Billionaire Eternity: The Alpha Billionaire Romance Complete Series (3 Full-Length Box Sets Included): An Alpha Billionaire Romance Box Set

by Anna Collins

  “We can certainly debate the existential reality of where you’re at, but do you really want to waste your time on what you will learn soon enough. It’s not your time little one. I know that, and you know that, but there are those who want you to take this final step into the unknown. Just between you and me, I think they have a quota to make,” she said meaning it to be a joke, but making it sound like I was just a number.

  “I have so many questions, and I don’t even know where to begin,” I said looking at her, seeing she had come to me in the form of a younger version of herself. She looked exactly like she did in the photo on Spencer’s wall.

  “The only thing you need to know is that there are two ways out of here. One you can walk through the door to the balcony or close your eyes and concentrate on what you want most of all. One will take you back, and you’ll be able to live for as long as you’re supposed to. The other will take you too soon, but that’s only my opinion. I’m just a messenger. I do feel I owe you an explanation, though. I know keeping it from you was wrong, but your father convinced me we were doing the right thing,” my mother said as she sat down and crossed one leg over the other with the white flowing skirt curled around her like her own personal cocoon.

  “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but there’s no way I’m going to blame my father for any of this. He may have known about me, but he was the one who stepped up and raised me. I don’t think I could have asked for any more of a loving father than him. We had our problems, and we butted heads a few times, but we always seemed to patch things up. This last one, where I washed my hands off the restaurant and went my own way hurt him badly. I finally was able to talk to him and get him to see we had wasted too much time on the pettiness of what I wanted to do for a living,” I said looking towards the balcony, seeing what looked like some kind of haze in the air. I could almost move my hand and manipulate it like a blank canvas.

  I closed my eyes, and there was this dark abyss looking back at me. It was trying to be something it wasn’t. I saw through it. Closing my eyes and concentrating was going to be the last thing I did as a mortal being. The threshold of the balcony was the way to go back to where I came from. I’m sure there were those who wanted me to take that final step. They thought I would never come up with the correct answer. They were about to get a rude awakening, but not before I had a few choice words with my mother.

  “The one thing your father wasn’t was a saint. He did his best. He loved the both of us, but there were those times he felt like he couldn’t do it anymore. It was a difficult time in our relationship, and I know you saw some of it. You tried to block it out, but the ‘look’ I would receive at breakfast told me you didn’t exactly condone my decision for making him sleep on the couch. Spencer was a mistake, but without him, there would be no you,” my mother said as I stood at the threshold looking at the haze in the air, wondering what kind of leap of faith I was going to have to make.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I understand you were keeping me away from my father because you thought you were doing the right thing. I would think that when I got old enough, you would see to it that I would learn the truth. I could decide whether or not I wanted to know him on my own. You didn’t give me a choice, and I think in some way I hate you for that. It’s not a deep and everlasting kind of hate. I could never actually hate you for anything, but letting me live a lie has made me look at you differently. You’re no longer the woman who could never do anything wrong. You were an angel, someone that was above reproach, and yet I see your halo is a bit crooked. I shouldn’t have put you on this kind of pedestal, and it’s not an easy thing to live up to. I had high expectations. It wasn’t fair to you,” I said while feeling compelled to close my eyes like they were too heavy.

  “Human beings are flawed, and I’m no different little one. I have made my fair share of mistakes. Spencer was one of my biggest. He was that big as life type of man who had the edge of the bad boy making him like catnip. I think I did love him, but not in the way he loved me. I couldn’t go anywhere without him needing to know where I was going to be. His jealousy made him volatile. I knew he would never get his own hands dirty, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t hire somebody to work on his behalf. I don’t think I would have ever walked away from him with fear of retaliation, but then you came knocking on my door. I had to do what was right for you. I had to leave him, or I was going to lose my sanity,” my mother said as I felt I was losing this fight. I had no context, and I didn’t know what came after. I was curious, and it was almost enough to make me want to find out.

  “What you are trying to tell me is you and father hit a rough patch, and you hit the road. You found Spencer, and you were instantly attracted to his wealth and the way he held himself. I don’t think you’re the first woman to get caught up in the hype of a man who has money and good looks. He is an overwhelming personality. I don’t have this kind of attitude, but now facing my own mortality gives me the right to reinvent myself. Tristan is the man I want to spend my life with. As much as I am curious about what is after all of this, I have to go back. I think we both know that. I am glad we got a chance to talk. I’m still not sure this was just a figment of my imagination, but you did make me feel better about everything,” I said as I went to her and hugged her. It made me feel like I had found some closure.

  “I will warn you it’s easier to just let yourself go. I had the same talk with my mother. It was the first real heart to heart we had ever had, and it really did open up my eyes. I have been thinking about you nonstop from the moment I crossed over. I had to move on, and I wasn’t given the same choice you are being given. It was my time. Don’t worry; both your grandmother and I will be here when it’s really your time. You do have a long road ahead of you. There are going to be some obstacles. I can’t tell you anything about your path. I hope you will continue talking to me. I like listening to you,” my mother said with her hand on the small of my back, nudging me slightly towards the threshold like she was the one who was going to make the decision for me.

