Single Dad Plus One: A Billionaire and Secret Baby Romantic Comedy (Single Dad on Top Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1: Dell

  Chapter 2: Arianna

  Chapter 3: Dell

  Chapter 4: Arianna

  Chapter 5: Dell

  Chapter 6: Arianna

  Chapter 7: Dell

  Chapter 8: Arianna

  Chapter 9: Dell

  Chapter 10: Arianna

  Chapter 11: Dell

  Chapter 12: Arianna

  Chapter 13: Dell

  Chapter 14: Arianna

  Chapter 15: Dell

  Chapter 16: Arianna

  Chapter 17: Dell

  Chapter 18: Arianna

  Chapter 19: Dell

  Chapter 20: Arianna

  Chapter 21: Dell

  Chapter 22: Arianna

  Chapter 23: Dell

  Chapter 24: Arianna

  Chapter 25: Dell

  Chapter 26: Arianna

  Epilogue: The Wedding: Arianna

  Also by JJ Knight on Amazon

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1: Dell

  Chapter 2: Arianna

  Chapter 3: Dell

  Chapter 4: Arianna

  Chapter 5: Dell

  Chapter 6: Arianna

  Chapter 7: Dell

  Chapter 8: Arianna

  Chapter 9: Dell

  Chapter 10: Arianna

  Chapter 11: Dell

  Chapter 12: Arianna

  Chapter 13: Dell

  Chapter 14: Arianna

  Chapter 15: Dell

  Chapter 16: Arianna

  Chapter 17: Dell

  Chapter 18: Arianna

  Chapter 19: Dell

  Chapter 20: Arianna

  Chapter 21: Dell

  Chapter 22: Arianna

  Chapter 23: Dell

  Chapter 24: Arianna

  Chapter 25: Dell

  Chapter 26: Arianna

  Epilogue: The Wedding: Arianna

  Also by JJ Knight on Amazon

  Single Dad

  Plus One

  The Sequel to Single Dad on Top

  By JJ Knight

  author of

  Uncaged Love

  Fight for Her

  Revenge

  Blue Shoes

  Summary:

  A billionaire investor with a hidden past takes his new fiancé and his secret baby to meet his trash talking, trailer park family.

  Copyright © 2017 by JJ Knight All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews, fan-made graphics, and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons , living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  V1

  JJ Knight

  www.jjknight.com

  Chapter 1: Dell

  I love women.

  The luscious sensation of holding them in my arms.

  The downy softness of their skin.

  The smell of baby poo —

  Wait.

  I shake myself awake.

  I’ve fallen asleep in the rocking chair again, baby Grace on my chest.

  And I feel —

  Uggh. Sticky.

  I shift positions and Grace’s head pops up. She gives me a huge baby girl grin.

  Yeah, I bet you feel great.

  I try to stand up from the rocking chair, but I sense something oozing down my bare chest. Yeah, it’s sliding.

  Shoot. If I move, I’m going to get baby sludge all over the rocking chair cushions, the rug, everywhere.

  Why the hell did I get a penthouse this big? Where is my butler?

  Not that he’d help.

  He has a no-baby clause in his contract.

  I glance at the clock. It’s 2 a.m. Arianna’s undoubtedly sound asleep in the master bedroom way down the hall. It’s her work day tomorrow, so I had the night duty.

  I’m on my own.

  The room is dim, lit only by a night-light. I need something that is easy to throw in the wash to catch this disaster that has blown out the baby’s diaper and leaked through her sleeper.

  I spot a burp cloth tossed over the edge of the crib. Perfect. If I lean far enough, I can probably reach it.

  I hold Grace in place. Her head has thunked back down on my chest, but she’s wiggly. Not sleeping. I don’t want her to get too riled up. If she starts kicking and fussing, the shit will literally fly.

  My right arm reaches, extending across the space between the rocking chair and the crib. I lean, keeping Grace firmly in place on my chest.

  I almost graze it. The cotton brushes my fingers.

  Just a little farther. I’ve almost got it.

  I feel the rocker start to tilt. Then the unsettling sensation of an unexpected shift in weight as the glider mechanism slides forward.

  “Whoa!” I cry, pulling my arm back and trying to right the chair.

  But we’ve gone too far, and I curl my arms around Grace as it crashes over.

  I roll out of it, my body around the baby. She laughs like we’re on an amusement park ride.

  The chair makes a terrible racket, the arm hitting the hardwood floor just past the rug and the back tangling into the slats of the crib.

  I take the brunt of the fall with my elbow and recover rather gracefully, I must say, getting right back to my feet after completing a full roll.

  Grace giggles, her little legs kicking with excitement.

  But I can feel it. Goop. Everywhere.

  And footsteps down the hall, hurried.

  Great.

  Arianna arrives, flipping on the light. “Is everything all right?”

  The baby monitor in our bedroom amplifies noise in the nursery. It probably sounded like the building was collapsing.

  “Just knocked the rocking chair over,” I say, blinking in the brightness. Her honeyed curls are mashed on one side, a robe thrown over a tank top and sleep shorts.

