A Heart's End - A Billionaire Romance Novel (Romance, Billionaire Romance, Life After Love Book 6)

by Nancy Adams

  Jules had listened the whole time with grave attention. He had felt sorry for the couple; their story had hit him. For all his hardness, he was a sentimental man and, like Claire, he too saw something of fate’s hand in all of this.

  “So what happens now?” he asked.

  “Well, first,” Sam said, “we have to deal with your case. I have a team of lawyers ready to go over every detail of it. I’ve already had them go over some of your case, but they aren’t able to get full access to it without your legal consent. If the state deems that Juliette needs full-time care, then I will provide her with the best care that money can buy; not some institution. You’ll have full access to her, she will live with you at home along with the caretaker. And as for a house, I can—”

  “That’s wonderful and all,” Jules burst in, “but that’s not all I meant. What about David?”

  “You’re his legal guardians. Whatever you say goes. I’m not about to pull any legal tricks and have the boy taken from you, I’m not callous. I can tell that he loves you and is loved by you. If you wish him to stay with you, then so be it; I want what is best for the boy and nothing more. I will assist you financially from now on and I would request that myself and Claire are allowed to visit him regularly.”

  Suddenly, Juliette became animated and asked out loud, as though she’d only just heard the story of David’s conception, “What do they mean? Are they saying that Danny’s theirs? But he can’t be! That’s bull! I had him myself; he came from my body.” Then, flashing her look to her husband, she added, “You were there, Jules. You saw it all. You held him out to me. Don’t you remember?”

  Jules looked despondently into her emerald eyes and sighed.

  “He’s not our real son, Juliette,” he informed her tearfully. “He’s not Danny.”

  “But sure he is. He’s my Danny.”

  “No, he’s David. Remember. We took care of him after Margot and Claude passed away. Please, honey, remember.”

  She gazed blankly at him for a moment, the fingers of one hand playing with her bottom lip.

  “Then where’s Danny?” she suddenly asked.

  Jules took her by the shoulders and, with tears in his eyes, he informed the desolate old woman, “Danny died many years ago, Juliette. He got cancer and he died. We buried him out in a cemetery in Colorado Springs. Remember?”

  Watching the scene, Claire couldn’t help but bury her face into Sam’s side, tears falling from her eyes, Sam’s own fixed on the sad scene of the old man having to inform his wife that her son has been dead for many years. Something that, due to her worsening condition, he would probably have to do many times more in the future.

  Juliette burst into tears and thrust herself forwards into Jules.

  “I just can’t think,” she screamed out in desperation. “I don't know where I am or what’s happening. Please, Jules, help me.”

  “Would you like me to get the doctor?” Sam asked.

  “It’s okay,” Jules replied in a teary voice, his arms around her, “she’ll be okay in a couple of minutes. She just gets a little worked up at times is all, but mostly she’s pretty calm.”

  At that moment David burst into the room, surprising everyone, Jess following him in and calling him back. He immediately rushed up to his discomforted mother and thrust himself into her, going down on his knees before her, the old woman reacting to his touch with warm affection of her own, her despair abating with his presence. The boy buried his head in Juliette's bosom and held onto her as if he, and only he, were her almighty savior.

  “Please, don’t take my momma,” he cried out from her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Jules reacted to the boy’s sudden emergence with a gentle smile lighting up his sad face—an angel entering the room—and moved his arms so that they consumed the boy along with Juliette. Claire and Sam, meanwhile, gazed on them with pity glowing in their shimmering eyes. There appeared such love between the family that the two sitting opposite couldn’t help but feel touched by its strength. Sam watched it with a feeling of admiration, more determined than ever to help these unfortunate souls. At the same time, Claire too felt this admiration, but also felt, mixed in with it, an element of jealousy and sadness at the sight of her own child gripping onto another woman and calling her mother. Tears floated down her cheeks and it took all her resolve not to run from the room that very second.

