“You are an excellent attorney, Carlson. You’re getting that raise, immediately,” David told him, his face flushed with happiness.
Carlson nodded. “Thank you, David,” He said humbly, looking down at the desk to gather his paperwork.
Beck and Jackson swept up their briefcases and walked out of the room without a word to anyone. David watched them leaving for a moment before turning his attention to Elise as she threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly. At the first mention of the verdict, she had handed Jaden to Sarah, aching for the moment when she could hug her husband and share the happy conclusion of their tribulation. He wrapped his arms around her as well, holding her close to him and whispering in her ear.
“I couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you so much, my beautiful lady, thank you so much. I love you!” He kissed her cheek, and then he kissed her mouth, holding her there for a long moment before letting her go. She took the baby and then even Sarah leaned over to hug him, congratulating him on his success.
It was only a matter of three days before Beck and Jackson called a press conference in which both of them stated that by order of the judge they were repealing all of their former statements and offering a public apology to David. They also announced that Jackson’s company had gone under and would be filing for bankruptcy immediately.
In the months that followed, Elise was able to open the three new cafés that she had spoken of, after she and David had found just the right locations for each one. Those stores thrived, and within a year, she had new shops open all up and down the coast from California to Oregon and Washington, and she had plans in the works to move eastward from the coast across the country, and within three years, into an international market.
One year after their court date, David and Elise welcomed a son into the world. He was born healthy and strong after nine months of pregnancy, and his older sister was happy and delighted to have him around.
David and Elise spent all the years of their lives in love, raising their children and enjoying their grandchildren, always grateful that they were somehow brought together. Though neither of them was searching for a love, they found a real and true love as well as a best friend, forever.
THE END
Did you enjoy this book? If so then remember to mention this author's name and their book when you rate the collection!
If you want to read more books by this author then be sure to check out their Amazon.com Page Here to see all their current and previous releases!
Book4
The Billionaire's
Love Child
CJ HOWARD
Summary
On the surface, Billionaire Kevin has it all. He is rich beyond his wildest dreams and has the perfect trophy wife to go with it.
However, there is one thing he wants more then anything else in the world... A Child.
Only problem is, his wife refuses to give him any children and does not have any plans to do so ever. A divorce would be too messy for a man of his wealth so Kevin has no choice but to take drastic action.
He hires a surrogate with a twist.
He will father a baby with her but in this arrangement she will get to keep it. In return, mother and child will be supported financially for the rest of their lives. They will never need or want for anything, just as long as Kevin can fulfill his dream of being a dad.
For the beautiful and curvy Marina this is the ideal arrangement for her. She has always dreamed of being a mother but has never met a man worthy.
Kevin and Marina are about to embark on a very unique arrangement. One that promises to blur the line between love and convenience. Can such an arrangement exist without feelings getting involved? And can Kevin really stand by and watch his love child grow up without being involved directly?
Chapter1
The warm California sun shone brightly on the massive white marble terrace, and it amplified the cobalt blue of the swimming pool and the intense green of the perfectly manicured gardens that gave way to the beach and shining sea behind the mansion. Kevin walked along the beach and gazed up at his enormous home. He wondered if his wife had risen for the day yet.
They had been sleeping in separate rooms for more than two years. Because she had been so affectionate before their wedding, he believed that their passion would endure through the years, but it had tapered off quickly and was now non-existent.
Ellen spent her days lounging by the pool, shopping and lunching with her girlfriends, relaxing at the spa, or not home at all. She would often leave on trips to other sunny beach resorts.
He had tried to stay close to her, but she had pushed him away and now it seemed like they were not much more than roommates in a giant home, empty except for the two of them and the house staff.
He looked out at the sea and sighed. With all the wealth and prosperity he had, he didn’t really feel as though he had anyone to share his future with, and he truly believed that money wasn’t the sum total of his worth. There was a hollowness in his heart, and even within his soul. He felt he was missing something, as if he were incomplete.
Kevin gazed at the sea and then turned and walked toward the house. When he entered the dining room from the back patio, he saw their housekeeper, Sarah, and paused to talk with her for a moment. Sarah was an older black woman, a bit on the heavy side, and three times as kind as she was big. She smiled up at Kevin.
“Good morning, sir. How are you today?”
.
“Good morning, Sarah. I’m alright. How are you doing?” he asked with a sincere smile.
“I’m fine, sir. Doing just fine.” She nodded and watched him expectantly.
“Sarah, is Ellen up yet?” he asked with a twinge of anxiety.
She looked as though she was hiding her disapproval, but she showed no outward disrespect. “Yes, sir. She just woke up. She said she’ll be taking brunch in her bedroom.”
