Nicholas: BWWM Romance (Members From Money Book 10)

by Katie Dowe

  “I have no idea what you mean,” she murmured in his chest.

  “Kels,” he murmured back.

  “Okay, fine,” she muttered. “I am so happy you are here.”

  “Where else would I be?”

  ******

  Their son was born the next day. Nathan Nicholas Peterson came out screaming and kicking, his face reddened with the effort in the early Tuesday morning of September 16th, his wheat blonde hair flattened by the after birth, his green eyes screwed up. He had his mother’s nose but that was about it. The waiting room was filled with his family. Alexandra had not gone back to college yet and was glad that he was born the week before she was due back. His cousins stared at the little boy in fascination, and Sarah held her youngest grandson in her arms with tears in her eyes. He was the image of his father when Nicholas was little. Graham Senior looked on with a pleased smile, and even Graham Junior had a smile on his otherwise stern face. They were all there, and Kelsey could not believe it. Nicholas had called her father and was going to pick him later for a visit.

  “Is this the way it is going to be? Everyone gathered around to celebrate the birth of another Peterson?” Kelsey asked her husband as he came over and sat on the edge of the bed and taking her into his arms.

  “Pretty much,” he told her softly. He was so proud and happy that he had no idea what to do with himself. She had borne the pain without asking for anything and at one point he had almost grabbed Doctor Whittingham and demanded that he gave her something for the agony she was going through, but she had told him that she wanted to do it. “Christmas gathering as well as every major holiday. I am afraid you have bought yourself into a full-fledged family, baby. How do you feel?”

  “I feel blessed,” she murmured. “He is beautiful, isn’t he?”

  “Absolutely gorgeous,” he agreed. “Aren’t you sleepy?”

  “Not just yet. I just want to stay snuggled in your arms for a little bit.”

  *****

  “I am afraid I brought the whole entourage,” Kelly said as she breezed into the bedroom where Kelsey was rubbing her son’s back for him to burp. “I figured you would need some adult women conversation.”

  “Sarah just left and Linda and Maisie insisted on bringing over stuff for the nursery even though it does not need anything else. Not to mention Alexandra.” She sighed. “That girl looks like she is of two opinions as to whether or not she should go back to college. Hi.” She greeted the women who came in.

  “We hope we are not intruding, but it has become a tradition for the wives of the members to intrude on the newest member,” Leesa said with a smile as she reached for Nathan.

  “She is right,” Felicia said with a saucy smile as she looked at the adorable infant. “Lord, he is gorgeous!”

  “Isn’t he just?” Kelsey said with a contented smile. She had persuaded Nicholas to go into the office today and told him she would be fine. There were people coming and going at all times in the day, so she would not be alone. Besides, the housekeeper and the gardener were around.

  “You look so different from the woman we saw being interviewed a year ago,” Ciara commented.

  “How did I look?”

  “Like a scary ass entrepreneur!” Kelly said with a soft laugh, respecting that the baby was closing his eyes getting ready to sleep.

  “I am still a scary ass entrepreneur but less scary because I happen to be in love,” Kelsey said with a grin. “Now I can see why you gals have smiles on your faces constantly and those goofy looks on the husbands faces. Love is grand.”

  “Hear! Hear!” they all agreed, causing Nathan to jump a little bit.

  “It is a beautiful feeling,” Kelsey murmured softly.

  *****

  “He looks like his father so much that it is uncanny,” Sarah murmured the next day she had come over. It had been so long since she had hold a baby in her arms because her other grandchildren were almost grown. Little Nathan was going to be so spoiled.

  “I find myself standing over his cot and looking at him while he sleeps. Nicholas tells me that if I install another baby monitor in the place he is going to throw them out,” Kelsey said with a laugh.

  Sarah looked up at her daughter-in-law. She was a far cry from the reserved woman they had first met. Her exquisite face was softened by love and motherhood. She scarcely looked as if she had given birth two weeks ago. Only her breasts showed it. “So, no going back to work for now?”

  “I have topped emailing Heather so much,” she admitted. “I will go back there in due time. I want to spend as much time with my family as possible.” She looked up as her husband came into the room. He came and joined her on the sofa and pulled her into his arms.

  “Mother,” he said before lowering his head to kiss his wife.

  “I thought you were staying at a meeting?” she asked him. Sarah had a feeling that they had forgotten that she was there.

  “It got cancelled and I was so happy.” Nicholas looked up as his mother came forward with his son. “I am going to be heading back.”

  “Thanks, Sarah,” Kelsey said.

  “You are welcome, darling.” She made her way to the door turning back to look at the two of them with their heads bent over their son’s sleeping frame. She smiled as she took in the family and thanked goodness that her baby had found his way to happiness!

  The end.

  Enjoyed Nicholas? Want more handsome billionaires to rock your world? Then why not catch up with one of the other 10+ hot members from The Elite Club:

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  The Asian Billionaire's Forbidden Match

  He's arranged to marry another, but he wants her...

