Boxed Set: The Billionaire’s Desire Complete Collection (Books 1-3 and Bonus Books 1 and 2) (Submitting to the Billionaire)

by Blake, Ashley

  “Okay, what do you say we go to lunch?” He gently swatted me on the bottom as I bent over to put on my shoes.

  "Sounds good."

  CHAPTER 6

  I reluctantly went to go get Natalia for lunch, but I put on a smile because I had just had amazing office sex and I promised my husband I would play nice. Jake joined us for lunch and I suffered through the meal and tried to keep my snarky comments to myself. I noticed that Natalia was being overly flirtatious with Joshua in an almost disrespectful way and he did nothing to stop it. I thought I may have seen a knowing look pass between the two of them but I pushed that out of my mind. There is no way that just happened. He seemed to be completely oblivious to her flirting as his attention was mostly focused on winking at me throughout lunch. I glanced over at Natalia and sneered at her as I held Joshua’s hand across the table. All mine.

  “Okay you lovebirds, cut it out.” Jake playfully pulled our hands apart and I giggled and Joshua chuckled as we kept our hands to ourselves.

  “Oh come on, no ribbing little brother. I haven’t seen my lovely wife in three weeks!”

  “I know, I know but you two are as affectionate with each as you were the day you got married! If I didn’t know you both I would think that you were newlyweds!”

  I could not have been any happier that Jake chose that moment to say those nice things. It seemed that Natalia needed a reminder that Joshua was very taken.

  “Oh, Jake. You and Lauren are exactly the same way. And now that the baby is here, there is even more love between you, I’ve seen it.” I gave him a teasing smile and he blushed a bit.

  “True, true. I’m in love with two women now, my gorgeous wife and my beautiful daughter.” His smile lit up the room.

  I didn’t really have to say what I said next, but I wanted to make sure that Natalia heard me loud and clear. “You know, children really do add a new dimension of love between a husband and wife. I knew that I loved Joshua many years ago, but when we had our girls that love for him was magnified.” I looked squarely at Natalia. “Our bond is unbreakable.”

  She squirmed in her seat and looked uncomfortable. Good, it looks like she got the message.

  “Well, now that our love fest is over we should probably get back to work. Joshua, you and Natalia must be exhausted so I’m sure you won’t be working late, right?” Jake was good about making sure that Joshua didn’t push himself the way that he used to.

  “No, it won’t be late. I’m dying to see our girls so Sarah and I will be leaving around 5:00.”

  Lunch was over before I knew it and it was much less painful than I had anticipated. Joshua paid the bill and we all headed back to the office. The rest of the day flew by and it was time to go home before I knew it. I was extra excited about going home that day because the girls would still be awake and they were going to see their father after three weeks.

  I gathered my things and I was humming to myself as I walked down the hall to Joshua's office. I knocked softly on the door and when I did not hear a response I slowly opened the door and my stomach dropped into my toes. I felt as though I was going to throw up, and I was completely in shock at what I saw. Natalia was straddling Joshua and he had his hands on her arms as if to pull her to him. I dropped my purse, the motion making a loud thud sound, and they both quickly looked over at me. Joshua pushed her off of him and a nasty smirk curled up the corner of Natalia’s mouth, and it took everything I had not to run toward them and shove both of them through the glass window.

  I noticed that Natalia’s lipstick was smeared and then everything went red and I exploded on them.

  “What in the hell is going on here?!!”

  “Sarah, this is not what it looks like!” Joshua looked desperate for me to believe him.

  “Oh really? Because what it looks like is that you had a whore sitting on your lap!”

  “I am not a whore!” Natalia had the nerve to put her hand on her hip as she spoke to me.

  I whipped my head in her direction, narrowed my eyes at her and spoke to her through gritted teeth. “It is in your best interest not to speak to me and to leave this office immediately, because if you don’t I will rip your throat out through your mouth!” I looked her straight in her eye and spoke in a dead pan voice. “I am dead fucking serious.”

  Natalia hesitated and looked at Joshua who would not look in her direction, and straightened her clothes and left.

  I slammed the office door closed behind her and turned my fiery gaze toward Joshua. Not once in all of the years we had been married did I ever worry about him cheating on me. We had the kind of relationship that most people dreamed of, or at least I thought we did. He loved and trusted me and I loved and trusted him, until now. I wanted to give him a chance to explain because something like this had never happened before and my heart was hurting thinking that I may have been naïve all of these years.

  “Do you mind telling me what the hell happened in here?!”

  “Natalia pounced on me Sarah and I tried to fight her off. That is all that happened, I swear. I had no idea that she still had feelings for me, I thought she had gotten over that years ago but apparently she hasn’t.” He came over to me and grabbed my arms near my shoulders. “Look at me! I would never do anything to hurt you, ever! I would rather die first than hurt you!”

