A knock came to the door. Thank God, Aidan was here. I needed to ask him what I should do. Brazen it out, or let it die down quietly? I already had several messages and texts on my cell asking for interviews.
I pulled the door open and stopped dead in my tracks.
Oh my fucking God, no.
There stood my ex-boyfriend, Dexter.
“Miss me, Lori?” He asked. “Or do you go by Lorenza now?”
Chapter 12
Aidan
I’d just pulled up outside her apartment when I saw her open the door to the man outside and then I watched as her face came over with what could only be described as a look of terror, followed by the guy pushing her and heading into the apartment. I rushed out of the car and up those steps like a man possessed and don’t ask me where the strength came from but I kicked that door straight off its hinges.
The guy had Lori pinned to the wall, one hand around her neck and another making its way up the leg of her skirt. Red mist descended on my vision and I yanked him away and punched him in the nose, blood splattering all around us.
“You fucking cunt, you broke my nose.” His muffled voice complained while he tried to hold himself together.
A man shouted from the doorway. “I’m phoning the cops.”
“Yes, please do.” I shouted back. “We need assistance.”
“The cops can’t find me. They’ll put me back inside.” The guy said.
“You should have thought of that before you came here.” I growled out. “What’s his name, other than scum?” I asked Lori, noting that my girl was shivering.
“Dexter.” She managed to get out.
“Now here’s the thing, Dexter.” I said to him. “You try to take me down with you for assault and I’ll make sure that in prison your asshole becomes the size of the moon with all the boyfriends you’re going to get. You understand me? You’re going to plead guilty and say you deserved all this like a good boy and then when you eventually get back out of jail, I will have one of my associates meet you. They will set you up someplace far away from Lori and if you ever come within a city of her, you’ll find yourself under a concrete slab and no one will ever know where you went.”
“Okay. I get it. I get it.” The wimp said. It was clear he was only any good at intimidating women. The lowest of the low and the truth was I was making this shit up as I went along. Though no doubt my money could buy such arrangements, I preferred to keep my business legit and above board, but Dexter wasn’t to know that. I would make sure that we knew his whereabouts at all times though and a little money to make sure he lived far away from us in the future to me was money well spent.
Before long the cops came and arrested Dexter and took him away and then I folded Lori in my arms and held her while she shook and sobbed.
“What do I do?” Lori said to me. “He’s probably not the only creep who’s going to come tracking down Lorenza LaBelle.”
“Just stay there, one moment.” I told her. “Don’t worry, I’m only going to the car down the steps. I’ll be thirty seconds maximum.”
When I’d retrieved what I wanted, I came back through the door.
Lori looked up at me, “Oh thank God, you brought my shoes back. They were one of my favorite pairs. I was gutted I could have lost them.”
“You have a rich boyfriend who would have bought you another pair.” I laughed.
“Is that what you are now? My boyfriend.” She smiled, and it was like being given a million dollars after the stresses of just an hour before.
“Well, I kinda need to see if these shoes fit your feet, because my princess ran out of the club and I need to make sure it was definitely you.” I slipped both her shoes on. “Hmmm, later, Miss Jenkins, I want to fuck you with you wearing only these.” I winked. “Or should I say girlfriend, I wanna fuck you so damn bad, but not right now. Right now we have things to do.”
“Like what?” She said.
“Like we need to get you moved to New Jersey. Now I know you might have sorted somewhere to live, but I was thinking we could get a place together and I could come visit, a lot.”
“What about your businesses?” She asked.
“Well, that’s why I had an urgent meeting this morning.” I told her. “I realized that Ashley was doing far more for me than a simple Assistant role, so this morning I made her my Deputy Manager. She just received a jaw dropping, but well deserved pay rise. GoDown has a Manager too, Connor, so I shall step back a little. They’re still my babies and I still want to expand on everything, but maybe it’s time to live a little as well as work. I can make sure that some nights when my girlfriend has worked hard at college all day and needs to study that I’ve made her a nice home-cooked meal and then I can help her relax.”
“Wow, this is all just happening so fast.”
“We can take it as slow as you like, Lori. There is no rush. I’m going nowhere. If you need your space, you got it. If you want to rent your own place because it makes you feel better, then I’ll step back, do it. I know this is about more than just a career, it’s about your identity and finding your strength.”
“I love you, Aidan Hall.” She told me and my heart skipped a beat. I realized at that moment I was as pussy-whipped as Mr. Carter and was about to get a whole heap of revenge talk leveled at me from him. He could bring it. I was in love and didn’t give a damn.
“I love you too.” I told her. “Now the Lorenza Labelle issue. You have nothing to be embarrassed about. I said I was trying to bring everything out mainstream. I’ll get my team to set up interviews with certain trusted press if you are willing and we’ll get the point across that women can own their bodies and do what they wish with them. Why can a man sleep with lots of women and be a stud, but a woman chooses to share her body for her career and she’s some kind of whore? It’s time to challenge those perceptions, babe.”
She placed her lips against my own and we shared a long deep kiss. This did nothing for my rock hard cock but she’d just had quite a shock and we needed to take it slow.
