BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE: The Unforgettable Southern Billionaires: The Complete Collection Boxed Set (Young Adult Rich Alpha Male Billionaire Romance)

by Walker, Violet

  The records office was on the third floor and they rode the elevator in silence. As the doors opened and Desiree stepped out of the elevator, a wave of dizziness washed over her and she stumbled against Grant. He took her elbow to steady her and planted a soft kiss on her temple. Desiree let out a breath and walked forward to the information desk.

  “Hello, I’m Desiree Palmer. I called yesterday and spoke to someone about picking up a copy of a report.”

  “For Destiny Palmer? I have it right here for you,” the woman behind the desk said, reaching for a file. She opened the folder and frowned. “Now that’s strange, I made a copy of it myself,” she said. “I must’ve misplaced it. No worries,” she said, smiling apologetically. “I’ll just print another copy.”

  The woman starting clicking the keys on her computer and Desiree noticed a troubled look settle over the woman’s face.

  “What is it,” Desiree asked.

  “Well, it’s the strangest thing. It seems as though your sister’s file has been deleted.”

  Desiree stared, open-mouthed, at the receptionist, unable to speak.

  “What do you mean it’s been deleted,” Grant asked. “When?”

  The woman started pressing keys again, shaking her head and saying, “it looks like it was sometime early this morning.”

  “Why would it have been deleted? Who would’ve done that?” Grant demanded.

  “According to the time stamp it would have been my supervisor, but…” she hesitated.

  “But what,” Grant asked.

  “Well, she’s off today,” the receptionist admitted. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Don’t you have the original paper copy?” Desiree asked, finally finding her voice.

  “I’m afraid not,” the woman said apologetically. “We loaded all of the files into the computer database two years ago and shredded the paper files to conserve space. I’m so sorry. I just can’t imagine what happened here.”

  “Thank you for your time,” Grant said, taking Desiree by the elbow and leading her from the desk back toward the elevator.

  “I’m sorry again,” the receptionist called after them.

  As the stepped on the elevator, tears sprang into Desiree’s eyes. Grant stepped toward her and pulled her into his arms.

  “I don’t understand ,Grant,” she said. “She swore she had a printed copy that goes missing and now the file has been deleted this morning by a supervisor that isn’t even there? It’s like someone is trying to hide something.”

  “I don’t know what’s going on but it does seem fishy as hell,” Grant admitted.

  Chapter Seven

  Mason Crawford sat behind the large oak desk in his office. “Thank you, Timothy,” he said into the receiver, “I won’t forget this favor.”

  He hung up the phone, feeling confident that he had handled this situation once and for all. He checked his watch and wondered where his wife was. She was supposed to have returned from her spa trip early this morning, but as of yet, he had no word of her. Mason sat back in his desk and closed his eyes. He had married Catherine at nineteen at his father’s insistence. She had not been his first choice, but he had no say in the matter; his first love had chosen another.

  Catherine was a beautiful woman, and though not overly knowledgeable about happenings outside of her social circle, she had been a good and dutiful wife. She was always impeccably dressed, her hair and makeup done to perfection. She threw elegant dinner parties for his business associates and clients and attended all of the galas and charity events proudly on his arm. Over the years he had grown to love her in his own way, but it was a love borne of familiarity, not of passion. Not like his first love. No, nothing could ever be like that. He had tried to replace her with another and it had ended disastrously. In the end he fully committed to Catherine and would now do whatever it took to protect her.

  He thought about Grant, his only child, and his mood soured. Growing up, Grant had been an easy child. He was thoughtful and eager to please. He would follow his father around endlessly, sitting in his office while Mason worked, and making pretend phone calls alongside his father. Grant grew to be strong, athletic, and handsome like his father. His mannerisms remained easy-going and he still enjoyed time in the office with his father.

  When Grant first began dating Desiree Palmer in high school, they had been pleased. Desiree was from another upstanding, financially secure family. Catherine had dreams of extravagant dinner parties and Mason had dreams of working his way into the Palmer family businesses. Mason’s father, Carlton, and Desiree’s grandfather, Preston, had grown up trying to outdo the other’s wealth. They were in constant competition over whose family had the most money. While the Crawford’s were always slightly in the lead, the Palmer’s holdings weren’t far behind. Mason and Victor Palmer, Desiree’s father, had grown up friends. They traveled in the same circles and played the same sports. Neither held their fathers’ obsession with the family businesses, though after one agonizing summer and a major betrayal, Mason took up his father’s mantle and began learning all he could in order to make sure the Crawfords always stayed ahead of the Palmers. He saw Grant’s relationship with Desiree as the perfect in.

  After Destiny Palmer’s death, Mason pressured Grant to call off his relationship with Desiree. He took advantage of Grant’s easygoing ways and desire to please to demand an end to the engagement. He told Grant that it was because the Crawford name could be associated with the scandal that the suicide of one of the town’s most prominent family figures would bring. He’d succeeded and the end result was even more than he could have hoped for. Desiree moved away and Preston Palmer was ripe for the picking. Having no one left to run his companies, he was willing to sell half of the mill.

