Fate's Emergence - A Billionaire Romance Novel (Romance, Billionaire Romance, Life After Love Book 4)

by Nancy Adams

  “Claire Prior,” she mumbled as she took the slip of paper that he was giving her.

  “Well, Claire, I hope you liked the show.”

  “I did,” she stuttered again.

  “Well, I’m glad of that,” he added, a glimmer of sadness breaking out in his eyes as he gazed into hers. “Anyway, you appear more interested in the refreshments, so I’ll leave you.”

  With that he went, leaving her shaking by the table as he disappeared off to the corner with the others. She took her handbag, opened it up and thrust the piece of paper into it like it was trash.

  “He really left you speechless,” Annabel observed to Claire when he’d left.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Why didn’t he recognize you?” she then whispered to Claire.

  The girl’s heart dropped and she mumbled, “What do you mean?”

  “You said that you knew him from before. He’s supposed to have a photographic memory. So why didn’t he recognize you?”

  “I guess it’s because I was much younger then. Plus, I didn’t really speak with him. I was mostly with Marya.”

  “Oh!” Annabel exclaimed softly as she placed a king prawn vol-au-vent into her mouth.

  For the rest of their time in that room, Sam was wise enough to give Claire her space and she, in turn, did her best to allow Annabel to get a few questions to Sam, while staying in the background. Annabel was keen to find out how willing Techsoft was to share the technology with the whole world, and they began a conversation on the ethical duties of Techsoft. As she questioned him, Sam insisted that he would not be balking at the moral obligations of the company. He explained that through his hospitals foundation, which supplied some of the poorest countries in the world with medical aid, Techsoft would supply free technology to the parts of the world that needed it most but couldn’t afford it. He hoped to wipe out HIV and Malaria in Africa with the technology.

  Having had her moment with Sam, Annabel agreed to leave with Claire, seeing that the girl looked eager to go, and they got out of the building before jumping into a cab.

  As they sat in the back of the taxi on their way home, Annabel talked of how Sam Burgess had managed to change her mind about him and how she might be seeing him in a different light from now on. Claire, however, sat in silence, her heart pounding in her chest and her blood running cold in her veins. So much confusion was growing inside of her, like a large cloud of smoke blocking out the sun. She had been so focused on everything only a day before, but now it all jostled together in her head as her thoughts of Sam grew weeds around everything she’d known thus far.

  And what was on that scrap of paper that he passed to me like some schoolboy in a classroom passing a love note to his secret crush? she asked herself. It’s all so ridiculous. I’ve got Paul now and he’s supposedly living with that ex-psychiatrist that he’s always pictured with. Why would he pull us into another mess again? I can’t see him. That’s for sure. Because that’s what’s on the paper. It’ll be that he wants to meet up again. But I can’t. It’s not just him betraying someone now. It’ll be both of us. That’s probably what turns him on.

  The cab dropped Annabel off first and the two embraced in the back as Annabel left. The moment Claire spotted her disappear into her apartment as the cab was rolling off, she opened her handbag and took out the slip of paper.

  When she brought it up to her eyes in the dimly lit taxi, she saw a message and a number.

  It said: Please call me. Seeing you again was like waking up after so many years of sleep. I only want to talk. 784…….

  A shudder trickled though her like ice as she read the last line: ‘Seeing you again was like waking up.’

  Feeling a sudden pang of shame, she threw the slip back into her bag and leaned back in her seat with her eyes close, a single tear drifting from her eyelid and down her cheek.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  After the meeting with Claire, Sam was equally shaken. As skillfully as he’d hidden it, he’d glanced over at her every opportunity he could while he’d spoken to the others. When she’d left, following his chat with Annabel, it was as if someone had dimmed all the lights and let the air out of the room. Once her light was gone, he did his best to see to everyone’s needs as quickly as he could, thankful when it finally finished and everyone had been ushered out.

  It was then time for him to say goodbye to his colleagues and leave by the rear exit. Once he was in the back of his limousine, the driver did his best to push through the crowds waiting outside, the throng threatening to bust through the barricades and security. Once they were clear, the limo drove Sam to his Manhattan apartment. There he got out and his security team led him into the building where he took the elevator to his rooftop apartment. The interior was very classic in design, Jenna having recently had it redecorated to mirror the palatial homes of the old European dynasties. Sam personally found it slightly garish and had preferred it before when it had been of a more simple nature. However, the two months that Jenna had spent in New York busy with the redecoration had been a breath of air for him.

  When he stepped into the apartment, he was met by his assistant Karl who greeted him before walking with him into the lounge. As they walked, Karl read out a list of memos and messages he’d received. When they reached the lounge—a large open room with tall ceilings and huge windows that looked out upon the great city of New York, overlooking Central Park—Sam and Karl took a seat on a large red sofa as the valet made them both a drink.

  Having spent almost an hour going through things with his boss, Karl finished and left with the valet. He and the valet slept in a small apartment located on the side of the main apartment when Sam was there. It meant that once they were gone, Sam had the whole apartment to himself.

