The Billionaire’s Pregnant Fling (Jameson Brothers Book 2)
The Billionaire’s Pregnant Fling
Jameson Brothers Book Two
Leslie North
Contents
Jameson Brothers
Copyright
The Billionaire’s Pregnant Fling
Blurb
Mailing List
About Leslie
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Epilogue
End of The Billionaire’s Pregnant Fling
Thank you!
Sneak Peak
Jameson Brothers
The Billionaire’s Ex-Wife
The Billionaire’s Pregnant Fling
The Billionaire’s Sexy Rival
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
RELAY PUBLISHING EDITION, NOVEMBER 2017
Copyright © 2017 Relay Publishing Ltd.
All rights reserved. Published in the United Kingdom by Relay Publishing. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design by LJ Anderson of Mayhem Cover Creations.
www.relaypub.com
Blurb
This billionaire playboy has turned over a new leaf—just in time to become a new dad.
Eddie Jameson has held the title of black sheep in the Jameson family for years. Creative, cocky and carefree, Eddie had a reputation for being the life of the party and a pain in the ass when it comes to following procedure. However, back in the flagship branch of the Jameson Agency, Eddie is proving himself to be a new man—someone worthy of his family’s’ respect.
Margot Dale is the daughter of one of Jameson Agency’s most lucrative clients and the girl Eddie has been after for years. New leaf or not, he wants her—and how much harm could bringing the old Eddie back for one night do? When Margot and Eddie meet unexpectedly at a party, sparks fly and a childhood attraction rapidly becomes an adult sexcapade.
Now Eddie’s role in the company, and in his family, is on the line. Margot is pregnant and for the first time in her life, unsure of how to handle a situation. The one thing Margot and Eddie know they have is a connection—one that strengthens each other and sets off fireworks between the sheets. But they’ll need to decide if love and marriage are really coming with their baby carriage.
Mailing List
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(Jameson Brothers Book Two)
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About Leslie
Leslie North is the USA Today Bestselling pen name for a critically-acclaimed author of women's contemporary romance and fiction. The anonymity gives her the perfect opportunity to paint with her full artistic palette, especially in the romance and erotic fantasy genres.
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Chapter One
Eddie
His one-night stand was coming back to haunt him, and Eddie Jameson had never been more eager for the reunion.
"Jameson?" The haughty venture capitalist attempted to reclaim his attention. "You all right? The punch hitting you a little too hard there?"
Eddie blinked. He had almost forgotten where he was in the New York bar, and who he was talking to...scratch that, he had forgotten who he was talking to. "Yeah. Hey, I'll be with you in a minute," he promised the suit in front of him. Any investment he had in their tedious conversation had gone out the window the moment he noticed the familiar vision sitting alone across the room. Eddie moved past the capitalist, passing off his drink in the process. The other man clearly didn't approve of being treated like a waiter, but Eddie couldn't have cared less. His focus was elsewhere.
It was Margot Daley sitting at the bar. Eddie had known her since childhood. She was one of his oldest and dearest friends—and the beautiful woman who also happened to be his most memorable recent hookup. It had been a slow burn between the two of them, spanning a decade at least; even now, seeing her like this, he couldn't help but mentally replay every thrust and arch and sweet purr of pleasure their union had elicited. Margot was his oldest friend, and his newest lover; it made for an unforgettable combination.
Even if he had never seen her naked before, Eddie would have noticed her now. She bloomed like a rare night flower in a field of interchangeable daisies. Her black cocktail dress stood out starkly against the spring pastels; where other skirts flowed breezily around bare, athletic legs, Margot's skin-tight selection hugged her every curve as intimately as the gaze of a hopeful lover. Every subtle shift of her legs might as well have broadcast itself at a ten on the room's male-only frequency.
God, she was gorgeous. Athletic as hell, and as naturally tan as he was from all her time spent outdoors. Even from across the room, Eddie could make out the strikingly dark eyebrows that overshadowed her wide-set, innocent brown eyes; they were both a contrast and a complement to her long, ginger-blond hair.
He was moving toward her before he knew what he was doing. Not that he minded, or even normally ignored, the whims of his body. His hand found her waist almost as soon as she was within reach; it slid along the small of her back in quiet, intimate greeting. Margot started and turned in her stool. Eddie had heard of the deer-in-the-headlights look, but he had never been on the receiving end of it before.
"Eddie!" she exclaimed in astonishment.
"Me," Eddie agreed. "How are you this evening, Margot?"
"What are you doing here?" Her surprise was so profound that Eddie had to momentarily fight to keep his smile fixed in place. She didn't sound exactly unhappy to see him, but there was a definite note of disbelief in her voice that made him wonder.
