‘I love you,’ she whispered. Jules growled and cuffed her.
‘Shut up, whore.’
Theo roared, trying to get up from his chair. In one flash, Jules whipped behind Jess, hooking the hand holding the gun around her neck, and with the other, pulling his knife from his pocket. He kissed Jess. ‘Say goodbye, beautiful.’ And he raised the knife.
Jess bit down on his other hand hard, as hard as she could and Jules roared in pain. Jess pushed back with all her might, knocking Jules over and the gun out of his hand, under the couch. She threw her body on top of Jules, fighting, kicking punching, ripping his shirt. The keys to Theo’s cuffs fell out of his pocket and she grabbed them, throwing them in Theo’s direction as Jules lashed at her with his knife. She ducked and scrambled to her feet as Jules fought to grab her. Jess paused briefly, one second when she met Theo’s eyes.
He looked at her. Not understanding. Then realization. He shook his head. She winked at him. His face registered absolute horror.
‘No, no. Jess, don’t.’
Her gaze was intense. ‘I love you. I will always love you no matter what.’
He shook his head violently, never taking his eyes from hers. ‘Please don’t…
She had tears in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Theo. It has to be like this. I love you.’
Theo broke down. ‘No, please… Jess…’
Her face was determined as Jules rose up between them. Her eyes alive with anger as she beckoned her killer towards her.
‘Come on, Jules. Wanna kill me? Come on then, motherfucker, come get me.’
‘No! Jess, please, no!’ Theo was screaming now.
Jules in his frenzy didn’t hesitate, he lunged for her, slashing the knife, catching her in a blow across her stomach.
‘No!’ Theo screamed as blood bloomed across her white dress, her honey skin. Jess ignored the searing pain and took off with Jules in pursuit. Theo, desperate, shuffled over to where Jess had thrown the keys.
‘What the fuck are you doing, Jess?’ But he knew. ‘You stupid, stupid, brave, beautiful girl.’ he sobbed as he managed to slide the key into the cuffs. She was leading Jules away from him, giving him time to free himself.
She was sacrificing herself to save him.
First, she went to the front door but even from a distance she could see that Jules had dead-bolted it. By the time she could get it open, Jules would be on her. He was close, close enough she could hear his frenzied breathing. She darted up the stairs and nearly made it to the safety of a bedroom before he grabbed her. They tumbled to the floor together, Jess fighting with every ounce of strength she had left. Jules was grinning now, knowing his size and strength would beat her now, despite her struggles.
‘I’m going to kill you now, Jess, nothing can stop me.’
He rammed his forearm against her throat and as she began to choke, he pulled a knife from his pocket. Jess, knowing that this was it, tried one last thing.
‘I’m pregnant, Jules. I’m pregnant.’
He smiled. ‘So I hear. Congratulations. But I don’t care. I’m going to kill you anyway.’
It was over. Jess struggled but as she felt Jules’s knife begin to slice into her belly, the searing pain nothing to the terror she felt for her unborn child. She could smell blood.
‘No, Jess, no!’
A frenzied cry, close, so close, Theo was dragging Jules from her. Jess rolled onto her stomach, clamping a hand over her wounds, pushing the thought of the baby away. Please, little bean, hang on.
Theo was pounding on Jules, the two men locked in a death fight. ‘Jess, get away, get out now!’ Theo was screaming at her. Blood-loss was making her light-headed. Not again. She crawled to the stairs and almost tumbled down them. There was something she could do. Something Jules had missed in the fight. Something Theo had forgotten. Slowly, painfully, she crawled her way into the living room.
Theo, his immense strength almost leaving him when he saw Jules stab Jess – again – grappled with the other man, wanting more than anything to break this monster’s neck, pound him into the dust. Jules, his knife gripped in his hand, swiped at Theo, one, twice before making contact. The knife tore through Theo’s shirt, slicing into the skin of his chest and Theo jerked back, away from the knife. Jules caught him on the temple with the hilt of the knife, making Theo’s already concussed head swirl. Jules took him out by the knees and Theo was on the ground. Vulnerable.
