The Billionaire's Heart: The Complete Series (Romance, Contemporary Romance, Billionaire Romance, The Billionaire's Heart Book 7)

by Nancy Adams

  As Corie had said, he wasn't going to know what hit him.

  And then it was time. At exactly six o’clock, Nathanael Simmons rang the doorbell of the modest little house I'd grown up in, and my Dad opened it and shook his hand.

  “Hello, young man,” Dad said, and they seemed to do a brief hand-squeezing thing. I figured it had to do with the fact that they were both ex-marines, and tried not to let it show that I saw Dad wince first. The wince turned into a grin, and Nate said, “It's a pleasure to finally meet you, sir. Katelynn's told me quite a bit about you, and I can see why she admires her father so much.”

  Okay, spoiler alert: I had mentioned that Dad had been a Marine lawyer, but I think that’s about the extent of any bragging I'd done. That didn't matter at that moment, though, as my dad turned to beam at me with pride in his eyes. I vowed to do some serious bragging about him in the days to come, and promised myself I'd thank Nate for making Dad feel like he's the greatest father alive—because in my eyes, he really is.

  The two of them made small talk for a moment, while Mom and I stood to the side of the room and kept quiet. Mom had taught me long ago that Dad had a need to “check out” any guy who wanted to get close to his little princess, and there was something endearing about that, now that I had grown up (but I absolutely hated it all through my school years, believe me). It wasn't long, though, before Dad turned and presented me to Nate, sweeping his arm wide to indicate that Nate had passed his test, and I could approach my suitor.

  Nate looked at me then, and I think he had honored Dad by not letting his eyes actually rest on me until Dad had given that blessing. I stepped up to him, quickly introduced my mom, kissed both of my parents goodnight, and let Nate take my arm and lead me to his car.

  “Your parents are wonderful people,” he said as he helped me into the car. “I liked them both instantly.”

  I smiled. “And don't let me forget to thank you for telling Dad I brag about him. That was sweet of you.”

  He got behind the wheel. “You're saying that as if I had exaggerated, somehow. Katelynn, you're always saying things like, 'Dad always says,' or 'my Dad always told me.' It doesn't take a genius to catch how much you admire and respect him. I just thought he should know it, too.”

  I swallowed, his words making me proud that my love for my family was so obvious to him. They really are great people. “So,” I fumbled for something to say. “Where are we going?”

  “When I was here before, I had to go over to Kearney to look at another possible store location. There was this small restaurant there that had the best steaks I'd ever eaten, and would you believe there is still a working drive-in theater over there? It's about an hour and a half to drive over there, but if you're game, I thought it would be worth the trip.”

  I'd been to the Kearney Drive-In a couple of times in years past, and always enjoyed it; Mom always told me how Dad had won her heart by taking her to drive-ins, so I was more than willing to go, and if I was dragging my butt in the morning, so be it!

  “I'm definitely game!” I said, and then my heart did some flip-flops as he reached over and took my hand. He held it gently, and his fingers intertwined with mine. I was in some kind of earth-bound Heaven, and a part of me never wanted this evening to come to an end.

  Nate had a bit of a lead foot, and we actually made it to Kearney in just over an hour. He moved through its streets like he'd lived there for years, and we ended up at a little place that looked like it had once been a house, but was now a nice—and probably expensive—restaurant.

  Nate walked around and opened my door, took my arm like a true gentleman as we entered the restaurant, and I was surprised when a man dressed in a suit met us and asked for his name. He had made a reservation even before he asked me if I wanted to come there, and I found that kind of exciting, maybe even endearing, for some reason. As independent as I was, growing up with my parents had given me the old-fashioned view that the man was supposed to be in charge, but with the help of his wife; knowing that Nate would take the initiative like that, and only then ask me if I was okay with it, told me that he probably felt the same way.

