The Billionaire's Promise (An Heir At Any Price Book 3) Read online

  “Um, yeah, it’s Mrs. though. You must be Mr. Shelton?”

  “Yes ma’am, good to meet you. Please come on in.” He took me into a nice office with a big oak desk and bookshelves surrounding the room. He offered me a seat and I took one of the chairs facing his desk. He sat down too and took out some paperwork. Then he folded his hands under his chin and looked at me, “Are you a little nervous about coming here?”

  I smiled, “Yeah, just a little,” I told him. “I’m not usually one to invade other’s privacy, but sometimes people just take their lies too far, you know?”

  He grinned and said, “I do know. That’s why I’m in the business I am.”

  I nodded and told him, “My problem is that I know this woman is lying, but I don’t know how to prove it. I’m afraid if I don’t prove it soon, however that it might mean the end of my marriage, or even worse.”

  He took a pen from his pocket and stacked the paperwork in front of him. Then he said, “Alright then, let’s get started so that we can try and stop that from happening.”

  He started asking me a lot of questions. As we talked, I felt a little bad about telling him things about Aiden, like I was betraying him somehow. When we finished, he told me that I just had to keep in mind that what I was asking him to do was to protect my family. He assured me that he was only going to talk to Jake and people who knew Cecile but that he wouldn’t involve Mark at all and he also wouldn’t bring my name up to anyone as his client.

  I shook his hand before I left and thanked him. He told me that he would be in touch as soon as he had anything substantial. I left, not knowing if I was doing the right thing or not, but at least feeling like I was being a little more pro-active with my life.

  ***

  About a week later Aiden and I were having coffee before he left for work. It was one of the rare times I’d seen him that week. He had been leaving when the sun came up and coming home long after it went down every day. I felt like a single mother and I told him so.

  “I miss you, Aiden. Eric misses you. I eat dinner alone every night. Every time the baby does something incredible and I want to tell you about it I can’t because I’m asleep by the time you get home and not up yet when you leave. You said you were going be able to spend more time with us when your big project was up and running, hasn’t that happened yet?”

  “Not yet, baby. I’m sorry; I miss you both too, so much. I try to get home at a decent time every night, I really do. Every night this week so far as I tried to walk out, I’d get called back for one crazy thing or another. I know those are just excuses and what you need is action. You need me to be here for you and I need to try harder. I really don’t have that much to do today. Anything that comes up late, I’ll have Randall take care of it and I’ll be home by six, okay?”

  I smiled and put my hand on the side of his face, “Okay, I’ll make dinner for us.”

  “That sounds better to me than you can imagine. I miss you so bad.”

  He leaned in then and covered my mouth with his. He had one hand on the back of my neck and the other on my waist and I felt his tongue snake in between my lips and seek mine out. We shared a long, deep, passionate kiss and I didn’t care that I couldn’t breathe; I didn’t want it to end.

  When he broke the kiss he looked at me with those deep, sexy, brown eyes of his and gave me one of his sexiest toothy grins and said, “Hold that thought for me for a few hours?”

  “Oh, I will,” I told him. “You better be here, tonight, Mr.”

  He pulled me in and kissed me again, then he said, “I will be, and you can take that to the bank. I love you, Holly.”

  “I love you too,” I told him.

  Once Eric had gotten up and had his breakfast and bath, he and I went out to do some shopping. I was so happy; I was actually humming as we made our way through the Whole Foods store, picking out the ingredients for Aiden’s favorite meal. I was on cloud nine, until I heard a familiar voice. It sent a chill down my spine as I heard Cecile’s voice come from behind me.

  “Oh my goodness, Holly…and Eric.” I wanted to keep walking, but I was trapped by my own good manners. I sighed, cursed in my head, and turned around and saw her behind me with a shopping cart. I tried not to notice that she had a lot of Aiden’s favorite things in her cart, almost like she was stocking her home to his tastes.

  “Cecile, hi. You’re shopping a long way from home. No grocery stores in Scarsdale?”

  “Nothing good,” she said with one of her fake smiles. “I love this place; everything is organic and so fresh.”

  “Hmm,” I said. “I should go, Eric and I have a busy day.”

  “Sure, it was great seeing you and you too, Eric. I do hope your mommy wiped that basket down before she sat you in it. It’s just covered in germs.”

  Something inside of me snapped a little bit. I looked at her and I could feel the fire burning in my eyes.

  “I am so sick of you acting like you think you know so much more about being a mother than I do. I adore my son and if I make mistakes, they’re no worse than what other new parents do. He’s very well taken care of and I don’t need advice from the likes of you. I have plenty of support if I have questions.”

  She smirked and said, “You mean your waitress friends…Oh! Maybe you mean your mother, the drunk?”

  I took a step towards her and sometimes later when I think about it, I have to admit that Eric saved my life. If I had assaulted her, the way I’d wanted to she would have called the police in a heartbeat. The only thing that kept me from doing it was my angel sitting there in the basket watching me.

