Authors: Michelle Love
The official story was that Josh had been hit by a car on his way back from work. It could have so easily been an accident except that the driver had backed up over Josh’s prone body – twice. It had all been caught on CCTV but the car, a plain black RV had blacked out windows and no plates. The police had no leads but Jess had an overwhelming sense of foreboding and when finally she, Theo and Max were alone, after Josh’s cremation, Max said what they had all been thinking.
‘Fucking Gachet did this.’
Max looked
terrible
as if he’d been smoking six packs a day and drinking straight bourbon. Jess closed her eyes for a moment, trying to quell
the nausea
that threatened.
‘I don’t understand…why would Jules kill Josh? How would Jules even know Josh?’ Her voice was scratchy and low. Max wouldn’t look at her and she felt the heavy weight of guilt settle over her.
Theo and Max exchanged a look then Theo nodded, once, brief, stiff. Max sat down opposite Jess and took her hands. ‘We were trying to make things better…for you….I…’
‘I asked Max to look into Jules’ background,’ Theo interrupted his friend, ‘he’d hurt you, had threatened your life. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you but there you have it. It was for the best.’
Jess pulled away from Max’s hands. ‘You were investigating me?’
‘Jules, not you. But
obviously,
there was some overlap. After Max talked to Camilla, we realised exactly what he’d been doing to you. We had to do something/?’
Jess had gone very still. ‘You talked to Camilla? Did Jules know?’
The room echoed with their silence. ‘Oh Jesus…’ Jess sank to the floor, curling her knees up to her chest. Theo bent to touch her but she shied away from him.
For a long time no-one said anything then Theo looked at Max, who nodded and left the room. Jess got up and paced around the room while Theo watched in silence.
Finally,
she turned to him.
‘This is my fault. My fault. He told me he would hurt people I cared about and I dismissed it as…why? It’s my fault Camilla and Josh are dead. I should just have let him kill me.’
‘Stop it!’ Theo was furious as she had ever seen him. ‘None of this is your fault. It’s him, it’s Gachet.’
‘Who is my problem, Theo. I did this. I tried to escape from him and…’
‘You shouldn’t have had to ‘escape’ from anyone. What you went through…he’s a monster. How old were you when he first raped you?’
The question, so simple, so straightforward, made her crumple. Theo gathered her to him as she sobbed. ‘You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,’ his voice was gentle,’ but please, put it out of your mind that it’s your fault. We need to go to the police, tell them everything.’
Her sobs subsided but she sighed, defeated. ‘They won’t believe me. They didn’t then and I got punished.’
Theo was silent for a long moment. ‘Then we need to break that cycle.’
Jess was quiet for a long time before she pulled away from him. ‘I can stop this by…I can’t let anyone else get hurt because I fell in love with you. I need to take responsibility for that. I need to make this right. I need to go.’
Dread was flooding through Theo’s body as he took in what she was saying.
‘Wait…Jess…
you can’t
be serious?
Are you
ending this? Us? No, no, we can’t let him win, please.’
He reached for her but she ducked away.
‘No, Theo please, don’t, I can’t bear it. I love you, god, so, so much but we need to take so time to figure out everything. People have died, there’s so much damage.’ She was brushing her tears from her face and it broke his heart. ‘Please, just….let me go. Give me time to figure how I can make it stop, make him stop.’
Theo nodded, trying to hide his heartbreak. He picked up her coat and draped it around her shoulders. Tipping up her face to his, he kissed her tenderly. ‘Okay….okay, Jess you can have all the time you need, all the time. But know this….I’ll wait forever. I love you.’
Fresh tears poured her cheeks and he kissed them away. ‘I love you too,’ she whispered, ‘you are my heart.’
His gut twisted as he kissed her mouth then, tasting her lips, lingering, not knowing when he would kiss them again – if he would kiss them again.
Eventually,
she broke away from him and picked up her bag. ‘I have to go.’
Hand-in-hand, they walked to the door and he opened it for her, and – his heart shattering into a million pieces - watched the love of his life walk out of it.
