Gray held up his hand for quiet. I didn’t have to stoop to answer these questions with him around. He would always protect me. “We called this press conference to answer all your questions. You’ll leave here with no more innuendos or mysteries to sling around. I can confirm that Gabi is pregnant. As soon as we know the due date, we’ll let you know, too, so you can start counting down the days.”
A titter of laughter rippled through the crowd. I bit back a smile. He always knew how to work an audience.
“I also want to dispel any myths about the gala,” he went on. “We went into the coat closet to get some privacy and quiet. Gabi wanted to tell me the great news that she was pregnant without a lot of strangers overhearing. I admit I kissed her a few times when I found out.”
I couldn’t stop myself from glancing over at him. He turned at the same moment and smiled at me. Our hands migrated across the table to interlock our fingers. A mystical hush fell over the room, all except the clicking cameras.
Gray snapped out of his trance. “Anyways, now you know exactly what we were doing in there. You know why we left suddenly when we came out. I think that’s probably all you need to know.”
Excited talking broke out on all sides, but Gray pushed back his chair. He raised me to my feet, and in sight of everyone, put his hand behind my back and kissed me. Then he steered me back around the partition and away.
The press conference exploded the minute we disappeared. Voices shouted. One reported stuffed his head into the corner and dictated copy into his phone pressed against his ear. “Gabi Landon looks better than ever, and the couple remains rock solid in their commitment to each other and their future family.”
I didn’t hear any more. Gray hustled me down the hall, past the dressing room, and out the back door. The limo stood in the alley behind the building, but no screaming fans clustered around it. Gray yanked the door open, and I ducked inside. The next minute, the limo whispered away from the curb and disappeared into Manhattan traffic.
I sank back in the seat. Gray gazed out the window for a minute, but as soon as the other cars swallowed us up and no one followed us, he turned his piercing eyes on me in a way I couldn’t deny. I knew what that look meant. He was coming after me.
He slid across the seat and cast one thick arm over my shoulders to draw me into his embrace. His lips hovered before me, so inviting, so warm and tingly and exciting. I could let myself get drawn into his magnetic presence. I didn’t have to play the good girl part anymore. Everybody knew about us, and we knew about us, too.
He was my husband, and I was his pregnant wife, and we were going home and….to our home. What could be more perfect than that? He turned me on like I couldn’t believe, and being pregnant awoke hidden powers in my soul I never knew were there. An insatiable hunger for him shattered all my thinking. I couldn’t do anything but respond.
He inched nearer, nearer. His breath filled my nostrils with his manly scent. Even before he kissed me, I slipped my hand inside his blazer against his crisp new shirt. His muscles tensed when I dragged my fingertips over his sides. I loved the way he shivered all over in aching delight. Was he hard right now? All I had to do was feel a little bit lower, and I would find out.
I liked to tease myself. I liked to wallow in the anticipation. He excited me so much I wanted to explode screaming right that minute. My pussy twitched under my dress. When would he caress up my thigh to find the sweet patch of moistness inside my panties? When would he finger my clit to make me moan into his mouth?
How would he play it? Would he make me get on my knees to suck him hard in the back of the limo? Would he bend me backward to lick me to flaming orgasm? All the thousand ways he could do me enchanted my dreams.
His lips touched mine, and my blood burst into flame. He tilted his giant bulk over on top of me to pin me to the seat. My knee hitched up around his waist, and he scooped me toward him full of his animal kisses and his unstoppable passion.
Just kissing him tormented me in brutal ecstasy. I could kiss him forever, and now that I wore his ring, I could. We could fall into bed and never leave it. We could kiss morning, noon, and night, and only stop when Antonio brought us our meals. We never had to get out of bed for the next nine months.
Before that kiss reached its apogee, the limo parked in front of our building. The time came for us to put our weight on our own feet and walk. Just a little bit farther, and we would be home. HOME! How that word melted my heart now. This penthouse, this palace in the sky, gave me more of a home than I ever knew in my life. My heart sobbed in gratitude for Gray’s love, for all the years to come.
