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  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination. Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18.

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  Table of Contents

  Copyright and Disclaimer

  Title Page

  Book 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 17

  Chapter 18

  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

  A Note from the Author

  EXCLUSIVE – Holiday Heat (Never Published)

  Her Hunk

  ACCIDENTAL daddy (Sample)

  Saving Her (Sample)

  About the Author

  BECOMING daddy

  A Billionaire’s Baby Romance

  R.R. Banks

  I gave her a contract. She gave me a baby.

  It was simple.

  Rue would carry the baby.

  My girlfriend and I would raise it.

  Just another contract in the life of a billionaire.

  Sounds simple right? Wrong.

  My girlfriend no longer wants me or my unborn child.

  She may have given up on this baby, but I never will.

  And, I think I’m falling for Rue.

  Rue, with her small-town charm and her enticing curves…

  Ignites the fire inside me.

  I will give her the life she deserves.

  But will someone’s change of heart keep me away from the family I always wanted?

  Chapter One

  She was perfect. Too perfect.

  That should have tipped me off. I should have known the second that I saw her that things weren’t going to turn out the way that any of us were saying that we expected them to. I should have realized the minute that I looked at her too perfect blond hair, too perfect blue eyes, and too perfect pout on her too perfect lips that something was strange.

  But we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves…

  Rue

  “There have been many sage voices who have spoken on the topic of love and its influence on the human condition. One of the greatest of our time illustrated this in the most powerful and poignant of ways with the words ‘If you want to be my lover, you’ve got to get with my friends. Make it last forever. Friendship,” Tessie looked at me solemnly and wagged her finger slowly, “never ends.”

  I stood in the kitchen of my tiny apartment cooking brunch as one of my two best friends read me the opening excerpt of her new novel, the tenth or so that she had started in the time that we knew each other, and the tenth or so that she was going to write five pages of, shove into a drawer, and never finish. My stirring had been brought to a stop by her words and I stared at her, ready for her to get to the joke, but she didn’t. Instead, she brought her notebook down from where she had been holding it high in front of her face and clutched it to her chest.

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  Her dark eyes snapped to me and she nodded.

  “What do you mean ‘that’s it’?” she asked, sounding deeply offended by my question. “Didn’t it touch something inside of you?”

  Yeah, the same thing that it touched inside me in 1996.

  “I’m just not sure that that is the best way to start your existential novel on the sexual awakening and pair-bonding rituals of today’s woman and its over-arching impact on life in the context of the human condition as a whole,” I repeated, trying to remember the exact order of the words that she had used to describe this most recent endeavor when she arrived at the apartment that morning.

  Tessie nodded, a faraway look in her eyes that I imagined she thought was the same type of look that the great Greek philosophers had when they were penning the great truths and musings of their time.

  “You’re right,” she said. “It’s too much. It’s too hard of a hit for the very beginning of the book. I need to give my readers the opportunity to gradually warm up to the intensity of the ideas that I’m presenting to them.”

  I reached out and patted her on the back.

  “You’re a kind and compassionate intellectual overlord,” I said.

  Tessie nodded, a tear coming to her eye as she contemplated just how misunderstood she was and the travesty that was her brilliance being wasted on such a dark and emotionally devoid world. I gave a short laugh and turned back to the butter sauce that I was stirring. It was nearly finished when I heard a knock on the back door. I looked at Tessie quizzically. No one came to the back door. Most people didn’t even realize that my apartment had a back door, and those who did were unlikely to actually climb up the winding fire escape to get to it. I moved the curtain that hung over the small window in the door to peek out and saw Christopher standing on the stoop, his hands grasping the wrought iron railings on either side of him like they were giving him life.

  “It’s Christopher,” I said, letting the curtain fall back in place and going to work releasing the series of locks on the door.

  “What’s he doing on the back porch?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said.

  When all the locks were open I opened the door. The third in our group, and my friend for even longer than Tessie, Christopher never ceased to amaze me with his unpredictability. No matter how long I knew him, I never knew what was going to come out of his brain. That was definitely true now as I took in the electric blue and neon purple striped bike shorts that left virtually nothing to the imagination and matching rollerblades that he was wearing. I had never known Christopher to rollerblade except for his brief foray into roller disco during its resurgence several years back, and his lack of experience was showing. Both knees were turned in toward each other and his ankles were shaking. This explained why he was gripping the railings and appeared several inches taller than he usually was when I looked at him through the window.