  Desiree’s return to town, and to Grant’s life, was not foreseeable, nor was it welcome. He had expected her to collect her inheritance and go back to Chicago, not to stay in town and start digging into the past with Grant’s help. Mason had threatened once again to take Grant’s birthright and cut him off, but this time it hadn’t worked. It seemed that Grant had grown a spine and the bottled resentment toward his father for ending his relationship seven years before became uncorked. Now Mason was scrambling to make sure that all of the carefully-manipulated blocks didn’t come crashing down on him.

  Grant helped Desiree unload all of the bags their trip to Atlanta had produced. Grant bought much-needed clothing and toiletries and they had purchased enough groceries to feed an army. Desiree had been quiet most of the afternoon, contemplating whether this latest development was a sign that she should let her sister rest or a reason to go forward. Would having an explanation really make a difference? Would it assuage her guilt over not knowing what was going on in Destiny’s life?

  It was Destiny who had pulled away, Destiny who had basically severed their relationship. Desiree tried to give her space, but Destiny had never climbed out of the hole she had dug herself. She had rid herself of all of her friends, started seeing someone nobody knew about, quit school, and alienated the only family she had left. What was Desiree going to solve by digging deeper? Still, she couldn’t quite get rid of the nagging feeling that the father of Destiny’s baby, whoever he was, could be the key to all of Destiny’s odd behavior, and possibly to her decision to take her own life. Desiree was torn.

  Grant carried the last of the bags into the house and came over to wrap her in a bear hug. “Why don’t you go lay down for a bit and let me make us something to eat.”

  Desiree leaned against his chest, breathing in the clean smell of him. “When did you learn how to cook?”

  “Well I wouldn’t call boiling water and opening a jar of spaghetti sauce cooking but it’s better than reheated casserole right,” he asked.

  “Sounds amazing actually,” she said appreciatively. “I think I’m going to take you up on your suggestion of a nap.”

  Desiree headed upstairs, leaving Grant to put away the rest of the groceries. She lay across her bed fu
lly clothed and closed her eyes, falling almost instantly into a fitful sleep. She dreamt of her mother, of talking to her and asking her what she should do. Elizabeth had offered no wisdom in the dream and Desiree woke an hour later feeling more uneasy than she had before. She got out of bed and changed into shorts and a tank top, listening to the sounds of dinner coming from the kitchen. She left her room and walked down the hallway, toward the western wing of the enormous house.

  How she had loved playing here when she was a child. With three stories, four staircases, nine bedrooms, a kitchen, dining area, cellar, pantry, den, office, and servants quarters spread out over 10,000 square feet, there had been numerous places to hide. She and Destiny loved to play hide-n-seek and on more than one occasion, got lost doing so. They loved to explore all the old closets and the nooks and crannies of the house. Many nights their mother would put them to bed in their rooms, only to find them the next morning curled up in blankets in the attic where they had fallen asleep watching the stars through the large window at the front of the house.

  Their father, Victor, died of a sudden heart attack when the girls were only four. Her grandparents had insisted that the girls and their mother, Elizabeth, stay in the house. Even after her grandmother Cecilia’s death two years later, Preston Palmer kept “his girls” together. That’s what Grandfather had called the three of them, “his girls.” The house had always been full of life and love. Elizabeth did all of the cooking and tended to Grandmother’s gardens with a tenderness borne of her love for her late mother-in-law. After their mother’s death, the house itself seemed depressed.

  Desiree padded down the hallway to what had been her mother’s room and opened the door. It looked almost the same as it had ten years ago before Elizabeth had died. There were sheets draped over the mahogany furniture to keep the dust at bay, but all of her mother’s belongings were right where they had been left. Desiree pulled on the sheet covering the bed to reveal the soft lilac bed spread that her mother had loved so much. She crawled onto the bed and swore she could still smell her mother’s perfume on the pillow. Desiree lay there and stared at the ceiling for a long time.

  “I could really use your help, mom,” she said out loud. “I miss you so much.”

  A few tears slipped down her cheeks and wet the pillow. She wiped at her cheeks and went to the window where she drew back the heavy Brocade curtains to let the fading sunlight filter in. The sun lit a path across the wooden floor and ornate Oriental rug that lay in the middle of the room. Desiree caught something sticking out from underneath her mother’s bed out of the corner of her eye. She crouched down and pulled out a shoe box, sat down on the floor and opened the lid. Inside were letters, about fifty if she had to guess, all addressed to her sister, dating back to the months after their mother’s death. She pulled one letter from its envelope, three words catching her eye and stealing her breath: Forever Yours, Mason.

  Chapter Eight

  Grant stood in the kitchen, getting the last of the dinner together, when he heard a noise from outside. Night was approaching sooner now that summer was ending, and he could only make out shadows from the window. He stepped out the back door onto the porch and scanned the area behind the house. There was nothing, and he figured it to have been an animal and started to head back into the house. As he reached the door, Grant heard the noise again: a faint rustling from the area around the old stables. Grant stepped off the porch to investigate just as Desiree came barreling into the kitchen calling his name.

