A Brilliant Arrangement: A Sweet Billionaire Love Story (Falling for the Billionaire Book 1)

by Laila Kelly

  “Yes I do. I’m Sam, and I work for Joleigh. It’s been brought to my attention that you two are going on a date tonight,” the kid looked around and then starred Graham back in his eyes. “I don’t want to hear anything about you doing any funny business going on tonight. Joleigh is a very sweet girl, and I know you’re type and what y’all are like.” Graham raised his eyebrows and his mouth parted slightly. “Excuse me?” Graham grabbed the bottom of the steering wheel and watched as his knuckles turned white. He looked back up at the kid, “What do you mean by guys like me?” Sam looked at him grabbing the steering wheel and stepped back a little bit. “I looked at the card that you gave to Joleigh and I Googled you. I know you’re rich, and the only reason that rich men come to small towns is to take over and ruin really good people. Especially women,” Sam’s voice was dead, and Graham stared back at him, completely still.

  Graham took a mental deep breath, trying to calm himself down. “I think that you have me mixed up with someone else, Sam. What you have Googled about me is true. Yes, I am a hardworking man and have been rewarded for that financially, but I can assure you that I have not come to Flowery Branch to destroy anything, especially not Joleigh,” the thought of anyone thinking that he had ill intentions with Joleigh made Graham sick to his stomach. Sam stared back at him and shook his head slowly. “Whatever, man. All I know is, you better not do anything to hurt Joleigh, or there will be consequences that are bigger than the size of Texas,” he turned around on his heels and walked over to a small gold station wagon, got in and drove off.

  Graham was not one to take such words lightly from anyone but being that he worked for Joleigh and he seemed to care about her a great deal, he felt proud of himself that he didn’t escalate. Besides, that’s the last thing that he needed to do to get Joleigh to fall in love with him. If anything, that would push her away and that was the farthest thing from his mind. He took another deep breath and wondered what all came up when his name was looked up. He picked up his phone and typed his name into the search bar. He waited for the results to come up and looked up to see Joleigh turning the sign in the window from open to closed. She looked around and when she saw him, she smiled and waved. He allowed himself to smile fully and waved back. He felt like a child waving at his teacher that he had a crush on, but it didn’t matter. Graham wanted Joleigh to know how interested in her he was.

  He looked back down at his phone and scrolled through the first page of results. All of the titles were positive, but the most recent ones seemed to add billionaire to his name like it was a title. That was one of the things that Graham hated the most, especially when it was put out on the internet. He didn’t want people to look him up and immediately find out that he was a billionaire, especially if when they found out that he was one they would assume that he was a bad person. Wealthy people in general had a bad reputation and he himself couldn’t change that perception alone, rather he worked hard for people to like and respect him prior to Googling him. Once Pandora’s Box of internet searches was opened, there was nothing left that he could do to make an actual change in people’s minds.

  Graham closed down his browser and decided that thinking more and more about what Sam said would only upset him, and he didn’t want that. He wanted to focus on how happy he was that Joleigh actually agreed to go on a date with him. Graham took out the list of things that he jotted down from her Facebook so he would have some talking points that would impress her. He looked back onto her Facebook page and made sure that he had all the right information. He saw that one of her favorite movies was The Sound of Music and he bought it on his laptop and watched it last night. Graham remembered watching The Sound of Music with his grandmother when he was growing up and she would come to town. They would watch it and repeat the lines to each other while they ate homemade shortbread cookies. The nostalgia that he felt when he watched it made him order a pack of cookies to be delivered to his room. Of course, they tasted nothing like his grandmother’s, but it was more of the thought that mattered to him.

  Graham smiled as he thought about his childhood memories and wished that he could experience the way that his life was back than just one more time. He looked at his watch and saw that Joleigh’s shop had been closed for ten minutes, and the butterflies in his stomach began to take flight. Graham couldn’t remember the last time that he had butterflies in his stomach, a welcome return to his life. He liked the feeling. He liked the feeling of adrenaline pumping through his veins and not knowing how the outcome was going to be. It reminded him of back when he was in high school playing football, right before they ran out onto the field for the beginning of the game. He thrived off that energy and it made him his best self, and right now, he was getting ready to play in the biggest game of his life.

  He pumped himself up mentally and pulled down the mirror to straighten up his collar and make sure that his hair looked decent. His appearance this morning was a little shabbier than he liked, and he hoped that he would be able to redeem himself on their date. Graham’s phone vibrated in the cup holder and he glanced down at it and swept it away. Whatever it was that Jamie had sent him would have to wait until he got back to his hotel after his date with Joleigh. He didn’t want her to have any reason to be upset with him. Women wanted their date’s full attention and fiddling on his phone wasn’t going to happen. Graham slipped his phone onto do not disturb and put it back into his pocket.

  When he made sure that he looked presentable enough, he put up the mirror and took a deep breath, waiting for the moment that Joleigh would come through the door. He looked at his watch and figured that she would probably be a few more minutes before she came out. With one last deep breath, he pulled the car into the parking space next to her shop and waited.