Just before the elevator stopped at our floor, Gray’s hand shot out. He popped out the emergency stop button, and the car braked in mid-air.
“What are you doing?” I cried.
He shot me a wicked grin. “We’re not finished yet. There’s still one more thing to do.”
“What?”
He descended on me faster than the eye could see. He scooped me up into his arms and kicked the button with his knee.
I screamed out loud. “What are you doing to me?”
“I’m carrying you across the threshold,” he rumbled. “We won’t be officially married until I do that. Now keep still. I don’t want to drop you.”
I couldn’t stop screaming maniac laughter. He couldn’t be doing this. The car vibrated the rest of the way to our floor. When the doors slid open, Gray stumbled into the apartment.
I screamed louder than ever. “Put me down! You’re insane.”
“I’ll put you down, all right.” He gave a demonic laugh and headed for the bedroom.
I shrieked with glee, but he wouldn’t stop until he got the bedroom door open. He pushed the bed curtains aside and laid me on the bed. Our lips locked, and he let out his breath. “There. Now we’re married.”
I sank back on the pillows, out of breath. “We were married before.”
He shook his head. “No, we weren’t, but we can make up for lost time now.”
He inched forward to kiss me one more time.
“Gray?”
“Yeah, babe.”
I slithered my arms around his neck. “Thanks.”
“Hush, baby. It’s all right now.”
Filthy Daddy
Her Billionaire’s Baby Book 3
Ellie Wild
1
CALEB
“Good morning, Mr. Preston.”
I glanced up from the crisp copy of the Times that I was reading and saw a pair of long bronze legs tucked under a white mini skirt, strutting towards my desk.
“Good morning indeed,” I said back, folding the paper as my eyes moved upwards. “Take a seat, Miss--”
“Jeffries,” she leaned across my glass desktop to offer me her manicured hand and, in the process, and lingered just long enough to give me a view of the hot pink bra peeking intentionally through the gape in her silk blouse.
“Jade Jeffries,” she added, before dropping into the tufted velvet armchair positioned directly across from my desk.
“Pleasure to meet you, Miss Jeffries,” I nodded, my eyes still sizing her up. Platinum blonde hair, fake-baked bronze skin, pink glossy lips -- hot pink, to match that lacey bra.
If you were to consult the slew of tabloids that report on my dating patterns, they’d inform you that I have a type -- tall, blonde, curves in all the right places -- and Miss Jade Jeffries certainly fit that bill. She knew it, too; I could tell by that coy little smirk she’s wearing.
“The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Preston,” she said, folding one bronzed leg over the other and letting her skirt ride up a little too high on her thigh.
“Please,” I say, “Call me Caleb.”
“Caleb,” she repeated slowly, pressing her pink glossed pout into a smug little smirk. Then she nodded at the folded newspaper on my desk and asked, “Were you checking out my article in the Times?”
“Not unless you cover the market,” I smiled, but her face stays blank. �
��The stock market,” I clarified.
“Oh,” she shrugged her shoulders indifferently. “No, that’s not really my cup of tea.”
“No?” I raised an eyebrow and leaned back in my chair. “What is your cup of tea?”
“Rich, hot men,” she said, raising a defiant eyebrow back at me and pressing her lips into another smug smirk.
Of course, I thought. I could have told you that the moment she strutted into my office, her fuck-me heels clicking against the tile floor and her lips pressed into that glossy pink pout.
Women like Jade Jeffries were a dime-a-dozen in Manhattan. Aspiring Carrie Bradshaws, lured out of Midwest mediocrity by the glitter and glitz of New York City; lured by the false promise of rent-controlled brownstones, well-paying writing jobs, bottomless Cosmopolitans, closets full of Manolos, ‘rich, hot men’ lined up on every street corner ready to offer up the kind of dirty, shameless sex you could only have in a city full of strangers.