  He took one last look around and, seeing nothing conspicuous, he went back into the house and closed the door behind him. One look at Desiree’s face told him something was very wrong. She was white as a ghost and clutching a piece of paper in her right hand.

  “What is it, Desi?” he asked. “What’s happened?”

  Without speaking, Desiree held the paper out to Grant. He took it from her and scanned the words. He looked up at her with questions in his eyes and sank into a chair at the table. This time he started from the top and read every word.

  My Dearest Destiny,

  These past months have been pure bliss for me, as I hope they have been for you. The thrill of our secret is almost as fulfilling as the time we spend together. I often catch myself daydreaming of the taste of your lips, my fingers tangled in your hair, the way your body feels under mine. Come to me again soon, my love, I grow hungrier for you every day.

  Forever Yours,

  Mason

  Grant dropped the letter on the table and looked up at Desiree. “Where did you find this?”

  “In my mother’s room. In a box under her bed with about fifty more just like it.”

  “My father and your sister,” Grant wondered aloud. “I don’t understand.”

  “Apparently they started having an affair in the months after my mother’s death. It explains why she never told me.”

  They both sat silent for a few minutes, neither knowing what to say.

  “That bastard,” Grant finally spit, getting up from the table. He paced around the kitchen for several minutes, his anger bubbling over. He stomped from the room, grabbing Desiree’s car keys off the counter.

  “Where are you going?” she called, running after him.

  “Home,” he said. “I’m going to shove this under his nose and ask him to explain himself.”

  “Wait, I’m coming with you!” she said.

  Grant climbed behind the wheel, threw the car into gear, and pulled out of the driveway, neither noticing the puddle under the front end of the car.

  Grant reached the end of the drive and swung out onto the main road, tires squealing.

  “Grant, slow down,” Desiree said. “We’re not going to get any answers if you kill us on the way there.”

  The car approached a steep curve and Grant hit the brakes but nothing happened. He pumped the pedal again and again, but the car didn’t slow. He tried to control the wheels, but he was going too fast and overcompensated, sending the car into a spin. Desiree grabbed onto the dashboard and screamed as the car hurtled off of the side of the road, flipping end over end until it came to rest on its roof in a stand of trees.

  THE END

  Billionaire Romance

  Truth’s Unveiling

  Book Three

  Violet Walker

  Billionaire Romance: Truth’s Unveiling

  Chapter One

  Desiree could hear voices around her but could not see where they were coming from. She couldn’t see anything actually. She felt herself being lifted and then moved very quickly before being set back down. The voices were louder and frantic, but she could only make out a few words: bleeding out, broken, crashing. Then the world went black.

  The paramedics worked quickly to resuscitate her while trying to stem the flow of blood from her thigh. The wound was deep and near her artery, causing her to lose blood rapidly. Grant tried to get to her, but they were still trying to assess his injuries.

  “Sir, you’re going to have to sit still; your arm is dislocated and if you keep moving, you are going to injure yourself further,” a male EMT told him. “They are doing everything they can for your friend over there.”

  Grant called to Richie, another paramedic and friend from school, who was working on Desiree.

  “Richie! How is she,” he yelled, but Richie was too busy to answer.

  As the crowd around Desiree shifted. Grant could see that they were giving her CPR and felt all of the air leave his lungs. NO, his brain screamed. Please God, no! She had told him he was going too fast, that he was going to kill them. He watched in horror as the paramedics continued to work on Desiree, barely able to breathe until he, at last, heard someone say, “we have a pulse.”

  Thank God she was alive. Grant tried to stand, to go to her, but the paramedic pushed him back down onto the tailgate of the ambulance. “Sir, you really need to let them get her to the hospital. And you need to let me stabilize your arm.”

  “I don’t care about my fucking arm,” Gran
t yelled. “I need to get to Desi!” He finally pushed past the paramedic but a sharp, searing pain in his shoulder turned the edges of his vision black and he faltered on his feet. The EMT, who was slightly bigger, caught him and helped him back to the ambulance. He felt helpless as they finished getting him ready to transport to the hospital. “Can you at least tell me if she’s stable?”

  “They’re still working on her sir, I’ll update you as soon as we get to the hospital,” he was told.

  They closed the doors to the ambulance and began the forty-five minute drive to St. Regis Medical Center just outside of Atlanta. Grant closed his eyes and prayed that Desiree would still be alive by the time they got there. If she didn’t make it, he would never forgive himself. This was his fault. He turned it over and over again in his head, trying to see where it all went wrong. He knew he was going too fast, but he could’ve taken that curve in his sleep. He’d done it half his life, and in a Ferrari no less. He could picture it in front of him, he turned the wheel slightly and tapped the brakes. The brakes. He had pressed the pedal down to the floor and nothing happened. What the hell?

  Grant was jolted from his remembering as they pulled up to the emergency entrance of the hospital. He was unloaded and rushed through the doors.

  “Twenty-six-year-old male in a motor vehicle accident, blood pressure stable, multiple contusions on his arms and a dislocated left shoulder,” the paramedic briefed to the doctors and nurses running alongside his gurney.

  “Where’s Desi,” Grant asked. “Is she here? Is she alive?”