S is for Secret Baby Read online

  S is for Secret Baby

  Annie J. Rose

  Copyright © 2019 by Annie J. Rose

  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 is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature readers only.

  All characters are 18+ years of age and all sexual acts are consensual.

  Photography: Wander Aguiar

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Dating My Best Friend (Preview)

  Please don’t forget to leave a review!

  Also by Annie J. Rose

  About the Author

  Join my mailing list and grab a free steamy book!

  Updates on free books, hot deals and giveaways.

  Zero spam.

  You can also click here to join!

  Description

  Sleeping with the enemy?

  Well, now she works for me.

  Rian was my rival in college, vying for the same internship.

  Sometimes enemies are fire between the sheets—we were.

  Until she walked off with the internship.

  Now, the smart-mouthed beauty who always kept me guessing got downsized and takes a job out in Nebraska out of desperation.

  She’s working for me.

  I don’t mind her working under me, but I’d rather have her in bed.

  Or across this desk.

  Her ideas are brilliant and the flirting is hot, so we’re playing with fire.

  Against company regulations, we have a blazing secret affair.

  I can’t get enough of her, and I know she feels the same way.

  Everything’s like a fantasy until a phone call sends her into a panic, and our sexy business trip is cut short.

  Because Rian has a secret.

  She took more from me than that internship in college.

  She has a daughter—my daughter.

  A child who was kept secret from me by the enemy I’ve come to love.

  Nothing can ever be the same now that I know her secret.

  Chapter 1

  Wes

  I frowned at the number of emails in my inbox. Jesus. It was always the same, but it always seemed to catch me off guard: take just one afternoon off, and the next day you somehow had two thousand emails to weed through. This was at a relatively small business, too. I could only imagine what it was like if you worked for one of those crazy city-based companies.

  Granted, if I worked for one of those companies, I doubted I would even have the luxury of taking even half an hour off, let alone half a day.

  Before I could really get into answering my emails, there was a knock at the door. I looked up to see my assistant Beth standing there. She had a file in her hand and a disgruntled look on her face. “The new girl is in the lobby,” she informed me in a clipped tone. I raised an eyebrow at her as she tossed the folder on my desk and crossed her arms.

  I suppressed a sigh. It was clear that Beth already didn’t like the new hire. Not that it was really any of her business. I mean, okay, she was probably worried that as my assistant, she would need to pick up any slack that the new hire couldn’t keep up with. She should have known by now that wasn’t the way I ran the company, though. Besides, it was inappropriate for her to be so vocal about her dislike for the new woman, especially since she barely knew the girl.

  It was on the tip of my tongue to chastise Beth, but I knew that wouldn’t go over well. See, she used to be the owner’s assistant, but since George went into semi-retirement, I had inherited her. She wasn’t the person I would necessarily have chosen as an assistant, but that was purely from a personality standpoint. At the end of the day, she knew what she was doing, and she was loyal to the company. That meant a lot.

  That said, she took liberties I typically wouldn’t permit. There were certain behaviors I wanted to nip in the bud before too long. Still, now might not be the best time, with the new girl waiting down in the lobby.

  “What’s your impression of her?” I asked Beth mildly. Maybe if she talked about it and I was able to shut down any ridiculous preconceptions she had, she would take it easy on the new girl. That was probably the best I could do for now.

  Beth rolled her eyes, further cementing my impression that there was something about the new girl she didn’t approve of. “She’s some big-city businesswoman who clearly thinks she’s too good to be out here in the sticks,” she said, her tone dripping with disdain.

  I tried not to wince, knowing that would only give Beth more reason to side against the new girl. No, I didn’t want to validate her impressions if I could help it. Even if I honestly didn’t have the time to deal with someone who thought they were too good for this place.

  Besides, I wouldn’t have ended up as CEO of the biggest company in my hometown if I wasn’t damned proud of being from there. We might be a small town in Nebraska, overlooked by most of the rest of the world, but we had made a name in the business world. Not to mention that people here were friendly, and life moved at a pace I was comfortable with. I wouldn’t trade it for anywhere else.

  So no, I didn’t particularly like the idea of someone coming in here who thought they could do better than this. I didn’t mention that to Beth, though. Instead, in an equally mild tone, I just said, “I’m sure she’ll find a way to fit in eventually.”

