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

by Laila Kelly

  Joleigh knew exactly what Graham meant. Amber’s brother Andy would constantly get bullied by the football players in high school because he was buff but refused to play any sport that he deemed “too aggressive”. Andy just liked to draw and that was it. “I can see how that can be important for boys. So did you actually like playing football or was it more of something that you did to fit in?” Joleigh placed her hands underneath her legs and sat forward. Graham looked up to the sky. “I can say that I actually did like football, but not for conventional reasons. I liked that it gave me an outlet to make friends. Some of my very best friends are the guys that I played football with back in high school. Football was also something that taught me a level of physical discipline that made it easy for me to stay focused on some of the things that needed to become successful. Plus I really like working out, so that was always fun.” Joleigh looked down at his big arms and nodded. “Oh I can see that,” she blushed and looked away. Graham laughed a bit and stared at her cheeks.

  The sun was almost fully set, the sky more of a pinkish purple than the sorbet orange that it once was. “You almost ready to head back? I don’t want you getting back to your hotel too late,” Joleigh looked over at him and saw a second of disappointment flash across his face. She didn’t want their date to end just yet either. It felt nice to be looked at by a man. All of the men that came into the flower shop had a woman that they looked at the way that Graham was looking at her and it felt good to know what that felt like. It had been years since she had gotten a healthy dose of romantic attention. The pickings were mighty slim in Flowery Branch. Every man was either someone that she grew up with, or someone that stood absolutely no chance at winning her heart.

  Joleigh wanted romance. She wanted to be wooed, swept off her feet with some creativity and adored. That wasn’t happening with the guys in town. One nice burger and it was supposed to be engagement season, and that wasn’t cutting it. “Um, yeah we can head back if you want. I mean we don’t have to, though. I’m pretty sure that I can manage to find my way back to the hotel without a problem,” Joleigh smiled and sat back against the bench. A few more minutes sitting next to him wouldn’t hurt. He scooted closer to her and she leaned over, resting her head on his shoulder. Maybe Amber was right. If she was going to go out on a date, she should at least enjoy it.

  She took another deep breath in and absorbed more of his cologne. Whatever it was, it surely didn’t smell like something out of Macy’s. It must have been some sort of French smelling cologne that Joleigh wouldn’t be able to pronounce even if she tried. She closed her eyes for a moment and engraved the memory of the moment into her head. For once, Joleigh felt like the women in the romance novels that she spent all of her time reading.

  All of a sudden, she felt Graham jerk up. She jumped up and saw him holding the frisbee. The group of teenagers ran over to them. “I’m so sorry sir,” they looked at him and then to her, “I’m so sorry ma’am, we didn’t mean for it to come over here and hit your wife.” Their faces bright red matching Joleigh’s. Little did they know that this was their first date and they were far from being husband and wife. They looked at each other for a minute.

  Joleigh looked at each of them and shook her head. “You guys are fine, no harm no foul,” she laughed it off. Graham looked at her for a moment. “What she said, guys, you all are fine. We were admiring your work over there.” He handed them the frisbee and they looked at each other and back at Graham and Joleigh. “Thank you so much. We’re practicing for a big competition coming up in a few weeks.” Joleigh smiled and looked up at Graham. “Well I just know that you boys will do great out there.” They smiled, “Thank you, ma’am,” Graham put his arm around Joleigh’s shoulder. “Good luck out there, gentlemen,” and they waved as they ran back over to where they were.

  “Those are some nice kids,” Graham looked down at her, not bringing up the fact that they thought the two them were married. “I think that it’s time we head back to the car,” he turned to the car and grabbed Joleigh’s hand. Her fingers fit perfectly into the grooves of his fingers and they quickly crossed the street. He unlocked the doors and opened hers, waiting for her to slide into the seat and situate herself before he closed the door. She buckled herself in and watched as he walked around the car and got in. He was most certainly one of the most handsome men that she had ever seen. He was like a mixture between a Calvin Klein model and rugged cowboy from the western shows that her father always watched.

  The ride back to the flower shop was filled with sweet small talk and them stealing glances at one another while trying to make sure the other didn’t catch them. Before they knew it, they had made it back to the flower shop where her car was parked. “We made it back awfully fast,” he said. “Where is your car parked?” and she pointed to where her car was parked. Graham pulled in next to her small beat up red Volkswagen. She looked over at it and felt a shred of embarrassment at the difference in how his car looked in comparison to hers. “Yeah, we did,” she looked back at him. He reached over and grabbed her hand, tracing his fingers over her knuckles. “It always seems like getting into Atlanta takes way longer than getting out of it,” he looked at her and unbuckled her seatbelt and his.

  She sat back in the seat and looked into her flower shop, staring at her ‘We’re Closed’ sign, avoiding his gaze. “Joleigh,” he waited for her to look at him. “I really enjoyed myself tonight, and I don’t return back to Houston until Friday,” he paused and squeezed her hand slightly. “I know we just met today, and it’s only a Tuesday, but I wanted to know if you would like to go on a date with me on Friday night, if you would like to,” he looked nervous and she felt his hand beginning to sweat a little bit. She met his gaze and bit the inside of her lip, “I’ll have to check with my dad’s caregiver to make sure that she’s free, but if she is, then we can.” A look of relief washed over his face, “Oh alright,” he smiled. She already knew that if Amber found out that Graham wanted to go on a second date with her then she would cancel her own plans if she had any. This was her dream, Joleigh going out on dates with handsome men. Of course, she would stay a little bit later with her dad. It’s not like she didn’t spend the night any other Friday night.

