Eric (Members From Money Book 36)

  Eric

  Will his past prevent him from moving forward?

  A sexy pregnancy romance by Katie Dowe of BWWM Club.

  Thirty-year-old Bianca Campbell is the owner of a successful placement agency.

  Despite her success, she won’t feel satisfied until she has a family of her own!

  She thinks she has found The One with her billionaire client, Eric.

  The handsome and mysterious Eric seems to be everything Bianca has ever wanted.

  But when she finds herself pregnant with his baby, he is less than thrilled about it.

  And the discovery puts a total strain on their relationship…

  Will Eric change his mind about what he wants out of life?

  Or will Bianca have to raise the baby on her own?

  Find out in this emotional yet sexy romance by Katie Dowe of BWWM Club.

  Suitable for over 18s only due to blushingly hot sex scenes!

  Tip: Search BWWM Club on Amazon to see more of our great books.

  Free: Get Jason from the Members From Money series where YOU'RE the star!!

  Hi there. As a special thank you for buying this ebook, for a limited time I want to send a copy of Jason free of charge directly to your email! It's a personalized story, meaning you'll add a few details about yourself (these won't be shared with anyone else) and you'll become the star of the story!! :D

  You'll be emailed a new chapter once a day for 7 days. You can get it by clicking the cover below or going here:

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  Copyright © 2018 to Katie Dowe and AfroRomanceBooks.com. No part of this book can be copied or distributed without written permission from the above copyright holders.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

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  Chapter 1

  “Eric, you go through assistants the way some men go through socks!” Bianca said in exasperation. “I have highly trained people here and you are begging to make me look very bad.”

  “The last two women you sent overtly suggested that they were available for more than just work, Bianca. It’s not my fault.”

  “You were the one who insisted that they be attractive and presentable. I offered to send you someone who would not take a second glance at you and you refused,” she reminded him. “You are a very attractive and rich man so you cannot blame them for trying.”

  “This last one you sent started unbuttoning her very tight blouse while I was in the middle of a telephone call. I had to tell my client to wait and deal with the very uncomfortable situation. Your company has served us well over the eight months and that is the only reason I am continuing our relationship, Bianca,” Eric told her.

  “And I am grateful for that. You are never going to find another Michelle, Eric, so you might as well get used to it.” His secretary had taken a leave of absence to go and take care of her sick father.

  “Find me someone who can actually fulfill their secretarial duties and not look at me as if I am a prospective lover.” His tone had a hint of impatience to it and had Bianca sympathizing with him. He was a handsome, charismatic man, a billionaire who had risen to the top by being able to beat the odds at being one of the top real estate owners in the world! He was sought after but remained aloof and made sure to keep a low profile which was not very easy.

  “I have just the person in mind,” she said in a calm soothing tone. “And I will deal with Angelique as soon as she gets here.”

  “Thank you.” He sighed suddenly. “I have meetings to attend and I am being unreasonably irritable to you. I am sorry.”

  “No need for apologies, Eric. I should have known beforehand that the match would not work.”

  “I need a professional like you, Bianca. Would you consider giving up your company and coming to work for me?’

  Bianca laughed at that. “I did the administrative bit for five years before I decided that it was not for me.”

  “A pity. I think we would make a very good match.” He was speaking about business, but for some reason Bianca felt a prickle of awareness on her skin. She had met Eric several months ago when she had made a bid to his company to find people to fill the slots in his company and had felt the awareness the very first time. She had done her best to tamper it down and they had a purely professional relationship. Besides, she was busy with her job and needed to concentrate on that. Only for the last few months, she had begun yearning for something else. A child! She turned thirty in April and the yearning had started.

  “I will send someone over right away. Her name is Gertrude and she is over fifty years old and very efficient. She has vast experiences in administrative positions and has been married for almost thirty years with two grown children and a grandchild. She is perfect.”

  “She sounds that way. Thank you.”

  “You are welcome.”

  “How about lunch on Thursday?” he suggested. “I have a number of things I need to discuss with you.”

  “Where?” Bianca asked him casually.

  “At the seafood restaurant near to you. I am leaving town for a couple of days after that.”

  “I will see you then.”

  “Thanks, Bianca,” he said again before hanging up.

  She sat there for a moment and then looked up as her door was pushed open. “Angelique is in the waiting room and she looks as if she had been crying,” her secretary Nadine advised her as she placed some letters on her desk.

  “She should have thought about her actions before she started stripping in Eric’s office,” Bianca said grimly as she used her letter opener to open the first one. She looked up at Nadine. “Let her stew for a little bit while I sort these out.”

  “Are you going to let her go?”

  Bianca shrugged. “I don’t know yet.”

