Not his baby: A BWWM Billionaire Romance

by Rebecca Dupree

  Not his baby

  Published by Rebecca Dupree, 2018

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.

  Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.

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  Table of Contents

  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

  The Billionaire's Nanny

  More Books by BWWM United

  Chapter 1

  Gina Sellers’ car drove deafeningly into the Reid Realty parking lot, leaving an unmistakable trail of smoke coming out of the rusty, barely-hanging-in-there exhaust pipe. The paint was peeling on the sides, the tires were in dire need of a change, and the engine oil level needed checking, but this was out of the question for now. Gina knew that much. She was a relatively good driver who usually took good care of her car, especially now that it was her only luxury in life.

  She wasn’t one to be burning rubber on the highway, but she was skilled enough to do a good job of pull-in parking. Her gymnast backbone was arched in perfect alignment with the seat as she squeezed the steering wheel confidently, making sure not to graze either of the two cars that were preventing her from parking with ease.

  After a few seconds of successful maneuvering, she turned off the engine and grabbed the big blue bag that was riding shotgun. It was full to the brim, and every time she wanted to find something in it, she found this to be a Sisyphean task. She had all sorts of junk in there, mainly because she was unwilling to get rid of anything, especially given her current circumstances. There were so few things she was able to keep, to call her own, that even a pack of gum from months ago, gum that she’d probably never even chew, seemed like a treasured memento.

  You’re being silly with this bag, she’d tell herself every time she tried to find her wallet in this mess of things. You didn’t used to be like this. What happened? She’d criticize herself for transforming from a slight neat freak into this oh-it’s-perfectly-fine kind of person. It made her sad to think what her mom would have thought of all this.

  In any case, this situation she found herself in was something she had never expected to happen—ever. And now that it had, well, it seemed she was caught totally off guard, without any solid ground to stand on, and she was just playing it by ear. After all, the kind of debt she was in at the moment didn’t allow for much leeway however she looked at it.

  Okay, you can do this. Nothing to it. She gave herself a little pep talk as she eyed herself in the rearview mirror. She had to admit she looked good, even though she was taught that beauty was only skin deep. She didn’t possess the classic beauty women were usually portrayed as having in literature. Under no circumstances could she be considered to have the build of a runway model, but her curvy, petite frame, enshrouded in dark chocolate skin and topped off with even darker eyes, had an appeal of its own. She’d been blessed with flawless skin, though not due to too much pampering. Gina had always been a believer in simplicity, about finding satisfaction in being neat and clean. She liked to think she had an inner glow that others might see as beauty, a glow that came not out of her being considered pretty, but as a good person.

  You can do this. She repeated the phrase again, for the millionth time this month. After quickly running a brush through her curly hair, she grabbed her blue bag and got out of the car. Not really knowing why, she felt shaky as the soles of her ballerina flats hit the hard concrete stairs, leading into the fancy new building of Reid Realty. She could already feel herself sweating a little, and thanked her lucky stars she’d followed her roommate’s advice and wore a light ivory blouse that allowed for some much needed air conditioning, plus the fabric didn’t really show any possible sweat stains. Jill sometimes knows what she’s talking about. The cool breeze of the building’s interior promised her a day of freshness as long as she stayed within the building walls, which she was actually supposed to do for the next couple of hours anyway.

  The mechanical door welcomed her inside, and the sound of her ballerina flats informed the receptionist that she had arrived. Gina smiled at the androgynous-looking secretary, with her short hair, no makeup, and nails bitten to bone. This lady wasn’t the kind of employee Gina expected to see at an elegant place like this.

  “Hi there,” she said, smiling sweetly at the woman, who quickly lifted her blank gaze from her computer. “I’m…starting in housekeeping today. I was told to talk to you about instructions?”

  “Oh, yes. You are…” the receptionist checked her computer screen again, “…Gina Sellers.”

  “Guilty as charged.” She smiled, but there was no smile back.

  “Yes.” The receptionist eyed Gina. “Go left at the elevators, then down the corridor. First door to the right. Ricky should be there to give you further instructions.” Having concluded her statement, she turned her attention back to her screen.

  “Thank you.” There was something else Gina wanted to ask, but refrained from doing so.

  “Anything else I can help you with?” the receptionist asked briskly, noticing that Gina remained standing there.

  “No, no. Thank you.” Gina quickly went toward the elevators, as instructed, feeling like a scolded child.

  As she was passing through the corridor, she brushed past a handsome young man in his early thirties with his face buried in a document as he walked, obviously in quite a rush. As they passed each other, the swift motion of his elbow shoved her in the arm. It didn’t really hurt, but that was beside the point. Gina made a disgruntled noise as she kept on walking, rubbing the spot the rude guy elbowed, and she took a deep breath, then finally decided to let it go. Usually, she wouldn’t, being the kind of person who believed in an eye for an eye, but she didn’t want to make a scene her first day on the job.