Jules laughed, raising the knife to plunge it into Theo’s chest… then his head exploded, his eyes bulging with surprise. Jules’ body slumped to the side, blood gushing from the fatal head wound. Theo, still stunned, looked up to see his beautiful Jess, her hand clamped over the bloody wounds on her stomach, holding the gun she’d just used to kill Jules.
Dropping the gun, Jess stumbled towards Theo and he was up, grabbing her as she slumped into his arms. He scooped her up and went downstairs, cradling her in his arms.
‘I’m okay,’ she said weakly, ‘it’s not that deep, I’m okay, I’m okay.’ Theo reached over to grab the phone, called 911.
In the distance he could hear sirens and almost collapsed with relief.
Theo and Jess, blood-soaked, exhausted, gazed at each other and started to smile, despite their injuries.
‘It’s over, my Jessie. All over.’
She started to laugh, tears rolling down her face. ‘I know, my darling, I know.’
Theo grinned, kissing her tears away as the sirens got ever closer and now he could hear shouting. Max. His mom.
He heard them break down the door in their frenzy to get in.
‘In here,’ he hollered then pulled her lips to his again. ‘Jessie….we’re going to get out of here, and get all fixed up , and then it’s just you, me and the Bean. For all time, Jessie.’
‘For all time….’
Epilogue
Theo Storm gazed at his beautiful wife as she stood on the podium, addressing the graduating class of her alma mater. Her old boss Gerry stood proudly next to him and nudged him as Jess’s speech came to an end.
‘From research assistant to the CEO of the biggest charitable art foundation in the world. Girl done good.’
Theo grinned at him. ‘Yes, she has.’
His eyes didn’t leave the woman at the front of the gathering. Pregnancy had made her skin glow, the lustrous hair grow longer and healthier, her large brown eyes shining with happiness. The light summer dress she wore skimmed over her swollen belly, swollen with their child.
Jess finished her speech and flushed scarlet with pleasure as the audience leaped to their feet. Theo knew they had followed everything that had happened to Jess, knew every horror and knew every triumph. They had made it, and finally, she was safe.
Theo couldn’t imagine being happier and as he went to meet her as she stepped off the stage, he enclosed her in his arms and kissed her tenderly.
‘I’m so proud that you chose me to love,’ He said, gazing into her eyes. Jess kissed him, her lips curving up into a smile against his.
‘I’m the lucky one, Mr. Storm,’ she replied then glanced down, ‘I’d suggest we go home and celebrate but I think someone else has other ideas…
She started to laugh as Theo looked panicked. ‘Come on, big guy,’ She took his hand started to lead him back to their car, looking more beautiful than he’d ever seen her, ‘Let’s go meet our daughter…’
Lily ‘Little Bean’ Storm was born at a quarter after midnight and her mother and father, wilting with exhaustion, couldn’t stop staring at her, her perfect little fingers, her cherubic cheeks, the fine smattering of black hair on her tiny head.
‘I can’t get over how beautiful she is,’ whispered Jess, shaking her head. Theo smiled, kissing his exhausted wife’s temple.
‘I can. She looks like you. Jessie, you have given me the world.’
Jess’s eyes filled with tears. ‘You are my world, Theo. You and Bean.’
‘Forever.’
‘Forever.’ She agreed and they k
issed until the sun came up on a new day, the first day, of their new life.
The End.
A Billionaire’s Gift
A Holiday Romance
Loss. Love. Realizations.
Blaine Vanderbilt may only be thirty-years-old, but he’ managed to make a fortune in the retail market as the founder of a chain of discount stores he named Bargain Bin.
The tall man with smoldering good looks has a hard heart. He’s led his life thinking there is no harm in running a business that puts others out of theirs.
Until his elderly father passes away and leaves him with the question—should he make some changes to how he’s been living?
