Just like Grey (Series ONE Complete Set): Billionaire Romance

by Jessie Cooke

  Christo sighed.

  “It’s been complicated, Bella,” he breathed. “You’ve been busy with your own problems, this masked man saga, and Nicky’s crazy romance with her rich boss. I was afraid you might feel kind of left out in a way. I also didn’t want you getting your head wrapped up in unfounded worries.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Simon and I are taking things slowly, but I know the stereotype of gay men and their relationships. I didn’t want you thinking that Simon was going to be moving in soon or get any ideas that you needed to be looking for another place to live. Simon knows I love living with you, and he has his own place and loves living alone with Charlie, his schnauzer. This is really a great thing, Bella, and I want to be careful not to mess it up.”

  Bella was wishing she could turn and look him in the eye, but the sincerity in his voice was enough to make her know this time was different for Christo. He spoke of Simon with such respect and admiration in his love, and Bella realized that his conversation didn’t center solely on his physical attraction. It seemed to her that Christo was in love.

  “I think he just might be ‘the one,’” Christo confessed.

  “I wish I could hug you right now,” Bella said. “And slap your mouth for not telling me.”

  Christo laughed.

  “Admit it, Bella Ryan. You would have been packing your things and looking for a cheap apartment the moment you knew I was getting serious with someone.”

  She laughed at herself. “You’re right. I probably would have.” She was a self-admitting jumper. She had the tendency to jump to conclusions, jump into situations, and jump the gun. It was a pattern with which Christo was quite familiar, and he knew she did it to protect herself from more heartache . . . though it often caused it in the end.

  “I’m dying for you to meet him, though,” Christo continued. “And he keeps asking when he’s going to meet you.”

  “Let’s set up a dinner party,” Bella suggested.

  “Yes, and you can bring your Porsche-driving mystery man,” Christo inserted. “Now, tell me, Bella. Is this your masked man, your concealed lover?”

  Bella took a deep breath before she began to unravel the tale she’d been hiding from him for so long. Slowly, she untwined the thread of the entire story—how at first she had had no clue who he was, even after the second party, until he’d handed her the card.

  “Oh, dear Lord!” Christo proclaimed. “What have you gotten yourself into?”

  “I didn’t know who he was, and you encouraged me to give in and just let loose.”

  “I know, but . . . geez, did you ever imagine it would be Nicky’s Reece?”

  “Oh, it gets better. Remember the house we decorated in South Padre?”

  “Shut up!!” Christo exclaimed, putting the pieces together. “And you took Nicky there one weekend, too! She didn’t know?”

  “She’d never been, so it was unfamiliar to her. His identity was kept from me per his instructions to the firm. But there’s more.” She told Christo how Reece had lured her to the townhome and made love to her there, telling her it could be all hers if she desired. Then, the promise of a real weekend away and his letting go of Nicky. She told him about the agreement they’d made to give it one weekend, and her full intent to walk away afterward.

  “But I don’t think I can,” she finally admitted aloud. She felt the weight of the declaration fly off her chest, and she was able to breathe deeply.

  “From the sound of your voice,” Christo said, “you can’t. You’re already falling for him, Bella. I can hear it, and recently, you have positively glowed. I chalked it up to some steamy incognito sex, but honey, it’s way more than that, isn’t it?”

  Christo had left his easel and was kneeling before Bella so that he could look at her in the eye. She felt the tears just at the edges of her eyes, but they were good tears.

  “But what about Nicky?” she whispered.

  “We’ll get through this,” Christo promised. “Didn’t you say Nicky was already feeling his distance? She knew something was happening. It will be hard on you two, and she won’t forgive you for a very long time, but if she is really your friend and loves you, she’ll understand that it simply happened. You didn’t plan it, and it’s not like you can decide who to fall in love with. Fate makes all those decisions for you.”

  “I love you, Christo,” Bella said. “I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you.” She broke her pose and hugged him firmly.

  “I love you, too, Bella-boo. Now let’s knock out a little more time with this sitting. I may only need one. We’ll see.”

  19

  That night as Bella was settling into a delicious sleep, she heard the message alert on her phone. She groaned. She knew she had two choices: to ignore it or to answer it, and she knew she wouldn’t really rest until she resolved the mystery of who it was and what it said.

  Hoping to see a sweet message from Reece—something about not being able to sleep without her, or perhaps a “just thinking about you” text, or even a booty-call—she rolled over and grabbed at the phone on her nightstand.

  Swiping the screen she saw the sender was Nicky. The message was short.

  “Got some time for me this week?” it read.

  Bella texted back, “Always. When?”

  “The sooner the better,” came the response. “Big news here.”

  Bella’s heart surged then plummeted. Surely this was the breakup she’d been waiting for.

  “How about dinner tomorrow night? Chang’s?” she texted back.

  “Perfect. I’ll call you when I leave work.”

  She thought for a moment and wondered if being in public was insensitive to the fact that Nicky would most likely be upset. She sent another text.

  “Or we can just do your place, either one.”

  “Chang’s is great. I’ve been craving Chinese.”

