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

by Blake, Ashley

  We had dinner with the twins and they had no idea that there was tension between us because we acted like everything was okay in front of them. After dinner, we played with them for a while and then we put them to bed and went to our room to talk.

  We walked into our room and Joshua closed the door behind us, and then turned and just stared at me with his arms folded across his chest. I sat down and looked up at him and my throat was dry and my heart felt like it was going to leap out of my chest, I was so nervous. He stood there looking at me for probably a full two minutes, not saying a word, and I sure wasn’t going to be the first one to say anything, at least not with that look on his face. I felt so uneasy under his stare and I started to squirm a bit in my chair as he continued to stare at me.

  He had zero emotion in his eyes when he finally spoke to me and that probably scared me more than anything because when Joshua Hunter was done with you, he was completely done with you.

  “Did you buy your dress for the event in the Hamptons this weekend?”

  I perked up a bit because maybe he just wanted things to go back to the way they were, but I had already decided that I was not going to go to the event. It would be entirely too awkward with the way things were between us right now so I figured it was probably best if I just stayed home and Joshua went.

  “No, I didn’t think it was such a good idea if I went to the event, you know with the way things are, so I thought I should probably just stay home.”

  Joshua gave me an extremely disapproving look as he furrowed his brow. “You are going Sarah. I want you have your personal shopper buy several dresses for you to choose from tomorrow, and then I want you to put on that dress this weekend for the event in the Hamptons and walk around and network with people. I told you that this was the most important networking event of the year and I am not going to allow what is going on between us to affect that. You are going to put on a pretty smile and act like there is nothing wrong between us. So, like I said, you are going Sarah, period. Do I make myself clear?” His tone was low but firm and I knew he was serious so I just agreed with him.

  “Yes. I’ll call Lorraine tomorrow and have her send over the dresses.” I wanted to ask him what he meant earlier when he texted me that he had made a decision but I was too afraid to ask, so I just sat there looking at my hands waiting for him to say something again.

  “Sarah, look at me.” His voice was stern with a hint of annoyance, but I raised my eyes to meet his. He still had that same look of disgust on his face that he had the night he told me he was sleeping in the guest room.

  “I texted you earlier that I wanted to talk to you because I have made a decision. After the Hamptons event this weekend I am going to stay in one of the corporate apartments for a while. I will be here every night for dinner with the girls and to put them to sleep, but after that I will be sleeping in the apartment. I don’t want the girls to know that anything is wrong unless, or until, we get to the point where we have to tell them.”

  I looked at him in disbelief and his eyes iced over as he held my gaze. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. No, no, no, no no, no!

  “No!” I stopped myself from saying more because I couldn’t believe I had said that out loud.

  His eyes were angry as they pierced right through me. “No?! You accuse me of something disgusting and you expect for me to stay here? I told you nothing happened and you did not believe me! Trust is a huge part of this relationship and without it we have nothing. It is more than obvious to me that you do not trust me and I have no desire to be with someone who feels that way about me! I think time apart will be good for us because maybe we have been naïve to think that this could last forever. I have a lot to offer someone and I still have a lot of life to live, so maybe I should be with someone who trusts me and wants to be with me. Clearly Sarah, that person does not seem to be you.”

  I wanted to die on the spot and I could not believe he was saying these things to me. I literally pinched my arm because I thought for sure that I had to be dreaming, but when I felt the tinge of pain I realize that this was all too real.

  How did this happen? How did we get to this point?

  I pleaded with him, short of begging. “Joshua, you can't just leave, we have to talk about this! Married people are supposed to communicate, so please let's communicate.”

  "I tried to tell you Sarah, I tried to communicate with you, but you did not want to listen to me. You know that trust is the most important thing in a relationship to me and I see that you do not trust me. So now I think it's best that we take some time apart and see where things go. Maybe I was never the right man for you and maybe you were never the right woman for me. But hear me clearly on something. Our girls are not to know that there is anything wrong between us. The same thing goes for this weekend at the Hamptons. We are going to stay at our Hamptons house together, we are going to attend the event together and we are going to appear as a happy married couple. Understood?”

  I wanted to scream and yell and throw things at him but that wouldn’t do anything but make him more upset with me. I started to realize that I had been wrong about this whole thing. Joshua would not react this way if he were guilty. I suddenly realized that he would not get that upset unless he had been telling me the truth. Oh my gosh, he really didn’t do anything wrong! I felt like a big idiot because I did not believe him at first, but I wanted to tell him that I was wrong. I wanted him to know that I believed him. But it seemed to be too late and now I would have to do damage control. I would do whatever I had to to fix things between us. I was not going to let him get away, I would play along and do what he wanted this weekend and by the time the weekend was over, he would change his mind about moving out. It had to work, it just had to.