  “I will never forget you. This time apart has been murder on me. I try to think of what you would do. Your advice helps me make the right choices in my life. I’ve used you as the little voice in my head to tell me what path to take. I know you are looking out for me. The wind rustling the leaves is you answering my prayers. Having you as my guardian angel keeps me believing you are always there for me,” I said.

  I took one last look at my mother, and she gave me a nod before I took a deep breath and ran into the threshold. The haze separated and the balcony vanished underneath my feet to give me the feeling of falling. I screamed, but there was only desperation in my eyes and the way I was looking down at the world which had been swallowed whole.

  Chapter 28

  My eyelids fluttered, and the feeling of somebody holding my hand made me turn my head to see Tristan was right where he said he was going to be. I was parched, and then I felt a piece of ice running across my lips. I saw the angel smile of Leslie holding vigil. Tristan looked exhausted with his head slumped to the side on the chair. I squeezed his hand, and he squirmed, but he did not wake up.

  “You came through the procedure with flying colors. There were some complications and let’s just say you and your father are stubborn enough. I do have to warn you your recovery is not over. We need to confirm your body is not going to reject the bone marrow. As far as I can tell, everything seems perfectly fine, but we will need to monitor your condition. What I’m more worried about is we still don’t know who did this to you and your father. I’m sure he has some ideas, but he has fallen into a deep coma. I had no choice. He would have died without me putting him in a coma,” Leslie said as I looked to my other side to see my father was breathing on his own.

  There were intravenous tubes in his arms feeding him, but there was a certain light in his face which gave me hope he would open up his eyes soon. I didn’t even like him when I met him, but now I felt like I had to give him a chance. It was
n’t his fault my mother left him to think her absence was more because she had decided to go back to her husband than the actual reality of the bun in the oven.

  “How long…has Tristan been here? He needs rest. I don’t want you to wake him up,” I said feeling like I needed to go back to sleep, but wanting him to know seeing him when I woke up meant the world to me.

  “He has not left your side the entire time you were going through this. He showed remarkable restraint when you flat lined for a minute. I thought he would go completely mad and scream to the heavens above, but he didn’t go that far. He did fall to his knees. He told me later he made a silent prayer. You came out of this, and the poison has been taken care of. There was no way it could fight back after I denied it the food to survive and flourish. I’m sure you’ll feel some lingering effects, but that’s only going to last for a day or two at most. While Spencer is out of commission, we’re going to have to set our sights on finding who is responsible for this on our own,” Leslie said like she thought it was our responsibility to clean up his mess.

  “If it’s all the same to you, Leslie, I would really like some time to get back to fighting. You just finished saying my recovery is going to be a lengthy one. I want you to do everything you can for my father. Do you know how strange this is for me to say without seeing the man who raised me lying there in his place? I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to call him father. Maybe it’s a matter of what feels right to me. Perhaps, I just I need to remember he is my father and still call him Spencer. That might be the only way I can let myself care about what happens to him,” I said while reaching out, touching my father to let him know in his unconscious state I was there.

  “I’m only saying that whatever work he did to find out who has done this is out there. While you have been sleeping, I have been trying to crack his computer without any success. I tried your name, your mother’s name and several different aliases he went by, but nothing broke through the firewall he put up. I don’t think he was thinking about this when he went looking for that needle in a haystack. I can bring his laptop here and maybe you will come up with some ingenious way to think like your father,” Leslie said as she left the room after conversing with the two guards at the door.

  I was worried she was taking a page out of Spencer’s book. With him out of the way, she was now in charge, and it wasn’t like the boys had any idea of what to do after Spencer was out of the loop. They had no choice but to follow the money, and that came from the hands of Leslie and the bank account which most likely was one of Spencer’s many little parachutes for his retirement.

  “I’m willing to give it my best shot, but I’m not going to promise anything. I don’t know that much about my father to make an educated guess about his password. If I don’t get it in the first three tries, then there’s a big possibility it will self-destruct any emails or evidence he has managed to come up with against whoever has done this to the both of us,” I said. I felt a sense of purpose come over me which required me to take care of my father while he was bedridden.

  “I’m going to go and get his laptop. Maybe between the two of us, we’ll be able to figure out how his mind worked,” Leslie said as she tried her best to jog my memory for anything he might have said in passing.

  I squeezed Tristan’s hand, and he once again shifted in his chair. He stretched his limbs, but his eyes were still closed. He finally opened them and looked around like he couldn’t quite believe he had fallen asleep. He jumped to his feet when he saw me staring at him like a deer in the headlights.

