Keeper (A Billionaire Romance)

by Belle Roberts

  I turned away from them all just as people started to recognize Jonathan and hurried off down the sidewalk.

  “Kate! Wait!” he shouted, as I neared the end of the block and crossed the road. He ran after me and grabbed hold of me pulling me around to face him. I fell into his arms and he cradled me, everything I felt for him coming back despite my reluctance. Damnit!

  “Why won’t you just talk to me?” he asked, his lips against the top of my head, and then he pulled away from me, his hands holding my arms.

  I couldn’t look him in the eyes because I knew that as soon as I did, I wouldn’t ever want to walk away with the knowledge that I wouldn’t get to see them again.

  Kate?” he urged. “Is that it then? After everything that’s it?”

  “You don’t get to ask questions!” I snapped, pointing back towards the bar. “You’ve already moved on. You’ve found someone else to marry you, so what does it matter?”

  I knew I sounded stupid. I was the one who wouldn’t speak to him or return his calls. He had every right to move forwards with his life, but I couldn’t help the selfish streak inside me. I wanted him to want me only.

  “It’s not like that. They’re just friends of Helen. She thought bringing me out would make things better.”

  “And does it?” I remembered the look on Krista’s face as she emerged from behind the door. The soft hazy look she had in her eyes of happiness and contentment. The same feeling that I’d felt with him. Was that how he treated every woman? Was that they way they all felt about him? Loving Jonathan wasn’t so simple. He was a man that was used to women falling at his feet, and I was used to being alone. It wouldn’t work, but that didn’t stop the tingle that shot through my entire body when his fingers crept up and around the back of my neck suddenly. He did it because he know that once he did, I’d crumble.

  Jonathan

  She closed her eyes briefly and I was aware that we had a mini audience. It would only be a matter of time before the press got there, and the last thing I wanted was to have our break up as front-page news. As far as my mother was concerned, I was still getting married.

  I leaned closer to her, pushing her hair away from her face, and whispered into her ear gently.

  “It’s always been you, Kate. From the moment I saw you at the bar, there’s been no one else but you.”

  I heard the sharp intake of breath on her lips as they parted, her body responding to me as I knew it would.

  “What about Krista?” she asked, fighting the way she felt inside, trying to step away from me, but I kept her close, not letting go.

  “Forget about her, she doesn’t mean anything to me. Not in the way you’re thinking.”

  “Then why was she at your house when you’d made damned sure that I was out at the spa all day?”

  I allowed her to push away from me and we stood looking at each other. I knew I had to tell her, I couldn’t keep the secret any longer, but I remembered what Anna had made me promise. I couldn’t say anything yet. If I did prematurely, it had the potential to do a lot more harm than good. I’d already hurt her enough.

  I looked at Kate’s eyes pleading with mine, and the urge to tell her was so great that I had to look away.

  She laughed gently.

  “See? I had every right to feel like this. You knew how and why it was so hard for me to trust someone. You let me fall for you and…”

  I took her face in my hands, causing her to stop talking.

  “Kate, I really need you to trust me on this. Trust that I’ve got your best intentions at heart here, and trust that what I said that night, my feelings… they were all real. All of them.”

  “Then why…”

  “Nothing happened, okay? She was one of many people at my house that night. I was holding a get together, and I promise you’ll find out what we’ve been doing soon. Do you trust me?”

  She looked at me and then down towards the bar that Evan and the two girls had now disappeared into.

  “Kate?” I pressed, touching her arm. “I refuse to stop thinking about you. In fact, I don’t even think I’m capable of doing that. I just need to know that you trust me. Do you believe that I’d never intentionally hurt you?”

  “I don’t know. I need to think about it. I just…” she shook her head and took a deep breath. “I just need some time to be sure that I’m doing the right thing. I’m not one of those women who’ll just fall into your arms because you’re so… so…”

  “Irresistible?” I offered, jokingly.

  A brief smile broke across her face before she pointed up the street.

  “Something like that. I should go now.”

  “Go where? I can walk you…”

  “I think I just need to go alone,” she said, pulling an invisible bit of thread from my suit. “But thank you.”

  “I think about you,” I said quietly, aware of the camera flashes around us now. “Don’t let this be the last time I see you.”

  She licked her lips and pushed her hair back from her face slightly.

  “Don’t,” she whispered.

  “I need you to understand something before you go…”

  She held onto my jacket, lifting herself slightly so that her lips were tilted towards my ear.

  “Let’s just pretend that you’re not about to say what I think you are. Let’s go back to a place before feelings were involved.”

  I held onto her arms, steadying her, the words cutting through me like a knife dipped in poison.

  “What if I can’t do that?”

  “For both our sakes, you have to.”

  She let go of me and stepped backwards. I saw the tears in her eyes, but I knew better than to draw attention to it because I knew she didn’t really believe what she was saying. If she had a choice, I knew she’d have come home with me.

  “I’m not that guy,” I said firmly, my eyes not leaving hers. “I’m not the guy who turns his back on what he wants and gives up without a fight.”

