Billionaire Boss's Secret Love Child: A Second Chance Romance

by Sophia Lynn

  Billionaire Boss’s Secret Love Child

  A Second Chance Romance

  Sophia Lynn

  Copyright © 2021 by Sophia Lynn

  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.

  This story is a work of fiction and any portrayal of any person living or dead is purely coincidental and not intended.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilogue

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  Chapter One

  Travis

  Travis McMichael's head started to throb when the interior designer started talking about 'shaking up the paradigm,' and by the time the woman started enthusiastically speaking about 'maximizing the growth flow and realizing kinetic potential about the office,' that ache was progressing to a full scale migraine.

  "No," he said cutting her off. "Thank you for your time. I'm afraid not."

  "Oh, but you haven't even heard about the sculpted doorways—"

  "No," he said again, and he must have glared at her because she got a wide-eyed look, gathered up her laptop in record speed and left, letting the door slam after her. Travis took a few moments to feel slightly guilty about terrorizing someone who had done nothing to deserve it except have terrible design ideas, and then he let it go, because, seriously, he was in no mood.

  The office space he had purchased echoed, the only notable features the floor-to-ceiling windows along the eastern wall and the chairs the rental company had left and his own barren little desk. The place was cavernous, a steal for the price, and Travis felt that old discontent gnawing at his belly as he crossed over to the windows.

  Have I made a terrible mistake? Am I just fooling myself that all I needed was a change of scenery?

  There was a small voice in his head that suggested that if he had really wanted a change of scenery, he would have gone somewhere that he had never been before. Instead, he had done the opposite.

  Underneath his window, Springwell's main street stretched out left and right. In many ways, it was exactly the same as it had been when he'd left it six years ago. It was still a community that sat just a little too far from Chicago to be a real commute, a place that had a town Easter egg hunt and Halloween hayrides. His acquaintances from the city would call it a podunk little town with just one coffee shop and no Zagat-rated restaurants to claim as their own – hell, that was what he had thought of it for a long time.

  And yet.

  No one would argue that Travis McMichael wasn't a success. No one would see his entry on the Fortune 500 list or on any number of Millionaires Under Thirty articles and think he belonged in Springwell.

  And yet.

  The ache had been growing for a year or more. If Travis was honest with himself, it had been growing for a long time before that. It was just within the last year or so that it had become impossible to ignore.

  Suddenly, Chicago, which had always seemed like the only dream that mattered, felt more like a cage than a paradise where he was allowed to do whatever he liked best, and everything was closing in. That was why he had made the decision to start up a new office. That was why he had decided to come home.

  If only home didn't want him to decorate his new space with kinetic potential.

  "This is ridiculous," he said out loud. "Should have just hired someone that Andy or Carlin recommended."

  His old acquaintances would have recommended someone from Chicago though, and somehow, that felt ill-omened. He had come to Springwell to get away from Chicago, and the last thing he wanted to do was to bring Chicago with him.

  Travis's phone chirped, telling him that his final appointment of the day was here. He sighed.

  Well, if I get this out of the way, I can go back to the apartment and get myself a drink. Then maybe I can look into other designers that might suit me better.

  He usually hated leaving things off, but today, he might be willing to make an exception.

  He texted to his personal assistant to send the last designer in, and he wondered whether it would be considered unprofessional to get a start on that drink during the interview.

  I'm not really looking to make contacts here in town, no one knows me, it'd probably be fine.

  Then the door opened, and the first thing that he thought was that the new designer was a looker.

  Dressed in a severe suit with slim-cut black trousers and a black blazer over a blood-red camisole, she had the lean and confident grace of a panther; and her hair, dark and with a slight curl, was cut just a little above her jawline, softening the effect dramatically.

  Just my type, Travis thought idly. He stepped forward to take her hand before he met her eyes, and the force of recognition struck him like a thunderbolt.

  Eddy Baker had a chin so sharp he had once told her she could stab people with it, and cheekbones any model would have killed for, but it was softened by a full and generous mouth and enormous clear gray eyes fringed with thick dark lashes. Even in her low heels, she was tall enough to nearly meet his eyes, and when her lips parted in shock, he knew that she was as surprised as he was.

  Beautiful, his brain said, but it was his heart that made him move, the heart he had always claimed was a lump of lead when it came to business matters.

  One moment he was getting ready to shake the hand of an interior designer, and the next, he had pulled pretty Eddy Baker into his arms, crushing her against his chest and claiming her mouth with his.

  There was no thought, no excuse to justify this, nothing besides a need that had apparently been within him this entire time. It had never gone away. It had only been banished to some subconscious locker, and now that locker had burst open, spilling out things that were too many and too messy to name, all of which told him don't let her go again.

