Filthy Daddy (Her Billionaire's Baby Book 3) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Filthy Daddy

  Her Sexy Protector

  Thank you!

  Copyright Page

  Table of Contents

  Filthy Daddy

  Her Sexy Protector

  Thank you!

  Copyright Page

  Filthy Daddy

  Her Billionaire’s Baby Book 3

  Ellie Wild

  1

  CALEB

  “Good morning, Mr. Preston.”

  I glanced up from the crisp copy of the Times that I was reading and saw a pair of long bronze legs tucked under a white mini skirt, strutting towards my desk.

  “Good morning indeed,” I said back, folding the paper as my eyes moved upwards. “Take a seat, Miss--”

  “Jeffries,” she leaned across my glass desktop to offer me her manicured hand and, in the process, lingered just long enough to give me a view of the hot pink bra peeking intentionally through the gape in her silk blouse.

  “Jade Jeffries,” she added, before dropping into the tufted velvet armchair positioned directly across from my desk.

  “Pleasure to meet you, Miss Jeffries,” I nodded, my eyes still sizing her up. Platinum blonde hair, fake-baked bronze skin, pink glossy lips-- hot pink, to match that lacey bra.

  If you were to consult the slew of tabloids that report on my dating patterns, they’d inform you that I have a type -- tall, blonde, curves in all the right places -- and Miss Jade Jeffries certainly fit that bill. She knew it, too. I could tell by that coy little smirk she was wearing.

  “The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Preston,” she said, folding one bronzed leg over the other and letting her skirt ride up a little too high on her thigh.

  “Please,” I say, “Call me Caleb.”

  “Caleb,” she repeated slowly, pressing her pink glossed pout into a smug little smirk. Then she nodded at the folded newspaper on my desk and asked, “Were you checking out my article in the Times?”

  “Not unless you cover the market,” I smiled, but her face stayed blank. “The stock market,” I clarified.

  “Oh,” she shrugged her shoulders indifferently. “No, that’s not really my cup of tea.”

  “No?” I raised an eyebrow and leaned back in my chair. “What is your cup of tea?”

  “Rich, hot men,” she said, raising a defiant eyebrow back at me and pressing her lips into another smug smirk.

  Of course, I thought. I could have told you that the moment she strutted into my office, her fuck-me heels clicking against the tile floor and her lips pressed into that glossy pink pout.

  Women like Jade Jeffries were a dime-a-dozen in Manhattan. Aspiring Carrie Bradshaws, lured out of Midwest mediocrity by the glitter and glitz of New York City; lured by the false promise of rent-controlled brownstones, well-paying writing jobs, bottomless Cosmopolitans, closets full of Manolos, ‘rich, hot men’ lined up on every street corner ready to offer up the kind of dirty, shameless sex you could only have in a city full of strangers.

  “Men’s style,” she clarified, still holding my gaze intently. “I profile rich, hot men for the style section.”

  “I see,” I say, crossing my legs and folding my hands over the knee of my grey sharkskin suit. “And I meet those requirements, do I?”

  “Of course you do, Mr. Preston,” she cooed, her eyes flashing suggestively.

  “Caleb,” I reminded her.

  “Caleb,” she smiled. Then she bit down on the corner of her plump bottom lip and added, “You’re a bit of a legend.”

  “Am I?” I raised an eyebrow, even though I already knew the answer to that.

  “I had to fight off the entire style department to get this interview,” she said triumphantly. “We were all jumping at the chance to undress Caleb Preston.”

  “Undress me?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “Figuratively, of course,” she said unconvincingly. “For the profile.”

  “For the profile,” I repeated, nodding firmly.

  I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered letting Jade Jeffries undress me. I’d be lying if I said my cock didn’t twitch in my pants when she walked in, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about bending her over the desk, pressing her tits against the glass and yanking her skirt up around her waist…

  Jade Jeffries and I both knew she didn’t come here for an ‘interview.’ She didn’t come here to wax poetic about my Tom Ford mohair suit or my suede Burberry Oxford shoes.

