Real Italian Charm: A BWWM Billionaire Romance

by Lacey Legend

  Looking into my eyes, Fed sighed quietly. “Please just come up to the top floor of the hotel with me. Please just trust me.”

  Incredulous, I scoffed. “Oh, I should trust you? That’s rich, considering that you can’t manage to fully trust me.”

  “Please, Jas. Just come on up with me. If you don’t like what you see, you can immediately turn around and leave the hotel.”

  “I’d like to immediately turn around and leave right now.”

  “But please don’t. I’m begging you. Just please come up to the top floor with me. Just for a minute.”

  “Well, what’s on the top floor? A honeymoon suite so extravagant that it’s guaranteed to make panties drop within ten seconds or something?”

  Fed didn’t dignify my question with a response, and instead just took one of my hands and gave it a squeeze. “Please, Jas.”

  Heaving a sigh, I pulled my hand from his. “Fine. But I’m not just going to catapult myself into bed with you, no matter how luxurious the room is. This whole seduction scheme has gotten me more than a bit irritated, honestly.”

  He didn’t respond, and I quickly got out of the car in a huff, not waiting for him to come around and open my door for me like he usually did.

  Once inside the hotel’s spacious, marble-floored lobby, we went to the front desk, where a middle-aged man in an immaculate black suit handed Fed a room key card. “Here you are, Mr. Balducci. Everything you requested is all set.”

  Something about the way the man said this made me think that Fed had been very particular about the room when he’d booked it or something.

  The man went on to ask if Fed and I would like a porter to help us with our bags, but Fed said that wasn’t necessary, being that each of us had only brought two small shoulder bags, both of which Fed was carrying.

  Neither of us spoke during the long ride up to the top floor of the hotel. Still irritated, I simply looked out the glass-walled eastern side of the elevator, which afforded a dazzling view of the twinkling lights of the city and the lake beyond. The rainclouds that had been so dense earlier had now mostly blown across the sky, allowing me a peek at thousands of stars twinkling in the night sky as well.

  Once on the top floor, Fed led me to our room, saying that it was the only one on the top floor. “I think they do call it the ‘honeymoon suite.’ Or, maybe it’s the ‘presidential suite.’ Something like that.”

  “Well, I’m about to call it the ‘take one look and get the hell out suite.’”

  Sliding the key card in the lock, Fed burst out with a chuckle. “You can call it whatever you want, as long as you agree to come up to what they call the ‘roof garden’ with me?”

  “Oh, you didn’t say anything about a ‘roof garden’ in the car.”

  “That’s right. It’s part of the surprise.”

  With my irritation becoming quickly replaced by a feeling if intense curiosity, I entered the suite with Fed and immediately had to stifle a gasp. With marble flooring; marble statuary; glided mirrors; and vases of white roses everywhere, the well-lit “front room” of the suite was the most beautiful hotel room I’d ever seen in my life, which was saying a lot, since I’d stayed in some of the finest hotels in Europe with Fed.

  Forgetting all about my earlier irritation, I told him that the room was absolutely gorgeous. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Did you order all the roses in here, or is this just the regular service?”

  With his eyes twinkling in the light cast by numerous gilded lamps, he gave me a little smile. “I specially requested them.”

  “Well, there must be hundreds of them. Thousands, even.”

  “Eighteen hundred, actually…a dozen for every single day since we met.”

  With tears instantly rising to my eyes, I turned to Fed with an ache rising in my chest as well. “You even remembered how I like white roses better than pink or red.”

  I’d made an offhand comment about this once during our travels.

  With a little smile, Fed took my hand. “Come on. There’s a little stairway in the back of the suite that leads to the rooftop garden. Let’s go have a look.”

  Soon, we stepped out onto the rooftop, and for the second time since entering the hotel, I had to bite back a gasp, because “garden” didn’t exactly describe the scene. A better descriptor might have been “paradise.”

