The Billionaire's Island_A BWWM Billionaire Romance

by Cherry Kay

  David looked at him and raised one eyebrow. “You think this is going to fade away?”

  Carlson nodded seriously. “I think it can, if you handle it right.”

  “What’s the point of having the kid?” David asked, tilting his head curiously.

  The older man sighed and waved his hand in the air. “Security. Who can argue that your marriage is a publicity stunt when you have a child from it?”

  David nodded his head. “Well, well, a marriage of convenience. What a strange thing to do.”

  “People get married every day for much crazier reasons, David. You’d be saving your own skin, it’s true, but you would also be saving the lives of every employee in your company, and ensuring that your hard work goes on to better the lives of all of the untold numbers of people that it touches every day. This isn’t just for you.” Carlson leaned forward again, his gaze locked on David.

  David thought hard on it. He had thought he would get married one day, but he had never had a relationship last long enough with a woman to get to a point where marriage was a possibility. He was always married to his job, and none of the women that he had been in relationships with had liked that, so none of them had stayed with him, no matter how good he was to them.

  His public image had recently come into serious jeopardy and he knew that Carlson was doing everything he could to manage the fallout from it. He knew Carlson had his best interests and the best interests of the company at heart.

  Then, he thought about the child. He had always believed he would have a family with his wife, whenever that might happen but he realized that at the rate he was going, that might not happen until he was close to retirement and then he would have missed out on a lifetime with the family he hoped to create.

  He reached over and pressed the intercom button on his phone. “Mary?”

  “Yes, sir?” came a pleasant voice over the intercom.

  “Would you send Jason in here, please?” He let the button go and looked at Carlson, who smiled at him.

  “That’s a good move, David, a very good move.” Carlson leaned back in his chair and rested his hands on his knees.

  “That will remain to be seen but I think you may have something here, and I have to take the chance that you’re right. We have too much riding on this not to try every valid avenue we can to get things fixed. I only have one shot at this,” David said in a quiet tone.

  Carlson pulled papers from the briefcase sitting beside his feet and began to take notes. “I’ll get the details all sorted out for you. We’ll arrange a prenuptial agreement and a payment for the woman at the end of the marriage so it will be more like a situation of employment.”

  “How much should we pay her, Carlson?” David looked at him quizzically. “What’s the going rate for a wife and child? Who would get the child in the end?”

  Carlson’s pen flew over the paper and he wrote without looking up at David. “I’d give her a million. That’s a hell of a task, being married and having a child. You two can agree to a shared custody right from the beginning if you want to work it out that way, or if you don’t want the baby, you can let her take it. I’m sure you’d probably want to retain some rights to any baby you’d have.” Carlson flipped the page and kept writing.

  “I would want to keep shared custody,” David agreed, “if it was my child.”

  The door opened and a thin young man with dark hair and glasses came in with a tablet in his hand. David motioned for him to sit down and he took the seat beside Carlson.

  “Good morning, sir,” Jason said in a friendly manner.

  David nodded. “Good morning, Jason. I have a special task for you; this one is extremely important. You must handle this with the utmost confidentiality.”

  Jason flipped his tablet open and looked up at David, ready to work. “Yes, sir, of course. Everything I do for you is confidential, always.”

  David just watched him for a moment, knowing that what Jason had just said was probably true, but he also knew that an ounce of prevention was worth far more than a pound of cure. “Jason, for reasons we will not go into, I want to find a wife.”

  The young man blinked at him in surprise. “A wife, sir?”

  David smiled a little. It wasn’t often that he could surprise Jason, and he had managed to do it. “I want you to look around the city and do a search for a woman who is smart, dedicated, loyal and single with no children. It wouldn’t hurt if she was good looking and had a good sense of humor, either.”

  Jason entered the information into his tablet and looked back at David. “What other variables, sir?”

  “She needs to be close to my age, she needs to be able to have children, she needs to have a totally clean record and she needs to be black.” David said simply.

  Jason looked up at David in surprise and David smiled to himself. He had done it twice.

  “Black, sir?” Jason asked in a whisper.

  David leaned forward and looked at his assistant. “African-American.” His eyes were serious and Jason nodded and took the information down.

  “Yes, sir. What else?”

  Carlson continued to write on his legal pad and spoke to Jason without looking at him. “She needs to understand that this is a job. It’s a contracted position for which she will be paid. She will be expected to be married to David and to have a child with him as quickly as possible.”

  Jason turned his face toward Carlson and looked as though he had several questions that he swallowed rather quickly. “Yes, sir.” His hand moved over his tablet quickly. “What is the rate that she will be paid?” He looked between the two men he sat with.

  Carlson’s pen had still not stopped. “It’ll be a million.”

  Jason drew a deep breath and touched the screen of his tablet again. “When do you want to hire her?” he asked.

  “As soon as possible,” Carlson said, finally looking up at Jason, as Jason’s head swiveled quickly toward him. “We don’t have time to weed through a bunch of girls, Jason, you find the right one, you find her fast, and you get her in here for a meeting with us so we can see if we like her.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jason replied. “Anything else?” he asked, looking from one to the other of them.