  “Remember your one o’clock meeting.”

  *****

  Eric studied the images on his computer carefully. Bianca had been true to her word and had sent over Gertrude. The woman was proving to be very efficient and knew what she was about.

  He dialed her extension. “Please get me the sales department on the line and then confirm my next appointment.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He studied the images some more. He had made a bid for the apartment buildings downtown and it had come through. Right now he needed to get his team on the job and see what he could do to make the place habitable again. He was thinking of keeping this one and renting them out. Usually, he would buy the places that were rundown and unkempt and restore them and then sell for the best price, but he had studied the demographics and realized that he could make it available for working class people for a reasonable amount and still make a very good profit.

  Eric Murray had grown up without parents. He had been put into foster care since he was a baby and had been shipped from home to home until he was eighteen. He had taken matters into his own hands and had branched out looking for employment. He had waited tables for six months and scrimped and saved. He had yearned to have a place for himself and a decent bed to sleep on but had decided that sleeping at shelters and sometimes on park
benches would be better for his long-term goal. He had suffered throughout those years and had agonized over why his parents had abandoned him. He had spent years trying to find out about his past and had met with roadblocks. He had stopped looking over the years and had resigned himself to never finding out. He had turned thirty-two in January and had never been in a real relationship. He made fortunes and never thought about who it was going to when he passed because he had no intention of having children!

  His intercom sounded and he answered it. “The sales team is on the line and your appointment is confirmed.”

  “Thank you.”

  *****

  “Wine and lots of it,” Bianca said as she plopped down into the sofa in the living room.

  Her best friend Fran obliged and poured the wine generously into two glasses, passing one to her. She had stopped by on her way home from the office and decided to spend some time with the girl. Fran was a yoga instructor and they had been friends since high school.

  “Trouble at work?”

  “One of my girls decided that it was time to try out for my best client and I had to do damage control. On top of that, she came sobbing back to the office and begged me to take her back.” Bianca sipped her wine gratefully and leaned back against the cushions.

  Fran folded her long legs beneath her and stared at the girl. Bianca was the epitome of beauty and class and had started her business with uncertainty but had made a success out of it. She had cut her hair short in a style that suited her pointed face and emphasized her large dark brown eyes. She was tall and slender with generous curves that constantly drew attention from the opposite sex. She dressed in the height of fashion and had been written up in the local papers as having an eye for business. “So are you taking her back?”

  “I have spoken to her and decided to give her another chance. I told her that I am not running a matchmaking business and if she wants to stay with the company she had better not let it happen again. I gave her a chance because I know what letting her go like this could do to her future job hunting.”

  “I am so happy I work alone,” Fran said feelingly. “I have no one else to contend with except me.”

  “Lucky you,” Bianca said with a grimace. “I am having lunch with Eric on Thursday.”

  “Oh?” Fran lifted a brow.

  “It’s just business, Fran, so don’t read anything else into it.”

  “Honey, you have the hots for the guy. Go for it!”

  “I am not going to become Angelique,” she said dryly.

  “There is no fear of that happening. You are smart, classy, and beautiful, and he is single and a billionaire.”

  “I have my own money.”

  “I know but you need a man.”

  “I don’t need a man.”

  “Okay, when was the last time you got laid?”

  Bianca threw her a retired look. “I am quite fine.”

  “No, you are not. You are at that employment agency for the better part of the day and most weekends. Honey, you need to get a life and start thinking about that baby you have been talking about having.”

  “And you think Eric is a good candidate to be the father?”

  “As I said before, he is rich and very hot so, yes, I do think so.”

  *****

  He got to his feet as she made her way to their table in the back. He greeted her and pulled out a chair for her to sit. Bianca could not help but notice the subtle scent of his cologne and the sharp business suit he was wearing. His dark brown hair tinted with blonde was brushed severely back from his face and his grey blue eyes were sober as usual. She was tall but he topped her by a foot and some inches.

  The manager himself hurried over to take their order.

  “I am sorry I am a little late. I had some last minute things to take care of,” Bianca told him as soon as the man walked away.

  “I took the few minutes to make some much needed calls,” he told her with a nod of his head. He glanced at the menu briefly and made his choice. “Gertrude is working out.”

  “I am happy for that.” She had made her choice as well and placed the menu back onto the table.

  “How did it go with Angelique?” he asked her politely. He was always polite and aloof as if he had encased his feelings into a box and locked them away.

  She waited until the waiter had come back with their drink and taken their orders before responding. “I gave her another chance.”