  Joleigh looked down at her watch and saw that it was already 9:30. On any other night she would already be in her pajamas and sitting on the couch reading a book. Being out this late was totally out of her system, despite her still being fairly young. Yet, she had already formulated her life into a routine that she enjoyed and stuck to. “I really don’t want you to travel too late back into the city. I know how it is late at night. All of the street names begin to look the same,” Joleigh laughed. Graham looked at his watch. “I can tell, everything is named Peachtree,” he laughed. He got out the car and walked around to open Joleigh’s door. She grabbed her purse and pulled out her keys while he walked around the front of the car.

  “Here you go, my lady,” and held out his hand to help her out. She unlocked her door with the keys, and he opened her door for her. She threw her purse into the passenger seat and turned to face him. He looked down at her and she held her hands together in front of her. The suspense was growing inside of her and even though they had spent the last few hours together she still could feel the butterflies flapping in her stomach. “So,” Graham started. “So,” Joleigh repeated. “I really had a wonderful time this evening, Joleigh,” he blurted out. She smiled and tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “I did too, I want to thank you for that. It’s been a while since I’ve gone on a proper date,” her words trailing off at the end. She looked down in a bit of embarrassment.

  He ran his fingers through his hair and taking a sharp breath in through his teeth, “It’s been a few years for me since I’ve been out on a date,” he looked around. His nose began to turn a bit red and Joleigh smiled, glad to know that she wasn’t the only one. “I mean, if this is the type of date that I’ve been waiting this long for, you were certainly worth the wait, Joleigh.” He smi
led and his eyes twinkled with the full moon. Joleigh blushed and looked down, “Aww, Graham,” she whispered. “That’s very sweet of you to say.” His sweet words took her off guard, and she felt bad for not having a well thought out response to these types of things. She had become so numb to these things that she felt like a teenager on her first real date.

  They looked around the empty parking lot and then back at one another. For the first time this evening, neither of them knew what to say. “Well it’s getting later, and I want to head home and relieve the caregiver. She gets up really early in the morning to be there before I go to work and I don’t want her to be too tired,” Joleigh sighed, leaving out the part that her father’s caregiver is her best friend. “Oh yes, I don’t want her to be waiting too long. Could you please text me when you make it home safely? If that’s not too much to ask for,” Graham’s voice trailed off and he looked down at her, searching her face for some sort of emotion, or confirmation that she was as into him as he was into her.

  She nodded, “Sure, that’s not a problem at all. You have a wonderful rest of your night, Graham,” and she turned and got into her car. He closed her door while she let down her window. “You have a good night too, beautiful,” and watched as she pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street. While she waited for the light to turn, she saw him get into his car and pull up beside her, wave, and turn right. She sighed when she saw his car disappear down the street and she looked in her mirror at herself. Her hair was a mess on top of her head, and she looked as if she had a longer day than she really had. She didn’t see where Graham saw anything remotely beautiful about her. That was one adjective that hadn’t been used too often to describe her. In her mind, Joleigh was just average. Not an eyesore, but certainly not glamour pageant material. Which added more questions into her mind as to what a man like Graham Brentwood would be doing entertaining her.

  The drive to her house had long before become muscle memory and when she pulled into the driveway, she couldn’t remember how she had gotten there. Her mind had been filled with recapping tonight’s events. When she looked back at their date, there were so many things that she wished she should have said, and plenty more that she wished that she hadn’t. She reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. Joleigh grabbed the business card that Graham had given her when he asked her out on a date. On the back he had sprawled his cell phone number.

  Joleigh: Hey Graham, it’s me, Joleigh. I was just texting you to let you know that I had made it home safely. Good night. *blushed smiley face emoji*

  She threw her phone back into her purse and looked over and saw Mrs. Dabney sitting in her usual spot on her porch and she waved. “You’re getting home pretty late, Joleigh. Is everything alright at the shop?” she stood up and waked over to the end of the porch. “Oh no, things are doing well. I just had a few last-minute orders to finish and I went to go catch a movie.” Mrs. Dabney eyebrow twisted, and Joleigh knew that she could tell that she was lying and hoped that she wouldn’t press it. “Alright. What movie did you go to see? Ronald and I are supposed to be catching the Wednesday Senior Matinee movie tomorrow morning.” Joleigh bit her lip and tried to recall one of the recent movie trailers that she had seen on television. “Um it was one of the Avenger’s movies. They’re playing the older ones before the newest one comes out next week. I went to see one of the one’s that I had missed when it first came out.” She thanked God that Sam was talking all week about the newest Avenger’s movie and the special that they were running at the movie theatre down the street.