  “Nothing except your word that you will not breathe a word of this to anyone, ever, or losing your job will be the best part of what happens to you.” Carlson’s eyes bored into Jason’s, and the younger man nodded vehemently with wide eyes.

  “Oh, of course not, sir, not a word. Not ever. I’ll get right on this.” He stood up and vanished from the room, leaving David and Carlson to look at each other with little smiles.

  “He’s a good kid,” Carlson said with a chuckle.

  David shook his head. “I think you scared him again. Why do you do that?”

  Carlson shrugged. “I’m a lawyer, David, it’s what I do.”

  David smiled. “You don’t scare me.”

  Carlson nodded. “That’s one of the things I like best about you. Let me know when he finds the girl. I’ll be working on this and all the rest of it.” He stood up and shook David’s hand and then left.

  David walked back over to the window and looked out at the city once again, wondering incredulously at the turn his life had just taken. Somewhere out there, in the mad chaos of San Francisco, was a young woman he had never met that he would be marrying soon, and she had no idea.

  He let his thoughts drift to that foggy future. A wife and a child for the next three years; what kind of a life would that be? What kind of a woman would agree to marry a complete stranger and have a child with him?

  Chapter2

  On the other side of the city, standing in front of a counter covered in chocolate truffles, were two women. One was short, round and very sassy. She was helping box up several of the chocolates while nipping a few to taste as she worked. Her name was Sarah, and she was the best friend, soul sister and confidante of the woman she was working with. The other woman, several inches taller, several inches sli
mmer, and a bit more reserved than her friend, owned the little café and chocolate store they were working in; her name was Elise.

  They had been boxing chocolates for a few hours and Elise hadn’t said anything about Sarah popping a few of them into her mouth, but as the afternoon wore on, she realized she might have to say something.

  “Honey, you can’t keep eating those like that. They’re not good for you,” she warned in a friendly tone.

  Sarah smiled and winked. “I know they aren’t good for me. That’s why I like them so much. Anyway, I’m helping you for free, so a few chocolates here and there is a good payment. I’ll take it and you need the help anyway.” She held one up to Elise. “You want one, too?” she offered.

  Elise shook her head and kept setting the little truffles into the boxes before her. “No, I try not to eat too many of those. Once in a while I’ll have one, but not all the time.”

  Sarah shrugged her shoulders. “Alright, I’ll have to eat it for the both of us, then. These are the sacrifices I make for our friendship. I just want you to know that.” She popped it in her mouth and went back to working. Elise just laughed at her.

  “I talked to the bank today about opening up another store.” She spoke with a quiet voice, and one that indicated that it hadn’t gone quite as she might have hoped it would.

  Sarah looked up at her and folded boxes. “You did? What did they say?”

  Elise pouted a little. “They said I don’t have enough equity in this place to open up any others. They said I have to run this shop for a few more years so they can see a more solid history with me.”

  Sarah frowned. “You sell tons of coffee and chocolates. In fact, there’s practically a line out of the door every time I come over here. Why wouldn’t they want more of that?”

  Elise sighed and looked down. “Well, they love the money I’m making, they just want to see the shop earn consistently like that for years to come. Then they will talk with me about a loan to open more shops.”

  Her friend frowned and scowled. “That’s just stupid. Think how much money you would lose in the years they want you to wait, when you could have a few of these places up and going and making money all over town instead of just here in this one spot. It’s just silly.”

  Elise nodded. “I know. I tried to tell them that but they wouldn’t listen. I’ll just have to work on it some other way.” She bit her lip and sighed. “I just want this so much, Sarah. I can’t even begin to tell you how much it would mean to me to be able to see this grow! I’ve worked so hard to get this shop off of the ground and it’s doing so well! I wish the bank could see the potential here that I see. I had to hire another girl to work here on weekends, did I tell you that?”

  Sarah grinned and shook her head. “No, you didn’t. That’s wonderful, Elise!” She looked at her friend proudly.

  Elise continued with lines of frustration crossing her brow. “I could do more than this. I could make this so successful if I just had the financial backing to do it. It’s so hard to see it come so close and then be held back. It drives me up a wall. I worked night and day to make this place a success and here it is, thriving on its own and ready to burst at the seams but no one will help me take it to the next level and it’s ready to go there!”

  Sarah nodded empathetically. “I know. I’ve watched you do it all these years. I have seen how this place has grown. I know you could really make something of it if you had the chance to.”

  Elise sighed. “Well, the bank might not be too far off, I guess. I’m still paying on everything here, and while I’m making really good money, I certainly don’t get to keep any of it. There are some months when I just barely get by. Everything and everyone is paid but there’s just not that much left at the end of the month for me.” She looked up at her friend. “I’ve even considered trying to find a way to make a little more money just to get me by until everything is squared away here. I’m really close to having a lot of this paid off, and when that happens, my profit margin is going to explode. I just need a little more money and time to get myself and the shop to that point. It’s hard being so close to the next goal and not being able to just reach out and grab it.”

