The Baby Shift: Indiana
Shifter Babies Of America 25
Becca Fanning
Copyright © 2019 by Becca Fanning
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.
Created with Vellum
Contents
1. Ginger
2. Logan
3. Ginger
4. Logan
5. Ginger
6. Logan
7. Ginger
8. Logan
9. Ginger
Also by Becca Fanning
Ginger
Ginger smoothed her black pencil skirt as she waited for her coffee to be made. Downstairs in her new work building, the intimidating skyscraper belonging to one of the Venture Industries, there was a small shopping mall complete with a coffee shop. She’d imagined that she might be visiting it a lot, especially since her beautiful bundle of joy had kept her up with crying last night. She yawned, remembering her daughter’s frightful tears all night. It was generous of her parents to volunteer to do childcare during the week for her.
The barista called her name, and she walked up to the counter. To her surprise, a few business men’s heads turned as she grabbed the coffee. A year spent doing Pilates after the birth of Charlotte had paid off. While she’d been famous for her loud laugh in college, it was her light red hair that made her easy to spot. For the first time in a long time, she’d curled it expertly for her first day of work.
Coffee in hand, she marched over to the elevators to wait with a pack of buzzing interns, the only other saps to be new and young enough to be this early to work.
“Did you see Mr. Venture yesterday?” a girl with a short bob whispered to her friend. “My god, I’d let that happen.”
“You wish!” the blonde next to her fired back with a laugh. “He’s only got eyes for Russian swimsuit models. But, I’ve heard Shifters are absolutely crazy in bed…”
Ginger tried not to raise her eyebrows, wondering which one of the brothers that the girls were whispering about. They looked like they were still in college, likely doing internships for class credit. She didn’t actually know much about the men behind Venture Industries. She’d been more concerned with researching all of the company’s current operations than looking up the faces of the company.
The elevator arrived, and they all climbed in. The blonde glanced at her. “Which floor?”
“The top,” Ginger replied with a smile. The blonde’s eyebrows nearly shot off her face. She stabbed at the button, and the elevator became eerily silent. Ginger pretended to check her phone. The girls got off on the seventh floor, and as the doors closed, she heard them whisper excitedly, “That must be her! Lucky!”
Her? She stared at the shiny closed doors. In the reflection, she saw a young woman, a bit tired with pretty lips and curled hair, clutching a coffee for dear life. She took a deep breath and counted the seconds until she reached the top floor.
It was oddly quiet when she arrived. The elevator opened up to a marbled tiled expansive room with minimalist décor. There was a massive desk in the middle of the room. Her desk! She scampered over to it excitedly. With a window behind her, there was an excellent view of the city. A fresh flower sat in a vase next to a pile of binders with a note on top.
The note read: Hello. This is Vivian from Human Resources. Please complete the paperwork. I’ve also corresponded with Mr. Venture to get you started on your first projects. We’re never sure when he’s in the office. Start work immediately and clock in on your computer.
“Never sure when he’s in the office?” she muttered. Maybe he was too busy jetting around. With Russian models? She wondered if he’d been the one that the interns had been gossiping about. Well, she had a paycheck to worry about. Immediately, she sat to work. It was easy enough to login to her new computer, and then she lost herself in her work. Still, her eyes wandered to the massive digital clock placed over the elevator. She’d already eaten her lunch after finding the small, virtually untouched breakroom on their level when the doors slid open.
The first thing she saw was a shiny shoe. And then his legs. Powerful muscles beneath the Italian suit. As her eyes traveled upwards, she stood to greet her new boss. And then her gaze reached his face. His very handsome, very familiar face.
Her mouth dropped open as she stood there with an extended hand towards Logan Venture, who was hovering in front of her desk and staring at her.
The same man she met a year ago.
The handsome man from the bar that she stupidly didn’t use protection with.
The father of her child.
“I’m your new assistant,” was the only thing that she could think off to say. “Ginger.” His wide eyes flickered back to their sharpened state, and he stepped forward with a powerful movement. He grabbed her forearm and pulled her towards him. She sucked in a breath of his seductive musky cologne. His narrowed eyes drilled into her own.
“You,” he said. “Did you plan this?”
She blinked. “What?”
“Are you after money?” he asked her with a quick glance up and down at her attire. “I hate to tell you that many women try to blackmail me, and they all fail. Or is my brother pranking me?”
Her mouth dropped open as she ripped her hand back. “Excuse me, but I had no idea who you were until you walked in. I didn’t even know your name.”
His eyebrows went up, but his face still held a look of disbelief. He looked surprised that she pulled away from him.
“I’ve prepared your calendar,” she told him in an icy tone. She sat down and began typing furiously. He said nothing and turned on his heel to leave.
“Nice to meet you, Ginger.” He called out behind him as he shut his office door. She nearly threw her fancy computer at the closed door. What an ass!
Logan
“Are you pranking me?” Logan asked as soon as his middle brother picked up the phone.
“I’m currently on a yacht with an entire swimsuit calendar. I don’t have the time to prank you,” Jared replied with a bite of cockiness. “What’s going on?”
