Boss’s Secret Baby for Christmas
Natasha L. Black
Copyright © 2019 by Natasha L. Black
All rights reserved.
The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature readers.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Also by Natasha L. Black
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Daddy’s Secret Baby (Sample)
A Note from the Author
About the Author
Also by Natasha L. Black
Alpha Male Collection:
Forbidden Daddy| Redemption| Protecting Her
Saving Sky| Protecting Sasha
Complete box set here: Men in Charge
* * *
Reverse Harem/Ménage Collection:
Double Dirty| The Cabin| Double Trouble
Training the Rookie| Cuffed to my Roomies
Complete box set here: One Lucky Girl
* * *
Fake Marriage Collection:
Pretend You’re Mine| Pretend I’m Yours| Let’s Pretend
Faking It
Complete box set here: Playing Pretend
* * *
Secret Baby & More:
Daddy’s Secret Baby|My Ex’s Secret Baby| Bad Boy’s Secret Baby
Brother’s Best Friend| Forbidden Protector| Sweet Tooth|
Introduction
It was just one time.
Our little secret.
One wild night with my new boss.
Hot, jaded, Adam is irresistible and so off-limits.
He’s fresh off a bitter divorce, not looking for a relationship.
I’m focused on my internship and trying to start my career.
Until that first blazing kiss.
We swear it’ll never happen again. But this attraction is explosive.
It’s too complicated, too messy.
And that’s before I find out I’m pregnant with his baby.
I can’t tell him—thanks to his gold-digger ex, since he already believes women are only after his money.
So, I’ll just keep my little secret for now, and try my hardest to keep my hands off my sinfully sexy boss.
But sooner or later my secret will come out.
And I might lose more than just my job.
1
Mindy
I looked up at the massive building in front of me and pulled my messenger bag a little closer. I didn’t want to admit that I felt intimidated by the building, but there it was. It was more the job that waited for me inside the building, way up there on the tenth floor. This job was everything I’d been working for, but I still couldn’t quite believe that I was getting it.
I was top of my graduating class, and in the two years since I had graduated, I had worked my butt off trying to prove myself to people just like my new boss. All the same, to be realizing those dreams at the ripe young age of twenty-four? If you had told my eighteen-year-old self that this was where I’d be a scant six years after graduating high school, I don’t think I would have believed you.
I took a step forward and watched the big glass doors whoosh open automatically. I navigated my way up to the offices of Designed by You, the marketing company that had decided to take the risk on hiring me.
I was only an intern, and even though they’d be paying me for my time there, there was no guarantee that I would still have a job with them six months from now. All my friends thought I was crazy, giving up the cushy job I’d had since graduation, all for a potential disaster. But you couldn’t make a name in the marketing world working for a small local company. You needed to take your chances with a company like Designed by You.
The bored-looking secretary directed me toward HR in between answering phone calls in a snooty monotone. I felt another rush of nervousness go through me. Was this what working for the company would be like? I sure hoped not.
Friendliness was something sorely lacking in my life since I’d moved to Chicago, and I didn’t know if I could handle a whole six months of brusque interactions with people who didn’t care where I was from, let alone what I aspired to in life.
I managed to find the HR office and took a seat with the other interns, waiting to sign over the next six months of my life. There were three of us in there, and I found myself quietly sizing up the competition as we waited to go into the office. If there was only one job offer at the end of those six months, I wanted to be sure I understood who the competition was.
The thing about the internship was it wouldn’t really show off our skills…unless we proved that we were worthy of more responsibility. It was mostly going to be a lot of menial labor. If I was lucky, I might get a minute or two each week with one of the higher-ups in the company.
And man, I couldn’t wait to meet the two guys who ran the company. There was a reason I had applied for this internship. Designed by You really spoke to me as a company and as a consumer. From the mission statement to its execution, I was sure this was the place where I was meant to be.
Surely the other two interns couldn’t feel the same way that I did. I was sure they were both talented individuals, but there was just no way that they couldn’t feel as passionate about this internship as I personally did.
As the silence in the waiting room started to become unbearable, I finally made the split-second decision to introduce myself and get the ball rolling. After all, even if we were competitors in the pursuit of one full-time position, I was sure that we three were going to be working closely together over the next six months while we were all interns. Might as well get to know one another.
