The Brazen Billionaire

by Elana Johnson

  “Wishful thinking,” he said, collapsing back onto the bed. Just like thinking he could get his parents to move to Hawaii, or run a huge diamond conglomerate from a tropical island in the middle of the night.

  As Jasper lay there in the dark, he tried to feel something. But he was simply too stunned—and Sasha did not call him back.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sasha listened to Jasper’s message every day for a week, her fingers itching to dial him back. Talk to him. Apologize until he got on a jumbo jet just for her and came home.

  But her pride would not let her, and she had to admit to herself why.

  She wasn’t ready to trust a man yet. Newt had carved open her chest and shattered something inside her that wasn’t all the way healed yet, and she would not go back to Jasper until she was sure she could give all of herself to him, including her heart.

  “Doesn’t mean you can’t talk to him while you heal,” Esther said one afternoon as the two women sat with Stacey, sampling cakes for her upcoming wedding.

  “I don’t know,” Sasha said. “What if I just drive him farther away?” Her jealousy had already reared its ugly head once before this. She’d overreacted then too, and she didn’t trust herself not to ruin things completely.

  “Maybe he’ll understand.” Esther put a big bite of the chocolate cake in her mouth. “Stacey, this one is divine. If you don’t choose it, I’m having it at my wedding.”

  “When are you getting married?” Stacey lifted her eyebrows.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Esther lifted one bare shoulder and scooped up another bite of cake. “I haven’t talked to Marshall about a date yet.”

  “I thought you wanted a summer wedding.” Stacey tried a bite of the lemon cake, and she moaned. “This one is so great.” She pushed the plate toward Esther and Sasha.

  Honestly, all the cakes tasted the same to Sasha. Her taste buds—the one thing she’d been able to depend on through everything—had abandoned her. She put a bite of some pink cake in her mouth anyway and pretended to like it.

  “I do want a summer wedding, but it’s March already, and there’s no time to plan a wedding by summer.”

  The door behind them opened and Tawny bustled through it, still wearing her cut and tied T-shirt with a pair of gray leggings. She rolled her eyes. “These two guys stopped me after class and asked all kinds of questions.” She dropped her purse on the floor and took the seat next to Stacey.

  “I think they’re the developers of that new place over in the east bay.”

  Sasha perked up then. “There’s a new place over in the east bay?”

  Tawny picked up a fork and took a bite of the chocolate cake. “It hasn’t been announced yet, but Fisher’s had people over at his hotel. You know, men with fancy suits and one scary-looking woman in six-inch heels every time I see her, even in the sand.” She shook her head. “I honestly don’t get heels.”

  “Try the lemon,” Stacey said. “You just need more cake and then everything will be okay.”

  Tawny took a bite of all the flavors, visibly calming with each one. She finally exhaled and said, “Okay, I feel better. So. What did I miss?”

  “Esther thinks she can’t plan a wedding by oh, September, which is technically still summer.” Stacey rolled her eyes and stabbed her fork in Sasha’s direction. “And Sasha’s still not talking to Jasper, even though she’s totally in love with him.”

  “Stacey,” Esther said at the same time Tawny squeaked. Sasha felt like she’d been electrocuted, twice.

  “I’m not in love with him.”

  “Are too.” Stacey folded her arms and looked straight at Sasha. “Trust me, we’ve all been where you are.”

  Sasha’s bottom lip started to tremble and she pulled in a deep breath to contain her emotions. “How do I get out of this place?”

  Esther patted her hand and then squeezed it. “You’ll figure it out.”

  Sasha wasn’t so sure. In fact, all she was sure of was that she couldn’t keep living like this.

  Jasper called every evening for sixteen straight days. When he missed on the seventeenth evening, Sasha felt the loss of it keenly. A voice screamed in her head that she could call him. She knew how to dial a phone. But at this point, she didn’t know what to say.