  “Jonathan…”

  I put my fingers against her soft lips.

  “I just want you to go home and remember that even though you think you know me because Wikipedia has told you everything, it’s not true. There’s more to me than women, fast cars, money and sex.” I said the last word as almost a low growl, watching the expression on her face change slightly. “I’ll get you home safe tonight.”

  I pulled my cell out of my pocket as she turned to look at the flurry of photographers that had gathered on the road opposite.

  “James? Bring the limo to me. We need to take Kate home.”

  She looked shocked.

  “You don’t need to do that, honestly,” she said quickly. “Just enjoy your night and don’t worry about me.”

  “Trouble is,” I said as the car pulled up alongside us, “I always do. Like I said, I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, and I don’t know where you live now so I can’t have you walking home alone, not without me.”

  I opened the door for her and she hesitated before getting inside.

  “I just don’t… thank you,” she whispered.

  I bent down and kissed her forehead.

  “It doesn’t matter what you think or what happens between us, you can always count on me Kate. I’ll always be here.”

  “I know.”

  She smiled briefly and I closed the door, the memory of her driving away from me back in the Hamptons coming back with full force, then I watched as James drove her out and away from the curb.

  I stood staring after her, the cameras blinking around me.

  “Jonathan, what just happened?”

  “Jonathan, what about the wedding?”

  “Did she catch you out on a date with someone else?”

  “Why have you both left separately?”

  I ignored the cries from the photographers because there was only one person that had my attention, and all I knew as the limousine disappeared from sight was that I had to get her back. Even if it was the last th
ing I ever did in my life, I had to make her mine.

  Chapter Eleven

  Kate

  I woke up to the sound of the apartment buzzer and I turned over, hoping that one of my other roommates would get it, but the continuous ringing was making it impossible to go back to sleep, so I sat up, rubbing at my eyes and trying to drag myself out of bed. My cell said it was nine in the morning—far too early.

  The apartment was quiet when I walked into the hall and over to the intercom, but it stopped as soon as I picked it up.

  “Hello? Hello anyone there?”

  The crackle and hiss of the bad connection revealed nothing, and I slammed it down, annoyed that I’d been pulled from a deep sleep for absolutely no reason.

  I’d barely slept the night before because my mind had been going overdrive thinking about Jonathan. I hadn’t expected him to be there, which was precisely why I’d chosen a bar downtown and away from his high-end haunts.

  I knew the feelings I had for him were real, I never doubted them, but it surprised me how easily my head wanted to forgive him the minute I felt his fingers against my skin, and I feared that I would never be able to let go of that. He’d have that power over me for as long as I lived.

  I buried my face in my hands, wishing I could just walk away and let go, wishing that I didn’t spend every night wondering why he didn’t think I was enough. I knew I wasn’t competition for the other women that wanted to be Mrs. Davenport, but I had far more deep down. I actually cared, and that had to count for something. He could have all that money or lose it tomorrow, I would still have felt the same.

  Someone knocked on the door and I jumped, resting my head against the wall and contemplating whether or not to pretend I was out, but I decided I wasn’t going to be that woman—the type who let life around her fall apart in the absence of a man.

  I went to the door and pulled it open, expecting to see the mailman with a delivery or even the landlord, but there standing with her back to me was Jessica.

  She turned, an exasperated false smile on her face.

  “Why aren’t you dressed?” she asked as she walked past me into the apartment, looking around as she wandered down the hall to the lounge.

  “Um, Jessica how did you…?” I followed her, stunned and slightly embarrassed that she’d seen me in nothing but an oversized t-shirt and bed socks with frizzy, untamed hair. It was far from the manicured version of me she’d seen at dinner an age ago.

  “How did I what?” she asked, turning to me. “How did I get in? How did I know where you live?”

  “Well, yes. Both.”

  She laughed and peeled her scarf off, collapsing into the chair by the window.

  “Cute place by the way.”

  “Thanks.”

  She picked up a photo frame of my roommates and studied it for a second.

  “Someone downstairs was leaving, so I came up, and James took you home last night didn’t he?”

  I nodded.

  “Right then, well, that’s all cleared up. I’m not here to talk about how’s; I’m here to talk about my brother and Evan.”

  She threw down a newspaper onto the table, and I watched her face intently, unsure of how much she actually knew. Had she come as an intervention to stop us, or had she come to get us back together? Or did she actually think something had been going on between Evan and me?

  I perched myself down on the arm of the sofa, pulling at my t-shirt as it revealed more of my thighs than I wanted, and I caught her looking at them before darting her eyes back up at me.

  “I’m listening,” I said when I was comfortable. “I don’t know what Jonathan’s told you, but if there’s anything you want to know you should probably ask him.”

  She smirked, slightly annoyed that anyone dared not give her what she wanted.

  “Bound not to speak by the contract, right?” she asked, her head tilted to the side.

