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

by Nancy Adams

  I looked around me at all that was happening. There were four bulldozers running, scraping earth off of where the streets would be for this little town. Some of those streets were already getting pavement, and we had a couple of dozen building crews already putting houses up. My own house had been the first one designed and begun, and would probably be finished within the next month. Rebecca and I were both excited about getting to move into it; it would actually be the first brand new home we'd ever owned.

  We were building 500 homes, and the smallest of them would sell for more than a quarter million dollars. Some of the bigger ones would go over five million, but there wouldn't be very many of those. We weren't out to build a town full of millionaires, just a nice community where people on their way up would want to live and raise their families.

  This whole thing actually only began because Nate and Katelynn wanted to have other children around for their own babies to play with. That made a lot of sense, and frankly, I was rather proud of them for wanting a normal life their children. Let's face it, with their money, it would be easy to just go the private school route and do everything they could to keep my grandkids away from “common folks.” I was so glad they had chosen a more normal life for my grandchildren.

  Of course, I was also excited about being a part of bringing this town into existence. How many men get to say they built a town? How many men get to say they brought a whole community into the world, a community that people enjoy living in, a community that made the world a little bit better place for the people who live there? I've been proud of a lot of things I've done, but this would be my crowning glory. I knew that this would be the Mark I left on the world, and so I wanted to make it the best it could possibly be.

  Kendall and I walked around and supervised all of the work going on with the Town Hall. This building would be a focal point of the entire community, and would house not only the offices and Police Department, but also meeting rooms that our residents could use and other features. We even built in a room that could be used for large meetings, with a thousand seats and a stage, but also with a screen that would pull down so that it could double as our local theater. I knew that my wife, Katherine, was already interested in starting a theater group, and if I know her, she will get it done.

  Norman drove up while we were walking around the building, and I finally got to introduce him to Kendall. They shook hands, and the three of us stood around talking about other ideas we had each had to improve the community.

  “Norman,” I said, “don't get this boy going again! Every time he gets near a computer, it costs us a few thousand dollars! Let's not be giving him more ideas to bill us for!”

  “Oh, come on,” Norman said. “It can't be that bad. Look at the fantastic job he's done so far.”

  That was where he made his big mistake. By mentioning the great work that Kendall had done already, he simply opened up a can of worms. Now, the fact that it turned out to be a very good can of worms is something I'm not complaining about, mind you, but a can of worms is still a can of worms. The red tape I had to cut through and the paperwork it gave me...

  “Well,” Kendall said, “now that you mention it, I have had an idea I sort of wanted to pitch to you guys.” He reached into the case that was hanging from his shoulder and pulled out a large roll of paper which spread out on the hood of Norman's car. “Take a look at this,” he said. “Look at these four areas that I've got marked out on this map of the property. Each of these areas has nothing marked to be built there, and each of them comprises about five acres, right?”

  We looked at the areas that he had marked out, and nodded. “Go on,” Norman said.

  “I've designed some rather unique apartment buildings, or maybe you'd call them condo buildings. Let me show you,” he said, and pulled another roll of paper out to spread out on top of the first. “These units are intended to be built two per acre, and stand four or more stories high. They're designed to withstand the kind of quakes we could possibly have here, and I believe they can last almost forever. Each building holds forty units, at two thousand square feet each, so that's eighty units per acre. Even with plenty of space between them for streets and parking, one of those five acre spaces could hold four hundred of these apartments.”

  Norman and I looked at each other and smiled. The proposal Kendall just made could easily take our community's eventual population from around two thousand, tops, to eight or ten thousand, and that would turn this into a fairly good sized little city. On top of that, by building the condo units he was suggesting, and making some of them larger and some smaller than his average two thousand square feet, we could be opening our potential residency up to people of any reasonable economic status.

  “Let's get Nate out here,” Norman said , and I nodded vigorously.

  “Good lord, yes ! I think this is a fantastic idea, but this is one we all need to vote on. And since he's putting up most of the money, I feel like we need to have him fully on board with this idea before we give it the go ahead.”

  Norman grabbed his phone and called Nate, simply telling him that we had a situation at Grizzly that needed his attention immediately. He was in his office in the city, so it would take him almost an hour to get there. Meanwhile, Norman, Kendall and I got into my Jeep and went to look at the potential condo sites.

  “You can honestly put four hundred units in this space?” I asked.

  Kendall nodded, smiling. “Yes, sir, I sure can. In fact, if you wanted, we could build even more of them. I've only marked off four possible locations, but if you wanted to, we could probably find two more. That could give you up to twenty four hundred, altogether.

  Twenty four hundred condos, plus five hundred single-family homes, with an average of four per family, could mean a population of up to twelve thousand people in this little town! That would be quite a feat, but it would also make Grizzly a serious contender for some of the new executives that would be coming into the area, simply because of the business that would locate in the San Francisco Bay area based on the available housing for their staff. Its a continuous, self feeding cycle, and one that we were poised perfectly to take great advantage of.

