The Billionaire's Secretly Fake Bride (MANHATTAN BACHELORS Book 3)

by Susan Westwood

  Violet didn’t nap, but he could tell she was more relaxed now that the meet and greet was over. Her hand was warm and soft in his. He kissed her hand before he pulled into his driveway.

  “Home,” she said.

  She thought of his place as home? The idea warmed him. Good. She would feel welcome here then. It would make shared custody much easier.

  “I think the furniture for the baby’s room will be delivered tomorrow.”

  “That’s fine, but I have to find a place to live and set up a nursery there.”

  “No hurry.”

  He wasn’t in a hurry for her to leave. He’d gotten used to her being around. The offer to marry her was still on the table. They hadn’t discussed it in days and he didn’t want to ruin the good will that meeting his family had given them.

  “But I need to figure out so much,” she said, sounding exhausted.

  “Not tonight. It’s okay.”

  “You always say that, but it isn’t okay. I need to take some responsibility for myself.”

  He squeezed her hand. “What are you going to accomplish on a Sunday night? You can’t go look at apartments. You can’t even make appointments to look at apartments.”

  She sighed. “I know. I just have been slacking about that part of this.”

  “Look, we can go this week. I’ll call a real estate agent and line up some places.”

  “How do you even know where I want to live?”

  Yikes. He hadn’t mentioned any of his thinking to her. “Well, I was hoping you’d live close to me.”

  She looked at him as if he had two heads. “I can’t afford Princeton.”

  “I wasn’t thinking in Princeton. You can be closer to Trenton and the rents are more reasonable.”

  She seemed to mull that over. “Okay. Maybe I can do that.”

  “I know you’re uprooting your life, but if we’re close, the baby doesn’t haven’t to travel as much. That’ll be more important when he or she is in school. We both can attend parent things. Besides, I’ve said I want the child to go to private schools. There are many right here.”

  “I guess we’ll have to talk about private school.”

  “Why talk? It’s the best education the boy or girl can get.”

  “How many black people go to private schools?”

  “I don’t know, Violet, but is that any reason to hold the child back?”

  He really didn’t want to discuss this now. He didn’t want to argue with her. He wanted to have sex. They hadn’t in a few days and he was itching to touch her.

  “Maybe not. We’ll see.”

  He’d leave it for now. He opened the door from the garage to the house for her. She smiled at him and she had that look in her eye. Her hormones were raging. He could help with that.

  He led her upstairs. “You want a bath?”

  “That sounds amazing.”

  He filled the tub while she undressed. He could see that her stomach wasn’t showing, but it wasn’t flat anymore. That was his child growing inside of her body. Made him even harder.

  He undressed, waiting for her. He held her hand as he helped her into the tub. He settled her against him. She let out a sigh, relaxing into him.

  He could just reach her tits. So he did. He played with one then the other.

  “Don’t touch them unless you plan on following through.”

  He licked her ear. “Oh, I do, Violet.”

  “This kid is going to wonder why the outside world is so peaceful after all the sex we’ve had during this pregnancy,” she said.

  His fingers roved over her nipples, bring them to peaks. She reach around putting her arms around his neck. His one hand slid down her body to find her spot. She was wet and warm and he liked that feeling.

  “Oh,” she said as he began to rub her. In circles, the way she liked it.

  Her head fell back into his shoulder. Her body arched into his hand. Damn. She was close. He could tell. She started making those sounds that drove him wild. She was on the edge. Her body was jerking around, making waves. He didn’t care if they made a mess. It could be cleaned up.

  Her fingers dug into him as her body stiffened.

  “Oh. God.”

  He chuckled in her ear. “That never gets old.”

  “Not from this end either.”

  He laughed and so did Violet. She was even more relaxed now. He hoped she’d stay awake long enough for him to do that again. With him inside of her.

  “We’d better get out before I fall asleep in here.”

  He helped her out. They dried off and she led him to the bed. “Your turn.”

  She climbed on top of him, kissing his neck, setting fires wherever her lips met his skin. He was hard and so turned on, he wanted to grab her and dive into her.

  Finally she was poised above him. “You ready?”

  “I was born ready.”

  She laughed then slid herself onto him. His eyes rolled into the back of his head. Damn. Her rhythm was spot on and he thought he’d blow his wad before she came again. He didn’t, but her orgasm wrenched his from him.

  She slumped onto his chest, her breathing heavy. She then slid off of him, her body never losing contact. She threw one hand over his chest and a leg over his leg. Then he was asleep.

  ***

  Violet was ready to pack it in for the day. She’d been sitting doing nothing for two weeks. Her trap hadn’t caught anyone yet. The hacker had been laying low and she was bored. She could only play Candy Crush so many times.

  Amedeo was going to work late, so she’d would be going home to an empty house. His driver would take her there. She wasn’t in any hurry to be alone, but she wanted to get out of her work clothes and into sweats. Dinner would probably be cereal unless there were leftovers in the refrigerator.

  What an exciting night she was going to have. She sighed. She might as well get used to it. You didn’t party with a baby around. She didn’t miss alcohol at all. She missed being around people who were having fun.