“So, this place in New Jersey,” she told me. “If you didn’t want the boat, I kinda didn’t pay for it yet, so the money could go towards a place. Maybe, you know, pay for a window of our gigantic mansion.”
“You want a big place?”
“Well it seems kinda stupid to date a billionaire and live in a studio apartment. I guess I just need it to be near school.”
“We can have a driver take you there too.”
“And of course I’ll need all the equipment for my new career.”
“Done.”
She bursts out laughing. “I’m joking.”
“Well, I’m not. I’m getting you all that and more and you’re just going to have to damn well get used to it because you’re the girlfriend of a billionaire now.”
“The billionaire and the bartender.” She laughed.
I shut her up with yet another kiss.
Epilogue
Two years later
Lori
Two years had passed. Two extremely happy years. I’d passed my college course and had started a career in wedding photography and recording the happy event for couples. It was going very well, and I got to travel around which had helped with building my confidence. Aidan’s and my time was split between Manhattan and New Jersey in the main, although at present Aidan was out all over the place as he scouted out new venues for sister clubs to Abandon. Abandon had become THE place to party and Aidan had had to expand, purchasing the floor above and making this an exclusive VIP space to be rented out by the elite of Manhattan. Ashley had trained up a guy called Lucas who now oversaw Abandon, leaving Ashley to cater for the demanding needs of the clientele hiring the new floor. Aidan and I had also worked on adding on a new branch to his charity, one for survivors of domestic abuse, the kind that had caused lasting difficulties. We’d had an emotional time when we first got together recounting his brother’s accident and my overdose. It was good that some light could come from the dark
ness and I thanked God every day that Chrissy had found me that day.
Today, I could have been the guest at this wedding, but as my present to the bride and groom, I’d agreed to capture the occasion. I could always party in between I’d told him.
So instead I stood at the side of the altar, as I checked out the extremely nervous face of one Elias Thomas King, as he awaited his bride. Then the music started playing, and she appeared.
But who was she? That’s not my tale to tell, you’ll have to wait for Eli to recount his own story…
But for me, well later, the bride made me put down my camera as she threw the bouquet and it landed straight in my grasp.
Aidan winked at me and I smiled.
Then I picked up my camera and got back to work.
Two days later I went along to record the engagement celebration of one of the members of the club. It was taking place at the very restaurant where the date from hell with Chrissy had taken place and our own date. Aidan had howled with laughter when I’d confessed to making Chrissy behave like she had and they were now firm friends.
I walked into the bar, but instead of finding the couple I expected there, I found Aidan.
“What’s happening?” I said. The restaurant was busy with patrons.
“I was going to take you for a surprise lunch, but I don’t like the atmosphere here.” He told me. “So the driver is taking us someplace else.”
Aidan quite often threw surprises like this. I’d think I was going for a meal downtown and then the next minute I’d be whisked away to Hawaii in a helicopter. So, I rolled my eyes and got in the car. I was surprised when we pulled up outside the coffee shop where we’d had our first meet up as friends.
He took my hand. “We never came back here. Why not? It was where I realized I liked you so damn much.”
“Maybe because it's just a little too close to my old apartment?” I told him.
“Well, I decided we needed to come back.” He said and escorted me inside.
There was no one else there. Not even a member of staff, with the sole exclusion of a man playing a slow version of Bruno Mar’s song Marry You, on the piano.
The floor was covered in rose petals and on the piano was an ice bucket holding champagne and two glasses.
He went down on his knees.
“Lori Jenkins. My best girl friend in the whole damn world. My best girlfriend in the whole damn universe. I love you. Will you marry me?”
I began to sob, trying to get my answer out. “Yes, yes, I will.”
Our family and friends, and staff from the coffee shop, came out at that point. The champagne was opened and then Aidan took me out into the courtyard area where on a table, the staff had placed out the exact lunches we’d had that day we first met for coffee, plus a gigantic cookie that said congratulations across it.
It was perfect, and ironic that I had no video of the occasion.
Well, I thought I hadn’t. But it turned out that the cameramen from GoDown Productions had set up cameras all around the place and my engagement present arrived a week later perfectly edited. My proposal in full and the happy words of our family and friends recorded and added. It was beautiful.
Four years later
“Oh my God, oh my God.” Aidan exclaimed over and over as he took Skye, our newborn daughter into his arms. “She’s just perfect, Mrs. Hall.” He kissed me. “Absolutely perfect.” He picked up his cell and took about twenty photos of our newborn daughter.
“When are Henry and Amelia visiting?” I asked him. We’d been home from hospital for a few hours and Aidan was desperate to show Skye off.
As the camera continued to flash, I had a feeling karma was coming to Henry Carter…I hoped he was ready to coo.
THE END
Alex
Chapter 1
Alex
I stepped out of my house that morning, breathing in the crisp air that blew across the rolling hills of this part of Kentucky and closed my eyes, savoring the moment for just a second more. There was plenty to do around the ranch today, but I wanted to take a minute more to revel in the stillness of this most remote part of the ranch.