  “Are you okay?” Her eyes frantically search me, then Grace, one hand shielding her eyes so she can see in the light. Then she waves her hand in front of her nose.

  “Oh, God, Dell! What in the world?”

  In the brightness of the overhead, the destruction is impressive. The chair, leaning into the crib. Cushions on the floor. And the smears. Yellow-green poop. On the arm of the rocker. On the floor where we landed, a spray from the impact of the fall.

  And all down my body, my belly, my shorts.

  “Too many peas, maybe?” I say.

  “Too much something.”

  Adding solids to Grace’s diet has been an experience.

  Bernard arrives, as put together as he can be for the hour in hastily donned black pants and a button-up shirt. “Is everything all right, sir?”

  Then he sees the room, the floor, and me. “I’ll call the housekeeper,” he says, backing from the room.

  “No, no,” Arianna says. “It’s the middle of the night. We’ll handle it.”

  “I’ll fetch a bucket, then,” he says, his lips pressed together.

  “Poor Bernard,” she says
and turns back to me. “I’d take the baby, but um, no.”

  The next visitor is Maximillion, my greyhound. He hurtles into the room like he’s going to save the day, all muscle and lean legs.

  Then he halts.

  His nose sniffs the air, uncertain, interested.

  Then he looks at me as if to say, “Hell, no.”

  And bounds back down the hall.

  I glance over at Arianna. “Even the dog deserted us.”

  She laughs. “I don’t blame him.”

  I hold Grace up in the air. She giggles, her legs working. She’s wet and gooey from the waist down, the pink sleeper soaked to orange.

  “I can’t believe she isn’t fussing in that mess,” Arianna says.

  “Can you turn on the shower?” I ask her. “I think I’ll just take us both in.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” she says. “I’ll take care of this out here.”

  “I can get it. It’s my mess,” I say.

  “No,” she says. “It’s our mess. Our perfect, precious mess.” She surveys the room. “Did you jump up or squeeze her when she blew out the diaper?”

  “Something like that,” I say.

  She shakes her head. “Let me get the water on.”

  I follow her, holding Grace out and away from my body.

  Grace loves flying, and her arms and legs wiggle like crazy, her face lit up with happiness. Despite the hour, the poop explosion, and the disgust of my butler, I count this one as a good memory.

  “All ready,” Arianna says, stepping back from the shower. Her nose wrinkles as she looks at us. “I’d offer to pull your shorts down, but I’m not sure I want to touch them.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever failed a proposition in quite this way,” I say with a chuckle. “We’re going in fully dressed to get the worst off.”

  “Okay,” she says. “You can hand me the clothes.”

  I pull Grace close and step into the spray.

  Grace squints her eyes, arms waving, not sure what to think of the water. I lift her up, letting the flow rinse the worst of the mess from her sleeper. Then I move her out of the way so it can hit me as well.

  “Is she okay in there?” Arianna asks.

  “She seems to be perplexed by the whole experience,” I say.

  “She’s not crying.”

  “She seems more curious than anything.”

  And she is. Grace looks down on me and the water, fascinated.

  I turn my back to the spray. “All right, little one, let’s get you stripped down.”

  The snaps are tricky with the wet fabric sticking to her. I cradle her in one arm and work them with the free hand. Finally I’m able to peel it away.

  “First one,” I say, passing it outside the curtain.

  Arianna takes it from me.

  The diaper is huge and puffy. I pull it off, rolling it up the best I can before holding it out. “Big bomb incoming,” I say.

  “Yuck,” she says. “Just drop it.”

  I peek around the curtain. Arianna holds a plastic bag out, ready to catch it.

  That taken care of, I turn Grace back into the water, careful to keep her face from getting pummeled too hard by the spray. She loves it, reaching out to catch the streams, feet kicking.

  “You ready for a clean baby?” I call out.

  “Just a sec,” Arianna says.

  We play in the spray a little longer. My boxers are sticking to me, and I long to get them off and be done with this.

  The curtain slides a few inches. “Okay, I’ll take her now.”

  I pass Grace to Arianna and peel out of the shorts. Arianna pauses to watch a moment, making my cock stir despite our predicament.

  She holds out her hand.

  “You wanting some of this?” I ask her with a laugh.

  “Just the wet shorts, mister,” she says. “The rest can wait.”

  “Is that a promise?” I hold on to the boxers.

  Now she cracks a smile. “Of course it is.”

  I hand her the sodden fabric. “Be out in a second.”

  What a night. I quickly soap down, sighing to be free of the mess. Fatherhood. I certainly hadn’t seen this day coming. But in the months since we got Grace, I’ve learned that everything I thought to be true about how I wanted to live my life was wrong.

  Arianna is a treasure. Grace is a joy. I’m working part-time and it’s been just fine. We’ve found our own way to be a family. Even in the bizarre moments like this, we are content.

  There’s just one problem left to handle. When I think about it, my hand tightens on the washcloth, wringing it out.

