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

by Laila Kelly

  Joleigh felt Graham’s eyes on her, and she felt her face getting warm. She was glad that the sun was beginning to set, and he wasn’t able to see her entire face. She couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking about whenever he looked at her. Of course, she knew what ran through her head when she looked at him, but she couldn’t say the same for him. “Are you ready to go inside, beautiful?” He reached over and stroked her cheek softly. Thank God we’re getting ice cream, because I feel like my body’s on fire from the inside out, Joleigh thought. Every time he touched her, she felt as if she was going to pass out. “Mmhmm,” she replied and reached for the door handle. “Don’t touch that,” Graham said quickly. She turned around and leaned her head to the side, confused. “I’ll get the door for you,” he said before he opened his door and hopped out. What a gentleman, she thought to herself. He walked around the front of the car and opened the door for her, “When I’m around, you’ll never have to touch a door again,” Graham whispered and closed the door behind her. “Thank you,” Joleigh whispered as he placed his hand on the small of her back and they walked to the front door. She tried not to jump at the mere touch from him. She had to be able to show some sort of control around this man. Joleigh tried painstakingly hard to not to make it obvious that she hadn’t been on a date in an embarrassingly long time.

  “It’s no problem, beautiful. Hopefully you’ll want to go on more dates with me and I’ll show you what a beautiful woman is supposed to be treated like, and eventually you’ll get used to it and expect that same treatment from everyone else,” he spoke so low that she was the only one that could hear him. Joleigh bit her lip and nodded. Thankfully she was significantly shorter than him, because if she was any taller, he’d see that her face was bright red. They had barely even started their first date and he was already anticipating going on more with her. She didn’t know if he was always this forward, or if this was just the way that rich men from Texas acted, either way, she had zero experience with either.

  They walked up to the menu and a teenage girl appeared from the kitchen. “Hey guys, welcome to McCoughtry’s Ice Cream!” her bright and bubbly personality matched the fiery redness of her hair. “Hi, it’ll be a moment before we order,” Graham said, looking down at her and winking. He looked back up at the teenage girl and searched for her name tag, “Ginger,” Quite an appropriate name for a red head, Joleigh thought, trying to stifle her laughter. “Tell me what your favorite flavor is here,” he asked the girl, looking at her and then back down at Joleigh. “Well I like all of the flavors here, but my top five would have to be the chocolate and the strawberry, which are our two non-dairy options, our waffle ice cream sandwiches are to die for, the French toast ice cream is perfect for if you’re have a sweet tooth, and if you’re not that into ice cream I would suggest any of our sorbets, but I want to reassure you that every flavor that we have is absolutely delicious,” she smiled and stared at Graham. Graham still hadn’t looked up from Joleigh, and he was studying her like the menu was written on her forehead.

  He waited a moment and then glanced up at the menu for a moment. “Do you know which one you want, Joleigh?” Graham asked, never breaking his glance. Joleigh nodded and pointed to her favorite flavor, banana pudding. “Yes, I’d like a small cup of your banana pudding flavor, please,” and looked up at Graham, a smile creeping across his face. “That sounds delicious, I’ll have a cone of the same flavor.” Ginger nodded, “Good choice guys!” and put on a pair of gloves and prepared their ice cream, her bubbly personality making Joleigh want to order another scoop. “Did you plan to get the same flavor as me?” Joleigh teased, and moved over to the other side of the counter near the cash register. Graham grinned, “Why of course I did, beautiful,” he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “You said that you wanted to come here and that it’s your favorite shop so I’m pretty sure whatever that you get is the reason that you keep coming back and I want to taste that,” Graham reached over and pushed back a piece of her hair behind her ear. He called her beautiful as if it were her real name, and Joleigh wondered if she would ever be able to get used to that. Of course, she had been called pretty before, but beautiful was a new one to her.

