by Vivien Vale
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 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Epilogue
Table of Contents
Baby Bargain
Dedication
Description
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 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Epilogue
Hard Luck
Hard Sell
Hard Bargain
Double Dealing
Double Feature
Taste
Special Sneak Peek
Baby Bargain
A Billionaire Baby Contract Romance
By Vivien Vale
Copyright © 2018 by Crimson Vixens
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.
Vivien Vale
Dedication
To Chelsea, baby guru extraordinaire and Nica, a best friend to put others to shame
Description
You want me to knock you up?
Well, baby, you’re about to get
Much more than you bargained for…
Sweet Rose. Beautiful. Independent.
A rare flower just waiting to be plucked.
The minute I see her I know I have to have her.
She wants a baby.
I have everything she needs to get the job done:
Billionaire bachelor…check
Body of a god…check
A magic wand that makes you scream all night
And not walk straight for days…double check
She thinks she knows what she’s getting into
But I’m about to unload with full force.
Get ready.
Because I’m going to blow your mind.
And when I’m finished?
I’ll make you a deal you can’t resist.
WAIT!
Please use the TOC (Table of Contents located in the upper left area of your screen) to navigate your way through this book. If you’re zoomed out and you’re seeing a smaller version of the book and it is flipping through that way, please press the center of your screen to get you out of page flip mode.
Thanks!
Vivien Vale
Chapter 1
Daniel
If I’m not mistaken—and I rarely fucking am—I think my secretary is wearing a ball gag as a necklace today.
“Sorry to bother you, sir,” she says, as that big red rubber ball jiggles against her throat.
She’s tightened the leather straps up enough that it could reasonably be mistaken for a choker, but I’m not some uninitiated fuck—I didn’t exactly get my first erection yesterday.
“Make it quick.” I don’t have time to question my secretary’s more-than-questionable fashion choices. If I don’t figure out why the columns on this report aren’t adding up by the end of the day, I won’t know which incompetent jackass in accounting to fire tomorrow morning.
“It’s just, uh, your mother is here,” she informs me.
And then, right on cue, my mother flounces in. Doesn’t even give me time to feel sorry for myself.
“Danny, darling!” my mother coos, trotting into my office on a pair of peep-toe heels the color of cotton candy vomit. “How’s my favorite businessman? Give mommy a little smooch, that’s a good dear.”
I roll my eyes—but I do as I’m bid. My mother is as vapid and air-headed as they come, but she’s still the woman who gave birth to me, and for that, she can have as many cheek-kisses as she wants. I just wish she’d stop fucking calling them smooches—and I wish she would have left Muffins the Purse Dog at home for once.
“Missed you too, Mom,” I relent, keeping an eye on Muffins. His fluffy, feral little head pops up out of my mother’s Chanel purse just as I’m enveloped by the scent of No. 5—her favorite perfume.
To his credit, Muffins doesn’t fucking growl at me on sight anymore—but he does look like he’s ready to take a jealousy shit in my mother’s handbag any minute now.
“Maybe you should let my secretary take Muffins on a walk, Mom,” I suggest. I’d hate for Mom’s latest husband—whoever he is—to have to replace a sold-out handbag—plus, if my secretary really is wearing a ball gag, I’m sure she knows her way around a leash.
“Nonsense, honey,” Mom says, sitting on my desk like she thinks she’s still a teenager or something.
That’s my mother for you. Mentally, she hasn’t aged a day since 18. Physically, her plastic surgeon does what he can.
“Muffins and I are here as a team, darling. We’re on a mission today, you see.”
I shake my head and take the bait. “And what might that be?”
“We have a date for you, honey.” She says it like I’m supposed to be excited—or surprised. I’m not. “Muffins picked her out special, just for you! Didn’t you, schnuckums?”
While my mother feeds her purse dog a doggie treat, I’m just trying to suppress a groan.
“Oh, dear, don’t look like that,” my mother reprimands. “This one, Danny—she’s a keeper. Nice, wide, childbearing hips—and, I only think she’s had three nose jobs, so you know she’s got good genes for Dr. Scalpel to work with.”
Dr. fucking Scalpel. My mother knows that I have no intentions of settling down any time soon, and she’s already planning my children’s first elective surgeries.
“That’s sweet of you, Mom,” I say cordially, “but I think I’ll pass.”
“You’re not getti
ng any younger, Danny.”