  In my home, I knew that while Dad made the final decisions, he always got Mom's input beforehand. When we had to have a new car, Dad took Mom out to look at various options, but he finally chose the station wagon that made sense, even though Mom had said she liked the big convertible better. In my heart, I knew I wanted the same kind of relationship they had, and something told me that's what I would have if Nate and I ended up together.

  There I go again, I thought, fantasizing about something that will probably never happen! Why couldn't I just enjoy the moment, without trying to make it into something more than it really was?

  The restaurant was only dimly lit, and I saw that every table that was occupied had candles on it. We were seated at one that was in a secluded little alcove, and the host took out one of those long lighters and lit our candles before he walked away.

  A waiter appeared instantly, and announced that we would be having a steak and lobster dinner, and asked what sides we wanted with it, and what we would like to drink. I chose a Coke, and Nate did likewise. When the waiter walked away, he looked at me and said, “There are no menus, here. They serve only one entree each night, and everyone gets the same thing. When I was here before, it was London Broil and it was just delicious. I heard from several people that this was the nicest place around, and so I thought it was just the setting for our first date.”

  I smiled at him. “It sounds like it must be quite a place, to need a reservation to get in.”

  The waiter came back with our drinks, and Nate raised his glass to me. I picked up my own and clinked it against his as he said, “To the loveliest girl I've ever met; may this be only the first evening of many we can enjoy together!”

  We sipped, and I thought how closely his toast had mirrored the thought I'd had when he asked me out. “Let it be only the first of many to come,” I'd thought, and now he'd said the same thing. I was amazed, and actually began to wonder if maybe this was it— the real thing!

  We sat and talked, but not the way we did on our weekday dinners. Instead, we finally began to talk about ourselves, and what we wanted from life.

  “When I went into the Corps,” he said, “I was looking for something that I needed in my life. Dad hit it rich when I was just a toddler, and I grew up kind of spoiled. I always felt like everything was being given to me, you know what I mean? I needed to do something that was just for me, and going into the Marines sounded like something that would force me to stand on my own two feet.”

  I nodded when he paused, because I really did understand; it was similar to the reason I was so independent and stubborn. “I felt something like that, even though we weren't as wealthy as you were. Dad did pretty well his first few years in law practice, and then he ran for the Senate and won. He spent two terms in DC, and between what he makes as a successful lawyer now and the pension he still gets from the Senate, we've never lacked for anything, but I always wanted to be my own person. I guess that's normal, to want to accomplish things for yourself, when it seems that everything is just handed to you without any effort on your own part.”

  “Yeah. In the Corps, I learned that in order to feel right about yourself, you have to feel that what you do matters, that you have to be contributing to the world around you in some way. There, it was knowing that the guys I served with were depending on me; we depended on each other, and when we went into combat, I knew that we all had each others' backs. Some of those men saved my life on more than one occasion, and they'd tell you that I saved a couple, myself. It's what you do in combat.

  “Then, when I got out, my Dad was all set to put me in as a Vice President, let me pretty much run the company while he faded into the background, but I balked. He wasn't old enough to retire, and I didn't feel like I knew enough to truly run things, so I insisted on starting at the bottom. He'd never let me do anything but work in the corporate offic
e as a messenger in high school, but I wanted to really get into the business and learn it all, so I started as a cashier in one of our local stores. Of course, being the boss's kid made it easy for me to advance, but I actually turned down promotions if I didn't feel I was ready for them, and I spent a year working all the lesser jobs before I accepted the manager's office.”

  “I'm impressed,” I said. “Most people would have taken the easier path.”

  “Easy gets you ahead, sometimes, but you don’t really learn what to do with it once you get there. Ever heard of the Peter Principle?” I shook my head no. “It's a business principle that says that we always rise as far as our own level of incompetence. In other words, you can only advance to the point where you can't do your job any longer because it's too complex for your abilities, and that keeps you from going any higher. I'd learned it in the Corps, and didn't want to ever have it applied to me, so I set my mind to earning every promotion.”

