The Billionaire's Club Trilogy: Deluxe Box Set

by C. L. Donley

  The last time the billionaires were together, it was to attend yet another wedding, that of Dale’s father.

  At the ripe old age of 75, Dale’s father was getting married to a young philly nearly 14 years his junior, Elizabeth Riley, Amara’s mother.

  They had all been bridesmaids, Amara, the maid of honor and Dale, the best man. The ceremony was held at the couple’s house in Spain, where the two first met at Amara’s wedding, but they had only been cordial acquaintances then. Two years later they spoke again at Dale’s wedding, a ceremony for which they were both present. They talked in depth about the unexpected trajectory of their children’s lives. After that, Gregory reached out to Elizabeth through Webster, coincidentally, which sparked a years-long friendship to which neither of their children had been privy.

  They’d been living together a year when they tied the knot. Elizabeth wore a simple traditional dress with a lace jacket and a tiara made of white roses. Dale’s three sisters gathered around Amara during the outdoor reception as she joined the family. Amara and Dale had officially become brother and sister by law, and everyone wept like children.

  Queen Kim still had a few diplomatic things to attend to before their week-long holiday. Her law school for women was being christened today, and they were expecting a guest from the United Arab Emirates to discuss a possible treaty. There was no reason for her to be present for that, other than to be the king’s arm candy. And she knew exactly what fierce outfit she was going to wear, so she was lowkey excited.

  Mya and Dale were the first to arrive, their three children in tow. It was the first time Mya had seen Kim’s mother Syreeta in about fifteen years, and the last time was not so pretty. Mya wept over the sight of her, clear-eyed and wearing traditional Ghassani garb, the premature aging of drug use almost entirely reversed. Mya introduced her to her husband Dale, who respectfully embraced her. Dale was still a permanent fixture at Webster while Mya only came out of retirement to do a project she strongly loved. The latest was six months ago, her first gig in a long time: a controversial rap artist, whose video she choreographed, went viral the day it was released. She’d been criticized in the past for being married to a white billionaire while working with hip hop and R&B artists in a supposed “hypocritical and invalid attempt” to depict the black struggle. Her latest work was hailed as a “redemption.”

  By the time Amara and Grayson finally showed, the sun was heavily sinking in a dramatic display behind the palace facing the guest house, where everyone had gathered around the backyard sized pool.

  Amara had to move things around her busy schedule so that she and Grayson could all arrive at the palace on time. She’d gone straight from scouting a location in Canada to the airport and had already been in the air twelve hours before they all met up in Paris and took the rest of the journey from there.

  Amara was a big-time movie director now, having written and filmed a string of successful pictures funded exclusively by her husband.

  Grayson had enjoyed his time as CEO of MeTV, but was replaced after three years, again by a vote of the board, who narrowly outvoted Bel. The company faltered after only a few years, going through almost a half dozen CEO’s by that time. Webster had a bidding war with Magellan after Bel had agreed to sell MeTV, since it was all but a forgotten memory for him by then. In the end, Magellan offered him the better deal. Dale and Bel had a falling out over it for nearly two years until Mya and Kim got together and conceived a plan to get the two men to squash it.

  Grayson diversified his time, creating apps with his son who showed an interest in coding, and also going into the movie business funding indie projects mostly by his wife. Amara kept a strict and professional relationship with Grayson when it came to her art, always pitching her ideas formally and usually in the company of some unknown burgeoning talent, or other Hollywood heavy hitters she’d managed to get on board. Grayson would’ve given her 500 million dollars to just film their two kids in the backyard, but he never told her that because she wouldn’t have liked to hear it. It just so happened that every one of her movies were a good investment that made sense. She always came in under budget, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to double his money. He’d only taken advantage of his casting couch powers a handful of times with her.

  Aside from that, Amara also had a second masters and a Ph.D. in film studies from USC and taught classes when she wasn’t shooting movies.