He called down to the limo driver. ‘Make sure she gets where she wants to go safely.’
Then he hung up the phone and as Max came back into the room, he looked at his friend and knew he shared his pain.
‘She’s gone, Max. I had to let her go.’ And he began to sob.
Jules, parked in the shadows away from the gaze of the security guards, sat up as he saw her walk out of Storm’s apartment building. He smiled when he saw she was crying.
‘Don’t worry, my Jessica,’ he whispered to himself, ‘you’ll be dead soon.
So very, very soon.’
End of Part 5
An Alpha Billionaire Romance
Book 1
Blake
Pinks and oranges fill the sky as the sun sets behind my parent’s home. The mailbox has become my enemy, but I check it anyway. The last letter from the IRS took millions from me. I close my eyes and hope there’s nothing else from them in the box shaped like a large mouth bass.
My father was a novice fisherman, but you wouldn’t know that by the amount of fishing paraphernalia he accumulated in his lifetime. My mother was not a very good cook, but she had enough cookbooks to stock an aisle in Barnes and Nobles.
They passed away last year, together, right in the house I still live in. I was away at college, thankfully, or I’d be where they are now. A gas leak in the house took them as they slept one night.
I should sell the place and move, especially since I lucked out on the road trip they had me make. In their will they left me three thousand dollars, and I had to use every penny of that money to play the lotteries through every state I went through on my journey to spread their ashes.
Dad was spread in the Atlantic Ocean and Mom in the Pacific. The crazy thing is I won seven of the lotteries and each jackpot was larger than the next. I ended that week a billionaire.
Thanks, Mom and Dad!
Every time I tell that story I have to thank them. Between them and God is the only way I got that money. I don’t think I’ve ever been this lucky.
Well, the luck is running out as the IRS is finding way after way to get the money.
“Hey, what ya doin’ out here at the ol’ fish box?” my neighbor, Josh asks me as he strides out of his house next door.
He moved here a couple of years ago and we hang out now and then, he’s a bit older than I am. I’m a kid to most at twenty-one, so I get left out of a lot of the block parties the older people have. Josh is a pretty good guy though and a great neighbor.
“Just checking to see if there are any more letters from the evil government, trying to take my money,” I gripe as I close the fishes mouth and am happy to see there are no letters from my arch nemesis.
“About your money,” he says. “It’s none of my business and I love having you as a neighbor, but why the hell are you still here in the two-bedroom house you grew up in? Get a mansion like all the other billionaires, dude!”
With a shrug of my shoulders, I say, “It’s not the right time yet. I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t want to leave the old house behind just yet. I’ll get out of it someday, but not just yet. My parents’ things are all in it and I’d have to pack them up if I move. Frankly, I kind of act like they’re on vacation and will be home anytime. It makes me keep the house cleaned up.”
He chuckles and pats me on the back. “You should come over and eat dinner with us tonight. The wife made spaghetti.”
“Thanks, but I have a frozen dinner cooking in the oven and I’d hate to let it go to waste. Maybe another night.” I stroll back up the walkway to the old home my parents bought when they had me. It’s looking a little worse for wear and I make a mental note to at least get new siding on it. I’m a freaking billionaire after all.
“Hey,” Josh calls out, stopping my retreat. “Did you say the IRS took a lot of your money?”
I nod and whine, “Yeah, I have no idea what to do about it.”
He jogs up to me. “My brother-in-law happens to be a man in your position.”
“What position is that, a top player in Halo? Cause hook me up, I love a challenge,” I say as that can be all he means. I do little else since I won the money.
“No,” he says with a laugh. “He’s rich too. Filthy, stinkin’ just like you. He lives in Houston. I could set up a meeting so he could help you figure out your finances and how to keep most of your money.”
“Really!” My heart speeds up with the first good news I’ve heard in a while. “That would be awesome, dude!”
He turns to go back to his house. “I’ll call him and ask when would be a good time for him. You’re pretty much wide open aren’t you?”
“I’m completely wide open. Thanks so much.” I wave and go inside.