  Sarah nodded and slipped a caramel into her mouth. “You work so hard in here. I wish somehow you could get a break. What else you got going on? You still on any of those dating websites?”

  Elise had been hoping to meet a man she liked for a long time, years in fact, but she had never met anyone who she would want to spend the rest of her life with. “No, I gave up on that a while back. There just wasn’t anyone out there that wasn’t crazy or possessive or controlling. You wouldn’t believe some of the guys that I met. It was kind of nuts.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I told you not to get mixed up in online dating. There are some good stories, but for the most part, it’s not the way to find someone.”

  Elise put a stack of several boxes of chocolates into a cardboard packing box and sealed it, then returned to the counter to fill more chocolate boxes. “I still want the family, though, you know? I still want to have kids and someday maybe have grandkids. I just don’t think I want the man to go with it anymore.” She laughed a little and tilted her head. “I wish there could be a whole family, you know, a good man and kids and the whole white picket fence picture, but I’ve seen what’s out there, and I’m positive that all I want to do is just have the baby and make my own family.”

  Sarah’s hand paused in midair over the box of chocolates she was filling and she stared at Elise. “You’re kidding,” she said quietly.

  Elise shook her head and smiled a little with a quick glance to her friend, and then she focused intently on the chocolates she was placing in a box. “No, I’m really not. I was thinking, as soon as the store is paid off, I’ll use all that extra money to get artificially inseminated.”

  She had given the decision several weeks of thought and had determined that it was the right course of action for her. She knew her best friend would be surprised, and she knew that no matter what path she chose to take, her friend would be there for her, just as she had always been there for her all of the years they had shared together.

  Sarah stared at her. “You must be out of your mind! What are you thinking about doing something like that? You can’t raise a baby on your own and run a business!”

  Elise’s eyes shot up to look directly at her friend. She loved Sarah with all of her heart, but they knew each other so well that there was rarely a time when either of them would hold back their true thoughts and speak them.

  “I absolutely could raise a child on my own. I have enough help here at the shop, it’s just a matter of being able to afford to get pregnant and raise the baby. Doing it on my own would be no problem at all.” The offended tone she spoke with softened and the corner of her mouth turned upward a little. “Besides, I’d have you here to help me.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “Yes you would, you crazy woman, you know I’ll always be around here for you.” She began to smile a little herself and her face stilled as she gave way to thoughts about the subject. “I’d be Auntie Sarah.” Her grin widened. “I like the sound of that.”

  “Well, Auntie Sarah,” Elise said with a sigh, “it’s not going to happen anytime real soon, so don’t get too excited about it yet. First, I have to pay everything off here at this store, then I want to open a few other stores, or at least one, just to get the ball rolling, and then I want the baby.”

  Sarah was still grinning and thinking about it. “And then I’ll be the Auntie!” she almost sang in delight.

  “And then you’ll be the Auntie,” Elise said and shook her head, chuckling at her friend.

  They finished filling boxes with chocolates and Sarah hugged her goodnight and headed out of the door. Elise locked it behind her and headed to the back office in her chocolate shop.

  It was a fairly decent-sized shop, not too small, but not big enough to hold all of the business she was doing, and it had begun to feel crowded to h
er. Shiny glass display cabinets were set around the main room, and a few tables offered patrons brightly colored seats to sit at while enjoying their coffee and the varying kinds of chocolates she served. There were enormous windows on three sides of the shop, so light poured in during the day, giving it a warm, sunny, pleasant feel. She had a few girls who worked for her selling her coffee and chocolates while she made the chocolates and ran her business.

  It had been a dream of hers for years to own her own shop, and she had grown up learning about chocolate in her grandmother’s kitchen, so it came as no surprise to anyone that when she did open up her own business, it was a café and chocolate shop offering everything from latte’s and truffles to hot cocoa and all that came in between. It was a hit right away in the neighborhood she lived in. She was close enough to the touristy spots off of Fisherman’s Wharf that she got a lot of tourism business without being affected by the giant chocolate company down the road from her.

  She entered her office and paused a moment before the full length mirror that hung on the opposite side of her desk. There was a sign above it that read, ‘Smile and the world will smile with you!’ She hung it there to remind herself that no matter what was going on in the office, whenever she walked out of her office door into her shop, she needed to be wearing a smile for the world outside.

  Her eyes moved from the sign to her reflection. Her slender body was rounded out with curves that some women paid good money for. Her long curly hair was pulled up away from her face, adding to the high angled lines of her cheeks and jaw. Some people said she looked like a black version of Angelina Jolie, but with misty sea green eyes and fuller lips. She reached up and pulled the pins from her hair, watching it fall past her shoulders, almost to her elbows. She liked the way she looked, but it was her smile that made her shine most, she thought. She looked up at the sign over the mirror and then back at her reflection, giving herself a smile, and it had a warming effect on her heart. Love yourself, she thought. Always love yourself.