  He suddenly found himself feeling very alone. Sitting on the sofa drinking his third whiskey, he began to allow himself the pleasure of thinking about Claire. Slowly, she drifted into his head like a beautiful fragrance upon a gentle breeze, intoxicating him with her bouquet. Seeing her there in that crowd had stunned him and he was still feeing weak from the sting of it all.

  The moment he had caught her eyes—so distinguishable among so many—a thousand memories of her had attacked his mind and, as he’d stood transfixed upon that stage, he had been instantly cast back to that time with her: all those secret meetings, her sad eyes, her bright mind, her beauty and her innocence. Then at the Cliff Top, when they’d made love and the delicacy that he had taken with her trembling body as they’d writhed together as one. In that instant of seeing those eyes, Sam had felt every desire inside of him awaken and shake itself out of atrophy. In that instant, he felt her within his arms once again, he smelled her in his nostrils and heard her heavy breathing within his ear.

  As soon as he’d left the stage, he’d ignored the backstage congratulations and gone straight to one of the stewards and asked for the tickets of Claire Prior and her friend to be invited immediately backstage. This had caused confusion with security, because people were usually picked prior to arrival from the database of ticket holders. Indeed, when Claire had agreed to go with her, Annabel had had to call up and have the ticket registered in the girl’s name. All people going backstage were vetted beforehand.

  It took a while, but Sam managed to get his way, and someone was sent to apprehend Claire and Annabel before they left. He just hoped that she would agree to come. The feeling he felt when he walked into the room and saw her there at the edge was exhilarating and his step became lighter with just being in the same room as her. When she took the note from him, he could have danced.

  Now he awaited a call from her with a nervous anticipation, his mobile phone on the walnut coffee table in front of him. It could all be for nothing, he said to himself as he took a sip of whiskey. She may have agreed to go backstage and taken the note because she was curious. She may have taken it and then simply thrown it in the garbage.

  After an hour or so of eagerly watching his phone, he became frustrated
and decided to get some fresh air out on the balcony. It was around eleven, but New York was still wide awake. Sam stood on the large stone balcony holding his drink and looking out at the vibrant city, Times Square visible in the distance, the whole place alive with the innumerable lights of vehicles jostling along the vein-like streets, the sound of their horns crackling through the night, as though they were all the blood of some giant urban animal. A soft breeze ran through the city and Sam took in a deep lungful, closing his eyes as he did so.

  Somewhere out there, he said to himself, she’s thinking about me. I know it. She’s sitting by her phone in her apartment wondering whether she should call. She’s probably got some guy living with her and she’s deliberating over it all in her head while she waits for him to go to sleep. I can see her. Those scared and sad eyes of hers gazing blankly out as she wishes that something would come along and hold her hand through it all. But she must know—as I do—that it’s all meant to be. She was fated to be there tonight and I was fated to see her. It has to mean something that at the very moment when I was feeling so withdrawn from Jenna, she of all people in the world would show up and cast me once again in her light. The moment I looked into those beautiful brown eyes, I finally knew for sure. All my doubts were cast away in that moment. I now know that it was always meant to be this way. We were meant to go away for some time and then find each other all over again. We’ve found each other because it could never be any other way. We’re two fragments of a soul floating through eternity always destined to find each other in every life.

  At that moment, Sam heard his phone ringing indoors. He ran from the balcony into the lounge and immediately picked it up. When he saw the screen his heart dropped. It was Jenna.

  He took in a few deep breaths and answered.

  “Hey, Jenna,” he said.

  “Hey, Sam,” she replied in a sad voice.

  “You okay?”

  “Not really. I’ve been thinking about everything since you left. I’ve realized—well, I guess I’ve always known, I just wasn’t very good at admitting it to myself. Anyway, I’ve realized that I haven’t been fair on you lately. This whole business with Jess has really gotten out of hand, but I have to understand that she came before me into your life and it’s unfair for me to ask you to sever yourself in any way from her.”

  “It’s been hard on you these years,” Sam said to her.

  “Yes, it has,” she said sadly before pausing for several seconds.

  As he waited for her to speak, Sam felt low. Only a few seconds before his head had been full of Claire and he had completely pushed Jenna out of his mind. But now, as if to taunt him, she had called him at the very moment when he expected a call from Claire.

  “Look,” Jenna went on, “I really love you, Sam, and I want us to be happy together. I’m going to start looking into research for a new book. I’ve got a couple of ideas and I might pass them by my old publisher, see what she says.”

  “That’s great, Jenna. It’s like I said: you need something to get your teeth into. You’re too intelligent not to be sharing that intelligence.”

  She giggled gently on the other end of the telephone and Sam was sure that she was smiling.

  “You’re so sweet,” she said. “I think it will make me happier and I think if I’m happier, I’ll be better around Jess. I went to see her earlier in her room and I apologized. It really was only a dress.”

  “It was a nice dress.”

  “Yes, it was. Oh! and I forgot earlier, which I feel guilty for now, congratulations on John being your new CEO. I saw it on the news. I should’ve asked you when you came home. I’m really sorry. I feel like we’re slipping apart and I go and do something like that. All the work you’ve put in over these years, all your incredible work, and I ignore it.”

  “It’s okay, Jenna.”