It has Blaine wondering about all he’s done, not only in his business life, but in his love life as well, as he’s been as cold with women as he’s been with other business owners.
He decides the time has come for the tides to turn and he makes a plan to change his ways completely. Step one is making sure the children who are stuck in the Children’s Hospital in his hometown of Houston have a great holiday. That’s where he meets the woman who may be his saving grace or his worst enemy.
Can Delaney Richards accept Blaine for the man he is becoming, or will his past bad deeds be a thing she can’t forgive him for?
A Time for Thanksgiving
Book 1
Chapter 1
BLAINE
November 5th:
The sound of light drops hitting the canvas rooftop of the black canopy fill my ears along with my heart. It feels as if it’s raining inside of me too. Today we are laying my father to rest in the grave next to my mother’s. She died when my youngest brother, Kent, was born—a rare thing nowadays. That happened twenty-five years ago. It doesn’t hurt nearly as badly as it used to.
But with pops’ death, the pain is coming back, biting at me with a vengeance. It’s been a long time since anything has hurt me. It took me years to harden myself to the point that I was unbreakable. And in one day, pops managed to break down that whole steel structure that had surrounded my heart.
Like a grizzly bear with a huge fist, pops slammed into the protective barrier that shielded me and my feelings from any pain. He was taken away from us so suddenly. His fatal heart attack at fifty-seven has left me, my younger sister, Kate, and the youngest of us, Kent, alone in this world.
I’m the oldest, and I assume the others are going to be looking to me for the first time in their lives as a role model. I have never been what pops would call a good role model to them. As a matter of fact, he would use me as an example of how not to be.
I’m a billionaire at the tender age of thirty. I’ve worked on my little empire since I started college. I mastered in business and managed to hedge in a group of like-minded investors to help me with my endeavor.
With the initial investment of money, I managed to build a great business. My first store, Bargain Bin, in downtown Houston, my hometown, it was a complete success. Only a year and a half later, I had the money to open another store in Dallas.
At that time, I wondered, if the stores I was opening in the big cities were working so well, why didn’t I try opening one in a smaller town? Not a tiny town—a midsized town.
So I opened the next Bargain Bin, number three, in Lockhart, Texas, population 13,232. Just the right size to find out if my idea would work.
One by one, my stores took over the market in that town, just the way I thought they would. There was some controversy about my store coming in and ruining business for the locally owned, small-town stores that were already established there, but I didn’t care. Business is business. No reason to take anything personal.
The thing about Bargain Bin is that I will beat any price on anything. Sure, I have to really search around the world for the cheapest products, but it’s working for me. I have stores all over the United States now—quite a feat for a man my age.
Pops wasn’t in love with my way of doing business or with how I treated women either. He told me on more than one occasion that my heart was cold. He was right. I had to agree with him on that.
Just like anything that you want to keep for a long time, freezing is the best way to accomplish that.
A squeaking sound brings my mind back to what it should’ve always been focused on instead of roaming away from the sadness in front of me. My sister leans into my side and runs her arm around me as she sniffles. “I’m going to miss him, Blaine.” We watch as my father’s gleaming, titanium casket is lowered into the dark ground.
Not exactly sure what to do, I look to my brother, who is on the other side of her, for the appropriate response to such a thing. As always, he helps me out as he gestures for me to put my arm around her and pat her on the head.
I mimic his movements and say, “There, there, Kate. Things will be all right. You have me.” And just like that, Kent has me taking the place of Pops, as he was mouthing the words for me to say to her and I was doing it, trusting him without thinking.
“I do?” she asks. “Do you promise, Blaine?”
Narrowing my eyes at Kent, I tell my little sister, “I promise. Whatever you need, you come to me. I’ll be here for you.”
Kent gives me a smile and a thumb up, and I give him the bird. He’s always been that thorn in my side as the baby of the family and the guy who tries like hell to make me see my evil ways, as he calls them.