  And she didn’t come here for sex, either.

  She came here for the thrill of fucking someone famous. She wanted a taste of that Manhattan fairy tale; a story she could tell her gaggle of girlfriends, giggling gleefully between sips of a six-dollar Cosmopolitan. She didn’t want to fuck me, she wanted to fuck my persona. I was nothing more than a novelty; an item on her bucket list. ‘Rich, hot man.’

  And, ironically, when the novelty wore off, she’d be the one running to Page Six to accuse me of being the grade-A asshole; the user, the playboy, the womanizer.

  That was the pattern… that was the real Manhattan fairy tale, people using each other for fame, pleasure, excitement, thrill… anything and everything but love.

  “This profile,” I said, leaning forward and resting my elbows on the glass desktop. “Let me hear what you’ve got so far.”

  “You want me to read it to you?” she frowned, confused.

  “If you don’t mind, of course.”

  “It’s not done yet,” she said. “I’ve just written the introduction…”

  “I want to hear it,” I smiled encouragingly. Then I added, jokingly: “It’s not every day I get to hear what people really think of me.”

  She shrugged, then she reached into the Canal Street knock-off Goyard tote that was resting on the floor by her feet. She pulled out an iPad and brought the screen to life with a swipe of her thumb, then she reclined back in the armchair and began reading aloud:

  “Caleb Preston is no stranger to mixing business and pleasure; billionaire hotel mogul by day, party-loving playboy by night, Preston is equally infamous among Manhattan’s upper crust elite for his cut-throat business acumen and his insatiable appetite for hot blondes.”

  Jade paused, her eyes flicking up at me, almost daring me to respond.

  “So far, accurate,” I nodded.

  She pursed her lips proudly, taking my remark as a compliment, then continued reading:

  “Since inheriting the Preston Hotel empire at the tender age of twenty, the hotel heir has spent the last decade maintaining an impressive collection of international 5-star properties, and an equally impressive private collection of international supermodel girlfriends. The Preston Hotel is world-renowned for style and elegance, and it’s only fitting that the man at its helm would have a wardrobe to match.”

  She clicked off the iPad’s screen and glanced up at me expectantly.

  “Sounds like you’ve got me figured out, Miss Jeffries,” I smiled, as I leaned back into my chair.

  Jet-setting billionaire playboy with a designer wardrobe and a flock of hot blondes… it was a role I was used to playing. I’ve played this character, or some variation of it anyway, since I was a teenager.

  I was born into the lap of luxury; the heir to a hotel empire that had been meticulously cultivated by five generations of Preston’s before me. Success was never an option; it was a requirement. It was always assumed that I’d be the next in line… that I’d inherit the throne and take over my father’s empire.

  What wasn’t assumed was that I’d inherit my father’s billion-dollar empire when I was just twenty years old, after both of my parents died unexpectedly in a freak accident. />
  I stepped up to the plate. I took the reins. I put on a suit and sat behind my father’s desk, and for ten years I have managed this billion-dollar global company. But that wasn’t a story that sells tabloids… that was just a footnote; a little detail that was tucked away somewhere amidst splashy photospreads depicting my playboy antics and sexcapade exploits.

  “Do I have you figured out?” Jade asked coyly. “Or is there more to the man than what meets the eye?”

  Don’t pretend you give a shit, I thought cynically. We both know this is just a game.

  “What do you want to know?” I asked. “For the profile?”

  She was about to answer, but before she could the phone on my desk rattled to life, filling my glass office with the shrill screech of its high-pitched ring.

  We were both startled, and I reached for the receiver.

  “Hello?” I said into the mouthpiece.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” I recognized the voice of Dorothy, my receptionist, on the other end of the phone. “I wouldn’t interrupt if it wasn’t urgent, but…” her voice trailed off.

  “What is it, Dorothy?” I asked.

  I had already forgotten all about Jade Jeffries, until I glanced up and see her staring at me with wide-eyed excitement plastered on her face.

