Bad Boy's Baby: A Second Chance Secret Baby Romance (Boardwalk Bad Boys Book 1) Read online

  Bad Boy’s Baby

  A Second Chance Secret Baby Romance (Boardwalk Bad Boys Book 1)

  Samantha West

  Copyright © 2018 by Samantha West

  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.

  Cover Design by Samantha West for KISS eBook Designs

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Bad Boy’s Baby

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  Bad Boy’s Baby

  Amanda

  1. Amanda

  2. Dylan

  3. Amanda

  4. Dylan

  5. Amanda

  6. Amanda

  7. Dylan

  8. Amanda

  9. Dylan

  10. Amanda

  11. Dylan

  12. Dylan

  13. Amanda

  14. Dylan

  15. Amanda

  16. Dylan

  17. Amanda

  18. Dylan

  19. Amanda

  20. Dylan

  21. Amanda

  22. Dylan

  23. Amanda

  24. Dylan

  25. Amanda

  Dylan

  Double Wood - Excerpt

  Mark

  About the Author

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  Also by Samantha West

  Bad Boy’s Baby

  Mandy crashed into my seaside town with a suitcase and a broken heart.

  New York royalty with dangerous curves, a sinful little dress, and a tiara perched on her head.

  She was looking to mend her wounds with just one thing.

  A night with a big, hard bad boy.

  So I gave it to her - and I made her every fantasy come true.

  Then she disappeared.

  Dylan

  Women come and go like the seasons in my tourist town.

  And Mandy? She skipped out faster than any of them.

  For two years I swore off women, unable to get her out of my head.

  She was all soft curves, a sassy mouth - a hurricane in a tight dress and a fake diamond tiara.

  But now little Princess Mandy is back in the town where I rule like a King.

  And it’s about time I make her my Queen.

  Mandy

  He told me to call him Big D.

  And he was big, in every way - larger than life, my knight on a rockin’ steed.

  He saved my wounded ego the night I caught my fiancé with another woman.

  He made me feel things I never dreamed possible.

  But the next morning, Big D broke my heart all over again - so I ran.

  A month later, I received some shocking news.

  Now Big D wants me back - and this is where things really get complicated.

  Bad Boy’s Baby is a standalone, super hot, fun, full-length romance novel with no cheating and an HEA that ties everything up in a pretty bow.

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  Bad Boy’s Baby

  Amanda

  My heels click on the floor of Eric’s lobby the way they never do in my building. But then, I guess this is my building now too.

  That’s what happiness is, isn’t it? And achievement? The feeling that you’ve done everything right and you’ve become absolutely fulfilled by your choice of career, boyfriend, everything? The clicking of a four-hundred dollar pair of heels on the floor of a building your fiancé owns an apartment in - isn’t that happiness?

  As the doorman smiles warmly and nods at me, I smile back. I’d say hello, but the lobby of this building on West 57th Street is so cool and sharp, and I already feel as though I don’t belong here. Adding my voice to it will just make me feel like even more of an outsider.

  The other thing that’s making me feel a bit uncomfortable is the fact that I’m wearing a garter belt and stockings under my clothes.

  I wanted to do something nice for Eric, so I decided to put away my own personal comfort for an evening and show him my sexy side.

  At least I think I have a sexy side. I went shopping during lunch yesterday at Bloomingdale’s a few blocks from my office. The woman assisting me told me she had just the thing I’d want to wear for my fiancé, after she prodded and finally got out of me what I was actually in the store looking for.

  At first I’d told her I didn’t need any help. I loitered near the display of simple cotton bras and panties, the ones where the underwear comes rolled up in packs of three or five. I even grabbed a couple of packs, but it was a decoy to distract from what I really wanted.

  But it was a bit embarrassing. I know it’s just underwear, but I felt all sorts of feelings looking at the selections they had to offer. Imagining myself in a corset or a pair of thigh-highs, my legs covered with the silky material and my feet coming to graceful arches in my heels...my cheeks flushed and I felt the skin on my face grow warm the longer I looked, so I just looked away.

  Until the saleswoman came by to help me again. She knew I was trying to buy something titillating, and she was kind enough to not make me feel any more self-conscious than I already felt.

  So part of what I feel off balance about this evening is what I’m wearing under my clothes. The other thing is just being in his building, though it is technically my building now, too.

  The hallway leading to the elevator bank is so gorgeous it’s actually just almost silly. It’s dim and romantic, with recessed lighting along the ceiling, casting a warm, golden glow over the white marble floors and walls. I’ve been here so many times, but this is my home too, now.

  I don’t know if I’ll ever really be able to get used to it.

