The Billionaire's Twin Fever (MANHATTAN BACHELORS Book 1)
Page 16
She smiled slyly. “I told you what the deal was. I get you back, or you don’t get Granger Corp. We’re a package deal, or it’s no deal.”
Aleisha stared at her. Kyle stood up and shook his head once. “Then it’s no deal. There’s the door.”
Jennifer’s eyes grew wide, and she raised her voice. “What in the hell are you talking about? You can’t afford to turn me away like that!”
Aleisha frowned and looked at them both. “Wait a minute. I thought you two were engaged.”
Kyle stood near her, one hand on the table, the other at his side. “We were. We were going to get married, and I wanted to start a family. There was a funny twist of fate, though, and I had a cancer scare, so I froze some of my sperm so that Jennifer could carry my babies when we were both ready to start a family. The cancer scare turned out to be benign, but then she backed out, saying that she didn’t want kids. We broke up.”
He sighed and shook his head as he watched Jennifer, who lifted her chin and raised her voice again. “I didn’t want kids then, but I’ve changed my mind, and I want them with you now.” She looked as determined as she sounded.
“Well, you can’t. It’s too late because I already have kids,” he stated flatly. Both women turned and stared up at him.
“What?” they both said in unison.
“Who in the hell did you have kids with?” Jennifer shot angrily at him.
Kyle looked over at Aleisha. “I have twins with Aleisha.”
Aleisha’s jaw dropped open. “What? How in the world can you possibly… that’s not true!” she argued with him.
He held up his hand. “It is true.” He handed a file to her. “This is from the fertility clinic where I had my sperm frozen, and where you went for your in vitro fertilization procedure. There was a mix up at the fertility clinic, and they gave you my sperm by mistake. Harry and Hailey are my babies. The proof is in that file you’re holding. That’s why I’ve been trying to spend time with them and why I hired you. I wanted to be part of their lives. I just never counted on falling in love with their mother.”
Jennifer’s mouth fell open then, and she jumped straight up from her seat. “How dare you! How could you do this to us? How could you do this to me?”
Time seemed to stop for Aleisha as she looked over the file in her hands. It was accurate. The twins were fathered by Kyle Drake. She realized then what it was about her seeing his face when she dreamed about them together. They looked like him because they were his babies. Reality began to take hold in her whirling mind, and she felt her stomach flip upside down. It couldn’t be possible, but there she was looking at it, and there was no refuting the truth.
She realized something else then, another truth that had been staring her in the face the whole time, though she hadn’t realized it until just that moment.
“Oh, my god.” She stood up and stared at Kyle. “You’ve been playing me this whole time… you’ve only been spending time with me to be around the kids. It’s always been about them. Never about us, and never about me.”
“Welcome to my world,” Jennifer spat nastily at her.
Aleisha took the file and turned and walked out of the room, glancing over her shoulder as she did so. “I quit. Right now, right here. I’m done. I’ll pack my desk, and I’m gone.” She disappeared then, leaving Jennifer and Kyle in the room behind her.
Jennifer began to laugh and reached for the file that he had given her, the one with the contract in it. “Well, now that she’s gone, I’ll go ahead and sign this because now I know I can get you back. You’re hired.” She traced her pen across it, leaving her signature behind in black ink.
She stood up and walked over to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek. “It will be good to have you back, baby. There’s no one who’s as good a lover as you are. I’ve missed you.” She ran her hands over his chest and winked at him as she turned and walked out. “Call me, baby.”
Kyle sank down into his chair and closed his eyes, folding his hands in front of him.
Aleisha cleared out her desk and said goodbye to Grace without telling her why she was leaving. She only said that it was necessary. Grace nodded understandingly.
Aleisha took her box to the car and wept as she drove away from the only job she’d had since college. The best job she’d ever have, most likely. She wept that she was losing that, and that she was losing Kyle as well. There was no way that a liar like him could be part of her life.
She took the long route home, hoping to find some kind of peace before she walked into her home to face her babies with a broken heart. She wondered how she was ever going to look at them again and not see him looking back at her out of their beautiful little faces.
She finally got home and walked into the front door of her place and stopped in her tracks. Kyle was sitting on the sofa holding Harry while Hailey played next to him.
“What in the hell are you doing here?” she snapped at him as she closed the door behind her and set her office box on the floor.
He set Harry down and stood up, facing her. “I hired Julie, so when I came to the house and gave her the afternoon off, she took it. I’ve been taking care of them and playing with them.”
“Damn it! You can’t do that!” she insisted angrily.
He shrugged. “I did, though.”
She glared at him, hurt and angry. “I want you to tell me everything, right now. I know that you didn’t say everything in that conference room, so spill it, now. All of it,” she demanded, her eyes locked on him.