  “There has been a family emergency, Mr. Preston,” Dorothy said through the phone.

  My heart sunk, because I know that could only mean one thing. The Preston family is virtually non-existent. I never had cousins, aunts, uncles… not even grandparents. Growing up, there were only three other Prestons. And when my parents died, that number was reduced to one; one other Preston in all of New York City, in all of the world...

  “It’s your sister, sir,” Dorothy confirmed what I already knew. “It’s Calista.”

  2

  DAISY

  “DILF alert!” Raven chimed in a sing-song voice under her breath as she nudged me in the ribs.

  I turned my head to look in the direction of her gaze, and my eyes locked on her target; a tall, muscular man who has just stepped out of a shiny black Escalade parked on the curbside. He was dressed in running shorts and a tight-fitting compression shirt that revealed, in finely contoured detail, every perfectly sculpted muscle in his chest and abs.

  “I love a man who works out,” Raven said, practically salivating as she watched the object of her affection hop over the curb and stride toward the schoolyard.

  “Does he work out?” I asked, wrinkling my brow and squinting to get a better look at him. “I mean, if he’s wearing running gear, shouldn’t he have jogged here instead of pulling up in a giant SUV?”

  “Maybe he came from the gym,” Raven brushed me off, and kept her eyes glued on the man as he walked closer to our vantage point, on the stone steps at the back of the schoolyard.

  “He’s not sweating,” I pointed out.

  “Oh my God,” Raven rolled her eyes and turned to me dramatically. “Are you serious? Look at his abs!”

  “They could be implants,” I shrugged, unimpressed.

  “Urgh!” Raven didn’t bother keeping her voice down, but she didn’t need to -- the sound of children screeching and laughing as they run around the schoolyard drowned out her frustrated grunt.

  “You’re impossible!” she vented, losing all interest in the hot dad and instead focusing her attention on me. “Why are you so damn cynical? You always think the worst of people! Who hurt you?”

  “I’m not cynical,” I said. I chose to ignore her second question, even though I know she didn’t mean anything by it.

  Raven Davis was my best friend, she was also my roommate, and fellow pre-school teacher here at Bellamy Day School. We met a few years ago when Raven first moved to Manhattan and, after becoming quickly disillusioned with the city, came to my neck of the woods in Brooklyn looking for a room to rent.

  We instantly bonded over our shared profession -- we both taught pre-school -- and by the end of the week she was moving boxes into the spare bedroom of my Williamsburg apartment. At the time I was teaching at a little school in Greenpoint, but Raven made it her mission in life to convince me to join her at Bellamy Day.

  At first I was dead set against it. Bellamy was a preppy, prestigious institution on the Upper East Side, charging a hefty five-figure tuition to teach the ABC’s to the offspring of doctors and lawyers, and celebrities and Wall Street bankers.

  As someone who had spent the better part of her life being a ‘have-not,’ the idea of working for the ‘haves’ didn’t appeal to me. I always figured that I would use my teaching career to help kids with similar childhoods to my own. Kids who were lost in the system, who were poor, who were low-hanging fruit for bullies.

  But the more I talked to Raven, the more I realized that some of the most overlooked and neglected kids were actually the pampered, privileged children of Manhattan’s elite. All the money in the world couldn’t buy these kids the comfort and compassion that they so desperately needed. So, I finally submitted and agreed to take the job.

  Working at Bellamy Day wasn’t without its challenges, but I never regretted my decision. In fact, I felt more fulfilled in my career than I ever did working at Greenpoint.

  “That’s Morgan Richie’s dad, right?” I asked, angling my body towards Raven but keeping my eyes glued to the ‘DILF’ as he made his way across the schoolyard aimlessly, his eyes searching the crowd of children.

  “I don’t know,” Raven shrugged, glancing back in his direction. “I haven’t seen him before.”

  I reached for the clipboard under my arm and quickly scanned down the roster -- a complete list of Bellamy Day School students, along with the names and photos of the approved parents or guardians who are authorized to pick them up after school.