He nodded. “Thank you. Have a good morning.” He smiled and then walked through the house and up the winding staircase to her bedroom. He knocked on the door and there was no response. He waited a few moments and then knocked again. “Ellen? Ellen, it’s me,” he said to the panel of thick wood before him.
There was still no response. He reached for the door handle and tried to turn it. It was locked. He had discovered shortly after she moved into her own room that she regularly locked her door to keep everyone out, including him. He knocked again and called out sharply to her. “Ellen! I’d like to talk with you, please open your door!”
After several long moments, the door was flung open, and standing in the doorway was a stunning woman with a look of absolute loathing and disdain frozen onto her face. She was just a little shorter than him, with large dark brown eyes, sharp high cheek bones, thin lips that had been inflated through surgery, and lightly tanned skin. Her long, sable brown hair hung down to her softly rounded hips and her surgically enhanced chest was visible through her sheer white negligee that reached from her shoulders to the floor at her feet. It hung slightly open and it stopped everything in his mind when he saw her.
She was stunning. His gaze drifted over her body to her face and then he looked into her ice cold eyes.
“What do you want?” she asked with irritation, glaring at him. “I was busy.”
He took a deep breath and focused on the reason he was bothering her at ten in the morning. “We need to talk. I was hoping you had a few moments this morning.”
She narrowed her thick lashes at him and considered it briefly. “What do you want to talk with me about?”
Kevin sighed. “Ellen, it is important to me, so it shouldn’t matter what I want to talk with you about, we should just be able to have a conversation. May I come in, please?” he put his hand on her door and gave a slight little push.
“Don’t be forceful!” she snapped at him. “I have things to do today, so make it fast.” She turned and strode back into her room, her hips swaying from side to side as though she might have been dancing. She
sat at her vanity and faced the mirror, reaching for the facial powder. “Well? What is it?” she asked with irritation.
He sighed and sat on the chaise lounge beside the windows a few feet away from her. “I keep thinking that it would be nice to have a family, Ellen. We used to talk about it all the time before we were married, and now here we are, all these years in, and there’s no talk about it anymore, there’s no effort to try, and hell, we don’t even sleep in the same room or even the same bed. I feel like this house is so empty. I feel like we aren’t going to leave any kind of legacy. What are we doing, Ellen? I want to leave a legacy. I want children.”
She powdered her nose and picked up her lipstick, pulling it across her puffed lips and coloring them bright red. She pressed her lips together and pushed them out toward the mirror. “Darling, we aren’t going to be able to have children.”
He sat up and looked at her with surprise. “Why not?” He stood up and walked over to her, standing behind her and placing his hands on her shoulders, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “We could start a family anytime, my love. Anytime at all. Let’s do it! I want it so much. I want a family with you!”
She looked at him in the mirror with her dark eyes and then turned on her seat to face him. She ran her hands and sharp red polished nails up and down the length of his thighs. Kevin drew in his breath as he looked down into her beautiful face. She parted her lips, watching him intently, and stood up slowly, sliding her hands up his body, resting them finally on his solid chest.
He wrapped his arms around her waist and she leaned close to his mouth, locking her gaze with his and said softly, “Because I had a hysterectomy when I was eighteen years old… my love. You see, I don’t want children. I’ve never wanted children.” She tilted the corners of her mouth up in a tiny Cheshire cat sort of grin.
Kevin felt the blood in all of his upper body drain to his feet and his heart seemed to suspend its rapid beating and sit perfectly still in his chest. He blinked.
“What are you talking about?” he asked as shock and horror began to reverberate throughout him.
She pulled her sheer negligee open and revealed the sculpted body that was barely hidden beneath it. Kevin’s eyes slipped down over her fully rounded and perky breasts, her narrow waist, curved hips and long slender legs. She looked like she had just stepped off of a magazine cover. She kept herself in flawless condition.
“Do you think I want some kid wrecking this beautiful body?” she said with a cold twist of her mouth. “I knew when I was sixteen that I was gorgeous, and I knew I didn’t want anything screwing that up for me, so as soon as I turned eighteen, I had a hysterectomy and guaranteed that this body would always be mine.”
She stepped close to him and pressed herself ever so lightly against him, her body barely touching his. “This body is what got your attention to begin with, isn’t it?” she whispered. He was battling fury and desire simultaneously, and he raised his hand, his fingers outstretched, and tentatively reached toward her breast, wanting to touch his fingertips to it.
She moved away from him quickly and his hand brushed at the air. He took a deep breath and refocused his mind and attention on her. “Ellen, you lied to me! How could you do that? We talked about having kids! How could you lie to me like that? You knew I wanted children right from the beginning, when we met!”