  Dale was leading all the kids in swimming pool relay races late in the afternoon when Bel finally showed up. The king had been the last to arrive, appearing on the balcony with Fahid and his family, in nothing but Bermuda shorts and flip-flops. Kim was now more used to seeing Bel in suits or in his kingly attire, as bizarre as that struck her, so to see him so civilian casual, his shorts hanging provocatively around his hips, she couldn’t stop staring like a lovestruck schoolgirl. Now he was almost fifty and aging in a way that made the finest wine look embarrassing.

  “Take a picture it’ll last longer,” Bel teased her as he took Zhara from her grasp.

  Kim bit her lip and eyed his body seductively from her chair, as she had no clever rebuttals.

  “Damn, girl you ready for number six already?”

  “Watch yourself,” Kim said.

  “Oh, I’m watchin’,” Bel retorted nonsensically, returning her gaze.

  “Your majesty,” she added.

  “Your parents might be more embarrassing than my parents,” Sam wondered aloud to his play cousin Jabari as they looked on from the pool.

  “No way, bro,” Jabari answered.

  Before long the moon was high in the sky, and the cocktails were flowing. The girls were all melting into giggles as their husbands regaled the birthing tales of their babies. The kids were all playing tag with each other despite the widest age gap between them being five years.

  “Bel, let’s betroth our children!”

  “Amara, stop talking about it and be about it,” Bel replied.

  “'My seeds, grow with his seeds, marry his seeds,’” Grayson randomly recited WuTang, a rare performance and glimpse into his mental music library.

  “There he is!!” Dale chuckled.

  “Jabari and Mason,” Amara began.

  “Mason is not moving to fucking Gassan,” Grayson protested, presuming Jabari would be the next king. Mason was Amara and Grayson’s nine-year-old daughter.

  If Amara had brought out a different side to Grayson, then Mason brought out a whole other dimension.

  He was enthralled with her from the start and she him. Mason and Grayson were a package deal. For every “daddy look at me!” moment Mason had— and there were many— Grayson had been right there, grinning from ear to ear.

  Grayson took on a hobby with great enthusiasm that no one was ready for, and that was doing Mason’s hair.

  Mason’s hair was curly and soft and pliable. Mya taught him a few of the rudimentary basics, and he was hooked. Ponytails, pigtails, puffs and braids. Two sections, four sections, eight sections, sixteen sections! In precise geometrical patterns and straight lines. Amara posted a few videos of his handiwork to MeTV, which instantly made him beloved, by all female people, everywhere. Mason was starting to get to the age where she wanted to do her own hair, and unfortunately for him, she was a bit too much like her mother to listen to him.

  “Well, Sam can take Leilani,” Amara conceded.

  Leilani was the king and queen’s oldest daughter, named after Bel’s first wife, a touching gesture of Kim’s. It was an easy concession since Kim loved the name.

  “Leilani should marry one of Dale’s boys,” Bel said matter of factly.

  Mya and Dale had a set of fraternal twin boys Alex and Ben both nine and a daughter, six, named after his mother Collette, whose nickname was Bug.

  “Don’t look now, but Desh and Bug are thick as thieves right now.”

  Desh was Bel and Kim’s middle son, who was six years old, had no chance whatsoever of becoming king of Ghassan and was already obsessed with God. It wa
s a subject that only seemed to come up between Desh and one other parent at a time, a touching personality trait that so far was only private, treasured among the three of them. Bug was a gorgeous girl, almost as dark as Mya and in no way resembled Dale except for the fact that she had his exact personality. The two children were holding hands and looking like a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup advertisement.

  “I don’t like this game,” Dale confessed. Everyone laughingly “awwed” on Dale’s behalf. Mya put her hand on his leg. She ached for Dale, thinking about the day Bug would one day insist on being called Collette. The process of Bug growing up would probably gut him.

  “I’m pretty sure Desh is just trying to take care of her. He hasn’t quite grasped the fact that he is also a child,” Kim informed them.

