Daddy's Best Friend Secret (Daddies and Babies Book 2)

by Lauren Wood

  Daddy’s Best Friend Secret

  Daddies and Babies Series

  Lauren Wood

  Copyright © 2021 by Lauren Wood

  All rights reserved.

  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

  Prologue

  1. Clara

  2. Klaus

  3. Clara

  4. Klaus

  5. Clara

  6. Klaus

  7. Clara

  8. Klaus

  9. Clara

  10. Klaus

  11. Clara

  12. Klaus

  13. Clara

  14. Klaus

  15. Clara

  Epilogue

  Billionaire and Nanny Secret (Sneak Peak)

  Chapter 1

  Also by Lauren Wood

  About the Author

  Exclusive Offer

  Prologue

  Klaus

  I wasn’t the kind of guy who had a lot of friends. When I was free, I preferred to spend my time with women, not sitting around a bar and talking about marriage and children. That wasn’t my idea of a good time, and if there was anything that I lived for, it was a good time, much to my parents’ dismay.

  They wanted me to be more like Ezra, my older brother. The hard-working businessman who had always done everything right. But I didn’t want to be him. He lived a boring life with his new wife and three kids. What was the fun in that?

  “Are you listening to me?” Antonio asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

  My rule was not to have friends, but Antonio happened to be the exception. He was too great of a guy not to be friends with. He was funny, and although he happened to have a kid, she was an adult. So there was no cancelling guys’ night so that he could stay home and clean up barf instead.

  “Partially,” I answered honestly and shrugged my shoulders.

  “And that’s why you don’t have a girlfriend,” he pointed out. “You can’t listen to save your life.”

  “I don’t have a girlfriend because I don’t want one,” I corrected. “And I can listen when it’s worth listening to.”

  “Keep talking like that, and you’ll lose your only friend.”

  “I’m going to go and cry into my pillow.”

  Antonio looked like he wanted to throw something at me, but there was nothing around him that he could throw without causing some serious damage to my face, which he knew I cherished. I started laughing, and he sat back down at his desk.

  We looked like we could have been business partners, considering we were both wearing suits, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I had invested in Antonio’s business, enough to be a stockholder, but not enough to require any actual work. I had believed in him when no one else did. Once I’d gotten an offer to make ten times what I had invested, I was out of there.

  There were far too many ventures to invest in to simply stick to one, and I wasn’t exactly the most patient man to wait for the money to come in ‘over time’. And many businesses failed during their first year.

  I worked smart, not hard.

  “How has investing been for you, as of lately?” Antonio asked, changing the topic. “I’ve been thinking of getting into it a bit, myself.”

  “The market is booming right now, but it can be hard to navigate. Everyone thinks that their idea is the biggest and best idea ever heard of, but most of them aren’t. It’s hard to watch people work so hard and then to have to tell them that their idea simply isn’t good enough.”

  I’d had to break that bad news to all sorts of business owners. I wasn’t exactly the type who cared much about what other people had going on in their lives. After all, didn’t everyone have something? But even I had to admit that seeing how hard someone worked for something and telling them that their dream wasn’t happening wasn’t a task for the weak-minded.

  “Isn’t it all about the heart?” Antonio asked and raised an eyebrow at me. He wasn’t much of an investor, but he was about to learn that it wasn’t nearly as easy as it sounded.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t you invest based on how much passion someone has for their company?”

  I scoffed. “If that was all that was needed then anyone could run a successful business.”

  “So, that doesn’t matter to you?”

  “The only thing that speaks to me is numbers. If I don’t see green then they’re not seeing green. End of story.”

  Antonio didn’t say anything for a while, instead just shaking his head as if he wasn’t surprised. And he shouldn’t have been. I didn’t consider myself a good person and investing wasn’t a charity. It wasn’t just giving money away. If I didn’t think I would make at least triple what I had invested, and in a timely manner, then it wasn’t something that I was interested in.

  “What are you doing this summer?” he asked.

  I sent him a crooked smile. “The usual.”

  Antonio knew that my usual summer was pretty much like the rest of my year. My entire life revolved around three things: partying with people I didn’t know, vacationing to all of the places I’d never been, and fucking women I would never see again. I lived the life of a bachelor, and I didn’t see that changing any time soon.

  After all, wasn’t that the point? I was here for a good time, not a long time.

  “You should come stay with us, over the summer. I managed to get some time off of work, and Clara and I are spending some time with her best friend at the beach house.”

  My interest was piqued. “Clara?”

  “Yes, my twenty-year-old daughter that I’ve told you about several times.”

  “Hm,” I hummed.

  “And she’s completely off limits.”

  I frowned. “And the friend?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Then, why am I going?” I asked.

  “So you can spend time with a friend.”

  “All the good that’s doing me,” I said sarcastically.