He sighed and nodded, sliding his hands into his pants pockets. “Alright. You deserve to know it all. I actually came to the firm because of you. I found out what had happened when the clinic called me about the error. They told me all of the details, including who the mother of my babies was. I tracked you down and found out that you were working for the Carrington’s, and it was all too perfect.
“The Carrington’s are my cousins. I contacted my cousin about a job, putting me on as a named partner. My cousin hired me and arranged for you to have the interview to be my associate. I didn’t even interview anyone else. It was always going to be you, so that I could find my way to seeing the kids.”
She stared at him in horror and shock. He continued quietly and humbly. “Cara’s dad is fine. He didn’t have a stroke. She never had to leave. I gave her a huge sum of money on the condition that she leave New York. She went to Los Angeles to study acting. She’s not coming back.
“I hired Julia because I wanted the best caregiver in the city. I also wanted to be able to tell her when to take a day off now and then so that you’d bring the kids to my house. I had the nursery built for them specifically; it’s theirs, and it always has been since I found out that they were born.”
Aleisha could not move or speak. Kyle watched her and moved close to her until he was standing before her. “It was my intention to be a part of their lives and a part of your life. I wanted to take care of them and of you, make sure you all had everything that you could possibly need. It was never my intention to fall in love with you, though, and I tried not to. God, did I try not to.” He smiled a little and laughed lightly.
“You’re just so determined; you have such dedication and strength. You’re so beautiful, and you’re filled to overflowing with love and kindness. Then, of course, there was the chemistry. The heat between us is just undeniable. I never anticipated any of it, and I know it’s happening so fast, but I am head over heels in love with you.” He reached for her, taking her hands in his.
“Please… please come back to work with me. I don’t want to do it without you, and there’s no way that I could ever find anyone who could take your place. Come back,” he pleaded earnestly with her.
Everything in her felt scattered and torn. She looked up at him and shook her head. “I… I can’t come back to work with you. I’m in love with you. We would need to be professional there.”
“I can fix that.” He smiled at her.
&n
bsp; She shook her head. “Contrary to popular belief, you can’t fix everything, though you’ve just about got me convinced that you can.”
“I can fix this.” He said again, and he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box, opening it to reveal a massive diamond ring. “Listen, I know this is sudden, and we haven’t known each other that long, but we can be engaged as long as you want to.
“Say yes to me. Be my wife someday, even if it’s years from now. Come back to work as my fiancé, and someday promise me that you will be my wife, and we can be professional as a team. Let me be your husband, your partner, and the father that our babies need. Please…” he whispered at the end, searching her eyes with his.
She didn’t even have to think about it. The answer was already in her. “I know that this might be the craziest thing I’ve ever done, but it also feels like the best decision I’ve ever made. I know right now as I stand here that I’m not wrong about this. I love you, Kyle, and I want to make a family with you and our babies. Yes… Kyle, I will marry you, as long as you never keep another secret from me.”
He rose to his feet and slid the ring on her finger, drawing her into his arms and kissing her cheek. “Not intentionally, my love. Not for the rest of our lives. I love you.”
“I love you, too. Always.” She closed her eyes and buried her face in his neck, breathing him in. Just then both of the babies came up to them, tugging on their clothes. Aleisha and Kyle let go of each other, and they each bent over and picked up the babies.
Then the hug was complete; a real family, bound together forever with real love. Always.
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THE BILLIONAIRE'S
ARRANGED TWINS
A BILLIONAIRE PREGNANCY ROMANCE By..
TASHA BLUE
Summary
Henry Ellison was a billionaire who was used to getting what he wanted in life.
And having conquered the business world, Henry was ready to start a family of his own.
And for this he was willing to hire the beautiful Jamaica Franklin as a surrogate mother.
However, Henry had one particular demand.
That she give him twins. Nothing more, nothing less.
Could this be one demand too far for the mysterious billionaire? Or could Henry will be willing to compromise and accept a rather different 2 for 1 deal?
Chapter1
Sitting on a low hill, surrounded by towering sixty-foot pine trees, looking out onto a gray and tempestuous Pacific sea, stood a massive mansion. It was made of many levels, and there were balconies and patios set at different points on the different levels. There were wide and tall windows over the seaside of it, and only slightly fewer windows on the wooded hillside of it. A four-car garage sat at the base of it, while it was topped with a master bedroom that overlooked all the area around the house. There was a small orchard and garden off to one side of the house, and an indoor and outdoor swimming pool and hot tub. A delicate flowering vine covered part of the front of the house, hugging one side of the door. There were no neighbors within a mile of the home in any direction.
The mansion was made of massive gray stones, looking almost like a modern-day castle, and for that it was named Graystone Manor. It was the home of the Ellison family, who had lived there a long while, and who were one of the wealthiest families in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.