I would never go so far as to sabotage one of them. But then again, the more I got to know the two of them, the better equipped I would be to pick out their weaknesses and show the higher-ups why I more suited to a long-term position with the company.
I gave the two of them a nervous smile. “You guys ready for this?” I asked. “I’m Mindy, by the way.”
The hipster dude looked vaguely uncertain, glancing over at our companion before giving me a shy smile in response. The other woman tossed her head, a grin flashing across her face. “I’m not nervous,” she said, but before I could wonder if she was really that arrogant, she tossed out a joke: “One of my biggest weaknesses is saying something stupid, but I feel like I’ve been researching Designed by You so much since I heard about this job posting that the only things that could come out of my mouth now are random trivia about the company. Like for example, did you know…”
She trailed to a stop, looking sheepish. “See, I told you.”
I had to giggle. “Me too,” I admitted. “I mean, I knew a lot about the company
before I applied here, but now I keep having dreams about all the trivia I’ve dug up about them. My biggest fear is that I’ll spout out one of my facts only to find out that it’s not true at all.”
“Exactly!” the woman said. She leaned forward and held out a hand to me. “I’m Vera, by the way.” We shook hands, and from the smile on her face, I could tell we were going to get along pretty well.
The guy smiled nervously. “I’m Pierce,” he said. He glanced toward the door. “I feel kind of dumb for thinking that HR would get us in there as soon as we arrived, but I don’t know, I thought we had an appointment or something?”
Vera groaned in agreement. “Me too,” she said fervently.
I shrugged, trying to play things cool. “It’s a huge company,” I reminded both of them. “I’m sure they have better things to do than to usher us right through form signing.”
“I guess,” Vera said. “I’m just so excited to get started with work that I hate sitting here for any longer than I have to!”
Fortunately, waiting around to sign our HR forms was the final breather that we had through the whole day. After that, it was rushing around getting to know the layout of the office, then getting us set up at our workspaces, then teaching us the basics of the position, then running us through a mock-up of a normal day in the life as an intern, then setting us free with some instructions for things to get done that afternoon.
I couldn’t help but feel excited. This was my first real job in my field of study, and I couldn’t help but hope that I’d be able to turn this into a long-term position. A shiver ran down my spine. I wanted this.
Still, for all of my excitement, or perhaps because of it, by the time I was walking out of there at 6 P.M., I couldn’t help but feel worn-out. Vera looked just as exhausted but thrilled, though. I wondered where Pierce had gotten off to; we hadn’t seen him for most of the afternoon, and even though I was sure that meant that he had a different project to work on, I couldn’t help but wonder what it was. It would have been nice to all walk out together that first day.
“Look!” Vera said suddenly, her fingers digging into my arm. With her free hand, she pointed excitedly toward the elevator.
I followed the direction of her finger, about to rebuke her for pointing at someone. But the words died on my lips. Holy hell.
There were two guys standing there. The one was nothing special, and my eyes immediately slid away from him. But the man beside him was, for lack of a better word, gorgeous. He was tall and blond, with a strong jawline and piercing blue eyes. His face was animated as he talked to the man beside him, seeming not to realize that the world had pretty much come to a standstill around him.
Because Vera and I weren’t the only ones staring at him. It seemed like everyone in his vicinity was waiting with bated breath, ready to leap to his every whim. The man didn’t even seem to realize, though. He had power, but he had the air of someone who didn’t even notice how much of it crackled like electricity around him. It wasn’t arrogance; it was simply that he was so caught up in what he was saying that he didn’t seem aware of anything else.
I wondered what it would be like to have that kind of intensity focused on me. I shivered, not sure whether that would be a good thing or not.
“That’s Adam Parker,” Vera hissed, not seeming to realize the emotions going through me. “And his assistant, I think. Wendell Carlton. Isn’t he handsome?”
My eyes slid over Adam’s companion again, but I dismissed him just as easily as I had before. I supposed he was good-looking, but I only had eyes for Adam. So this was the president of the company, and one of my new bosses. Interesting.
I was struck by the sudden urge to walk up to Adam and introduce myself. What better way to be noticed as an intern than to make a bold move like that? But I knew that unless I could back it up with a reason, he would see it as nothing more than a waste of his time, and I didn’t want that. No, if I wanted to capture his attention, I was going to have to come up with some brilliant way to do it.