  The more he talked, the more I felt that this was the man I’d been hoping to meet someday. He was so confident, so strong and sure of himself, that he overwhelmed me in some ways. I wanted to know so much more about him, and sitting there, just listening, was probably the best way to accomplish that goal.

  Not that I didn't do my own share of talking. I told him a lot about my own childhood, and finally admitted that Corie and I were best friends; he smiled at that, and told me he had recognized her name from some of the stories I'd told him about my high school days, so I turned red again. He told me not to worry about it, every manager occasionally brought friends into the stores. Sometimes it blew up in your face, though, he warned me, and told me about his own first stint as manager. He'd hired a buddy who'd recently left the marines, and the guy turned out to have a drug problem, so he'd had to fire him after only a few weeks. I could tell it had hurt him to do so.

  “One of the best memories I have from growing up,” I confided, “is the day Corie and I met. We were both in the fifth grade, and she'd just moved to town. Her family came from California, and to her, North Platte wasn't anything you could call a city. She felt lost and lonely, and no one wanted to give her a chance because she was from so far away. Even I hadn't really been all that friendly, but then when school let out for the day, I was on the way to my bus when I heard some kids yelling and calling her names. I felt like I had to do something, so I ran up and told them all to quit, and it ended up with both of us getting beat up. When it was over, we helped each other get to the bathroom to clean up, and we'd missed the bus, so I called my Dad and he agreed to drive her home, too. Her family lived on the other side of the tracks, you might say, but by the time we got there we were solidly forming a friendship, and it's lasted ever since.”

  “I can tell she thinks highly of you,” he said. “And don't think I didn't see her watching me and winking at you. Unless I miss my guess, she's decided to play a little bit of Cupid on us, so be ready!”

  I turned bright red again, and Nate chuckled at me. “Maybe she's only Cupid's assistant,” I said, “and he's already decided we're meant for each other. Would that be so bad?”

  “I'm beginning to think it might not be bad at all,” Nate replied, and my heart skipped at least a dozen beats.

  Chapter 6

  An Earthly Touch Of Heaven

  * * * * *

  The waiter brought our dinners a few moments later, and we continued to talk as we ate. Nate told me that while the company's headquarters was now in California, it began in a little town in Tennessee called Greenville. That's where he spent most of his childhood, and they had moved to San Francisco when he was twelve.

  Greenville, he told me, was even smaller than North Platte, so it seemed to give us common ground. I liked the idea of him being a small town boy, and I asked him what he'd been like as a child.

  He chuckled. “Well, you've got to remember that my Dad was rich by the time I was old enough to realize what that meant, so I had a lot of friends. It wasn't until I was a teenager that I realized that people who like you because of all the neat toys you own aren't really your friends at all, but back then I just enjoyed it. And of course, I was sort of a ringleader when it came to mischief, because I knew instinctively that no one was ever really going to do anything to me about it. Well, no one but my Dad, anyway. He whaled my hide a number of times!”

  “You, a mischievous kid?” I asked, feigning shock. I could so see him acting out as a kid!

  “Oh, yeah,” he answered. “I remember one time, I was about ten, and I convinced all my buddies to help me start a UFO scare late one night. We made hot air balloons by gluing little candles onto pieces of screen wire, taping those little colored plastic garbage bags down over them and letting them fly up into the air from on top of the local movie theater. We launched about three hundred of them, and they did the neatest things, like getting caught in the air stream behind a car and following it for miles!”

  “Oh, no!” I said, trying not to laugh out loud.

  “Oh, yes! It took us about thirty minutes to launch them all, and we didn't realize just how big a fuss we were making until we heard jets screaming low overhead; it turned out that the local sheriff had called the Air National Guard at Knoxville, and they'd scrambled fighters to try to intercept the 'flying lights' that everyone was reporting!” He laughed himself, then. “Well, the next day, Dad called me into his office at home when I got back from school, and asked me if I knew anything about it. Of course, I lied and said I didn't, but he reached down behind his desk and brought out one of the things, one that had burned out and fallen into town. Then, he told me that he'd checked in the local store and found that ten boxes of small trash bags were missing, along with a whole twenty-foot roll of window screen and a case of votive candles, and did I by any chance want to revise my answer?”