  I lean down and hit the call button for the elevator with my elbow. In my arms I’m cradling a cardboard box of some things I’ve taken home with me because I don’t want them sitting in my office while I’m on my staycation. I have a few picture frames and my plant - it’s not that I don’t trust my colleagues to water my plant, but...I don’t trust my colleagues to water my plant. Even though it’s cactus, it still does need to be watered about once a week.

  And the picture frames are coming home with me because I want to make Eric’s home my home too, officially. Just dropping my stuff into his apartment won’t make it mine if there’s nothing personal there, so I have my framed photos of my parents with me.

  The elevator dings so softly that I can barely hear it. I step into the elevator - again, not the first time I’ve been here, but now it’s really starting to seep in that this is where I live now. The strangest part is that this elevator is honestly about the size of my first apartment.

  Maybe I feel a little uncomfortable here because I’ve moved in gradually. Placing the box down on the plush cream-colored carpet beneath my feet on the elevator, a flood of nerves swarms into my belly. I pinch the bridge of my nose and close my eyes tightly.

  Before I can compose myself, the elevator dings softly again, depositing me on Eric’s floor. I grab my cardboard box and hitch it up onto my hip.

  I make my way through the hallway of the 60th floor, but now my heels aren’t clicking. The floor is covered from wall to wall with the same crea
m carpet from inside the elevator. The maintenance fees in this building must be ridiculous, and there must not be very many children living in this building for them to be able to keep these damn carpets clean. They’re pretty, sure, but it seems a bit impractical to have them in a common area.

  But the view...the view is breathtaking. I almost don’t want to look, because I don’t want to meander in the hallway for too long before one of Eric’s neighbors comes out of their apartment and asks me what I’m doing here loitering on their property.

  But I allow myself to indulge a bit. I put my box down on the knee-height ledge of the window and peer out, taking in the view all the way down to the street and all the way up to the sky. There’s so much to see - all in sparkling, vivid detail. I allow my eyes to scan along the skyscape, at the glittering river off to the east and the little windows of the skyscrapers all around me, lit up like lights on a Christmas tree.

  I can hardly believe this view is mine now.

  I drag myself away from the gorgeous view and continue down the hallway. I’m not here for the view. No, I’m here for sex. Sex is a valid reason to go to your fiancé’s apartment, right?

  It seems a bit silly to being surprising my fiancé with sexy new lingerie, but I think it’s important to keep it fresh, or at least that’s what I’ve been told. Even though we’ve only been together for three years and engaged for six months, things are getting a bit stale already.

  We both work long hours, and fatigue and anxiety are anathema to a good sex life, or so I’ve been told. When Eric and I do have our date nights, he buys a nice bottle of whiskey from whatever white-glove restaurant he brings me to, and he gets so wound up over work and then so apathetic when he has his drinks in him, that by the time we get home I have to give myself my own shoulder rub instead of him sweetly asking if he can do it for me like he used to.

  But this...the push-up bra that makes my breasts a size bigger and makes my waist look slimmer, and the silk stockings, the lace tops of which I can feel against my thighs, anticipating his touch on my body, and the black thong that covers pretty much nothing...this will work.

  This, he’ll like.

  Hell, I already like it. Even though I feel uncomfortable, I’m turning myself on with this stuff. Surely it’ll turn him on.

  Drawing my shoulders back and forcing myself to stand up a bit straighter, I push my long brown hair behind my shoulders with one hand, still balancing my cardboard box on my hip with the other, with about as much grace as a slightly inebriated flamingo. And when I get to his door - our door - I take my brand new key out of my purse and let myself in.

  Strangely, the apartment is dark. He’s almost always here on Friday evenings waiting for me, because we have our standing date. I am here earlier than normal, and I don’t always come up to his apartment, but it’s strange that he doesn’t seem to be here.

  I flip the entryway light on as I cautiously take another step into the apartment. Of course I have every right to be here, but I still do feel like a bit of a stranger.

  My heels start clicking on the hardwood floor again as I make my way to the living room. Oh yeah, that’s the sound I have learned to love and loathe in equal measure.

  As I come around the corner to the hallway leading to his bedroom, I see the light inside is on, bleeding from underneath the door and slicing across the floor. Realizing my palms are sweating and I’ve been clutching onto my cardboard box like a life preserver, I place it on the table in the hallway.

  Eric’s probably in his room getting ready for our date, and I should slink in to surprise him, throw him down on the bed and strip my clothes off so he can see what I did for him.

  Maybe I don’t quite belong here. Maybe I’m trying too hard. Eric may be out of my league, but I’m moving up to match him. I’m getting there.

  His father got me a job at his friend’s law firm, and I started as an associate last year. So I’ve had some success in joining Eric’s world. I still have some ways to go, but I’m trying.

