by Katie Dowe
Paul
A man who's lost everything, ready to find love again...
A sexy billionaire widower romance by Katie Dowe of BWWM Club. Features another free bonus book.
When Gina’s mom passed away from cancer, Gina packed in her corporate job and followed her passion.
Now she teaches aerobics at a recreation center for the physically disabled, and couldn’t be happier.
That is, until aloof handsome billionaire Paul Brady puts in a bid to buy the center.
Gina’s not afraid to stand up to business hot shots, so she marches to his office to make him back down.
But what she didn’t expect was for sparks to fly.
Soon she and Paul are falling in love, but he’s holding secrets back, and a whole ton of guilt from moving on after his wife died.
Gina’s catching feelings, but with the center... and her heart... in the balance, how will things turn out?
Find out in this heartfelt yet super hot romance by Katie Dowe of BWWM Club.
Suitable for over 18s only due to sex scenes so hot, you’ll be working up a sweat.
Tip: Search BWWM Club on Amazon to see more of our great books.
Free: Get Jason from the Members From Money series where YOU'RE the star!!
Hi there. As a special thank you for buying this ebook, for a limited time I want to send a copy of Jason free of charge directly to your email! It's a personalized story, meaning you'll add a few details about yourself (these won't be shared with anyone else) and you'll become the star of the story!! :D
You'll be emailed a new chapter once a day for 7 days. You can get it by clicking the cover below or going here:
Direct link: www.afroromancebooks.com/personalized-jason-members-from-money
This book is so exclusive you can't even buy it. As well as sending daily emails with the story, I'll also send you updates when new books like this are available.
Copyright © 2017 to Katie Dowe and AfroRomanceBooks.com. No part of this book can be copied or distributed without written permission from the above copyright holders.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Bonus Book - Her Asian Billionaire's Perfect Match
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapetr 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
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Chapter 1
Regina went through the paces and sets automatically, smiling as old Mrs. Greene lifted her knees and gyrated her body to the upbeat music. Regina enjoyed the three days a week she spent with the residents of Liberty House and looked forward to it every time. “Okay ladies, one last round. This time we are going to take it slow.” She stopped suddenly and went to the CD player to change the tempo. “Let’s get flat on our backs and relax and do our breathing.” She instructed. “Right from our diaphragm, let’s go. Ilene, stretch your feet out. That’s it.” She told the purpled hair woman with a nod. “Okay, let’s go. Just visualize that you are lying on a beach in the Caribbean and soaking up the sun.”
“With a strong native rubbing cream on your skin!” Delis Rose piped up, causing everyone to laugh. They finished the routine in the next half hour and she instructed them to close their eyes and relieved their minds of everything that was causing stress. “Detox the mind,” she told them making sure that he turned off the music because they needed absolute quiet. Regina Phillips, to many known as Gina, spent three afternoons a week at the rec center with the elderly women who would not be exercising otherwise and gave her services to them. She spent the next two days of the work week being Girl Thursday and Friday to Sinclair’s Home for Cancer Patients not very far from here, doing whatever she can to put smiles on the faces of the men and women who were suffering from cancer. Her life had been so different two years ago! She had gotten a job in a very large accounting firm straight from college and had been determined to prove herself to the managers and become a big time executive in no time. She had done just that and had found herself with her own office at the age of twenty-two and earning top dollars, driving a company Porsche and going off on vacations two times for the year to different places. It had cost her a lot because she had neglected her parents somewhat, only sending them a check every month and breezed by to see them every other week. When she had heard that her mother had breast cancer and it was at stage four, she had quit her job and given up her ritzy apartment to come back home. She had managed to spend six months with her before she had passed away. Her father was still alive and she had decided to stay and spend the time with the only parent she had left.
Now she spent her time trying to bring some sort of happiness to people going through the same thing her mother had gone through.
“Okay ladies. That’s it for now. Please remember to drink plenty of water and stay hydrated.” She told them as she helped some of them get to their feet.
“We will!” they chorused.
She went over to where she had her stuff and was wondering if she should change out of her tights and short loose shirt as the time was very hot when she looked up and saw Miriam, the owner of the rec center, beckoning to her.
Miriam Brightly was a middle-aged woman with bright blue eyes and dark brown hair threaded through with grey and had inherited the rec center from her dad. He had been running it for the past two decades before he died several years ago and left it to his daughter with the instruction to carry on as he had done. It was a center geared towards the elderly where they get to hang out like an elderly people’s club and pay a fee.
Miriam indicated that she followed her into her small office. “You are doing such a good job Gina,” she said as she took her seat at the desk.
“Thanks, Miriam.” She looked at the woman for a moment. “Why do I get the feeling that there is a ‘but’ there?”
