The Billionaire From Los Angeles: A BWWM Billionaire Romance (United States Of Billionaires Book 9)

by Simply BWWM

  She did not tell them what she had caught Maurice doing the night before, because she knew that if she told them that, they would hate him, and then she would have to explain why he felt justified in screwing both of the women, because she had slept with Shane and been paid for it. It was one big, huge, nasty mess that she didn’t want to get into at all. She wanted to keep things simple, especially at work, so she told them that she and Shane were just friends, which would be true, now that they had already been lovers and would not be again, and that they would be spending the day together as friends, just for fun.

  Her coworkers didn’t care that she had the ‘friend safety shield’ up between her and Shane; they were encouraged that she was seeing him at all, especially because she was taking time off of work to do it, and they were very open with her about hoping that it became more than just friendship.

  She told them that it wouldn’t because she was with Maurice, and to that end, she pleaded with them not to let Maurice know that she had taken the day off to see Shane. He might have flaunted his flagrant affair in front of her, but she didn’t want him to know about her upcoming outing with the man she had slept with.

  No part of it would be anything that Maurice would understand, and she knew that if he ever found out, it would only cause a bigger, worse fight between them. She wanted things to calm down, especially before they moved in together. They couldn’t begin a life with one another in the middle of a huge, dramatic mess.

  Her boss gave her the day off, and it seemed to her that her work day might have been the longest day that she had ever had. Jane, Carol, and Danny all noticed that she kept checking the time and looking at the clock, and they teased her about being anxious for it to be tomorrow already. She didn’t argue with them. There was no denying it, at least not in any kind of believable way. She knew that they all knew her far too well for her to get away with something like that kind of excuse. So, she copped to it and said that she was excited to see her friend, and that she knew that they were going to have a lot of fun together.

  Danny, Jane, and Carol sent her out of work that afternoon with a big smile on her face and best wishes for a very successful date with her friend, though all three of them hinted heavily to her that they hoped that she would build on the friendship and add some romance to it.

  Tamika tried to distract herself that night until an early bedtime, and even when she laid down on her pillow, she was so excited that she couldn’t sleep. The only way that she was able to convince herself to sleep was to close her eyes and think of him, imagining what the next day would be like, where he would take her, and what they would do.

  Her thoughts of what they would do evolved from doing friendship things to making love, and by the time she was sleeping, she was locked in his arms in a passionate embrace as he moved in her, and she cried out with pleasure in his ear. For her, they were very sweet dreams indeed.

  Six thirty in the morning came, and her alarm clock sounded, rousing her for the day. She was up immediately, ready to prepare herself, and ready for her day with him to begin. Just as he had promised, there was a knock at her apartment door right at eight, and she opened it to find him standing there with a cup of coffee and a gorgeous bouquet of flowers.

  The grin on her face felt as if it had wrapped around her head twice before it had finally stopped. He looked as happy as she felt, and she went to him right away, wrapping her arms around his neck and hugging him, giving his cheek a kiss as he held her in return.

  “You look even better than you did the last time I saw you, if that’s possible.” He shook his head and smiled at her as he held his hands at her waist and gazed at her. “How is that even possible?” He laughed softly as if he couldn’t quite believe it himself.

  “Thank you,” she replied happily. “You look really good too.” She admired the button up shirt and khaki pants he was wearing. “This looks casual. Are we doing casual things today?”

  He gave his head a shake and led her from her apartment as she closed the door behind herself. “Not today, my angel. Today, we’re going on an adventure, an exploratory adventure.”

  She gasped with excitement, her hand held in his, their fingers entwined as they hurried down the hall to the elevator. When the elevator doors closed, he turned to her and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close to him. Before she could say anything, he brought his lips to hers and kissed her as if he hadn’t seen her in years: hungrily, sweetly, happily.

  Tamika lost herself in the kiss. Her first thought was to pull away, to tell him no, that they were supposed to keep things platonic because while Maurice may have gone really overboard in his retribution against her for her intimacy with Shane, she didn’t want to one-up him. She didn’t want to create more of a reason for him to be justified in what he had done to her.

  Just as she had been about to pull away, everything inside of her began to swirl, as if everything inside of her was in some enormous whirlpool that was slowly sucking her down into the most wonderful pleasure and joy she had ever felt. She succumbed to it, letting it wash over her and through her, and she didn’t stop Shane. She kissed him back, wanting more of him, needing more of him, and pushing all thoughts of Maurice and their tangled mess of troubles from her mind. She couldn’t let something like her train wreck of a relationship with him into such a beautiful, powerful, perfect moment.

  The bell on the elevator chimed, and the two of them parted slightly and looked at each other almost in surprise, breathless and blinking, having forgotten entirely where they were. “I guess we’re here,” Shane whispered, giving her one more swift, soft kiss before he took her hand in his again and hurried from the elevator with her to the waiting car outside.

