Page 13 of Secret Baby for Dr. Billionaire

Now, at nine o’clock, after we’d had dinner outside, I could see the exhaustion in her tired eyes. She had been fighting sleep in the car, and when I saw her almost swaying on the elevator ride up, I gathered her in my arms. It didn’t take long before she was sound asleep on my shoulders.

When I entered using the keycard and opened the penthouse door, Charlie’s soft whimpers and barks greeted me by the door. Today he was wearing his pink bandana for Billy Anne. Too bad she wouldn’t be able to see it until tomorrow morning when she was up. The pup stood on his hind feet and put his paws on my leg. His nose stretched to smell Billy Anne’s rainbow-colored toes.

“She’s asleep, bud.” The golden retriever growled softly in protest.

I walked towards Billy Anne’s room to tuck her into bed. There was usually a quick bath for her before bed, but tonight was one of those nights where I’d change her clothes, let her sleep, and worry about the bath tomorrow. She was exhausted from the wait in my office.

Billy Anne had been a strong little girl despite what she had gone through. The thought of her alone in my old house, hungry and covered in snot, made my chest ache like no other heartbreak. I couldn’t believe that Tonette had been willing to leave her like that, unsupervised. But then again, she really didn’t have a maternal bone in her body. She was only in it for the money.

Me? God knows what I was willing to do for this kid. She had taught me so many things and brought me so much good into my life despite what happened with her mother. I thought she’d hate me for allowing a woman like that to stay in our lives—for letting the first mistake slide.

Although I felt guilty that she was now motherless and didn’t have a mother figure in her life as she grew up. Still, I’d rather she had none of that than have one who would recklessly hurt and neglect her.

Charlie followed me into her bedroom, sitting on the floor, his eyes on me and still complaining at my feet. His loud bark and growl didn’t faze Billy Anne, but I still led Charlie outside her room when she was all tucked in.

This pup was still relentless, barking, growling, and howling as I closed Billy Anne’s door behind me.

“No, Charlie,” I commanded, and usually, on a good day, he’d obey. “Billy Anne can’t play tonight, bud. We’ll go to the beach tomorrow morning to compensate.” Unfortunately, the sound of the word “beach” only made him more enthusiastic. He thought we were going to the beach, and his excitement made him lift his butt and tail in the air, activating his zoomies. He ran around the house, nails tapping on the hardwood floor and his voice booming in the stillness of the night.

The noise made my ears tingle, and I scolded Charlie to stop. To no avail, of course.

The pounding at the door that followed made me realize that I had a neighbor now and didn’t have the liberty of making as much fuss as I wanted anymore. Fuck! The realization immediately showered me with guilt.

I had read my neighbor’s note when I left for work, apologizing for pounding the wall and calling a truce. They were the ones who had apologized first as if they were the ones who had inconvenienced me.

The loud knock came again, making Charlie stop on his feet to listen to the sound. He barked at the door when my new neighbor banged on the door once more. This time, I picked Charlie up from the floor and hugged him into submission, gently holding his mouth shut.

“What?” I called from the door.

“Look,” the voice called from the other side. It almost sounded familiar from where I was, but that was impossible. I’d know if someone I had met before rented the penthouse inmybuilding. Although it was slightly muffled, I could tell it was a woman. A furious woman. “I know I called a truce and all, but man, you’re really pushing my buttons here.”

“This is all your fault, Charlie,” I hissed at the pup in my arms. “What do you want?” I called to the woman outside my door.Really Ben?What do you want?God, that was stupid. I cringed internally at how badly I was handling this situation. Then again, I’d been so used to being alone on the floor that I forgot about my neighbor.

“What do Iwant?” she repeated, audibly scoffing. She pounded the door again, insistent that I open it. It should freak me the fuck out that she was mad like that and was knocking on my door like some lunatic when I had a child sleeping in the house, but if anything, her rage almost…amused me.

“I want you to open this door, and you’re going to talk to me like a man about what you’re going to do with that dog of yours because it’s really getting kind of annoying.”

I narrowed my eyes at Charlie, who was still wagging his fucking tail as if he didn’t put me in this situation.

“Or what?”

“Or what?” the disbelief in her shriek made me chuckle. Fucking shit. I probably shouldn’t be this happy to tease the stranger by the door. “What do you want me—Ugh!Open this door!” More pounding, more thumping.

“And if I don’t?” I jested, but I was already walking towards the door, waiting for the right moment to catch her off guard before opening it.

“I-I’ll tell the landlord you have a dog in the house, which the contract says is prohibited.”

It wasn’t. But she didn’t need to know that I knew it was not forbidden, and she didn’t realize I owned the building. So, I give her the benefit of the doubt.

“By all means,” I said while twisting the doorknob and opening the door, excited to see the shock on her face. “Be my guest.”

The world stopped for only a quick moment, but it seemed to pause longer than that. I blinked my shock away and tightened my jaw, praying that the surprise on my face wasn’t as apparent as the surprise on hers.

She was as beautiful as the day I met her at my bar that night two years ago.Bonnie. But instead of a sexy black dress, she was wearing a tie-dye shirt that was probably three times more than her size. Her long, sexy legs were showing under it, and her dark hair was loose, cascading down her back. Her alluring lips were slightly parted as she stared at me with a startled look. She was glued to the floor, forgetting the fact that we were in the middle of an argument.

She shook the expression off and was back to her feisty-looking self in a blink of an eye. It set weird alarms in my head, which then sent signals down to my fucking cock.

I couldn’t help but remember the night we spent in the hotel, probably one of the best one-night stands I had had in my life. It was not frequent that I slept around, but I did when I was out of Florida without Billy Anne. That New York trip I had last two years was for the bars I’d opened there, and God seemed to know that I needed a good lay. I had met Bonnie there when I wasn’t looking for any kind of hook-up at all.

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