  This is me trying.

  The wives and girlfriends of blue-chip attorneys surprise their men with slutty lingerie on a regular basis, right?

  I feel the arches of my feet strain inside my shoes as I cross one leg in front of the other and take another step toward Eric’s room. I try to turn the doorknob, but the door’s locked.

  Shit. Now the surprise is less of a surprise. I guess as soon as he comes to the door to let me in I can jump on him and just forget the strip-tease.

  I clear my throat and jiggle the doorknob.

  “Eric?” I say sweetly. “Let me in, baby.”

  I hear rustling and a dimmed thud behind the door.

  “Eric? Everything okay in there?”

  “Uh, yeah,” he says. He sounds startled.

  “Did I wake you up?” I ask, getting closer to the door. “Why’s the door locked?”

  I see the light on the floor shift. It looks like he’s walking around in there. A creeping uneasiness, starting inside my belly, floods my veins slowly, like warm water filling a tub. I swallow thickly and step back.

  “Yeah, just give me a minute,” he says. A rustling sound gathers behind the door, and other thud.

  “Open...open the door,” my voice cracks.

  “Please,” he says, his voice low and muffled. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” I say, reaching out for the doorknob. I feel like I’m not inside my body. Someone else is animating my movements, my actions, and my mind goes completely blank. I can’t think of anything.

  This is not. Fucking. Happening.

  The door opens slowly, the blade of light on the floor spreading out before a blonde woman in a short white dress appears.

  “He wasn’t talking to you,” she says, gliding past me. I feel my mouth drop open and my jaw grow hard, the heat of humiliation pricking the back of my neck.

  And I just stand there, frozen. A cold sweat breaks out on my forehead. It feels like two minutes go by, but it’s probably only two seconds before I reach out to the door and push it open.

  Eric stands before me, just inside the room. He looks as shocked as I feel.

  “Really?” I say. I feel my head cock to the side and my mouth fill with hot saliva. I don’t even know what I’m feeling. It’s anger, yeah. Blinding, searing anger. I feel it with red heat, filling my cheeks and my belly. I want to scream and cry and run away.

  But it’s also disbelief.

  And embarrassment. Humiliation. Of all the days I wanted to do something sexy and hot and fun for him, he had a cliche tall, gorgeous blonde in his bed. It’s ironic. Funny, almost.

  Almost.

  “I am so sorry, Amanda,” he says, springing from the corner of the bed. His shirt’s unbuttoned and I can smell her Dolce and Gabbana perfume still on him.

  “What the fuck?” I ask. His eyes widen and he looks at me with disbelief. I’m even surprised I said that. I don’t talk like that. Ever. But I guess this is new territory for me.

  “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.” Eric gets down on his knees and tries to take my hands in his, but I swat them away. I don’t know where they’ve been, though I can guess. But I don’t want to know.

  “No,” I say, “this?” I back up into the hallway and wave a finger in the air between us. “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”

  I grab my box from the table in his hallway, slam my engagement ring down with force that feels ceremonious, and start out out of his apartment as he runs up next to me. I don’t even feel like crying. Not now. I just want to get the hell away from him and burn the stupid garter belt I’m wearing.

  “Mandy, please. Come on. Let’s just talk. It was one stupid mistake.” He grabs me by the wrist and I freeze from the shock of his touch before yanking my arm away.

  “No. And you don’t touch me.”

  I get to the elevators and hit the call button, turning away from him, dodging him as he tries to move to face me. I know he wants to reason with me,
but it’s not happening.

  I swallow thickly as I hear that soft, infuriating ding of the elevator, and I step inside.

  Eric starts to get on the elevator with me, but I shoot him a look that I can see makes his blood grow cold. He puts his hands up and backs away, still facing me.

  “No,” I say. “No.”

  The doors slide closed and I feel my insides crumble, deflating me. Defeating me. Now I feel like crying. But I don’t. I look up at the ceiling and squeeze my eyes shut, blinking away tears as I take my phone out of my purse to call my best friend.

  “Hey!” Ashley answers. “I know, I know. I won’t ask you again if you’ve changed your mind about the trip.”

  I let out a long breath and pinch the bridge of my nose, shaking my head.

  “You don’t have to ask,” I reply. “Can you have the limo pick me up in Midtown?”

  1

  Amanda

  Four Hours Later

  This isn’t me. At least, it’s not the real me. The real me is in New York right now. The real me has a big, fat diamond on her ring finger. The real me is eating with the correct utensils at the Gramercy Tavern and being careful not to laugh too loud.

  On the outside, I probably look like the same person I was four hours ago. On the inside, though?