My father knew what he was doing when he gave me land in this area of the ranch. It was no secret that I was the most hermit like of all the Killarny brothers. I just had my own way of doing things and my preference for how I lived out here. Even though I was close to each of my brothers in one way or another, I was the one who tended to prefer retiring to my own house for the evening or any time that I wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle that followed them all around. It seemed like wherever you found more than one of us gathered together it either turned into a friendly argument or a wrestling match.
It was simply that we liked to poke fun at one another. My mother had been very patient with us all, but I knew that while she was alive, we had caused her an awful lot of grief. She had tried tirelessly to keep us all out of trouble and aside from a few drunken nights spent in county lockup we had stayed out of any kind of major drama for the length of our adult lives. We had all been a worry to her, and I thought about that on occasion, how she wanted us all to be happy and how many times I had heard her pray for that.
Now my mother was gone, and things on the ranch hadn't been the same since her death. We were all moving on in our own ways, and things had changed even further when my father had decided to pick up his things and move to Puerto Rico. It hadn't been too much of a shock to me. I knew my father was struggling to get past my mother's death, and the best way for him to do it would be to get as far away from the thing that most reminded him of her -- the ranch that the two of them had made their own after the death of my grandfather.
Killarny Estate spread out across the vast expanse of green hills in this part of the state. Perfect for raising horses, my family had carved out their place in the industry over a hundred years ago and continued to raise some of the fastest and most sought after thoroughbreds in the country and all over the world. You never knew who might call the office to inquire about a Killarny horse. We had seen some princes and sheiks visiting our estate in the years when we had our most distinguished horses breeding new foals every year.
The breeding had been what my father was most passionate about and in the years when my mother was battling cancer it had taken a backseat to her health. Now that we were back to our normal state of things, at least as normal as things could be without my father and mother overseeing the operation, we were expecting more foals, and we had reached the time of the year when we would need to start checking our mares for possible pregnancy. And that was the thing on my to do list for this particular day.
I closed the door behind me and headed up the road. It was about a half mile to the main barn from my house, and I enjoyed the walk. Even though I preferred being on a horse, I didn't really see any need in building my own stables like some of my brothers had at their own homes. To me, it was nice to maintain the sense of being out away from the rest of the world. I had a lot of pasture lands around me where some of our wild horses from the Dakotas were kept, and out the back of my house was where the woods started and things became a deep, dark thicket the further in you went. That was all Killarny land as well, a portion of it that had been set aside and would never be cleared, at least as far as any of us were concerned because it provided a nice buffer between our estate and the other ranch that was the nearest to us.
Walking up the road to the barn I caught sight of my niece Emma on her horse Saoirse. It was clear that she had not seen me there when I saw what she was about to do. Emma leaned in and urged her horse on, and together they bounded over a fence -- a fence that was absolutely not intended for jumping. I knew better than to shout out because it would spook the horse, and at that point, there was no need. The two of them had already cleared the fence and Emma was patting her horse on the head, telling her what a good job she had done. I was up behind the two of them before she noticed me there.
"So, Emma. Does your dad know
you're practicing your jumps back here?"
Startled, my young niece turned around to face me, her cheeks burning red and her eyes going wide.
"Uncle Alex! Oh...please don't tell dad. He'll ground me if he knows I was back here jumping."
The girl looked legitimately afraid of being told she couldn't ride her horse for a week, the same as I would have been if I had been grounded at her age. Riding horses had been life for me just like it was for Emma and I had done much wilder things than jumping fences. There was a memory of crossing a ravine that stuck out to me in particular.
"Promise me you aren't going to do it again?" I asked, trying to make my tone sound as serious as possible, but I didn't really have the paternal sternness that her dad, my oldest brother Pete, always managed to use.
"Promise. I'll wait until my lessons." She answered affirmatively.
I nodded. "Good. But if I catch you again you know I'll have to tell your dad about it." I hoped that she wouldn't take that word of caution the same way I would have at her age. That sort of thing would have meant, "Don't get caught."
She smiled and nodded at me. "Deal." Emma led her horse back around and through the pasture and I headed on my way to the barn, making a mental checklist of the things I needed to accomplish on this particular day.
I needed to give the vet a call and see when they could come out to do pregnancy checks on the mares. It was a task that we sometimes handled ourselves, but was best left to the professionals. Doc Halloran had always been the one to service our horses and check up on the wild herd out back, but he had recently retired, and there was a new vet setting up shop at his practice. He had assured everyone that the new vet was going to be able to take care of us all just the same and I took his word for it. The man had been in the business of caring for race horses longer than I had been alive...and possibly even longer than my father. He was in his 80s, and it was well past time for him to hang up his hat. I trusted that the man knew what he was up to hiring the new vet that would take over for him and continue working with all of the nearby ranches, but I knew that some of the older generation would have an issue with it. They always took issue with something new changing up what they were used to as the norm.
The Billionaire and the Bartender: Aidan's story (The Billionaires Book 2) Page 9