Page 31 of Secret Baby for Dr. Billionaire

“So, tell me about yourself, Chloe.” His statement slightly took me aback.

“Well, what do you want to know?”

“For starters, I want to know who this Franklin person is.” His tone didn’t sit well with me. I understood he was protective of Sofi and hadn’t met Frankie yet, but his prejudice didn’t sit well with me.

“You need to calm yourself down about Frankie. He’s my best friend, and that’s it.”

“And the penthouse?”

“He rented it because he thought he’d be doing work around the area. When his client changed the venue, he couldn’t cancel it, so he gave the three months to me because he knew I was planning to move away from New York.”

I shut the fridge after I found the nuts and the olive oil, and then I started walking toward him. He was leaning against the countertop, his arms crossed against his body, making his biceps look bigger than ever.

“Was New York not to your liking?”

“It’s beautiful there, especially on the holidays. The entire city sparkles, lights everywhere. But it wasn’t home. At least not to me. I wanted Sofi to grow up somewhere less…busy and less expensive.”

“The views are beautiful here. Warm. You have access to the beach twenty-four-seven.” Ben took the ingredients from me and measured them before putting them in the processor with the basil and the garlic. He let the thing rip, and thankfully, it was the quiet kind, so it didn’t bug Sofi, who was now slowly drifting to sleep.

“Yeah. Sofi and I love the beach. We have been going down there to see the sunrise each day since we arrived.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“You’re not quiet when you leave your unit, Chloe.” Oh. For a second, I thought he was spying on me through the peephole.

“How about you? Anything I should know about?”

“If you grab a handful of fettuccines and put them in the pot, I’ll be happy to tell you everything you want to know.” I followed his instructions and grabbed a reasonable amount of fettuccine from one of the pasta containers in his pantry.

I noticed that Ben liked to cook and preferred his food to be organic. He could’ve simply used a pesto sauce from a jar instead of making one.

“Shoot.”

“Are you close with your mother?”

“As close as a son will ever be to his mother. We’re not exactly best of friends, but we get along. You?”

“I didn’t know my parents. I grew up in the foster care system. Never been adopted. That’s where I met Frankie.”

“Did you try looking for them?”

“There was no point. I was content with what I got. I excelled at school, graduated, and had a stable job. They never really crossed my mind that much. If they did, I never had the resources even to begin looking for them.”

When I was a kid, it bugged me that I didn’t know who my parents were, and I’d always get so jealous of the kids who got adopted into a lovely home. I always thought I’d look for them once I was out of the system. But when I needed to graduate and get a job to survive, they stopped being my top priority.

“It was their loss, Chloe.”

“I’m sure they had their reasons. Maybe I was better off in the system than with them.”

“Still.”

“How about you? If I remember correctly, you said you have a kid. Well, aside from Sofi.”

“I do.”

“Are they here?”

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