  “I must have fallen asleep, but I promised myself I wouldn’t sleep until you woke up. I feel like a damn fool for not living up to my promise. I hope you know you gave me a scare I’m not sure I can ever recover from. My heart literally stopped when yours did. I actually found myself praying for the first time in a long time. I’ve never been into religion, but I have always known there was a higher power at work. There are those things in my life I can’t explain. Close calls gave me that feeling like somebody was watching out for me,” Tristan said as he held my hand.

  “There’s nothing to worry about. I’m just glad you’re here. It doesn’t matter you fell asleep. I’ve done my fair share of that already,” I said as I looked at the clock on the wall and noticed five hours had elapsed.

  “You haven’t been out for just 5 hours. I know it might seem like that to you, but you have been sleeping for the past three days. I wasn’t sure you were going to wake up, but Leslie assured me you were only recharging your batteries. Your body needed time to heal itself. I don’t know what I would have done had you died in my arms. I should have walked away, but you were the only girl I found that wasn’t easy to forget. Jessica was a means to an end. I cared for her, but I never had those butterflies. I wasn’t sure I would ever have those butterflies,” Tristan said as I managed to sit up with my hand still latched onto my father like I was his only lifeline.

  “Leslie will be back soon with Spencer’s laptop. She suspects he has gotten close to figuring out who did this. Unfortunately; she has been unable to crack his code. I don’t know how I’m going to have any more luck than she did, but I’m willing to roll up my sleeves and find out,” I said as I saw Tristan picking up a glass with a Starbucks logo on it.

  “I know what you’re going to say and I can tell you I haven’t left your side the entire time. Starbucks may not deliver for anybody else, but for Spencer, they made an exception. They apparently equipped him with his own small packets of Starbucks originals. I found the assortment in his pantry. I had one of the guys go out and prepare me one to give me a jolt of caffeine I needed to stay awake. I have to wonder whether it was decaf, but I specifically asked for the strongest they could make,” Tristan said as I took a whiff of the elixir of life and found myself wishing there was a way for me to have one of Starbucks’ hot chocolates with the whipped cream over the top. It was expensive, but it was worth every sip from that warm cup.

  I pointed to the cup, and he brought it over to me. I drank the strong brew and had to admit this chain was more for those who were willing to spend their hard earned dollars on something that was going to make them smile.

  “I shouldn’t be doing this, and the last thing Leslie had said before I passed out was you were going to have to take it easy for a few days. There’s no point in pushing yourself. You’re going to be relegated to a bland diet and water. I just hope I’m not doing you any harm by letting you have this. You look so pitiful staring at me. I am unable to resist,” Tristan said as I downed the entire cup and actually felt like I was a little more like myself. This was the time Leslie reappeared with the laptop.

  “I’m not very appreciative of the way you’re treating my patient. I didn’t have that on the menu, but I don’t see how one cup is going to be a detriment to her health. Just try to limit the consumption. I am trying to give her a full recovery, and I don’t want anybody or anything to stand in the way,” Leslie said as she put the laptop in my lap. It dawned on me just then that this was exactly why they came up with the name for a computer sitting right in your lap. It was strange when I began to think about it. I had never put that reference together before.

  “I hope you do not depend on a miracle because I really don’t know him as well as you do. If you couldn’t get in, then it would seem foolish to think I would have any better luck,” I said opening it to see the page was asking for the elusive password.

  “The only thing I want from you is for you to do your best and not overdo it. The best thing for your recovery is to rest. I don’t even want to have to say this, but sex is off the table for the next little while. I would say maybe two days, and then you can get back in the saddle. Give it 48 hours before you do anything strenuous. That’s not too much to ask considering your life was in the palm of my hand. Do me the courtesy of listening to me. Your body might tell you one thing, but I’m telling you how it really is. You are as weak as a kitten, but you will be okay. Just follow my orders to th
e letter, and I’ll have you back on your feet in no time,” Leslie said as she stood close by like she had a vested interest in all of this.

  “I know what you want from me, but I’m not sure you have the right person. I may be related to my father, but it doesn’t mean I know him any better than you do. I’m not going to say you’re wasting your time. I am going to say it’s unlikely I’m going to be able to do this. You may have to call in some expert who has knowledge about these things. I would suggest Tristan, but I’m not sure he has that kind of expertise. There’s only one way to find out. He’s usually pretty up front about his technical abilities,” I said as she was looking at me kind of strangely as if I might be lying to save face.

  “The one thing I will never do is presume anything. It’s really not all that important, except perhaps for the possibility that the person who did this to you and your father might be coming here as we speak. I don’t want to give you any reason to be concerned, but Spencer did make a point to double security. He was playing before, but not this time. He wouldn’t have done that without having a reason to. He certainly didn’t relay to me what this might have been, but I can surmise from everything that has been going on around here,” Leslie said as she walked back over to my father to check his vitals like they were going to change after only a few minutes of her being away from him.