Page 2 of Secret Baby: Billionaire Stepbrother

Put a baby in her, when it should have been—

“Oh,” Millie murmured. Her full lips pursed as he pulled his hand from her cheek. Her long lashes lifted and blinked, then he finally got to see her black eyes, which were one of the sexiest things about her. They drew him in like a black pool, and they always had.

But he knew he looked fierce as he looked down at her, and their gazes locked.

“Must have fallen into bed with another guy the next day after we parted ways, little sister.” He’d emphasized “sister” with nasty deepness.

Millie’s gaze and face twisted in pain, and it touched his rage, but didn’t stop it. “It’s not like that,” she whispered. God her whispers tore at him.

Harder, please, Beck, harder.

Beck made a harsh sound and he stood, then he turned and stalked out of the room. If he didn’t get his anger under control he was going to do something he’d regret. When he hit the stairs, he pulled his phone out and he looked at the email he’d gotten about counseling the new owners of the billion dollar company he’d just sold to them.

Work was how he’d managed to not think about Millie every damn minute of every day. He’d worked so hard and so many damn hours, he could never have believed it would have paid off so well. But he’d made a company that a bigger company and larger player in the field wanted, so they’d made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

So he decided if fucking work had made him able to live without her the first time, hopefully it would a second time, and help him cool the fury he felt over Millie taking another man to her bed.

“Fuck her,” he muttered, rounding the corner into the open area that held the kitchen, den, and dining room with his phone held up as he texted some instructions.

Just as he reached the island, his stepmom whirled around, and planted the chubby baby on his chest.

“Hold him, Beck,” she ordered.

Then from further in the kitchen, his dad asked, “Did you tell her, Beck?”

Beck’s arm curled around the baby as the baby’s fist smacked him in the cheek, and Beck looked down at him.

“No,” Beck muttered, looking down into gray eyes framed by long eyelashes, and he felt his body tense as surprise inched through him.

Beck set his phone on the kitchen island and he used his free hand to curl under the baby’s rear-end. Somehow he would have expected to see black eyes. The baby grabbed his chin with sticky fingers, and Beck held him closer so the boy could explore.

His stepsister’s baby.

Beck realized he should want to drop the baby like a hot potato back into someone else’s arms. The kid was another man’s baby, but somehow he didn’t feel that way. Maybe it was because it was Millie’s baby. But why the hell had she’d kept such big news from all of them. She’d just disappeared, and of course he’d just dug into his work, which was like disappearing.

“What’s his name?” Beck asked, as the baby stuck a finger into his mouth, and Beck moved his lips on the tiny digit, making the baby look closer with curiosity.

“Not sure,” Phyllis said, from across the island.

“Bart,” Millie said softly, from behind Beck’s shoulder.

Just the sound of it and its feminine quality made Beck wanted to turn and push her up against the wall to kiss her. He felt soft parts of her as she rounded and pulled the baby from him.

“Just Bart, not like Bartholomew or anything,” she said, defensively. “Sometimes I call him Bartie though.”

He felt her slightly shaking as he looked down on her. “You shouldn’t even start that nickname, Mil, you’ll give him a fucking complex.”

At first she looked uncertain, then she looked accusingly as she swung the kid to her hip, which left a free hand she could raise to slap his upper arm.

“Don’t cuss in front of him, Beck.”

The many shades and emotions of Millie, and he loved them all. Beck nearly growled under his breath, amending his thinking: had, as in the past, loved them all. Not so much nowadays.

Still— “I’ll stop, if you stop torturing his future chances with girls’ by using that nickname.”

Then his stepsister did the lip bite of her full bottom lip. Just kill him then and there. That little move of hers was how it all fucking started. But she drew him closer with her uncertainty.

“Are you teasing, Beck, or do you really think—”

God, he’d missed her, and he couldn’t afford to think that way any longer.

“Maybe cut it off when he’s older ... three or something.”

The beginning of her smile did what it always started to do to him, but her mom’s voice butted in. “Who is the father anyway? How old is he?”