The Ellison family had once been headed by Edward Ellison, who had maneuvered the stock market with a genius which knew a rare peer. He had married his college sweetheart, Georgia, and together they had given life to one son, Henry. Edward had passed away shortly after Henry had graduated from college, and in taking the reins of the business and family wealth, Henry had turned the multi-million-dollar estate that his father had built into a billion-dollar estate through aggressive advancements in the technology industry he based in nearby Seattle.
Ellison Incorporated had become one of the cornerstones of solid wealth in the area, and it seemed to the family and to everyone else that it was only going to grow. The loss of his father had devastated Henry, but he was relieved to still have his mother in his life and to be sharing a home with her.
Georgia was sitting across the dining room table from Henry, pushing the fruit around on her plate with a fork. She was watching him intently. The last of the steam drifted from her full cup of Earl Grey tea and it sat neglected in the saucer that had been served to her.
“Henry, we have to talk about something important,” she began after a lengthy silence.
He was a handsome man, some said devastatingly so, while others called him sweet and charming. Henry had inherited his father’s height and good looks; he was six and a half feet tall with a sturdy and strong build, though he wasn’t bulky, he was certainly fit, and he kept himself in excellent health. His mother often told him how much he looked like his father, but that he had more of her strong adventurous personality, her stubbornness, her determination, and sheer willpower.
He looked up at her, his sandy brown hair curled in waves around the top of his head, his hazel eyes framed by thick, dark, long lashes set on her. He gave her a smile; his clean-shaven cheeks rounding out the chiseled square lines of his jaw.
“Of course, Mother; what is it that you want to talk about?” He lifted his brows slightly and brought his coffee cup to his mouth.
She leaned forward just a little and folded her hands together. In her youth, she had been extraordinarily beautiful, and that beauty had stayed with her, softening over the years of her life, but it had taken a toll in the months leading up to that moment, and it was obvious on her face and in her blue eyes. Her blonde hair had become streaked with white, and the lines around her eyes and mouth had deepened.
“You know that I’m so very proud of what your father has given us, and I’m equally proud of what you’ve done with it, but that’s not what means the most to me. What means most to me is you, Henry. Nothing in this world means as much to me as you do. You’re a good man; you’re dedicated and smart and you have an enormous heart. I couldn’t be happier that I am lucky enough to have you for my son. But with my recent health issues, there is a growing concern that is at the forefront of my mind.” She sighed and gazed at him meaningfully.
The smile vanished from his face. “Mother, your health is my number one concern. Cancer is nothing to put second. There’s nothing about me that should come before that. Your life is being threatened by that cruel disease, and we have to focus on that and nothing else.”
She frowned at him and narrowed her eyes. “The cancer that is trying to kill me is exactly why you are at the front of my mind. I’m going through chemo; I’m doing everything I can to fight it, but you know that the doctors aren’t giving me much time to live. You know that my days are flying by, disappearing one by one faster than I can count them.”
Henry looked away from her, shifting his eyes to the half empty plate in front of him. “Mother, your illness is my only priority. We’re going to do all that we can to beat the cancer that you’re fighting. Nothing else is important. Nothing else matters.”
Georgia sat up straighter. “There is something else that matters to me. It matters more than anything. I’m fighting the disease, but that isn’t what’s most important to me. You are the most important thing in the world to me, and your future is important. You haven’t settled down, Henry. You haven’t gotten serious about any woman, and I am extremely concerned about it.”
He frowned. “What? You’re worried because I’m not in a relationship? Mother, you know I haven’t gotten serious about anyone since…” He held off quietly for a
moment, not wanting to speak her name. “Since I was in college. I thought I was going to get married. I thought it was going to happen just like you and Dad, and it didn’t. She wanted someone else and she took the ring with her and left me with a shredded heart. I don’t need to be in a relationship. Our business is my relationship. I don’t have anyone on the radar for romance, and I don’t want anyone in my life like that. I’m fine just like I am. I don’t need to have love in my life to be happy. Please don’t worry about that.”
She pursed her lips and put her hands on the edge of the table, pushing herself up carefully. Georgia made her way around the dining room table slowly, her eyes on her son the entire time. When she reached the chair beside him, she pulled it out and sat down in it, facing him.
“Henry, it isn’t only your love life that I’m concerned about. I know that you’re independent and strong and that you are focused on the business, but the business doesn’t keep you warm at night, it doesn’t give your life the same kind of meaning that a real love could,” she told him earnestly.
He opened his mouth to protest again, but she held her hand up to stop him. “Please, darling, listen. I know how much richer your life could be if you had real love in it. I don’t want you to give up on that. I want you to give it a try, and I want you to do it soon, because your love life isn’t the only thing that I’m focused on.”