Page 19 of Baby for My Billionaire Rival

I look down the long driveway I took to get to the Simmons farmhouse. Doubtful I haven’t already been noticed. The last thing I want to do is drive a further wedge between Jake and me. We’ve been doing our best to get along since Fig shoved us together. But it hasn’t been easy. Two months of being enemies really does a number on the whole trust thing.

However, this is a big step. I’m seeing where the magic of Simmons Sauces happens. Not to mention, Jake’s home. His family’s legacy.

I want to do my best to make sure he knows how honored I am to be here. I mean, I’m already impressed. The long driveway split off in three parts, one in the direction of a bevy of greenhouses, the other in the direction of an open pasture. Jake instructed me to take the middle one all the way down to the family’s house.

Someone wolf whistles. I snap around to see a young kid emerging from the farmhouse. He’s got the height of Jake and the same piercing eyes. “Are you lost, doll?”

“Are you sure you’ve even hit puberty,doll?” I shoot back.Shit. It just comes out. This kid istrulya kid. Like might not even be eighteen kind of kid. If I just harassed a member of Jake’s family, I’ll never live it down.

A middle-aged woman with whisps of brown and white hair appears beside him. She’s totally incensed. “What’s wrong with you?” She smacks him with a rag. “Mind yourself. Apologize to her.”

The boy flushes. “I’m –”

“I don’t know where he learned to talk like that,” the woman shouts out before her son can speak. “Certainly not me or his daddy. Maybe all those video games or something.” She looks back at her son. “Nowapologizelike I said, what’re you waiting for?”

The boy rolls his eyes. “I was trying, but you interrupted me.”

“Well, go ahead now, no one is stopping you.”

The boy looks at me sheepishly. I smile. “It’s all good. Promise.”

“You must be Jake’s school friend. Savannah girl. Caroline, right?”

I nod. Charming to think I’m Jake’s “school friend” like we met while playing Red Rover on the playground. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, I’m his mama, Lori. And this is his littlest brother, Evan.”

“Littlest?” I didn’t know Jake had evenonebrother.

“After Brody, Cooper, and Sean, there was Evan.”

Fourbrothers?! My God, no wonder Jake takes everything so seriously. He’s got a legacy to live up to and an example to set.

“Trust me, I know, I didn’t mean to have five boys. But that’s the way they all came out. “Defective,” she says laughing, ruffling Evan’s hair.

Evan ducks away. “Mama, stop that!”

The crunching of gravel under tires gets our attention. We all look over to the road where a souped-up golf cart barrels down the road, then curls to a stop in front of the farmhouse. Jake’s in the front seat, arm slung over the wheels, flannel rolled up to reveal his tanned, muscular forearm.

One look at him and the wind is knocked out of me.

“Everything okay over here?” he calls out.

“Just getting acquainted!”

“She’s not embarrassing me, is she?” Jake asks me.

I shake my head. I’m still dumbfounded at how attracted I am to him. His hair is perfectly tousled, no doubt from his fingers running through it on repeat. He wears an easy smile, easier than I’ve ever seen on campus.

It’s like he’s happy to see me. Although, that couldn’t possibly be true, could it?

“Hop in,” Jake says, tapping his hand on the seat beside him.

“She just got here, let me get her something to eat.”

“Later, Mama. I gotta show her some things,” he says with such a perfect little drawl I think I might faint.

Lori eyes me. “Are you hungry? Blink twice and I’ll save you.”

---