"I have Kyle Moby's fall from grace to thank for my invite tonight," he admitted. "This seat taken?"
Margot shook her head, and Eddie sat down beside her. He let his hand slide from her waist, even though he hated to break contact with her. Her surprise at seeing him had caused him to rethink the familiarities he had been planning.
He conceded privately that it was possible he hadn't been on her mind as much as she had been on his, even if it did come as a bit of a blow to his ego. Margot had been almost all he could think about since their searingly-hot night together almost two months ago. She was the distraction he couldn't afford, now that he was finally moving up at the agency and winning his brothers' respect...but she was also the rising addiction he couldn't find it in himself to overcome. Not yet.
There was no denying that Margot looked distracted herself. She had pieced together a simple, stunning outfit, but paid no attention to the season's colors; her golden locks looked teased by the wind rather than any sort of styling apparatus.
Eddie would have bet his inheritance that he wasn't the first guy to approach that evening, yet here she was: perched in self-imposed solitude and staring vacantly past the bartender standing sentinel. She didn't even have a drink in front of her.
Something had to be done.
"Kyle Moby? Of Mobius Mobile?" Margot inquired. "I hadn't heard anything. What happened?"
"They dropped him from the Thirty Under Thirty," Eddie confided. "But you didn't hear it from me. The new list comes out this month." He glanced around furtively for show, and Margot leaned in a little. "He made a huge spectacle of himself at their last gathering. This is their first event since Kyle got the boot."
"Well, you've certainly hyped this story enough," Margot said with mock reproof. "Typical of a Jameson."
Eddie preened at the compliment. "What are you drinking? Never mind. I've got it." He signaled to the watching bartender. "Whiskey on the rocks for me, and a whiskey water for my gorgeous friend here. Man, does that guy hover or what? Anyway, back to my story...so Kyle shows up to this party already completely black-out drunk, and everyone's pretending like they don't even notice when he can barely pile out of the back of the limousine without three more dudes assisting him. They manage to get him up to the rooftop without incident. My best guess it was his friends' intention to leave him passed out on the sofa, but the sofa they chose happened to be outside the suite...and right beside the pool."
Margot groaned and shook her head. If she thought she already knew where this was going, then she was in for a treat. Eddie settled into his stool and raised his hands as if they were necessary to measure the full scope of Kyle's fuck-up.
"So drunk asshole. Pool. Total lack of supervision. Kyle wakes up a half hour later and immediately unzips."
"No." Margot's interjection couldn't stop the train now that it had already left the station.
"Because he's got to take a leak, right? Dude's been drinking since he woke up that morning." Eddie chuckled. "So he starts pissing in the pool. And Phillip Hedlund—Number Twenty-Nine, the guy whose pool it is—comes out and sees this, and he freaks. Shoves Kyle into the pool face-first with his pants still around his ankles."
Margot groaned and dropped her forehead into her hand.
Eddie leaned in. "But as we've established already, Kyle's had a lot to drink. By now a crowd's gathered, and everyone's watching to see what he'll do next. He manages to get out of the water on his own—pants still around his ankles—but Phillip won't stop hollering about his pool. So what does Kyle do? He doesn't want to wear out his welcome any more than he already has. He stumbles over to the edge of the roof, and pukes right over the side...only there's another party going on down below. A bachelorette party."
Margot made a choking noise.
"And the girls just start screaming." Eddie waved his hands wildly around his head as if fending off an unexpected shower. It was easy to draw inspiration from Margot's growing grimace of agony. "Suffice it to say, they booted Kyle from the party...and from the top Thirty Under Thirty, which means more room for me. He turns thirty-one next week, anyway." Eddie laughed at the anticlimactic conclusion, and Margot just shook her head in utter disbelief. She had managed to remain mostly disgusted throughout his salacious yarn, but he could tell from the way her eyes glimmered that she was holding back her mirth. Why was another story, and one he intended to unravel for himself. He edged his shoulders in a little closer and nudged her. "Anyway, what's new with you? I haven't heard from you since…"
"Since." She echoed the word as if it was more than just an agreement, but a punctuation on what he had been about to say. Her seeming reluctance to bring up the other night didn't faze Eddie. He nudged her again, this time with his knee beneath the bar; after a moment, he felt Margot lean into him slightly. Her body language was less rigid than her conversation, and he took it as an encouraging sign. More than that, he just wanted an excuse to feel the lean line of her thigh pressed against his.
"Look, I'm sorry if I'm the one who dropped the ball," Eddie said. "I've been busy at the agency. And I know you've been busy at the firm. What are you working on these days?"