  “No, it’s not, Sam. I feel terrible. I’ve been so selfish, so self-involved and it’s killing me. But worse—it’s killing us.”

  Sam closed his eyes as he felt himself falling through the chair and then through the floor of his apartment, falling down through all the other floors and then crashing through the ground, falling straight through the earth and then out the other side, rising up through the air and floating off into the atmosphere and then space…

  “Sam?”

  He opened his eyes and found himself back in the apartment.

  “That’s really good, Jenna,” was all he could muster in response. Then, after a second or two of silence, he added, “Look, Jenna, I’m real tired. It was a real busy show and the flight as well, so I’m exhausted.”

  “You sound tired. I’ll let you get some rest. Love you, Sam.”

  Her closed his eyes again before answering, “I love you too, Jenna.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  It was Sunday and, like every Sunday, Jules and Juliette were taking David out for a picnic. This time they were going to the Sespe Condor Sanctuary, where they would hike out into the valley and set up their blanket surrounded by the beauty of the Californian wildlife. Before that, however, they were stopping off in Malibu at the Valley Oaks Memorial Park.

  Every first Sunday of the month, they would visit the gravesides of Margot and Claude. Strangely, David always claimed that he remembered their faces, and at first Jules and Juliette had smiled at the boy, thinking him wrong or simply confused. But as the boy got older, the two of them began noticing something remarkable about David.

  He was exceptionally smart and very sharp.

  As they drove through the gates of the cemetery, he was quietly seated in the back reading a book meant for children twice his age. When the boy was only three months old he’d amazed Juliette with his first words. Within a year he was in full-blown conversation with both of them. By three he was amazing them with the things he’d learn from books and the way he would remember so many details. ‘Wonder Boy,’ Jules called him.

  “We’re here, Davey,” Jules said as he pulled the car up.

  David looked up from his book and gazed out at the field of tombstones that surrounded the car.

  “Okay, Pa,” the boy said, placing the book down on the seat next to him.

  Juliette leaned into the back and asked him to zip his coat up as there was a little bit of a breeze.

  “Let the boy get some air, Juliette,” Jules complained to his wife. “It’s at least sixty-five out there, he won’t freeze.”

  Juliette turned sharply to Jules and said, “If he freezes it’ll be on your head.”

  “I wouldn’t expect it to be any other way.”

  They got out of the car and went on their way to the graves, Juliette holding David’s hand and Jules walking beside them both holding flowers, a pair of shades over his eyes shielding his bruised face. Soon they made it to the double grave of Margot and Claude, destined to spend eternity together.

  “Hello, my loves,” Juliette said when they were standing in front of the green marble grave.

  “Hello, Momma and Papa number one,” David said, instantly making Jules laugh.

  Being the smart boy that he was, David had asked early on who was in the graves that they visited once a month. Not knowing what to say, but still wanting their friends to be a part of David’s history, they told him that Margot and Claude were his first parents, the ones who looked after him when he was a baby. It was then that he had first told them that he remembered them, that he recalled their faces and said that they were the same people that were in some of the photographs that were dotted around the trailer. This had made them smile with bemusement, and they’d continued to inform him that Margot and Claude had unfortunately been taken to heaven by angels, so it was now up to Momma and Papa number two to takeover.

  Having said their hellos, Juliette and David began ridding the grave of the old flowers and replacing them with the new. As they knelt down performing this solemn duty, David observed that Juliette was crying, and he gave his mother a quick hug before going back to work changing the flowers. Observing
it, Jules smiled, as did Juliette. There’s a good soul in that kid, Jules said to himself. Having given the grave a once over, they all stood in front of it one last time, before each kissing a finger and laying it on the tombstone.

  Once they were done, they walked back to the car and Jules drove them out to the sanctuary. During the car ride, the sun sparkled in the sky, David had his head stuck back in a book, Juliette enjoyed the blissful happiness that pervaded her and Jules felt the calm of a slow Sunday drive.

  After snaking their way up some mountain roads, the great trees of the forest bearing down on them from either side of the road, they arrived at a small clearing where they parked up alongside several other vehicles, all of them belonging to families out for a walk.

  Soon they were walking off into the midst of the sanctuary, David on Jules’s shoulders, as he always was for the initial part of the journey. That was, of course, until the old man’s shoulders began to complain of it too much. Alongside them, with a cheery smile across her face, was Juliette carrying the hamper. They walked through the woods for about twenty minutes until they found themselves in a huge clearing, walking along the ridge of a valley that stretched out into the open, Californian wilderness.

  “Look, Pa,” David burst out as he gazed at the sky while shielding his eyes with his hand, “it’s a condor.”

  Jules looked up, but couldn’t quite make out if it was or not, his weaker eyes not sure. However, the boy was rarely wrong about anything, so he simply said, “Sure is, Davey.”

  Not long after that, they were all sitting on the picnic blanket eating sandwiches and chips, overlooking the magnificent valley around them, hawks circling in the air.

  As he chewed his sandwich, Jules winced slightly from his swollen cheek.

  Observing it, Juliette said, “Does it hurt real bad?”

  “Only when I move it.”