  “It’ll be fun,” Antonio insisted. “Just not your usual type of fun.”

  “I’ll think about it.” I stood up. “I’m going to grab a drink.”

  “Grab me one, too.”

  I left Antonio’s office and walked into his kitchen. Luckily, my friend was the kind of guy who often had full stocks of alcohol which was one of the only reasons I didn’t have any issues coming over to his house.

  There wasn’t any staff in his kitchen, not that it mattered. I was much more comfortable making my own drinks, anyways. There was nobody that could make my drinks better than I could.

  I took out a glass and added some ice before pouring myself some of his whiskey. I drank it and let out a satisfied sigh. There was nothing that hit the spot better than alcohol. Without hesitation, I made myself another one and downed it. I slammed the glass against the table, about to prepare another, before the sound of someone clearing their throat caught my attention.

  It was a woman. She was tall, really tall, like the average height of a model. She had beautiful auburn hair that fell straight down her back. I talked to a lot of women, but hardly any of them had that color hair. She was unique, and I liked that. Her eyes were big and brown. She was skinny, so she clearly cared about staying fit. She had long eyelashes and a handful of freckles.

  “Well, hello, beautiful,” I greeted her. She was wearing a white tank top, tucked into her dark blue jeans. She had a jacket wrapped around her arm, s
o I knew she had to be someone who worked for Antonio. Since when did he hire such attractive help?

  Before she could say anything, Antonio stepped in. “I was about to say…” He looked at the girl and smiled. “Oh, hey, I didn’t know you’d be here.”

  “I had to pick up something.”

  “Well, this makes things easy.” Antonio smiled at me. “Klaus. This is my daughter, Clara.”

  Life and its cruel games. There was no way that I wouldn’t be going to the beach now.

  1

  Clara

  A best friend was supposed to be someone who made you a better person. They were always supposed to support you and be on your side. When you were in the wrong, they were supposed to help you realize that. When you were sad, they were supposed to make you happy. They were supposed to be the person that you could talk to about anything.

  I had a feeling that my best friend was broken.

  She hardly ever listened to anything that I had to say. Instead, she talked about herself a majority of the time. But I didn’t really have a problem with that. Shae lived a very eventful life, and I had nothing better to do than to sit around and listen to her talk about her latest problem… which typically had something to do with some boy.

  To her, my problems didn’t matter as much, which was fine. I was the kind of person who denied having problems anyway. To many people she would have been selfish and ignorant, and she still was. But she happened to be the kind of best friend that I needed.

  I had my head thrown back against the pillow, resting on my chair. The sun was hardly touching me, thanks to the umbrella that I had pulled up. I had a bad tendency to burn easily. Not like a tan. No, I would turn bright red, and then everything hurt to touch. So I tried to stay out of the sun the best that I could, regardless of how much sunscreen I had on.

  “What do you think about that spicy man?” Shae was biting her lip as she stared at one of the guys walking past us. In my eyes, he looked like every other guy that had walked past us in the course of the last twenty or so minutes.

  He was blond with blue eyes. He had abs, and he sent us a smirk before continuing the volleyball game that he was playing with his friends.

  “Hm,” I hummed, not caring too much one way or another.

  “You could pretend that you care,” Shae pointed out.

  “That would require more effort than I’m willing to put in.”

  “I hate you.”

  I smiled at my best friend. She looked the exact opposite of me. Instead of my pale skin, she had a beautiful brown complexion. Her hair was gorgeous, curly and dark compared to my straight red hair. And instead of being tall, she was petite and cute.

  And our looks weren’t the only thing that were different. We couldn’t have been more different personality-wise, either.

  “You’re weird,” she stated, getting comfortable in her lounge chair. “You’re twenty, your entire life should be boys. Nothing but boys.”

  “That’s where I have to disagree with you.” I pulled my shades down. “There are other things in life, you know?”

  “Really?” She asked, feigning stupid. “I never would have known.”

  “Well, now you do. I’m happy to have taught you something new.”

  “What would I do without you?” Shae asked sarcastically. “I’m just saying that there’s nothing wrong with getting a peek.”

  “Do you forget the fact that I have a boyfriend?”

  Shae frowned. “Oh, yeah.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  My boyfriend, Brendan, was sweet and nice as far as boyfriends went. And he definitely wasn’t anything like the guys that Shae went out with. I’d made sure of that after seeing Shae continuously getting her heart broken by the bad boy persona she tended to go after so much.

  She never seemed to learn her lesson. She tended to make the same mistake over and over again.

  “Nothing,” Shae said, quickly. “Don’t get so upset.”

  “Don’t offend me, and maybe I won’t.”

  I’d never had a boyfriend before Brendan. In high school, I was a nerd. The last thing on my mind was boys. The biggest importance in my life was studying and getting good grades so that I could get into a good college.