“My new assistant is a babe that I bedded about a year ago.”
His brother snorted. “Par for the course with you. Well, it’s not me. You better play nicely with her or dear old Dad will have your inheritance faster than you can blink.”
Logan felt flames of annoyance crawling up his neck as he gripped the phone. “Gee, thanks.”
“Look, I put in my time while you galivanted abroad for years. Everybody has to work.” And with that, Jared, the ever-sympathetic sibling, hung up. Logan glared at his phone with a sour expression. Easy for Jared to say when he was busy rubbing oil on mostly naked woman all day.
Logan glanced around his office. Massive, immaculate, entirely unearned and everyone knew it. His brothers were made for business. By the time he’d grown up, he’d been able to do virtually anything and everything since his parent’s attentions were more occupied with his two older brothers.
“Ginger,” he said as he called the button on his phone.
“Yes?” Her voice was a bit warmer, but still the temperature of a gorgeous ice cube.
“Can you grab me three espressos from the breakroom?”
“Of course, sir.” Her reply was flat. He leaned back in his office chair and tried to recall how exactly he’d gotten himself into this predicament. A year ago. He’d left a wedding for a spoiled heir and his beautiful, too-good-for-him lawyer bride. It was exhausting seeing women of that caliber marry the same frat
boys that he’d partied with. Logan knew he didn’t deserve that either…that’s why he went for casual hookups. Women with expectations were a playboy’s nightmare.
And yet … he’d taken himself to his hotel bar and had a drink. Suddenly, she was there. Ginger. He didn’t remember if she’d given him her name that night. It happened quickly. He was bitching about his wedding, and suddenly, they were tumbling together in an elevator. She was gone by morning light, with a simple note. No phone number, he noted with a punch to his ego. But, he rolled with the punches. She drifted from his mind.
A knock sounded at his door, and she opened it, looking perfectly ruffled with her flattened lips. He tried to offer a smile, but that seemed to make her eyes narrow. She approached with the tray of coffee.
“Do you have a meeting?” she asked, glancing around at the empty office as she set down the tray. “I didn’t see anything on the calendar.”
“No, they’re all for me,” he said with a laugh. She glanced at him.
“Late night?”
“Came back on a flight from Hong Kong,” he replied. It was the jet lag that was making her look this ravishing in her buttoned-up blouse and pencil skirt. She nodded and then retreated towards the door. “Thank you, Ginger.”
She glanced back, not quite as icy as before. “You’re welcome, sir.”
His lips quirked upward. “You can call me Logan.”
“Maybe I will,” she said with a neutral smile and then left as quickly as she’d come. He stared at the closed door. His computer alerted him of an upcoming conference call. He pressed his fingers to his forehead as his phone lit up. His father, Robert Sr., always on time.
“What’s this I hear about there being a hiccup with your assistant?” his father boomed in his ear. Logan held back a groan. So, Jared’s fat mouth had already been flapping.
“It’s nothing, Dad. Everything’s fine. She just brought me some coffee, and she’s doing a great job,” he said evenly. It was always best to not fight Robert Sr. when he was in his moods.
“Everything better be fine,” his father replied and then huffed. “It was hard enough to rip you away from your ski lodges and penthouses.”
“I’m here now,” Logan reminded him. “Are you ready to talk business?”
“Always,” came the snappy reply. “Let’s discuss the allocation of our investment funds to—” Logan’s mind desperately tried to keep up as his father began his onslaught of company matters. He downed the second espresso as he quickly scrawled notes on his notepad. Computers had never held the same allure to him as pen and paper. He was old-school. Except when it came to family.
Who could blame him? He’d grown up with money and power thrown in his face. Who was he to deny it? He’d never understood why people would settle down, have children…for what? His father stopped to fuss at someone on the other line. Logan smirked. He couldn’t forget all of the stone-cold looks his father tossed him over the dinner table if he came home with a bad grade. And the old man wondered why he had no interest in the family business.
“Did you get all that?” Robert Sr. asked gruffly at the end of the call.
“Loud and clear, I’ll reach out to Davis with Accounting,” he replied smoothly.
“Good.” And with that, his father slammed the phone without a goodbye.
Logan rolled his eyes and took his last espresso like a shot of tequila. He worked until the late afternoon sun began to sink. He rubbed his bleary eyes and cracked his neck. A knock sounded at his door.
“Ahem,” Ginger sounded at the door. She looked delightfully gorgeous in the warm setting sun coming through the massive office windows. “I’m leaving for the day, sir. If you need anything, please e-mail me, and I’ll take care of it in the morning.”
“Thanks, Ginger,” he said and watched her leave. He tried to recall the night they spent together. He wondered briefly, just briefly, if she wanted to do it again … But, he shook that thought out from his head again and plunged forward with work. As he left his office, his phone buzzed. A lovely actress that he’d met a few weeks ago was in town. He smirked. He needed something for his stress relief.
Ginger
“He’s your boss?!”
Ginger had to rip her phone from her ear as her best friend, Lauren, nearly screeched. She’d stopped off at the grocery store after her first day of work and Lauren was impatient for details after Ginger texted her with news.