“Not without Dr. Scalpel’s help, I’m not.”
“And you know how I’ve always wanted grandchildren…”
“You have grandchildren,” I remind her. “Fendi has four kids, Mom. Chanel has two. Prada just had twins last week, for fuck’s sake—and she’s barely even sixteen.”
“Ruff!” Muffins barks aggressively. Briefly, I consider tipping over the purse—but then he might shit on my carpet, so I think better of it.
“Yes,” my mother agrees. “And I’m sure that for as long as your half-sisters can find YouTube stars to have unprotected sex with, they’ll give me plenty more. But I haven’t done everything I’ve done for them, Danny honey. I did it for you. For us. You need to start thinking about your legacy, sweetheart.”
I have to hand it to my mother: she knows exactly where to twist the knife.
I never knew my father, but from my mother’s stories about him, I’m better off this way. She had me when she was the same age as Prada is now, and he left her without even bothering to stick around for my birth.
Ever since, Mom has been enterprising in the only way I think she’s ever known how. Her next relationships were calculated affairs with rich old geezers who took us in, fed us, clothed us, and taught me everything there was to know about their business empires.
Even once they knocked Mom up and the relationship soured, her ex-husbands always kept an interest in me. Put me through some of the top business schools in the country and—to my surprise—even named me heir to their fortunes over their own children.
Part of me feels like Mom screwed over my half-sisters for life in that regard. Can anyone really blame them for all their accidental pregnancies and the strip clubs they’ve inadvertently burned down?
They’re sweethearts, but she did name them after her favorite purses—one of which, from the smell of things, Muffin is shitting in literally as we speak.
“I’m not even thirty-five yet, Mom. I’ve got the entire fortunes of three of your ex-husbands to blow before I have to start worrying about who might inherit them.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “We both know that’s not true. You’ve always been a responsible boy, Danny. You’re smarter than that. If you don’t want to go on the date with the nose-job girl, that’s fine—but it’s high time you stopped fucking sluts on your desk and started thinking about finding one to give you a baby—one who’s worthy of being your wife.”
I sigh, rubbing the bridge of my nose.
She’s not exactly wrong. I care more about her ex-husbands’ resort chains than I do about what bimbo I’m currently bending over my desk—which is why I had six of them in here last night, all lined up and begging for my dick.
It’s why I keep a drawer full of condoms in my desk, too. I hardly need an army of bastards running around my city, considering that I’m a bastard myself.
“Just think about it, darling,” my mother implores me. “A wife and a baby—it could be good for you. I only want to see you happy, you know, and—awwwwww, did Muffins do a widdle poop? Did Muffins ruin Mommy’s expensive handbag?”
It happens that fast. Just as quickly as my mother blew into my day, she’s already gathering her things and meandering back out of it, cooing at her handbag and holding it at arm’s length as she goes.
“Have a good day, Mom,” I call after her.
“You too, dear,” she says. I can hear her stop at my secretary’s desk on the way out. “Oh, my! What a gorgeous necklace, sweetie! You absolutely must tell me where you got it!”
Then the door closes behind her, and I’m alone again.
I try working once she’s gone. It’s no fucking use. Maybe it’s the lingering scent of Muffin-shit in the air, or maybe she’s really planted the idea in my head the way she hoped.
I don’t want my mother worrying about me.
And I don’t want to see all my hard work go to waste.
A wife. An heir.
It sounds fucking preposterous is what it sounds like. I’m not husband material—and I’m certainly not worthy of being a fucking father.
I’m a loose cannon—a bad boy sowing my wild oats like my father before me, only I have the decency to be fucking responsible about it. My wild oats ultimately end up safely contained inside a condom—and then immediately dumped in the trash.
I look at the pictures on my desk of my half-sisters and myself. There’s one of Prada and me on her seventh birthday, just before she stabbed the party clown with the cake knife, and I had to talk him out of pressing charges.
There’s another of me with Fendi and Chanel at that underwater night club I helped them open, just before they hooked the oxygen intake tubes up to bottles of vodka and all the mermaid performers nearly drowned.
Admittedly, I don’t love the idea of those three taking over my empire if something were to happen to me.
Maybe I do need an heir.
But to have an heir, I need to find the right woman—and to find the right woman, I need to clear my fucking head.
“Cancel the rest of my appointments for the day,” I tell my secretary.
