by Tiana Cole
“I knew I could count on you for a romantic Irish perspective.”
“Glad to be there for you.” Kieran sat for a time. “You know, you and my sister would’ve been a rotten couple.”
“Think so?”
“I do. She thinks so too.”
“So why were you all fired up?”
“Tradition. We lawyers love our traditions.”
“Is there a traditional way to get passed that?”
“Well, if we follow Irish tradition, we’d probably have a knock-down, drag out fight down at the local, then buy each other drinks until we pass out.”
“I can see the wisdom in that, but is there another option?”
“Well, the sterile, watered-down, Americanized, politically correct, FDA-approved version would be for you to just order up another bottle of whiskey.”
“I can do that.”
The door to Deja’s room opened and the doctor came out, smiling.
“Is she all right?”
“She’s my patient. Of course she’ll be fine. She’s sleeping at the moment.”
James sighed with relief. “So she’ll get over this?”
“Absolutely. It won’t happen quickly however.”
“How long will it take?”
“She’ll get over these symptoms fairly quickly. The underlying cause will take longer.”
“Underlying cause?” James asked.
“Well, vomiting is not recognized as an illness, you see.”
“How long until she’s herself again?”
The doctor laughed. “Oh, before she’s only herself? Approximately eight months. But babies are notoriously unreliable about keeping appointments.”
“A baby?”
Kieran roared. “You’re a dad, James.”
The doctor nodded. “I did a quick test, and while there is a possibility of false positives, the test results, along with the nausea and other symptoms suggest that your wife is a healthy pregnant female. I want you to get her to an OB/GYN tomorrow to confirm it and to start her prenatal care.” He handed them a card. “Since you don’t live here, you might want to call my cousin. She is excellent.”
“Of course!”
Kieran went to the bar. “That deserves a toast. Will you join us, doctor?”
“I’d be honored.”
James sighed. “Better make mine an orange juice, Kieran. My wife and I have done enough alcohol to last us for some time.”
The doctor nodded. “And she is off the stuff for the duration.”
After the toast, the doctor left and Kieran sat in a big chair, a smile spreading over his face. “So, James Andrews as a daddy. What does that do for your messy domestic planning?”
“Well, Deja being pregnant changes a lot of things.”
“Because, due to my excellent legal advice, you are still married to the lady, that takes care of one important detail. Assuming she’s willing to stay married to such a bum.”
“She’ll be a great mom too.”
“And so?”
“So, I suppose I’d better go ask the lady, see if she wants to be Mrs. Andrews permanently. I couldn’t blame her entirely if she said no. It’s been a rocky road to the altar.”
“At least you were both at the altar on time.” As James headed for the bedroom, Kieran coughed. “I suggest that after she gives you her decision you ask her to call Shen Liang with the news.”
“More legal advice?”
“No, that’s a friend talking at you.”
“Well, friend, I’ll do it, but it will likely be a formality.”
“Why?”
“Because Shen Liang knows everything before the rest of us.”
And when she called, Shen Liang was pleased, but certainly didn’t sound surprised.
CHAPTER TWELVE
James and Deja went to see Barbara together, walking into her room, holding hands and bringing a weak smile to her face. “Not only am I glad to see you two, but I have to say I’ve never seen anyone look happier than you two.”
“It’s good to see you awake and smiling. I know it wasn’t easy. You’ve had a rough time,” James said, bending over the bed to kiss her cheek. “You have a fever.”
“Who cares? I’ve been in the hospital forever. Right now, I’m inclined to believe that being anything better than a cadaver is damn good, James Andrews. And guess what, you kept your promise about the pain. I hurt like hell, but that’s so much different.
I’m still feeling some of the ‘they cut me to pieces and sewed me up’ kind of pain. But it’s only been a few weeks since the last procedure and that will go away. That other pain, the one that says you are dying, is gone. I have to thank you for that.”
“Thank these great doctors.”
“I will, I do, I have. But without you, I wouldn’t have them.” She winked at Deja. “I bet you don’t even know.”
James suddenly realized what she was going to say. He had no idea how she could know, but she did. “Barbara, no.”
Deja looked at James, then at Barbara. “What? Tell me.”
“During the last couple of months, recovering from surgery, then having a new one, I’ve had a fair amount of time on my hands. So I did some research. I found out that the grant that paid for the surgery was a very special one—so special that it had my name on it before the ink was wet. And it was funded by a dog food company in Los Angeles.”
“Dog food?” Deja laughed.
“I wormed bits of the truth out of the staff and the doctor from UCLA. She wanted me to know, so that wasn’t hard. Then when that Irish lawyer representing the company came by, well he was a piece of cake. He thought he’d flatter me, but I had him spilling his guts in no time.”
“About what?”
“About a handsome guy you know, who owns the holding company that owns the dog food company that, incidentally, has never made so much as one can of dog food. I was tickled to find out that it invests in virtual reality companies, because about then the entire world seems rather virtually real.” She held out her hand. “Thank you, James.”