  He nodded at that and did not say anything else. Bianca sipped her mango and peach drink and studied him discreetly. He had ordered Perrier with a lemon twist and sipped from the glass contemplatively. She could not blame the women from trying to get him to touch them. He was handsome and looked so unavailable that it was an added attraction. They ate the meal in silence and it was after the plates had been cleared away that he spoke again. “I have recommended your company to several of my associates and have told them I would give you their contact information. You are very professional, Bianca, and your placements except the last two women have been exceptional.”

  “Thank you,” she told him with a smile. His eyes were drawn to her coral painted lips and the dazzling whiteness of her teeth. He felt something for her, but he had done nothing about it. He leaned forward and braced his elbows on the table.

  “I am attracted to you,” he surprised her by saying. “I have this real estate thing on Saturday and hope you will be able to accompany me.”

  Bianca deliberately allowed her expression to remain neutral even though her heart was hammering inside her breasts. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

  “I suppose I am,” he said with a slight smile. “As I said, I am attracted to you and have been for quite some time. I also need someone to accompany me to these functions I am required to be in attendance.”

  “You are making it very hard to say no,” Bianca said with a tinge of amusement.

  “I am sorry. I am not very good at this,” he told her as his eyes met hers. “Are you interested?”

  “Is this something that you need because of the functions or is it personal?” she asked him.

  “I already said I am attracted to you.” He sipped his drink. “I like you, Bianca. I like the fact that you are not one of those women who expect a lot from me. I have things in my past that’s going to stay there. You are a beautiful, successful woman and you are also mature. It is personal to a point.”

  She sipped her drink and did not respond for a little bit. She had things of her own that she needed as well in a relationship, but she figured that now was not the time. She could wait. “I think we could make it work.”

  “Good.” He finished his drink and looked at the silver Gessner watch on his wrist. “I am running late for a meeting so I will have to cut this short. Thanks for meeting with me and for agreeing to my proposal.”

  “You are welcome.”

  “I will send the details to your phone about Saturday.”

  Bianca watched him leave and watched the attention he was garnering. He was a tall and impressive man who commanded attention. Her hands trembled a little as she lifted the glass of water to her lips to take sips. She did not know much about him other than what she and everyone else had read on the internet and in magazines. It was no secret that he had grown up in foster care, but that was where the rest of the information had ended. The rest had been about his success as a real estate mogul who could turn a simple building into a profit making one. He did not appear much in the papers and Bianca had a feeling that it was deliberate.

  The waiter approached her. “Will you having dessert, madam?” he asked her politely.

  “I will have the strawberry mousse to go, thanks.”

  *****

  Eric sat in the meeting with the sales team and half-listened to the brainstorming going on. He had made the move and that was not something he had done before. Women came on to him and he would feel out the way he was around them before taking them to bed. He had stopped doing that a long time ago whe
n the last woman he had gone out with had expressed her interest in a family and something long-term. He had ended it immediately. But ever since he had met Bianca, he had felt something stirring within him and after careful contemplation had decided to go for it.

  He played with his pen idly as he thought about what he had done earlier. She was certainly a very beautiful woman and would look good on his arm.

  “We were thinking we could work on the ad from now, Eric, and get the feel of what the people think,” Mary Polls said, interrupting his musings. He snapped back and stared at her. “What’s the time frame the contractors are looking at?”

  “Six months, maybe more.”

  “We are in May now, so that makes it into November which is perfect,” the woman said enthusiastically. “We will work with the PR department to start working on the slogans and get the word out there.”

  Eric nodded. “That’s all,” he said as he dismissed them. He waited until they had left and Gertrude was alone in the large conference room. “That’s all, Gertrude. I will be by in a few minutes.”

  “Yes, sir.” She got to her feet and gathered up the things she had brought in with her. “I will make sure the report is on your desk when you get there.”

  “Thank you.” He gave her a faint smile as she made her way out. She was certainly working out.

  He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. For the first time in a very long time, he thought about his parents. The memories dug into his brain and caused a sharp pain inside his skull! He had thought that he had gotten past it a long time ago but here it was again, dogging his memories. What kind of people leaves their child to go through life alone? He had asked these anguished questions over and over again and had been unable to come up with a viable answer. He had tried to romanticize it by thinking that she had been young and pregnant and frightened because the father had been a no show. It had worked for a little bit until reality had come crashing back. He had been lonely and had learned to guard his feelings and be tough. He had had to learn to fend off bullies who wanted to make his life miserable and had learned the art of self-defense which had served him well during the years he had been forced to stay in the homes. He was not capable of more than just surface relationships and he had resigned himself to that. He had seen the lack of caring given to kids in there with him and had defended a thin, sad-looking boy from being beaten once. That boy had now grown into a man and was a very successful lawyer and was also his best friend and advisor. Eric had sent him to law school and he had been so grateful that he would do anything for him.