Keeper (A Billionaire Romance)

by Belle Roberts

  She looked behind me, noticed something, and hurried the rest of her words.

  "If you want to talk, call me, okay? Call me on this number." She handed me a small card. "Call and ask me anything, and I'll make sure to help you as much as I can."

  "Why?" I asked. "What's in it for you?"

  "I just want to make sure no one else suffers."

  I took the card from her outstretched hand just as James came up by my side and took my arm.

  "Miss, the car's ready."

  He looked at the woman, and his eyes narrowed slightly as she smirked.

  "Still doing Jonathan's dirty work, James?" she said. "Don't worry, I'm going now."

  She looked at me one last time.

  "Don’t forget to call me, Kate. We’ve got to stick together, remember that."

  She disappeared into the crowd of people, and James guided me towards the car.

  "You're best to destroy that card," he said, pointing to it in my hands.

  "Why? What's so special that Jonathan doesn't want me to know from her? So special that you had to come out and rescue me?"

  He shook his head as he opened the passenger door.

  "She's a trouble maker, Miss. She always has been. I wouldn't put any more thought into it than that. Shall we go?"

  I took a final glance along the sidewalk in the direction that she'd disappeared before looking down at the card.

  It had the name Shelley Gardener written across it in large letters, and as I let her words sink deeper into me I knew there was only one thing left to do.

  I saw James' eyes in the mirror watching me intently as I ripped the card into a dozen small pieces.

  I trusted Jonathan with my life, and there wasn't a woman in this world that was ever going to change that.

  Chapter

  Twenty-two

  Jonathan

  The night before the wedding

  Evan handed me the cocktail he’d spent almost twenty minutes perfecting.

  "It had better be good," I said, taking it from him. He laughed and lowered himself down on the sofa beside me.

  "It's what I do best, and besides the best man is supposed to serve the groom the night before his wedding, or didn't you know that?"

  I laughed and took a sip, the strong alcohol that he'd laced it with burning the back of my throat, but it was a welcome distraction to everything else I’d been feeling.

  He rested back on the chair and turned to me.

  "How does it feel to be in love, then?"

  "You know how it feels," I replied, knowing the relationship he shared with my sister. "You're more of an expert than I am."

  He shrugged.

  "Sometimes I think I know and other times I don’t."

  "I get it."

  We sat in silence for a moment before he held his glass up towards me and I touched mine with his.

  "You deserve all the happiness in the word, Jonathan," he said nodding.

  We both took a sip, and I rested a hand on his shoulder.

  "Thanks."

  "I mean it," he said. "You're happy, and who'd have thought that tying yourself to one woman for the rest of your life would have done that?”

  I laughed and nodded. Only a couple of months ago, I’d been against marriage. Even when I met Kate, all I'd wanted was someone loyal and considerate to help me stage a fake wedding for my mother’s sake. I didn’t know that I'd be proposing to her for real and taking our relationship to the next level so soon.

  I stood up and went toward the side table opening the drawer and pulling out the letter I'd spent the best part of a week trying to write.

  "What's that?" he asked, and I handed it to him.

  He looked at it, at her name written in large writing across the front.

  "That a prenup you have there?" he joked, but when he realized I wasn’t smiling he nodded, took it and put it down beside him.

  "I need you to give that to her before the wedding." I sat down again. "She'll be in the bride room or something, but it's important she has this before I see her. I want her to come down the aisle after she's read what that letter has to say and know she still wants me.

  "I don't get it..."

  "You don’t need to," I said quickly. "All you have to do is play the messenger and then come back and wait with me."

  He nodded and looked at it.

  "Why do I get a bad feeling about it?"

  He took a large gulp of his cocktail.

  "No bad feelings, it's only an explanation."

  "I don’t know, I think..."

  "There’s nothing to discuss," I said, stopping him mid sentence. "I want her to read every single word on that page, and then I want her to come to me, and if she does then I’ll know that she understands me, and I'll know that she knows I'll only ever have her at the forefront of my mind from now on, no matter what happens.

  I knew he didn't understand, and I was almost certain he thought it was some kind of break up letter, but I felt a surge of anticipation and nerves run through me, because tomorrow before we got married, all would be revealed. I just hoped I still had her in my life by the end of it.

  Kate

  "What are you thinking?"

  I turned to see Jess in the doorway watching me.

  I shrugged and looked at myself from another angle in the mirror.

  "I don’t know. I guess I just never imagined this day would ever come."

  "You look beautiful," she said, coming over behind me and playing with my veil. "I know Jonathan will love how you look."

  "Thank you."

  She squeezed my hand.

  "Why don’t you come downstairs and sit with us. I'm sure my mother would love a few words before you walk down the aisle tomorrow."

  I nodded and waited for her to leave before I lifted the veil off my head. The time had gone so fast, and I couldn’t believe that tomorrow was the day I got married. Somehow it felt surreal, and the more I thought about it, the more I started to feel panic in my stomach.

