The Alpha Billionaire's Unexpected Baby: A Billionaire BWWM Pregnancy Romance

by Joanna Jacobs

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Talk to people. Get them to open up to you. A couple of Kyle’s friends were keeping something from me, but I have no idea what it was. You’ll be able to get them to talk about what it was.”

  “You hope.”

  “People like you, Mary-Ann. Take them a slice of your famous lemon meringue and they’ll be putty in your hands.”

  For a few seconds she just stared at him. “Why are you the only person who doesn’t like my lemon meringue?”

  “I don’t know, but as I don’t like any lemon meringue I’m not surprised. Lemon just doesn’t work for me. Your cherry pie, on the other hand, is fabulous, and if you ever stop baking it I’m going to stop visiting the shop.”

  “I promise you I won’t stop making cherry pies.” She shook her head. “You’re certain it’s not something left over from Paul’s death?”

  “I’m certain. I trust you not to poison anyone, especially as you happen to be dating my brother.” Their eyes met. “Have you heard from Rob?”

  “He rang a couple of days ago to tell me he was having a wonderful time and he should be back by the end of the week.” Mary-Ann smiled. “He has kept in contact with you.”

  “Like always he’s been keeping in contact via email and I wanted to know you’d heard his voice.”

  “I have.” She touched his hand. “Rob is fine. He’ll be back soon, and then you won’t have to worry quite so much.”

  “You understand.”

  “I have a sister myself. No matter how old we get the two of us will always worry about each other. When I first moved to New York she’d ring me every week, to check in to make sure I was okay, and I will always be grateful for her for that. Having that connection… it helped me to get through the difficult first weeks of being in a city for the first time in my life. Every so often she’d have group conversations, so she’d invite over my closest friends and we’d have a long chat about how things were going. That’s how I knew I would be able to move back here without needing to worry about anything. Everyone I cared about still card about me.”

  “Rob was the same when I went to New York. He was always worried about me. Coming back here was the best choice I could have made, because the number of murders in New York…” Alex shook his head. “I hated it. Every day there was a new case. Being here means I don’t have to work on murders all the time.”

  “I can’t imagine what that must have been like, and I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

  “Someone I used to work with is trying to convince me to go back, because I was one of the best they had, but I know I can’t. Not if I want to be able to stay the person I am now. Being there made me suspicious of everyone and everything.”

  “I know that from experience.” Mary-Ann studied him. “Stay here, Alex. We need you here, because you are a trained murder investigator, and without you I think I’d be the one dealing with all of this.” She sighed. “I’m going to spend my morning talking to Kyle’s friends and I’ll contact you when I’m done.”

  Chapter 2

  Mary-Ann, fortunately, had been introduced to Kyle’s friends at the wedding, so she wasn’t entirely unknown to them. She knocked on the door to their hotel room, hoping it was late enough for them, as she was certain they wouldn’t have had much sleep. One of them, Jake, answered, and smiled at her, gesturing for her to step into the room. “I wanted to check in on you. Polly’s going to be busy with Jess, and I thought you could do with some support too.”

  “Thank you for that, Miss Lennon.”

  She shook her head. “I believe I told you yesterday you were welcome to call me Mary-Ann.” As she glanced around the room it seemed likely they’d spent a lot of their night awake, playing games to take their mind off what had happened, which was understandable. “Do you need anything?”

  “For Kyle to be alive.” The speaker was Kyle’s best man, Liam. “I know you can’t bring him back, but… yesterday was meant to be a good day. Kyle loved Jess, and he was happier with her than he’d ever been, so the last thing we expected was for that to happen.”

  “Can any of you think of who might have wanted to hurt Kyle?”

  Silence followed her question. Mary-Ann waited patiently, knowing one of them would open up eventually, and then Jake sighed. “There are a couple of people I can think of who might have wanted to hurt Kyle, but neither of them were at the wedding. He was poisoned. Surely it had to be someone who was there.”

  “Not necessarily. There are different types of poisons.” She shrugged. “Who do you have on your shortlist?”

  “Jess’ ex-boyfriend and the woman Kyle was going to marry before he met Jess.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “Jess’ ex was one of Kyle’s best friends, until the two of them got together. I’m certain Ben would have been Kyle’s best man if he’d been marrying anyone other than Jess. As it was Jess…” Jake shook his head. “Ben felt Kyle had betrayed him. One of the rules of friendship is not to get with their exes, which is something Ben took very seriously, especially as he was still in love with Jess. Kyle knew that. Kyle did everything he could to stop himself from falling in love with Jess, but things are never that simple. There was nothing he could do to stop it from happening. When Jess reciprocated… Kyle told Ben straight away. He wanted to be honest about it all. That didn’t help. Ben was furious with Kyle. The last time they saw each other Ben made it obvious there was no chance of forgiveness for Kyle.”