  “I hope you like it. This was the first flavor I ever tried when I came here and I’ve tried other ones since, but this has to be my absolute favorite. I haven’t tasted anything like this in my entire life,” Joleigh said with a smile as Ginger handed her the cup of ice cream. She stood there and waited for Ginger to hand Graham his cone. He looked down at her while he waited for Ginger to ring up their total. “Here’s your cone, sir and your total for this evening is $11.58,” Graham looked at the cone and licked it before handing the cone to Joleigh. “Can you please hold this for a moment?” she reached up and grabbed the cone, turning it around and wondering how he would be able to finish the ice cream before it melted into a puddle. He handed Ginger a crisp twenty-dollar bill and put his wallet back into his pocket. He reached down and grabbed the cone while Joleigh grabbed a pile of napkins. He’ll definitely need some of these, that cone is entirely too big, she thought.

  “You can keep the change,” he turned towards Ginger and then placed his hand back onto Joleigh’s waist, guiding her out of the restaurant. “Thank you so much, sir!” Ginger yelled as the door closed behind them. “That was very nice of you, Graham,” Joleigh whispered as she placed a spoonful of ice cream in her mouth. He shrugged, “It’s no big deal. It’s very important to tip people who work in the service industry. You never know what they could be going through,” and began licking his ice cream cone. “Would you like to sit in the car, or would you like to walk a little bit?” pointing over at the park across the street. Joleigh looked at the group of teenagers playing frisbee in the park and nodded. “Sure, we can go for a walk,” and before she knew it, he had reached down and grabbed her hand and leading her across the street.

  She looked down at how small her hand was in his and tried to hold back a smile, but it was too late. He had already seen her. “What?” he smiled, chuckling a little bit. “Nothing,” she said shaking her head and hopping onto the sidewalk. “No, tell me,” he nudged her a little bit with his elbow. She took another spoonful of ice cream and looked up at him, his eyes reflecting the sunset, one of the most beautiful sights that she had ever seen in her life. He ran his fingers over her knuckles, and she took a shallow breath. “I just,” she paused and looked up at him. He looked at her, waiting for her to finish what she was saying. “I just thought it was funny how little my hand looks inside of yours,” they both looked down at their hands, fingers interlocked between one another. She felt weird, saying it out loud and immediately wished she had’ve thought of something else to say.

  “They do look kind of small inside of mine, but I wouldn’t worry. I’m beast sized for sure, and you’re most certainly the size of the perfect woman,” his words flew off his tongue and into Joleigh’s mind, where she would play them over and over again. She smiled slightly and looked up at him, not wanting to focus on anything else. He was certainly the size of the perfect man for her, except she couldn’t let him know that. He was still too far out of her league. She was a florist that came from a family of florists and he was a billionaire that came from a family of construction company moguls. In a perfect world this union would work out, but in all reality, they wouldn’t mesh well for long.

  As much as Joleigh enjoyed looking into the eyes of an absolutely gorgeous man, she couldn’t help but feeling like she wanted to cower and run in the opposite direction. She had already talked about her parents with essentially a complete stranger. A rich one at that. Joleigh reminded herself that this date was nothing more than a thank you for helping him get closer to finding his biological mother, not some whirlwind romance that happens in movies where the rich and handsome guy finds the average girl and they fall madly in love with one another. She couldn’t forget that this wasn’t a Hallmark Christmas special. This was Flowery Branch, Georgia and she had en
tirely too much going on to get involved with anyone. Her father’s condition wasn’t getting any better and with Sam going off to WHERE IS HE GOING TO in a few months she would essentially be running the flower shop by herself.

  She couldn’t lose sight of reality, even when the reality that she lived in wasn’t exactly what she wanted. If she allowed herself to get too wrapped into the thought of Graham Brentwood and her being in some sort of relationship, it would only be setting herself up for heartbreak in the future and that wasn’t something that she needed right now. What she needed was to finish her ice cream and go home, back to her sad version of reality. Long were the days when she could spend all of her time reading romance novels and wondering where her Prince Charming was.

  Joleigh pulled her hand away and turned to look for a bench to sit on. Joleigh glanced up at Graham, a look of confusion on his face. She held up her cup of melting ice cream and he nodded. “Want to sit down over there on that bench?” he looked up at the bench a few feet away from them and placed his hand back on her waist as if that’s where it belonged. “Sure, beautiful,” as he led her over to the bench. As much as she didn’t want the negative thoughts in her mind to consume her, she had to remember that this wasn’t another one of her romance books that she read on her lunch break. This was reality, and fairy tales didn’t exist. Especially not from green-eyed Texan billionaires. The thought didn’t even sound real enough to be true even in her head, let alone out her mouth.

