The Billionaire's Desire (A Billionaire BWWM Steamy Romance)

by Mia Caldwell

  "I know, Mama." And I do. I really do. I take her hand in one of mine and with the other I pay the cabbie handsomely. When she nods that she is ready, I help her out of the back seat and hold her tightly as we walk into her husband's funeral.

  It is a hot, muggy morning, the threat of thunderstorms hanging heavily in the air. I feel like I can't draw a full breath. And the heat inside the church is even worse. Everyone is already fanning themselves with the programs before the service even begins. Tricia and Rita give me small, sad waves from the back of the church as I pass and I feel my heart swell slightly to see their familiar faces in the sea of unfamiliar ones.

  Speaker after speaker comes up to extol Otis's virtues. I hear stories I never heard before, and very little of what I hear jibes with the memory of the straight-backed old man who shadowed my mother like a guardian angel. The strangeness is starting to get to me, the unreality of this all. I try to keep my focus on the words being said but I keep feeling like I'm just going to float away. The finality of their words, the quiet sobs behind me, the oppressive heat of the church, it's all starting to make me feel faint.

  When we are finally given leave to rise, my knees wobble a little and I have to sit back down heavily. No one notices. My mother is now in the arms of Mrs. Parker and her birthmark, being clucked over by all the church ladies who had told her to keep fighting, keep pushing Otis for more treatment, more intervention, more fighting. They are mouthing platitudes about him getting rest with God now, and suddenly I am just angry.

  "Yahya, honey, come with us, okay?" Tricia is over me in an instant. "You need some space."

  I am shaking even harder. "I need to be with my Mom," I tell her through tightly gritted teeth.

  "Your mother is fine, everyone is looking out for her. Let me look out for you."

  I am about to argue, and then I shake my head. "Tricia, I feel like I want to lie down and sleep forever."

  She nods in mute sympathy. "You're shaking pretty hard. Come on honey. You've only got to hold it together for about another hour, then I'll tuck you in and give you something to knock you out."

  I smile weakly as I let her lead me to Rita's car. "What am I going to do when you move?"

  Rita shoots a quick, anguished look at Tricia, who shakes her head quietly. "We'll figure it out," she says, non-commitally. "You're good at figuring things out."

  "I used to be," I mutter, allowing myself to be tucked into the passenger seat. "I can't figure anything out, anymore. Nothing is going according to plan...at all. My best friend is moving, my stepfather just died and Carter chose the worst possible day to call me again."

  Tricia makes a noise of commiseration as Rita punches the cemetery address into her GPS. "What did he say?"

  I shake my head. "That he's ready. And that wherever I am, he's coming to meet me, right now."

  The sky is nearly black with boiling clouds tinged with green by the time we get to the cemetery. I don't even have an umbrella with me, and my heels sink into the muddy ground at the graveside. The wind whips around us, and I feel the shaking that has been with me since the funeral turn into teeth-chattering shivers. I clutch myself as they hastily lower the casket into the ground, trying to cover the hole before the heavens open. As my stepfather is swallowed by the earth, I shake so hard that I am afraid I am going to shatter into a million pieces.

  Warm, strong hands grip me from behind just as the first fat raindrops fall, mixing with my tears. I look up to see Carter's face, his arms wrapped tightly around me as the pastor closes and wipes his Bible.

  Shock robs me of my words. He is here, on the mainland, out in the open and clearly unafraid. He is facing his worst fears to be with me today. "You're here," I whisper.

  "I'm here," he says. It's all he needs to say. He grips me tighter and I am no longer shaking so hard. Carter is holding me together.

  Epilogue

  "Careful there."

  Sanniyah holds my hand tightly and together we pick our way over the rocks to where Cammy and Greg are standing, ankle deep in the lapping waves. "This is our spot," she whispers to me, gesturing to the log where we sat together the first night we met. The night I hadn't kissed her. I have spent the last four months making up for that mistake, kissing her as often as she will allow, and sometimes even more than that.

  The woman in the flowing dress has water coming up to her knees now. The tide is coming in and the sun is poised at the edge of the horizon. It's time. Greg's mother is looking tired but happy, sitting erect in the wheelchair we fitted with inflatable tires for the occasion. I sling my arm around Sanniyah and she rests her head on my shoulder as the three of us watch my sister and Greg get married.

  The ceremony is over in ten minutes and I am glad. Cammy is so overwhelmed that she is stuttering, but Greg knows what to do. I don't have to worry about my baby sister. She's in good hands.

  "I'm glad she at least wore the dress," Sanniyah sighs, nuzzling into me. "I at least got to plan that for her."