  “Aiden’s going to figure out what you’re doing soon enough, Cecile. Right now, he’s so thrilled that you’re letting him see Mark, but I’m doing all I can to encourage him to call Jake and get the real story,” Cecile’s entire affect changed when I said that. “I have no doubt that as soon as that happens, your jig will be up. Have a nice day.”

  I could almost feel the daggers she was shooting out of her eyes and into my back as I walked away. It felt good to finally tell her what I thought of her. I had no idea how that was going to backfire on me later on that day.

  I finished picking up what I needed quickly and paid for our purchases. I didn’t want to chance another run-in with Cecile. She’d already gone a long way to run off my happy mood. When we got to the car I put Eric in his seat and strapped him in and then I unloaded the groceries into the car. As I stepped into the SUV, my phone rang. Looking at the face I saw that it was the private investigator.

  “Mr. Shelton, hello.”

  “Hey there Mrs. Scott,” he said. “I have some news for you.”

  “Great, what did you find out?” I asked him.

  “I was hoping you could come by and pick up the file I have, if you have time. If not, I’d be happy to bring it by to you.”

  “Well, I’m actually out right now. If you’ll be there for a while, I’ll come by on my way home and get the file and settle up with you.”

  “That sounds dandy,” he said.

  Eric and I stopped at Shelton’s office. When I carried him in, the P.I. smiled broadly at the baby and said, “I can see why you’re so determined to protect your family. That is a right fine looking young man you have there.”

  “Thank you,” I told him with a smile. “I think so too.” We sat down and he opened a manila file. He took out some photos of Cecile that looked like bank surveillance photos. I thought that was strange, it wasn’t like I was accusing her of stealing money or anything. Then, he took out some more photos of her in “compromising” positions with a much older man. “Is that Jake?” I asked him.

  He chuckled and said, “No ma’am. That is the manager of a bank in Manhattan. That was where Jake and Cecile had one of their joint banking accounts. It seems that even though neither person should have been able to access that account without the other’s signature…Cecile cleaned that account out right after she left Jake. These pictures of her and the manager, and the ones f
rom the bank were given to me by Jake. They were given to him by his own private investigator. He knows where Cecile and the boy are. He hasn’t gone after her yet because he’s building a case. She and the bank manager can likely be charged with theft and fraud when this all comes to light. Jake is having her surveyed to make sure the boy is being taken care of. He’s aware that Aiden has been spending time with him. He told me that he was glad of it. He’d suggested it to Cecile a while back and Cecile had declined to give him permission to set it up.”

  “Wow,” I said, “This is a lot more than I bargained for. What about the abuse allegations that she made towards Jake? Is he aware that’s what she’s been saying?”

  “I told him, today. But, not until he told me that is what she said to him to keep him from allowing Aiden to see him. I think she’s been working it both ways”

  “This is unbelievable. She’s worse than I thought.”

  “Yes ma’am, I think you need to trust your instincts from now on. They’re pretty good ones. It’s all there in the file; Jake was even kind enough to sign the paperwork from our interview for me. This all just gives him more ammunition to get custody of that boy.”

  I was so happy; I wanted to hug this big man. I didn’t do it; again, I have good impulse control. Instead, I paid him, gave him a bonus, thanked him profusely and Eric and I sang happy songs all the way home.

  AIDEN

  I spent my whole day thinking about having dinner with Holly and spending a long, romantic evening with her. I could hardly concentrate on my work and several times I had to tell Randall that I was fine and not having some kind of mental breakdown because I didn’t respond when someone talked to me and I had forgotten some important points about one of our big contracts. I missed my wife like crazy, and my son. This deal was supposed to be closed by the end of the week and then I could hire someone to help Randall do what needed to be done from here on out and spend more time with my family.

  It was around five p.m. as I was wrapping things up for the evening when my phone rang. I looked at it and saw that it was Cecile. I really didn’t want to answer it, I was tiring of her games, and I knew that she was really getting to Holly. I hesitated, but I went ahead and answered it. I worried that if I didn’t, it would be like the day Mark had the seizure and then I wouldn’t be there for him when he needed me.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi Aiden,” her voice sounded sullen or depressed.

  “Hey Cecile, what’s up?”

  “Are you still at work?”

  “Yeah, what’s going on? Is Mark okay?”

  “Mark’s fine. He’s at a sleepover with a friend tonight.”

  “Okay then, what’s up?” I was getting annoyed with her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said with a deep sob suddenly. “I’ve just had such a bad day. I’ve been out driving since I dropped Mark at his friend’s house. I don’t know where to go or what to do.”

  “Cecile, I’m sorry you’re having a bad day, I really am. But I was just on my way out, Holly’s expecting me.”

  “She’s making dinner for you,” she said.