“No buts,” she said hastily as she fooled around with the odd looking paperweight on her desk. “We need money.” She said abruptly.
“I thought the members paid a fee.”
“They do, but it is not enough to maintain it and some big corporation is looking to buy the businesses along this stretch of road.” She looked down at her hands for a moment. “Brady’s Developers. They buy out places like these, tear them down and make high-rise buildings for offices or apartments. I cannot compete with that.”
“But where are the people going to go?” Gina protested.
“I don’t know, but I am being pressured for an answer.” She admitted.
“When are you supposed to respond?”
“I am supposed to meet with the person in charge of acquisitions sometime next week.”
“Let me meet with them.”
The woman looked at her in surprise. “Why do you care?” You are young and beautiful and can do anything you want to do. Why do you care what happens to these people?”
“Because they are people, too, and sometimes we tend to forget that,” Gina said quietly. “I made the mistake of forgetting that at one point in my life and I have no intention of doing that again.”
*****
Paul Brady stood beneath the shower for a very long time letting the water beat down on him as he closed
his eyes. It had been a very big mistake. He had thought that it was time he got back out there and started dating again and his mother had been pressuring him as well, so he had decided why the hell not? He had known her through the circle they were a part of, and Leesa Wellington had told him that she was a nice enough woman with her own line of department stores. He had gone on two dates with her and had succumbed to going back to her apartment, but it had turned out to be a big disappointment for him! There had been nothing there! No spark, not even a slow fire. From her reactions, it had appeared that he had given her the utmost pleasure and she had asked him in a sultry voice when they could do it again. He had mumbled something and hightailed it out of there! She was beautiful and successful but she was not the one, and he had known it the first time they had gone out together. Now he would have to face questions from Leesa who did not know when to quit. Paul had married his childhood sweetheart when he was twenty, a sweet and beautiful girl who had had been contented to live in his shadow as he took on his father’s business and dove into it with a gusto that had him working from morning till night. When his dad had died when he was only twenty-two and he had been forced to take over the running of the company he had fitted right in. It had taken him only two years to turn it into a billion-dollar company that was a force to be reckoned with. Linda had stood by him without complaining and was there when he got home and listen to him talk about the plans for the company. She had found out she had breast cancer six months before she told him, and by that time it had been too late. He had been frantic and got in touch with the best doctors in the country and even overseas but it had been too far gone. She had died the way she lived, peacefully and without causing a stir. He had always told himself that he had never deserved her. He had moved out of the manor they had shared with his mother and into a penthouse suite where he could brood and grieve alone.
He turned off the tap and slid the glass partition aside, reaching for a towel to wrap around his trim waist. He went to stand in front of the mirror and stared at himself critically. He looked like his mother with his blue black hair that curved at his nape and his slate grey eyes that changed color with his mood. He had some Indian in him as indicated by his deep coloring and his muscular build. He rarely smiled and his mother had told him that it was due to the fact that he had had to grow up too fast and assumed responsibilities at an early age. He lifted his hands and ran them through his wet hair keeping them there as he stared at himself. He had made a ton of money and seemed to have a penchant of doing so. Linda had been the calm to his restlessness and now that she was gone he could feel the restless energy pounding inside him. He was a member of the Elite Club and was involved in a lot of their activities. He had a feeling that that was what was keeping him from going off at the deep end.
With a sigh, he wandered into the huge and sparsely furnished bedroom. He glanced at his phone and saw the number of missed calls from his ‘date’ and ignored them going into his study to get some work done.
*****
“Dad, you didn’t have to do that!” Gina protested as she came into the kitchen and saw her father making a salad.
“I got home early and decided to surprise you,” he told her with a grin as he held up his cheek for a kiss. Richard Phillips was a high school teacher who taught history at the local high school and did gardening to relax himself. He was a gentle soul who never allowed anything to bother him. He was a tall and lean African American in his late fifties and often wondered how he fathered such a vivacious beautiful woman who was his daughter.
“I came home early today and decided to make myself useful,” he glanced at her and went back to the job at hand. “You look like you could use a glass of wine.” He left his vegetable chopping and went to get the bottle of Merlot out of the fridge, pouring some for her and himself. “How was the rec center?”
“A big corporation is looking to buy it out,” she told him as she perched on the stool and sipped her wine watching as he expertly sliced the cucumber. She suspected that they were going to be having the leftover lasagna from yesterday. “Brady’s Developer.”
He looked up at her. “It is run by young Paul Brady who took over from his father some years ago and turned the company into a billion dollar one. His wife died of breast cancer several years ago.”