Deja felt her head spin. “You paid for it? Why didn’t you tell me? Why the secrecy?”
“It’s a corollary of the saying that no good deed goes unpunished. We were trying to sort out our feelings for each other. It was before we knew…anyway, I’d pretty much made up my mind to ask you to marry me, well, to stay married to me, but I wanted to wait a bit longer. The problem was that Barbara didn’t have the time for me to get off my lazy ass.”
“But you could’ve told me.”
“And then I’d feel like I was buying you, or maybe you’d feel like I was trying to force your hand. It just felt like it should be secret until our relationship was resolved. After all the creepy things between us over money, I needed to feel that when you gave me your decision, it would be about us, and not Barbara.” He took Barbara’s hand. “Not that I don’t like you, Barbara.”
Barbara giggled. “So you helped me secretly to make my illness a non-issue in your romance.”
“Something like that. I’d say it in a way that made me look better than that sounded.”
“Well, I was the beneficiary.”
“I was glad to use my money for something truly good.”
She squeezed his hand. “Me too, James. But that happens now?”
“You get better.”
“I do?”
“The doctors say so. They insist. I paid them all that money after all. If you don’t, they’ll look foolish.”
She spread her hands out. “If I must. And what do you do? You two?”
James grinned at Deja. “Well, I have a lot of business to attend to, thanks to my lady. By the way, she probably has more influence with my new partner than I do. Other than that, I suppose we’ll just sit around, make moony eyes at each other, and watch you to get healthy enough to be at the birth of our baby.”
Barbara shrieked. “A baby.”
Deja smiled at her. “And, at some point, to dance at
our wedding.”
Barbara’s eyes sparkled. “At your wedding?”
He nodded. “Technically it isn’t necessary. As my Irish dog food lawyer is fond of pointing out, we are well married now. We just thought it would be nice to have an Elvis-free ceremony with our friends and family. It seems everybody missed the first one—even me.”
“It turned out that Alan confessed to spiking James’s drink,” Deja explained. “He was more drugged than drunk, and that was why he didn’t pass out. The drug impaired his judgment, but not much else.” She poked his side.
“I’d also like to have a video of our wedding that we won’t mind the kid seeing when she’s bigger.” He squeezed both their hands. “And, in case the public at large cares at all, I want to convert my accidental bride into an extremely deliberate choice.”
Barbara laughed. “That’s all well and good, but getting married without Elvis? I do like Elvis.”
“I’ll buy you all his CDs for a get well present.”
She rubbed her hands together gleefully. “That’s a lot of CDs.”
Deja beamed. Seeing the joy on her sister’s face, a happiness that almost matched her own, was the greatest wedding present a person could have. Suddenly, she put her hand on her belly. “She kicked me.” Then she grinned. “At least I felt something.”
Barbara reached out and Deja put her hand on her belly, holding it there. “It’s still a little early for that, isn’t it. You’re only about three months along. She giggled. “But maybe she’s found a way to send us a coded message.”
“Really?”
“The little dear is telling us she wants the band to play Elvis tunes at the wedding.”
Deja smiled at James. “As an only child, you have yet to learn the harsh lessons of the baggage of family. It’s one of the hazards of marriage. Just in case you hadn’t noticed already.”
He laughed. “I wasn’t going to mention that. Besides, in this case, there are a couple of compensations.”
“Any plans for where you’ll go on your honeymoon?”
Deja laughed and clapped her hands. “Shen Liang offered us the use of a beach house he owns in Tahiti.”
James snorted. “He’s taken a shine to Deja. He overruled what he considered my more pedestrian choices. I was thinking Mexico, and you would’ve thought I suggested Detroit or Beirut.”
Barb laughed. “I like this partner of yours already. I assume he’ll be at the wedding?”
“Of course. He said he’ll come only because he wants to dance with his favorite sisters.”
Deja sighed happily. It had been a rough road.
The choices she’d made in the beginning had started them down the wrong path, but now they were starting to recover. Not that it would be easy. Life with James would always be challenging. Challenging but exciting, and she knew she’d lucked onto a good man, the right man for her. He loved her too…how he loved her and made love to her.
She’d found him by accident. But she was through with accidents. Now she’d have his baby, and be his deliberate bride.
THE END
****
I hope you enjoyed this story.
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EXCERPT FROM Billionaire by Design
What’s the status of order fifty-seven?” Jenna shouted as she mindlessly wiped down the restaurant’s front counter.
“Coming right up!” a male voice answered from the back.
Michael, who’d been scheduled to man the grill that afternoon, rushed to the front to hand the waiting customer a brown bag containing two piping hot cheeseburgers. He shot Jenna a friendly smile on his way back to his station, and she returned it as she continued cleaning the counter.