  A high, wrought-iron fence surrounded a large section of the rooftop, and bordering the fence were short, potted trees of all kind, probably hundreds of them. Their trunks and branches were wrapped with strands of tiny white twinkle lights, enough of them to illuminate the entire rooftop fairly well. These lights weren’t the only light source atop the rooftop, though. Near the center, adjacent to several table-and-chair sets, sat literally thousands of small white votive candles in clear glass domes, giving the area a pronounced golden glow even in the dark of night.

  With a lump forming in my throat, I turned my face to look at Fed. “It’s all so gorgeous, especially the candles.”

  “Can you see what they say?”

  Confused, I just looked at him for a moment. “What do you mean? Do they spell something out?”

  “Let’s go take a closer look and see.”

  Holding my hand, Fed began leading me over to the candles, and very soon, I could see that they all spelled something out. It was two words, in cursive, followed by a question mark, and the two words appeared to be marry and me. Once I saw this, I stopped dead in my tracks, feeling something like a current of electricity suddenly racing from my head to my toes.

  Slowly, I turned my face to look at Fed. “What?”

  He grinned. “So, what’s your answer?”

  Tears suddenly sprang to my eyes, and my voice came out in a squeak. “What?”

  Still grinning, Fed dropped to one knee in front of me, although after fishing around in his pocket for a few seconds, he looked up at me with an expression far more serious. “Jasmine, will you marry me?”

  Confused though elated at the same time, I could only nod at first, looking down at Fed and the large diamond-and-ruby ring he was holding while tears streamed down my face. Eventually, I managed to squeak the word yes, and Fed began sliding the ring on my finger, grinning again.

  “If you don’t like it, we can get something else; but I know how much you love diamond-and-ruby jewelry, so I thought this might at least work for now.”

  Still crying, I looked down at the stunning ring now on my finger. The princess-cut diamond surrounded by glittering rubies was the largest I’d ever seen in my life.

  “I think it’s absolutely gorgeous. I’m never going to take it off.”

  Grinning even harder, Fed rose to his feet and pulled me into his arms. “You’ve just made me the happiest man alive.”

  Picking my feet up off the ground, he began slowly spinning me, and soon, we were both laughing with joy in between brief, fierce kisses.

  When he finally put me back down on my feet, I said he’d just made me the happiest woman alive. “But I have to know…what changed? Did you finally just decide to fully trust me, or did you decide to marry me anyway, even though you still don’t?”

  Taking my hand, Fed suggested that we go have a seat at one of the nearby tables, where there was a bottle of champagne chilling on ice. Once we both had flutes of it and had each taken a few celebratory sips, he said he’d explain what had led to his surprise proposal.

  “It was Sheila, really.”

  “Sheila?”

  With his eyes twinkling in the glow of the candles, Fed nodded. “She pulled me into one of the boardrooms Thursday, sat me down, and basically told me in no uncertain terms that although I may be her head boss, I was going to listen to her. ‘I’m retiring soon anyway,’ she said, ‘so, I really don’t have much to lose by saying what I’m about to.’”

  “And what did she say?”

  “Well, she told me a little story about a day when the two of you went shopping. She said that you’d seen a very well-dressed woman
drop a twenty on her way out of a shop, so you grabbed Sheila and the twenty and tried to chase after the woman, but she was already gone. A young man told you that he’d just seen her turn the corner at the end of the block, so you and Sheila followed after her at your insistence.

  When you turned the corner, you saw the woman getting into a cab, and you tried to flag it down, but it didn’t stop. A teen girl nearby said that the woman in the cab was heading three blocks west, and the teen girl knew this because she’d tried to split the cab with the woman, but the teen girl was heading east.

  So, then, again at your insistence, you and Sheila started walking west, because you were so determined to find the woman and give her the money she’d dropped. Sheila said that two blocks into this journey, she tried to tell you that it was pointless, but you wouldn’t listen, saying that you at least had to make a good faith effort to try to return the money.

