Baby By The Billionaire - A Standalone Alpha Billionaire Secret Baby Romance (New York City Billionaires - Book #3)

by Alexa Davis

  As I saw the business plan she had laid out, complete with varying models that could actually work, I found myself impressed. If I had found her in my very early days of investing, I would have been blown away by it all. I would have assumed that she was a shoo-in.

  But now I was wiser, and now I could see the bigger picture. A great business plan and solid determination didn’t always equal money.

  While I read, I could see Annie in the corner of my eye, growing increasingly anxious with each passing second. “This is good,” I told her, wanting to calm her down. “I have to say you really know your stuff.”

  “Thank you,” she gasped back. “So, what do you think? I know it isn’t the business size that you’re normally used to, but I think…I think…”

  “Well, I can’t make any definitive decisions right now; I’ll have to speak to my office,” I admitted before she got her hopes up too high. I still wasn’t sure that this was a company for me, and I didn’t want to lead her on. “But I will let you know as soon as possible.”

  “Right, sure,” she nodded, gulping down. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

  I hoped that would be enough to satisfy her for now, and from the way that she took a massive swig of wine, I had to think that we were done with being all business. “So, have you lived in Florence your whole life?” I asked her, wanting to know if she was willing to open up a little bit.

  “I…no,” she told me quickly. “I moved here a few years ago.”

  “It’s lovely, isn’t it,” I smiled, wanting her to know that this wasn’t an interrogation. She didn’t quite seem to know how to deal with me at the moment. “You made a good choice choosing to live here.”

  “Well, it’s perfect for Rae,” she told me warmly. “She can grow up safe here, which is obviously very important.” Her eyes went misty for a moment, and I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in her mind. “I love it, too; there isn’t anywhere better in the world.”

  “Yeah, it’s the sort of place that I want to go to when I retire. Maybe I’ll become a regular in your store.” She shot me a curious look as I said that, so I quickly offered her another glass of wine. Maybe once we were a little more tipsy, the conversation would flow a little better. I had to hope so, at least…

  ***

  “Oh my God, are you serious?” she laughed loudly as I told her a story from my childhood. “That’s insane.”

  The drunker Annie became, the more she loosened up and the more gorgeous she became. As she relaxed and I got to see a more natural version of her, the more I felt attracted to her. She was a real, natural beauty, and every moment I spent with her, the more I wanted to know. I’d never been that way about a woman before, actually wanting to get to know her, and it made me a little uneasy.

  Fortunately, I was just about drunk enough not to care.

  “This has been fun,” I smiled at her, feeling a little blurry and lustful. I knew that it was wrong to imagine myself fooling around with this woman, especially when I was well aware I probably wouldn’t be able to give her and her business what she needed, but I just couldn’t help myself.

  One night couldn’t hurt; one night could be a whole lot of fun.

  “You know, we could go back to my hotel room. I have some more drinks there…” I wiggled my eyebrows at her, wanting her to get the hint that I wasn’t really just thirsty for more booze. “Could be fun, right?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she replied a little coldly, the fun-loving atmosphere immediately vacating the room entirely. “That isn’t why I came here, and I don’t think that’s a good plan now.”

  Shit, I probably shouldn’t have asked that question; maybe it was a step too far, but at the same time, I hadn’t expected to be turned down. Usually when I set my eyes upon a woman and I told her that I wanted her, she was all for it. In fact, thinking about it, this might have been the first time I’d ever been rejected. And, it kinda sucked.

  “Oh, yeah, okay,” I stammered awkwardly. “Sure, I shouldn’t have asked.” I needed to get out of this place. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I felt humiliated, sickened, and very cold with shame. “Maybe we should…maybe I should get the bill.”

  Annie looked as confused as me as we stared at one another across the table. We were in some weird standoff, one that neither of us knew what to do about, and I had no idea how it would end.

  “Yes,” she eventually said, nodding rapidly. “We should get going. Thank you.”