  Jasper, on the other hand, true to his say-everything-he-thinks personality, left sixteen messages. Sasha didn’t delete a single one of them, and while he seemed to be telling her about his mom and the plans they had to all move to Hawaii in a couple of months.

  He talked about his work one night, and then his sister in Paris the next. He probably used a timer, because he spoke for about sixty seconds and then stopped just before the voicemail cut him off.

  He talked about the picture and how it wasn’t a Valentine’s Day celebration and that he hadn’t seen Dominique once since being back in Europe.

  And the funny thing was, Sasha believed him. She just wasn’t sure how to get out of her own way.

  And Jasper stopped calling anyway. Two days went by. Then three. Then a week. She stayed busy as the weather warmed and as Stacey’s wedding neared. Before she knew it, the day had come, and she sat in the chair with Tawny on her left and Esther on her right to get their hair done.

  She felt like a third wheel, like she didn’t belong in her own circle of friends anymore. Her left hand felt too light and she wanted to hide it in her pocket whenever the other ladies were around.

  But the bridesmaid’s dresses had no pockets, and she couldn’t do anything about her naked ring finger. But as her hair got curled and swept up onto the top of her head, as the makeup artist somehow brought out the contours of her face that Sasha didn’t even know she possessed, the magic of the day started to seep into her bloodstream.

  She enjoyed herself as the ceremony got closer and closer. After all, she had great friends doing great things, and she was glad to be a part of their lives.

  The wedding party walked down the aisle, and Sasha held her flowers lightly while she stepped beside Owen Church, Fisher’s general manager from the hotel. She was supposed to be on Jasper’s arm, and she felt the loss of him beside her keenly.

  Owen looked every bit the same as the other billionaires in Fisher’s party, and Sasha kept her smile pinned in place as she separated from Owen and joined the other girls. The wedding march began, and Stacey appeared at the end of the aisle that had been set up in the gardens.

  The shade from the palms and banyans, along with the rows and rows of flowers, made the entire scene like a fairytale. Sasha watched her friend take step by careful step, beaming out at all the attendees, her arm looped through her father’s.

  They paused at the front of the group, where her dad leaned over and whispered something to her before kissing her cheek. Stacey grinned even wider then, and the smile almost split her face as her dad passed her to Fisher.

  He also pressed a kiss to Stacey’s temple and brought her directly beside him before they both focused on the pastor who stood behind a flower-laced altar.

  He said a few words and then said, “It’s my understanding that the bride and groom have written vows they’d like to read.” He indicated they should do so, and Stacey took a slip of paper from her mother and faced Fisher, holding the paper with one hand and the microphone with the other.

  “Fisher, when we first met, I was determined not to like you.” Twitters sounded in the audience, but Stacey continued undaunted. “But because of your charm and caring way with everyone around you, somehow you wormed your way into my heart. I once followed you to Michigan to get you back into my life, and I’d follow you anywhere.”

  She paused, the emotion in her voice thick, but her words landing like bombs in Sasha’s ears. Stacey had gone to Michigan to make things right with Fisher after a misunderstanding.

  Jasper hadn’t called or texted in a while, and Sasha couldn’t expect him to jump on the first jet and come back to see her. She had no idea what he’d been dealing with in Switzerland after the diag
nosis of his mother, and with his terrible fear of flying, he wouldn’t come back to Hawaii until he was certain he wouldn’t have to leave again.

  If he came back at all.

  He’d never given any indication in his texts and voicemails that he wouldn’t be returning to the island.

  Stacey said something else about her love and devotion to Fisher, and he started to read his vows. But Sasha could only hear I once followed you to Michigan to get you back into my life….

  Sasha needed to get to the airport as quickly as possible. Jasper couldn’t come back though he probably wanted to. So she’d go to him.

  But she couldn’t run out on one of her best friend’s weddings, either, so she kept her feet rooted to the ground, smiling and counting down the minutes until she could leave, pack a quick bag, pull out the credit card she’d stuffed in her nightstand drawer, and find the first flight to Switzerland.