  Gina’s desire to get revenge on anyone who wronged her stemmed from a school play in elementary school. One of the girls pushed her during the performance and Gina ended up on all fours, in front of the entire school, including all the parents, and even her crush, who was standing right next to her. So, when an opportunity arose for Gina to return the favor, she did. She put nettle leaves in the girl’s costume, and when it was time to raise the curtain, the unlucky girl was twitching like an epileptic, with everyone laughing, thinking it was a joke. Gina had to admit feeling a little sorry afterward, seeing the girl with a red rash all over her body that took over a week to heal, but getting even was more important than anything else.

  Let it go, Gina. She calmed herself down, took a deep breath, and continued onward. What she failed to notice was that the man who had bumped into her was none oth
er than Tyler Reid. Not being a reader of the tabloid press, which was always chock full of photographs with Tyler and different models every other week, there was no reason for her to know who he was. As he pressed the button for the elevator, he finally lifted his gaze from the document he was so intent on reading just seconds ago. Gina’s lingering perfume made him turn around, and only then did it hit him that he bumped against someone. It was like a flashback, and his brain was being slightly late in registering what had just happened. His first instinct was to call after this woman and apologize, but she was too far down the corridor for him to shout. And besides, the sight of her swaying booty gave him much more pleasure. Her tight jeans accentuated her figure perfectly, as her hips danced in the air, left to right.

  He had no idea who this woman was, whether she was a new employee or not, but he couldn’t stop staring at her butt. It was as if a magnetic force was keeping his eyes glued to her posterior, which was no wonder. Then the sound of the arriving elevator shook him from his reverie, and upon taking one last look at the disappearing figure, the doors closed upon him.

  Gina found the janitorial office easily, and upon opening the door, was met with a beaming face of a man of sixty or so dressed in a grey janitor’s uniform.

  “You must be Gina!” His smile felt reassuring, especially after the automated response she got from the receptionist. It made her happy to discover there were people there who actually smiled upon meeting someone new. “Come in, come in!” he urged.

  Gina extended her hand in a gesture of friendship. “I’m Gina. You must be Ricky.” She returned his smile. “May I call you that?” Gina had been taught that elders deserved her respect, no matter what their status in society was. She was happy to give him his due.

  “Sí, sí!” He exclaimed. “It’s Enrique really, but everyone here calls me Ricky. And don’t let this old body fool ya,” he said with a mischievous wink. “I may be sixty-four, but I’m as fit as a thirty year-old!” He laughed, and she couldn’t help but join in. She immediately knew she liked him.

  “I’d love to chit-chat, Bonita, but we’ve got work to do. I’ve been waiting for you to arrive so I can show you around.”

  Ricky filled her in quickly but effectively on where the cleaning supplies were kept, her duties, the schedule, and where she was to begin.

  “You’ll start with the conference room. The big boss needs it for this afternoon, and I was instructed to let you do it, so that they can see if you do a good job or not.”

  “Well, it’s cleaning. How difficult can it be?” Gina smiled.

  “Oh, no, no.” Ricky suddenly turned serious. “You have no idea how uptight the big boss can be about cleanliness. He’s sort of a…well, a neat freak, so you might wanna make sure you do an extra good job. And you didn’t hear this from me—” he took a cautious look around “—but, so far, every helper I’ve had has been fired for some reason. Every single one of them.” He emphasized every word of his last sentence, making it very dramatic.

  Gina swallowed heavily.

  “Not to frighten you or anything, Bonita, but watch your back. Lots of people here are mal, you know? Bad. They’ll stab you in the back just for looking at them the wrong way. Pure malice. So, do a good job and watch out.” Ricky placed a hand gently on her shoulder, in a show of support.

  “I really appreciate all the advice, Ricky. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “I’d like to see you stay here, that’s why I’m doing it. I like you, Bonita. You’re my kinda people.” He winked at her again, getting his little janitorial cart with all the necessities. It made her happy to know she had at least one ally in this place. “Now, let’s get to work.”

  Gina wasn’t too happy to discover they had a horrible janitorial uniform for everyone. Hers couldn’t even be called decent, but at least it was comfortable for work purposes. And besides, she wasn’t there to look pretty. She was there to do a good job and get paid for it.

  “Shall we?” she asked, and Ricky gallantly offered her his arm.

  Ricky escorted Gina to the conference room and left her there, wishing her good luck. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d need all the good luck she could get.

  “Well, let’s get a move on,” she told herself out loud, and rolled up her sleeves. Darned if she wasn’t going to do the best cleaning job this so-called big boss had ever seen.

  Chapter 2

  Tyler Reid, aka the big boss, sat comfortably in his big leather chair in front of a huge mahogany desk. It held no personal items, no framed photographs, no gifts from friends and family. For him, this was a place of work, and sentimentality had no business being there.