“Oh!” Gina looked at her father quickly. He had loved his wife with a passion she had rarely seen and had been devastated when she died, but he seems to be doing much better now. “That’s tragic at any age but for the very young it is horrible.” She sipped her wine. “I am meeting with some members of the acquisition department next Monday. I am trying to come up with a plan as to how to dissuade them from trying to buy the center.”
“If anyone can do it, then it’s you.” He told her with a fond smile.
She helped him with the sharing, and they ate the simple meal right there at the kitchen counter. Rosewood Cottage was a small three-bedroom place with a delightful rose garden at the back of it. Her mother had been the one with the green thumb and had tended to the garden with love and care as she did everything else.
After dinner, Gina washed up and made the coffee, taking a cup to her father who had gone into the living room to grade papers. “You want us to watch an old black and white movie?” he asked her.
“I am turning in early Dad and you have a lot on your plate,” she indicated the papers he had on the table in front of him. “I am going to take a long soak and then try and decide how to beat Mr. Gentles in poker on Thursday.” She said with a grin.
“I am sure he is cheating.” Her father said with a smile.
“I am sure he is.” She planted a kiss on his cheek and went out of the room.
She went around and made sure the windows and doors were secured before going into her room where she went straight into the bathroom and took off her clothes. Regina Phillips was a stunning African America with a tall slim body and a face that photographed well if she had decided to go into modeling. She had large chocolate brown eyes, well-shaped brows, full lips and naturally curly dark hair threaded with brown. She had never been in a relationship before, preferring to wait until she fell in love and had not done so yet. She reached up and pulled the hair from her face securing it with a thick elastic band and going towards the bath to pour some scented bubbly into the warm water before stepping into it. She closed her eyes and remembered her mother’s laughter and her exuberance. She had gotten her looks and personality from Petra Phillips and her height from her dad. Her eyes flew opened as her thoughts went to Paul Brady who had lost his wife at such a young age. What an awful tragedy! Her dad had been morose and taciturn the few months after they had put her mother to rest in the quiet cemetery in the middle of the lush wooded area. He had come home from the funeral and had locked himself inside his room, leaving her to deal with the well-wishers who had come to mourn with them and be a source of comfort. She had spent the afternoon trying her best to keep up the conversation and screaming inside for them to leave so she could take a break from smiling and pretending that she was handling it well. She had been riddled with guilt and grief at the times she had missed out with her mother and how she had come back home when she was ill and practically wasted away. They had talked and her mother had told her not to spend her time feeling guilty. She had come back and that’s what mattered. But she had still felt it and after everyone had left she had checked on her dad and gone straight into her room to give in to tears! She closed her eyes and slid down into the water letting the warm suds submerge her before coming back up. Her mother was the reason why she had to fight for these people!
*****
“Paul you have the housing people on the line and your mother called again.” His secretary Andrea’s voice came over the intercom.
He dealt with the housing people and called his mother right after.
“How was the date?” she asked him without preamble. Pauline Brady was in her sixties and very involved in various charities. She had worked brie
fly as a White House aide but had decided that the hectic lifestyle was not for her. She remained friends with First Lady Melore Hawkins and they were often seen together at various functions.
“Good day to you too, Mother,” he told her dryly. “It was a disaster that I will not be repeating soon.”
“You need to get out there darling. You have been mourning too long.”
“I had no idea that there is a time span on mourning. Aren’t you still mourning Dad?” he asked her in amusement.
“I am almost sixty years old darling, and your father and I lived a very full life. You are twenty-seven years old and have not lived yet.”
“I am not going out there because you and Leesa think I should ‘get back out there’ as you put it. I am done.” He told her grimly.
“Please, don’t say that darling! Have pity on a woman who wants grandchildren.”
“Mother, I have work to do.”
“Okay darling, but I am having a dinner party on Friday and you are required to be there.”
“If I see one indication that you are setting me up, I am leaving immediately.” He warned.
“You win,” she said with a sigh. “Don’t work too hard.”
*****
“Here you go Greta,” Gina handed the glass of water to the woman sitting in the wheelchair and took her seat beside her. It was a scorching hot August afternoon and all the residents had taken refuge inside the large air conditioned recreational room. Greta Coombs was seventy-two years old and had been ravaged by breast cancer for the past ten years but still managed to keep a smile on her face. She had outlived her husband and her only child; a son who had died in the war some years ago. Gina had asked her one day how she did it and she had said that they were never hers to keep anyway, they had been on loan to her. She had stared at the woman puzzled and she had laughed and explained it. “Everything we have will leave us eventually dear so we need to find a way to enjoy them and not hold on too tightly. Not even our lives belong to us. Do you believe in a higher being?” she had asked Gina, her faded blue eyes looking at her curiously.