  Chapter Twenty

  Jasper paced in the tiny guest bedroom, the date eluding him at the moment. It had been too long since he’d seen his beloved tropical island view from his back deck. The wind here was only cold. It didn’t whisper through the trees and rustle the grasses that grew on the hill behind his house. It didn’t push waves into neat patterns, or cause him to take a deep breath of the fresh air and be grateful for his island life.

  At least his parents had agreed to move to Hawaii with him. He had a massively huge house, and they could live on the main level easily, where he could watch over the pair of them. His father had spent so many years of his life as the stoic, know-it-all, businessman that Jasper didn’t know what to make of the frail, older gentleman who couldn’t seem to make a decision to save his life—or his wife’s.

  So Jasper had been doing all of that. All the paperwork. All the questioning. All the phone calls, the texts, the emails, the arrangements with the realtor, everything.

  The house had sold in only a week, even with the winter. He’d been packing and cleaning for weeks, and Brighton had flown in to help as well. But she brought her kids, and it seemed like they were taking one last vacation to Switzerland instead of helping.

  They’d come over in the evening, bearing dinner, and then she’d talk to their parents while Jasper took care of more business. After all, moving everything his parents owned over the course of their lifetime was no easy task.

  “Eight more days,” he muttered to himself, the stillness of the countryside here a tad bit unsettling. Eight more days, and he’d be back on the airplane he hated, but at least he’d be going home.

  With the thought of home came Sasha, and he wondered if he’d be daring enough—brazen enough—to stop by The Straw for something to drink. Maybe take his parents so they could try the Cancer Killer, meet his girlfriend….

  “She’s not your girlfriend anymore.” And that thought sent him spiraling, wondering if he could just get on a plane, go see her, make her understand, and then come back to finish everything up. If only he wasn’t so terrified of plummeting into the ocean from forty-thousand feet in the air.

  He couldn’t stand the thought of flying on top of everything else, so he pulled back on all the thinking and opened the door.

  He’d taken two steps before Brighton appeared at the end of the hall. “There you are. Dad wants to see us all.”

  “All right.” Jasper tugged on the bottom on the T-shirt he’d just changed into. He hadn’t brought enough clothes to spend six weeks in Switzerland, and he’d bought several things here. The T-shirts didn’t fit him in the arms and chest correctly, but he had nothing else to wear, so he entered the kitchen feeling a bit out of sorts.

  “Danni’s on the phone.” Brighton held it up, and she said, “Jasper’s here now, Danni.”

  “Hey, Jasper.”

  “Danni.” Jasper loved his sister, but he didn’t enjoy spending much time with her. She and her husband lived in Belgium. They’d come to visit twice since the diagnosis, but she ran a high-end fashion school, and she couldn’t be gone for long.

  “We’re all here, Dad.” Brighton looked at her father, who lifted a teacup to his lips and took a shaky sip.

  “I just want all of you to know that we’ve redone our will.”

  Jasper’s heart pumped out an extra thump. “Dad.”

  “We’re not signing over the power of attorney until we get to Hawaii,” he said. “And that’s still the plan. We appreciate all you’ve done for us, Jasper.”

  Brighton met his eyes, and he was glad she wore a glint of anxiety as well. “What are the changes?” she asked.

  “Nothing too major,” his father said. “Jasper is still the sole heir of the family business. But we have certain assets we’d like to be divided up between the three of you.”

  “Dad.” Jasper pulled out a chair and sat down at the table with the other members of his family. “You’re not dying any time soon.” He threw a quick look at his mother, who sat very stilly at the table, her eyes alert. She was having a good day so far.

  “We just want everything in place, and we want everyone to know about it.” He surveyed the group again. “Do you want to tell them, dear?”

  Jasper’s mom smiled at her husband. “My family came from wealth, too,” she started, and Jasper leaned forward, having never heard this story before. Their money came from the diamonds, which had been in their family for generations.

  “Mom.” Brighton covered her mother’s hand, her voice hushed.

