Home / Billionaire / The Billionaire's Secret Baby / Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

All Chapters of The Billionaire's Secret Baby : Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

219 Chapters

chapter 28

“You’re real fired-up about this, aren’t you?” said Alex.“Damn right I am!” I said, as I slapped my glass down on the bar. “IfThe Blue Orchidcloses then where am I gonna go? What am I gonna do?”“How are you gonna keep yourself in shoes and afford trips to the zoo, you mean?” said Ale.“Ha ha.”“You can work somewhere else,” said Alex. “But if an owner screws up…his career is over. No one wants to come eat at a crook’s restaurant, do they? Face it, Lola. I’m done.”“It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings!” I said. “What are they charging you with, anyway?”“It’s a long story,” said Alex.“So enlighten me, bigshot,” I said. “You think I’m not some kind of legal expert? Lola Ryder, Attorney-at-Law! Special Victims Unit.”“You’re pretty funny,” said Alex.“You could use some cheering up,” I said.Alex paused, and looked out of the window. We were up so high that mostly the view from here was just darkness. “Someone,” he said, with a heavy sense of irony, “forged my birth certificate. My
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chapter 29

“Do you have any family?” I said.Alex thought about it.“A couple of uncles,” he said. “They’re out in California. We don’t talk much. A few years ago, one of them wrote me asking for money.”“What did you say?”“I sent him a check for a million dollars and told him either he could cash it, or contact me again. But not both.”“What?”“None of them ever cared about me when I was poor,” said Alex. “Why should they care about me now that I’m rich?”He had a point. But when Alex showed me into his room, I was amazed.It was like a whole other apartment. A private TV room, with a home entertainment system was on the ground floor. A staircase led up to an enormous bedroom, with wide oak rafter and beams. Alex’s bed was the biggest I’d ever seen, and when I got to the bathroom, I squealed.“Gold taps!” I gasped. “Gold. Taps.”“What about ‘em?” said Alex. “I hate them myself, but for some reason, the decorator insisted.”“We, uh,” I said, “we have this joke at work. That you’re so rich you h
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chapter 30

Alex“You know something?”said Zeke. He looked up from the book he was reading.“What?” I said.“Shame you aren’t married,” said Zeke before he looked down again.“Zeke, what are you talking about?”It had been a week since the interview at the police station. And two days since Lola and I had gone to bed together. Since that day, I’d been feeling increasingly grim. But I showed up to the office each day, and Zeke and I went through everything. City licensing laws, all our documentation. Looking for something that could saveThe Blue Orchid. Something that could prove my innocence.“Well, you know Frances DeVerge?”“Sure,” I frowned. “Fancy lady. Lives on Park Avenue. Runs that awful bar downtown, what’s it called?Da Terro’s?“D’Amigo’s,” Zeke said, correcting me. “Anyhow. You know Frances was married?”“Yeah,” I said. “Isn’t her husband in jail now?”“Louis DeVerge. He was a real scumbag. Couple of guys I know used to work with him. Now there was a crooked guy.”“What did he do?” I sa
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chapter 31

I closed my eyes and tried not to think about the past. But the past has a funny habit of catching up to you. Lola Ryder proved that.Lola. The sound of her name stirred up something inside of me, a sweet and wonderful feeling. As I walked around the block, it was a warm day. Spring was just around the corner, but it didn’t feel like that. Where was she now? Probably at home, with her kid, Macy. The little girl with the blue eyes.I hadn’t asked Lola about the father of her child—it wasn’t my place, and I got the feeling she wasn’t going to tell me anyway. But when she did, I was ready to hear.I wanted to get close to her, wanted to get close to Macy. But we hadn’t called or spoken much since that night in the hotel. Besides, I was too wrapped up in my thoughts right now to consider what I might do.I felt a strange tug of emotion inside me. She was beautiful, kind, and never gave up on me. Lola Ryder, always there when you least expected her. Always smiling, always cheering me up wh
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chapter 32

Lola“Can I help you?”I said cheerily.The old man turned to me. His hair was a little long and scraggly, his beard untrimmed. I could see his fingers were dirty. But he didn’t look homeless—not exactly. His clothes weren’t tarnished enough.He turned and looked at me for a moment, and a lonely, sad pair of blue eyes watched me from his deep-set face.“Can I help you?” I said again. I’d bumped into the old guy as I was leavingThe Blue Orchid.“My son used to work here,” he said, a little sadly, as he turned and looked at the building.I shook my head, and went on home. Maybe he was just crazy.It had been two weeks now sinceTheBlue Orchidhad been closed. And we still weren’t attracting nearly as many customers as we had before despite our best efforts. But that was only the least of my concerns.I hadn’t heard much from Alex since our night together, that wonderful, magical night when I’d given myself to him with all the passion of my younger days. I’d seen him, of course, cooped up i
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chapter 33