  Glancing sideways at Claire, Sam spotted her sad, tear-filled face and placed his arms around her, pulling her gently into his side. Behind them, Jess moved silently into the room and approached David.

  “David, you shouldn’t have run off like that,” she gently scolded the boy.

  But he didn’t react to this and simply continued to bury his face in his mother.

  Jess turned to her father and apologized for letting him into the room. Sam smiled benevolently at her and told her that it wasn’t a problem, and if David wished to stay with his mother then he was perfectly welcome.

  “Do you want to stay?” Jess asked her brother.

  Without uttering a single word in reply, David nodded his buried head. Jess gave a sad smile and left the room, shutting the door behind her, sensing from the tension in there, so many tears, that it possibly wasn’t her place to be there. When the door closed, Juliette stuck her head up out of Jules, as though the sound had awakened her, and began dashing her eyes around the room, that same look of terror and confusion that had been so common in them of late.

  She brought her eyes to settle on Claire and said with sudden clarity, “Your face is so similar to his. He has your cheeks and chin.” Then her eyes studied Sam and she added, “He has your nose and…oh!…your blue eyes. I’ve always loved his eyes and there they are gazing back at me from another person altogether.”

  “Then you understand, my love?” Jules asked her with a worried expression, an expression that was tinged with surprise at her abrupt lucidity.

  She screwed up her face a little to his question and replied that she thought so. Having said this, she looked down at David and pronounced his name for the first time in days. Not Danny, but David. Perhaps the medication the doctor had given her on the way over was clearing her mind a little, or perhaps the emotion of the situation had driven something inside of her. But whatever it was, Juliette was for the moment displaying an element of clarity in the way she spoke.

  Sam and Claire didn’t know what to say. They weren’t sure if it was their place to speak openly in front of the boy. But Juliette spoke instead.

  “David,” she began, “you remember that Papa and I told you once that you didn’t come from Momma…That me and Papa were…that Margot and Claude…were…but…”

  The old woman’s mind began to fog up once more, her momentary lucidity dissolving, and she struggled to link her thoughts as they began to disperse, a wrinkled smile appearing on her lips as her bewilderment set in.

  “It’s okay, my love,” Jules said softly to her, “I get what you meant and I’ll say it for you.” Then, addressing the boy, he continued, “Davey, come and take a seat on your momma’s knee. There’s something we need to tell ya.”

  David looked up from Juliette’s bosom, glancing at his father, who smiled kindly down at him with sore eyes. Feeling reassured a little that he could let his mother go, David slowly unwrapped himself from Juliette and then sat on her knee, as Jules repositioned himself on the sofa so that he could face the boy beside him.

  “Davey, I need you to listen real careful to me now,” Jules began. “We told you that we were your mom and dad number two and that Margot and Claude were number one.”

  “Yeah, Pop,” the boy agreed with a nod of his head.

  “Well, that wasn’t exactly true. We was actually mom and dad number three—”

  “You know, Jules,” Sam interrupted, “you don’t have to tell him now if you don't want to. I didn’t bring you here to do anything that you didn’t want to.”

  Turning to Sam, Jules addressed him, “The moment you to
ld me about everything, I knew that it had to be this way. You can give the boy a life that me and Juliette could never imagine, chances that we can only dream of. He’s rightfully yours in the eyes of nature. As you can see,” and he nodded in the direction of his wife at this point, “I have my hands full keeping everything together as it is. I suppose you gather that us flying down to Mexico isn’t a good sign of a functioning family, eh?”

  “I try not to suppose anything, Jules,” Sam replied to this. “I can see with my own eyes that you have cared for the boy and for each other. There’s love between you and only a fool would mistake it for anything else. You simply haven’t had the same chances as some people and have had more than your fair share of misfortunes. I pried into your affairs a little (and I hope that doesn’t upset you too much, you must understand that I had to know who you were). I saw the affair with Margot Buchanan’s brothers.”

