Current: A Secret Baby Romance eBook

What happens when you realize your new mailman is your hot one-night stand…and the father of your baby? Asking for a friend...

I am tired of people asking me how hard it is to be a woman in engineering. My career is the least of my worries. Dealing with my family and personal relationships? That's the hard part.

I proposition a hottie, just to tune it all out for a bit. The fling blows my mind, but leaves me with unexpected consequences.

By the time I meet the guy again, he's a different person and I'm carrying a huge secret.

“Trip, put on a suit. I need you to come with me today. I’ll text you the address.” My father doesn’t waste time with pleasantries. Not with me, anyway. He hangs up the phone abruptly. I could have had plans today. I could have been out somewhere. He has no idea and he doesn’t care. Something evidently came up and I’m needed to show my face and preserve the family brand. 

I look at the address my father sent: Heinz Hall downtown. I remember something vague my mother had said about going to a client’s daughter’s wedding this weekend. The fact that I’m being called in as a pinch hitter means Mom is either faking a dizzy spell or she mixed up her Benzos with her vitamins this morning.

I could tell my father to fuck off. I could get in my car and just drive away. I have a college degree—I could probably get a job doing something and support myself. I used to watch YouTube videos about people who just live in a van and drive around the country, working on farms in short bursts to support their wanderlust. I don’t have the first clue how to do anything on a farm, and we’ve always had plenty of money to travel in style. I don’t have wanderlust so much as…a deep and burning desire to escape the Sheffield name and all that goes with it. 

But if I’m honest, I can’t escape the hope that eventually, my father will smile at me and maybe tell me I did a good job at something.

Depending who you ask, my parents are model citizens. They’re involved in philanthropy and sit on boards of directors for charities. They invest in their communities and our last name shows up all over kids’ baseball jerseys and soccer fields we’ve patronized. But behind closed doors, my mother criticized my sister’s appearance incessantly. My father spent the past 25 years both telling me I’m worthless and insisting I need to step up and take the helm of the family empire.

The promise of that is intoxicating. Taking the helm. What would that feel like?

I step into my closet and start putting on my tailored suit. It’s like a costume. When I’m wearing it, I’m Trip Sheffield, heckuvaguy. I shake hands too aggressively and laugh too hard at old men telling sexist jokes. When I say something, it has no substance or else it makes women uncomfortable. 

I tighten a perfect Windsor knot in my tie, hating my reflection in the full-length mirror. Maybe it’s not entirely fair to say the suit is a costume. I’m never not wearing tailored couture. The last time I tried to be me, I was in high school. I was a day student at a posh academy where boarding students came from all over to “prepare for a lifetime of success.”

I was, of course, expected to participate in respectable sports like lacrosse, golf and tennis. I was expected to take courses in business and economics. But one day I enrolled in an acting class. I figured I spend my entire life acting like Trip Sheffield. What if I tried something else? 

* * *

I stare into my reflection, remembering the twitch of my father’s neck muscles when he personally drove to campus to inform the head of school there had been an error in my registration. To anyone else, he was an attentive father, taking time from his corporate life to see to his son’s education. I saw the way his entire body clenched, felt the sting of his fingers digging into my arm as he walked me to his car. 

I learned two things that day. First, whatever hold the Sheffields apparently had on the upper class is apparently precarious, and second, our friends and neighbors are evidently utterly unforgiving of any activity that carries the slightest whiff of not meeting expectations. 

* * *

I tuck my phone into my jacket pocket and sigh, hoping I’m not late to meet my father. 

* * *

He greets me with a nod and starts walking inside. “Hey,” I say, causing him to stare at me disapprovingly. “I just…can you brief me before we go in?”

He rolls his eyes. “Mick Brady’s son is getting married. Owns Beltane Engineering. They’re consulting on the Garfield project for us. You recall your responsibilities to this property?”

“Sure, Dad. Of course. This is just a little last minute for me is all.”

“Yes, well. Your mother wasn’t feeling well today.” I don’t ask after her. There’s no point really. 

“Anything I should be aware of before we go in?” I arch a brow, glancing around his shoulder to see if I know anyone.

My father licks his teeth and waits a few beats before saying, “The broad comes from a well-connected family in the south hills. There will be a lot of important contacts here today, but they’re here for a wedding. Don’t bring up business. And for the love of god, don’t try to talk about your bakery.”

I hold up my palms in a surrender gesture. “Of course not,” I sputter. My father gave me a task for his company’s new project in the Garfield neighborhood. I keep clinging to hope that this will be my big opportunity to prove myself to him, but most of the time he doesn’t seem to remember he assigned me a project to lead. 

There had been a project planning meeting, and he asked for ideas to round out the development. I spit out the phrase “keto bakery” in a panic after scrolling through social media on my phone in my lap. I plunked in the terms “powerful influencers” and “market trends” and managed to get the nod from our investors. I’m supposed to be creating a trendy, new customer magnet as part of some big project my father has going in that neighborhood.

That’s what our family business does. We develop new commercial projects, secure investors, sell the businesses, reap the profits. Only I’m not sure how any of it really works. I mostly take credit for the work our interns are doing.

Dad shakes a bunch of hands as we walk inside and take our seats just before the ceremony begins. I tap the program on my leg nervously as the wedding party files past. And then a woman catches my eye, because she looks as uncomfortable as me. 

She’s tall and gorgeous, and she moves like she’s not used to wearing a dress. I look at the program, and almost everyone has the last name Brady, so the man with his arm hooked around her is most likely her brother. I find myself feeling relieved that he’s not competition, as if a woman like that would ever look my way. 

Her full lips are painted a deep red, the color of ripe cherries. Her long, golden hair is looped into a braided crown, and she is absolutely regal moving through space, like she owns every atom. She turns her head to scan the room and looks through me, past me, like I’m just a face in the crowd. 

I stare at her for a half hour, not even aware when the wedding ends until she files right on past me again and I watch as she walks directly toward the bar across the hall, in the space reserved for the reception. 

I feel my father’s hand on my shoulder, an ounce more firmly than is comfortable. “You see that tall drink of water over there?” Dad points at the bar and my heart sinks when I realize he’s gesturing at the regal beauty from the ceremony. “She’s one of the Brady kids and I’m doing business with her family. Why don’t you go over there and show her some of the ol’ Sheffield charm?”

It’s not really a request. I exhale slowly, wishing it weren’t so easy to let my slimy persona slide into place. I nod at my father and walk toward the bar.