Millie’s beautiful face crumbled, and that’s when Beck saw it in her for the first time; fear. And it wasn’t a small feeling inside her either by the looks of it, but huge.

“Oh, I think he needs his diaper changed,” Millie exclaimed, and she whirled around and practically ran from the kitchen.

Beck settled his hip on the edge of the island as he crossed his arms over his chest, watching her fucking amazing and very round ass sway away. Jesus, she’d not had such a fine ass before the kid.

His stepmom set a bowl of guacamole in front of him, which his dad had been working on.

“Well, that question lit a fire under her ass,” she said, with lots of speculation in her voice. She nudged his shoulder. “Did she ever tell you about that little bundle? I know you two are super close.”

If she only knew how close, Beck thought, she’d scream. And now with her and his dad back together, it shot any chances Millie and him might have had.

“Fuck no,” he muttered to his stepmom. Then for crystal clear clarification, he added, “This is the first I have talked to her since before you and dad split up.”

His stepmom raised an eyebrow. “Okay, hmm. I do like the name Bart, and that little squirt reminds me of somebody. Maybe I will figure it out, because I bet she’ll never tell.”

“I’m just happy we have a grandbaby,” Murray declared, bringing over the chips.

Beck had only been there a few hours, but he’d already figured out that his dad was doing penance to his stepmom, so old dad was a “yes” man. And his dad had already hit him up for money.

“We have to celebrate your buyout, boy,” his dad said, slapping him on the shoulder. “We’ll go to AJ’s Pub tonight and get some champagne or something.”

Right then Beck moved his thumb secretly on his phone so it would sound as if a text had come in.

“I have to get this, dad,” he muttered, then he followed Millie’s trail out of the kitchen.

Chapter Two

“Here, let me get that,” Beck said, from behind my right shoulder.

I had Bart on my other hip, while I was struggling with the other hand to pull Bart’s playpen out of the back of my SUV. I knew I should have just gotten in the car and fled, but I was so afraid that might raise more suspicions, so I stayed even though it felt like I was standing in front of a firing squad.

“I can get it,” I said stubbornly, with some inner need inside me about not having him help me with anything to do with Bart.

“Yeah you can. But you’re going to let me fucking ... I mean damn well do it,” Beck uttered in his I’m-taking-no-shit voice.

A voice that always made me quiver in places I shouldn’t. I’d always wondered where Beck had gotten his forceful manliness from, because it wasn’t from Murray. I guessed Beck just had it naturally.

I supposed Beck knew me well enough to know I was caving, when I said, “Well, thanks for trying not to cuss, but saying ‘damn’ might not be good either.”

I stood back and let Beck haul the playpen out, as if he was using only one finger, and I didn’t watch his upper arm muscle bulge when he did it. Just then Bart pulled my hair so hard I winced, because his little fist got tangled, and I started hopping around.

“Ouch, ouch, Bartie!” I exclaimed.

I couldn’t turn my head to look because of the way Bart was hooked into my hair as I tried to feel with my other hand to get him loose, while he unknowingly pulled so hard it brought tears to my eyes.

Then Beck’s big hand was there. “Hold still, you two,” he ordered.

Like an expert or something, he slowly freed Bart’s hand from being tangled in my hair. Once Bart’s hand was free, Beck’s knuckles rubbed my skull on the most painful spot, as he asked, “You okay?”

I dared looking up into his gray eyes and became lost for several seconds, as I murmured, “Yes, thanks. Usually it takes months to get good enough to figure out how to fix something like that with babies. You seem to have a knack.”

Why had I said that? Was I insane?

I had to keep Beck, Bart, and any closeness between them so far apart, it never happened. But damn it that was hard to do with him standing right next to me, and looking at my lips as if—

“I’ll bring all your stuff in, you take Bart inside, it’s getting too cold out here for him,” Beck said, with his features closing off and the desirous look leaving him.

I knew Beck’s hot looks from experiencing months of them, and he had nearly had one, which he’d then stopped. I really needed to learn from Beck, I thought, retreating to cart Bart back into the house.

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