Ellen stepped over to her dresser and dropped her negligee to the floor, leaving it there and opening her drawers to pull out undergarments. She looked over her shoulder at him as she slowly slid on her thin designer panties.
“You talked about having children, and I let you talk about it. I never said I wanted them. I never said we should have them. I just let you talk and plan and I never said anything about it.” She slung her long sable hair over her back as she turned to face him while she pulled her bra on. “You were so wrapped up in the idea that I just let you keep on talking about it. I had hoped that it was a phase you would eventually get over.”
Kevin watched her in disbelief. “You let me go on about it and never said anything? You didn’t think maybe I ought to know that the woman I was marrying couldn’t have children when it was so obvious that I wanted them?” He felt as though he had been hit in the stomach with a wrecking ball.
She walked into her closet and turned on the light, and he followed her. She ran her hands over multitudes of hangers holding designer clothes specially made for her. “Ugh… I have nothing at all to wear. Look at this. I’ll have to get some more clothes made.”
She moved to another rack and flipped through the clothing there for a few moments before looking over her shoulder and scoffing at him. “Kevin, it’s really not that big a deal. You need to get over it. After all,” she said, pulling out a beautiful dress and shoving it back into the row of clothes as she continued looking, “you get to have me, and really, what could be better than that?” She pulled another hanger out and looked at the lovely pristine garment, contorted her face in disgust and threw it on the floor before going back to search again.
“What do you mean I have you? I don’t have you! You’re in your own room, you’re always busy, and you never let me touch you anymore. It’s been months since we made love. How do I have you? Ellen, I’m talking about having a family!”
She yanked another dress from the row and glanced briefly at it before scowling and tossing it on the floor. “Are you still going on about that? How can you still be talking about that? Oh my god! Look at this!” she began to yell and waved her hand at the large room they were standing in; all four walls featuring shoe racks, shelves filled with handbags, and rows of clothes handmade just for her.
“I have absolutely nothing at all to wear! You can’t even take care of your own wife! How do you expect to be able to take care of kids? You’re insane! I can’t look at you anymore. I just can’t. You have to leave. Leave now!” she said as she leaned over and scooped up one of her tiny designer dogs and stomped into her bedroom, plopping herself down on the giant bed where three other tiny dogs were lounging. He walked out of the closet and stared at her as she sat there on the edge of her bed, glaring at him. Her dogs began to growl at him.
“Forget about having children, Kevin, you would be a horrible father. I can’t even imagine you destroying some kid’s life by trying to be their parent. We are not having a family; we are both already busy living our own lives. What are you going to do, stop working long enough to try to raise a kid? Right.”
She rolled her eyes and then angrily stared him down. “If you want kids, go have them on your own, and get out of my room! I can’t believe you came in here and said all these awful things to me! Look how upset I am! My head hurts now! How could you treat me like this? You are wretched! Ugh! Get out!” She picked up one of the multitude of pillows on her bed and flung it at him, missing him by several feet, and her dogs began to bark loudly.
Kevin stood there for a moment, staring at the hypnotically beautiful woman before him who was ripping his heart out, and he felt his heart break under her feet. He turned quietly and walked out of her bedroom, closing the door behind him.
He walked down the hall and winding staircase to the main floor and headed toward the back of the house where his office was. It was more of a sanctuary for him by that point. He closed the dark mahogany door behind him and sighed deeply. He felt as though he had been blindfolded all through his courtship and marriage to Ellen. She was a beautiful, broken gift.
He looked around him at his office. The walls were covered in bookcases that reached to the ceiling and, on the far wall behind his massive dark wood desk with intricate carvings, there was a wall of windows that looked out onto a lush and beautiful garden with a koi pond and waterfall. He often worked in this room with the windows open so he could hear the relaxing sounds of the water and of the world living just outside.
Kevin sat at his desk and buried his head in his hands. How did he not know his wife was unable to have children? How had she hidden that from him? Did she really nev
er talk about having children?
He thought back over their conversations and realized that she was right. She had never said a word about having children. How had he not realized that? Just minutes ago, she said that he wouldn’t be a good father, and he pushed the comments from his mind. That couldn’t be the case. Of course he would be a good father. He was kind and thoughtful, he had a good heart, a great deal of patience, a lifetime of wisdom to pass down… he was a billionaire; he certainly had the means to care for any children he might try to raise. He would be no worse than any other parent.
Her comments gnawed at him… ‘If you want kids go have them on your own…’ he leaned back in his chair and folded his hands underneath his chin. Her words echoed through his mind and, as they twisted and turned, as they repeated over and over, they began to sink in and take hold.
Her lie by omission… she could never have children, and she just let him believe otherwise… “Go have them on your own…” she had said. She had known right from the start just how important it was to him and she disregarded his need.
The Baby Shower Page 28
