The Freeman Brothers: A Secret Baby Romance Collection

by Natasha L. Black

  As we sat and ate, we chatted about the meeting, and specifically Mr. Fuller. Amanda was an animated talker, and I enjoyed listening to her rant about how rude the old man was. I knew she was too much of a professional to say anything like that outside of my company, but I got to see the real Amanda.

  For the last six years, I had grown to rely on her to keep functioning at my best on a daily basis. Not only was she a model employee, but I enjoyed her company on lunch breaks and business retreats. She was invaluable, and I appreciated her presence and her ability to make my work life much easier.

  As we spoke, I tossed out an idea, using her as my sounding board as I often did. Together we began to cobble together a few ideas that could double our profits for the remaining portion of the quarter. This way I could show Mr. Fuller exactly how wrong he was to be so pessimistic. And maybe he’d stop calling me Tom.

  When we got back to work, I went into my office and dove into the paperwork for the day. Usually, I hated paperwork and would procrastinate doing it until the end of the day, but I was in such a good mood I wanted to knock it out and celebrate a little. Suddenly a thought hit me, and I pressed the button on the side of my phone and asked Amanda to come to my office.

  Moments later, Amanda arrived at my door. I looked up at her tall, curvy frame and for a moment, noticed how pretty she was. I shook my head to toss those thoughts away.

  “Amanda, did you send out those emails this morning?” I asked.

  “Knocked that out when I got here,” she said.

  “Awesome.” I shook my head as I looked down at the papers on my desk. “I do not know what I would do without you.”

  “Oh, you know,” she said, waving me off, “fail miserably and be lost at sea. Something like that.”

  I laughed loudly and she giggled, one hand moving up to rest on the doorframe for a second. She reached up and brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and took a deep breath in. Her smile dazzled from across the room.

  “So, is there anything else, or did you just call me in here to grill me about something you could have sent a text for?” she asked, teasingly.

  “No, that’s all. You can go back to… doing whatever it is you do when you’re caught up on all my insanity,” I said.

  “I am never fully caught up on your insanity, Mr. Anderson,” she said through a grin. Something about the way she smiled and said my name made my stomach tighten. “But I manage to find things to fill any downtime I do have.”

  “I am sure you do. Thank you, Amanda,” I said.

  She nodded and turned, heading back to her desk in the bullpen area of the upper floor. I made sure that her desk was never too far from mine due to her incredible value to me. But today I was almost sad I hadn’t put her desk on the other side of the room, just to have a few more moments to watch her walk away.

  Her ass was tight under her skirt, and I couldn’t help but stare at her as she walked to her desk and then slid into her chair. Her long legs, in black stockings, crossed at the heels as she opened the jacket button in the front and leaned down over her desk and turned on her tablet. My thoughts wandered into a territory that wasn’t exactly uncharted, and I chastised myself for it immediately.

  I was her boss. I had to remember that. There were rules about how a boss and an employee were supposed to interact, and no matter what actions I may or may not take, thinking like I was thinking was dangerous. No matter how hot she looked, I needed to keep my eyes straight ahead. She was the forbidden fruit.

  I couldn’t even have a taste.

  I got home just after six, the rush-hour traffic holding me back and reminding me daily of the biggest downside to having such a prominently placed office. I preferred to live a little further out, still in the city, but in a quieter area of town.

  The enormous and empty mansion that I had bought for myself sat on the top of one of the infamous San Francisco hills. As I gave my eco-friendly car a nudge, I silently missed my old gas-guzzling sports car from home. That kind of vehicle was a no-go here, though, and especially not for someone as high-powered as I was. I’d be crucified in the papers.

  Stepping inside, I tossed my jacket and undid my tie. There were emails that were already filling up my inbox, but Amanda would sort them and send me an overview before nine.

  In the six years since I’d hired her, I had built an empire and made more money than I knew what to do with. But the loneliness of the house was prominent, as it was devoid of any housekeepers or cooks who had already left, ensuring the laundry was done and put away and meals sitting in the refrigerator.

  As usual, I had one of two options of dealing with it. I could head down to my gym and work out until I couldn’t feel my emotions anymore over the physical exhaustion, or I could head to the study and open up the liquor cabinet. Convincing myself that I was celebrating the great numbers and successful meeting, I headed to the study, kicking off my shoes and putting on thick slippers in the process. I would change into pajamas after a shower and sit in the room reading later. But for now, I just wanted to get the party started.

  Three generous pours of whiskey later, and I decided to forgo the shower. Stripping down to my boxers, I threw on a comfortable robe, headed back into the study, and told my electronic assistant to open the panel in the wall. A large television revealed itself, and I pulled the entire bottle of twenty-year-old scotch with me and sat heavily on my leather chair, putting on something to distract me from the fact that no one sat in the chair beside mine.