  "And look how beautiful she looks," I nod, watching her lift the hem of the dress a little higher to dodge the inrushing waves and she and Greg and her brand new mother in law pick their way carefully back to the main house. I don't have that much more time.

  "Shouldn't we be following them?" Sanniyah asks, stretching.

  "Just a sec." The sun dips lower down, just a sliver of orange visible above the water. This island is paradise, but it no longer feels like the only place I can be happy. I have this woman to thank for that.

  As the last droplet of sunlight slides away, the lights in the tree flicker on. I hear Sanniyah's breath catch as she watches the twinkling bulbs come to life, one by one until the whole cove is sparkling like its own private galaxy.

  Her eyes are wide as she looks around us. "Carter...what is...?" Then she finally notices that I am on one knee.

  "Sanniyah Jones," I hold up the ring her mother helped me choose. "You've made me whole. Loving you is the easiest, most natural thing I've ever done and I intend to do it for the rest of my life if you'll let me. Will you marry me?"

  I could live for the next thousand years on the strength of that delighted smile. "Of course. Oh my god Carter, you planned this!"

  I grin as I slip the ring onto her finger. "I did, aren't you proud of me?"

  "I thought you didn't plan," she chastises me as she cups my face, kissing me, hard. "But here you waited until the right moment, strung all these beautiful...fairy lights in the trees."

  She narrows her eyes and I am laughing in spite of myself. "I know, how'd I do in your...professional opinion?"

  She brushes my cheek with the hand that's wearing my ring. "I still say they're cliché..." she answers cheekily, her hands fiddling around my zipper. "But I'll forgive you if you kiss me right now."

  THE END

  Hey to all my wonderful readers! This is Mia Caldwell just wanting to thank you for giving one of my novels a try, and to double thank you for finishing it! Since you’ve been so good to me, I’ll be good to you. Keep turning pages because for a limited time I’m including a special little bonus: a copy of my bestselling novella, Dangerous Hearts!

  That’s right, it’s all yours, just turn the page.

  Thanks a third time, from the bottom of my heart.

  Mia

  Dangerous Hearts (BWWM Billionaire Steamy Romance)

  AuthorMiaCaldwell@gmail.com

  www.amazon.com/author/miacaldwell

  © 2015 Mia Caldwell

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.

  Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.


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  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to Denise. Love is blind, but friendship is created with both eyes open. Thank you for always being there, from the very bottom of my heart.

  -Mia

  Dangerous Hearts

  Prologue

  "Kia? Kia! Earth to Kia, hello?"

  I nearly fell off my chair when I looked up and saw Rayna standing over me impatiently. "Shit girl, how long have you been there?"

  She looked pointedly over her shoulder at the clock over the studio door. "Long enough. Geez, you get ridiculously focused, Kiki."

  I bit my lip. I had asked her not to call me that. That was my mother's name for me, no one else's. But that wasn't a fight I wanted to get into at eleven o'clock at night.

  Instead, I looked down at the fiddly piece I was draping. Focus wasn't even the half of it. I needed everything to be perfect for my garment for patternmaking class. "Focused. Yeah, I guess I am," I sighed ruefully, rubbing my hands over my face.

  Rayna's impatience suddenly switched over to puppy-dog pleading. "Could you take a look at my bodice?" she begged, her big brown eyes wide and innocent. "I don't know what I did."

  I sighed and stood up, stretching out the kink that had settled into my back. Patternmaking was giving me old lady aches and pains at twenty years old. "What's going on?" I yawned.

  Rayna shook her head. "It just won't...fucking...work!" she spat hysterically.

  I recognized the sound. It was the panic of the last minute. We were all in the studio late, under the gun to finish our final projects before midterms. I was sympathetic, though still resentful of the intrusion. I had my own work to do.

  "Here it is, the fucker." Rayna gestured impatiently towards a scrap of floral chiffon she had pinned to the muslin bodice.

  It took only a glance for me to see the problem. "Rayna, it's not on grain," I sighed. "That's why it's pulling."

  "Oh fuck," she moaned, "I knew it. What should I do?"

  "Nothing else to do," I said. "You need to cut it again."

  Rayna made a little choking noise. "I don't have time for that!" she half-screamed. Several heads poked up from the whirring industrial sewing machines to stare daggers at us. "I can just fake it."

  "You really can't," I warned her. "It'll never lay right."

  "Whatever." She rolled her eyes, turning away from me to jab pins into the mannequin.

  I waited a beat, and then turned back to head back to my work, shaking my head. She was making more work for herself by insisting on using the bad piece. Better to just start over again.