  I was the lone woman of New York, the person without family, love, or anyone to even be a bridesmaid. How did someone like me end up like this? How was I able to find someone to love me and make me feel as though I was the most important woman in the world?

  I put the veil back on the hook and zipped the dress back up before leaving the room.

  Meredith was lying in her bed in the lounge when I came down the stairs, and when she saw me she sat up with a smile.

  "Jess said you looked stunning." She smiled and I thanked her.

  She pointed to the sofa beside her.

  "Sit with me, Kate," she said, her voice frail. "Let's talk."

  I sat down gently beside her and looked at her, the smile that I’d first seen on her mature yet beautiful face now hard and tired. She looked as though she'd aged fifty years overnight with her skin graying and sunken in. Cancer was a hideous disease, and it made my heart break to see her looking like a shadow of her former self.

  "Thank you for letting me stay here overnight," I said to her.

  She shook her head.

  "It doesn’t matter what happens, Kate, you’re my daughter now. You're here, and for as long as I'm alive I'll look after you. Jonathan tells me your parents are no longer around."

  I nodded.

  "Well then, we couldn’t have you sitting in some hotel room on your own, now could we? You’re part of our family."

  Her housekeeper came in and placed a tray of coffee down in front of us on the table and handed Meredith hers.

  "Thank you," she whispered, blowing it with her thin lips. "You’ve made my son happy, Kate. I've never seen him this way before, and I know it's all because of you."

  "Oh, I don’t know..." I began, but she stopped me.

  "He's a different man. I don’t think anyone will recognize the change that he's gone through. Even though I'm his mother, I know what he used to be like. I've read about it in countless papers, and I never believed he would find someone like you that could
change him. Jonathan’s powerful, Kate, but what you have inside you is far more effective."

  "All I've done is love him," I said quietly.

  "Sometimes that's all it takes," she replied, putting her mug down. She rested her head back onto the pillows behind her, exhausted and closed her eyes slowly. I moved closer towards her and took her frail hand in mine.

  "I wish I could take this away," I said, suddenly feeling sad because the woman in front of me was not only my mother-in-law and the only mother I knew that cared about me, but she was one of the nicest people I'd ever met. I couldn’t imagine what it must have felt like to know that one day soon you were going to close your eyes and never open them again.

  "There's no need," she said, opening her eyes again slowly. "I've lived my life proudly, I think, and I'm getting to see my son get married. What more could I want?"

  "Mrs. Davenport?"

  Her home nurse walked into the room with a tray of medication, and she looked at me sympathetically.

  "She'll have to get some rest now, Kate," she said, putting the tray down on the table. "Tomorrow's a big day, and she'll need all the energy she can get."

  I stood up, taking my coffee with me, and before I left, I kissed Meredith on her sunken cheek.

  "Thank you, Mom," I whispered into her ear. "Thank you for giving me Jonathan."

  I went to walk away but she held onto my arm.

  "No, Kate, thank you for loving him."

  I left the room with tears in my eyes, understanding what Jonathan had meant when he said his emotions were conflicted, and how he didn’t know whether to feel happy or overcome with grief.

  I found Jessica in the kitchen writing an email, and she put the lid down on her laptop when I went in.

  "Evan?" I asked, perching on the stool beside her.

  She nodded and sighed.

  "We're all over the place right now, but I guess the one thing I'm grateful for is that ever since Mom’s collapse, he's been there for me. He's been by my side, and that's more than I could ask for right now."

  "Have you both...?

  She shrugged and turned back to her laptop.

  "We’ve kissed, but I don't think he knows what we wants. I'm just happy for the attention."

  "He'll come around," I said, resting a hand on her shoulder. "I know it's hard right now with your mom and our wedding and just everything, but you're the only sister I have, and I want us to work on that relationship, okay? I've never had someone like you before that I could turn to."

  "We'll always be family, Kate." She pulled me to her and squeezed me in her arms. "If you're important to my brother, you're important to me."

  She stood up and pulled me with her out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

  "Now, Sis," she said turning to me at the top. "You're getting married in the morning, so let’s make sure you feel like a million dollars tonight."

  I bounced off her energy and followed her into the room she was staying in, finally feeling the excitement that came with having a family, and tomorrow I knew it would be official. Tomorrow I was going to become a Davenport and hopefully it would be forever.

  Chapter

  Twenty-three

  Kate

  The Wedding Day

  I stood in the back room, my heart pounding as I looked in the mirror. In less than an hour, I was going to be married to Jonathan, and while it was the best day of my life, I couldn't help the worry in my mind that I wouldn't be good enough for him. That had been one of the things I'd been scared about my whole life. How could I love someone when I'd never been loved myself?

  The sound of the door interrupted my thoughts, and I turned to look as Evan came into the room. He was the last person I’d been expecting to see.

  “I thought you were Jessica,” I said, turning back to my reflection and looking at him behind me in the mirror.

  “Are you alone?” he asked, closing the door behind him.

  I nodded as he came up behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder.

  “You look beautiful,” he said gently. “Jonathan’s a lucky man.”

  “Thank you, Evan. By the way how is he?” I asked.