  A tantalizing romance, brought to you by best selling BWAM author Mary Peart!

  Kimberly is the proud owner of Pet Haven, a pet daycare center.

  Happily single, she assumes it’s going to stay that way... until she literally runs into the man of her dreams!

  Peter is a billionaire whose future is in a loveless arranged marriage.

  When he meets Kimberly however, he’s immediately smitten.

  Everything changes for both of them after that moment, and they start a forbidden romance.

  It doesn’t take long for them to fall crazy in love; Peter knows that Kimberly is the woman he really wants to marry.

  But with family pressures and Peter due to wed another in the near future, will his desires play a part in the choices he'll soon have to make?

  Find out in this emotional and gripping arranged marriage romance by best seller Mary Peart.

  Suitable for over 18s only due to sex scenes so hot, you'll be on the lookout for your own Asian billionaire.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chaper 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 1

  “I don’t see what the problem is, Deidre,” Kimberly said impatiently as she tried to fit the key inside the lock to open the door to Pets Haven, the animal daycare she operated. “Dump him and stop expecting him to change, people rarely do.” She pushed the door open and started opening the shutters and pulling the string to open the drapes. She opened at eight, but she always got there at seven-thirty for people who had to get to work early.

  “I knew I should not have called you,” her friend complained. “You are far too cynical and too hard on people. You don’t understand, Kim, I love him, and he said he is trying, and what else can I do?”

  “You are right.” Kimberly dumped her pocket book on her desk and went to look around to see if Marjorie, the woman who came in to do the cleaning, had done a thorough job of emptying the water pans and the dishes she used to feed the animals fr
om. She ran a very clean establishment and that was why she had so many clients because they got their money’s worth. “I am not very tolerant because if it had been me I would have thrown his broke ass out a long time ago. But then again, you are not me, are you?”

  “You just wait until you fall in love one day,” the girl said with a sniff and hung up the phone.

  Kimberly shrugged and went to the bathroom to take a look inside it. The place was small and homely, and she had acquired the lease quite by chance. After college, she had gone into teaching for a little bit but had seen how the high school kids behaved and had almost gotten her ass locked up because she had hauled a fifteen-year-old boy by his collar and told him that if he ever touched her ass again he was going to regret it. She had been called into a hearing by the principal, who told her that teaching was not for her. “You are right,” she had told him right then and there. “I quit.”

  She had followed the family tradition because her mother and father had been teachers. Her mother still taught at the middle school and her father had taught right up until he had died of prostate cancer two years ago. She had told her mother that she did not have the stomach for it and she wanted to do something different. It helps that she was crazy about animals because as she had told her friends animals never betray you or pretend to be something they are not, the way people do.

  She had been in business for a year now and was doing surprisingly well. She had hired a guy who came in from nine to four, and they got along well.

  She went into one of the rooms to look at the stray dogs she had in cages. She also picked up neglected animals with the hope that people would adopt them and had been quite successful.

  “Hey Cassie.” She crouched down and ran her fingers through the thick luxurious fur of the mixed-breed dog she had found wandering around in her neighborhood. “How are you love?” Suddenly, there was a chorus of barking from the other five dogs there as they heard her voice. “Okay guys, quiet, I happen to be running a business here.” She set about finding them some breakfast before going to the front to greet her first client for the day.

  *****

  “She told me she needs space, Kim. What should I make of it?” Brian Gamble asked her as he set about grooming the Chihuahua’s silky white fur. It was after eleven and all the cages were full with the animals that had been dropped off for them to take care of.

  “It means she needs space, Brian, it’s as simple as that.” Kimberly looked at him in amusement. She had seen him come in to work in different emotional stages because of the same relationship; happy and carefree and blissfully in love one minute and the next with a hang-dog look because his girlfriend was not talking to him.

  “Have you ever told a guy that?” he asked her anxiously, tying a pink bow at the top of the dog’s head.

  “Never been in a relationship long enough to tell any guy that,” she reminded him. He had always been amazed that a ‘fine looking’ girl like her was still single and had never been in a proper relationship. At one point, he had asked her bluntly if she was gay. “Why, because I do not choose to be with a man just for the very reason of showing the world that I have one?” She had laughed at him, her beautiful white teeth flashing and lighting up her oval-shaped face. “I want someone who is going to rock my world or not at all.”

  “Oh, I keep forgetting.” Brian looked at his young employer curiously. She was small and curvaceous and had the most beautiful cocoa-brown skin he had ever seen and large dark eyes. She had thick black hair that she wore natural, mostly twisted into a knot on top of her head. “You want someone who is going to rock your world. What if that does not happen?”

  “Then I am content to stay this way. I am happy being single, Brian, and maybe you should consider that for a little bit. Your relationship is making you very unhappy and there comes a time when you have to ask yourself if it is really worth it.”

