The Billionaire's Baby 1: A Single Dad Romance
Page 1
Table of Contents
The Billionaire's Baby 1
Copyright
Book description
1 - Jude
2 - Hollie
3 - Jude
4 - Hollie
5 - Jude
6 - Hollie
7 - Jude
Filthy Billionaires Sample
mASSterclass Sample
The Billionaire's Temptation Sample
The Billionaire's Baby 1
LILA BELLA
Copyright © 2017 by Lila Bella. All rights reserved worldwide.
No part of this publication may be replicated, redistributed, or given away in any form without the prior written consent of the author/publisher or the terms relayed to you herein.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
***
The Billionaire’s Baby
When they find out who I am, they always want to know what it’s like to f*ck a billionaire. Screw that. I’ve got a kid to take care of.
It’s true what they say: money can’t buy happiness. I can’t trust anybody, especially not all these gold diggers lining up outside my office. I don’t need another bimbo as my secretary–I’ve had more than enough already.
No. This time, I need someone who can take care of what I cherish the most in this world: my baby girl. My new nanny is the only good thing that happened to me and my daughter ever since my ex-wife left me.
But here’s the problem: I want her. She’s the most beautiful, most desirable woman I’ve ever seen–and I’ve seen a lot! I can’t risk it all. Giving in to the temptation could ruin everything... but I can’t help it: I’m falling for her.
1 - Jude
“Next.”
I rubbed my temples as the girl in front of me left my office in a huff, resume still in hand. When I’d placed the ad in the paper that I needed a nanny to watch my six-month-old daughter, Kaylee, I hadn’t quite expected the turnout I got.
Young, attractive women from all over the city and surrounding areas were lined up from my office door all the way down the hall. Once it rounded the corner, I had no idea how far the line went, but dreaded the idea that it may have wrapped around the whole floor.
I probably should have expected the response I received. In retrospect, it seemed silly and a bit short-sighted —stupid really—to expect a reasonable reaction to the ad, like people who were actually qualified and experienced nannies.
Attractive too would be a perk, but not this. Instead, I was interviewing an endless line of young girls who wanted to work for a billionaire, and saw this as the opportunity of a lifetime to meet their favorite celebrity.
“Please state your name, age, and current occupation.”
My script had become tedious after repeating the same statements and questions so many times. I didn’t even look up when the next girl came in.
I had a sheet of paper in front of me with a list of the things I needed to know, compiled by one of my assistants. I focused on it, not expecting anything special from any of the girls by now.
“I’m Hollie Reed, twenty-four, and currently in between jobs.”
I sighed and looked up, ready to tell her to stop wasting my time. I’d heard the story before. Many of these girls who claimed to be in between jobs were simply looking for their first employment opportunity, and this wasn’t going to be it.
But when I saw her, holding a single sheet of paper in her hand—I stopped myself. The person in front of me had golden brown hair, big brown eyes, and a dynamite body. She was short and petite, but her breasts were full and her hips had a nice round shape to them.
She was small, but she wasn’t a stick. She didn’t look like she’d starved herself before coming into my office. Her slacks hugged her waist but fell loosely to the floor around her legs. Her low-cut top showed enough cleavage to make me want to see more.
But what really got me was the look on her face.
When I first looked up, she was looking at the floor bashfully, staring down at her feet instead of looking directly at me and begging me to hire her with her eyes. She looked like she didn’t even expect to be considered, but when I didn’t respond to her immediately, she looked up and our eyes met.
We both froze for a moment and she took a sharp breath, gasping as if it shocked her when our gaze met.
“Can I see your resume?” I held out my hand for it, trying to appear professional and unaffected.
“Yes, sir.” She stepped forward and handed it to me.
I glanced over it without actually reading anything. I was merely using it to distract myself from those deep eyes and delicious lips. I needed a moment to collect myself before moving on.
“Do you know who I am?” I was straying from the script, and my assistants in the room reacted to the departure by glancing at each other. The room held its breath, waiting to see where I was going with this new line of questioning. I was curious as well.
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, I appreciate that you’re being polite and humble, but you can scrap the sirs and all of that. You know my name, I’m sure.”
She glanced down again. “Jude Black.”
“And what do I do?”
“You run your own business.”
I sat back and narrowed my eyes. She wasn’t star struck the way the others had been. She probably only knew who I was because a friend told her, I suppose. She didn’t know that I ran an investment firm, that every time she spent ten dollars on something to eat, I shuffled a few million between accounts.
After seeing so many young women who were only there to bask in my presence, it was far more exciting to see someone who knew very little about me. To be sure, I continued.
“What does my company do?”
“I’m sorry, I’m not really sure. I don’t follow all of that.”
She shook her head and finally looked back up at me. The shy, bashful quality was gone from her stare now. She looked at me with confidence in her answer. I’d broken through her defenses, and the person I was staring at was really her.
