The Baby Blindside (Baby Surprise Romance) Read online

  The Baby Blindside

  Layla Valentine

  Ana Sparks

  Contents

  1. Heidi

  2. Bradley

  3. Heidi

  4. Heidi

  5. Heidi

  6. Bradley

  7. Heidi

  8. Bradley

  9. Heidi

  10. Heidi

  11. Bradley

  12. Heidi

  13. Bradley

  14. Heidi

  15. Heidi

  16. Heidi

  17. Bradley

  18. Heidi

  19. Heidi

  20. Heidi

  21. Bradley

  Epilogue

  Also by Layla Valentine

  Copyright 2018, 2019 by Layla Valentine and Ana Sparks

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the explicit written permission of the author.

  All characters depicted in this fictional work are consenting adults, of at least eighteen years of age. Any resemblance to persons living or deceased, particular businesses, events, or exact locations are entirely coincidental.

  This is a reissue of a book first released in January 2018, then titled “His Surprise Baby.” This edition contains an extended epilogue, previously only available to subscribers.

  Chapter 1

  Heidi

  She pulled at the hem of her skirt, smoothing out a wrinkle in its cotton paneling. Above all else, she thought, I will not look a fucking mess.

  Walking to the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that offered a dazzling view of the Orlando skyline, then beginning to make circles around the whole office, she ran her hand over the sleek mahogany desk, the leather-studded chair, and paused at the coffee maker.

  “Thanks for your service,” she said to the machine.

  She waited, as if expecting some kind of response from the inanimate object. No such luck, not even a beep. Where was the comfort of a robotic voice when a girl needed it?

  Relenting, she strode to the full-length mirror she kept in the corner of her office for just such occasions. Well, not quite these occasions, but still. For crises. Late nights at the office, emergency video-conferences with clients, etc.

  Heidi peered in the mirror, gently mussing her dark caramel locks that were run through with streaks of dirty blond. Hands came to rest at her trim waist, seated firmly above a set of bodacious hips.

  “Yup,” she said, gazing at her reflection, “Still got it.”

  Her confidence had gotten her this far, and damn it, it would keep her going. Confidence had given her the chutzpah to move from Miami, her hometown, to Orlando. What girl without brass balls could’ve swung that move? To leave behind the long, sultry days of Miami for—what? Retirement communities and outlet malls?

  Although, in fairness, Heidi wasn’t spending her days at either of those joints. No, instead, she’d located the night life in Orlando, which she had to admit, passed muster. The bars were noisy, fun and packed with tanned men who would buy you a drink faster than you could say your name.

  The local drink was a Negroni. The best nail salon was Bella’s, on 8th Street, where they had massage chairs and good gel polish. She knew the best route for runs, based on the weather pattern predicted for the day, and which local library had quiet spaces that didn’t smell weird.

  She’d even gotten involved in neighborhood politics, helping a councilwoman run for reelection on the grounds of repaving the streets and getting a handle on that damn red light camera on the intersection of Normund and Colie, which always seemed to snap pictures about half a second too soon.

  All these things she’d learned, and now what good were they? She’d probably have to leave town, like a bandit in the middle of the night, rubbing her face over with greasepaint. Finally call up her Mom and Dad. Poor Tom and Dina. She was really overdue to call them, but things in her life had been piling up like precarious blocks, and spare time to chat with parents had been a luxury she couldn’t afford.

  God, that made her sound like an ungrateful brat.

  Now, though, she’d have all the damn time in the world. Especially if she moved back down to Miami, which was looking increasingly probable.

  And I was so close to having it all, she thought. Swanky apartment, nice car, killer job. She paused and reconsidered. Well, minus any semblance of a healthy romantic life.

  In fact, she had to admit, maybe this was for the best. Work at Image-ine—the PR firm that had taken one look at her glowing 22-year-old self and hired her for an internship on the spot—had always been frantic. Long days, longer nights, caffeine dependence, an aching back from hunching over a laptop all day.

  And, as she’d soon painfully realized, celebrities don’t ease up on the scandalous behavior over the holidays. On the contrary, they seemed to amp it up, as if to say, “Sorry, we know you had Thanksgiving plans, but I just got caught snorting coke off a public urinal! Cancel your trip!”

  And Heidi had made it in for each one of those calls. Through perseverance and sacrifice, she’d made herself invaluable, a vital member of the team no matter what play the bosses planned. Whenever a higher-up at the company needed something, they’d explain what they wanted to another intern, then sigh and say, “Just have Heidi do it.”

  It wasn’t long before they’d been forced to promote her from unpaid schlep to Executive Assistant, and from there on out, she was given a better title and a pay bump every six months or so. She climbed faster and faster, with a speed and grace the firm had never witnessed before. That’s how she, at 27, had become the youngest exec in Image-ine’s history. And none begrudged the rapidity of her ascent.

  Well. They hadn’t, at least. She had recently begun to wonder if that was what had prompted Gary to be such a fucking—Stop, she told herself in a firm tone. Don’t get mad. Get even.

