and sound. Don’t worry.” The police officer’s voice is unruffled. Totally calm.

  “Thank you, officer. Is that all you need from us?”

  “For now. Stick around. We’ll call you if we get any leads.”

  “That’s so kind, thank you.” I pull Jeff gently away. “We should let them do their jobs.”

  Jeff’s face is a little flushed. There are things that money can’t buy. But as soon as we get back into the car, I tell him, “You need to hire a private investigator.”

  He wipes his eyes. “I was planning on it. The police won’t do anything. They have other priorities.”

  I lace my fingers together with his. "I'll be with you every step of the way."

  "I know you will." He sounded so tired. "I need to call the PI that I normally use. He's former FBI. He costs an arm and a leg, but he'll get the job done."

  I hear the defeat and distress in his voice while he talks to the PI about the details of the case and asks him to investigate his in-laws. I wish that I could help.

  He gets off the phone.

  "What did he say?" I ask.

  "He'll get back to me when he has something. The good news is that they aren't particularly good at subterfuge."

  "We should go home," I say as quietly as I can. He needs to bend before he breaks. "A glass of wine and a hot tub will help."

  "I can't relax when my baby boy is out there, kidnapped by people who should know better. I'd give them the damn shares if they'd just asked."

  "Jeff, you can't think about what if scenarios. You need to focus on what you have now. And that means that you can only do a small number of things."

  "What good is money if I can't protect the people I love?"

  I don't have an answer for that. I wish I did. We drive home in stony silence. I immediately go to the wine cellar and pick up the first bottle I see. I also start up the hot tub. I uncork the bottle and let it breathe for a few minutes, putting a wine glass next to the tub. Jeff is going into his office and staring at nothing. I let him brood for a few minutes, until I'm sure that the hot tub is sufficiently full.

  "Into the tub," I tell him. I sit in his lap. For an instant, he tenses up. I'm worried that he's going to push me off. And then his arms come around me.

  "You'll feel better," I promise. I slide off of his lap and lead him towards the tub. "We're skinny dipping."

  He takes a breath like he wants to say something, but we just don't get into it. He starts taking off his clothes, just like I am. And we're both naked as we sink into the water.

  "Wine," I say, I pour it out. He takes a sip and his head falls back.

  "We're installing a better security system," he says. There's a hitch in his breath. "I can't believe they tore him out of your arms."

  "I can," I said. "I was there."

  Jeff opens his eyes. "That's right. You were." He moves over to my part of the pool. "How are you feeling?"

  "Worried about Danny. Tired. Worried about you. Danny doesn't like be separated from you. Remember how he was at my aunt and uncle's house?"

  Jeff lets out a half laugh. "That's right. They have a handful." He kisses me so gently that I almost don't feel it. "Thank you, babe."

  "It's what I'm here for," I say, kissing him back. Mission accomplished. We both float around there until my fingers are pruny. I get out of the tub.

  "That's a pretty sight," Jeff says, reaching one long arm out so that he can cup my breast in one hand.

  I can't fight mercenaries and bring Danny back, but I can erase his cares for a few minutes. I step back into the tub and straddle his body.

  There’s a hole inside of my body that aches because a little boy I’m starting to think of as my own isn’t snoozing just down the hallway. When I capture Jeff’s mouth with mine, I’m trying to distract both of us.

  We’ve never loved like this, slow and somewhat desperate, as if the solace in each other’s arms is the only one that exists in the whole world. Yes, I’m rocking back and forth on him, but the pace is slow. The water washes against us, trying to wash away the cares of the day. And if there’s moisture on his face, we can both pretend it’s from the bathtub.

  When both of us come, it’s a quiet affair. There are no fireworks tonight because we’re rained out. I climb out of the bathtub and offer Jeff a towel. We climb into bed like that, wearing towels. We have to wait for other people to get back to us.

  Chapter 26

  Danny’s Back

  Elia

  I wake up in an empty bed. Jeff must have gotten up. There’s some loud knocking on the door. I can hear it open.

  But it’s what I hear afterwards which sends me scrambling for clothing, hunting for my clothes and putting them on as fast as humanly possible. I can hear Danny screaming and sobbing, hiccuping.

  My baby boy is home. I don’t even bother with a bra or whatever, because nothing can stop from running downstairs. Danny is sobbing quietly into Jeff’s shoulder.

  The PI is smiling at the reunion. He looks a little startled by my appearance, but I don’t care. I kiss Danny’s precious little head.

  “His grandparents didn’t even want him. They hired two nannies to take care of the baby, but he wouldn’t stop screaming.”

  “He has colic,” I tell the PI.

  “I can see that.” He smiles a little. “I started talking to some of their creditors, just applying a little pressure, and they cracked like nuts. I think the sleep deprivation got to them.”

  “I don’t care why, I just care that the baby is here,” Jeff says. He’s crying a little, reunited with his infant son. They weren’t apart for that long, but I know that every moment was agony for him. “I don’t know what I owe you, but send me the bill. I’ll pay it today. Bonus for the rush service.”

  “It was my pleasure,” the PI says before nodding and leaving.

  “Who was he?”

  “Someone who is very good at his job,” Jeff says.

  Danny isn’t crying any longer.

  “Are you hungry, baby boy?” I ask. “Let’s see.”

  Jeff walks into the kitchen and I start heating up a bottle for our son. When he begins to drink, his eyes slide halfway down. The poor little man has exhausted himself by crying so much. His grandparents may have had a sleepless night, but Danny was so unhappy that I doubt he got as much rest as babies need.

  “Let’s put him in his room.”

  “How about putting him in our room?”

  “Let’s.” I haven’t forgotten about the way that Danny calmed down when he could smell Jeff.

  Jeff walks upstairs with a sleepy Danny cradled in his strong arms. I’m grateful that I never
had to endure a kidnapping, no matter how much money my dad had. Danny’s grandparents were insane to think that their kidnapping would turn out well. The police might not have been particularly interested, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Jeff pursued them in court. "You should go to bed, too," I tell Jeff. "I'll leave you and Danny alone."

  "Stay with me," he whispers, hushed because his son is snoring a little bit. "I want to go to bed where I know both of you are safe."

  How could I possibly resist him? I lean over and kiss his cheek. "Give me a few minutes to get ready for bed." I slide out of his room and run downstairs to brush my teeth and wash my face. Once I have my nightgown on, I go up the stairs as quietly as I can. He's waiting for me, clad in a pair of boxers. When I get into his bed, he rests his hand on my hip, spooning me from behind.

  "I love you," he says.

  "I know."

  He spanks me lightly. "Brat."

  "I love you, too," I tell him. I feel his bristly chin settle on my shoulder. I wish I could stay like this forever.

  ***

  When I wake up, Jeff is leaning against the headboard, talking on the phone to Marjorie. "Yeah, I know that I cancelled my meetings but..."

  He's cut off by a lot of yelling on the other end. I pick Danny up and take him to his own crib. He doesn't need the stress of hearing someone shouting at his dad. Poor little boy. He didn't wake us up once during the night, which means he was really tired. I settled him as gently as I can into his own crib. I kiss his little cheek before closing his door and going back to Jeff's room.

  His face is red. He's pinching the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, I know I'm irresponsible..."

  Marjorie must be cutting him off again. With Danny in the other room, I get a wicked idea. I crawl on the bed on all fours. I pull the sheet off of him. I unbutton his boxers and take his semi-hard dick out. Then I start to lick him like a lollipop.