  I didn’t even bother pouring the scotch into a glass.

  2

  Amanda

  My grandmother always used to say that there were morning people and there were night people, then there was me. It was because even when I was young, I started my day at that kind of time so offensive to most people, neither night nor day wanted to claim it. It was too dark to be considered morning, but night had already given up on it and attached the A.M. designation.

  While most children visiting their grandparents for vacation hit the snooze button as many times as they possibly could and lay around the house for the better portion of the day, come first light, I was already outside helping my grandmother garden. By then I had already gotten up, gotten dressed, and had usually played for a little while I waited for her to be ready.

  I didn’t know what it was about me that made me want to hit the ground running at an hour when the only ones awake were the IRS and God. But that was the way it always was, and it didn’t get any different as I got older. If anything, I tried to find as many ways as possible to trim down how much sleep I needed.

  There was far too much to do every day to waste it with my head stuffed under a pillow. It was the reason my dormmates in college hated me, and why nobody wanted to room with me when I got my first apartment. And why, even now, I was always the first person to get to the office in the morning.

  I was twenty-three years old when I first started working for Tom Anderson. For the first several months I worked at the office, I showed up at the building so early the only person there was security. Considering the guard didn’t just sit there at the front of the building and wait for people to materialize, I always had to wait for him to finish his rounds and come back through the lobby to notice me.

  He would let me in, albeit begrudgingly, and at some point during the day, Tom would come by my desk to point out the security guard complained about me getting there so early. After a while, those visits turned into just him making note of the time I had shown up at the office. It almost became a game to him. Like the night before he would make a guess and wait to see if the next morning he was right.

  It took six months of being Tom’s secretary and annoying the security guard by showing up so early before my boss finally just gave me my own code to the building. Since there were security cameras monitoring every door and I still had to swipe my employee identification card before putting my code in, it was fairly secure.

  My years working with Tom were more than eno
ugh to teach me there was always the possibility of something coming up. It was better to be a touch too ambitious and have your work done pre-dawn than it was to get caught in an unexpected situation and end up behind.

  That morning I was sipping on my second cup of hazelnut coffee of the day when I arrived at my desk. I settled in and made sure I had everything I needed before firing up my computer. I reviewed the calendar for the day and picked up the phone.

  One of the perks of my unconventional hours was being able to handle time differences far more smoothly than many other people. And since Paris was nine hours ahead of San Francisco, when I needed to call our sister company, my early arrival worked in my favor. Getting to the office and hopping on the phone when many of my colleagues were still asleep meant being able to catch the Paris office in the middle of the afternoon rather than when they had already gotten off for the day.

  The phone call connected on the second ring, and a familiar lilting voice answered in French.

  “Good morning, Celeste,” I said.

  As soon as she heard my voice, the secretary switched over to English.

  “Good morning, Amanda,” she said.

  I started to continue on the conversation in English, then stopped myself.

  “No, let’s try it in French,” I said. “I’ve been working really hard on my lessons, and I want to practice.”

  If it had been anyone else who answered, I wouldn’t have tried that, but Celeste and I had formed a friendship over the years since the sister company started. She was the one who’d encouraged me to learn French. This way I would be able to more effectively communicate with our Paris office.

  It hadn’t been long since I started taking the lessons, so the practice was valuable.

  Once I had the meetings, conference calls, and online webinars put into place, I got off the phone with Celeste. She said something to me in French, wished me luck on my lessons, and we said we would speak soon.

  After our conversation was done, I switched my focus to local vendors and clients. There was another list of arrangements that needed to be made that would fill out Tom’s calendar for the next several weeks. Sometimes it could get overwhelming trying to juggle the sheer volume of demands on his time. It was a good thing that I was ultra-organized.

  When I’d first started working for Tom, he was a mess. I would never say that to his face. Or, maybe I would, but I would make sure he thought I was teasing him. He was completely unorganized and had no idea how to keep himself on track.

  I later found out this was his first company. Rather than being like so many others and starting out business ventures very small and gradually building them, he had jumped right into what turned out to be a tremendous success. He was still climbing that ladder, but the only way he was going to get anywhere was if he didn’t miss all of his appointments and drown in his paperwork first.

  That was where I came in. I made sure his calendar was kept up-to-date and organized so he knew what he was supposed to be doing and when. I kept his day structured. I even took on the role of being his companion for lunch and listen to his ideas and plans like I had the day before.

  I hesitated to go so far as to say he and I were friends. If I convinced myself that we were friends, it would break down the professionalism between us, and I didn’t want to do that. It would blur lines I couldn’t allow to be blurred. This job meant the world to me, and I wasn’t going to do anything that could even come close to risking it.

  He was kind and polite to me. He recognized my hard work and was appreciative of everything I did for him. Yet, we also had a comfortable rapport that let us talk and have fun together when we weren’t working.