  Chapter Eight

  Annie – Saturday

  Before I even bothered to open my eyes, I flung my arm across the bed to see if Rae was lying next to me, which of course she was. It was an unfortunate habit that she’d gotten into over the last few months after a bout of night terrors, and I didn’t have the heart to really put a stop to it just yet.

  “Rae, wake up, sweetie,” I murmured to her, holding on to my slightly achy head. I probably drank a little more than I should have last night, but at least I didn’t do anything too crazy. I could have, but I’d forced myself not to. Sleeping with my investor didn’t seem like the best plan.

  “I need to get ready for work in a minute, and you need to be a bit organized for Nancy. She’s feeling much better now, so she wants to have some fun with you.”

  “Yay, Nancy!” Rae squealed. “I’m glad she’s much better.”

  “Me, too,” I smiled at her, trying to ignore my cotton mouth and how loud her voice seemed. “So, are you ready to wake up yet?”

  “Wait, not yet!” She jumped on me, bringing up a wave of nausea that I hadn't been expecting. “You haven’t told me about dinner with the important man. How did it go?”

  I laughed loudly, taken aback by Rae. Sometimes it was difficult to remember that she was just a kid, she seemed so adult most of the time. What other four-year-old asked such questions, honestly? “It was fine, thank you.”

  “What did you eat? Did you have ice cream? Did you bring me any back?” By this point, she might as well have been jumping up and down on the bed. “I love ice cream, you know.”

  “I do know,” I replied, pulling her in for a hug. “But no, I didn’t have ice cream. I didn’t have anything for dessert, actually.” By that point, it had gotten far too awkward and all I wanted to do was go home. The fact that Justin didn’t even know what to do with himself when I turned him down told me a whole lot about him – and I wasn’t sure that I necessarily liked what I discovered. “And, I ate pasta.”

  “Urgh, I hate pasta,” she screwed up her nose in the most adorable way possible. “But I like the important man. Do you like him, too? Was he nice to you?”

  I wasn’t sure exactly why Rae was so taken in by Justin, but clearly she didn’t understand him. He might have been nice to her, but I wasn’t sure how he was with me. I couldn’t work him out, at all.

  I didn’t want to answer that question, so I rolled my giggling daughter up in a blanket to distract her from the conversation, and luckily, it seemed to work. She was so busy laughing that she certainly wasn’t bothered about the “important man” anymore.

  “Right, come on,” I started, before sliding myself out of the bed. “I’m going to make breakfast. You hurry up and get your bottom downstairs. I don’t want to be late for Nancy; we don’t know how she’s going to be today. She might not be one hundred percent better, and if that’s the case then you need to be all sorted for her.” But as I finished my sentence, I could hear noises coming from downstairs, a knocking from the front door, which meant she was already there. “Come on, she’s already here!”

  As I let Nancy in, I was pleased to see that she was looking like herself. Whenever she got ill, she went ridiculously pale, so she had to be all right now. “How are you feeling?” I asked her anyway.

  “I’m okay now,” she reassured me. “I’m so sorry that I got sick right when you had your meeting with your investor.”

  “It’s okay,” I smiled widely at her as we walked into the kitchen. “You couldn’t hel
p it. It was probably the undercooked food that Rae gave you the other morning.”

  “So?” she asked excitedly as I handed her a coffee. “How did it go? How was your meeting? Is he going to invest yet?”

  “I don’t know,” I told her carefully. “He’s a tricky one to read.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, one moment he was all arrogant and annoying, the next he seemed to take me pretty seriously, and then he would be flirting with me. He said he needs to run the numbers before he can tell me for sure.”

  “Wait a moment,” Nancy interrupted, holding up her hand to stop me. “He was flirting with you? Are you serious? What does he look like?”

  The heat that filled my cheeks at that question gave me away, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to lie – not to someone who knew me so well. “Oh, I don’t know, tall, dark, handsome…amazing eyes, a great smile. He’s good looking, but I get the impression that he knows it. He seems like the playboy type.”