  Confused about how she knew that, I said, “Yeah, she is. How did you know that?”

  “I ran into her earlier today at the Whole Foods Store. It was actually the beginning of my bad day.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because she was…really rude to me.”

  “Holly was rude?” I kind of doubted that. This was the sort of thing I was tiring of.

  “Yes, I know you don’t believe me, but I try so hard to be nice to her. I guess it seems intrusive to her when I try and give her tips to help with Eric, but I’m only trying to help. I just warned her about the germs on the shopping carts. The baby was chewing on the plastic piece where people put their dirty hands every day for crying out loud…”

  I sighed. I can only imagine Holly’s response to that. She was always telling me that Cecile went out of her way to make it look as if she were a bad mother. “What did she say?”

  “She told me that I was intrusive and that she didn’t want or need my input. She also said that you would tire of me soon and Mark and I would both be out of your lives. She said that one son was enough for you and I needed to try and stop forcing one that wasn’t even yours on you.” Cecile was in tears at that point. I could hear background noises…traffic. I suddenly got worried about her driving around like that. I didn’t really believe all that she was telling me about Holly, but I didn’t want to see her get in an accident over it.

  “Where are you, Cecile?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Look at the street signs, where are you?”

  “I’m at Fifth and Baldwin right now.”

  “Is there somewhere you can stop safely? A business or something you can pull in to?”

  “There’s a diner here on the corner.”

  “Go in there and calm down. I’ll be there in a few minutes. I can’t stay long, Cecile. I have to get home at a decent time tonight, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said with another sob. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll be right there,” I told her again. I hung up and thought, “Damn!” I needed to call Holly but if I told her why I was going to be late, it would ruin our entire evening before it even got started. I decided that if I fibbed a little now and told her the truth and why I lied when I got home, it would be better overall. I called her and said, “Hi baby.”

  “Hey, are you on your way home?”

  “Not quite, I’m sorry.”

  “Oh Aiden, you’re not going to cancel on me, are you?”

  “No baby, I promise. I just need about an hour. I have some things that I absolutely have to wrap up. Then I will be there with bells on. I can’t wait to spend the evening with you. I’ve thought about it all day.”

  “Me too, and I’ve been cooking all afternoon. Please don’t disappoint me,” she said.

  “I won’t, I promise. One hour.”

  ~

  Chapter Six

  ~

  Holly

  Two hours after I spoke with Aiden on the phone, I was tucking the baby into his bed. A half hour after that, I was putting away the food I’d made for us that was slowly wilting. Another half hour after that, as I sat on the couch getting angrier by the minute, he walked in the door. He looked disheveled and nervous.

  “What the hell, Aiden?” I was so angry I didn’t even give him a chance to speak. I really didn’t want to hear his excuses. “You said an hour over three hours ago. That was bad enough, but the fact that I didn’t get a call or a text in between is not acceptable at all.”

  He sat down and ran his hand through his hair. It was a habit he had when he was upset. I noticed then that he had his jacket off and his tie was all askew. “I know,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “What is going on, Aiden? Why do you look so…agitated? What happened?”

  “I messed up, Holly. I screwed up so bad.” His eyes were filled with water. I almost thought he was going to cry. It was then that I got worried.

  “Aiden, you’re scaring me. Please, just tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I kissed Cecile,” he blurted out. It wasn’t at all what I expected to hear him say. I was in shock. I didn’t even know what to say back. He was looking at me, waiting for a reaction. I didn’t have one. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and I needed to get out of there. I felt like he was sucking all of the oxygen out of the room.

  Instead of speaking, I stood up and went down the hall to Eric’s room. I picked him up and tucked him into his baby seat. He was still asleep and he didn’t even flinch. Then, I grabbed his bag that I always keep packed for emergencies and took only my coat. As we passed Aiden I dropped the manila file that the P.I. had given me down on the table in front of him. Then I picked up my purse and Eric and I walked out. Aiden didn’t say a word, and he didn’t come after us.

  AIDEN

  I hadn’t meant to blurt that out like I had. I needed to tel
l her, if I hadn’t, it would have eaten away at me. I’d found Cecile at the diner earlier where I had told her to go. She was still distraught and all I wanted to do was calm her down so that I could send her home safely and go spend the evening with the woman that I love. I listened to her cry, she said she didn’t have any friends and that she’d thought she and Holly could be friends but Holly acted like she hated her. She talked about feeling all alone and although she had Mark, she felt lonely and afraid most of the time.

  I’m not a stupid man. I know that Cecile can be a very manipulative woman when she wants to be. I don’t know how much of what she was telling me was grounded in truth and how much was designed to play on my emotions, but her sobs got to me and I finally went to her side of the booth and put my arm around her. There was no sexual intent there, no desire. I just thought of it as one friend comforting another. We sat there like that until she was finally able to stop crying. When she did, she looked up at me with her eyes all red and swollen.