I break into a dance as I finally may have someone to help me not only take action to keep my money, but maybe they can help me figure out something worthwhile to do with it as well.
Looks like I got another lucky day!
Max
“For the love of all which is holy!” I jump to avoid tripping over the Barbie dream car hiding at the bottom of the staircase. “Zoey, what did I tell you about leaving your toys lying around? Especially on the stairs!” I round the corner to see my four-year-old daughter diving behind her mother as she sits on the sofa in the sitting room we use for the kids to play in.
“Max!” Lexi shouts at me. “No need to yell! She’s just a little girl. She forgets things. It’s not her fault.”
“Then who’s is it, Lex? You baby these kids. The twins are in pre-k for God’s….”
“Stop!” she interrupts. “Remember there are little parrots in this home and they repeat every word we say.”
“For goodness sakes. Okay? Happy?” I ask as I look around for my car keys. “Do you happen to know where the keys to my Jag are?”
She points to our one and a half-year-old son, Zakk. He has them in his mouth and is slobbering all over them. I look around for something to trade him and find a candy cane that may have been around since last Christmas, but I gotta do what I gotta do.
I pick up the slightly chewed on candy and make my way to the smiling baby boy. “Look what Daddy’s got.” I wiggle the candy at him and his blue eyes shine up at me. He has my eyes and his mother’s silky, blonde hair.
Lexi clears her throat, drawing my attention. “No way. Keep looking for something else to trade him with.”
With a growl I take the candy cane to the kitchen and dispose of it like it should’ve been done long ago. I find him one of his little cookies and take that back to the sitting room my not so little family is in.
Lexi meets me just outside the door, my keys in her hand. “Now
I
have them. What are you going to trade me for them, huh?”
Wrapping my arms around her, I whisper behind her ear and press my body to hers, “I’ll trade you one kiss and a hell of a lot more tonight when I get you into our bed.”
“Deal,” she says as she places the keys in my hand and turns her lips up to mine.
Though we’ve been together for a good few years now, her kiss still takes me to another place and time. Heat fills me as her sweet lips press against mine. Her lips part and I swirl my tongue around hers.
I grind into her soft body and wish like hell we could run upstairs for a little alone time. Her hand runs over my ass and my insides turn to jelly.
Then she tugs on my shirt. “Daddy, hey, Daddy!” my four-year-old son, Zane, shouts. “Hey, can I go too?”
It was his hand on my ass apparently. I pull my mouth from my wife’s and place my forehead to hers. “How many more of these things did I say I wanted to have?”
“You said several more, but I’m getting the distinct impression three is enough for you.” Her hand runs over my cheek and I grab it and kiss her palm.
“Yeah, for now and maybe forever, three is more than plenty.” I turn and rub Zane’s little, blonde head. “Hey, buddy, not this time, okay? Daddy’s picking up a man at the airport and it can be a little taxing to try to keep up with you when there’s so many people. I’ll be back home soon.”
“Well, can you at least bring me something back, like a puppy or a kitty cat?” he asks as his bottom lips juts out in a pout.
“Oh! A kitty!” Zoey shouts as she runs out of the room.
“No! Lord have mercy! Lexi, these kids!” I walk away as Zoey grabs one leg and Zane grabs the other. They giggle like crazy people as they try to slow me down.
Lexi grabs the baby and follows behind me. Once I reach the door she gets the kids to leave me alone, using just one word, “Stop.”
They let go as if she magically made them somehow. I look at her. “You have to teach me your ways, you’re a Jedi master.”
“I am,” she says as she scoots the kids back. A little kiss she leaves on my cheek. “Hurry back to me. And thanks again for meeting with this guy for my brother, Josh. It’s a really sweet and nice thing for you to do, Max.”
I smack my head and turn back as I remember we have guests coming. “What time are Kip and Peyton getting here?”
“Around four Peyton said. They’re coming in on his new chopper, since you helped him get his license.”
“Cool, I’ll try to have this guy squared away by then so we can chill out by the pool with you guys,” I say and make my way to the car.
Looks like it’s going to be a full day!