  She could stop off for a drink somewhere, but what would be the point? It would be juice or soda. Damn.

  She closed her laptop then noticed a strange email on her phone.

  “We know what you did.”

  What the Hell? Had she been tracked down because of her hacking? Shit. This wasn’t good. Things had been really good lately between her and Amedeo. She didn’t want to screw things up, but she might with this.

  If he found out.

  Another email landed in her inbox. Same person, but she figured they were using an anonymizer. Damn. She wouldn’t be able to trace it.

  “We’re going to find you.”

  Double shit. She had to tell Amedeo. What if he was in danger? She’d been stupid and she knew it. All because she was bored at home.

  She sighed. No more emails came in. But they knew who she was. Or at least they’d tracked down her junk email address. It might only be a quick step to tracking down her name. Not her address, since she didn’t live there anymore.

  She packed up her laptop then made her way to Amedeo’s office. He smiled when she entered. “You done for the day?”

  “Yes, but I have to talk to you about something.”

  “Sit. You look concerned.”

  She did sit. She took a moment to frame her words. “When I was home, I was pretty bored. And in order to keep my skills sharp, I hacked into someone’s computer system.”

  “You do know that’s illegal.”

  “Yes I do, but I don’t think that person is concerned about the legalities of my actions.”

  “Huh?”

  “I think the system I hacked into was for someone doing criminal activity. I rushed out of the system and may have left a trail.”

  “A trail?”

  “I received an email on my junk account. It’s not connected to anything that could connect to me, but with enough money, things can be found out.”

  She handed him her phone. He read the emails. “Yep, those are threatening.
I can’t come home with you tonight, but make sure the driver closes the gate after he leaves. Turn on the security system. Keep your phone with you.”

  “I’m sorry, Amedeo.”

  He frowned. “You didn’t mean to do this, but you have to think about things before you do them.”

  She knew that. She had a baby to think of. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “I’ve finally lined up a real estate agent. I’m sorry the last two weeks have been nuts.”

  “Is something going on?” she said.

  He glanced at the office door then rose to cross to it. He closed it. When he sat down he looked at her. “Yes, someone has offered to buy the company. We’re in negotiations right now.”

  “Does that take this long?”

  That would mean he’d built and sold three companies. Boy, her kid had good genes. Too bad she wasn’t contributing anything that spectacular.

  “It does. I like to take care of my employees. I can’t leave them to be fired when I’m gone.”

  That was so Amedeo. “What will you do once it’s sold?”

  “I have some ideas for another company. I haven’t done any real estate investment so I may go in that direction. We’ll see.”

  He was so confident. She knew the sale of the company would make him able to be choosy about what he did next. She couldn’t imagine being in that spot. She had always lived freelance job to freelance job.

  “I could take time off to be with the baby.” He shrugged the way a man who had options would.

  “You’d do that?”

  “Yes I would. My child will be important to me. My parents always made us a priority.”

  She nodded, not knowing what that felt like. “That might make it easier for me. I’ll be back to establishing clients at that point.”

  “Well, we’ll see. You can stay on here after your job is complete, but we can talk about that later.”

  She rose. “You need to get somewhere?”

  “I do. Sorry. Call me if you get spooked.”

  “I’m not exactly sure who I’m dealing with. It could be an idle threat,” she said.

  “Let’s not look at it that way,” he said.

  She left him in his office and let the driver take her home. The gate was secured when the driver left. The alarm system was on. Amedeo had written down the password. She should feel safe, but part of her didn’t anymore.

  This was her own stupidity. Was she really expecting the person to walk up to the front door? No, they might use the internet to take her down, but she had no possessions. No credit rating. Her identity wasn’t worth much.

  She sighed, settling into leftover macaroni and cheese. She jumped at each sound. When she crawled into bed, she put on a movie so she wouldn’t have to listen to the sounds of the house as it settled for the night.

  She curled up under the covers, her heart beating just a little faster.

  Why had she been so stupid?

  ***

  A week later, with no more threats sent to her, Violet finally settled down. There had been no further threats to her which made Amedeo think the first one had been an idle one. Her stomach was just beginning to pop and he liked to fall sleep at night with his hand on it.

  The world felt right when he did that. Violet had been frustrated by not catching the hacker. She’d wondered out loud to him that maybe the hacker was just flexing his muscle and won’t come back.

  When she came to Amedeo in his office that morning, her face was lit up with triumph.

  “I’ve found your hacker. Well, I’ve at least caught him in a trap. I haven’t identified where he came from yet.”

  “You’ll do that soon?”

  “I’m hoping. I just need to walk away for a minute, so I decided to come tell you.”

  He leaned back in his chair studying her. She was getting more beautiful as the pregnancy progressed. “Do you need more maternity clothes?”

  She smiled at him sheepishly. “Yes, I do.”

  “We can go after work tonight.”

  “For home, just sweats, but for work I’ll need a few weeks of something until I wrap this up,” she said.