  Chapter Seven: Joleigh

  Joleigh dragged her feet on closing down the shop because she knew that Graham was sitting outside. She had been ready to go ten minutes before she turned the sign, but when she saw him sitting in his car, suddenly she saw ten more things that she needed to do before she left for the day. She walked to the back of shop and sat in her office. Her phone vibrated and she was scared that it would be Graham, but then she laughed at her own craziness because he didn’t even have her number yet.

  Amber: Hey are you ready to leave for your date yet? Is he outside waiting on you? Don’t have him waiting too long.

  Joleigh looked down at her phone and then peaked around the corner of her office and outside. He was still sitting in the same parking spot but had turned off his car. He was looking down and she wondered how long he would sit there before he came to the door of her shop to see what she was doing. She watched him look at her hours of operation before he left earlier in the day, so there wasn’t much more time that she would have to kill. The stress of thinking about what they would talk about, and if they would hit it off had her working at the speed of lightning all day. Before she could think about what she was going to say to Amber, she had already text her again.

  Amber: I know you’re dragging your feet because you’re nervous, but don’t be. This is just a first date, they pretty much all go the same.

  She knew her way too well. Of course, she was dragging her feet and hiding out in her office like a scolded child, but she also knew how long that it had been since she’d gone on a date, and she also knew that she had never been on a date with someone that she didn’t know. The most that she knew about Graham came from his Facebook and the Google articles that she had been reading over and over again since last night. She didn’t want to bomb this date, but the more articles she read, the more she wished that she had’ve cancelled earlier. She didn’t know the first thing about going on a date with a billionaire, and the most pressing question is what was a man like Graham Brentwood, Texas real estate billionaire, wanting to do with a girl like her?

  Joleigh pushed the last thought out of her head and took a deep breath. She got up and walked over to the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She turned on the faucet
and ran her fingers through her hair. Joleigh ran her hands under the water and began to smooth down some of the hairs that were hanging down around her face. She stared in the mirror and touched up as much as she could with the lack of time. With a last look and a shrug, she turned off the light and headed back to her phone.

  Joleigh: I know that, I’m just really nervous about going. He’s already sitting outside waiting for me. I didn’t expect him to be so early. What if we have nothing in common, or we don’t have anything to talk about?

  Amber: You can’t worry about that, just focus on having a good time. You’re the most interesting person that I know, so if I haven’t gotten bored of you and we’ve been friends since we were three, I don’t think he’ll get tired of you from one ice cream date. He’ll probably want to go on a second date, too.

  Joleigh looked at her phone and a goofy grin spread across her face. That was one of the sweetest things that Amber had ever said to her. Amber wasn’t one to get too sappy, but you always knew that she cared a lot. It was too late to cancel, and besides, it was just ice cream. If it all went downhill, at least it wouldn’t last as long as a regular dinner date. As much as she wanted tonight to go well, she couldn’t make any guarantees and she certainly didn’t want to set herself up for an emotional failure. She turned off all of the lights and walked towards the front door. When she looked out the window, she saw Graham’s car in the same spot that he was in a minute ago but didn’t see him. She walked outside and locked the door, figuring that he had wandered down the block, but when she felt a tap on her shoulder, she turned around and screamed. He stepped back and held his hands up, “I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Graham stood there with his face turning red. Joleigh grabbed her chest and took a deep breath.

  “No, you’re fine, I didn’t see you sitting in your car and I assumed that you went into one of the stores around here,” she smiled and put her keys back into her purse. He ran his fingers through his hair and stood there looking at her, then at his car that was parked off to the side of her car, and then back to her. “No, I had come up here because I knew that you would be walking out soon, and I wanted to walk with you to the car.” Joleigh smiled, thinking that it was sweet of him to do that. It had been far too long since she had been out on an actual date and at this point, she didn’t even know what to expect when she had an encounter with a gentleman.

  “Well that’s very sweet of you, Graham.” He smiled and held out his arm, and she wrapped her arm in his elbow. “It was my pleasure,” he looked down at her and she had never felt so short in her life. Graham towered almost two feet over her and she knew that he just had to be over 6’5” because at her small 4’11” she barely came to his chest. His biceps were huge and touched her hand as they walked across the street. She looked around to see if anyone was out that she knew. If anyone were to see her walking arm in arm with a man that no one in town knew it would be the very Autumn scandal that everyone would need and being the talk of the town gossip was the last thing that she needed right now. Thankfully, there was no one around to see. He opened the door to the passenger side and helped her into the car.

  “Thank you,” she smiled and put on her seatbelt while he closed the door and walked around to the other side. She rubbed her fingers onto her pants and sent up a quick prayer that this date would go well. There was a lot of her emotions riding on this one date going well. If this didn’t go well, she had already made up in her mind that she would go to the animal shelter and get a puppy this weekend and that would be her future. Dating was a dark and scary road that didn’t always lead to the happy ending like the characters in the books that she loved to read. The people in the books that she read were well put together and stunning, and although Graham, definitely fit that description, she didn’t quite see that within herself. Average people get average love stories, and if that was all that this life would give her, that’s exactly what she wanted.