  “So, how did he flirt with you? What did he say?” Nancy seemed far too excited on my behalf, almost as if she hadn't heard the part where I told her that he was a playboy.

  “He asked me back to his hotel room for drinks.” God, even saying it aloud now made me squirm inside. It had been difficult to turn him down, but I didn’t want to risk my future for one night of fun.

  “Why didn’t you go? You could use a hotel night.”

  “Stop it,” I slapped her playfully, trying to ignore the underlying message to her point of view. Yes, it had been a long time since I’d been with anyone, but Justin Gains was hardly the right person for me to return to that world with. He was the man I wanted to boost my business. I didn’t want to dip the pen in company ink, so to speak. “I couldn’t.”

  “Why not? If he was cute, then why wouldn’t you?” She actually seemed blown away by the fact that I didn’t hook up with him, which was ironic because she was so careful about who she slept with. She’d only been with her two serious boyfriends, so why was she so keen for me to act out of character?

  Unfortunately I didn’t get to make any of those points because at that moment Rae came bounding into the room, interrupting us and basically forcing me to get dressed for work.

  ***

  “So, how are you both?” I asked the lovely elderly couple, Jan and Tony, that came in the store at least once a week. “I missed you last week.”

  “Oh, we were away,” Jan told me with a smile. “But although we were on holiday, we missed you, too.”

  “You did not,” I gasped out in shock. “How is that possible? Where were you?”

  “We went to Medford for a few days, but having coffee there just wasn’t the same. This is the sort of shop that we love. Tony can drink his coffee in peace, and I can read a book. Boffees is a marriage saver.”

  She laughed at her statement, but in my mind, it simply solidified what I wanted to do. I wanted to replicate this everywhere. I loved reading as I drank my hot drinks, which was actually where the business idea came from. I just knew that I could make money given half the chance. Justin Gains might not have been able to immediately see the potential for making a profit, but I could.

  “Well, thank you for that,” I teased. “And, it’s certainly good to have you back. The place has missed your presence, too.”

  Tony shot me a grateful smile before returning to his newspaper and coffee. He was so much quieter than his wife; they really were a classic case of opposites attract. In my mind, opposites never worked, but that was just because they hadn't for me. I’d been with someone who was totally different from me, and it only ended in horrendous heartache.

  Then again, that didn’t mean it would always be the case. Not when evidence to the contrary was sitting right in front of me.

  “Anyway,” Jan continued with a grin. “I’ll just finish up this chapter because I know you aren’t far off from closing.”

  As I made my way back behind the counter, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about Nancy’s words. I’d put off the romantic side of my life for far too long, focusing purely on the business and on Rae, but soon the time would come when all of that wouldn’t be enough anymore. It probably wasn’t a good idea to allow one bad experience to taint my entire existence because I would end up old and alone. I saw enough people like that walking through the door of Boffees to know how easily it could happen.

  But even the thought of letting someone get that close to me again filled me with a horrifying pit of dread. I just wasn’t sure if I would ever feel ready to open myself up like that again. I just wasn’t confident enough in my life choices to be able to commit to anyone whole heartedly.

  Almost as if my subconscious had summoned him up, almost as if the depth of my desires had brought him to the surface because, there he was, standing at the window, staring in.

  Justin Gains.

  “Shit,” I muttered to myself, before ducking behind the counter. I rubbed my face before attempting to smooth my hair down in a mad panic. I could feel my heart pounding and my whole body heating up with stress. I didn’t want to see Justin, not right now. But at the same time, I did – especially if he had good news for me. After all, why else would he be there?

  Why else indeed?

  Suddenly, the image of him asking me out on a date flooded my brain, and I couldn’t help the powerful bolt of lust that ran its way down to my core. Of course, it was Nancy’s fault for getting me all worked up and confused with her statement this morning, but there was something undeniably irresistible about him, too.