  “Nervous, silent… you know what he’s like.”

  I laughed, feeling the butterflies in my stomach again.

  “I’m so scared.”

  “I don’t blame you,” he teased. “There’s a hell of a lot of people out there.”

  I turned to him and punched his arm playfully as he reached into his inner pocket and pulled something out. My eyes fixed on the wrapped box that he gave me.

  “From Jonathan?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  I tore open the shimmering paper and opened the white case eagerly, and there nestled perfectly were two large diamond earrings and a necklace to match. I’d never seen so many diamonds in my whole life.

  “I can’t…” I breathed.

  He nodded.

  “They’re for you, Kate. Wear them. May I?”

  I nodded and he stood behind me, removing the necklace and fixing it around my neck before doing the clasp up.

  “What did I do to deserve him?” I asked, as he turned me to face the mirror again and we looked at each other in the reflection.

  “You both deserve each other. Besides, there’s more.”

  “More?”

  He nodded and reached into the same pocket again, only this time pulling out a letter.

  “He wanted you to read this before you come out and go down the aisle.”

  I felt my heart drop.

  “I don’t want to.” I pushed it back towards him, but he held my hand and closed my fingers around the paper.

  “Do it for him,” he said. “Just open it.”

  “Do you know what it says?” I asked, my hands shaking as I peeled opened the seal.

  He nodded.

  “I didn’t until this morning, and I think you should read it all before you cast judgment.”

  My heart pounded within my chest so loud that I was sure he could hear it, and once I freed the letter from the envelope, I let it drop to the floor as I opened the folded paper, almost sick to my stomach.

  The letter was handwritten, and I felt the tears welling up in my eyes as I read it. Every word gave me a renewed fear to read the next.

  Evan put a strong arm around my shoulders for comfort.

  “I’m supposed to tell you to watch your make-up,” he said, but instead of laughing, his words made me break down, because Jonathan’s letter was everything I wasn’t expecting. In fact, it was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever read in my life:

  ‘Words, Kate, I’m not good with them and I never have been.

  I know how to grow a small company from one person in a back room to a global corporation, but when it comes to you… to love, words escape me.

  I know that to many it seems like a quick transition to this stage. I couldn’t have been more surprised myself, but I know marrying you is the one thing I’ve been sure about in a long time. I know you’re the one.

  You’re the one that made me realize just how important love is, and without you this chapter in my life would be unbearable, but somehow you manage to make me feel as though I’m on a goddamn high.

  I know life hasn’t been easy for you, Kate. I know you’ve gone through life with no one, and I don’t want you to ever be alone again. Walk down the aisle to me today, and you’ll have a family for life.

  As I’ve said to you before, you’re loved. You’re so incredibly loved—more than you’ll ever know— and from this day onward, I’m going to spend the rest of my life proving that to you.

  It doesn’t matter who you do or don’t have in your world, because you’re part of my world now. My friends, my family… everyone. We’re never going to let you down, that’s a promise. I’ll never let you go.

  I’m not the most sentimental or the one with the most emotion, but you can lean on me, Kate, and you can rest knowing that even with my last heartbeat I’ll defen
d every breath you take, which is why I owe you an explanation.

  Ever since our dinner on the beach, I’ve been working behind the scenes to bring you the best gift anyone could ask for. Diamonds, shoes, watches… they’re all material things that can ultimately be replaced. What I’m offering you is an identity, a sense of reason and purpose.

  I guess what I’m trying to say is that I managed to track down your birth mother, and in doing so I’ve uncovered the rest of your family.

  I don’t know how you’re going to feel about this, and I’ve spent the past week agonizing that once you read this letter and once you know the secret I’ve been forced to keep until it was all confirmed, I’ll look up the aisle and I won’t see you there.

  The thought is tearing me apart, but I’m confident that you’ll understand just how much you mean to me, and once you know that, you’ll know that I did it with the very best of intentions.

  I’ll give you everything I have, Kate; you just have to say ‘I do’.

  Love Jonathan.’

  My hands were shaking as I read the last words, and I blinked profusely to keep the tears from falling and ruining the makeup that had been so expertly applied.

  I turned to Evan, searching his face for an answer.

  “He found my family?” I asked. “He found my mom?”

  He nodded slowly, the smile on his face soft, and I paced the room quickly, my mind in overdrive. Jonathan had somehow managed to find my family. He’d tracked them down and—I couldn’t bear to think any deeper for fear that it had to be an elaborate joke. I knew he wouldn’t do that, but I’d spent my whole life feeling as though I had no one, being pushed from foster home to foster home with awful ‘moms and dads’ and having ‘brothers and sisters’ that left me out of everything. I didn’t ever think for one moment that my real parents were still out there somewhere and that they wanted to find me. They actually wanted to know who I’d become and what I’d achieved.

  Evan picked the envelope up from the floor and put it on the table.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, leaving the room while I hyperventilated, my heart pounding as I thought back to the argument we’d had in the Hamptons and the way I’d screamed at him and driven away without trusting in the man that he was.