  I had no intention of us ever stepping outside of that professional bubble. I wasn’t going to be inviting him out to do karaoke with me over a few beers or anything. But it was nice being comfortable at work and enjoying what I did.

  And one of the most important things I did was create a to-do list for him every day. Separate from his calendar that kept track of his meetings, conferences, and other obligations, this list broke down his day into all the individual tasks he needed to do to stay on track.

  At first, it felt inappropriate to try to manage his disarray. He didn’t hire me to be his life coach or his handler. I was his secretary, but I couldn’t stand seeing how inefficient he was and listening to him get flustered over things he forgot to do.

  Hence, the daily to-do list was born. He went from being all over the place to staying focused, and the difference was noticeable immediately. After that, the list was there to stay.

  I had already breezed through the better part of my morning tasks when my colleagues started to arrive. Tom strolled into the office at exactly nine as he did every day.

  After giving him a few minutes to settle into his office, I grabbed my tablet, his day planner, and a pen and headed in. I rapped my knuckles on his partially open door before peeking inside.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  “Good morning, Amanda,” he replied. “Come on in.”

  I updated him on the Paris team and showed him all the meetings that I’d set up. They were recorded both on the shared, mutually accessible calendar on my tablet, as well as actually written down in his day planner. As much as I appreciated technology and the efficiency it offered in many of my tasks, I was still a paper-and-pen type of girl.

  “Thank you,” he said. “This all looks fantastic. I have no idea how you’re able to accomplish this much at this time of day.”

  “Coffee and the sleep routine mentality of a giraffe,” I quipped.

  I could feel him looking at me strangely as I walked toward the door to his office. I looked over my shoulder at him. “They only sleep for about twenty-three minutes a day.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Fun fact of the day.”

  I smiled at him and headed back to my desk. Putting the tablet and a planner aside, I opened a document on my computer and took out my notepad. It was time for me to create my own to-do list. I generally made a couple of these lists for myself a day.

  As soon as I finished the list, I buried myself in work. There was so much to do I barely came up for a breath until Landon showed up beside my desk.

  “Hey, Amanda,” he said. “Do you know if he’s busy?”

  I laughed. “Is he ever not busy?”

  “Fair point,” he said. “I guess my question is do you know how busy he is?”

  “He’s right in the middle of a conference call. He’ll be taking his lunch at his desk.”

  “Ah,” Landon said. “That answers my next question.”

  “Which was?” I asked.

  “Whether he had eaten lunch yet.”

  I laughed. “Yes, he has.”

  I knew that the two men had been close friends for a long time. They worked extremely well together, but also still talked to each other like guys just hanging out. This was good for Tom. It helped to keep him from getting too serious and bogged down with his work. Not that that didn’t happen occasionally anyway.

  “Have you had lunch?” Landon asked.

  “Not yet,” I said. “It’s been a really busy day.”

  “Well, then you deserve a break. Come on. I don’t want to eat by myself.”

  As much as I would have just kept right on working, I probably did need at least a little bit of a break. I finished up the last bit of the tasks I was working on, then grabbed my purse, and we headed out.

  Landon took us to a little deli right up the road where we often had lunch. It had some of the best boxed lunches in the city.

  On my way up to the counter, I ordered a boxed lunch for Tom. He had eaten his little microwave cup of soup, but that wasn’t enough. I wanted to make sure he had enough food to get him through the day. I ordered what I knew was his favorite because I had ordered it for him to be delivered to the office multiple times before.

  Landon and I headed back to work, and I went into Tom’s office. He was still on the phone, so I crept o
ver to his desk quietly and set the little white box down on it.

  “Roast beef and swiss,” I mouthed. “Chocolate cupcake.”

  He gave a little swoon and mouthed a thank-you, then gave me that endearing smile that made my heart melt. I pushed the feeling away, not wanting to even indulge it for a second, and headed for my desk again. There was still a lot to be done before the afternoon was over.

  End of Sample

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  A Note from the Author

  Thank for you taking the time to read my latest release.

  I hope you loved reading my story, as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  It would mean the world to me if you could take some time to leave a quick review for this book. Reviews allow me to understand how my readers truly feel, and they keep me improving to be better.

  I appreciate you supporting me, thank you so much.

  - Natasha L. Black

  Books by Natasha L. Black

  Freeman Brother Series

  Millionaire Boss

  Millionaire Daddy

  Millionaire Crush

  Millionaire Hero

  Millionaire Best Friend

  Forbidden Lovers Series:

  Billionaire Boss

  Date Your Brother’s Best Friend

  Falling for my Enemy

  Forbidden Crush

  Damaged

  Complete box set below:

  Forbidden Lovers: A Contemporary Romance Collection

  Secret Daddies Series

  His Secret Baby

  CEO’s Secret Baby

  Boss's Secret Baby for Christmas