  *****

  The Kamato’s household was not very impressive from the outside. Red brick smoothed away by the elements and sparkling glass doors and windows. It was a two-story building with five bedrooms and four baths and a wraparound porch. There was plenty of yard space, and at this time of the year, the garden was rioting with colors from the variety of flowers planted.

  John Kamato and his wife, Mitsu Kamato, had come over from Japan when they were only teenagers and had married each other in a simple ceremony planned by both their parents. It was an arranged marriage and even though they were not in love, they had grown to appreciate and respect each other. It was a tradition for them and they knew nothing else. John Kamato had started working in his father’s supermarket and over the years had worked hard and saved until by the time he was twenty-five years old he had acquired a chain of supermarkets around the country. In his late thirties, he had added department stores to the list and had become a billionaire over the years. They had one son, Peter, who was being groomed and a nice Japanese girl had been picked out for him to marry.

  They were not big on showing emotions and Peter had never seen his parents hold hands. He knew they shared separate bedrooms and had come to think of it as being natural. He was given the best of everything and had been sent to the best business school in order to capably run the business and had been sitting on the board since he had graduated from Harvard where he had done his masters in business. He had worked in the company since he had been going to high school and although he was the ‘boss’s son,’ he had not been given special privileges but had been required to pack groceries until he had moved up in the ranks. He was now senior vice president at Kamato’s Holdings.

  He had met his intended bride sometime last week when she and her parents had come over for a visit and had had dinner with them. She was being groomed to be his wife, and for the entire time during dinner she had kept her eyes downcast, only speaking in monosyllables when he spoke to her. She was very attractive and would make a very good wife, but Peter found himself wishing that he could have a conversation with her. Her parents owned several toy stores and they were going to be giving them two of the stores when they got married. For some reason, he was not looking forward to being married to her.

  *****

  Mitsui Kamato rubbed the expensive cream on her skin slowly sitting in front of the large vanity mirror on her dresser. She had noticed several wrinkles at the sides of her eyes and was determined to get rid of them. She was not vain, but she hated imperfection of any kind and had the creams and vials to prove it. She brushed her long curtain of black waist-length hair vigorously making sure the strokes were even. She loved the arrangement of being in the room by herself and did not mind it one bit that her husband was halfway across the corridor in his own suite of rooms. They had never been in love and at this point they never would be and she had accepted that. What they had was better than love. The emotion tended to fade and leave scars but what they had would continue for the long haul and besides she had her secret and the arrangement suited her quite fine!

  *****

  “Hi mom! I thought you had some sort of a staff meeting or the other,” Kimberly said in surprise as her mother came through towards her tiny office. Karen Gayle was in her mid-fifties but her small frame looked more like forty instead. Apart from being a very good English Language teacher, she was also a mentor for young people who lacked direction. Kimberly looked like her in every way except her personality. Karen was gentle and tolerant while Kimberly was like a fierce lion protecting her cubs and did not suffer fools gladly.

  “It got cancelled so I decided to come and visit my daughter whom I have not seen in a week,” she said mildly, putting down her pocketbook and her extra bag on a table nearby. The weather had turned out to be nice for August and she was wearing a thin cotton dress with a jacket over it.

  “You are not going to make me feel guilty for not coming over, are you?” Kimberly raised one thick brow. She had been buried in paperwork since two o’clock and had made sure Brian could manage by himself before doing the dreaded
task.

  “Of course not, I am hoping that you will accomplish that all by yourself,” her mother said with a teasing smile. “I picked up some food for you as well. When was the last time you went grocery shopping?”

  “I think I went last week.” Kimberly tapped the pen against her cheek thoughtfully. “Oh wait! I just picked up some milk and eggs. Mom, you know I hardly ever use my kitchen.”

  “I know,” her mother said with a sigh, taking out a sandwich and a bottle of iced tea. “I figured you have not eaten yet since this morning.”

  “Thanks, Mom, you are the best,” Kimberly said gratefully, reaching for the food. After her father had died, she had contemplated going back home to stay with her mother, but she had firmly told her that she would be fine.

  “So how are you?” Karen asked her daughter. She had often wondered where her fierce spirit had come from but as her husband had laughingly told her: “I am sure she got that from your mother, dear.”

  “I am fine. Just a little bit concerned about Cassie,” she said referring to the pup she had found a few weeks ago. “I have a feeling she has become very attached to me. I wish I could take her, Mom, but who is going to take care of her?”

  “You could keep her right here and take her home with you when you leave,” Karen suggested.

  “On my bike?” Kimberly asked in amusement. “I don’t think that would work.”

  *****

  John Kamato was a smart man and he had had to be in order to be in the business he was in. He ran his company and his home like a tight ship and he did not let emotions get in the way. He had a son to carry on the business and he had made sure to train him well and he had seen the boy improving as the time went by and he knew he was ready to take over from him. He had no intention of leaving entirely, he was used to working and being in charge so much and for so long that he did not know how to stay still.