  She looked up from her ice cream and saw him staring at her again. “What’s up?” she looked at him and then back down at her cup of ice cream. It looked more like cream soup than the beautifully round scoops that Ginger placed into the cup. She scooped up the last of her ice cream and shoved it into her mouth. “Your demeanor shifted, is everything alright?” She looked at the empty cup in front of her and for once, she knew that she couldn’t be honest. The truth was already in the wonderful scoop of banana pudding flavored ice cream: it was gone and so was the sheer thought that she had made a good decision in going out with him in the first place.

  “Oh nothing, I was just thinking about some of the things that I have to do tomorrow, you know, making a mental to do list,” Graham looked at her and she knew that he saw right through her lies, but he didn’t push her any further. All of a sudden, he scooted over and looked down to see his cone dripping into a sticky mess all over his hand. “Dang it!” he jumped, shaking the ice cream off of his hand as Joleigh reached for the napkins that she stuffed into her purse. “Wait, stop shaking your hand!” Joleigh said while she doubled over in laughter. He reached over and took a few of the napkins from her and began wiping his hand off while furiously licking the cone, trying to control the dripping. He commenced to a comical dance of licking his hand and wiping it off with the napkins. Graham handed her the dirty ones and she gave him a few more.

  Joleigh threw the napkins away and continued to laugh at Graham until her sides began to hurt. “Oh my God, that was absolutely hilarious!” while Graham finished off his ice cream cone. She reached into her bag and pulled out another napkin, dabbing away at her face to catch the tears falling from her eyes. The mental image of Graham frantically licking his ice cream cone while trying to wipe his hands clean would be burned into her memory forever. “I’m glad that I could give you a good laugh,” he chuckled, his cheeks turning a bit red from embarrassment. Joleigh finished her laughing fit and placed her hand on his arm. “Graham, I’m so sorry for laughing at you the way that I just did, but it was just something about how your face looked and how fast the ice cream was dripping onto your hand just did something to me,” she leaned back onto the bench and chuckled a bit. “And that right there is why I never get ice cream cones, I can never eat them fast enough,” she added.

  Graham scooted next to her and leaned back as well. “No, I understand what you’re saying. I just didn’t anticipate that happening, I kind of got a little distracted by your beauty, and then when your attitude changed, I couldn’t help but to wonder what was on your mind,” he paused and ran his fingers through his hair, his face turning red. “Well this is embarrassing,” he chuckled nervously. Joleigh shook her head and placed her arm on his shoulder. “You have no reason to be embarrassed. He looked at her and scrunched his brow, “And why should I not be? I just let ice cream melt all over my hand on our first date. This isn’t exactly the laugh that I wanted to give you,” he laughed. “Now you’ll think that I’m a HOW OLD year-old man that can’t manage to eat an ice cream cone without soiling himself.” He shook his head and Joleigh continued to laugh.

  “Of course not. I’m more than confident that you can eat more than ice cream without getting yourself messy. If you couldn’t, I’m pretty sure that you would have enough wherewithal to bring yourself a bib and some wet wipes,” she slapped him on the shoulder and continued to giggle. He scooted over closer to her and wrapped his arm around her. “I guess I’ll let you have that one, but I can assure you that on our next date, I will not waste one thing on myself. Hopefully we’ll be able to go out to a nice dinner and if I do spill a little something on myself, I pray the dim lighting will save me the embarrassment,” he looked down at Joleigh with an optimistic twinkle in his eye.