“Oh my God! What are you going to do? Are you going to quit?” Lauren asked.
“Quit?” Ginger echoed with surprise as she threw in a box of applesauce into her basket. “Absolutely not. The salary and benefits are amazing.”
“He’s the father of your baby,” Lauren said. “Oh my God, does this mean Charlotte is half-Shifter? How does that work?”
“I’m aware that he’s my boss and I have no idea…I haven’t had time to think about it. Maybe I’ll take her to a specialist pediatrician when the time comes for her to enter school…”
“Logan has to know. Charlotte will be set for life! He’d probably give you plenty of money in child support if you take him to court.”
Ginger scoffed. “I wanted Charlotte, and I have no desire to bring Logan into the relationship. He spends his time chasing bimbos, I’ve discovered after a few internet searches. Plus, Shifters are notoriously weird about their families. It’s better this way.”
“He’s rich and gorgeous! Of course, he chases beautiful idiots. Hell, I’d be doing the same.”
Ginger tried to keep her chuckle from being too obnoxious as she waited in the checkout line. “I’ll call you later tonight,” she promised and ended the call. She listened to the droning buzz of the supermarket. Life seemed so ordinary outside of her glittering new office. She grabbed a gossip magazine absent-mindedly and flipped through it. Her heart leaped when her eyes roved over a familiar face. Logan, being dragged along by two gorgeous models in a swanky club. The headline read: “The last of the Venture boys is dragged from the club to the cubicle.” Against every shred of dignity, she threw the magazine in her basket with everything else.
Safe in her car, she promised herself a quick read before heading to pick up Charlotte. She read it to herself aloud: “Youngest Venture hottie, Logan, has supposedly been threatened with his entire inheritance if he doesn’t start taking life more seriously. The Venture brothers are famous for their hard-partying exploits, but both of his older brothers grew out of that lifestyle much quicker than our dear Logan. Will he be able to keep his dad happy enough to continue bankrolling his five-star dinner dates with swimsuit models? Gossip Rag has it on good faith that a former lover called the Shifter an absolute god in bed and—” She stopped reading. A wave of annoyance washed over her. She was another one of his conquests. It was a miracle she hadn’t caught anything from him during that night.
He could never find out about Charlotte.
It was better this way. She pushed his handsome face from her thoughts and began the drive to her parents’ house. Eventually, she’d settle into her new life, she promised herself. Who knows? Maybe she could get a transfer to one of the other’s Venture brothers.
Charlotte was happy to see her but quickly fell asleep on the car ride home. Ginger glanced in the rearview mirror with a smile. Her daughter was a perfect bundle of joy. When they got home, she made them a quick dinner (with appropriate food for Charlotte), and they played together until exhaustion overtook them both. Ginger was thankful that Charlotte wasn’t a hard baby to put to sleep. A tiny pinprick of worry pierced her. Was Lauren right about Charlotte being half-Shifter and needing special attention? She tried not to think about it. Her eyelids were too heavy.
The next day, Ginger’s mother commented on her appearance with an amused whistle. Ginger tried to fight the blush as she scrambled back into her car for her drive to work. It was true; she’d spent a while on her appearance this morning. It was a bit like preparing for battle. She glanced at her reflection as she sat in the morning traffic.
She’d curled her long hair to fall in perfect waves. For her makeup, she’d watched a tutorial for an everyday work look that made her large brown eyes pop. The security guard winked at her as she walked toward the elevator. She smiled to herself as she climbed in with another pack of interns.
When she arrived, there was a stack of work waiting for her. Emails to be sent, meetings to be arranged. She threw her hair back and dove into her work. It was nearly two hours before she registered that two sets of polished shoes were walking up to her.
“Good morning, Ginger,” Logan said in an even tone. She dragged her gaze upward to see Logan, looking as handsome and collected as ever. She glanced to the other man. Handsome in the same way that Logan was, but a bit rounder around his edges. His older brother, Sylvan. She recognized him from her internet searches.
“Good morning,” she said with a collected smile. “Shall I grab two coffees for you?”
Sylvan smiled with the ease of an older brother and reached out his hand. When he grabbed her hand, he shook it a second too long. Her small hand shivered in his grasp. Logan’s eyes narrowed a fraction.
“Sylvan is my older brother,” he piped up loudly. “We’ll take those coffees in a few minutes.” Sylvan winked at her.
“Not too old,” he added playfully. “Logan, I’m going to tell Dad that you’re hoarding all the beautiful employees for yourself.”
Logan hooked his arm with his brother and dragged him towards the office, muttering, “You’ll be the reason we all get a sexual harassment lawsuit, Sylvan.” Ginger blinked at the closed door and then smirked. Perhaps Logan was a tad jealous?
She pushed the thought away with a laugh, thinking of his face photographed next to a gorgeous actress. As if he was jealous of her! She went to go grab the coffees and brought them to the office with a sly grin. She noted that Sylvan couldn’t take his eyes off her. Logan simmered in his seat with his arms crossed.
The Baby Shift- Indiana Page 1