  There was no doubt in my mind that we could find enough tenants and buyers to fill the little town up. We're only an hour out of the city, and with Silicon Valley booming the way it had been, just building all of these units would draw a lot more high tech business to the Bay Area.

  Nate showed up and we took him through the whole thing. At first, I think he thought we were looking at getting too big, but when Kendall explained the sewage and sanitation system he'd designed, a system that could be built in right then to take maximum advantage of the potential for recycling and would use waste from every home to fertilize common areas and make sure our community would be somewhat self sustaining, Nate threw back his head and laughed out loud.

  “Jim,” he said, “I don't know where you found this guy, but don't let him out of your sight! Let's just do this!”

  Katelynn

  Chapter Eight

  Oh, Baby, Baby

  * * * * *

  Pimples! I've got pimples! I haven't had pimples since I was fourteen! How in the world did I get pimples? I'd gone to the doctor that morning, and she said it's normal in the end of the first trimester, that I'll have oily skin and acne, and it will fade away in the coming weeks. She says it's not that big a deal, but she isn't the one looking into the mirror and seeing pimples!

  It was almost two weeks before Christmas. I'd been legally married for two months, by this time, but I'd actually been wed for three, and pregnant for three, believe me! There was no doubt in my mind that I got knocked up the very first time my husband and I made love, lost in the Rocky Mountains, and while that was romantic, I admit, the aftereffects were not all that groovy, as my Mom would say. I'd been sick in the mornings for a couple of months, and gained about eight pounds, and then I started getting pimples again! If I hadn't already been having emotional problems—mo
od swings—I'd be sure to start!

  Pimples!

  On the other hand, I also had a nearly fully formed baby growing in my womb, and I was scheduled for another ultrasound in a couple of weeks to make sure everything was going okay. She'd have little hands and little feet, and I'll be able to see them! I'm pretty sure this picture will be more like what I was expecting when I got the first one, where she looked like a tadpole!

  Mom and Katherine—oh, wait, I'm supposed to call her Kathy, now—keep telling me that all of this will seem like humorous memories once the baby is here, but I fail to see what's gonna be so funny about it. Oh, good heavens, my skin is all oily and greasy, and I've got pimples again!

  Okay, Katelynn, get a grip! You've got things to do, so stop whining about a little acne and get busy.

  One of the things I miss about not being rich is the ability to go into the kitchen and make myself a sandwich. If I go near the kitchen in our new home, one of two chefs and a half dozen kitchen helpers jump to their feet and demand I sit down and tell them what I want, but the truth is that I just want to go in there and make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or something like that! This particular day, I had decided, I was going to set a few things straight, so off to the kitchen I went.

  Pierre was there, and when I walked in he did exactly what I'd said he would: he jumped to his feet.

  “Mademoiselle,” he said, “what can I get for you? Would you like zome lunch, perhaps?”

  I walked right up to him. “Pierre,” I said sternly, “we've got to talk. I know you’re only trying to do your job, but sometimes, y'know, sometimes I like to come into the kitchen and just make myself something to eat. Not ask for it, not order it, not sit and watch you make it, I want to make it myself. Is that too much to ask? Come on, it's driving me crazy that I can't come into the kitchen and grab something out of the fridge and eat it standing at the kitchen sink! Nate's Mom goes into her kitchen and makes stuff, sometimes she even cooks her own meals, and I want to be able to do that if I feel like it! Can't you understand that?””

  Pierre stood there for about five seconds, just staring at me. When he finally caught up on his translation of my plain old midwestern American accent and figured out what I said, he looked horrified.

  “But, Mademoiselle,” he said again, “zis is my place, my job, here in ze kitchen! Do I not cook for you properly? Am I failing to do as you wish?”

  I groaned. “No, Pierre, you do fine! It's just that I like to do some things for myself, can't you understand that? I mean, I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and if you try to make it for me, I will beat you with your own rolling pin, I swear! I just want to make it for myself! Can you just show me where you hide the peanut butter and the bread and the jelly, and stand there while I make my own sandwich?”

  He looked like he was about to have a stroke for a few seconds, and then he just deflated. “Ah, oui,” he said, “I understand. It is ze, how do you say, independence, non, you wish to do somezing for yourself, oui?”

  I smiled. “Oui!” I said, nodding and smiling. “Very much oui! So where is everything?”

  Two of his helpers were staring in shock, but no one said a word as he proceeded to give me a complete tour of the kitchen. I got to see all of the cooking utensils, the drawers where knives and spatulas were stored, and then, holy of holies, the pantry! I found the peanut butter and the bread, and the grape jelly was in the fridge where it should have been, and then I found a knife and smeared it all together and it was just so absolutely wonderful that I moaned in pleasure! There is just nothing like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich around Christmastime!

  “This is the best pee bee and jay I've ever eaten,” I said. “Now, please, Pierre, tell everyone that I will be coming in here sometimes to make stuff for myself! Make sure they know that's okay, okay?”