  “Oh! The asshole brothers!” Jules couldn’t help exclaiming.

  “Jules!” Juliette let out, making him turn to her. “Not in front of the boy,” she added scoldingly.

  “Anyway,” Sam continued, “I looked into it a little and saw how you took the boy on even though you had been left with nothing by their deceit. That was very brave and very kind of you. Most people faced with something like that would have let the boy go into care, but you both took him on and gave him love and a stable environment.”

  “Not anymore,” Jules put to him. “Not now. I almost drove us into utter catastrophe. When those police picked us up in Mexico, I had already come to the resolution that I would turn us in. I realized that it was crazy to keep running. For Davey’s stake, I had to turn around. And it’s for Davey’s sake now that I let what has to happen happen.” Jules turned back to the boy and said, “David, when I say that me and Juliette are mom and dad number three, it’s because Margot and Claude are number two.”

  “Then who’s number one?” David immediately asked.

  Jules pointed across to Sam and Claire, who both had their sad eyes fixed on the boy. Slowly David turned to them and gazed upon them with a look bordering on bewilderment.

  “Sam and Claire,” Jules began, his voice almost failing him, “are your real parents.”

  “But I don’t get it, Pa.”

  “I know it’s hard to understand…”

  Jules’s voice finally failed and he began to gently weep. David turned his eyes to his mother and looked at her for assurance. Breaking out into tears herself, the old woman merely nodded and the boy turned back to Sam and Claire.

  “You’re my real Ma and Pa?” he asked in a trembling voice.

  “Yes,” they both answered, also breaking out into sobs.

  “Then why don’t I live with you?” David inquired. “Margot and Claude gave me to Momma and Papa because they died. But why did you give me to them?”

  Claire sat there speechless, unable to summon the words to answer the boy, such wretched swelling in her heart and throat that she felt she would explode any moment now.

  “Because Claire was only young,” Sam replied to the boy, doing his best to hold back tears. “She was young and didn’t think she could look after you very well. You see, me and her weren’t together then and Claire had no one. She was all alone and she thought that you would be better with someone else.”

  The boy continued to stare at them both for a moment. It was all so much for his little mind, and no matter how sharp he was for his years, he still found it all very difficult to swallow. He simply looked away from them after a minute or so and retrained his eyes on his momma, who remained gazing down at him with teardrops falling from her bloodshot eyes.

  “David, there’s more,” Jules said to his son.

  “What more, Pa?” David replied in a trembling voice, his bottom lip wobbling the whole time.

  “Me and your ma can’t look after you so well anymore. Momma’s gonna get more sick and soon I’ll have to look after her all by myself. She’ll need me all the time.”

  “But I can help, Pa.”

  “But a boy shouldn’t have to help. A boy shouldn’t be worried by things like that, he should be free of cares and live his life as a child. These past months have been too hard on you, Davey. You’ve seen too much for a boy of your age. I haven’t thought of you enough because I been worrying about your ma too much. That shouldn’t be so.”

  “What’re you saying, Pa?” David inquired weakly, his bottom lip trembling more than ever.

  “I’m saying that you’d be better off staying with Sam and Claire. They’re younger, and just look at their place; it’s a whole lot better than a trailer! And just look at the girl you was just playing with—that’s your older sister. Here you’d be better off, Davey. Here you could be a child and not have to be burdened by adult stuff.”

  “But what about you and Ma, Pa?”

  “We’d still…be close,” the old man replied in a voice breaking up into tears.

  This was when Claire leaned forward, looked her son directly in the eyes and said, “They’d live with us, David. Your Ma and Pa would be with us, all together.”

  Sam gave her a sideways look and smiled. It had been exactly what he was thinking. Juliette could easily get the best care living with them; it would be one complete family. Because the boy loved them so much, it would kill Sam to hurt David by severing him from them. It also looked like the Lees needed the boy just as much as he needed them.