  Arianna and I are engaged, and she wants to meet my parents.

  But I haven’t told them about her. Or Grace.

  They don’t know I’ve changed my name.

  They know nothing about me.

  And eventually I will have to face it all.

  Chapter 2: Arianna

  Morning comes more quickly than I’d like after our middle-of-the-night cleanup. Dell sleeps soundly, one arm thrown across his forehead.

  I slide my phone from beneath my pillow, where it quietly buzzes an alarm. I shut it off and pause, listening to the baby monitor. Silence there too.

  Good. I pad to the shower to begin my day. I have two new hires for the fall, and I need to watch them closely. Del Gato Child Spa is all about nurturing the children in its care, and I must carefully assess anyone coming on board. It takes a certain type of person to hold her ground both firmly and kindly in the face of a roomful of two-year-olds.

  As I shampoo my crazy curls, still wishing for something that would take the frizz away without time-consuming blowouts, I try to remember a time my own mother had to handle misbehavior.

  Our days together were rare. I can recall some breakfasts, me at a table with the cook while my parents raced around. And a few bedtimes, when one or the other would pop in to kiss me, usually bedecked in a glittery dress or crisp tux.

  They always left the room smelling of jasmine or woodsy cologne. I still associate those smells with adventure and excitement. The life my parents led without me.

  I’m not making that same mistake. And my Child Spa helps lessen the blow to other children whose parents are as busy as mine were.

  When I step out of the bathroom in my robe, Dell has vacated the bed. I lean over to the baby monitor to see if he’s in the nursery.

  He is. He’s talking to Grace in his usual way, all “Good morning” and “Should we review today’s financial news?”

  He makes me laugh. We’re careful to find a balance between our careers and our daughter. We’re there for breakfast and bedtime, both of us whenever possible. We have routines and lullabies, and lots and lots of love.

  I’m glad at least one of us was raised normally. Dell had a mother and father who lived with him all the time, not between international meetings.

  I head into the closet, revamped so that both Dell and I can share the space. It’s more cramped than it was before, and more chaotic than Bernard likes. But it works.

  As if to remind myself that Dell is a normal guy with regular parents, I open his Alabama drawer. Everything is how I remember it. The Auburn sweatshirt. The Birmingham Bulls hat.

  Nestled inside is the clock that helped me put together the clues to his hidden past. That crazy man decided his background mucking the kennels at a greyhound racetrack was unbecoming of the man he wanted to be. At age twenty-three, he changed his name and purged anything he could from the Internet.

  But I know who he is.

  Just not really who he was.

  I hold up my hand, shifting the engagement ring in the light. Dell talks to his mother occasionally, this I do know. I assume he’s told her about me.

  But I’m not really sure.

  Last week I decided to press the issue and ask to meet them. We’ve been together four months now. The holidays are approaching and I need to be able to tell my parents if I’ll see them or if I’ll be in Alabama.
r />   Of course, I haven’t told my parents about our engagement either.

  We’ve kept things a secret. I don’t wear my ring at work.

  The public is more or less ignorant. Dell was a favorite in the society press as a bachelor, but as a settled man, not so much. So nobody’s spying.

  Even if they were, Dell and I haven’t really had time for charity balls or big public events. Grace is a handful and we like being there for her, not surrounded by socialites and hounded by photographers.

  Early on, there was a big rush to figure out who the baby was. We told a few key gossips that I was a single mom, and that settled it. I was too boring to pursue for long, plain-Jane me with my frizzy hair, small business, and lackluster history.

  Until yesterday, when I visited the DOMs at a bar and spilled the beans, nobody knew Dell had proposed.

  God, the DOMs. The Dirty Old Mistresses. They’d kicked me right out, as their group was only for Dell’s exes. But I got a definite undercurrent of displeasure, as if frumpy ol’ me landing one of their eligible bachelor billionaires was an affront to their sensibilities.

  I like our story being a secret. It keeps things easy. The adoption is well underway. It should be complete as soon as the French side of things is taken care of. Even Dell’s influence hasn’t been able to speed up the paperwork on that side.

  But Grace’s mother is the ultimate secret. The Duchess has given Grace to us to raise. The DNA test bore out that Dell was indeed the father. All that has been left is for me to become her mother. We’ve already decided to elope if needed to hurry things along.

  I don’t need a big society wedding.

  Do I?

  Dang, now I’m late. I shove Dell’s drawer closed and snatch the closest dress, a lovely wraparound green number that makes my boobs look smashing. Dell’s eyes never fail to get mesmerized by them when I wear it.

  I toss a pair of chocolate wedge heels on the floor and slide my feet inside. Then I snatch a pair of emerald earrings as I pass the jewelry tray. Within minutes, I’ve hurried down the hall to eat a quick bite before I have to rush downstairs to the Child Spa.

  Dell is in the breakfast nook, spooning oatmeal into Grace in her high chair. She’s wearing one of the samples from the baby wear line he bought. It’s a red velour jumper dress that reads “Got Math?”