FOREVER BELOVED (Billionaire Love Series) (4 page)

Late the next morning, our conversation
continued as we sat down to a big spread of pancakes, bacon, and
eggs for breakfast.

“Yum, Mom. You make the best pancakes,”
Charlie praised as he dug into his overfilled plate.

I sipped my coffee. “Thanks. I thought you
might appreciate a home-cooked meal after being on the road so
long.”

“You have no idea,” he said, after swallowing
a mouthful of pancake. “I’m starving. I didn’t eat much after last
night.”

I put my hand over his. “That was quite a
shock, wasn’t it?”

He took a big gulp of orange juice.
“Yep.”

“So have you thought about what you want to
do?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, Mom. It’s weird
to know who my dad is. I kind of feel he should come to me if he’s
interested in figuring this out.”

“What if I talk to Beau?”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“There isn’t a way to do this that won’t
involve some kind of awkward weirdness. I’m just willing to do it
for you. I don’t want you to miss out on a chance to know your
dad.”

He shot me a wary glance. “I don’t know,
Mom...”

I smiled. “Come on, it can’t hurt.”

He shot me another guarded look. “Okay, but
feel him out and see where he’s at with all this.”

I ran my hand along the back of his neck. “I
can do that. I think it would be really good for the two of you to
spend some time together.”

“Yeah, that would be cool.”

CHAPTER THREE

Beau:

Time blurred as I disappeared into a haze of
drugs and alcohol. I was only aware of my next hit, as my penthouse
turned into party central. A crew of hardcore partiers showed up
and brought all kinds of goodies with them.

I had anything I desired to neutralize the
pain—lines of cocaine to snort, weed to smoke, ecstasy to swallow,
and any kind of liquor I wanted to drink. So, I snorted, smoked,
and swallowed my way to oblivion.

I was only vaguely aware of what was
happening around me. House music blared through the penthouse. The
heavy bass thumped continuously, numbing me even more. People were
everywhere, getting wasted as they partied the night away.

A group of giggling women surrounded me as I
smoked a bowl on a cream colored couch in the great room.

“Beau...” one girl called out in a short
skirt barely covering her upper thighs.

I turned toward her, trying to focus on her
flawless face. “Hey, pretty girl,” I slurred, smiling stupidly.
“This is how it should be. Beau Shepard surrounded by beautiful
ladies.”

They giggled again.

“Ooh, Beau...” a brunette cooed.

They were so fucking young. Probably my son’s
age.

Shit.

I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about
that.

“Did you know I have a kid?” I blurted
out.

“You do?” the brunette asked.

I nodded drunkenly. “Yep, I do. His name is
Charlie.”

“How old is he?”

I held up two fingers. “Twenty-two.”

“Why is he so old?” she asked.

I let out a snickering laugh. “I don’t know.
I didn’t know I had him until today.”

“That’s sad,” she said with a frown.

“Yes, it is,” I agreed, taking another drag
on the bowl I was smoking.

That was enough of that conversation. It was
getting too close to a shitty reality I was trying to forget.

I staggered to my feet, my cell phone
vibrating in my pocket. I grabbed the phone, angry at whoever was
bothering me.

It was someone from the office. “Hello?” I
asked, super annoyed.

“Beau?” It sounded like Donna, but I wasn’t
sure. I couldn’t even really hear her over the music blasting
through the speakers.

I didn’t need responsibility interfering with
my bender. “Just handle it!” I yelled into the phone and
immediately turned it off. I didn’t want to be bothered
anymore.

I didn’t care about anything as I staggered
around in a stupor.

The party continued into the next day and the
day after that one and so on. It got to the point I wasn’t even
sure what day it was. People started trashing my place. Shit was
broken, valuables stolen...I just didn’t care.

Finally, it ended when the police showed up
and kicked everyone out after the neighbors complained about five
consecutive days of non-stop, mind-numbing partying.

It didn’t matter at that point. I was ready
for everyone to be gone. Eventually, I collapsed into a bottomless
sleep, where I couldn’t think or feel anymore.