  He tucked her into the passenger seat of a little sports car, a silver convertible with the top down. She found a small bag on her seat, and she picked it up and put it in her lap. It was a gift bag, and inside was a small bouquet of roses, bound tightly together and fastened with a wide red ribbon. There was also a little box of chocolates, and a small bottle of sunblock, as well as two glass bottles of water.

  “What’s all this for?” she asked with a curious laugh.

  “Necessities. We can’t go anywhere without all of that,” he answered with a wink. She laughed at him again.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, looking around the car. There was more in the small backseat. A big picnic basket, blankets, towels, and several other things. She reached back to peek in the picnic basket while he drove down the road, but he stopped her, reaching for her hand just in time and bringing it to his mouth to kiss her fingers.

  “Ah! No peeking! The best part of surprises is the surprise! Enjoy this day, my angel, every part of it great and small, and thank you so much for sharing it with me. You being here with me today is a gift.” He smiled genuinely at her, and she felt as if the warm sun around them was only half as bright and warm as the glow that was shining from within her.

  She had pulled her long hair into a side ponytail at her neck, and she was glad that she had, because the breeze that rushed past the car danced and swirled around them, cooling them in the growing warmth of the morning as they left the city and headed toward the coast.

  Shane pulled the car up to a dock at the seaside, and she helped him carry all that was in the backseat onto a big, white sailboat that was waiting for them in a berth. She was completely elated when she saw it.

  “We’re going sailing?” She gasped excitedly, as a thrill shot through her whole body. “I’ve always wanted to go sailing!”

  “It seems like I’m checking your bucket list off left and right!” he teased her with a wink and a smile. “I love that I’m doing that. It’s a treat for me to get to do these things with you. It gives me a chance to see them all through your eyes, as a new and exciting experience.” He laughed softly, and she helped him ready the boat for their departure.

  Not long after that, he took the boat from the berth, pointed it out of the marina and a short while
later, they were sailing out over beautiful blue waves where the sun danced and glittered like diamonds, lambent on the surface of the sea, and shone through the blue green water in rays of illumination beneath them, showing off the wonderland they floated over.

  They sailed for a while, and behind them the Pacific Coast grew smaller and smaller until it vanished, and there was nothing but blue seas and blue skies around them, with puffy white clouds and a pod of dolphins splashing about the boat as their companions.

  Tamika had not a care in the world, and it had been so long since she had felt that carefree that she felt it in spades, and she let herself absorb all of it, enjoying it, reveling in it, and savoring every sweet second of it, knowing how precious each passing moment was.

  She didn’t want to know where they were going or what his plans were; she only wanted to enjoy it as it came, and when shades of green came into view, she was delighted with what lay just over the horizon.

  The variant shades of green began to take shape and form, and she could soon see that they were headed toward an island. It was an island by itself, with no others around it, at least as far as she could see, and she was surprised and elated, filled beyond capacity with joy and delight.

  Shane sailed the boat into a cove of water so crystal clear that they could see more than thirty feet down to the corals and sand. He brought the boat to the end of a long pier and tied it up, and she marveled at what was before her.

  At the end of the long pier, opposite the boat, was a big crescent beach of white sand, where turquoise waves washed up in gentle rolls. There were trees and bushes, plants, vines, and flowers of many shapes, sizes, and varieties all lining the beach just beyond the swath of sand.

  On the beach, nestled at the edge of a grove of tall and slightly waving palm trees, was a strange and beautiful structure, small and pretty, seeming to her almost a half of a house, facing the water. She could see a small kitchen and a bedroom from where she was, along with a patio off to one side of the kitchen. The strange thing about it was that it looked like it had been a whole house that had been cut in half; where there would have been a wall all along the side of the house facing the water, there was no wall; there was only a series of glass doors that were all open, so that the kitchen and bedroom were both completely open to the beach on one side, with a solid wall at the back of the whole building. There was one small area where the glass doors were closed, and there were white curtains covering the inside of the glass.

  “What is that?” she asked curiously, pointing to the half house on the beach.

  He looked up to see what she was speaking about, and smiled, tilting his head a little as he looked at it. “It’s a beach cabana. Solid wall on the back, all glass doors on the front. Only the necessities. There’s a kitchen, which you can see, and the bedroom, and there’s a bathroom behind the glass doors that are closed, the patio, and there’s an outdoor shower at the end of the patio for washing off sand and sea water before going into the house. It’s just enough. It’s perfect for simplicity on the beach, which I love.”

  Astounded, she turned to marvel at him. “Is that your beach house?”