My stores mostly employ people with disabilities. As those people are all on some type of disability government assistance, they can’t make too much money. So, I make sure to pay them only what their particular amount can be. I don’t want to mess up their assistance, after all.
Kent thinks I’m a terrible person for doing such a thing. He calls it exploitation. I call it doing smart business. He can call it what he wants—he isn’t in charge of how I make my money.
Which brings me to the fact he and my sister make very little of the green stuff that makes the world go around. Kent is currently a truck driver. He hauls oil from Point A to Point B. Over and over, he does the same damn thing, day in and day out. It is a nightmarish way to make a living, if you ask me.
Kate works at a daycare, taking care of snot-nosed brats every day. That, too, sounds like something out of a nightmare to me. Pops used to help them out with their bills when they came up short, which I told him wasn’t really helping them at all.
But now I guess it’s up to me to step into pops’ shoes and the role of the head of the family. It was a role I’ve never wanted, but he’s left it wide open and empty. With the way my little sister is holding onto me, I can see I’m needed.
Chapter 2
BLAINE
Walking into our father’s home without him greeting us at the door like he’d always done is more than odd. The home that was once small and cozy feels empty. Even though there are the same things in it there have always been, it feels empty without pops.
“I hate this,” Kate whines as she flops onto his old, threadbare couch.
I asked my father on several occasions to let me buy him a house, but he was full of stubborn pride and would never let me. I gave him a Cadillac last year. It was the first thing he ever accepted from me. He had always wanted one, and I suppose, when I gave it to him for Christmas, he let a bit of that foolish pride slip away so he could drive the car he’d always dreamed of owning.
I recall feeling a spark in my heart that Christmas day when he finally accepted something from me. It felt good. Most of the time I feel a whole lot of nothing. It’s better that way.
“So now what do we do, Blaine?” Kent asks as he opens pops’ little fridge next to his easy chair. “Beer?”
I nod and he tosses me a cold Natural Light beer, then Kate holds up her hand for one, too. The three of us sit and all of us pop the beers open and take long drinks. The resounding, ahh, fills the room, making us all smile as we had all decided to make the sound our father would make after his first drink of beer after a long day at work.
“I wonder what in the world the B
ar-B-Que Shack will do without pops to cook all of their meat for them. He was the absolute best at it,” Kate says.
“I wonder if there're any leftovers in the kitchen icebox,” Kent says and gets up to go and see.
I’m anything but hungry. But I can see my younger siblings need the normalcy to help them get through this. “If there’s not any, I can call in an order and have it delivered.”
Kent calls out from the kitchen, “No, I want pops’.” The sound of bottles being moved and things being shuffled around as he digs through the refrigerator tells me he’s digging deep to find any leftovers. “Ha! Yes, I found some.”
“You have no idea how old that is, Kent. Don’t eat any of that,” Kate shouts at him, then gets up to go inspect the food our little brother is about to put into his mouth, no doubt.
I get up and follow her to make sure the idiot doesn’t eat something that might kill him. We’ve had enough tragedy already.
Kent is smiling as he holds up the box with a date from three days ago written in black Sharpie across the top of the white Styrofoam lid. “Today is the last day to eat it. Come on—it’s brisket, pops’ specialty.”
“Are there any beans in there?” Kate asks as she takes over the search in pops’ fridge for things that will remind us of him.
I give in and say, “If there’s potato salad in there, pull it out too. I like the way the old man made that too.”
While Kent puts the meat on a plate and pops it into the microwave, Kate finds beans and potato salad, then pours the beans into a bowl and places it on the counter. “Zap these next, would you, baby bro?”
“Sure, I can handle something this easy,” he says, then takes another drink of his beer. “Do you guys remember the first time we got into pops’ beer fridge?”
“My ass still hurts,” I say with a laugh.
Kate laughs as she puts the potato salad in a bowl and places it on the table. Since everyone else is doing something, I decide I need to help, too, and get up to get us some plates, silverware, and napkins.
Under Her Skin Page 74