“Men’s style,” she clarified, still holding my gaze intently. “I profile rich, hot men for the style section.”
“I see,” I say, crossing my legs and folding my hands over the knee of my grey sharkskin suit. “And I meet those requirements, do I?”
“Of course you do, Mr. Preston,” she cooed, her eyes flashing suggestively.
“Caleb,” I reminded her.
“Caleb,” she smiled. Then she bit down on the corner of her plump bottom lip and added, “You’re a bit of a legend.”
“Am I?” I raised an eyebrow, even though I already knew the answer to that.
“I had to fight off the entire style department to get this interview,” she said triumphantly. “We were all jumping at the chance to undress Caleb Preston.”
“Undress me?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Figuratively, of course,” she said unconvincingly. “For the profile.”
“For the profile,” I repeated, nodding firmly.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered letting Jade Jeffries undress me. I’d be lying if I said my cock didn’t twitch in my pants when she walked in, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about bending her over the desk, pressing her tits against the glass and yanking her skirt up around her waist…
Jade Jeffries and I both knew she didn’t come here for an ‘interview.’ She didn’t come here to wax poetic about my Tom Ford mohair suit or my suede Burberry Oxford shoes.
And she didn’t come here for sex, either.
She came here for the thrill of fucking someone famous. She wanted a taste of that Manhattan fairy tale; a story she could tell her gaggle of girlfriends, giggling gleefully between sips of a six-dollar Cosmopolitan. She didn’t want to fuck me, she wanted to fuck my persona. I was nothing more than a novelty; an item on her bucket list. ‘Rich, hot man.’
And, ironically, when the novelty wore off, she’d be the one running to Page Six to accuse me of being the grade-A asshole; the user, the playboy, the womanizer.
That was the pattern… that was the real Manhattan fairy tale, people using each other for fame, pleasure, excitement, thrill… anything and everything but love.
“This profile,” I said, leaning forward and resting my elbows on the glass desktop. “Let me hear what you’ve got so far.”
“You want me to read it to you?” she frowned, confused.
“If you don’t mind, of course.”
“It’s not done yet,” she said. “I’ve just written the introduction…”
“I want to hear it,” I smiled encouragingly. Then I added, jokingly: “It’s not every day I get to hear what people really think of me.”
She shrugged, then she reached into the Canal Street knock-off Goyard tote that was resting on the floor by her feet. She pulled out an iPad and brought the screen to life with a swipe of her thumb, then she reclined back in the armchair and began reading aloud:
“Caleb Preston is no stranger to mixing business and pleasure; billionaire hotel mogul by day, party-loving playboy by night, Preston is equally infamous among Manhattan’s upper crust elite for his cut-throat business acumen and his insatiable appetite for hot blondes.”
Jade paused, her eyes flicking up at me, almost daring me to respond.
“So far, accurate,” I nodded.
She pursed her lips proudly, taking my remark as a compliment, then continued reading:
“Since inheriting the Preston Hotel empire at the tender age of twenty, the hotel heir has spent the last decade maintaining an impressive collection of international 5-star properties, and an equally impressive private collection of international supermodel girlfriends. The Preston Hotel is world-renowned for style and elegance, and it’s only fitting that the man at its helm would have a wardrobe to match.”
She clicked off the iPad’s screen and glanced up at me expectantly.
“Sounds like you’ve got me figured out, Miss Jeffries,” I smiled, as I leaned back into my chair.
Jet-setting billionaire playboy with a designer wardrobe and a flock of hot blondes… it was a role I was used to playing. I’ve played this character, or some variation of it anyway, since I was a teenager.
I was born into the lap of luxury; the heir to a hotel empire that had been meticulously cultivated by five generations of Preston’s before me. Success was never an option; it was a requirement. It was always assumed that I’d be the next in line… that I’d inherit the throne and take over my father’s empire.
What wasn’t assumed was that I’d inherit my father’s billion-dollar empire when I was just twenty years old, after both of my parents died unexpectedly in a freak accident.