  He nodded. “Yes, it is. I designed it. There’s a bigger house in the middle of the island, beside a waterfall, and it has all the trappings that a big house should have, you know, all the comforts and amenities. It even has a helicopter landing pad, in case we want to come out here in the helicopter.” He winked at her, and they began to walk down the pier.

  “You have a house here too?” she asked in amazement.

  He chuckled softly and spoke over his shoulder to her as they walked along, and she came along just behind him. “Well, I needed to. It’s my island.”

  She stopped walking and stared at him with a deadpan face. “Your island. You have an island?” she asked in complete disbelief.

  He kept walking and spoke a little louder as space grew between them. “I have an island.”

  Tamika went after him, hurrying along to catch up with him then. “I keep being so surprised by you. You’d think at this point that nothing about you should surprise me, but it does.”

  He laughed, and they reached the beach and walked over the sand to the beach cabana half house. “I came out here early this morning and got the house ready for us. Everything we’ll need is here.”

  She was completely in awe as they walked through the kitchen and stopped to put some things away, putting the picnic basket on a beautiful dark wood table. He took her hand and walked her through the house, which was like a long house, all the rooms were in a row. The kitchen led into the bathroom, where she was enormously impressed with the rock wall shower and deep-set Jacuzzi tub, and that room led into the bedroom, where she was again duly impressed with the stunning canopy bed draped in white chiffon and facing the sea.

  There was a ceiling made of glass over the bedroom, so it was flooded with natural light, and she guessed to herself that at night there was probably a good show put on by the stars in the heavens, right overhead.

  The bed faced the beach and the sea, and it seemed to her like she was looking at a live postcard as she stood there beside the bed and took in the view before them, watching the small waves rolling in and hushing themselves against the shore.

  “This is a dream. I’m dreaming,” she announced with absolute certainty as she gave her head a shake of disbelief.

  He was standing near her, and he smiled and spoke softly, his eyes locked on her. “I was just thinking the same thing.” He ran his thumb over the back of her hand, and she looked at him and felt her cheeks warm, knowing that he was talking about her. He pulled her close to him and kissed her softly for a long moment, and then gave her another smile and took her hand, walking her out of the far side of the bedroom, which opened to the patio.

  It was a covered patio, though the cover was a natural one made of flowering vines that gave off a delicious scent. There was a mini bar, along with a table and chairs, and a few lounge chairs, and around the perimeter of the patio, there was a short flowerbox that ran the full length of the patio and was filled with beautiful tropical flowers.

  “This is paradise!” she marveled as she turned in place and looked around at all of it, and then finally looked at him.

  He gave his head a shake and slid his arms around her. “It is now,” he replied, kissing her again, sweet and long. Then, he let her go and gave her an excited grin. “Okay. We have exploring to do. Get your suit on!”

  He left her then, and she went into the bedroom and changed into her swimsuit, wondering what could possibly be next in store for her. She felt like a little girl on the wildest and best adventure of her life as he led her from the house into the rolling surf that washed ashore.

  They snorkeled out into the cove with each other, admiring all the sea life that they saw, from fish to coral and sea turtles. Just out beyond the cove where the water was a little deeper, their dolphin friends jumped and played, spraying water and squeaking to each other and to them.

  They stayed out in the cove a long while, discovering everything the sea had to show them in the way of hidden and living treasure, and after they had played in the water for a couple of hours, they came back onto shore, famished, tired, and completely blissful.

  She tugged her snorkel mask off as they headed to the shower and laughed with delight. “That might be the most fun I’ve ever had!” She couldn’t believe all that she had seen. “I didn’t even know half of those things existed!”

  “Oh, there’s so much more out there that we didn’t see. The ocean has many more secrets hidden than it shows.”

  They showered off and redressed in casual clothes, her in a sundress and him in Capri pants and a loose button up shirt. He carried their picnic basket to the sand where they had a blanket all laid out beneath the palm trees, almost to the water’s edge, and they set up their brunch.

  He poured a mimosa for her with a fine champagne, and they ate together, enjoying a delicious but simple feast as they rela
xed together in the shade. He seemed to watch her more than she was watching everything around them. She could feel it, and she found to her surprise that she liked it, that it made her feel as if she mattered to him, and that was a revolutionary feeling to her, something she was unaccustomed to experiencing even though she hadn’t known it or realized it until he did it. She thought that she must have not known what she was missing because she’d never had it until then, and she loved the difference that it made inside of her.

  With lunch done, they cleared away their picnic, and he pulled out a book and began to read pieces of romantic poetry to her, things she had never known existed, things she had never heard, and she knew then that she must be living in a dream, and it was one that she didn’t want to wake up from.

  As the afternoon came, they swam again, playing in the water until they were tired once more, and then they showered off and went to the canopied bed, snuggling into the cool sheets and napping with one another.