  After all, she’d already called up Meredith, her day-one office buddy who’d eventually become her closest confidant, and dramatically reenacted the whole story. They’d weighed pros and cons for nearly an hour and, at last, Heidi had given up on strategizing. She’d known the right move at the start of the hour, but sometimes, you need to hear your girlfriend say it about 50 more times before the answer sinks in.

  Gary was a pig. No doubt about it. He’d always been a damn pig, squealing and getting flecks of the mud from his pen onto Heidi’s life. This just happened to be the last straw.

  She thought she could withstand the incessant, inappropriate remarks until she’d scrounged up enough money to open her own PR agency; she figured that another remark about her firm tits could go be withstood in the name of the future.

  That goal now seemed light-years away, in a different dimension. Opening up a PR agency? God, the seed investment alone would be in the hundreds of thousands. Her parents had offered to help, but she was too proud for that. Taking more money from them, after they’d paid for college? She couldn’t bring herself to do that.

  Besides, even if they gave her the seed money, there was still the matter of literally everything else: finding investors, getting office space, hiring an entire new staff and training them by herself. She could do it—you don’t graduate alma mater from business school at the University of Miami without knowing how to open a, well, business—but it would take money she didn’t have, and there weren’t enough hours in the day. Besides, she’d have to do it all alone.

  She took another long look at the skyline
. She’d miss this part. The city at night, lights flooding the darkness as if for her and her alone. She liked the way they flickered and flashed in gaudy colors. And she liked the way her heels sounded clacking on the marble floor, liked feeling as though she moved with her own power soundtrack, click-click-clicks following her, always announcing her arrival.

  Yeah. She’d miss all of it. Maybe she could convince Meredith to leave—actually, she was certain she could—but it wouldn’t be fair. Mere had a kid who needed to be placed in a private school, the little Brainiac, and a new home loan to pay off. Heidi couldn’t ask her to blindly jump onboard a startup that wouldn’t turn a profit for at least a year, assuming things went dazzlingly well.

  Nah, friends watched out for friends, and that meant not roping them into a business that might land them in financial ruin. Heidi wasn’t some kind of shark; she took her friendships as seriously as she took her relationships (when those happened, back in the day). She wanted the kinds of friends she could call at two in the morning to cry about the finale of a reality show, not the kinds whose backs she stepped on to reach the next rung in the career ladder.

  Heidi sighed. No time like the present. A small huff escaped her full lips and she reached one long, crimson red nail to the buttons, then began to dial home.

  Chapter 2

  Bradley

  Bradley awoke with a start, as if emerging violently from a bad dream, maybe something that included sirens and badges. He was in a room filled to the brim with sunlight. He shielded his eyes with a hiss, and when that failed, he squeezed them shut tightly. Hadn’t he told the maid to lower the blackout curtains?

  He curled his body into a rigid ball, strong arms encircling worn-out knees, then paused. The light physically pained him, and a headache hammered hard and fast into his brain. Suddenly, a figure appeared, though pieces of its proportions were blocked by what Bradley thought were silver lines. Weird. Wait, was that—

  “Todd?” he asked groggily, hands still partially covering his face. “Did I miss practice?”

  Not again, he thought. Coach will fucking murder me. Actually, scratch that, he’ll hire someone to murder me, someone who’ll make it slow and painful.

  His agent shook his head.

  “No, buddy,” Todd replied, “It’s the middle of August. Off-season. Or did you forget?”

  “Oh.” Bradley mulled this over. He had, it seemed, misplaced all sense of time and space. How embarrassing. Even Todd’s face seemed to float in the middle ground, somehow separated at an awkward distance.

  “Come closer, dude,” Bradley instructed the agent.

  Todd hit something, and a clang resounded.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  Rubbing his eyes free of sleep, Bradley at last was able to assemble the picture in front of him. Todd couldn’t come closer, because that clanging sound had been his hands hitting metal bars. Oh shit.

  Todd watched the realization dawning on Bradley, and tilted his head to the side, nodding wearily.

  “Yup,” he said. “Another night in the drunk tank.”

  Bradley groaned deeply, and rolled onto his back, no longer caring how badly the sun burned. The splitting headache made for a good distraction from the consequences.

  “Do the Sharks know yet?”

  He didn’t need the answer—he already knew the horrendous words about to be said—but Todd answered obligingly.

  “Oh yeah.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “How bad is their star quarterback getting arrested for public intoxication yet again? I’d venture to say, uh, pretty fuckin’ bad.”

  With that, Todd turned and waved to someone out of Bradley’s sight line. A guard strode up, a menacing gun in his holster, and he and Todd exchanged words. The guard stared at Bradley, unable to keep his eyes off the 6’3” giant who was taking up the bulk of the cell.

  Bradley was used to it, obviously, but that didn’t make the unabashed stares any more welcome. But perhaps the stare was the price he had to pay for freedom, because it wasn’t long before the bars were thundering open, and he was a free man once more.

  Bradley looked around to gather up his things, and then remembered he wasn’t allowed “things” in jail.

  “My watch?” he asked Todd.

  Todd held it up in one hand.