  My cheeks flushed instantly. He’d told her? He’d gone around telling people that what we had was fake when all the while I was there with real feelings.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, looking away from her icy stare while maintaining my innocence. I wasn’t marrying into the family anymore, so the need to be polite suddenly left me.

  “Oh you do.” She leaned forwards in the chair. “You know, the contract that he’s obviously set up to stop you talking about your love life and relationship to the press, but I’ve got news. I’m his sister and I’m not going anywhere. Something’s going on between the both of you. One minute you’re all over the papers and then that bust up and nothing? Is the wedding off? Are you still together? What’s going on?”

  I sighed; relieved that she didn’t know the marriage was fake.

  “I think you need to ask Jonathan.”

  “I have!” She sat back and sighed, annoyed. “He’s just not answering our calls.”

  “Our?”

  “My mother’s and mine. You know, he’s always been pretty hard and protective, but to punch Evan like that over another woman? He’s never cared enough about anyone to do that before.” She shook her head and looked down. “What’s really going on between you and Evan?”

  “Nothing.”

  I could almost feel the coldness in her stare.

  “What’s really going on in this picture?” She pushed the newspaper towards me and I got up to pick it up.

  It was a photo of me walking away from the bar and Jonathan following me, while in the background Evan stood with the two twinset girls. I didn’t even know the paparazzi were there that early on.

  “Is Evan on a date?” she asked, quietly. “I mean, two girls for two guys, right?”

  “Jessica…”

  She stood up and smoothed her skirt.

  “You can tell me.”

  “I don’t know. I assume they’re all just friends. I think you should just call Evan and ask.”

  “I can’t get hold of him either,” she said quietly. “He doesn’t return my calls, and then I have to find out what he’s doing in the tabloids, and somehow, recently, you’re always involved.”

  I stood up to match her height, though I fell short as she towered above me in her court shoes.

  “Jessica, there’s nothing going on between Evan and me. I think you need to find a way to talk to him, but it really has nothing to do with me. Jonathan and I have a few things we need to iron out, but they’re nothing to do with Evan. If anything, he’s helped me a lot.”

  She sighed and shook her head.

  “Of course he did, and that’s what I love so much about him.” She forced a pair of dark sunglasses over her eyes. “I shouldn’t have come here at all. I think I’d better leave. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  She walked back out to the lounge and I followed her down the hall before she opened my front door.

  “You promise not to mention this visit to Jonathan?” she asked suddenly.

  I nodded.

  “He doesn’t need to know about this. I won’t say a word as long as you accept that I have real feelings for your brother, and they’re not going to just disappear because you don’t think I’m good enough for him.”

  She blushed slightly.

  “God, I’m sorry. Sorry that I made you feel like shit and sorry I just barged in here like this. I just don’t want to see him hurt or taken for a ride. I’m sure you understand?”

  I nodded.

  “I do, but you have to let us figure that out, otherwise you’ll end up pushing him away.”

  “I just, I mean you’re right, but what do men reduce us to? Look at me. I’m not this person. I’m not the bitch Evan has turned me into. I just wish he’d let me know what he was thinking so I’m not standing here waiting for him. I’ve spent so much time worrying about who he’s with and what he’s doing and trying to compete that I forget myself sometimes.”

  I smiled awkwardly, seeing another side to her that I certainly didn’t expect when she’d rushed past me a few moments
earlier, one that wasn’t so cold and bitchy as I’d first assumed. Just like me, she’d been hurt, but she was one of those women that just wouldn’t and couldn’t let go of a man when it was time to walk away. From where I stood, it appeared that Evan no longer felt the same way and I felt sorry for her because there was no denying that he was great guy and losing him must have felt like torture.

  She leaned in and gave me a quick, loose hug before pulling her bag up over her shoulder.

  “Thanks Kate, and again I’m sorry. I hope you’ll come and join us for dinner sometime soon. Both of you?”

  “I‘ll think about it.”

  She nodded, waved, and turned to the stairs. I waited until she was out of sight before closing the door and taking a deep breath, glad that the sudden Jessica tornado was finally gone.

  Evan was clearly not interested. He was a good-looking man with money, charm, and a great personality. Men like him didn’t get left hanging around for too long, and she must have known that. She must have understood what it was like competing with all the other statuesque models for his attention, but I didn’t want to end up like her, a few years later still trying to rekindle a dead fire.

  What Jonathan and I had was something I’d never shared with anyone before. He made me feel like the only woman on earth, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to give up on that yet.

  Was I ready to walk away without trusting him?

  He’d told me it was a complete misunderstanding, and almost all of me wanted to believe him, but there was a part deep down that tried in vain to build my walls back up. Protect yourself before you get hurt again, it said to me. I knew If I let myself love him so freely again I was setting myself up for heartbreak, but I just had to choose and have the confidence to go with my decision, whether it be my head or my heart.

  Jonathan

  I watched the home nurse adjust the pillows behind my mother’s back and then leave.

  She took her glasses off and placed them onto her lap.

  “I’ve had to follow the news to keep up-to-date with you, Jonathan,” she sighed. “The least you could have done was answer my calls.”