  “Oh that sounds lovely, I should go and see that,” Joleigh smiled and looked down at her watch. “It was good, well you have a good night Mrs. Dabney. I think I’m going to head inside and see how Dad’s doing.” She turned around and walked down the stone path and opened up the door. “Hey, button!” her dad looked up from the sofa, his face filled with joy. Joleigh smiled and walked over to him, placing a kiss on her cheek. “Hey, Dad. Did you have a good day today?” she walked over to him and sat down between him and Amber. “I had a good day. How was yours?” She burrowed into the couch and sighed. “It was good.” She kicked off her shoes into the pile of shoes by the door.

  “How were your classes? You are taking English this semester, aren’t you?” Joleigh shook her head. Most of his memories stopped recording when her mother passed away, and at the time she was still in college. “Yeah I am. It’s going well. I had only two classes today,” she paused and got up from the couch. “You ready to head to bed?” The later that he stayed up the worse his memory got throughout the evening. He nodded and stood up, waved at Amber and headed down the hallway to his room.

  Joleigh walked into the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea. Amber walked in behind her and sat down at the table. “So, how did it go? You seem really quiet,” she smiled at her. Amber was so optimistic about everything. Joleigh, on the other hand, always thought carefully about everything that could go wrong. She grabbed a tea bag out of the drawer and popped it into the cup.

  “It actually went pretty good. He came by the shop and picked me up from there, then we drove over to McCoughtry’s.” She knew that her not going into a lot of detail would bother Amber. She waited for Amber to tap her hand on the table. “Joleigh,” she started, “Now I know that can’t be it. I want to know everything. What was he wearing? What did he order? What did y’all talk about in the car? Did you just eat ice cream and leave? Did y’all kiss? These are the things that I need to know,” she pounded on the table lightly. Joleigh playfully rolled her eyes and dropped a sugar cube into her mug before sitting down. “If you must know, it was a really good date. We talked on the way there about our families and our childhoods. I ordered my usual, the banana pudding ice cream scoop in a cup, and he got a medium cone of the same flavor.” Amber placed her hand over her mouth and gasped. “Aww that’s so sweet!” she squealed. “Tell me more!” Amber was getting more enjoyment out of hearing about her date than Joleigh was from actually going on it.

  “When we got the ice cream we walked across the street and sat at Peach Park. There were some teenage boys over there practicing their frisbee routines for that competition that they have been advertising on the radio, and we talked for a bit. I almost got hit with the frisbee because I had my eyes closed, but Graham caught it before it could hit me,” she paused and took a sip of her tea while Amber dramatically almost slid out of her seat and swooned. “That. . . is so. . .romantic!” she squealed again while she fanned herself. Joleigh shrugged and gulped down more of her tea. “What are you shrugging for? You’re acting like it didn’t faze you one bit that he was being sweet to you. Was he a gentleman? Did he open the door for you?” Joleigh smiled slightly and shook her head. “Yeah, he was most certainly a gentleman. He didn’t let me touch any doors the entire night, not the car doors, or the door to the ice cream shop,” her voice was distant and aloof. Joleigh looked down into her cup at the cat face at the bottom.

  Amber sat back in her seat and slid it closer to Joleigh. “Okay, so if the date went well, then what do you seem so down about? Did you get a bad vibe about him?” Amber knew Joleigh like the back of her hand. Joleigh shrugged her shoulders and took another sip of her tea. She sighed, “No, it’s really none of that. It’s just a matter of I kept thinking about all of the things that I saw about him on the internet, and it just raised a lot of questions for me. It kind of made me feel weird.” Joleigh couldn’t quite put her fingers on the correct word that would describe how she was feeling, but whatever it was, it didn’t feel good.

  “What things that you read about him? Did you find something that I didn’t see?” Amber’s face changed from one of excitement to one of concern. “No, I saw all of the same articles that you saw,” Joleigh’s voice grew quiet. Of course Amber was confident enough in her that things would spark between her and Graham, and if she was honest with herself, she knew the same thing. “Then I’m not completely understanding what the issue is here. You and I both read great a
rticles talking about this man, I did a check on the Texas State Corrections website and to my knowledge he doesn’t have any criminal record, he’s charitable, handsome, talks about his family, and seems very interested in you, so can you please point me to where something is wrong with him?”

  Joleigh looked at Amber and then back down at the table. She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. Amber tapped her long blue fingernails on the table, waiting for Joleigh to say something. Joleigh hoped if she didn’t say anything then she would drop the issue and leave her alone about it. Fear had overcome any and all excitement that she had earlier that evening. She heard her dad close the bathroom door and start the shower. That was her only priority. Everything else would have to take a backseat, including Graham Brentwood.

  Amber waved her hand in front of her face and snapped Joleigh back into reality. “I’m ready to listen whenever you’re ready to talk,” she crossed her arms and sat back into her chair. “You know I can sleep here, so I have all night,” Amber pressed her lips together. Joleigh rolled her eyes and stood up to put her mug into the sink. Amber was one of the most stubborn people that she had ever met, and she would most certainly keep Joleigh up all night until she told her what was on her mind, and all Joleigh wanted was to go to bed. Accepting her defeat, she sat back down at the table.