At twenty-four years old, the last thing Jenna Parker ever envisioned was working at a fast food joint in Tucson, Arizona. Originally from New York City, she’d made the long move to the desert four years earlier in hopes of building a better life for herself. It was hard leaving her family behind, but she’d been told countless times that the Southwest’s wide, open space and dry air would be much better for her asthma. That had actually proven true, but she’d had other reasons for the move as well. Having grown up in a rough neighborhood in Brooklyn, she’d watched all three of her brothers succumb to gang life. One had been gunned down outside of a club eight years earlier, one had been sentenced to ten years in prison for armed robbery, and the other… well, it was just a matter of time before he also wound up dead or in prison.
As the youngest of the four, her father had skipped out on them just after she was born. Her mother rarely talked about him, but Jenna suspected he may have left her for another woman. Unlike her brothers, she avoided trouble at all costs by keeping her nose buried in either a book or her sketchpad. Reading and artwork were her escape, and from an early age, she dreamt of someday moving far away from the neighborhood she’d watched suck the life out of so many people.
It was a sinkhole of negativity, but it was the best her mother could do having been left on her own to raise four children. More than a few times she’d heard murmurs that her mom had resorted to prostitution to keep food on the table, but she chose to believe that couldn’t be true.
Most of her female friends had dropped out of high school after allowing themselves to be smooth-talked and subsequently knocked-up by the wrong men, but Jenna vowed that would never happen to her. She’d never allow herself to become another inner-city statistic, and kept her focus aimed at her studies. She’d proudly graduated at the top of her class, and she planned on using the scholarship she’d been awarded to further her education. Straight out of high school, Jenna took a full-time job at a local bodega knowing that every penny she saved would be going towards her inevitable move. In her downtime, her cheap tablet took the place of her sketchbook as she developed a penchant for graphic art.
Although it pained her to do it, she used some of the money she’d stashed away for her move to buy herself a desktop computer. She justified it as an investment since it was essential to continue pursuing her digital artwork. She spent her evenings teaching herself Photoshop and honing her skills, relieved by how supportive her mother was of her new-found passion.
In the two years she worked at the bodega, the small store got robbed by gunpoint on three separate occasions, two of which she’d been present for. After having a masked assailant shout demands at her while waving a pistol in her face for a second time, she collected her final paycheck and called it quits. She would have liked to have saved up a bit more money, but knew she had enough to finally move out of the city if she budgeted just right. Having heard nothing but good things about the Southwest’s climate and scenic views, and after a fair degree of research, she enrolled at The University of Arizona to major in graphic design. She packed all of her belongings into her beat-up 1992 Ford Tempo and prayed that it had enough life left in it to get her across the country. With a heavy heart, she said her goodbyes to her mother and remaining brother before setting off to start a new, and hopefully better, chapter in her life.
For as smart as she was, she kicked herself for believing her old car could make the 2,400 mile drive without issue. Along the way, she had to replace its starter, alternator, one headlight, four brake pads, and a blown tire.
She hadn’t accounted for such unexpected expenses, and by the time she rolled into Tucson, she had less than two hundred dollars left to her name. She had to fight back tears as she pawned the sterling silver necklace her grandmother had given her shortly before her death, and she only managed to score eighty dollars for it.
She had slept in her car the first two nights, having spent her days scouring the help wanted section of the Arizona Daily Star newspaper and calling as many places as she could. When she stopped by Family Burger on her third day hoping to find a cheap meal, the “Now Hiring” sign taped to the back-lit menu behind the co
unter seemed like an act of divine intervention. Fast food wasn’t her first choice, but given her circumstances, she couldn’t exactly be picky. Not many places were chomping at the bit to hire a poor young black girl from the ghetto.
As luck would have it, the manager happened to be on duty and was able to interview her on the spot thanks to business being slow. He was a short, friendly Mexican man and the two took an instant liking to one another. She was completely honest about her situation, and when he learned that she could begin work immediately, he welcomed her aboard and scheduled her to start the very next day.
At 5’9” with long legs, ample breasts, and a toned body, Jenna had grown accustomed to being told she was beautiful. She remained modest, however, and was always dismissive of the compliments.
She certainly didn’t feel very attractive after traveling for days and having slept in her car for two sweltering nights. The summer heat had been brutal, and even if her clunker of a vehicle had air conditioning, she couldn’t have afforded the gas needed to enjoy it. She was surprised Family Burger had been so quick to hire her and counted her blessings as she checked into the cheapest model she could find to take a much-needed shower and rest on an actual bed.
Family Burger was meant to be a stepping stone; a temporary job to tide her over until something better came along. Yet, they treated her so well that she found herself still under their employment four years later and had worked her way up to assistant manager.
The pay wasn’t great, but enough to scrape by, and she’d settled into a small apartment with a fellow employee nearby. Her schooling was going quite well, and the restaurant had been very accommodating in working around her academic schedule. Her coworker and new roommate, Leigh, had become a close friend and the only real support system she had out West.
In the four years she’d worked for Family Burger, she’d never seen anything quite like this. Hearing the restaurant’s entrance chime, she looked up to see a strikingly handsome man in a solid black business suit striding across the lobby towards her.