  “I said, understood?” He was visibly annoyed with me.

  “Yes, Joshua.”

  “Good. Tomorrow night after we have put the girls to bed I want you to model each dress for me so that I can choose what you are going to wear in the Hamptons. The car will pick us up at 10:00 Saturday morning so be sure that you are ready by then and waiting for me near the front door.”

  Joshua stood there and looked at me for a full minute and I was trying to figure out what he was thinking. I couldn’t see even a glimmer of the man I had married behind those eyes of stone. How can you be this cold to me?

  “I’ll be out of the office tomorrow in meetings most of the day so I will just see you back here for dinner with the twins.” With that, he left me sitting on our bed and closed the door behind him without so much as a goodnight.

  I sat there dazed and confused. He wants to move out, I can’t believe this. What am I going to do? My world felt like it was crashing down around me and as I sat there, the tears flowed down my cheeks once again. I can’t lose my husband, I can’t lose this incredible life and incredible family that we have. The life we had built together was so perfect and I didn’t want to just let that go, I knew I had to do something to fix it.

  I sat staring at the floor and thought of my little girls and what it would do to them if we split up and I cried even harder. I curled up in a ball and thought about the day I told Joshua that we were pregnant.

  We had been married for nearly three years and we lived in a townhouse on the Upper East Side and were just coming home from dinner, when I went to my closet to get the baby booties I had bought earlier that day after my doctor’s appointment. I balled them up in my hand so that Joshua would not see them. He had just taken off his shoes and was getting ready to change into pajamas when I grabbed his hand and pulled him to me for a big hug.

  “Do you love me?” I looked up at him and smiled.

  He looked down at me and kissed the tip of my nose. “More than anything, my love.”

  “I have a present for you.” I opened my hand so that he could see the booties and at first he looked confused and then a huge smile spread across his face.

  “We’re pregnant?” He was grinning from ear to ear.

&n
bsp; My smile was just as big as his as I nodded frantically. “We are!”

  Joshua picked me up and twirled me around and then he quickly stopped. “Oh I better not do that! I don’t want to do anything to hurt our baby.” He put his hand on my stomach and had so much concern in his eyes. “Are you okay?”

  I smiled at him with tears in my eyes. “I am perfect.”

  I sat up on the bed and wiped away my tears. I’ve really screwed things up. Why didn’t I just believe my husband when he told me that nothing happened? Because they looked so guilty. I sat there going over the scenario of me walking in on Joshua and Natalia in my head for the millionth time and I remembered his hands on her arms. Oh my gosh, he wasn’t pulling her toward him, he was pushing her away! I have really screwed everything up. I decided not to dwell on it and just focus on doing what I could to apologize. I’ll show him this weekend, he’ll know how sorry I am.

  CHAPTER 4

  The next day, thankfully, was a light work day for me because it was nearly impossible to think about work. I called Lorraine and arranged to have her find some dresses for me. Carol knew that something was wrong but she did not want to pry so she just asked me periodically if I needed anything. I told her that I was fine and that I would probably be leaving early to prepare for the event in the Hamptons the next day. I was sitting at my desk when I realized that I had not talked with Lauren in a while, and I wanted to stop by and see her and the baby and get her perspective on what was going on with me and Joshua. I called her to let her know that I would be stopping by and I left work for the day around 2:00 and headed over to her place.

  “Sarah, you look terrible! What is going on?”

  “Hello to you too, missy.” I managed to give her a half smile but I know that it did not reach my eyes. She was holding the baby and I gave Emily a kiss on the cheek and she cooed at me in the cutest way. “She is so beautiful Lauren and she is getting so big!”

  "I know, Jake and I can't believe how fast she is growing! It's just about time for her nap so come with me to her room while I put her down, okay?”

  After she put Emily down for a nap, Lauren and I went to the living room to sit on the couch and have a cup of coffee and talk.

  She reached out and grabbed my hand and turned her concerned eyes to me. “So, tell me what is going on Sarah, because I can tell that something is wrong.”

  I don't know if it was the gentleness of her voice or the fact that I had been an emotional wreck for the past couple of days but, once again, the tears began to flow.

  “Oh honey! What’s wrong?”

  I told her everything about how I walked in on Joshua and Natalia together, how we had a huge fight about it, and how that he now was thinking about moving out after the event in the Hamptons.

  "I don't know what to do Lauren! I don't want to lose my husband, I don't want to lose my family, and everything is such a huge mess!”

  “Okay, first of all take a deep breath. Now look at me. I don’t believe for one second that Joshua was doing anything inappropriate with that woman. Sarah, I knew Joshua back when I was in college and he was just starting out with the company, and he was nothing like the person that he is today. I told you all of this before but I think it’s important that you hear it again, you are the reason that he is such a wonderful person today. Joshua was so cold and unfeeling when I first met him and I didn’t think that he would ever find a woman who would want to put up with that, but then you came along and he softened right in front of my eyes. I would not have believed that it was even possible if I have not seen it for myself. You have made such a difference in this man’s life and I know that he would never do anything to jeopardize what you guys have.”