"Designing new offices, mostly." Margot pulled a new face this time, and Eddie chuckled. She could be endearingly expressive without realizing it, and she looked ten years younger than twenty-eight when they got on a subject she was passionate about. "Those are the only jobs coming in these days, and they're all in affluent neighborhoods. It gets boring after a while: nobody has an original idea or seems willing to take a risk anymore. Everyone just wants to do exactly what their competitors are doing."
"They're lucky to have you, then," Eddie said. "They couldn't ask for a more cutting-edge designer. Hell, how many architects still build their own models by hand?" He reached between them to lace her lovely fingers in his under the pretense of giving a demonstration. Margot's mouth quirked even harder at this, but she didn't pull away...even if her eyes told him she knew what he was up to.
"Most people hire out these days," she replied. She let her fingers trace the dips in his knuckles a moment longer, but withdrew the moment the bartender returned. Eddie wasn't discouraged. The entire evening stretched ahead of them like an unspooling velvet ribbon, and he was confident he could guide its course.
"Hmmm. I hate to make a scene, but I think there's been a mistake. That looks like water," he mentioned as the bartender set a dubiously translucent glass down in front of Margot. No matter how he turned his head, he couldn't see any sort carbonation rising up from the bottom. He tapped the side of the glass with his finger to be sure, but kept a warm smile in place as he looked between them.
"The lady isn't drinking tonight," the bartender replied curtly. Eddie flexed an eyebrow, but didn't remark on the protective edge he picked up in the other man's voice. It wouldn't be the first time he interrupted another man's attempt to hit on Margot.
"No mistake," Margot volunteered. She plucked her glass up off the table and raised it to Eddie in toast. "I'm not drinking anymore. At least, not for the next nine months."
"Nine months?" Eddie repeated with a laugh. He folded his arms and leaned forward on the bar, already intent on wearing her down. He knew Margot, and she wasn't one to shy from a free round. She must be playing coy tonight because they had an audience. "What's the lack of occasion, if I may ask?" He took a long, appreciative sip of his own drink to demonstrate all the fun she was missing.
He ignored the bartender's astonished look. Less easy to ignore was the way Margot's own expressive eyebrows rose in disbelief.
"Are you serious, Eddie? I'm pregnant."
The appreciative sip came back up as a spit-take.
Chapter Two
Margot
Margot dodged out of the way as Eddie's drink exited his mouth in a spray. Had they been having any other conversation, she would have found it comical. The bartender's towel came down and mopped the counter as if he’d been expecting as much.
Leave it to Eddie Jameson to not realize the immediate implication of nine months. He’d been so busy flirting that he hadn't been able to wrap his head around anything other than what her legs might be wrapped around by the end of the evening. The memory of their night together sent an uncontrollable shiver racing through her, but she set it aside—as she often had these past two months—to try and focus on more pressing matters...like the unforeseen consequences of their explosive hookup.
"Yep. Great at biology, but not so good at math, are you?" Margot offered as she took a long pull of water. What she wouldn't give for the burn of that offered whiskey right about now, but she had cut out alcohol the second she found out she was pregnant.
Eddie stared at her like she had just grown a second head...which in a roundabout way, Margot guessed she sort of had. She thought she might find some bittersweet relish, or at least relief, upon breaking the news to Eddie, but neither came easily beneath the weight of his incredulous dark eyes. So she said simply, "I just complimented your prowess, Eddie. You should thank me." br />
"Thank you," he repeated stiltedly. Then the dreaded question came; no matter how much Margot had prepared herself to face it, she almost lost her nerve knowing what he was about to ask. "Is the baby…?" he began.
"It's yours," she confirmed before he could finish. "We can always test if it would make you feel better."
"I don't feel...I mean...I don't know...how I feel," Eddie concluded. He proceeded to drain his drink in a single gulp, looking as if he wanted to order another but couldn't remember how. Margot noticed the bartender watching them raptly; she hoped he was enjoying the unfolding soap opera. Time for the climax.
"I'm keeping it," she stated.
A shot landed in front of Eddie, and he threw it back without looking. He didn't even grimace at what Margot was sure was the astringent sting of a very strong spirit. He surprised her by nodding his head repeatedly in agreement. She sat back to consider the state her bombshell revelation had left him in.
Eddie was, and had probably always been, the single most attractive man that Margot had ever known. She couldn't remember a time when he hadn't been a bronze-skinned Adonis; even back when they were kids, Eddie's love of sailing had meant he rarely spent any time indoors. He’d grown into an outdoorsman boasting a rock-hard musculature to match beneath that expensively-tailored suit...a physique that Margot now had firsthand experience with, she reflected. She had always been content to look before, but never touch. Eddie's father and her own had been old friends, after all, and after Eddie's dramatic affair with the daughter of one of his clients, Margot had understood the need to keep things platonic between them.