  “We’ve been investing the money for quite some time, and we want to split it three ways and distribute it as soon as the power of attorney forms are signed.” She glanced at Jasper and then Brighton. “It’s a considerable amount for each of you.”

  “Mom, we don’t need the money.”

  “Invest it for your families,” their dad said. “That’s what we’ve done, and it’s made quite a bit of profit.”

  A stab of longing hit Jasper right behind the lungs. He had no family to pass his fortune to, and he wondered how he could go back to Hawaii and carry on as normal without Sasha in his life.

  It seemed every conversation somehow led him back to Sasha.

  “How much money, Mom?” Danni asked through the line.

  Jasper almost rolled his eyes. Her fashion firm did just fine, but of course it would be her asking for the amount.

  “Five hundred million each,” his mom said, and Jasper almost fell out of his chair.

  “Dad.” He stared at him. “Is that true?”

  “Your mother has an excellent mind.” He reached over and covered his wife’s hands with both of his. “She handled all the investments for sixty years. This is her life gift to you.”

  Brighton sniffled, and Jasper himself was having a hard time keeping his emotions contained. She hugged their mom, and Jasper didn’t know what to do.

  Five hundred million dollars. Money couldn’t buy love, but it could pay off debts and alleviate financial burdens. Sasha swam in his mind’s eye as he blinked back tears.

  He had to do something to get her back into his life, and while he couldn’t stomach the thought of getting on an airplane, he could try calling her again.

  The conversation seemed finished, so he stood and said, “I need to make a call,” and stepped out onto the front porch. The evening air felt like ice in his chest, but he didn’t return for a jacket. He dialed Sasha, almost desperate for her to answer though it was early in the morning in Hawaii.

  But the line just rang and rang, leaving him frustrated and wondering what it would take to get her to pick up the blasted phone.

  He managed to school his voice into a sort of calm submission before he said, “Hey, Sasha. It’s Jasper. Not sure if you still have my number in your phone.” He cleared his throat, the idea that she’d erased him from her life so, so painful.

  “Anyway, I’m coming back to Hawaii in eight days, and I’m bringing my parents with me. I’d love to have the house prepared for them.” He pressed his eyes closed with the ease with which he’d resorted to treating her lik
e his employee.

  Of course, she was his housekeeper, and if he hadn’t gone and fallen in love with her, he would’ve asked her to prepare the house.

  But he had fallen in love with her, and she was so much more than his housekeeper.

  “I mean—” He had no idea what he meant, or what to say. He just wanted her back. So he said, “I just want to see you. Talk to you. Be with you.” His voice failed him after that, so he hung up and squeezed the phone until he felt the plastic give just the teensiest bit.

  Sasha didn’t call him back in the middle of the night, or the next morning. He honestly hadn’t expected her to, but the insane part of him that still dared to hope was doing exactly that. It hurt when his hopes were completely dashed, but he went through the tasks for the day with his heart beating in his chest somewhat robotically.

  Near dinnertime, about the time he expected Brighton to show up on the doorstep with takeout, the doorbell rang. He didn’t even look up from the folder he was reading. This, at least, wasn’t something about his mother’s health, with big medical jargon he didn’t know off the top of his head.

  Still, the report out of the Antwerp diamond operation required his full attention. The doorbell rang again, and he called, “Just come in, Brighton.” She’d have her kids with her, and surely they hadn’t gotten so much food that one of them couldn’t open the door.

  “It’s not Brighton.”

  Jasper looked up at the female voice, his heart zinging around in his chest. It couldn’t be….

  He leapt from the barstool and strode through the living room, wondering where his parents had gone. He remembered his father had said something about a museum as he reached for the doorknob, not daring to hope that Sasha stood on the other side.

  It’s not her, he told himself. And if it was Dominique, he’d slam the door in her face. He’d met with her once after Sasha had broken up with him, and presented her with legal papers to take the pictures of him off her social media accounts. They’d all been deleted within the hour.