  So, you and Sheila kept walking, because there weren’t any cabs around; and along the way, the two of you encountered a woman with a small child and a sign, and the sign said they were homeless and needed food. You didn’t have any food with you, but you gave the woman sixty dollars cash, Sheila said. A little further on, you came across an obviously malnourished preteen or young teenage boy sitting outside of a café with a cup for change in front of him. Sheila said you stopped and put forty dollars in the cup, which was the rest of your cash.

  Finally, another block west, you finally spotted the woman who’d dropped the twenty. She was coming out of a store, and you flagged her down, running, and finally gave her back her twenty. She was so surprised and grateful that she insisted that you keep it, which Sheila said thrilled you to no end. ‘I just made twenty dollars just by being an honest person,’ she said you said. ‘Yes, Jasmine, honey,’ she said, ‘but you still have a net loss of eighty dollars for this little adventure because of what you gave to all the homeless people along the way!’”

  Recalling this memory, I laughed. “I’d forgotten all about this. Sheila teased me for days about not letting me ever go out walking alone, because she was sure I’d be bankrupt within a week.”

  Fed smiled. “Yes, she told me that she teased you about this because you’re generous to a fault. She then finished her little story by telling me, ‘This is what kind of a person Jasmine is. She’s incredibly sweet, caring, and honest, and if you can’t trust her completely even after hearing all I’ve just told you…then, you might be a billionaire, but you don’t even deserve her.”

  I thought about this all that day, and by Thursday evening, I decided that if I can’t trust you completely, then I can’t trust a single other soul in this world, which struck me as a pretty miserable way to live. It was also at this point that I realized that if I let you slip away from me, just because of my inability to trust you and make a commitment to you, it would probably be the worst mistake of my life. The truth is, Jasmine, that I’ve missed you more the past few days than I’ve ever missed anyone else in my entire life.”

  With a little moisture welling in my eyes once again, I gave his hand a squeeze. “I missed you, too…more than you’ll ever know.”

  Just then, startling me a little, there was a fairly loud boom that had come from somewhere in the east. I looked just in time to see fireworks exploding in that direction, painting the night sky silver, gold, and red. Within a moment or two, the whole sky was nearly filled with fireworks, and I turned my face back to Fed.

  “Are those…are those from you? Did you order us our own fireworks show on the lakeshore?”

  He smiled. “They’re actually being set off from a barge actually in the lake because of state restrictions on private fireworks displays on land, but, yes…those are from me. For us. And they would have made for the most awkward fireworks show ever had you said no to my proposal.”

  I laughed and told him that there had never been a chance of that. Laughing himself, he soon pulled me into his lap, and it was from this position that I watched the fireworks show, giving him brief kisses every so often.

  A while after it ended, Fed poured me another glass of champagne, and I took it, realizing something.

  “I have to tell you something really important. It’s something I’ve been hiding from you.”

  He frowned slightly. “What is it?”

  I took a deep breath before finally spilling my secret.

  The Final Chapter

  “Even though you finally trust me now, Fed, I want you to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’ve really never been with you for your money, and I can prove this, because….” A bit nervous all of a sudden, I paused for another deep breath. “I’m a billionaire, too. Kind of, anyway. I will be. On my thirtieth birthday, I’ll receive a payout of four billion dollars from a trust fund that I’m not allowed to touch until then.”

  With his wide eyes revealing shock, Fed didn’t respond right away. “Where did the money come from?”

  I told him it was an inheritance from my dad. “See, I’ve never told you my dad’s name. It’s Adam Jennings.”

  Fed’s eyes got even a bit wider.

  “The Adam Jennings? The reclusive computer guy?”

  I said yes. “He wasn’t really that reclusive, though. In fact, with his small inner circle of family and friends, he was actually quite outgoing and social. He just never wanted to be in the public eye, to the point that he never gave a single interview to any media outlet, and he never released a single picture of himself.

