You're My Future: A Billionaire BWAM Romance (Sophia And Christopher Book 3)

by Mary Peart

  “You don’t have to wonder,” he murmured as he took her lips again, this time pressing her back against the soft blanket and climbing on top of her.

  *****

  She waited until he was sleeping before she made her move. He had exhausted her by making love to her over and over again and she had fallen asleep as soon as she had spent herself inside his mouth. He had curled up behind her and succumbed to sleep himself soon after.

  She removed his arm from around her gently and moved away looking back to see that he was still sleeping. She took some time to admire his magnificent naked body, the strong handsome face with the slightly flared nostrils and the girlish lashes making shadows against his cheekbones. She wanted to touch him but she had some work to do.

  They had devoured the Chinese food and Sophia moved quietly to get rid of the table and the empty cartons. She then headed upstairs with the package she had left in the living room and hurried into the bathroom. She had no idea how long he was going to sleep but she wanted to be in the kitchen preparing the meal before he woke up.

  She set the bath and went in front of the mirror to brush her thick dark hair several times before twisting it and wrapping it on top of her head. She stepped into the scented bath and sighed in appreciation as the warm water lapped around her. She regretted that she did not have time for a long soak but got out after ten minutes. She wrapped the towel around her and went into the bedroom where she put on some scented cream and then slipped into the red and white teddy and turned to look in the mirror. The thin silk molded her figure like a second skin and the voluptuous lace just barely covered her generous breasts.

  “Sweet Jesus!” his voice sounded just inside their bedroom and she spun around to face him, disappointed that her plans had gone awry. “I woke up and reached for you and you were not there so I decided to come and look up here.” His dark eyes were unreadable as he came further inside the room. He had dragged on the loose sweatpants he had been wearing and nothing else and his skin glowed softly tan in the light from the lamp.

  “I wanted to surprise you. I was supposed to be in the kitchen preparing something for us and you were supposed to come in and see me there.” Her heartbeat quickened at the look on his handsome face.

  “Consider me surprised,” his voice was thick and raw with emotions as he stood in front of her. He was afraid to touch her, afraid that she was an apparition that would drift away like so much smoke if he did. She was too beautiful to be real.

  “Happy Valentine’s Day my love,” she whispered softly and went into his arms.

  Chapter 4

  That night had taken a turn for them. He had stood there looking down at her for so long that Sophia had wondered if he was ever going to move. He had eased back and studied her from head to toes and then had taken off the sexy garment slowly as if savoring the way it looked on her. Being Christopher, he had not spoken but had let his body do the talking as he made sweet and passionate love to her that had her shivering and calling out his name from start to finish. He had ended up giving her a stunning pair of diamond earrings.

  March was no better than February with snow laden clouds and flurries for most of the days. The renovation for the museum was well on its way and Sophia had been by there once or twice to look at what was being done. The shopping mall was put on hold for a little bit and she was just a little bit disappointed but Christopher told her that the board wanted to do some more investigations.

  It was Monday afternoon and she was sitting at her desk going through the list of buildings that had potential. The hotel that had been bought and renovated in mid town had been sold for a tidy sum and the sale had yielded some profit.

  Now she was on the lookout for some others to put to her husband and subsequently to the very picky board. Her eyes had caught a quaint little inn that had been built two decades ago and had seen some very rough times and had a for sale sign hanging drunkenly from the crumbling gate. Each time she went to something else her eyes always came back to the building. The roof looked like a red velvet cake and had been washed and weathered by time and the seasons. It certainly had potential. She was just about to ring the buzzer to call Amelia in when her buzzer went. “Amelia I was just about to call you.” She told the girl, her eyes still on the picture of the building.

  “I am sorry Sophia but you have a Jeremy Matthews on the line and he is insisting on talking to you.”

  Sophia went still. Her nightmare had surfaced and she was not even asleep. “Put him through Amelia,” she told her assistant, forcing herself to remain calm.

  “You have two minutes before I hang up the phone Jeremy,” she told him coldly. She had no idea where he was calling from but she hoped to God that it was from Mexico.

  “I don’t want to upset you Sophia,” his voice had lost the confidence he had always shown before. “I have been back for a couple of months now and I have now decided to call you.”

  “You are back?” her voice sounded shrill as the panic started inside her breasts.

  “I don’t want to cause trouble but I really need to talk to you.” He murmured. “Please.”

  She thought about hanging up the phone, she even thought about getting her husband on the line and letting him know what was going on but she hesitated and he picked up on that. “Things have not worked out for me Sophia. I have made some terrible mistakes and I just need to talk.”

  “Tomorrow at noon at the little café downtown,” she said briefly before she could change her mind. It was the café where they used to meet when they had been together so he knew which one it was and she figured that it was far away from where she would be recognized.

  “Thank you.”