  She looked down at her purse and wondered when the last time was that she had bought herself a new anything. Joleigh was one hundred percent sure that the women that were more of Graham’s speed would know the answer to that question. The same question that boomed through her head all day was beginning to give her a headache. It was like a 12x12 Rubik’s cube that she couldn’t solve. Why would someone like the man that she had been researching for weeks want to go on a date with her? Racking her brain over and over, she began to bite her lip to the point of drawing blood. She rubbed her lips together and pulled out her phone to conspicuously check her lips for any signs of blood. With a once over, she made sure that she looked nice and put it back inside her purse.

  Graham climbed into the car and looked around before he cranked up the car and pulled off. “You look stunning, you don’t have to check yourself to make sure of that,” he put on his seat belt and placed the key into the ignition. Joleigh’s eyes widened and she looked down. She was almost sure that he wasn’t able to see her. A weak smile began forming across her lips and she nervously tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “I didn’t know that you saw that,” she whispered, her self-consciousness rising. “Don’t worry,” he shot a similar smile at her, “I did the same thing before you came outside. Joleigh returned his smile and placed her hands on the handles of her purse. They sat there for a moment while he fiddled with the air conditioner controllers. “Is that cool enough for you or is it too cold?” he looked up at her his WHAT COLOR eyes capturing her in their ANOTHER WORD FOR STRONG gaze. “Oh, no that’s good. Thank you.” He nodded and sat back and put the car into drive.

  “Do you have the directions, or do you want me to tell you where to go?” Joleigh looked at him, somewhat glad that he had snapped her out of her train of thought. She took a deep breath and nodded, catching another whiff of his cologne. It smelled exactly like she remembered. Not that it had been too long since the first time that she smelled it. “I think I’d rather you tell me than following the directions that my phone gives me. I trust someone that knows the area way more than I trust my apps,” he chuckled. “Yeah I know the way,” she reached around and put on her seat belt and placed her purse in her lap. “Have you ever been to where we’re going before?” he looked over at Joleigh before he pulled out of the parking lot and towards the traffic light. Joleigh nodded, “ I’ve been a few times actually. It’s one of my favorite ice cream shops in the city.” Graham nodded and pulled off. “Actually, now that I think about it, that was kind of a silly question for me to ask,” he shook his head. “No, it’s okay. A person can pass by a place a million times and never go inside,” she looked around and watched as the flower shop and her car disappeared behind them. “You’re right about that. I guess there’s a few places like that around town. It seems as though there’s always some new store or restaurant popping up and I don’t have enough time to try them all out.” he chuckled.

  Joleigh smiled and ran her fingers through her hair. She caught him looking at her and she blushed while she looked out of the window. One of the last things that she wanted was for him to know how much of an affect that he had on her. Even though they’d only been around each other twice, it seemed as though she already knew him. There was a sense of comfortability that they shared, and Joleigh began to feel herself relax. She willed her mind not to begin racing off with the same thoughts that she had been having ever since he asked her on a date. She couldn’t help but wonder if this was some way of him being able to get more information about Tamara from her. Yet, another piece knew that if it was information that he wanted, he would’ve had it already without her help. A man with the power that Graham Brentwood had didn’t need the help of the town florist to track down his biological mother. Especially if he had gotten so close as to find her shop and have his private investigator call her asking about her deliveries.

  They drove in silence for a few minutes, and Joleigh stole glances at him when he turned to see the cars in the lanes beside them. As they approached the interstate, she pointed at the sign in
front of them, “You need to get into the next lane. You’ll be turning right soon and then getting onto the interstate,” he looked over at her and smiled before he put on his turning signal. “Alright,” he paused and looked over at her when he stopped at the traffic light. “So, Joleigh, tell me a little about yourself,” he placed one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the console of the car. Graham stole a glance at her before he looked back at the road. The last thing he needed was to get them into an accident because he was too mesmerized by looking at her to focus on driving. Atlanta traffic was a lot similar to the traffic in Houston, busy all of the time and what seemed like a billion people going a thousand miles per hour in order to get to where they are wanting to go, not caring who else is around them.

  “What all do you want to know?” she looked up at him and stared into his eyes. He looked down at her and smiled, showing all of his teeth. “I want to know everything that there is to know about what makes Joleigh Everett who she is,” his voice was smooth and melodic. He would be perfect to listen to read a bedtime story, she thought to herself. “Hmm,” she thought to herself. “Well, I was born here in Flowery Branch at St. Mary’s Hospital on March 19, I’m a Pisces, my favorite color is orange, and I really like cats,” she looked up at him and grinned before they both burst into laughter. “Now that you’ve done your first day of school introduction, tell me some more about yourself,” Graham placed one hand on the wheel and the other so close to her that she could feel him.