I don’t know how long I slept, but I came to
as a relentless banging woke me out of a dead sleep. Disoriented, I
could only tell the noise came from the front of the penthouse. I
got up to investigate, pissed off someone was disturbing my
sleep.

*****

The unbelievable racket coming from the front
door made my brain hurt. Why the hell had the doorman let anyone
up?

I had no fuckin’ wish to see another living
soul.

I stumbled to the door, my head pounding as I
grabbed a pair of random sunglasses off the back of the couch,
trying to block out the light, which insisted on streaming through
the windows of the penthouse.

The place was a mess. I hadn’t let the staff
do anything in days.

I looked through the peephole as I arrived at
the door.

Oh, shit, Marla.

What the hell was she doing here?

“I can hear you breathing in there,” she
announced as she eyed the peephole.

“Me no speak English,” I let out in a
horribly high voice.

“Beau, I know it’s you. Just open the
door.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I’m not going away. You might as well let me
in.”

I knew she could be stubborn.

Reluctantly, I opened the door, but I wasn’t
about to make this easier on her. “Are you here to clean?” I asked
flippantly.

She rolled her pretty brown eyes. “No, I’m
here to talk to you about Charlie.”

“You mean my grandfather or the twenty-two
year old kid you never told me about?”

“Yes, Beau. The kid. Can I come in?” she
asked as she ducked under my arm.

“Sure, why not?”

“Nice place,” she said, taking in the
shithole I had created in the last week.

“Just think, all of this could have been
yours,” I let out bitterly.

“Yeah, I know,” she said quietly. “But that’s
not why I’m here.” She turned toward me. “There’s so much you don’t
understand, Beau.”

I crossed my arms over my bare chest. “Well,
here’s your chance. Explain away how you deliberately kept my son
away from me. Twenty-two years, Marla. Twenty-two fucking
years.”

She cringed. “I can’t explain it away and I
won’t try to. Circumstances forced me to keep you from knowing
about him.”

“I don’t get it. You couldn’t call,
email...hell, text?”

“No, I couldn’t. I had to protect our
son.”

“Oh, cut the crap, Marla.”

*****

Marla:

A week went by after Beau confronted me about
Charlie. At first, I thought he would contact me once he’d cooled
down. Then, as the days wore on, I realized he wasn’t going to
reach out.

I couldn’t stand his silence.

I had too much to say and I wanted to make
sure he was okay. This was big, life-changing news and I had a
feeling he wasn’t handling it well.

So I tracked down his address and made my way
to his penthouse after talking the sympathetic doorman into letting
me up to Beau’s place.

“Oh yeah, that’s definitely Mr. Shepard’s
kid,” Eddie, the doorman said as I showed him a picture of Charlie
posing in front of fountain in Europe somewhere.

“I know. They look so much alike, don’t
they?”

Eddie gave me a sweet smile. “Yes, they do,
but Mr. Shepard left instructions to not let anyone up. He didn’t
look too good, though, the last time I saw him.”

“Come on, Eddie. I’m the reason he’s in such
bad shape. I gotta make this better.”

He glanced back and forth across the lobby.
“Tell you what, I’ll let you up, but you can’t tell anyone.”

I buttoned my lips and threw away the key. “I
promise, Eddie. No one will know.”

He turned a blind-eye as I made my way over
to the elevator. I took it up to the penthouse level and approached
the one door I found on the top floor. Beau’s life was unreal. Must
be nice to own the nicest, most expensive floor of a
skyscraper.

I knocked several times, but it took a while
for anyone to come to the door.

Once I heard heavy footsteps, I sensed it was
Beau standing on the other side of the door, but he wasn’t saying
anything.

That wasn’t going to cut it.

I let him know I knew it was him, but he
didn’t want to let me in.

I got that, but I wasn’t going away.

After acting like he was a Spanish-speaking
maid, he finally opened the door as the overpowering stench of
booze and weed washed over me.

He definitely wasn’t handling the news about
Charlie very well.