  I reached out a hand to Christopher and he took it, allowing me to pull him into the kitchen. He glided across the linoleum floor and grasped the back of one of the stools against the wall.

  “Good morning,” Tessie said.

  “Hi,” Christopher replied.

  “Want to tell me what’s going on here?” I asked, closing the door.

  “Scavenger hunt,” he said.

  “Of course, it is.”

  “Want to tell me why you’re half naked outside in November?”

  “Rollerblading is a good cardiovascular workout?”

&n
bsp; “Right.”

  And has absolutely nothing to do with the others who might be participating in the scavenger hunt.

  “I’m almost done, but there are a few more things that I need.”

  “What are they?”

  “A bobby pin in a color other than brown.”

  “Got it,” Tessie said.

  She reached into her hair and withdrew a lavender pin that she handed over to Christopher.

  “That’s a start. Now, three paper clips.”

  “I’ve got that,” I said, reaching into my junk drawer. “Does it matter what color they are?”

  “Any will do, but I can get bonus points for multiple colors.”

  “Here’s a red, a blue, and a rainbow. Bonus bonus points.”

  “We’re on a roll! Alright, next is commonly found kitchen items reminiscent of the seven dwarves.”

  “What?” Tessie and I asked in unison.

  He looked down at the list that he had taken out of the waistband of his bike shorts and repeated the list item.

  “Um,” I said, looking around. I went to the spice cabinet and grabbed out a bottle. “Ground black pepper? Sneezy?”

  “That’s the spirit. Keep it going. Who’s got Grumpy?”

  We scurried around the kitchen for the next several minutes gathering what we could find that made any link to the dwarves. I thought some of them were a little shaky in their interpretation, but I hadn’t been grocery shopping in a couple of weeks and our options were sparse. When I had packed everything into a bag that I hung over Christopher’s arm, I let out a breath.

  “Alright, what’s next?”

  I need to collect 247 readily distinguishable kisses. Again, bonus points for multiple colors.”

  I rushed into my bathroom and grabbed out my makeup box. Digging through, I pulled out every tube of lipstick I could find.

  “I knew I could rely on you,” he said.

  I handed one to Tessie and smeared on a layer of the brightest red that I could find.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  Christopher gripped the back of the stool with one hand, opened out the other arm, and squeezed his eyes closed in preparation of the barrage.

  “Do your worst,” he said.

  Tessie and I went to work, pressing kiss marks over his shoulders, chest, arms, back, and stomach. We changed lipstick colors every few kisses until he was covered with several hues of lip prints.

  “Is it enough?” Tessie asked.

  I started on one shoulder and counted the kisses. Tessie started on the other and we met in the middle.

  “You’re short by 7,” I told him. He looked crestfallen, but then an idea popped into my head. “Wait,” I said. I went to the drawer beneath the junk drawer and then back to him. “Open your bag.” I dropped seven chocolate kisses inside. “Two from Christmas, three from Easter, and two from the bank candy bowl. Five different colors in total.”

  “You are the best scavenger hunter ever,” Christopher said.

  “Is that all you need?” I asked.

  “Yep, that’s it. On my way to Red Skelton’s house to show off my collection.”

  “Isn’t he dead? Like…really dead?” Tessie asked.

  “Not this one. His parents just had a little bit of a variety show fetish.”

  “Ah.”

  Christopher started scooting toward the door and then turned to look back over his shoulder at me.

  “Could you give me a little push?” he asked. “I’m pretty OK once I’m rolling, but it’s the getting started that’s a struggle.”

  I looked at Tessie.

  “Pour the sauce into a bowl and start dishing up eggs. I’ll be back in just a minute.”

  I followed Christopher as he carefully stepped his way down the stairs, keeping my hands held out in front of me just in case he slipped, and I needed to catch him.

  “How did you possibly get all the way up there by yourself?” I asked as I grabbed onto his arm and scooped him up from certain disaster when one rollerblade rolled ahead of the other.

  “Cautiously,” he said. “It took me almost half an hour. Really cut into my time.”

  “Why didn’t you just come through the front door?”

  “I was already behind your building, so I thought it would be easier. By the time I got to the second landing, I was pretty much already committed.”

  I nodded.

  We had gotten to the bottom of the fire escape and he was still alive, which I was going to count as a personal victory, and I eased him along toward the end of the alley behind the house.

  “Which direction?” I asked.