  There was a single moment where Eddy was frozen in shock, stiff in his arms, but then her bag clattered to the floor and she seized him every bit as hard as he had seized her. Her hands rose up to tangle in his hair, and her lips were just as hungry as his. She tasted like heaven, and when she slid her tongue teasingly along his lower lip, Travis groaned, sucking it into his mouth and stumbling back to sit down in one of the room's two chairs. He drew her down to sit in his lap, running one disbelieving hand along her flank and down to her thigh.

  She felt good, she felt so damn good, and there was a part of him that refused to believe it had been six years since he'd last had her in his arms. Of course it had only been a few moments since he had kissed her up on Copley Hill, of course it had only been a few hours since he touched her, spoken to her, had her close.

  This is what I've been—

  Suddenly, Eddy's hands were on his chest, and she shoved him back and stood up at the same time. Travis was so surprised that he let her go, and she took a few steps back from him, her lipstick smudged, her hair wild, and a strange look in her eyes.

  "Travis," she said, and he stood, aware that he was likely just as rumpled as she was.

  "Eddy," he said, and he wasn't sure if it was meant to be a greeting or a statem
ent of surprise. "Eddy, I had no idea—"

  "Comstock Enterprises," she said. "I have an interview with Comstock Enterprises, not McMichael Tech..."

  She's heard of my work, Travis thought with a swelling of pride, but then he batted it back because that was not the issue right now.

  "Comstock is the contracting company," he said. "They're the ones who set up the interview. Did ... you not know who you were interviewing with?"

  She shook her head, smoothing her hair back with a distracted hand. He noticed with some relief that her left ring finger was bare, but something in him knew that it would matter less than it should. That titanic rush of passion he had felt when she walked in, it wouldn't have been deterred by something like another man. Eddy had that kind of effect on him. Always had.

  "This is... this is insane," she said, almost to herself. "You're back in Springwell?"

  "Yeah, just this last week," he said. "And I need someone to do something with. Well. All of this."

  He waved a hand around at the tall empty walls, and he couldn't shake the idea of how ridiculous this was, talking about interior design with a woman who set his skin on fire.

  She followed his gesture, more for something to do than out of any real interest.

  "You could use a touch-up here and there," she said automatically, but just when Travis started to grin, she shook her head.

  "No. Impossible," she said, and he remembered that too – Eddy Baker's intense stubbornness and determination. She was nothing like her older brother Sheridan. Sheridan was easy to be friends with, easy-going, friendly and incredibly kind. How poor Sheridan had gotten Eddy for a sister and Travis for a best friend was a real mystery, but he had always claimed he was lucky in both areas.

  "Eddy..."

  "No. This is impossible," she said, shaking her head and taking another step back.

  He rose from the chair, taking another step towards her, but she picked her purse up from the floor, glaring at him.

  "Mr. McMichael," she said, a frostiness in her tone he had never heard before, "thank you kindly for this opportunity, but I am afraid that working with you is altogether impossible."

  "That's the third time you've said that word," he said. "I do not think it means what you think it means."

  She only narrowed her eyes at the quote. The Princess Bride had been her favorite, and he could tell she didn't like that he remembered it.

  "As a matter of fact, Mr. McMichael, I know exactly what it means. I am leaving now. Good luck with your search for a good interior designer."

  She turned on her heel, and Travis was shocked by the impulse to simply grab her and stop her.

  People who met him across a bargaining table or who knew what he was like when someone failed to follow through on a deal or a contract knew he was an asshole. He liked to get things done, and sometimes he didn't care whose feelings he had to hurt or whose nose he had to put out of joint to do it.

  However much of a prick he could be, no matter how hard-assed he was, he had never in all his life tried to keep a woman who wanted to go. He would never, and the fact that he would do it to Eddy Baker of all people shocked him back.

  The door closed behind her with a pressurized hiss, and then she was gone as if she had never been.

  No.

  Not as if she had never been.

  Almost gingerly, Travis touched his lips, which still tingled from their kiss. In his memory, kissing Eddy hadn't been like kissing anyone else. It was hot, it consumed him, there was no one who kissed like Eddy. He had thought that it was the rosy tint offered by memory, but now he knew that it was true. There was no one quite like Eddy, and she had walked out as if he were the worst kind of poison.

  Travis passed a hand over his eyes, the ache in his head throbbing. He sat like that for a few moments, and when his eyes opened, they fell on a dark rectangle on the floor. For a moment, he had no idea what it was, and then he recognized it.

  It was a cell phone, and it must have tumbled out of Eddy's bag when she’d dropped her purse. Without thinking, he picked it up, marveling a little at all the evidence he had left that Eddy Baker was still real and that he had shared one amazing kiss with her before she'd disappeared from his life again.