  Of course, when he sold his company for billions in the late nineties, his name became pretty well-known in business circles; university professors started teaching about his business model and ideas; and the media started to want to ‘get their hands on him,’ as my dad told me later. He firmly resisted that, though, instead just preferring a very simple, anonymous life. He even bought a little house in the countryside under a false name so that the media couldn’t find him. He said remaining unknown kept him humble.”

  “It sounds like your dad was a very wise man.”

  “He was. He thought about things a lot, and he made slow, careful choices. This is why when he was dying of cancer, he decided to set up a trust fund for me so that I wouldn’t have my inheritance fall on my lap until I was thirty. He thought I’d be mature enough to handle the money then, but that in my twenties, it might be more of a burden, and I think he was right. ‘No pressure, but maybe try to get married before you turn thirty,’ he kind of jokingly told me one time, because he was also a little concerned that some man might try to use me just for my money, which was definitely a very valid concern.

  He had the idea that maybe I shouldn’t even tell any future boyfriends about my inheritance while I was still in my twenties, and my mom and I agreed that this was a good idea. So, I just always kept it a secret, and keeping this secret had just become habit by the time I met you.”

  “Well, why didn’t you at least tell me the other day, when I confessed to you about the women who burned me for my money?”

  Still sitting on Fed’s lap, I lifted my shoulders in a slight shrug. “I guess I just wanted to see if you could simply listen to your heart about me, and you did, in the end, with a little assist from Sheila. See, I just didn’t think I could be in any relationship where I’d had to prove that I wasn’t lying to my partner about not using him for his money. I just wanted you to be able to fully trust me because of what you felt in your gut about me.”

  Fed tightened his arms around me. “That is the way things worked out, fortunately. After Sheila told me what she did, I just felt in my gut that I could trust you completely, but even before then…I think I knew it, but I was just fighting it on some level. Maybe I just couldn’t admit to myself that come what may, I was going to eventually put myself in a situation where I could get deeply hurt and betrayed again. Maybe my pride just wouldn’t let me.”

  “Well, I’m glad it finally did.”

  Fed smiled. “Me, too.”

  A while later, when a soft rain began falling,
guttering all the candles, Fed and I took our post-engagement party and our champagne inside, where we snuggled up on a plush, cream-colored couch in the living room area of the suite. Soon, this snuggling led to some pretty passionate kissing, and not long after that, I found myself completely naked except for my underwear.

  Pulling at one side of the lacy red fabric, I smiled at Fed. “What should we do about these? Have any ideas?”

  It turned out that he did have an idea, which was to practically rip the lacy scrap of fabric off me. Then, after flinging it aside, he guided me to recline on the couch and proceeded to plant frustratingly slow kisses all over my inner thighs with his mouth almost excruciatingly firm and warm. When he finally trailed the kisses inward, to my pussy mound, he looked up at me from his vantage point next to the couch and spoke in a voice barely above a husky whisper. “You’re so gorgeous, Jas. I want you to know that you drive me half-mad.”

  Even as sexually desperate as I was, I couldn’t help but tease him a little, fighting a smile. “Show me how ‘half-mad’ I make you, then, because I’m afraid I don’t quite know what you’re talking about.”

  With his eyes glinting, he just looked at me for a moment before responding. “Lock my head in place, then, if you really want to see how ‘half-mad’ I make you, and how much I love to please you.”

  Not comprehending what he meant at first, I asked him what he meant about locking his head in place. “You mean, like, with my hands?”

  With his eyes still glinting, he said no. “With your legs.”

  With my left leg beneath his shoulder, and my right leg bent at a right angle on the couch, I suddenly understood what he meant. “Oh. You mean…really lock your head in place.”

  He said yes, and I realized that I really liked the idea of what he was suggesting. So, with gentle but fairly firm and rapid movements, I hooked my left leg around his back, hooking my right leg around his right shoulder at the same time, essentially locking his head in place. “Now you can show me how ‘half-mad’ I really make you, Fed.”