  Sophia sat there her eyes focused on a quaint little painting she had picked up at one of antique sales she had been to. It was a still life showing a boy and his father on a fishing boat and the background showed the lush green vegetation and a little cabin that she would like to think of as their home. She remembered how her husband had looked at the signature scrawled into the canvas and given her an amused look. “I might not be Picasso or Rembrandt but I happen to like it very much.” She had retorted.

  He was back! He had been back for several months and now she knew that her nightmares had some merits. He said things had not worked out for him. What did that mean exactly? She knew he had run away with his wife’s mother and it had caused quite a scandal and now he was back home, near to Christine. She knew her husband was going to be mad but she had to find out what he wanted.

  *****

  Sophia wandered restlessly around the store, touching this book and that and sometimes actually picking up a book and skimming the title. Books had been her constant companion as a child. She had read avidly and lose herself in the pages of whichever one she was reading, sometimes forgetting to eat until her mother or father would come to remind her that she was going to starve to death if she continued that way. That had not stopped her. Her father: the gentle caring individual man whom she vaguely remembered because he had died when she was only seven.

  She had stopped by the bookstore after leaving the office a little early. Christopher had gone to do an inspection at the museum and said he was going to pick her up on his way back. Carlos had dropped her off at the bookstore. She wished she could talk to her mother about Jeremy, about him calling her but she knew she would tell her to talk to Christopher about it and she was not sure she could do so right now. The problem was she was not sure she could hide anything from him. He knew her too much.

  Her mother was ringing up a purchase and the two ladies she had hired were helping customers choose books they needed. She looked around to see that the café had people sitting around the tables sipping some sort of caffeine and one or two flipping pages of books seemingly lost in the pages as she was so long ago. Life had been so simple then, she thought as she sat on one of the stools in the aisle and absently opened the book she had taken from the shelf. Now she had a husband and three children and a man who ha
d been before her husband and had almost destroyed her life and her ability to really love.

  “You look lost in some other world,” her mother’s soft cultured voice had her looking up at her and wondering how she had gotten there without her hearing her approaching footsteps.

  “I was just thinking about when I was a little girl and I would start reading and would not hear when you and dad were calling.” She closed the book as her mother pulled up another stool and joined her.

  “We always thought you would go blind from reading in all that dreadful light,” Sybil remembered fondly reaching out to take the book from her and glancing at the title. “I am surprised to see you here today.”

  Sophia avoided her eyes and glanced at a young man who had just come in. He had glasses on that kept slipping down his nose and his faded jeans looked as if he had worn them all of last week. She smiled whimsically as he ventured over to the science section. “Christopher went to look at the museum but I did not want to go.”

  “You are all grown up with children of your own but you are still my child,” her mother reached out and clasped her hand. “You can always talk to me.”

  Sophia looked down at their clasped hands for a moment and then made up her mind. “Jeremy called me.”

  “From Italy?"

  “He is back Mama,” she reverted to the name she had always called her when she was a little girl or even when she was a big girl in trouble.

  “Have you told Christopher?” Sybil asked her gently seeing the torn look on her face.

  Sophia shook her head. “He wants to talk to me and you know how Christopher gets when it comes to Jeremy.”

  “And for good reason,” Sybil gave her daughter’s hand a squeeze. “Don’t let him find out before you get a chance to tell him baby girl. That is only going to upset him more.”

  “I won’t,” Sophia’s tone was disconsolate. “What if he tells me that he wants to be a part of Christine’s life mom?”

  “Don’t think ahead honey you are only going to make yourself crazy.” Sybil squeezed her hands again.

  She nodded and was silent for a spell. “Are you really happy with Matthew mom?”

  The question surprised both of them and Sybil took a moment to respond. “Happier than I have been in a while. Why?”

  Sophia moved her shoulders in a restless shrug. She had no idea why this feeling of turbulence was invading her mind but it was there and she could not shake it. The nightmare, only this time during the day. “Just wondering. I was thinking about Dad today and I have not done so in a long time.”

  “I will always love your dad if that is what you are wondering honey.”

  “I know Mama,” she said with a tiny smile. “I love Christopher so much that it threatens to overwhelm me and I am so afraid of doing something that is going to make him not love me anymore.”

  “Honey no!” Sybil’s hands tightened on hers. “That man loves you so much that when I see him with you I feel a little jealous at what I see on his face. How can you ever think that he is ever going to stop loving you?”

  “I know it’s silly but I can’t help feeling that way sometimes.”

  *****

  He picked her up at a quarter past six and spent a few minutes talking to Sybil and Matthew who had come over from work a few minutes before he came. Sophia liked the man who had married her mother after the tragedy with his wife and realized that they were well and truly happy together. They had gotten a second chance at love and for that she was grateful.

  “You are quiet,” Christopher glanced at her briefly as they made their way home.

  The darkness had descended rapidly and the heavy clouds hung low in the leaden sky indicating that they were in for some more snow. It was going to be a long winter.

  “Just enjoying the ride,” she made a supreme effort to be normal even though her heart was thudding inside her chest. “What’s the progress at the museum?”