From here, you could see all the way across the bay. On the far left, I could see Jersey City, and Staten Island in the distance. To the right, I could see the tall, gleaming spires of Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge, as its arches reached up into the sky. It was a bright day, and Alex produced a pair of sunglasses from the glovebox for me.“Why, thank you,” I said, charmed by his thoughtfulness. I put the glasses on, and the white glare on the water receded a little. Alex was at the other end of the boat, and I watched as he bent low, his powerful back arching as he stood up quickly, pulling a cord.There was a splutter and a rumble, and then the boat’s engine flared into life. He strode confidently over to the pilot’s seat, next to me, and I watched him angle the wheel away, skillfully maneuvering us out of the bay.“Since when do you know how to drive a boat?” I said. Even at this low speed, the wind was already whipping my hair.“I know how to do a lot of things,” said Alex, and
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chapter 34

“Let me take you to dinner,” said Alex.“Sure,” I said. “As long as we’re done by eight-thirty. I need to go pick Macy up.”“No problem,” he said in a soft, reassuring voice.We got to the restaurant. I recognized it immediately from something I’d seen on TV once. It was one of those super-fancy places with Michelin stars and tiny plates of food. I’d seen them before.“You ever go to Panera Bread?” I asked Alex, as we were seated at one of the tables, and the menus, heavy and dark with black leather cases, were slipped onto our laps.Alex laughed. I loved it when he laughed and the sound was warm and rich. We’d been seated in a private room in the restaurant.“That’s a good one,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve been for about ten years.”“You know,” I whispered conspiratorially, “the food probably isn’t as good as here, but the bill’s about a hundred times smaller.”“I get that,” said Alex. “But money doesn’t really matter to me. Even if the best is overpriced, why not have it if you can
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chapter 35

AlexIt was the second time I’d chased Lola through the streets of Manhattan. And this time, I’d very nearly lost her.I was standing on the corner of 54thand 7th, wondering where she’d got to, when I finally saw her, zig zagging on the pavement up towards Central Park.I followed her at a distance into the Park. It wasn’t dark yet, so I knew she’d be safe. But I couldn’t just leave her like this. I knew that whatever my question had triggered, it was important. And if I didn’t explain to her now, there might not be another chance.When I finally caught up to her, she was sitting on a park bench, under a crowd of apple trees, staring down the rolling fields and meadows of Central Park. It was a warm evening, and I could see pollen floating through the air.“I think I need to explain myself,” I said, as I approached her and sat down.“You’re damn right you do,” snapped Lola. “What do you think I am? A wife-for-hire?”“No,” I said, quickly. “I told you. If anything happens to me, then I
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chapter 36

“Anything,” I said.“If we’re going to do this, then it can’t get…complicated. I couldn’t do that to Macy.”“I understand.”“We need to be friends from now on. Nothing more.”“Okay,” I said, and felt a hopeless, rising tide of misery. I was getting what I wanted from Lola. But I also understood that, in some sense, I was losing her.I was gaining a wife, but losing my lover.“Okay,” she said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need to go pick up Macy.”“I’ll call for the car,” I said.And that was how I got engaged to Lola Ryder.***“There’s a lot to do,” said Lola. We were in the car, by the bus terminal. “If you want to make this convincing, that is.”“I know,” I said. “To be honest, I’m wondering how I’ll even pull it off.”“Well, don’t shut me out this time,” said Lola to me, and I felt a curious resentment. How much more could she have shut me out than she already had?I nodded. I hugged her, gently, the way you might hug a friend. And she got out of the car, and I saw her walk to the b
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chapter 37

Lola“Dearly beloved,”said the priest. “We are gathered here today…”For a crock of lies, I thought to myself.The last three weeks had been a grueling escapade of planning. Hundreds and hundreds of decisions, which had to be made, decisions that people spent years making.The first and most important decision of all. Who should we tell? Zeke was the only person who knew. He looked at me the next day, with a guilty expression.“Hey,” he said, while I glared at him, a wide smile bursting onto my lips. “It’s a good excuse for a party?”“Where are we going to have it?” I said.“Why, here of course.”“What? AtThe Blue Orchid? What good’s a wedding party if you can’t drink?”“Private event,” said Zeke, with a wink. “And I hear they’ve got an excellent cellar here.”When I saw the wine menu, I was flabbergasted. I ran up to the office to talk to Alex.“You’ve ordered fifty bottles of champagne!”“Well, it is my wedding,” said Alex. “Besides, we’ll need them for the fountain!”“The fountain?
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