  He pointed himself and assumed a position that I could only guess was his official rollerblading stance, his back bent forward, his chin up, his arms tucked close to his sides, and his ass pointed back.

  “Ready,” he said.

  “Got your bag?”

  He held it up without looking at me.

  “Yep.”

  “Alright. Godspeed.”

  I gave him a shove and watched as all 240 kiss prints glided away down the sidewalk into the distance. As I walked back toward the apartment, my mind was churning, trying to figure out how I was going to start the conversation I needed to have with Tessie. I had originally planned on telling both her and Christopher at the same time, but I had gone into such a panic just trying to come up with the right words that I decided it might be easier to divide and conquer. I’d take care of telling Tessie first, considering she was much more likely to find some sort of deeply meaningful commentary on the human existence in the whole thing. Then I’d use how that went to reevaluate my approach and tackle telling Christopher later.

  Maybe. In all honesty, he might not notice.

  When I got back into the apartment I engaged all of the locks and grabbed glasses of juice to add to all of the food that Tessie had transferred into the living room. There were days when I really loved this little apartment, the only one I had ever lived in since leaving my hometown. Then there were days when living in a postage stamp with no dining room or bathtub was a bit of a drag. This was one of those moments. It was hard to have a sophisticated brunch over which you planned to have a serious, potentially life-changing conversation when you were either sitting on the floor to eat off of the coffee table or balancing your plate on your lap on the couch.

  I chose the latter, settling onto the couch and looking down toward where Tessie sat on the floor, her plate on the table in front of her. I offered her a glass of juice and she took a swig before setting it onto the glass top of the table. She took up a massive forkful of scrambled eggs and put it in her mouth.

  How do I start this conversation? How do I start this conversation? How do I start this conversation?

  “I’m thinking about becoming a surrogate.”

  Well, shit. That probably wasn’t the best way.

  Tessie looked at me with widened eyes and withdrew the fork from her mouth, still laden with eggs. She lowered it to the plate and pushed it a few inches across the table.

  “You invited me over to your house for an egg-heavy brunch to announce to me that you are considering being a surrogate?” she asked.

  I wriggled uncomfortably and put my plate on the table.

  “Yeah, in retrospect that might have been a bit of a distasteful choice.”

  Tessie took another sip of juice, the expression on her face telling me that she was trying to process my announcement. I felt that, much like her novel, I should have had a little more of a buildup. Since I didn’t yet have access to the delete button of life, there was no way that I could go back and try to fix how the conversation had gone thus far, so all I could really do was wait and hope that it smoothed itself out.

  “What the fuck are you thinking, Rue?”

  Nope. Not looking good for me on the smoothing-out front.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

  “What do I mean?” she asked. “What do I mean? I mean what the fuck are yo
u thinking? You’re just going to go bear some stranger’s spawn?”

  “It’s not like it’s someone off the street,” I insisted. “The couple is extensively screened and provide full information to all of the applicants. There are tons of contracts involved and everything. It’s not as shady as you’re making it out to be.”

  “I’m not making it out to be shady. I’m making it out to be weird as hell. You’re young, you’ve never had a child of your own, but you want to go through pregnancy for somebody else. What good reason could you possibly have to do that?”

  “Grammyma’s house,” I said.

  “What?” Tessie said, the horror and anger falling out of her voice. “What do you mean?”

  “Grammyma’s house,” I said again. “The payments aren’t up to date and if I don’t catch them up soon, they’ll foreclose.”

  “When did you find this out?” she asked.

  Tears were forming in the corners of my eyes, but I didn’t want to acknowledge them. I tried to shake my head to convince them to go away, but this only seemed to encourage them, and they filled my eyes faster.

  “When I went down there to finish settling up Daddy’s estate. I thought that everything was fine, you know?” I looked at Tessie and tried to offer a smile, but could only manage a weak trembling of my bottom lip. “I thought that he was taking care of the house and making sure that everything was fine. I thought that he was doing everything that he promised her that he was going to do.”

  I was starting to feel angry, and I couldn’t let myself do that. I couldn’t let myself feel angry at him. His death was still so recent, and it still cut deeply into my heart every time that I thought about him. No matter how much it hurt, I didn’t want to start covering up those feelings with anger or blame. I knew that the longer I did that, the more those feelings would overshadow the wonderful memories I had of him, and I couldn’t let that happen.

  “What happened?” Tessie asked.

  “It’s really my fault,” I said. “It really is. I shouldn’t have put everything off like I did.”

  “It was just too hard for you.”