  I tried to process what he was saying to me through my hurt and anger but it was difficult to see things his way. If he really didn’t want her to touch him, he was strong enough to keep her away. But when I walked in she was clearly straddling him and leaning in toward him. I looked into his eyes, trying to see if he was being truthful when I noticed something on his lips. Is that lipstick? Do I see traces of red fucking lipstick on his lips? My body stiffened and I snatched my arms away pulling out of his grip and he looked shocked by my sudden movement away from him.

  I tried to control my rage when I spoke but it was clearly evident that I was pissed. “You have lipstick on your mouth Joshua. How the hell did that happen?!” To say that I sounded angry is an understatement. I wanted to smack him across the face for doing this to me, to us, but I was afraid that if I started hitting him I wouldn’t stop.

  He started to speak and I interrupted him. “You know what, save it. I don’t want to hear anymore of your lies.” I turned sad eyes to him and held his gaze for a few seconds. “I would never hurt you like this.” I then turned and walked toward the door of his office.

  “Sarah! You are not listening to me! Sarah, stop right there!”

  I stopped when I heard how angry he sounded and I turned around to glare at him.

  “I told you nothing happened and I meant it! Nothing happened!” His voice bellowed throughout the office and I was grateful that it was soundproof in there. “I am not lying to you and the fact that you are questioning me is beginning to make me really angry! I would not do something like this to you! She came on to me and what you saw was me pushing her away, that is all!”

  Tears started rolling down my cheeks because what I saw looked like my husband was cheating on me. He came over to me and wiped away my tears and I raised my eyes to meet his.

  “I can’t handle this right now Joshua, my head is swimming and I am getting a pounding headache. Let’s just go home, the girls are dying to see you. I don’t want them to know that anything is wrong. We can discuss this later.”

  He must have been able to see how exhausted I was by all of this because he dropped it and we went home. I didn’t speak to him in the car on the way home and he didn’t try to push me and I was really grateful for that. As soon as we walked in the house the girls went running up to him and he gave them both big hugs and kisses. I turned on a smile because I didn’t want them to know that anything was wrong and we all had a nice evening together. We all had dinner and then we put the girls to bed and read them a bedtime story, during which they fell asleep. They looked like little angels all tucked in their beds and I stood looking at them thinking about how much I loved them, Joshua and our life
together when the tears started to roll down my cheeks again. I couldn’t shake the image of Natalia on his lap and Joshua could see that I was crying and he quietly led me out of their room.

  We went to our room and closed the door and sat on our bed.

  “Talk to me Sarah. Please. I want to make things right, I want to make you feel secure.”

  “I can’t seem to shake the image of her on your lap; it makes me sick to my stomach. So you claim that she came on to you. Why did you have lipstick on your mouth?”

  “She caught me off guard and surprised me by pouncing on me and kissing me at the same time. It happened so fast I couldn’t stop her!”

  He was pleading with me and I wanted so badly to believe him but it was hard. They were flirting at lunch, or at least it seemed that they were. He definitely didn’t do anything to stop her shameless flirting. Jake even gave me a funny look when he saw Natalia’s behavior. Why couldn’t you just stay away from her? Maybe you didn’t really want to.

  “Joshua, let’s flip the scenario. What would you have done if you had walked in on me and a man had me pinned against the wall and my lipstick was on his lips? You would fly into a jealous rage and you would probably not speak to me for days or even weeks. This is a lot for me to digest because I have never seen this behavior from you.”

  “Exactly, you have never seen this behavior from me because nothing like this has ever happened before.”

  “Really? And how do I know that? How do I know that you aren’t having an affair with Natalia? You did both conveniently arrive here from Paris together on our private jet. How do I know nothing happened there? See? The fact that I’m even thinking this way now is making me sick to my stomach.”

  “Sarah. How do you know something like this hasn’t happened before?? Are you serious? If you don’t trust me then we have nothing and we shouldn’t be together.”

  I looked at him and crossed my arms and narrowed my eyes, suspicion coursing through my veins. “You conveniently avoided answering the question.”

  His eyes simmered with fire as he held my gaze and I could tell that he was beyond angry. He stood there silent, staring at me for a couple of minutes and I began to grow uncomfortable by the silence. Is he trying to think of a way to tell me he is having an affair?

  I finally spoke because I couldn’t take the deafening silence anymore. “Just tell me the truth Joshua. Are you having an affair?”

  The look on his face changed from anger to sadness right before my eyes. He turned his sad eyes to me and I could have sworn I saw tears brimming in the corners. Oh my god, he’s going to confess. I was terrified and my stomach sank into my toes.