  “It makes sense that he might have been willing to kill Kyle to get Jess back.”

  Nodding, Jake brushed a hand through his hair. “I called Ben last night to tell him Kyle was dead. Ben didn’t seem bothered by the news, but then that could have just been him doing his best to seem like he didn’t care.”

  “What do you think it was?”

  “Honestly I think he made the decision he didn’t care and he’s going to be more affected by the news today, no matter how easy it was last night to pretend he was fine. I’m going to call him later. If he’s still fine… I don’t know. Maybe it will seem more likely he was the killer of a man who used to be his best friend.”

  “Tell me about the woman Kyle was going to marry.”

  “Alison… when the two of the got together I didn’t think it was the best choice Kyle had ever made, but I didn’t say anything, because I knew it wasn’t going to do any good. Kyle wouldn’t have listened. He’d fallen in love with her and I can understand why it was easy, at least in the beginning, to pretend everything was fine. The longer their relationship went on the more obvious it became there really was a problem.” Jake sighed. “She pushed him to propose. She told him she was pregnant with his baby and he was the sort of person who would do the right thing by her. Then she miscarried the baby. I hate saying it, because I can’t understand why any woman would do it, but I think it’s possible she was making the baby up to get what she wanted.” He shook his head. “After that things got worse. In the end Kyle made the decision the two of them couldn’t stay together. She thought she’d be able to win him back. She believed he loved her too much to keep his distance.

  “Then he met Jess. After that there was no chance of Alison winning him back. For a while before the wedding he was getting strange emails from someone, but he wouldn’t tell any of us who it was, and I can’t help thinking it was Alison. I could be wrong. It could have been someone else. However when it came to her he could be stupid.” Their eyes met for a moment. “If it was her I don’t understand why she would have hurt him. To me it would have made more sense if she’d poisoned Jess, because then she might have a chance of getting him back, and now that’s not possible.”

  “Emotions and logic don’t always combine.”

  “True.”

  “Jess said yesterday she couldn’t think of anyone who might be willing to hurt Kyle.”

  “He didn’t want her to know about Alison, so she wouldn’t be able to tell you about his ex, and she never knew
how bad things had become between Kyle and Ben. He should have said something, especially when she asked why Ben wasn’t his best man, but he made excuses, because he didn’t want her to feel like it was her fault. In the end it was his decision to marry her.”

  ***

  “Both our suspects are in New York.”

  There was a long silence. “I think this is probably more going to be a case of working out how Kyle was killed, rather than who did it, because working out how should lead us to our suspect.”

  “Do you know what it was?”

  “According to the tox reports I have the poison was in Kyle’s glass. At the moment tox reports are being run on all the bottles that were at the wedding, in the hope we’ll be able to find out which one it was.”

  “Unless the poison was on the glass, although I think, in order for someone to do that, they must have actually been there at the time. Killing someone from New York… it’s not an easy thing to do.”

  “Okay, I think we need to find out for certain if they are both in New York. That will be easy enough for me to do. Can you talk to Jess again? Maybe she did know more than she was letting on when I last spoke to her.”

  “I can do that.” Mary-Ann brushed a hand through her hair. “I’ll be in contact as soon as I’ve spoken to Jess.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re the one doing the majority of the work. I’m just the one who’s having conversations with people who find it hard to talk to the police.”

  “Which is something that’s really helping me out.” Alex sounded like he was smiling. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

  ***

  “Tell me about Ben.”

  “My ex?” Jessica studied Mary-Ann. “How do you even know about Ben?”

  “I spoke to Jake and Liam earlier. They told me about him.”

  “They think he might have killed Kyle?”

  “Right now I don’t think they’re thinking anything. It’s just a case of trying to work out who might have wanted to kill Kyle.”

  “Ben wouldn’t have done something like that.”

  “Even though he was still in love with you.”

  “He knew I wasn’t in love with him. I spoke to him when I accepted Kyle’s proposal and Ben understood.” Jessica shook her head. “Do you think he was lying to me?”

  “Yes, I do, because of what Jake said.”

  “Jake is wrong.”

  “How can you be certain of that?”

  “Ben isn’t the sort of person who’d be willing to poison anyone, especially not Kyle. They were best friends.”

  “Until you started dating Kyle.”

  “Kyle said that wasn’t the reason the two of them had stopped spending time together. They just drifted apart.” Jessica took her phone out of her pocket. “I’m going to call Ben now, so you can talk to him.”

  “If you think that’s a good idea…” Mary-Ann didn’t, but she was going to argue. “Just make certain he’s happy to talk with a total stranger.”

  Nodding, Jessica dialled a number, before putting the phone to her ear. “Ben?” She shook her head. “Are you on a train?” There was a moment of silence. “I don’t need you here. There’s someone I want you to talk to. Her name’s Mary-Ann and she’s my mom’s best friend.” Before Ben could say anything in response Jessica put the phone onto speaker and place it on the table between the two of them. “I want you to tell her you didn’t poison Kyle.”