  Jules glanced over at them and said, “You’d let us stay with the boy?”

  “Yes,” Sam put. “We would all live together in New York.”

  “New York!?” Jules let out. “I don’t know if the city would be—”

  “No, it wouldn’t be good for Juliette,” Claire continued for him. Then turning to Sam, she added, “Juliette would be much better here in Colorado. The beautiful walks, the seclusion. It would be peaceful for her.”

  “But what about your residency?”

  “I could have it moved to Denver, which is only an hour and a half away by car. I could commute. I’m sure the transfer wouldn’t be difficult. Plus with all the press activity that this is all going to cause, I think we’ll be better off having somewhere we can hide for a while.”

  “I guess we could work something out,” Sam said, before turning to David and adding, “Would you like that, David? All of us living here together?”

  For the first time in many days, the boy’s lips opened up into an enormous grin and he nodded, before the rest of the room broke out into smiles, their tears of sadness suffusing into ones of joy. It appeared that a future happiness had been secured for all in that room; a future happiness spent together as one; helping each other as one; a true family. Jules felt relief that everything had worked out so surprisingly in his and Juliette’s favor. Sam and Claire felt their love blossoming inside of them even more with every passing second, threatening to burst open, the boy a catalyst in all this, a realization that everything in their lives was finally running its true course, feelings bordering on absolute rapture flooding their hearts. Even Juliette, although still confused a little by it all, felt the happiness that permeated from those around her and she too smiled down at David, realizing somewhere inside of herself that he was safe and that she needn’t ever worry about him again.

  It was then that Juliette ushered David toward the pair opposite.

  “Go to them,” she whispered into his ear, his arms still around her. “Go to them. They love you just as much as we do. They love you and will take care of you forever. Just as me and Papa will.”

  David slowly removed himself from Juliette and stood up from his knees, glancing forlornly between his momma and papa and the couple who had just been revealed as his real parents. “Go to them,” Juliette whispered again, and this appeared to break through the boy’s confused state. He began gingerly walking toward them.

  Claire immediately stooped forward off of the sofa onto her knees and held her arms open for the boy as he cautiously entered them. The moment he
did, she closed them tightly around him as Sam came down and knelt with them, placing his own arms around the mother and son, the two of them meeting for the first time since she had given birth to the boy more than five years ago.

  Sitting across from them, Jules held Juliette within his arms and they watched with smiles glittering on their faces. Everything about this moment appeared to be fated, and they understood immediately that what was supposed to have happened had.

  Everything in their lives thus far had led up to this point, and something bordering on relief entered their heavy hearts as they realized, not for the first time since he had entered their lives, that the boy had been their savior.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  That evening, just before the sun went down, the family spent time together walking around the estate in order to cool their raw emotions in the fresh air. The only one missing was Juliette, who had been given some sedatives and was now sleeping. The whole time that they walked, David held onto Jules’s hand tightly. Even when Jess ushered him to let go several times, he shook his head and stubbornly refused to. In the meantime, Jules did his best to encourage the boy to interact with his new family, and they, in turn, did their best to communicate with him.

  Being the polite boy that he was, David would answer their questions and talk along with them, but his answers were always short and he failed to ask any questions himself. This upset Claire a little, as, like any mother, she had hoped that they would naturally bond the moment he set eyes on her. But this wasn’t so, and, although she was impatient, she understood that she had to give him time to come to terms with everything.

  The one thing that did grab David’s attention, however, was the nature that surrounded them. Having started their walk through a wide path in some woods, they had eventually made it to a much slimmer path that took them through a thick wood and toward a ridge of rock that overhung the side of a waterfall. Sam grinned the moment they reached it as he observed David’s eyes widen. The boy mechanically let go of Jules’s hand and began wandering toward the edge, his gaze fixed on the roaring waterfall that cascaded down at least a hundred feet, splashing into a bubbling river below.