  I didn’t want everything in life handed to me just because my daddy happened to make a lot of money. I wanted to make a name for myself, apart from him. Besides, he hadn’t always had money. He’d grown into this new wealth for himself, but before that, my father and I had been close to poverty.

  And that was a place that neither of us ever wanted to be again. Besides, my father was too consumed by money to ever let that go.

  “I just think you can find someone better than Brendan.”

  How many times had I heard Shae preach this same message over the course of the last few months? She liked to tell me how far out of Brendan’s league I was even when I didn’t ask. I didn’t know what that was supposed to mean. Brendan was nice and cute enough to me.

  But then again, I’d never been in a relationship before. I wasn’t completely sure of what a relationship was supposed to be like. Since Brendan and I had started dating, Shae had never liked him, although she hadn’t ever given me a concrete reason why that was. She always just said that something about him seemed ‘off’ and ‘strange’ whatever that meant. But she was never willing to elaborate.

  Shae’s opinion didn’t matter much to me anyways. She didn’t get to have much of a say when every guy that she’d ever dated had broken her heart. Besides, I enjoyed the time that I spent with Brendan, regardless of what she said.

  He was like my best friend. Things were never tense when I was with him. I never had to worry about being a person that I wasn’t. I could just be myself, and wasn’t that supposed to be all that I wanted in a guy? Someone I could consider a friend? Wasn’t that what all of the love stories were about?

  “As you’ve been telling me since I started dating him.”

  “Just, listen to me, Clara.” She sat up, and her gaze turned to the ocean and the people around it. “There are millions of fish in the sea.” Her tongue licked her bottom lip. “Why settle for just one?”

  “Has being hurt so many times caused you to become a serial heartbreaker?” I raised an eyebrow at her.

  “Nothing wrong with breaking a few hearts.”

  “Not the kind of love story that I would like.”

  Shae lifted the glasses off of her head and looked back at me. “Who said anything about love?”

  I remembered when Shae wasn’t such a love cynic, but that had probably been about five men back. For some reason, she had the nasty habit of always managing to pick the wrong guys, although if she listened to me, she would have avoided the unnecessary heartbreak.

  But Shae was the kind of person who had to learn for herself. She liked to act like she was the only one who had ever experienced such intense feelings before. I wasn’t going to be the one to tell her differently.

  Brendan was exactly what I needed, in my chaotic life. A good majority of my time was spent studying or with my dad or with Shae. I didn’t spend all day with Brendan like I’d seen other couples do, but he didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. In fact, I think he preferred a relationship just like ours.

  “Maybe you’re pushing your past experiences onto Brendan because he’s one of the good guys, and that’s the easiest thing for you to do.” I shrugged because it could be true. She had been against him from the start.

  “Whatever,” Shae scoffed and rolled her eyes in pure Shae fashion that meant she could care less about what I said. But what did I expect from someone who was as self-oriented as she was? Or, had I forgotten that the world completely revolved around her?

  “Brendan’s been nothing but nice to you whenever he’s met you, and you’re still a bitch to him. Maybe it’s not him that’s not trying hard enough. It’s you, and it’s about time you started trying harder. He’s a big part of my life, whether you like that or not,
and you can’t run him off so will you please stop trying to?”

  Shae looked taken aback by my words, probably because I never actually stood up to her, usually. It wasn’t that Shae scared me, far from it, actually. I tended not to even attempt to deal with her drama, and the best way to do that was by keeping my mouth shut.

  But this was different.

  “Look, Clara, I love you, and I just want what’s best for you. You know how good I am at reading people, and something about him doesn’t feel right. I wouldn’t tell you if I really didn’t think it was the right thing to say.”

  Shae was the worst judge of character. But this was supposed to be our vacation, and I wouldn’t be dragged into another argument with her, especially not about Brendan.

  I lay back down against the chair, not about to let a petty argument ruin my vacation. I slipped a book out of my bag and lifted my sunglasses up so that I could see the words. I wasn’t the kind of person who played in the water or volleyball with friends. My ideal day at the beach was simply lounging and reading.

  Thankfully, this time around, Shae wasn’t forcing me to get into the water, so I had that to be grateful for. Instead, I could hide underneath the umbrella and simply enjoy my time in a book.

  “Oh, hello, you,” Shae purred, as she set her eyes on another man. She started making weird, cat calling noises, and I ignored her. She was my best friend, but even I had to admit that she was over the top boy crazy like an actual lunatic. That didn’t mean that I love her any less though.

  “You could put kids in me any day.” She continued commenting about this man. If I didn’t know her, I would think that she was drooling about this man. Wouldn’t that be a sight to see? Shae drooling? “Honey, where have you been all of my life?”