  I found Morgan’s name on the list, then dragged my finger across the paper to see a headshot of DILF himself. Underneath, the photo was captioned: ‘Father, Aaron Richie. Approved.’

  “He checks out,” I said, and I glanced back up just in time to see Morgan Richie spot her father across the schoolyard and let out a high-pitched squeal as she flung herself towards his open arms.

  “And he’s a good father, too!” Raven cooed admiringly, her shoulders melted and her hands fluttered to her heart as she watched the scene unfolding. This time, I didn’t bother protesting her comment, in fact, I felt a tiny smile tugging up at the corners of my mouth.

  I may be a chronic cynic, and I may be overly scrutinizing of strangers but I’ll always have a soft spot for doting fathers. I think it comes from the void my own father left behind when left.

  My eyes glazed over as I watched the scene, and I only realized that I was staring when, out of nowhere I feel a pair of tiny arms suddenly fling themselves around my legs, wrapping me into a tight embrace. I glanced down just in time to see a head of crazy, unkempt golden curls tilt back, and a pair of vivid blue eyes blink up at me.

  “Hey Emmy,” I said, ruffling the child’s curly hair affectionately and smiling down at her. She returned my smile, and I felt my heart swell with pride. The little girl wrapped around my legs couldn’t be more different than the Emmy I first met last fall.

  As a teacher, I was not supposed to have favorites… but in my heart, there was no debate about it, I’ve always felt a special connection with Emmy. She reminded me so much of myself as a child.

  When Emmy first arrived at Bellamy, she came with a laundry list of prior crimes that had gotten her kicked out of all the other prestigious pre-schools in the area -- allegations of violent tantrums, anti-social tendencies, emotional distress.

  A record like that would usually be a red flag to the admissions department, but apparently the administration turned a blind eye when Emmy’s mother pulled out her checkbook. Typical Upper East Side parent, assuming that money could raise their children for them.

  Emmy’s mother wasn’t just any Upper East Sider, though; she was Calista Preston. The name didn’t mean much to me at first -- I never followed the tabloi
d gossip, and Manhattan’s elite ‘celebrity’ circle was completely foreign to me -- but the other teachers at the school were quick to catch me up. Calista was a notorious celebutante party girl and hotel heiress. She was said to be worth millions but according to Page Six, she had squandered most of her fortune on partying.

  Emmy had been the product of a short fling between Calista Preston and some Hollywood actor. Much like my own father, Emmy’s dad didn’t stick around for long. Calista was left to care for the child on her own, in addition to battling her own ongoing substance abuse issues.

  I did believe that Calista loved her daughter, and I believed that she had good intentions but when Emmy came to Bellamy and wound up in my classroom, it was obvious that she hadn’t been properly looked after.

  Easing Emmy’s walls down had been a long and tedious process, but the beaming little girl hugging my legs was proof that time, patience and love could work wonders.

  “A strange man tried to talk to me,” Emmy whispered, her eyes wide and her face completely still. “I told him to fuck off.”

  “Emmy!” Raven gasped from beside me. “Who taught you to say that word? You shouldn’t say things like that!”

  Emmy just shrugged, and I bent down so that I’m on her level.

  “You did the right thing,” I said, locking eyes with her and giving her an encouraging nod. Neither of us mention that I’m the one who taught Emmy to say ‘fuck off’ to any stranger that makes her feel uncomfortable. Besides, that was not important right now, what was more important is figuring out who approached Emmy.

  Like any other Upper East Side school, Bellamy Day has an extensive safety protocol for end-of-day dismissal -- the clipboard roster with photos of every parent and nanny was just one example of that. But no matter how many security checks and precautions we took, there were always risks and threats lurking around the corner. That was the reality of life in New York City. And right now, that reality was coursing through my veins and made my entire body shake with fear.

  “Can you point him out to me?” I asked Emmy, trying to suppress my rage and remain calm, for her sake.