  “Mais oui,” he said, and I remembered enough high school French to know that he was saying, “But yes,” which meant he was agreeing, giving in to me. I smiled at him and went back to doing more mundane things.

  The living room was just as splendid as I'd thought it would be, with a twelve foot Christmas Tree in the corner. Nate had refused to let me decorate the upper branches, so he'd climbed a ladder and done it himself, while I sat and watched. It was all worth it though; between all the decorations I'd bought around the city and online, our house was incredible and beautiful, and Nate said it amazed him how I'd done so much and spent so little.

  “Well, that's because it's Christmas,” I said, “and it's time to give, more than get. So I was thinking that I'd like to start doing some giving, if that's okay. There's a couple of news stories about groups that are doing Christmas for needy kids, and they're short on money and things they need, so I was wondering if...”

  Nathanael kissed me, and smiled. “Katelynn, there's a reason why I gave you your own checking accounts, you know. You can donate as much as you want, Baby, and I'll never be upset with you, I promise.”

  I love that man. I spent most of that day doing just that, going online and finding organizations that needed money to make their Christmas programs work, then making anonymous donations. I didn't get crazy, but tried to give them the amounts they said they were short of their goals.

  I also was planning to try some of the secret layaway payoffs I'd heard about. I could go into stores and just pay off a bunch of people's layaways for them, so they could come and pick them up. That sounded like a lot of fun!

  Things were getting pretty much into what I'd say was going to be normal, at least until the baby was born. Nate would go to his office and spend most of the day there, then come back home and get me, and we'd go out to see how Grizzly was coming along. I was almost as amazed at the growth of the little town as I was the growth of this little life inside of me; it seemed like there was something new up and finished every single day.

  The Town Hall was already standing, and already had Christmas decorations all over it. The construction workers were just finishing out the inside, and Dad said that would be done in two more weeks, same time as the first few houses. He and Mom were excited, because the first house to be finished would be theirs, and Nate and I were planning a wonderful housewarming for them.

  The hospital was already half done, but it was being made of prefab buildings, so that wasn't so hard. If everything went well and it was finished on schedule, that was where I'd be having my baby. They kept saying it would be done in two more months, so that would allow plenty of time, and my OB had already put herself on the list for it.

  The school's buildings were also prefab, so it was almost complete. When the guys decided to build the condos and apartments and expand the town drastically, the school had to be expanded in a hurry, but it would be able to handle the estimated four or five thousand kids that would be going there, from pre-K to high school.

  Of course, that was also the time my mother decided she didn't really want to go back to teaching, after all. It was one thing when she was thinking of a few dozen kids, but this was too much! There would be a whole teaching staff to hire, so that the school would be ready to open in the fall.

  I was musing about all of these things, kicked back in my big recliner in our living room and watching the news on TV, when Nate came in for the day. He walked in and saw me, then smiled and came over to pull me into a hug and a kiss, and I moaned in pure pleasure.

  “Mmmm,” I said, “now, that's a way to greet your wife! What put you in such a good mood today?”

  He winked. “I don't know, it just hit me when I saw you! Up until now, I've been so swamped with silly, petty problems that I wanted to scream all day. One look at the love of my life, though, and I'm just happy! What can I say?”

  I kissed him again. “I don't know, but keep saying it, I like hearing it!”

  He climbed right into the big chair with me and lifted me up so I was sitting in his lap, and I laughed when his fingers tickled my sides. That made him tickle me again, and then it was tickle f
ight that led to more kissing before we finally settled down and relaxed into each other.

  “Do you know what I've been thinking today?” I asked him.

  “Nope. Gonna tell me, or do I need to call in a mind reader?”

  I smiled and leaned my head against his strong shoulder. “I've been thinking that I married the most wonderful man. I've been thinking that you have given me everything I could ever dream of wanting. And I've been thinking that I love you more than anything else on earth. How's that for some heavy thinking?”

  He nodded, and I felt it rocking me on his chest. “That's pretty good,” he said, “but I think I can go you one better. I've been thinking that I married the most wonderful woman alive, that I never had anything until I had you, and that there is only on possible way that life could get any better, and that would be if it turned out you were having twins.”

  I raised my head and looked at him. “You evil man! You'd wish that on me? And I thought you loved me!”

  “I most certainly do love you, my adorable Baby Girl, but I got a call from your doctor while I was on my way home. She said she'd been trying to call you, but you didn't answer, and she wants you to come back tomorrow for an ultrasound, because she said you’re getting bigger faster than you should be, and she thinks she might have heard two heartbeats in there, today. She wants to check and see if we're having twins, Babe.”

  Twins? I sat there for a moment, trying to get my mind around the idea that there were not one, but two, count 'em, two babies in the bump! Could that really be true?

  I reached for my phone and realized that I didn't have it with me, so I jumped up and went to find it. Sure enough, it was in the bathroom, where I'd left it earlier; I'd forget my head, lately, if it wasn't attached! I checked for voicemail, and there was one from Doctor Rodgers.