  Well, Nicky was a big girl. If she wanted to go out to a public place to tell about her heartbreak, then that was her prerogative. Either place—public or private—Bella would be the best friend she could before letting her know that she was indeed the “other woman”, even though she’d never intended to be.

  But Nicky looked bright-eyed and full of life when Bella found her waiting for her at a table for two at Chang’s the next evening, which caught Bella a little off guard.

  Maybe it was an amicable break-up, Bella thought. After all, she was suspecting him already. It may be a relief to her that she was able to cut him loose.

  Nicky hugged her friend warmly, and Bella took it in, afraid that it could very well be the last hug they shared depending on how this visit went and how Nicky took the news that Bella would have to share.

  “You look great!” Bella gushed, she thought it may have been a little too much, but for what she was worried could transpire, she let it pass.

  “Aww, you’re sweet,” Nicky said with a wave of her hand. “But, I have to tell you, I never thought I’d feel this good.”

  Bella picked up her menu and started perusing.

  “Well, you’ve had quite the year, that’s for certain,” she said just before the waiter came to take their drink order. “I’ll have a Skinny ‘Rita,” Bella ordered.

  “Just water for me,” Nicky said, “with fresh lime if you can manage.” She winked at the waiter, who in turn promised he could manage the fresh limes and walked away.

  “Water? Really?”

  “Turning over a new leaf,” Nicky said nonchalantly.

  “Maybe that’s why you’re glowing: all the water you’re drinking. Probably should drink more of the stuff myself.”

  “Am I really?”

  “What?”

  “Glowing?”

  “You are. You look really good. I’m just wondering whose balls you cut off to make you look this happy.”

  Nicky covered Bella’s hands with her own.

  “OK, are you ready for this? I’ll tell you my secret.”

  “Is this the
secret to your inner glow or your big news that you promised?” Bella asked as she snacked on some fried noodles.

  “Both, actually.”

  The waiter brought their drinks in record time and set them in front of them with enough sliced limes to make a shelf of mojitos.

  “Are you ready to order?”

  Bella looked at Nicky with her eyebrows raised.

  “You know I always get the same thing, so I think he’s really asking you,” she prompted.

  They ordered their meals and settled into their drinks.

  “OK,” Bella said, a large part of her dreading the next twenty to thirty minutes but still wanting to get it all over with. “Tell me your secret to the fountain of youth and happiness.”

  “I’m pregnant,” came Nicky’s quick response, and Bella’s drink suddenly went down the wrong pipe and she began choking and spewing all over herself.

  Nicky grabbed her arm and lifted her hand in the air.

  “Put the other one up. Hands up when you get strangled, come on,” she said, and Bella complied as she proceeded to make a spectacle of herself at the table.

  A waiter rushed over with clean linen for her to dab at herself, and he began sopping up the spewed drink from the table. Bella could do nothing but cough and dab, and cough and dab, nodding occasionally when Nicky asked her if she was okay, even though she was the farthest thing from “okay” at the moment.

  Nicky began to laugh softly.

  “I knew you would get all ‘choked up’ when I told you the news, but . . . this was taking it in a different direction than I thought.”

  Bella kept her head down and dabbed at the wet spots on her slacks willing the tears not to spill over. It probably helped that she’d choked and coughed to the point she was teary; that would at least cover the hurtful tears she was fighting now.

  “Those were the last words I was expecting to hear,” she confessed. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Nicky and did everything within her power to busy herself.

  “I know. I still think the same thing when I say it aloud.”

  “What are you gonna do?” Bella asked nonchalantly.

  Nicky managed a short laugh.

  “What do you think I’m gonna do, silly?” She giggled. “I know it happened sooner than I probably would have wanted it to, but . . . well, I always figured I’d have at least one kid. And let’s face it, Bells, we’re not either one of us getting any younger.”

  “So, how is Paul taking all of this?”

  “Paul?” Nicky scoffed. “What would Paul have to do with any of this? He is out of my life.”

  “But is that fair to him?”

  “What does he care?”

  Bella stared at her friend, her mouth opened. The waiter came and set their dinner plates in front of them, asked if they needed anything else, and then departed.

  “I’m all for women’s lib and all that,” Bella said as she began picking at her duck in orange sauce, “and there are some great single moms who have raised some really great kids without a man around, but shouldn’t he at least know that he has a child? He should have to pay you child support at least. Having a child isn’t cheap, after all.”

  “Ohhhhhh,” Nicky drawled. “I’m following now. Oh, Bella, no. I guess I wasn’t clear. It isn’t Paul’s.”

  Bella couldn’t see. Her vision blurred with the fear of what she might hear, and it wasn’t making any sense. She felt the restaurant starting to spin, and she gripped the table tightly.

  “It’s Reece’s.”

  The words she had feared. The words she had dreaded. There they were, hanging in the air between them, and all Bella wanted to do was for a vacuum to come by and suck them away.

  “But, you and Reece . . . you haven’t been . . .”

  “I know. It’s one of those flukes. We didn’t use a condom the first time, and—voila—here we are. And that was shortly after Paul and I had broken up. Oh, it was that office party I told you about. Lots of champagne and no birth control can obviously end up making a baby.”