  Carl wanted him to hire her. Amedeo knew he would have to broach the subject carefully. She’d be skittish, thinking that he was doing it out of pity. Maybe he should have Carl broach the subject. That way, she might not think it was coming from.

  “Wait, we can’t shop tonight. I lined up a real estate agent to show us apartments.”

  She plopped down on the chair for guests. “You did? I’ve been meaning to.”

  He waved a hand. “I’m used to taking charge.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “I’m not sure if you’re happy about that or not.”

  She shrugged. “I guess in this situation I’m happy because I kept forgetting to do it. I’m usually so organized.”

  “You’re pregnant, Violet.”

  “I don’t like to use that as an excuse.”

  “But it’s true.” He came around the desk, leaning his butt on the edge. “Hormones are crazy things.”

  “I guess.”

  She frowned. He leaned, putting his hand under her chin to bring her face up to look at him. “It’s okay, Violet. You’re doing great work here. I promise. Carl has nothing but good things to say about you. He feels as if you’ve gone above and beyond your task.”

  “Okay. If you say so. I just hate to be bored. I like to be busy.”

  “I understand that. And we’ll be busy tonight finding a place for you to live. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine. Tired.”

  “Are you too tired to go out tonight?”

  “No, let’s do this. It will be a load off of my mind if I know where I’ll be living.”

  He nodded. He thought that he’d miss her when she moved out. He’d never shared his place with anyone. Tory had stayed the occasional night, but never more than two in a row. She liked her own place. She’d wanted him to move into her place, but he didn’t want to be in view of her parents.

  They’d never settled that argument and then they didn’t have to. He sighed.

  “What’s wrong?” Violet asked. “You look a little stressed.”

  “It’s these negotiations. They should be going smoother.”

  She stood then patted the chair she’d been in. “Sit.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll rub your shoulders before I go back to my desk.”

  He would take that. He sat and she massaged his shoulders. “You should get a real massage.”

  “I’m not one for a stranger’s hands all over me.”

  Violet laughed. “You didn’t feel that way when you brought me home that night.”

  He had to chuckle. “Okay, then I can’t imagine it without a happy ending.”

  “Seriously, Amedeo. Massages are good for you. They relieve tension.”

  “So does sex.”

  “You don’t do that at work.”

  “Well we proved that wrong,” he said.

  She stayed quiet. He closed his eyes as he could feel the tension leave his body. He wanted to stay here for a day or so. She finished. “I need to get back to work.”

  “Thanks for the massage.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said over her shoulder as she left.

  He stayed in the chair for a moment longer, enjoying the afterglow. She did have expert hands. Not only did he like her hands, he liked her. She was easy going. Nutty in her own way, but not in a way that he couldn’t handle. What was he thinking? This wasn’t permanent. They were lovers. Sex buddies. That was it.

  Madge came in with some papers for him to sign. “Did you forget where your desk was?”

  “Violet gave me a massage and it was easier to do it in this chair.”

  She cocked her head at him. “And you didn’t have sex? You’re growing.”

  He laughed, but not fully. Did his assistant know how much sex he’d had in his office? He decided that he didn’t want to know. He
’d thought he was being discreet, but he should have known better.

  “What do you have for me?”

  “Just some papers that need your important signature.”

  He hopped over to his own chair then pulled a pen from his pocket. He read the sheets then signed them. As Madge was leaving, he said, “Wait a minute. I want to tell you something.”

  She closed the door then walked over to his desk. “Yes?”

  “I’m selling the company. Do you want a package to retire or do you want to follow me to my next venture? Which, by the way, I have no idea what I’m doing next or when I’m going to start it.”

  “I’d have to think about it. I could retire. I wouldn’t mind that. I have some grandchildren I’d like to visit.”

  “Sounds like you made your choice.”

  She laughed. “Yes, I guess I did. Then a package is better. Do I need to be part of the transition team?”

  “Might not be a bad idea.”

  Chapter12

  Violet didn’t have any specifics for the type of apartment she wanted to live in. Two bedrooms in a safe neighborhood was pretty much all she wanted. She hoped the price tag wouldn’t be out of her budget.

  That was the biggest concern. Looking with Amedeo might not be a good idea. He had no idea what it was like to live on a budget. He might want her in something she couldn’t afford. She wasn’t taking money from him other than child support after the birth of their child. She would make her own living.

  She was paying off debts with what she was making at Amedeo’s company so she’d be clear of them when the baby was born. She could start fresh with a clean slate and stay debt free. At least she hoped so.

  Most of the apartments were in and around Trenton. They’d picked up the real estate agent in Amedeo’s car. She was a compact woman whose mouth moved nonstop. The ride to the first place had been filled with chatter.

  “So is this for both of you?” Karen Oswald, the agent, said.

  “No, just me,” Violet said. She was pretty sure that Amedeo had given the woman the details of what they were looking for and why. She didn’t want to rehash it. She just wanted to look at places.

  Violet had never used a real estate agent. She usually just walked around looking for a vacancy sign on a building. This was all new. Was this how white people did it? Or was this just the suburbs? She didn’t know, but Amedeo had insisted.