I stepped up to the plate. I took the reins. I put on a suit and sat behind my father’s desk, and for ten years I have managed this billion-dollar global company. But that wasn’t a story that sells tabloids… that was just a footnote; a little detail that was tucked away somewhere amidst splashy photospreads depicting my playboy antics and sexcapade exploits.
“Do I have you figured out?” Jade asked coyly. “Or is there more to the man than what meets the eye?”
Don’t pretend you give a shit, I thought cynically. We both know this is just a game.
“What do you want to know?” I asked. “For the profile?”
She was about to answer, but before she could the phone on my desk rattled to life, filling my glass office with the shrill screech of its high-pitched ring.
We were both startled, and I reached for the receiver.
“Hello?” I said into the mouthpiece.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I recognized the voice of Dorothy, my receptionist, on the other end of the phone. “I wouldn’t interrupt if it wasn’t urgent, but…” her voice trailed off.
“What is it, Dorothy?” I asked.
I had already forgotten all about Jade Jeffries, until I glanced up and see her staring at me with wide-eyed excitement plastered on her face.
“There has been a family emergency, Mr. Preston,” Dorothy said through the phone.
My heart sunk, because I know that could only mean one thing. The Preston family is virtually non-existent. I never had cousins, aunts, uncles… not even grandparents. Growing up, there were only three other Prestons. And when my parents died, that number was reduced to one; one other Preston in all of New York City, in all of the world...
“It’s your sister, sir,” Dorothy confirmed what I already knew. “It’s Calista.”
2
DAISY
“DILF alert!” Raven chimed in a sing-song voice under her breath as she nudged me in the ribs.
I turned my head to look in the direction of her gaze, and my eyes locked on her target; a tall, muscular man who has just stepped out of a shiny black Escalade parked on the curbside. He was dressed in running shorts and a tight-fitting compression shirt that revealed, in finely contoured detail, every perfectly sculpted muscle in his chest and abs.
“I love a man who works out,” Raven said, practically salivating as she watched the object of her
affection hop over the curb and stride toward the schoolyard.
“Does he work out?” I asked, wrinkling my brow and squinting to get a better look at him. “I mean, if he’s wearing running gear, shouldn’t he have jogged here instead of pulling up in a giant SUV?”
“Maybe he came from the gym,” Raven brushed me off, and kept her eyes glued on the man as he walked closer to our vantage point, on the stone steps at the back of the schoolyard.
“He’s not sweating,” I pointed out.
“Oh my God,” Raven rolled her eyes and turned to me dramatically. “Are you serious? Look at his abs!”
“They could be implants,” I shrugged, unimpressed.
“Urgh!” Raven didn’t bother keeping her voice down, but she didn’t need to -- the sound of children screeching and laughing as they run around the schoolyard drowned out her frustrated grunt.
“You’re impossible!” she vented, losing all interest in the hot dad and instead focusing her attention on me. “Why are you so damn cynical? You always think the worst of people! Who hurt you?”
“I’m not cynical,” I said. I chose to ignore her second question, even though I know she didn’t mean anything by it.
Raven Davis was my best friend, she was also my roommate, and fellow pre-school teacher here at Bellamy Day School. We met a few years ago when Raven first moved to Manhattan and, after becoming quickly disillusioned with the city, came to my neck of the woods in Brooklyn looking for a room to rent.
We instantly bonded over our shared profession -- we both taught pre-school -- and by the end of the week she was moving boxes into the spare bedroom of my Williamsburg apartment. At the time I was teaching at a little school in Greenpoint, but Raven made it her mission in life to convince me to join her at Bellamy Day.
At first I was dead set against it. Bellamy was a preppy, prestigious institution on the Upper East Side, charging a hefty five-figure tuition to teach the ABC’s to the offspring of doctors and lawyers, and celebrities and Wall Street bankers.
Triplets Make Five Page 34