  Beth’s face darkened, and I could tell that when she opened her mouth again, it would be to say something even more unkind about the new hire. Suddenly, I felt as though I’d heard enough. “You’re more than welcome to express your opinion, especially in a general form,” I said sternly, “but I won’t tolerate rudeness or unprofessionalism in this company.”

  Beth’s mouth tightened into a thin line, but she nodded. “All right,” she said coolly.

  “Please show her in,” I instructed, turning to the file she had carelessly tossed on my desk. I hadn’t had a chance yet to look up any information about the new innovations manager that George had hired just before he turned the reins of the company over to me. Things had been crazy during the transition period, and anyway, I trusted George had picked someone well-suited to the position.

  I had worked with this company ever since I graduated from business school, and that was quite long enough to know that George knew what he was doing. He and I didn’t always see eye to eye, and especially not where personnel was concerned, but he would have hired someone who was at least competent.

  I flipped open the file and stared down at the na
me that was in bold at the top of the résumé. My mouth dropped open.

  Rian James. No way.

  Surely it had to be another person. But then again, how many girls were there named “Rian”? To have the same last name as well… No way, though. She wouldn’t come back to Nebraska. Would she?

  I looked up as the door opened again. Beth walked in with a fake smile plastered on her face. My eyes slid past her to the woman following her, however. There was no doubt about it: she was absolutely the same Rian James I remembered.

  The same Rian James who was my nemesis in business school. The same Rian James that I fell half in love with until she snagged my dream internship out from under me.

  Our eyes locked, and I felt a surge of electricity go through me. She was even more beautiful than she was seven years ago. And it was clear that she recognized me, too. An unreadable emotion flitted across her face, but she quickly controlled her expression. It left me wondering what she was thinking. Not that I could ask.

  “Wes, this is Rian James. Rian, Wes—the CEO of GBC,” Beth said, and it was all I could do to keep from blurting out the fact that we already knew one another. Oh, we knew one another very well. My mind flashed back to that night, her silky skin spread out beneath me on the sheets, and I tried very hard to push those images away and focus on the present.

  Fortunately, Beth didn’t seem to want to stick around. She slipped out of the office, leaving me alone with Rian. I wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not.

  “Rian,” I said, wondering if my voice sounded as choked to her as it did to myself. “Seeing you again is an… unexpected surprise.”

  Rian frowned. “I thought I’d be meeting with George Austin,” she said.

  “George recently handed over the reins of the company to me when he went into semi-retirement,” I informed her. “I will be your direct supervisor.”

  A look of panic appeared in Rian’s eyes, and she quickly looked away. I couldn’t help but feel unsettled. Was that a normal reaction? I didn’t know why she would look panicked, though. Unhappy, maybe. Concerned, perhaps. But panicked?

  Back in college, we were both at the top of our business school class. It seemed like we went head-to-head for everything in our projects, competing for the best internships and chances at graduate programs. It all came to a point at the very end of our time at school, with one final project. According to our advisor, my project was the more polished of the two of ours, but somehow, she had still managed to edge me out of the internship of my dreams.

  The real kicker of it all? I only found out that she had landed the internship after she left town for New York City. After she had broken my heart.

  That one night was all that we had together, but it was still etched there in my brain. I could remember it as well as any other memory I had, and then some. Every detail, every feeling, and every taste lingered in my head.

  I tried not to think about that, though. Especially not now. I had to keep it together and be professional. I was her boss now, and employee relationships were strictly not allowed. She was completely off-limits.

  That was a good thing, anyway. I hadn’t forgiven her yet for disappearing like she had, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to. Even if she had been available, I knew better than to start anything with her anytime soon.

  To distract myself, I flipped through her résumé, humming in interest as I saw the various positions she had worked in the years since I had last seen her. I had to admit it was pretty impressive. She had worked her way up with the same company she’d had the internship with, all the way to a similar position as the one she would be taking on here. George had definitely had a good reason for hiring her.

  “Why’d you leave?” I asked, looking up at her.

  Rian sighed and shrugged. “You know how it goes,” she said. “Corporate merger, company downsizing. I was the one to get cut.”

  I nodded. “Fair enough,” I murmured, looking back at her résumé. That made plenty of sense, but it didn’t explain what she was doing back here in Nebraska. There were other companies there in New York. She had made it very clear she had no desire to stay here any longer than she had to.