“I appreciate your honesty. How do you feel about looking after a baby girl? About changing her diapers and making sure she’s fed, bathed, and gets enough rest?”
There were still alarmed looks on the faces of my employees as I continued to ignore the script on my desk.
“I feel confident I can handle it.” She blinked, but kept her eyes on mine.
I watched her lips form her words, wondering how they would have felt against mine. I would have preferred it if we’d been talking about anything other than hiring her to watch Kaylee.
She was the kind of girl I would have taken out on a date, inviting her home at the end of the night to ravage that tight little body of hers.
“I don’t need to hear any more. I think I’ve heard enough.”
Her shoulders slumped, and she turned to walk out of the room, but I stopped her.
“Hold on, Hollie.” I held up a hand to stop her and turned to address the employees assisting me. “You can send everyone else home.”
“But, sir,” my secretary protested.
“No, I have my girl.” I turned back to Hollie, who was looking at me with shock in her eyes. “Hollie, can you start immediately?”
“Yeah, sure.” She blinked and nodded, finally allowing herself to smile as she realized it was really happening.
“Great. Let’s give my assistants a moment to clear out the hallway and we’ll get going. I want to take you to the house so you can meet Kaylee and get acquainted with everything.”
I stoo
d up, gathering all the papers on my desk into one pile, to be handled another time.
“Thank you so much.”
“Don’t mention it. Thank you for coming in today to save me.” I adjusted my tie and buttoned my suit jacket.
“We’re clear,” a member of my security team told me, meaning that the pack of girls in the hallway was gone.
He escorted me to the car, where my driver waited to take us home. I offered to stop and pick up anything Hollie needed from her place, but she said she was fine and didn’t need anything from home. I told her that someone would be able to take her any time she needed to go.
When we arrived, a member of my staff opened the door to let us out of the car, and we walked into the house. I could see the wonder in her eyes as she surveyed the grounds of my estate, from the low wall running along the front of the property to the fountain in front of the house, to the two-story expanse of my home.
Once inside, I led her to the kitchen and sat her down at the table.
“Before you meet Kaylee, we need to talk about a few things,” I told her.
I could already see it in her eyes. She was searching for my daughter, and possibly starting to worry that it was all a hoax to get her alone with me in the house.
I didn’t need to play games to get girls in my house. If I’d simply wanted to take her home, I would have, just as I’d told her she had the job without going over all the points my secretary had prepared.
I didn’t need to do all of that. If I wanted her to be my nanny, she was going to be my nanny.
“First off, you will be staying here with my daughter. You will be on the clock twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Kaylee doesn’t take holidays or weekends off, so neither will you.”
“Right.” She nodded in agreement.
“I have a guestroom upstairs already prepared for you.”
She nodded again to let me know she was following me still.
“Anything you need, let a member of my staff know, and they’ll get it for you. Make a shopping list, and I’ll have one of them run out to pick it up. You will be responsible for handling all of Kaylee’s needs, so use my staff when you need their assistance. That’s why they’re here.”
She nodded again. “Right.”
So far she seemed pretty compliant, but I wanted to test her, to see how far she was willing to go for me. I wanted to know my limits with her.
“You’re my employee now, so there may be times when I have to ask you to perform tasks that may seem out of line with your position. Are you okay with that?” I cocked an eyebrow.
“That’s fine. Whatever you need, I’m here to serve you.” She broke our gaze to look me over, making a very obvious display of it.
“You’ll do fine then.” I grinned. She was good. I wondered just how good she was.
I had to remind myself she was there to do a job. It was the first time a woman had been in my house since Marie, my ex-fiancé, left me with Kaylee—other than staffers, of course.
I’d spent a couple of weeks trying to care for Kaylee on my own while working full-time and juggling all of my other responsibilities, before letting one of my staffers bring his sister in to watch Kaylee while I was at work most days.
Having Hollie there meant someone else was going to be able to care for my daughter, full-time.
The guys had suggested getting a nanny first, after watching me struggle to maintain the balance between taking care of her every need and taking care of work.
Of course, I’d been so swamped, I hadn’t even thought out getting someone else to do it for me. I was too focused on trying to hold it together.
With Hollie sitting in front of me, her perfect body and willingness to serve me, I was glad I had listened to them. She immediately brought something in that the house badly needed—a feminine presence.
It changed the atmosphere in my home the moment she walked in. I hoped Kaylee would respond to her as well as I had.
“When do I get to meet your daughter?” Hollie’s voice broke the silence between us, shattering it like glass and bringing me back from my thoughts.
“Right now,” I told her, “she’s up in the nursery where one of my staffers is watching her.”
Rebecca, my cook’s sister, had become a part-time member of the team over the last few weeks while she sat with Kaylee during the day. It was merely a babysitting job for her, but I needed someone to take over full time, even when I was home.