  Maybe, if he wasn’t my potential investor, I could consider him for a hook up – obviously not for something long term, he didn’t seem like that type, at all. But of course he was the only person that could possibly be helping me to expand my company, so I couldn’t think of him in that way.

  However fun it was.

  “Get it together,” I hissed angrily at myself. “Just see what he wants. Get it over and done with.”

  “Bye, Annie,” Jan called out, completely shaking me from my thoughts. “See you soon.”

  “Yep, goodbye,” I yelled back, a little stiffly. “Looking forward to it.”

  As soon as I heard the door clicking behind them, I knew I couldn’t put it off for any longer. I needed to stand up straight, attempt to look normal, and see what Mr. Gains wanted. There was no point in getting myself all worked up when it could all be just bad news, anyway. He might be here to tell me that he was dashing my dream and going back home, that his office didn’t approve Boffees for an investment.

  Come on, I thought to myself as I sucked in some deep and calming breaths. Just face him now, see what he wants. There’s no point in worrying until I know.

  With that, I pushed my hands on the ground until I was standing upright, and acted like I didn’t yet know he was there. Just until my body stopped freaking out.

  Chapter Nine

  Annie – Saturday

  I let the elderly couple out of Boffees before stepping inside myself, instantly noticing the big grins on their mouths as they left the store. This place made people happy, there was no denying that, and I really wanted to be a part of it…I still just wasn’t sure that my financial advisor would agree with me. I wanted to call Harry and beg him to come down to Florence to see Boffees, too, but I still didn’t think that would be enough. He wouldn’t see the depth of the coffee and bookshop like I did.

  He would probably tell me that it was all because I had a crush on Annie, and in a way, maybe he would have been right.

  “Hi there, Annie,” I grinned at her, desperately hoping that the weirdness between us was gone. I knew that I shouldn’t have invited her back to the hotel room with me, and I doubt I would have given in to the temptation if I hadn't been drinking. I needed to make that right.

  “I’m not here on business; this is a social visit.” I just wanted to make that point clear, but from the way that her face fell, I could instantly tell that she’d gotten the wrong end of the stick.
“Oh no, not to ask you out or anything. I just want some coffee and to maybe read some books. Are you close to closing?”

  As she glanced at her watch, I couldn’t help but wonder why I couldn’t seem to keep away from this woman. I’d intended to call her, to tell her that I had to head back to Portland tonight, but I just couldn’t do it. I had to see her again because I could not stop thinking about her. Is it because she was so cute? Or maybe because of her business smarts? It could have simply been just because she’d turned me down, but I really didn’t want to think that way.

  “Erm, I can stay open for another twenty minutes or so, if you’d like? What do you want to drink?”

  “Cappuccino, please,” I ordered before making my way around the book shelves. I was amazed to find such an eclectic collection of books. When I’d been looking before, I hadn't really been taking any of it in, but now I needed something to read to try to prove to Annie that I was at her shop for a purpose. There were nonfiction books, every genre of fiction book, some big name authors, and some I didn’t recognize. I flicked through the titles of some, reading the names aloud, as if I was trying to prove how serious I was.

  “New Moon, Fifty Shades Freed, The Boys and Girls Club, Love You, Always…wait,” I muttered, noticing the name underneath the book title. “By Annie Driscoll.”

  My heart raced with an odd excitement at that. It had to be, didn’t it? Annie Driscoll wasn’t exactly a common name, and it seemed like far too much of a coincidence to be anyone else. “Annie?” I called out. “Did you write this?”

  “What’s that?” she asked innocently, walking over to give me my drink. “Oh…” she trailed off and her face went a little white as she noticed the item in my hand. “Oh, I don’t even know how that got here.” She went to take it from me, but I moved my hand away. I was far too intrigued to simply hand it over right now; I wanted to read it first! “It’s not even a real book, not really. Just a sample. I only ever had a couple of copies printed up, with the intention of getting it looked at by publishers, but then I got too busy with the bookshop. Maybe it got mixed up in stock, or Rae brought it down here…”