  “Does he know?” she asked quietly, her appetite stifled.

  Nicky emitted a scoffing laugh.

  “Yeah. It wasn’t the reveal I had really been hoping for,” she confided. “Of course, I was a mess, and I’m sure that didn’t help things. Who wants to receive news like that from someone who looks like she’s been on the receiving end of a beating with the ugly stick?”

  “So, was he unhappy? Is that what you mean?” There was a glimmer of hope that she tried to keep out of her voice.

  “At first, yes. It was pretty evident that he had no intention of becoming a father . . . at least with me, anyway. I think the initial shock was what got him, though. He calmed down a bit, said he’d come up with a plan. I just needed to give him a weekend to think through everything and regroup.”

  “And, so what are y’all going to do now?” Bella asked.

  Nicky took a big bite of her dinner much to Bella’s annoyance. She didn’t want Nicky to be able to eat. She wanted her to feel at least a fraction of the despair she was feeling at the moment.

  “Not sure yet,” she remarked in spite of her full mouth. “We just talked last week, so I’m hoping that we’ll have a chance to really map out a plan soon.”

  Bella was still trying to wrap her head around the information. She felt like she was watching herself have this conversation with Nicky, only her true self was standing outside a window and could merely guess at what was actually being said. Slowly, her disbelief began to give way to anger as she realized that Reece must have surely known all of this but intentionally kept it from her the entire weekend.

  And he’d chosen not to say a word; chosen to let her go on thinking that everything was fine, that she was being wooed with the objective of making a decision about a long-term relationship. They’d both known for over five days, yet this was the first she was hearing about it . . . at all . . . from either one of them!

  “How long did you know before you told him?” Bella forced herself to ask.

  “A few weeks I was suspicious, but you know how you would most likely react: explain it away with stress or hormones or weird periods. Finally, I decided I’d better get checked out, and lo and behold, I learned I was with child.” Nicky smiled—actually smiled at Bella.

  “Why didn’t you come to me?” Bella asked, a bitter edge to her voice. “Why didn’t you talk to me earlier?”

  Nicky placed her hand over Bella’s and leaned in with her big grin.

  “You had so much going on, and, well, frankly, I was embarrassed. Who gets pregnant so quickly after dumping your long-term boyfriend? It sounds so tawdry. Then, the way Reece reacted at first really put me off, but I know that it’s all gonna work out fine now. I’m feeling so good about it now. And guess what? You’re gonna be an auntie!” she said with excitement.

  Flimsy excuses that stung Bella’s eyes. She could only nod, sure that her reaction was ranking right up there with Reece’s, but her anger colored her vision of her friend, and instead she felt hurt and betrayed by at least one person she hadn’t suspected it from.

  20

  That night while Bella was tossing and turning and not sleeping a wink, she made a decision: she was going to leave Dallas. She’d move out to Fort Worth. It wasn’t that far away from Christo or her family or the clientele she was slowly building, and she knew that the company had an office in the Fort Worth area. She could get a transfer and get away from Reece and Nicky and all the baby drama. There was a part of her that wanted to do it—just leave Dallas without any word to anyone, especially Reece Hamilton, but she knew she’d regret never saying anything to him.

  While her ire was still fresh, she decided to give him a call. She grabbed the phone and slid her finger across the screen to awaken it. The screen blinded her as it protested into the darkness that it was three thirteen in the morning and no time to make a phone call.

  “What the hell do I care how late or early it is? He didn’t care
enough to tell me the truth about his child,” she mumbled as she listened Reece’s phone ringing on the other side.

  She could imagine him rolling over, that heart-arresting panic seizing his chest as he registered that his phone was ringing at this godforsaken hour. She hoped it gave him a mild heart attack the way Nicky’s news had her.

  “Bella? What’s wrong?” he answered. She could hear the urgency in his groggy voice.

  “What’s wrong is that you are a fraud and an asshole. Do you really think those are traits that a great father should have?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me. I had dinner with Nicky tonight, and she told me the wonderful news. I just had no idea you were ready to start a family. At least, that’s the way you told it to me this weekend.”

  “Shit.”

  “Uh-uh-uh. You’re gonna have to clean up that mouth with a baby around. Hell, you’re gonna have to clean up a lot! So, I just wanted to call and tell you ‘congratulations’ or whatever, and to thank you for the weekend. It was literally too good to be true . . . and I should have seen it coming.”

  “Bella, sweetheart, let’s have this discussion face-to-face. How about I come over there? I know this is a lot to take in, and it is most assuredly not a part of either one of our plans, but . . . I didn’t tell you because I’m still trying to find a way to fix it.”

  “Fix it?!” Her voice squeaked up an octave. “This isn’t really the type of problem you can fix, Reece. No matter how much money you throw at this, it’s not the sort of problem that’s going away. Or—oh my god, you probably already offered to fix it for her, didn’t you? She has rights, you know. It’s her body!”

  “Wait a second, now. This is getting a little out of hand. I asked her what her wishes were, and I abide by those wishes. I know I’ve made some asshole moves in my time, Bella, but I would never demand a woman to terminate a child I had fathered. I would never pay her off to do so; that just isn’t in me!”