  If something is worth doing, it's worth doing right. I couldn't help but hear my mother's voice in my head during situations like these. She had drilled that little saying in my head so hard that even now, with her gone these past eighteen months, I could still hear it as clearly as if she were standing right next to me.

  I shook my head to clear it. I didn't have time to get wistful about my mother, not at this late hour. I knew she was in a better place now, one where her body wasn't slowly betraying her a little each and every day. She saw me through to college, she helped me get into Forest University on scholarship, one of the only Black girls accepted into the design program. And now I was here making her memory proud.

  I bent my head back down again and picked up my needle. Padstitching the lapel of the suit I was working on was laborious, a step a lot of other people would have skipped. But not me.

  "Hey!" Leilani Holt, our TA, burst into the studio, makeup still expertly applied even at this late hour. She punctuated her entrance by banging the door open dramatically, making sure all eyes were on her before she went on. She smiled a wicked smile and took a deep, breath before continuing. "You guys ready for this? They posted the internship recipients!"

  She waited a beat while we all stared at her in shock. It was 11:04 PM, the day before midterm critiques began, why was the notice going up now? We all eyed each other in mute incomprehension....

  Then pandemonium broke out.

  I hung back, watching everyone else shove and stumble over one another to be first. The bulletin would still be there when I was done with this lapel. And besides, it was nice to be alone with my thoughts.

  The door burst back open and Rayna stood staring at me. "Kia!" she shrieked! Three more girls piled behind her, all staring at me like I had sprouted another head.

  I froze, needle held aloft. "What?"

  "The Kingsley internship...," Rayna stared at me. "They gave it to you!"

  Nakia

  ☼ ☼ ☼

  "Attitude is everything," I exhaled.

  And with that one last affirmation under my belt, I straightened my shoulders and stared down my reflection in my full-length mirror.

  "You can do this." I wrinkled my brow and tried to look fierce. "You've already done it."

  Landing the internship as only a sophomore was one thing. Actually succeeding at Kingsley Designs was going to be something else entirely. I was going to have to work harder than ever to balance this with my classes and oh hell, maybe even sleep once in a while. But if something is worth doing, it's worth doing right and there was no way I was going to let this opportunity pass me by. It would be an affront to my mom, her memory and everything I had worked for.

  "You've got this," I scowled sternly, aping my mother's fierce expression.

  I tried to convince myself that the confidence I was now feeling was genuine. I was smart; there was no denying that. Smart enough to have the highest GPA in my sophomore design class. I had a scholarship to maintain, and grants I still needed to apply for. All of that left very little time for a social life, much less a dating life. But that was the price I paid to be able to attend the most elite design school in the state. Putting my nose to the grindstone from day one is what had gotten me an internship and I wasn’t about to slow down now.

  I figured there would be time to date and have fun once college was over.

  I stood naked in front of my closet, smoothing my fingers over the row of hangers as I considered my wardrobe options. You couldn’t walk into the offices of Kingsley Design wearing just any old thing…

  I needed something special. I needed something I’d made with my own two hands.

  The 50s style cardigan was a deep saffron yellow color that brought out the gold tones in my caramel skin and made the gold flecks in my brown eyes stand out. I’d spent days pouring over different merino wools before deciding on this exact color. It was perfect.

  I needed the right blouse…

  I reached for one of my favorites - a deep V-neck blouse in a bright teal color that I had hand sewn to both flatter and minimize my generous cleavage. It was conservative enough that I wouldn’t look like I was trying too hard, and revealing enough to be fashion forward.

  A simple A-line skirt completed the look. I pulled it free, holding it in front of my curvy waist, admiring the way it flared flatteringly over my hips. Each wave of fabric was perfectly uniform and I’d spent hours hand stitching the belt loops in a delicate pattern nobody would ever notice.

  But I noticed, and it made me smile every time I put it on...

  If something was worth doing...

  That brought me to the shoes. My slim ankles were my favorite body part, and I had chosen a pair of kitten-heeled slingbacks with a delicate ankle strap. They were the finishing touch. A dash of something old to go with something new.

  They once belonged to my mother. And though they pinched something fierce, I knew they were exactly the right choice. In some small way, I was taking her with me today. If she was watching, I hoped it would make her proud.

  Once more I turned to my reflection and gave myself deep consideration. I smoothed down my thick, natural hair, wishing the humidity wasn't so oppress
ive. It was October, for heaven's sake, there was no excuse for how hot the weather still was. And there was no excuse for what it was doing to my curls. In a fit of frustration I wound it into my usual quick bun, slicking it back and tucking the loose strands behind my ears with a set of bobby pins.