  “You do know that none of our children would ever agree to any of this right?” Mya casually mentioned.

  “They will marry each other!!” Amara demanded of life.

  “I think fate used all its remaining mojo on us,” Grayson said.

  “You never know. The whole point of fate getting us all together could just be so that they get together.”

  “Whoa,” Dale pondered.

  “Amara, that’s deep,” said Mya.

  “Amara, you smokin’ that stuff?” Bel asked.

  “As a matter of fact I am, but that is not the impetus for what I just said.”

  The guys laughed. Bel was suddenly desperate to smoke with Amara, but it’d been years since he’d lit up and he was waist deep in adulting now, and also king-ing. He was a little bit worried, since Amara was the type of girl to get pissed at you when you had to cut her off.

  “Did you bring it?” Bel dared to ask anyway.

  “I tried, but your hatin’ ass people confiscated it,” she confessed, “I made it through customs three times before that!” she continued as they laughed.

  “We’re not going to have to do an intervention are we?” asked Dale, somewhat ironically.

  “No.”

  “Where were you hiding it??”

  “Hiding it? Dahling, I’m a celebrity.”

  Grayson rolled his eyes as they laughed.

  “Am I not celebrated?” she looked at her husband.

  Grayson looked at his wife of these twelve years. She was now fierce and poised, firmly out of his league, he thought. Time had only made him less good enough for her it turned out. In fact, he often entertained the thought of her one day leaving him, and what he would possibly do with himself after that. The thought of being single again was pretty nauseating. At least he would have the kids in his life. Whatever happened, he knew they would remain amiable. If she wanted to leave he would let her go, the marriage had never seemed fair to him anyway. She’d probably keep letting him sleep with her, so it wouldn’t be all bad. When he looked at her, he could still see the girl that he met in the conference room that day, and he felt proud of himself for that at least. He reasoned that he had to be doing something right if the girl hadn’t been snuffed out, either by extreme wealth or extreme scarcity. She truly didn’t want for anything.

  “You are very much celebrated,” Grayson conceded after a moment.

  Amara smiled at the man that could still make her come in under a minute when he set his mind to it. His libido wasn’t what it used to be, and rightfully so. If it was, he would be a bit disgusting. But Amara was almost 40 and her sexual peak was fast approaching. She hadn’t meant anything by it, but the last time they were intimate, she’d suggested a fantasy that involved his 18-year-old self. Later she realized that she’d fucked up. He was still gorgeous as anything, discombobulating women of all ages, dad bod and all. He’d been meltdown free these twelve years, and everyone else seemed to think it couldn’t happen again. But while his diagnosis may have helped, it did not have the power to change him. She would’ve preferred a few small meltdowns to a decades long buildup. If he was “overdue” after ten years when she met him, then what was he now? As fearful as she sometimes was to leave him with the kids while she worked, she was far more nervous leaving him alone. She loved him, but it seemed he was prone to self-torture on some level. And he knew it too.

  “Kiss me,” she said. He complied with a kiss on the hand, and then leaned in for a peck. His kisses were familiar and loving, his hands warm and protective. She knew him inside and out now, a knowledge that she’d been desperate to have since she was a teenager and now she had it. She understood why he’d been so adamant about hiding some of who he was, but the effort had only made her love him more. After all these years, he still had a habit of underestimating her.

  “Hey,” she said.

  Grayson held her gaze.

  “Do you see yourself having a future here?” she asked him with a furrowed brow.

  The phrase had since become a way of checking in with each other. A request for a marriage diagnostic. Amara suddenly realized it’d been a long time since they’d had one.

  “Honestly?”

  “Of course.”

  “…I think…when we get back you should maybe… take a break,” he said.

  He missed her. She wasn’t sure how she was going to bring a movie and two fall semester courses to a screeching halt, but she didn’t let her resentment show. Besides, he’d never before requested such a thing from her, and a growing curiosity as to how long he felt that way was giving way to fear of what else this could be about.