My eyes lingered on him for a minute longer, hoping beyond hope that he might glance over at me. Then again, it was probably just as well he didn’t. I was tired, and I knew that after the long and busy day I’d had, I had to look frazzled. That wasn’t how I wanted our first meeting to go.
In any case, he didn’t look over. He breezed past us, still chatting animatedly to his assistant. My eyes followed after him, getting a good eyeful of his shapely ass as he walked away. No guy should ever be that good-looking. It was practically a crime.
But I couldn’t stop trying to think of ways to get the man to notice me.
2
Adam
I glanced at my watch as I finally headed out of the office. I was surprised at how dark it already was outside. But I supposed that wasn’t too strange, given that it was already 8 P.M. I winced. I hadn’t realized that it was that late already. Even though it had definitely been a productive evening, I knew that subconsciously, I had been pushing myself too hard lately. If I didn’t stop, there was a chance I would burn myself out.
On the other hand, if I left work any earlier, it would only give me too much time to think, and I was trying to avoid that.
In the spirit of avoiding thinking too much, instead of heading straight home and going to bed, I headed to the bar down the block. I took a seat at the counter and ordered a beer. The first sip of the smooth, velvety stout went down easy, and I sighed in relief.
It had been nine months now, and I was over the divorce. I didn’t miss Kelly at all. It was more the fact that I had failed at something, that was what I kept coming back to and dwelling on. I had put everything I had into that marriage. I had done my best to compromise, even when it became clear that the things that Kelly was asking for were unrealistic. Even when it became clear that we would be better off going our separate ways, I had still fought for us.
And I had failed.
I had been raised to never give up. More than that, I had been raised knowing that marriage was a commitment, a promise of forever. You didn’t break that promise just on a whim. You did everything you could to make the person you loved happy, even if it brought your own unhappiness. That was just the way things were done in my family.
After a certain point, nothing I did made Kelly happy, though. Not to mention that after a certain point, I couldn’t handle my own unhappiness any longer. Still, the failure of a marriage weighed on me.
I took another sip of my beer. It was something I had been over and over again in all the months since the marriage had crumbled. There was no going back to change things now. The only thing I could do was look ahead to the future and promise that I wouldn’t make the same mistakes again. I would never get into another relationship again, not knowing I just wasn’t the relationship kind of guy.
One-night stands, those I could do. That was it, though.
Sometimes, I wondered if things might have been different if I had married someone else. I knew that wasn’t fair to Kelly, though. I had been just as much at fault as she had. After a certain point, I just didn’t have a good enough amount of time or of myself to give,
My business came first. It always had. I might be pushing myself to stay there in the office for longer now, ever since the divorce, but it wasn’t like these were the first late nights I’d ever worked.
In any case, I wasn’t going to open myself up to failure again. Especially not when it came to opening up my heart and making myself vulnerable again.
I took another sip of my beer and noticed a girl on the far end of the bar sending me flirty looks as she chatted with her friend. She tossed her long auburn hair, and I felt a familiar stirring of attraction run through me. Definitely good one-night stand material. I absolutely wouldn’t mind going home with her.
On the other hand, I had important business to do in the morning, and I knew that I needed the sleep. With a sigh, I finished up the one drink and then headed home alone.
My penthouse apartment was too
quiet when I came in. I dropped my briefcase by the front door and headed straight to the shower. As I scrubbed myself off beneath the near-scalding spray, I briefly considered getting myself off. It would be only too easy thinking back to the pretty lady at the bar. My cock twitched with interest at the barest thought of her.
But I resisted, rinsing myself off and then shutting the water off. I knew from experience that getting myself off now, in this frame of mind, would only leave me feeling hollow and even lonelier.
I toweled myself off, making a point to ignore my half chub. I walked naked through the luxurious apartment and slid naked into bed, trying to pretend, there in the darkness, that I didn’t mind being alone. That this had been my choice all along.
In spite of my discontent, I slept surprisingly well. That was nothing new. I had been sleeping well ever since things had gone sour with Kelly. It was something that I tried not to think too hard about.
When I woke up the following morning, I had three messages. One was from my assistant, Wendell. The other two were from Kelly. I sighed and rubbed at my eyes, debating leaving those texts until later. At least until after I had had some coffee.
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