  “I didn’t poison Kyle.” He sounded amused. “Hello, Mary-Ann.”

  “Sorry about this, Ben.”

  “It’s fine. I want to find out who killed Kyle as much as anyone else. The two of us might not have been friends any longer, but that doesn’t mean I wanted something like this to happen to him.” Ben sighed. “Jess, Kyle didn’t want you to know why the two of us had fallen out, because he didn’t want you to feel like it was your fault. It wasn’t your fault. As far as I’m concerned it’s Kyle’s fault, because he knew how I felt about you, and I’m never going to forgive him for making the decision he did when he knew that - which is something I hate saying when he’s dead.”

  “Ben…” Jessica shook her head. “I…”

  “You were always going to move on. It was something I came to terms with, as best I could, but when I found out Kyle was the man you’d chosen… I was furious with him. For a little while I was furious with you, but that faded away. I… maybe it shouldn’t have done. Maybe life would have been easier if I was angry with both of you equally, instead of putting all the blame on Kyle, but he was my best friend.” Ben laughed. “I sound like an idiot. I know that. My emotions got the better of me when it came to Kyle, when it came to you, Jess, and now… I’m not going to say I regret the choices I made, because I don’t. He was my best friend and there’s a code amongst friends. You don’t ever get with someone’s ex, especially if you know the person involved is still madly in love with them.”

  “Do you still love me, Ben?”

  “Of course I do. That’s never going to change. A hundred times over I’ve tried to let go of that, because you were marrying Kyle, but it didn’t work. I don’t think it ever will, but I’m not heading to Green Springs so the two of us can get back together. I’m coming to talk to the officer in charge of the investigation into Kyle’s death, because that is the most important thing. I want them to know I’m not guilty of this. For a start I have no idea how it’s even possible to poison someone from New York.”

  Mary-Ann nodded. “That’s something we’re trying to work out now.” She glanced at Jessica. “Jake said the other main suspect would be Alison.”

  “He’d be right about that. Alison was vicious when she didn’t get her own way and Kyle marrying someone else… I can easily imagine her poisoning someone.”

  Chapter 3

  Jessica knocked on the door to Jake and Liam’s room. Mary-Ann was there to make certain no one did anything stupid, because it was obvious how angry Jessica was. When Jake opened the door it was Mary-Ann who stopped Jessica from slapping him. “It wasn’t his decision to make, Jess.”

  “Someone should have told me.”

  “Alison?” Jake shook his head. “Yes, maybe one of us should have told you, but in the end it was up to Kyle. He should have told you about her. He should have warned you about her, but he was the one who made the decision not to. We tried to convince him to tell you the truth. Nothing we said didn’t do any good.” He stepped back. “This is something we’d be better off talking about in private.”

  Gently Mary-Ann pushed Jessica into the room. “Thank you, Jake.”

  He smiled at her. “Jess, I am sorry you found out this way, but you were marrying Kyle. Not us. He was the one who should have been honest with you about everything.”

  “I take it you’re talking about the lies he told me about Ben too.”

  Nodding, Jake brushed a hand through his hair. “Kyle… he didn’t want you worrying. He didn’t want you to think you were the problem when it came to Ben and he didn’t really want you to know he’d been stupid enough to get with someone like Alison. When he fell in love with you he wanted a fresh start. He wasn’t going to get one, because life doesn’t work like that, but you didn’t know about Ben or Alison, and that meant he didn’t have to think about either of them when he was with you.”

  “He should have told me.” Jessica wiped the tears off her cheeks. “Marriages fail when they’re built on lies.”

  “We all said that. In the end he told us to mind our own business, so that’s exactly what we did, because we didn’t want to lose Kyle as a friend. Maybe that was the wrong choice to make.” Jake shook his head. “You might have become a friend, thanks to both Ben and Kyle, but it was different - and now I wish it wasn’t. I wish I’d said something before. I wish you’d been able to talk to Kyle about all of this, as it would be simpler for him to explain why he made the choices he did, instead of me trying to come up with some sort of logical reasoning that may or may not be the reason he made th
e decision. All I know is he didn’t want any of us to say anything to you about either Ben or Alison.”

  Jessica nodded. “I never meant as much to you as Kyle did. I understand that. I just… I hate this. I hate feeling so betrayed when he died yesterday.”

  “You’re allowed to feel betrayed. No one is going to be unhappy with you for having negative feelings when you’ve just found out far more than you wanted to about the lies your boyfriend told you.”

  ***

  “That was interesting.” Mary-Ann sat down opposite Alex. “Jess went to talk to Jake about the things she’d found out from Ben and I, because she wanted to understand why Kyle was keeping things from her.”