  “I cannot believe you are seriously asking me this. You really don’t know me at all Sarah.” He got up off of the bed and looked down at me with disgust. “I’m going to sleep in the guest room tonight.” And with that, he walked out of the bedroom and the door closed behind him with a soft thud.

  What the hell just happened here? I was so upset I just let all the tears flow down my cheeks. I had never felt so sad in my entire life.

  ***

  To be continued…

  Sarah's world is falling apart around her and she is afraid that she is going to lose everything. She is seeing a side of Joshua she has never seen before and she wonders if things can ever get back to the way they were. Has she been silly to think that this would last? She doesn't recognize the cold eyes that now stare back at her, and she is afraid that too much damage has been done to be repaired. Is Sarah destined to look for love with someone else or is this gorgeous billionaire the one for her?

  The Billionaire’s Desire

  Bonus Book 4: Part 2 of 2

  Always and Forever

  (Submitting to the Billionaire Series)

  by

  Ashley Blake

  ***

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  Published by Lovely Day. Copyright, 2013 by Ashley Blake.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental. No portion of this work may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

  CHAPTER 1

  I sat on my bed, crying uncontrollably because it felt like my whole world was falling apart. Had I been so stupid as to believe that a man like Joshua, a man with a ton of money, good looks and power would be satisfied with someone like me? Had my head been buried in the sand all this time? I was starting to wonder if I knew my husband at all and I hated that I was doubting what we had. I lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, trying to figure out if I really saw what I thought I saw when I walked into Joshua’s office. My tears dried up as I fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.

  I woke up the next morning still wearing my clothes from the day before, feeling very disoriented. Why am I still wearing my clothes from yesterday? Then it hit me, I saw Joshua and Natalia in his office. A feeling of sorrow flooded over me as I tried to push the image of the two of them together out of my head. It was 7:00 and I was running late for work so I jumped in the shower. Thank goodness we had Mara to help get the girls ready for school. I had no idea if Joshua was still at home or if he had already left for the office and I was nervous to see him.

  Once I was dressed, I gingerly opened the door and listened for Joshua’s deep voice. When I didn’t hear him, I went down to the kitchen and joined the girls who were just finishing up their breakfast.

  “Mommy, daddy told us to tell you that he was going into the office early today so he would just see you there.” Claire’s big brown eyes smiled and I could tell that she was proud of herself that she was able to remember what her father had told her to tell me.

  “Thank you honey, good job remembering the message that you were supposed to give me.”

  “I remembered too mommy.” Abby didn’t want to be left out of the conversation.

  “Good job, baby. You girls are just getting smarter every day.” I smiled at my gorgeous girls.

  They both had huge smiles on their faces and I could tell they were happy with themselves. They were so cute and they were growing up so fast. I started to feel sad again about the situation with Joshua and I stopped myself because I didn't want the girls to see me upset.

  I decided to drive them to school that day because I needed to be with my babies, I needed to feel some level of comfort. After I dropped them off, I felt a pit in my stomach as I made my way to our office. I was really nervous about seeing Joshua and didn’t even want to deal with running into Natalia.

  I went straight to my office and closed the door, thankful that I did not see Joshua or Natalia on my way in. Carol knocked on my door within one minute of my arrival, and I asked her to come in and close the door behind her.

  “Sarah, is everything okay? Pardon my language but you look like hell. Are you feeling alright? Can I get you anything?”

  “I had a rough night but I’ll be okay. Tell me, is anything going on around here?” I didn’t feel like sharing any of my marital woes and I didn’t want to ask directly about Natalia, I was hoping that Carol would have some information for me.

  "I don't know what happened, but apparently Ms. Wittendale has been relieved of her duties and she was not allowed to enter the building today. All of her belongings have been packed for her and she will be returning to London this afternoon. It seems that certain people are dropping like flies around here, I don’t know what’s going on.”

  "I guess people aren't performing their job duties to the best of their abilities and you know that Joshua has a very low tolerance for that type of behavior. So what’s on the agenda for today?” I felt so relieved that she was gone because that was one less issue I would h
ave to deal with.

  “Well, Mr. Hunter had a memo sent around informing us that he will be out of the office in meetings for most of the day and if anyone needs to reach him they should contact his secretary. But that doesn’t apply to you of course.”

  Little do you know how much that actually does apply to me right now. I had to admit that I felt a bit relieved that Joshua was not going to be in the office for most of the day and that meant that I probably would not see him. I didn’t know what I would say if I did and I really didn’t want to see him, at least not yet.

  "You have a meeting with Brad at 9:30 and a meeting with Michael at 11:00. After that your schedule is completely clear so hopefully that will give you time to catch up on other work this afternoon.”

  “Okay, thanks Carol. I’ll let you know if I need anything else.”