To be honest, I had no idea what I was doing when it came to taking care of my child. I made sure she was changed, fed, and bathed as needed, but neither one of us really knew what to do beyond that.
She seemed to regard me with caution and suspicion, even at six months old. I felt bad, but I also knew she needed someone who could really care for her at a deeper level.
“We can take a tour of the house on the way up there,” I told Hollie, as I led her out of the kitchen and into the rest of the house.
None of the bedrooms were downstairs. They were all upstairs, and her room was right next to the nursery. My room was on the other side, keeping Kaylee right between us, so I wouldn’t have to worry about her in the middle of the night.
After showing her where everything else was, we finally got to the nursery. Introducing my daughter to this beautiful stranger was going to be a big step, I knew. It was the first time I’d felt any sense of reservation at letting someone I didn’t know around her.
I opened the door to find Rebecca quietly reading a book while Kaylee slept in her crib. Rebecca held a finger up to her lips to shush us as we opened the door, without even looking up from the novel in her lap.
“Here she is,” I whispered, leading the nanny over to where Kaylee lay peacefully sleeping.
She walked in front of me, letting me finally get a good look at her from behind. If we’d been anywhere else, I wouldn’t have been able to control my urge to grab her and make her mine.
But as she bent over the side of the crib, those thoughts were brushed aside. I knew I’d chosen the right person.
2 - Hollie
“She’s adorable. What’s her name?”
I looked up at Jude. He stood next to me, watching my reaction to his daughter.
I figured it was part of his test to see if I was fit to be his nanny—I knew very well from the look on his face while we were talking in the kitchen that I was as much his as I was his daughter’s. I decided to play up my reaction for him, to let him know I really was the right choice for the job.
“Kaylee,” he said, glancing past me to look at his beautiful infant daughter.
“She’s beautiful. Can I pick her up?” I was torn between asking for permission and simply doing it, even though I was the nanny now and it was something I was going to have to do a lot of, I was sure.
“Go right ahead.” He sounded surprised that I was eager to get her in my arms, but I wasn’t as eager to bond with her as I was to prove myself.
I hadn’t actually worked with children before. I’d taken care of kids for my friends before, and when I was younger, I’d watched my little cousins on occasion, but I’d never been paid to watch someone’s child.
With Kaylee it was going to be more than watching her. I was going to be acting as her mother until she was old enough not to need a nanny—I was only speculating about the time; I really didn’t know how long he was going to need me.
It didn’t matter, the important thing was that I knew I had a job for at least the time being.
I stared down at the beautiful little baby in the crib. She was asleep, so I decided it would be better if I waited. I grinned and stood back up, shaking my head.
“I don’t want to wake her, so I’ll wait until later.”
He nodded to the woman who’d been sitting in the room with Kaylee, letting her know, I supposed, that it was okay to leave his daughter with me. She closed the book in her lap and got up, leaving the room as quietly as she’d been sitting in it.
I got the fe
eling she’d only been keeping an eye on Kaylee as needed. Jude confirmed as much when he looked back at me.
“That was Rebecca. She is my cook’s sister and has been helping out by keeping an eye on Kaylee when I’m at work, a few times a week.”
I nodded. I didn’t understand why he didn’t get her to be the nanny for his daughter, but I figured it was better not to ask. If he wanted me to know, he would have explained it to me.
Instead, I looked back down at the beautiful, sleeping baby. I would get to meet her for real when she woke up, I was sure.
“Come on, let’s go downstairs.” He grabbed the baby monitor and handed it to me so I could hear her if she woke up or needed anything.
As we walked back through the house, I couldn’t believe I was going to be staying in this multi-million dollar home with him, or that we were going to be sleeping only a couple of rooms apart. He was going to be there when I went to bed at night and when I woke up every morning.
I was going to be under the same roof as this delicious man leading me back downstairs, meaning I was going to be able to catch a glimpse of his body at some point. I was dying to know what he looked like under that suit.
I wondered how muscular he was under those clothes. He seemed slim enough, with strong shoulders and a chiseled face. He wore his dark wavy hair cut short, but it looked like there was enough to run my fingers through. He had gorgeous blue eyes that were the same color as the sky.
Kaylee was still asleep when we sat down at the table in the kitchen again. We could have gone to the pool out back or into the living room with the large plush couch.
We could have even gone up to his room so we were nearby when she woke up. There were many places to go, and we could have used the surfaces in any of them to express the desire between us.
Instead, he avoided eye contact once we reached the kitchen, opting to pour himself a glass of water, offering me one as well before showing me where everything was—the beer, wine, milk, baby formula, and anything else I could have wanted.
I took a glass of water, not wanting to drink wine or anything like that during the day with his daughter around. I wanted to play it safe with him, as safe as possible so I didn’t have any trouble.