  “Already got it. Please. I made them turn it over first thing when I arrived. Like I’d trust these guys to hold onto a thing worth thousands of dollars.”

  He turned to the guard and added, “No offense.” The guard shrugged.

  Todd passed the watch over, and Bradley looked at it for a moment.

  An interesting thing about being wildly rich and famous was that people assumed your watches were real. And sure, he had a whole spread of watches worth well over ten thousand bucks—some with rubies on the hands, others inlaid with diamonds on the face—but this one was worth only $100, and so much better.

  He turned it over and ran a finger down the inscription. It read, You’ve made me proud, son.

  He remembered how his mother had presented it to him on the day he’d won the full-ride football scholarship to Miami U. Her eyes had glistened as she'd said bashfully, “It’s not much, but…”

  He’d known exactly how much one hundred dollars meant for her. Bradley knew his mom had had to scrimp and scrounge for months, saving for this present, meaning she’d bought it for him before she’d even been certain he’d get the scholarship. That was how much faith she’d had in him. Now, a single dress shirt alone cost him that much.

  I’m sorry, Mom, he thought.

  He’d sworn he would make her proud, do right by her. Ending up behind bars for the second time in as many months? Probably not what she’d been hoping for when her son “went big.”

  Bradley pushed her sweet, sunny smile out of his head and strapped the watch back on his wrist. He had to wear it on the loosest setting now; his forearms had grown larger with each passing season, with each throw of the football.

  “We’re all set,” Todd said, pulling Bradley out of his reverie.

  He knew better than to ask if there would be release paperwork. For an NFL icon, a household name? For people like that—for people like Bradley—paperwork seemed to just disappear. There was always somebody else whose job was to “take care of that.”

  The rules didn’t apply when you were a god among men. You could even get away with being called a playboy and womanizer, and having a different girl on the docket for each night of the week. His multi-million dollar sponsorships didn’t care how he got his pleasure—provided he kept it charming, that is. Having a bevy of ladies on your arms? Sexy. Aspirational. Waking up, still a little drunk, in jail? Less so.

  Todd pushed open the back doors of the building, passed Bradley a pair of sunglasses, and led the superstar quickly into an idling limo. Bradley was, unfortunately, in a position to know that celebrities even had their own private exits in jail. He wished he hadn’t become so well-acquainted with that fact.

  The two men clambered into the back of the black car, where smooth jazz was playing and a full bar was built into the side paneling. Bradley was debating the efficacy of a Scotch and soda when Todd shifted to face him straight on. That was not a promising look.

  “Listen, man,” Todd said carefully. “Things are—well, I’ll be straight with you. Things are not good.”

  “Can you be more specific?” Bradley responded with caustic sarcasm.

  “Er, yeah.” The agent shifted in his seat, uncomfortable. The leather squeaked with the movements. “Sure. So, you remember the brawl last night?”

  The only sound was the smooth jazz filtering through the car speakers.

  “No.”

  Todd’s eyes widened a little. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Well,” Todd began sheepishly, “you got into a bar fight. A pretty vicious one.”

  “Oh, fuck,” Bradley moaned. When you’re in the NFL, and deadlift 400 pounds, being in a bar fi
ght just isn’t fair to the other guy. “Did he come out okay?”

  Todd grimaced. “You’ve kindly offered to cover his hospital bills.”

  “Shit.”

  “He’s uninsured.”

  “Shit.”

  Todd hesitated, then reached past him and swiped a bottle of whiskey and a glass from the bar. He poured himself a stiff drink and took a swig.

  “Well?” Bradley asked, not appreciating the theatrics.

  Todd had always been kind of a prima donna, but today, Bradley wasn’t having it.

  “So the thing is,” Todd said, “last night was bad, yeah. But they say bad news arrives in doubles, and that’s kind of the situation we’re dealing with at the moment. You see, well, no easy way to say this…sometime in the early morning, a sex tape was released. And you were in the starring role.”

  Bradley’s mouth dropped open, and he fumbled for words but couldn’t seem to find any between his shock and hangover.

  “And I’m sorry about this, man, I really am, but several sponsors have already started to back out, saying that you no longer meet their ‘family-friendly’ expectations.”

  “Since when am I fucking family-friendly?”

  “You know I’ve been able to spin the sleeping around. This is—you’ve gotta understand—this is a bridge too far for them.”

  Todd took another gulp of the whiskey and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

  “I’ve been on the phone with Coach Simon, too, and he says that the Sharks don’t need any more of this bullshit. Last season’s kerfuffle with Lucas was all that Simon could handle. If you don’t straighten up and fly right, he’ll cut you from the team.”

  Todd finished delivering the news, then polished off the brown liquid in his glass.

  Bradley was stunned. Had America really turned on its golden boy so fast?

  They’d loved him when he’d gotten caught necking in a VIP lounge, or dancing on the tables in St. Moritz. The magazines had published spreads devoted to Bradley’s alleged “Search for the One.” They’d made boatloads of cash off the whole flagrant display. He was 29, in the prime of his damn career, and was about to forfeit his legacy because of some bad behavior that had previously been encouraged? Hell no.