  He glanced at her again as if contemplating whether or not she was being straight with him and then he responded. “There has been a little setback. The marble tiles were the wrong ones and there was a crack in one of the ceilings.”

  “Oh no so there is going to be a delay on the official opening.”

  “It appears that way.” He was still not convinced that she was not hiding something from him but who was he to think that way? He was hiding the fact that Matthews was back in town and working at some gentleman’s store in the mall uptown and had found himself a girlfriend. The man certainly worked fast, he thought cynically. He had told Marcus to watch every move he made.

  “I love you very much Christopher,” she told him suddenly as he braked to a stop as soon as they reached the front door.

  He switched off the engine and turned to look at her. She had worn an elegant charcoal gray skirt suit and an inside blouse of rich burgundy and her hair was scooped back into a loose chignon. She was wearing the diamond earrings he had given her for Valentine’s Day and even thinking about that night and what she had been wearing had the power to make him hard.

  “I know,” he toyed with the collar of her jacket for a bit. He had sat inside his office dealing with the ineptitude of the contractors who had the contract to restore the museum to its former glory and had felt like firing the lot of them and then he had looked at the picture of his family placed so prominently on his desk and had changed his mind. He had gone soft, he thought wryly but they meant so much to him that he would spend every dime he had to protect them. “What brought that on?”

  “The way I feel,” she touched his strong jaw and felt the muscle flex. “I want to make sure you know and I want to tell you as often as I can.” She traced his full bottom lip and felt a familiar jolt as he opened his mouth and bit her finger gently.

  “Let’s go and see what our children are up to.” He said after leaning forward to kiss her softly on the lips.

  *****

  Jeremy felt his hands shake as he lifted the glass of cheap wine to his mouth. She had said yes! She had agreed to meet with him, it had been reluctant but it was a start and that was all he needed. He was alone right now, Sally was working late tonight and he could not help but feel relieved, he wanted this time to think, to plan and to remember.

  He had foolishly let her go because he had allowed his ego to come between them. He was a hot shot back then, using his looks to screw every woman that gave him a certain look. He had known that there was something special about Sophia the first time he had seen her and he had pursued her until he had broken through her reserves.

  Imagine his surprise and delight when he had discovered that he was the first man for her. It had made him feel kingly, like he had conquered some impossible feat. She had clung to him after and cried on his shoulder, maybe from the pain of breaching her or maybe it had been pleasure. He had not taken the time to find out. She had been so smitten and he had been so smug and that was when he had made the mistake.

  He had told her blatantly that he wanted nothing to do with the child growing inside her and she had left broken and confused. He was here wishing that he could take it all back but he couldn’t and now she was married to some big shot billionaire who owned practically all the businesses in town. And he had made a colossal mess of his life. He had a son and a daughter and they had no idea that he was their father. Somehow he had to find a way to change that, no matter what happened.

  He finished the bottle and stumbled inside the bedroom to take off his clothes. Sally would be coming over and he did not want to have to explain to her, he was not yet ready to share.

  *****

  Sybil added a pinch of salt to the stew she had on the stove top. She had reached home early and decided to make dinner. She had seen the look on Matthew’s face this morning and even though he had not said anything to her she knew that something was wrong. She had seen him shoved something inside his pockets this morning as soon as she came into the living room and he had been taciturn, barely kissing her on the cheek before le
aving for the office.

  She was guessing it had something to do with his first wife. She had seen the same look on his face when it had come to October, the anniversary of her death and she had always managed to talk him through it. Now this was something else but what could it be? She wondered. She had thought they had been over the hurdle but apparently not.

  With a sigh she made herself some tea and went into the living room to wait for him. Whether he liked it or not he was going to talk to her. Her mind turned to the problem of Jeremy as she sipped her tea. She had advised her daughter to tell her husband that he had called her and that he was back in the country but she knew how intent Christopher was about protecting his wife and his family. What a mess! She thought disconsolately, her spine stiffening as she heard the key in the lock.

  He came in and hung up his jacket on the coat hanger just inside the door. His eyes found her in the living room and he came in with hesitant steps. “What are you doing here in the dark?” he did not sit as was usual but stood there looking at her, his hands shoved in his pockets.

  “Waiting for you.” She murmured looking up at him. “Aren’t you going to sit?”

  He did so after a moment’s hesitation.

  “What’s going on?’ she asked him mildly. She usually got up and fixed him some tea but this time she did not. She wanted to hear what was bothering him.

  He did not bother to ask her what she was talking about, he knew better than to ask. He pulled out the folded piece of paper from his pocket and she realized that it was an envelope. “What is it?”

  “A letter from Celia’s cousin in Florida. After three years she is blaming me for the death of her cousin.” He handed her the envelope and Sybil took the flimsy pink stationery out and read it. It was filled with accusations and blame and went on to say that he had moved on so quickly she was wondering if he was not happy that her cousin had died. She even went on to say how he was using the insurance money to take care of himself and his new wife.