  The girl, the myth, he thought, and then sense reasserted itself because he was, after all, not a complete prick. He left his office and went down the wide winding stairs to the lobby.

  Travis wasn't expecting any favors when he returned her phone to her. He might have been an asshole sometimes, but he wasn't that kind of jerk. All he wanted to do was to give her her phone, and all right, maybe just see her one more time. That was honestly all that was on his mind when he ran out of the office and into the late summer day. He was momentarily blinded by the bright sun, and then he glimpsed her figure striding down the block towards the metered parking.

  “Eddy! Eddy, wait!”

  Then his eyes cleared as he approached her, and he realized they weren't alone.

  Holding Eddy's hand was a very small child who looked up at him in gentle curiosity, even as her mother's face seemed frozen in shock. His own hand, holding Eddy's phone, dropped down to his side, and his jaw dropped.

  Travis wasn't a guy who had much to do with kids. Most men like him didn't. The older ones hired an army of nannies and tutors to look after their kids so they didn't have to, and the ones his age laughed at the suckers who got 'stuck babysitting' their own children. Travis had never thought about children, but all of that was changing in a hurry as he looked down at the little girl who had his dark brown hair and his bright green eyes.

  Chapter Two

  Eddy

  Eddy wasn't an idiot, no matter what she might have called herself in her weaker moments. She knew that when Travis McMichael looked down at Sofia and then looked up at her with steel in his green gaze, the right response was to lawyer up. Her first priority was always to protect Sofia, and when the world was teetering, that was always going to be her first look-out.

  Obviously Travis could see her thinking that, because his jaw tightened, and then he forcibly relaxed. There was something in his frame that told her he was a half-inch from grabbing her arm to stop her from fleeing like she had already tried to do, but he restrained himself.

  “So what's the best ice cream place around town?” he asked, and Eddy stared at him. Whatever she had thought was going to come out of his mouth, it wasn't that.

  “What?”

  “Ice cream,” he said as if it was the most normal thing in the world. “It used to be Flugel's when I lived here, but I found out it closed when I moved back. You remember that place?”

  “Yeah,” she said, her voice sounding as if it was coming from very far away. “Caramel pecan, you liked that.”

  Travis grinned, and despite herself, she felt something in her warming to him. God, but she had always been such a sucker for that grin.

  “Yeah, and you liked the strawberry shortcake one.”

  “Mona,” Sofia said, softly enough that it might be lost in the sound of traffic on Main Street, but Travis tilted his head towards her. Eddy was startled – Sofia almost never spoke up in front of strangers.

  “What's that, sweetheart?” asked Travis, and Sofia dropped her eyes bashfully.

  “Mona,” she said. “That's the good ice cream.”

  “Hm, thank you for the recommendation,” he said, before glancing back at Eddy. “What do you say I buy us all cones to say thank you for the tip?”

  Eddy wanted to tell him off, not to come for her and Sofia again unless he had a lawyer and a writ for family court, but Sofia squeezed her hand, looking up at her pleadingly.

  “Can we, Mom?” she asked, and Eddy had never been good at telling her daughter no.

  “Sure,” she said reluctantly.

  Let's see where this goes, then...

  Less than ten minutes later, she and Travis were seated at a bench by a playground while Sofia, already done with her chocolate fudge ripple, climbed to the highest po
int on the jungle gym she could reach. Eddy nibbled at her own strawberry waffle cone, because whatever was going to happen was going to happen. She might as well enjoy the free ice cream.

  Beside her, Travis ate his way through a salted caramel cone of his own. He was just as good-looking as she remembered; tall and muscular with dark brown hair and piercing green eyes that always looked as if they could see straight through steel.

  “Good ice cream,” he said idly, and she nodded.

  “It is. The best since Flugel's.”

  A pause.

  “This is a bad transition, ice cream to secret daughters, but Eddy, what the hell.”

  “That's not a question,” she pointed out, and she took a small pleasure in Travis gritting his teeth before he started again.

  “All right. Let's try, what the hell are you playing at, Eddy? That kid, she's mine, isn't she?”

  Eddy's head shot up, and she whirled to face Travis.

  “Bullshit she's yours,” Eddy hissed. “She's mine. I gave birth to her. I'm the one who takes care of her when she's sick. I'm the one who knows her and loves her and is getting her ready for kindergarten in the fall. She's mine.”

  “That might have been different if I had known she existed,” Travis snapped straight back, and Eddy tried not to feel the zing of excitement that whipped down her spine. That was Travis. He had never been someone who was willing to take things lying down. He would fight with her, battle until he got his way or he was convinced that hers was better.

  “I'm sorry, Travis, but six years ago, you didn't look as if you were that interested in settling down to raise a kid. As a matter of fact, I remember you saying that there was only one thing that you gave a damn about, and it wasn't kids, or this town, or me.”