  As he would often tell his young assistant, Benjamin Williams, “It’s as simple as that: if you want to succeed, you have to give it your all. Your focus, your strength, your time, your hard work—without any distractions. Then, when you return home, you’re free to spend that time any way you want. There has to be a proper division. Only this way can you create a successful business empire. Worked for me, didn’t it?”

  Tyler suspected Benjamin didn’t entirely agree, despite his nods.

  Tyler felt Benjamin, after seven years with the company, believed he deserved a promotion, but Tyler wanted to wait. He believed Benjamin lacked a certain level of people skills, which was a crucial necessity in the realty business. Benjamin simply didn’t have the face or the grace for it, and Tyler knew that eventually he’d have to do something about it; but he kept postponing the situation for as long as possible, seeing that he sort of felt sorry for Benjamin, who’d put everything on the line and lost it for his job. Not that he was in the habit of snooping around when it came to his employees, but he found out, one way or another, that Benjamin had lost his long-time girlfriend to this job, and even some of his friends. And despite what anyone said, Tyler Reid wasn’t the kind of guy who turned his back on those who had been by his side for years. He’d make it work somehow (he just didn’t know how yet) so Benjamin had to be put on hold for the time being.

  “Is the rental agreement ready?” Tyler asked, eyeing his half-full coffee mug.

  “The one for the Thornton house?” Benjamin asked, fumbling inside his sleek leather briefcase. “Yes, I’ve got it right here…somewhere…” He took out a bundle of disordered papers, trying to find the specific rental agreement.

  Tyler grabbed his mug and took a long sip while he waited. The coffee had already gotten cold, but he didn’t mind.

  “You know, you could put that thing in better order.” He pointed the mug at the open briefcase, which seemed to have an endless supply of papers of all shapes and sizes. “It’d help you find things faster. Make life easier…for both of us.”

  “Yes, yes, Mr. Reid, I know…and I was about to do it, I mean I will do it…” Benjamin was clearly becoming nervous as he clumsily continued looking for the elusive rental agreement as Tyler looked on, sipping his semi-cold coffee.

  “Okay, let me know when you find it. And make sure it’s within the next hour or so.” Tyler frowned slightly, brushing a lock of hair that tended to fall into his eyes. He’d wasted enough time today waiting for Benjamin to get it together.

  Tyler knew people both in and out of the office considered him to be a playboy, the kind of man who both worked hard and played hard. Not that anybody could blame him. Making such a monster of a realty company basically from scratch took a whole lot of guts, time, and hard work.

  “So, I ran into a real hottie today,” Tyler suddenly said after a long-enough, pregnant pause. He saw the surprise in Benjamin’s eyes. This wasn’t usually the kind of thing he talked about. He was just trying to make conversation while Benjamin cleaned up that mess in his briefcase. “Do you know if we’ve hired anyone new lately?”

  “No, not really.” Benjamin paused from stuffing another group of papers into his briefcase, bending the corners as he did so. “Why?”

  “Just asking.” Tyler looked out the window, which overlooked the entire cit
y of White Plains, the business district that was like a mini-Manhattan, which lay thirty miles to the south. Every time he did so, it gave him a feeling of invincibility. “Who’s been doing the hiring lately? Still Jeanie?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “I’ll have to have a talk with Jeanie, then.” Tyler was still looking out the window, his fingers drumming silently against the mahogany desk, raising the tension Benjamin’s clumsiness was creating.

  “Now, if I could just find that agreement. I, uh, guess I’ll have to get it to you. Within the hour,” Benjamin weakly concluded.

  “See that you do.” Tyler dismissed him with a quick glance, then focused his attention on the thick folder in front of him that awaited his attention.

  Benjamin gathered up his remaining papers in one big clumsy swoop of both hands and rushed outside the door. He wasn’t usually this clumsy, and when he closed the door on the outside, he let all the papers rest on the little desk that was nestled cozily in a corner of the empty outer office area. Then he made a fist and bumped himself on the head several times.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” he angrily whispered to himself. “That’s not how you get a promotion, you idiot!” He squinted hard, wanting to make the last half hour disappear as he kept bumping his own head with a fist.

  When he opened his eyes several seconds later, he saw Jeanie’s widened eyes staring at him in disbelief. Where had she come from? She hadn’t been at her desk a minute ago.

  “Oh, hey…Jeanie…” His mind raced for an explanation for his weird behavior that wouldn’t send Jeanie off running to her friends in accounting to tell them what a nutcase he was.

  She kept staring at him, disbelief turned into amusement, as if gathering the willpower to tear herself away from this spectacle and go back to work.

  “I’ll just get going now…” he finally muttered, grabbing papers and briefcase and rushing toward his own office, as Jeanie’s bewildered stare lingered on.