  “How do I fix this? Tell me what I need to do.”

  "I think you should go to the event this weekend, put on a happy face, and just be your wonderful self. When you guys are alone that will be the time when you should really talk to him, apologize to him, and let him know that you know that he would never cheat on you. Then go to the bedroom and remind him of the woman that he married.”

  “Lauren!” I had to smile at her last comment. I wasn’t shy about sex but I didn’t discuss our sex life with anyone.

  "Sometimes when men are being the way they can be, they need to be reminded of certain things. Make sure you remind him, that's all I’m saying. Right now Joshua is angry so you just need to let him have that for one more day and then show him the kind of woman, wife and mother he married. He’ll come around, trust me. He doesn’t want to lose you.”

  We chatted for a little while longer about the baby, my girls, adjusting to motherhood, and when Lauren was going back to work. She told me that she didn’t think she would be able to leave the baby so she probably was going to stay home until she was in school. I did the exact same thing. I couldn’t leave my girls and I was lucky enough to be in a situation where I could stay home with them until they went to school. I left her around 5:00 and thanked her for listening and for the advice.

  Joshua and I had dinner with the girls and acted like everything was perfectly fine between us so they had no idea there was any tension. After we put them to bed, Joshua followed me up to our room where a rack of dresses was waiting for me. He didn’t say a word; he just sat in the chair and waited for me to start trying on dresses for him.

  He shot down every dress I tried on and when I got to the final dress, which was a beautiful sky blue, I saw the change in his eyes and I knew that was the one.

  “That’s it, that’s the one. You’ll wear that one this weekend.” He hesitated and then looked at me as I stood there in the dress. “You look beautiful.” Then he got up and walked out of the room, once again, with not so much as a good night.

  Even though he left without saying good night, I smiled to myself because with the comment that I looked beautiful, I felt that he was warming up to me.

  CHAPTER 5

  The following morning we said goodbye to the girls and told them that we would call them later that evening to say goodnight.

  “Have fun at your fancy party mommy. I bet you’ll look pretty in your dress. Daddy, make sure you tell mommy that she looks pretty.” Claire was the more vocal of the two and I gave her a big hug and told her I would tell her and her sister all about the fancy party when I got home. I gave Abby a kiss and told them both that I loved them.

  Joshua assured Claire that he would tell me that I looked beautiful.

  “I tell mommy all the time that she looks pretty honey. Don’t worry, I’ll tell her tonight too.” He gave me a smile in front of the girls but it did not reach his eyes. He gave them kisses and then we left. The car was waiting for us outside and I was worried about the long drive to the Hamptons, alone with Joshua, since he was barely speaking to me. Right before I got into the car I resigned myself to the fact that we would probably be riding in silence. As I got in the car, Jake’s smiling face was grinning at me and I felt so much relief.

  “Hey what are you doing in here? Aren’t you supposed to be at home with your wife and baby?”

  “I couldn’t miss this event so I promised Lauren I would be home tomorrow.”

  “Oh, you’re going to miss the second day of schmoozing.” I gave him a teasing smile because I knew that he hated going to things like this, but both he and Joshua attended because they had to.

  “Yes, and I am so torn up about that, I don’t know how I will ever get over it!” Jake made a silly face which made me giggle and I was so happy that he was along for the ride.

  “Are you staying with us in our house?”

  “No, I am going to stay at our house and Ethan is going to stay with me.”

  I raised my eyebrows but did not say anything when he mentioned Ethan's name, and he must have noticed that I did that because he explained to me why he was spending time with Ethan.

  "I know, Sarah, I know that you do not approve of him especially after everything that we went through. But he and I have worked things out and we are okay, re
ally we are. So it will be fine, don’t worry.”

  I spoke to Ethan at work only when I absolutely had to, and I made it a point to avoid him at all of our family functions. Jake may have forgiven him for lying about the whole Vivienne thing all those years ago, but I had not forgotten and I was not yet ready to forgive.

  Joshua sat quietly going over reports and brushing up on different companies that would be represented that weekend.

  “You’re awfully quiet big brother, is something wrong?” Jake glanced over at Joshua with a hint of concern in his eyes.

  Joshua shot me a withering look before turning his attention toward Jake. “No, nothing is wrong, I'm just going over all of this material so that I can be prepared for all the people that I'm going to encounter this weekend.”

  The conversation then turned to work as we all discussed strategy on how to best spend our time this weekend and who we should focus on networking with. Joshua wanted us to try to sign new clients that weekend so we spent most of the car ride talking about that.