  Joleigh nodded and looked over at the group of teenagers playing frisbee and wondered why Graham kept emphasizing them going on a second date. Not that their first one was exceptionally horrible. If anything, it had gone quite nicely. He rubbed her on the shoulder and they watched them throw the frisbee back and forth, adding tricks and different combinations with each throw. “That looks pretty cool,” Graham leaned close to her ear. She could smell the scent of his cologne again and she slowly took a deep breath committing it to memory. “That does look really interesting. I think there’s some sort of frisbee competition coming up soon around here.” Joleigh leaned in a little closer to him. Even if they didn’t have the second date that Graham keeps talking about, this date was something that Joleigh needed. It broke up the monotony that her life had become. She needed to get out more and this was her gateway.

  “Frisbee competition?” Graham’s head turned to the side. “Now I’m almost one hundred percent sure that we don’t have anything like that in Texas. I’m definitely beginning to see what all the hype is about Atlanta,” he sat back and put his other arm around the bench. Joleigh slid over to be able to look up at him. “Is this your first time to Atlanta?” Joleigh looked around and most certainly saw the appeal of not only Atlanta, but Georgia as a whole. “No, I’ve been here a few times, but they’ve mostly been strictly business. This is one of the first times that I’m coming to Atlanta that it hasn’t been all about business.” He reached over into his pocket, pulled out his phone and began scrolling through a few of his pictures. “I had planned to only do a little business while I was here, and the other part I wanted to spend looking for my biological mother.” He sat back against the bench and handed her his phone. “This is my family the last time that we all went to Cabo together. Joleigh looked at everyone’s smiling faces and it reminded her of the times that her and her parents would go to Saint Simon’s Island when she was younger. “You all look so happy, I love it,” and she handed the phone back to him.

  “Thanks. I believe that we were,” he put his phone back into his pocket. “So, if you don’t mind me asking, what kind of business did you have planned to tend to while you were in town?” she heard a lot about people selling off big lots on the outside of town. Word was that since Atlanta was getting so crowded and it was considered the Hollywood of the East Coast, people would want to move out here and eventually they would spread outside of the city limits.

  “I had found a few pieces of land that I’m thinking about buying and putting some houses on,” he leaned over and wrapped his arm back around her, pulling her closer to him. “I’ve been watching the industry grow out here and I like what I’m seeing. A lot of industry is coming to Georgia and if I intend on succeeding in my business I’m going to have to expand,” h
e looked down at Joleigh, “Plus one day I intend on having my own family, and I want to be able to spend as much time with them as possible without either myself or my wife having to work too hard. That means that now is the time that I have to buckle down and make things happen,” He kept his eyes locked with Joleigh’s and she could feel herself beginning to swoon. She snapped herself out of it and forced herself to look back at the teenagers.

  “Well it sounds like you have yourself a solid plan and I’m more than sure that whoever that wife of yours will be is going to be more than lucky to have someone like you,” she felt him squeeze her shoulder lightly. “I hope she will,” he paused for a moment and tugged at a piece of her hair. He leaned forward and placed his elbows onto his knees. “My father always said that failure to plan is planning to fail, and I can’t fail my future family,” he leaned over and looked at her in the eyes. “And I wake up every morning with the goal to never fail,” he winked and sat back against the bench. Joleigh looked the other way and wondered what else was in his master plan. A piece of her wanted it to include her.

  “Have you ever played any sports?” Graham asked, still watching the teenagers practice their tricks. She shook her head. “I played softball and volleyball from the time I was in elementary school all the way up until I was in high school.” Graham’s eyes widened and she laughed a little bit. “What? Why do you seem so surprised to hear that?” he shook his head and held up his hands. “I just didn’t picture you as the soccer type, but now that I think about it, I can definitely see how you were playing back then.” Joleigh shrugged, “Playing sports was the only thing that I really cared about in high school. Other than English class, everything else was just a nuisance and took up too much time.” Joleigh placed her hands in her lap and clasped them together. “I can definitely understand how you felt. I really enjoyed playing football. I mean, I kind of didn’t have too much of a choice. It’s kind of mandatory when you grow up in Texas that you play football. It’s really a social marker to make sure you’re “normal”, whatever that’s supposed to mean. If not, people tend to look at you and your parent’s kind of funny. You start them out in peewee football at WHAT AGE? And then you play up until the coaches realize you’re no good and then they put you into wrestling or some other “manly” sport.”