  “We can talk about it,” she simply said.

  “Not here. Later,” he assured her.

  “What are you two over there whispering about?” Kim outed them.

  “Your boobs in that tankini,” Amara ribbed her. Kim gave them a few editorial poses while Bel hollered out, “weeeerk.”

  “This is great,” Mya said suddenly, her version of a rousing speech.

  They gave a nod and a smiling murmur of acknowledgement. The cacophony of childhood squeals continued behind them. The only reality more spectacular than the coupling of the lot of them was the fact that time had gone so fast. And there was only more speed ahead.

  “Let’s never wait this long to get together again,” Dale echoed the sentiment.

  “Don’t say another word, or next time it’ll be ten years,” Amara warned superstitiously.

  “Then come the funerals,” Grayson bleakly predicted. Everyone groaned disapprovingly while Grayson morbidly laughed.

  Afterword

  I would just like to take a moment to thank everybody that read, enjoyed, and supported this series. This was my first foray into romance writing and I’ve learned so much about myself and God, life and the nature of art. I really tried to be generous, listen, and add something to the conversation of romance literature, and I feel I have done that. I am so proud of these women, these diverse portraits of diversity! And the men turned out pretty good too ;) Creating these characters and this world of theirs has been nothing but joy. I hope reading about them has been half the joy for you as making them was for me! Here’s to many more love stories! —C.L. Donley

  Hafiz and Alya: A "Billionaire's Club" [Short] Origin Story

  “You! Up!”

  It was the first time in three days the door had been opened.

  Alya’s eyes adjusted in the darkness to the gleaming light from the crack in the door. The blurry silhouette of two men gradually appeared like alien life forms.

  Even though her hands were tied she was expected to quickly get up, or she would be beaten. Again.

  The first time was for her “insolence” they said. Not surprising. Her father used to beat her for the same reason.

  But her father never beat her like these men had. Until her screams turned to silence. Until her body shut down and she woke up stinging in a pile of dirt.

  They hadn’t done more things to her. Ghassani soldiers were severely punished for sexual misconduct, but it still happened, particularly if there were no witnesses. She’d convinced them that she’d contracted syphillis from the family goat. And they believed her because she was a
herdsmen’s daughter.

  She did have a yeast infection that flared up at the most inopportune time. The whole countryside of Manaf was getting bombed. A few days of that festering before she was found and captured turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Though it was difficult to consider the painful urination that was developing a blessing.

  Today she would gain an audience with General Hafiz, who was also the prince and next in line for the throne. She’d told the men she had information that he would want.

  She didn’t. But whatever she didn’t have, she could make up. And she couldn’t wait to show the commander how his men treated young Manaf virgins. Diseased though they may be.

  The two men gruffly dragged Alya out of her cell after they bludgeoned her for being unable to stand. They delivered her weak and caked with blood to the General Commander’s feet.

  “This Manaf girl says she has information. The infantry caught her sneaking across the Ghassanie border carrying one of our rifles.”

  “Is that so?” General Hafiz commented.

  Hafiz al Malwali was the youngest General Commander in Ghassan’s history. The latest conflict between them and the bordering country is where Hafiz had proven himself, leading various squads on valiant missions and single-handedly holding down the northwest stronghold at the border with only a command of 12. Now, he was the only one privy to the fact that Manaf intended to surrender tomorrow evening.

  Whatever information the girl had couldn’t possibly benefit him. But the fact that a peasant girl managed to break enemy lines and snag one of their men’s rifles was more of interest to him.

  “Go on! The General is waiting,” one of the men nudged her back with the butt of his gun.

  “Is it customary for Ghasanni soldiers to beat defenseless Manaf women?”

  “According to my men, you were armed.”

  “And so were they, Commander. I was defending myself.”

  “Ghassani soldiers do not shoot to kill.”

  “How was I to know this?”

  “Where did you get it?”