Plan B (Best Laid Plans #2)(3)

Then in a stroke of good luck or serendipity or cosmic intervention, I was invited to a conference taking place next week in Philadelphia. I figured two birds, one stone. Am I right? I could attend the conference and while I was in town, find Kyle. So I poked around the internet a bit, figuring maybe I'd get a second stroke of luck and find a home address for him. Camp out on his doorstep until he showed up, whatever it took. I know stalking isn't nice, but desperate times, desperate measures.

Besides which, who hasn't stalked? Everyone does it in one form or another. Looked through their boyfriend’s stuff. Listened in on a stranger’s conversation in public. And everyone with access to the internet has looked up something that's none of their business a time or five hundred. Totally normal.

So I looked. And looked and looked. Turns out my stalking skills are shit because I couldn't find anything on him other than the mention of a sister named Kerrigan. Matching K names are the only thing they have in common with the Kardashians because the Kingstons keep their lives private. I couldn't find a single social media account for the sister either. I'd been hoping to reverse-stalk him through her, but no such luck. Their parents are deceased, having passed away in a plane crash five years ago. There were a few old articles about that, but otherwise not much to go on. Until I ran across a mention of a retirement gala for William Kingston. Kyle was bound to be there, right? How could he not be, when he'd just taken over as head of the company his grandfather founded and was retiring from? Crashing this party was my best shot at speaking to him in person.

I'll admit flying to another state for the purpose of crashing an event in order to speak to someone is a bit creepy, and possibly a federal offense. That's how federal offenses work, right? Once you cross state lines to commit a crime it becomes a federal crime? Never mind, it doesn't matter. The hormones are making me dramatic. I'm not committing a crime, I'm simply exhausting every possible option in order to let Kyle know he accidentally left his sperm behind during our weekend tryst.

Fine. I'm clearly not quite over that, but I'm adjusting, I swear I am.

Besides, I've got the conference to attend so it's not like I've flown to Philly only to stalk someone. I've been wanting to attend this particular conference for a couple of years but have never managed to make it work with my schedule. Then two weeks ago they contacted me with an invitation to present at the conference, which is a huge deal. They're comping my room and the conference fees, plus it's a great opportunity for me to network.

So I pawned off my day job on my twin sister and headed to Philadelphia a few days early, intent on finding Kyle and getting that bit of unpleasantness over with.

I try not to groan as I make my way through the airport in Philadelphia. I've just gotten off a flight from Chicago and I'm jittery like a toddler on a sugar high because I've been cooped up and I'm nervous. This is it. The gala is tonight and if I can't locate Kyle then I'm out of ideas for getting in contact with him directly. The only option I'll have left will be to hire a lawyer to have him served with paperwork. I guess? Is that even possible? I don't want anything from him so maybe I can't hire a lawyer to be my personal message courier. I don't want his time and I don't expect him to help me change diapers. I just want to do the right thing by telling him and then move on. Maybe get his phone number in case this baby wants to call his or her father someday.

Why is doing the right thing so complicated? It's unfair really, on so many levels. But I'll do anything to keep this civilized, for the baby. Someday I'll need to be able to spin a suitable fairy-lie about where he or she came from. I've already decided on something like "we weren't a good fit for each other, but we got you and that's all that matters."

I sigh again and switch to tapping my right foot. That story sounds lame even to me, but I've got time to work on it. By the time this kid has questions a few years will have passed and the details won't matter as much. It'll be so far in the past that they won't need to know that "not a good fit" really means "one-night stand," because "Daddy's got a killer smile and abs for days."

By the time this kid cares enough to ask it'll be such old news that the facts can be fudged a little. And hopefully Kyle will have gained forty pounds and lost his hair.

Fine, that was petty. He'll probably only have gotten hotter as he ages in that way that men do and I'll be happy for him in the way that nice people are.

Unless I have to bring a lawyer into this. Any story involving a lawyer is hard to spin into something romantic. Besides which, I can't even imagine how much that would cost and what a production it would turn into. I'm not interested in a production. I'm not a big production kind of girl.

I wonder if he remembers my name? Did I even give him my last name? I don't think I did. I imagine his legal council covering this with him in a weekly meeting and want to die. "One last item on the agenda, Mr. Kingston. A Miss Daisy Hayden would like to notify you that you're going to be a father. She's requesting that you take a refresher course on condom usage and also that you return her camera." Would that ring a bell? Or does he steal from all his one-night stands? Weirdo.

Rich asshole weirdo. I've heard of rich people who shoplift as some kind of thrill. I've heard of perverts taking underwear as some kind of kink. But taking my camera was just mean. It cost me four hundred dollars to replace it—and I lost a week’s worth of photos I hadn't downloaded yet. I met Kyle at the end of a tour and I'd had photos on that camera for a blog post I'd wanted to write about eating in Philadelphia for under twenty dollars. The guy's an heir to a retail empire, so surely he could afford to buy his own camera, and with a discount likely.