  “Oh, my goodness,” I sputtered, my sides almost splitting. “What did you say?”

  “I told him I'd heard there was a cat burglar in town, and maybe that's who did it. Ten minutes later, I confessed, though, because I could never take more than about five licks from his belt!”

  I cracked up when he said that, not as much because of what he said as because of the look on his face. He laughed right along with me, and it hit me that this was a man who must have a terrific sense of humor!

  “What about you?” he asked. “Ever get into trouble as a kid?”

  I got control of myself and smiled. “I did my fair share, yes. I guess my own funniest story would be the time Corie and I decided that the town needed a haunted house, so we broke into an old, abandoned place over on the east side and started rigging up things to make it look like there was a ghost. We had some really thin wires hooked to the old curtains in the upstairs windows, so that when we saw someone walking past the place, we could hide in the attic and make the curtains move, like someone was looking out the windows. And we used an old cassette recorder to get sound effects, like doors creaking, voices you wouldn't quite make out and stuff, and we put it in the old heater vents so the sounds would echo all through the place, and cranked it up loud when people were close enough to hear it.”

  Nate was smiling at me. “So, what happened?”

  I smiled back at him. “Well, it went great for about a week, but then one day while we were inside, we heard someone open the front door and walk in, and we thought it would be a perfect time to really get creative, so we turned on the cassette and then started stomping around on the second floor. We figured it was a kid we'd seen watching the place, like he was trying to get up his nerve, right? Well, apparently so many people had seen the curtains move and heard the noises that someone convinced the police chief to come check it out. What nobody knew, though, was that he was absolutely terrified of ghosts, so when he yelled up the stairs for whoever was up there to come down, we panicked and hid in a closet, and then the cassette started in with the voices, and he yelled that if whoever was there didn't come down right then, he was going to come up. We stayed in the closet, and both of
us were scared to death he'd find us and we'd go to jail for something, so when we heard the stairs start creaking, we were just about to cry and give ourselves up. We slowly opened the door, and it creaked like old doors will do, right? And there was the police chief, standing there in the doorway of the room we were in, and we stood up, and just as we did, the ceiling of the closet caved in and covered us with dust, and we choked and coughed and jumped out of there, and the chief saw us—and I swear this is true—all of his hair stood straight up on his head, he screamed bloody murder, and he turned around and ran like a scared rabbit! He was down the stairs and in his car and gone before we could even get out of that room, and that night the local newspaper reported that he had declared the old house to be truly haunted, and said he was calling in some experts to try to exorcise the spirits that were haunting it.”

  Now Nate was laughing himself silly. “Oh—oh—so what did you do? Did you ever tell anyone?”

  I shook my head. “Not until this very moment! We went back the very next day and took all our gadgets out of there, and when some ghost hunters showed up about a month later, they spent a couple of days in there and said they'd made contact with the spirit of some old woman who'd lived there long ago, and helped her move on to Heaven. I kid you not.”

  We both laughed for several more seconds, and we shared other stories about our childhoods and youth. It was truly nice to get so many glimpses into this man, to see him laugh and smile like the mischievous kid he’d once been.

  By the time we wound down, it was starting to get close to sundown, and we'd finished eating, so we left and headed for the drive-in. When we pulled up, the sign out front said they were showing a new thriller called “Before I Wake,” and I smiled; I love scary movies, and when Nate said he did too, I was just thrilled.

  This movie was about a little boy who gets taken in by a young couple, and they find out that he's afraid of falling asleep. They think he's just had a bad time in other foster homes, but pretty soon they find out that whenever he sleeps, his dreams become real, and they get dragged into the things a little boy dreams of.