He filled the doorway, looking pale and
haggard. That didn’t mean he still wasn’t gorgeous. He was wearing
a pair of dark sweats, hugging his hips. His V cut was still firm,
his hardcore abs ripped and chiseled, and yummiest of all, was the
five-day-old stubble gracing his jaw.

How could he look so delicious and yet so
sad?

“Can I come in?” I asked brusquely after he
challenged me about why I was there.

“Sure. Why not?” he asked, his eyes hidden
behind a dark pair of women’s sunglasses.

So this was where Beau lived.

What a disaster.

Beer and wine bottles were scattered across
his impeccably decorated penthouse.

I tried not to be distracted. I had rehearsed
what I was going to say as I sat in the parking lot, trying to get
up the nerve to come in. Three things came to mind:

Be civilized.

Lay it out.

Just tell him what happened.

But, before I could say anything, he was at
my heel, looking for a simple answer to a complex issue.

“If you’re not going to share why you didn’t
tell me about the kid we had, then why are you here?” he asked.

“I already told you. We need to talk about
Charlie. I know this is hard on you. Shocking. Crazy. I know you
need time to adjust.”

“Adjust to what?”

“Getting used to the idea that you’re a
dad.”

His glance grew super cold. “I’m not a dad.
I’m a sperm donor.”

That hurt.

I closed my eyes, trying to swallow the blow.
“I understand you feel that way. But I’m coming to you as a mother,
Beau. Charlie wants to get to know you. He’s open to it and I think
it would be good for both of you to spend some time together.”

He whipped off the sunglasses, giving me a
glimpse of his pain. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Just pick up and
have a great little relationship with my kid?” His gaze went fiery.
“What in the hell makes you think I’d want to talk about this with
you?”

I sighed, trying to keep my cool. “I know
it’s a lot to ask. But the cat’s out of the bag. Here’s your chance
to get to know your son.”

“I don’t think I can do anything until you
tell me why you didn’t let me know you were having my child.”

I studied him again. He was hollowed out and
hanging on by a thin emotional thread that could snap at any
minute. If I told him the truth now, he might break and never
recover. I couldn’t bear that.

I glanced around again, taking in the sheer
chaos he had created in his penthouse. Windows were cracked and
broken, art was missing off the walls and my shoes were sticking to
the floor.

The signs were obvious.

He had given up.

“Why are you living like this?” I asked
bluntly.

“Like what?” His glance dared me to say
it.

I pointed to all the discarded empty bottles
and cans. “Like you don’t care about your life anymore.”

“What do you care if I destroy myself?”

I met his pain-filled gaze. “I do care. More
than you know.”

“Don’t tell me that! You don’t get to walk in
here, looking like an angel and tell me that! The only reason I
feel this bad is because of you. I can’t believe you betrayed me
and didn’t tell me about my son.” His glance was desperate and
broken.

I sighed because I hated seeing him like
this. “I’m sorry, Beau. You didn’t deserve any of this and I’m
sorry for my part in all this.”

“Your part?”

“Yes, there is a lot more to the story if
you—“

His gaze turned ice cold again. “I don’t want
to hear your excuses and lies, where you spin this story to make
you look innocent.”

“I wasn’t going to offer you either—“

“Just get out!” he said flatly, turning away
from me.

I wanted to groan in frustration. He was
hurting so bad and I was the last person he would let help him
through it.

“Before I leave, here’s Charlie’s number if
you would like to get together.” I stuck a yellow post-it note onto
the end table crowded with empty liquor bottles.

“Whatever. Just leave,” he growled.

“I know you’re angry with me, but if you want
to talk, I’m here.”

He snorted, but didn’t turn around.

CHAPTER FOUR

Beau:

Damn lady. With her big, brown eyes.

I was barely hanging on and she was pushing
the knife in deeper.

She was killing me.

Absolutely fuckin’ killing me.

I wanted to scoop her up into my arms and
throttle her all in the same breath.

Everything was so fucked up.

I didn’t want to think about Charlie.

It hurt too much.

To say I was confused and heartbroken was an
understatement. A giant pressure was bearing down on my chest and
the more I struggled, the worse it got. I didn’t know if I should
embrace it or run away from its scary depths.