  That in itself made me leery of agreeing to go through with the training process. What if we put in all the effort to bring her into the role here and she then up and quit?

  I wouldn’t know unless I asked her. I looked up at her. “If you don’t mind me asking, what the hell are you doing back here?” The words came out a bit stronger than I had intended, but I hoped she realized that I wasn’t playing around here. I wanted a serious answer from her. Her employment here was contingent upon it, in fact.

  George may have hired her on, but if there was one thing that I wasn’t going to do as a CEO, it was waste my time. If she didn’t plan on sticking around, I wasn’t going to put in the effort to train her.

  Rian looked away for a moment, but when she looked back at me, there was enough of a challenge in her eyes that I could tell she wasn’t lying to me. “Got tired of life in the big city, I guess,” she said.

  I wanted to believe her. To be honest, I knew how smart she was, and I didn’t want to send her out of there before she had even really started. At the same time, though, there was something about the way she said it that sounded hollow to my ears. No, there was definitely more to it.

  I had to decide whether I was willing to take a chance on her. If I was willing to trust her. I never wanted to trust her again.

  At the end of the day, though, I had to accept the fact that George had hired her. Besides, we needed her, and as much as I didn’t want to waste time training someone who was only there for the short term, I also knew that I didn’t currently have the time to start interviewing other candidates for the position.

  I started going over the company protocols with her, then took her on a tour of the office. As we walked around, I had to stop myself from watching the way her ass swayed in that sexy pencil skirt she was wearing. Jesus.

  I couldn’t possibly do anything about the attraction. And at the end of the day, I didn’t want to. Still, I couldn’t deny the fact that she looked damn good. It was definitely going to be hard to keep my mind on the job with her walking around the building.

  What else could I do, though? I definitely couldn’t fire her now, or she would claim that I had done so out of some sort of sexual harassment. I wasn’t sure what the rules would be on that since I had slept with her long before I became her boss, but I knew that things would definitely be better if I found some flaw to the way she worked prior to firing her.

  I had to quit thinking about her ass, her silky skin, everything else. I had to focus on work and keep things strictly professional. Suddenly, that felt like the most difficult thing I had ever faced with this company—and I had faced a lot on my road to becoming the company’s CEO.

  Chapter 2

  Rian

  I knew I was staring, but I couldn’t help myself. I had never expected to see Wes Brown again after college. I mean, there had been part of me that had definitely wondered what he was up to. I had thought about looking for him online a few times and maybe reconnecting. Just to see what he was doing with his life. I had decided against it each time, though.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t care. But it definitely wasn’t any of my business, and in any case, I had enough on my plate without inviting trouble into my life.

  Now, though, I was kicking myself. If I had known he worked here, I would never have applied. I would never have even considered this company as a possibility. Finding out he was my new boss had me in full panic mode.

  I had come to Nebraska looking for a fresh start. I had spent the last few years being ground down to nothing by my job, only to be tossed aside with no consideration when the company merged with a bigger one. I had come back to Nebraska because I still had some friends here from my college days, but I had thought that Wes would be long gone by now. It had never even occurred to me that he might work somewhere in tow
n and that I might cross paths with him again.

  After all, he had wanted that city internship just as badly as I did. It was part of why I hadn’t told him I had gotten it in the end. I had been afraid to admit to him that not only was I leaving him behind, but I was also doing it so that I could take the position he had wanted most in the world.

  If I had known he was going to be my boss, there were no ties in the world that would have brought me back here. Even if the rent on my new townhome was a fraction of what I had paid for what was practically a closet in the city. Even if I was lucky enough to not have to start at the bottom here and work my way back up again. Even if this new position paid me well enough to actually live.

  As much as I’d wanted to go to New York City, I had grown kind of tired of the never-ending cycle of go, go, go. I was a different person now than I had been when I’d set off for the city.

  For one thing, I was no longer living just for myself.

  Coming back to Nebraska gave me the chance to spend a little more time with my daughter, and to raise her in an environment that I hoped would be a lot safer, quieter, and overall just better for her. I had spent a lot of time, when I first started looking into moving, researching different school districts and different opportunities for Ronny. I was sure this would be good for us, even though there was a part of me that still felt terrible for ripping my six-year-old away from all of her friends.