“Yes, master—I mean, uh, yes sir,” she calls after me.
“And no more bondage porn while you’re at work!” I shout over my shoulder—because, yeah, I fucking saw what was on her computer screen before she closed the window.
“Sorry, sir!”
I drive through the city until I see a place where I can clear my head. It looks like some shit out of a bad Lewis Carroll novel—but on the bright side, at least no fucking women will be approaching me, trying to get me to bend them over the Mad Hatter’s tea table for a quickie.
Inside, there’s a woman sitting at a table with her three very pregnant friends. Exactly the kind of woman I’d want to put a baby in, really—not that I’m genuinely considering that right now.
I don’t know if it’s because I feel a sort of solidarity with her after the talk I just had with my mother—or if it’s because she’s just so fucking gorgeous that I can’t help myself—but I shoot her a sympathetic look as I walk past.
She doesn’t even fucking notice—and when I walk into a room, women always notice.
Incredible. Today’s just not my fucking day.
I order, grabbing a table near hers. From the sounds of things, her friends are planning a baby shower.
Fucking inescapable, this baby thing today.
But if she doesn’t want to be the odd one out…
Chapter 2
Rose
Alice’s Tea Cup is supposed to a fanciful, whimsical kind of place.
Actually, the place is called Alice’s Tea Cup Chapter Two, since the original location is downtown. All part of the charm, I suppose.
The tables are set low to the ground, surrounded by uncomfortable-looking stools—except for the coveted corner table.
Of course, my cousins somehow managed to score that spot, creating a boisterous little corner enclave surrounded by paintings of mushrooms, caterpillars, and a spiral-eyed Mad Hatter.
I hear my oldest cousin Katheryn’s brassy voice sailing through the air the moment I step inside.
“So, Lyle’s all like, ‘Uh, I don’t know...’”
“Wait, wait,” Sarah interrupts as I walk to their corner island. “Who the fuck is Lyle?”
“The party planner at the supply store.”
“Lyle? That’s his name?” Sarah laughs.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t be able to make this shit up. Anyway, he’s all like, ‘Duhhhh, I don’t know about that.’”
Jenna’s the first to notice me as I walk towards the table, waving me over with her hand while my other two cousins carry on.
“If that’s what you asked for, he should get it for you!” Sarah shrieks.
“Tell me about it! Then Joseph, my own husband Joseph, backs him up.”
“What? No, he didn’t,” I yell, announcing my presence.
Sarah and Katheryn turn towards me and squeal in delight, wav
ing me over. Jenna slides over, making room for me at the only padded booth in the tea shop.
I’m a little late to the planning party, but it’s not for me anyway. All three of my cousins are pregnant, making them the guests of honor at their three-way baby shower.
I’m just going to be a regular guest. Lucky me.
“Oh, he totally did,” Katheryn responds to my statement. “And I’m just like, ‘You’re my husband, bitch. Back me the fuck up, not this bitch-ass party supply guy.’”
“Damn right. And what did he have to say to that?” I ask, sitting down.
“Oh my god, he was all, ‘That might be reinforcing gender stereotypes―’”
“Oh, god,” Sarah interrupts.
All three of my cousins giggle with derision.
“I know, right?” Katheryn scoffs. “So I tell him, ‘Do you want me to get an abortion? Because if I don’t get a gender reveal cake, and the gender reveal cake that I want, I’m going to the abortionist this afternoon, and I’m sending you the bill!”
I shake my head and cringe at her bad humor.
As my cousins laugh, two waiters show up out of nowhere, carrying a bunch of Mylar balloons shaped like…smiling and frowning babies.
They’re still just planning, but the Alice’s Tea Cup Chapter Two staff knows my cousins so well that they’re getting their own little party today.
“Wait, this isn’t part of your job.” Sarah grins at the waiters.
“Only for today,” the tall, handsome waiter behind me says with a grin while tying balloons to my chair.
“Be careful,” Jenna tells the waiter. “Rose doesn’t have one in the oven—she might float away.”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” he says before walking away.
Huh. I don’t really know how to take that.
“Don’t worry about him,” Jenna assures me, patting my arm. “He makes a decent chai latte, but he doesn’t have much else going on.”
“Oh no, he doesn’t,” Sarah butts in. “Or at least not upstairs…downstairs, probably.”
“Hmmm. I don’t know about that.” Katheryn grins before taking a sip of her iced coffee.
