Forgotten Love: A BWWM Pregnancy Billionaire Love Story (18 page)

*****

Her mother retired
directly after they came home from the hospital, too tired to even
attempt to pretend to keep her eyes open. She had an oxygen mask with
her that they’d been given at the hospital for her use. The
difficulty she had breathing seemed to get worse with each day. Leila
knew she hated it. Raychelle Masters was a vibrant, energetic woman
who hadn’t let her weak chest stop her from working a day in
her life. That was probably why she had to practically collapse at
work for her to acknowledge there was a problem. Leila had been
called at work by her mother’s supervisor and informed that her
mother had been rushed to hospital. She had dropped everything and
rushed to Emory University Hospital where her mother was. They told
her they’d had to resuscitate her because she stopped breathing
at some point. It was a miracle she was well enough to come home at
the end of the day. Well, not well enough…but she’d
refused to be admitted and what with the insurance people playing
games, the doctors hadn’t insisted too hard.

Leila slumped on the
chair and let out a breath, trying not to think too hard. There
wasn’t much she could do tonight anyway, except make sure her
mother got through it. The loud astringent tones of Shenaynay telling
her to pick up her damned phone startled her quite badly. She frowned
at it, making a mental note to beat her cousin Sheila over the head
the next time she saw her. Obviously she’d been tampering with
Leila’s cell phone again.

She picked it up,
seeing it was actually Sheila calling…she hesitated, not
having the energy to deal with her drama. Not today.

“
What?”
she asked as she picked up at last.

“
Girl
what twisted your knickers today?” Sheila replied.

Leila sighed, she
really did not have the time. “What do you want Shay?”
she asked.

“
Relax,
my mama asked me to call to ask how
your
mama is doing. Sorry to disturb you and what not but she insisted.”

Leila took a deep
breath; there was suddenly a lump in her throat. She tried to get
words out but they couldn’t seem to get past the lump.

“
Leila?”
Sheila prompted.

Leila tried again to
get the words out but the lump was blocking her passage completely.

“
Okay
then, give me thirty minutes, I’ll be right there,”
Sheila said in a completely different tone.

Leila tried to tell
her not to be stupid; she had class the next day, it was late –
too dangerous for her to be out on the street alone; but again, no
words came out. And then it was too late, Sheila had hung up.

There was a knock on
the door exactly twenty eight minutes later; Sheila was coming from
one street over where she lived with her parents and little brother
Peter. She was a decade younger than Leila and in university but
seeing as their families were close, they tended to act more like
sisters and the age difference was easy to overlook.

“
Hey,”
Sheila said as soon as Leila opened the door.

Leila opened her
mouth to return the greeting but it just opened and closed like she
was a baby bird waiting for its mother to put a worm down its throat.
Before she knew it, she had collapsed against Sheila, her whole body
shaking with repressed sobs; all the time aware her mother was just
down the hall. And she slept very lightly.

“
Oh,
baby,” Sheila said patting her on the back and sides and
anywhere else she could reach. “Shhh….shhh,” she
said even though Leila wasn’t technically making a sound.

Leila raised her head
to stare desperately at Sheila. “It's bad,” she
whispered. “It's really bad.”

Sheila stared
commiseratingly at her but didn’t say a word. What was there to
say after all? She just rubbed Leila’s arms and led her back
into the house, closing the door behind her.

“
Let’s
get you in the bath,” she murmured leading Leila to her room.
“Have you eaten? How about I make you a nice chicken salad?”
she continued to murmur nonsense words at Leila who was clearly not
paying attention anyway. She got her undressed, as she ran the bath
with fragrant bath salts. Once the water was nice and hot and nearly
overflowing, she led Leila into the bath and sat her down, lighting
some scented candles and handing her a book.

“
Now
just relax and catch up on your reading. I’ll be in the kitchen
making you some delish food okay?” she said soothingly as she
left.

Leila lay back,
reading the book cover she’d been handed; “Between Death
and Heaven”, it said. Leila grimaced…not exactly what
she wanted to think about right now. She opened it anyway, to see how
bad it was. It began with a sex scene so maybe not as maudlin as
she’d thought. She lay back in the bubbles, uncaring if her
hair got wet, and lost herself in the story.

*****

The chicken salad was
great, but the company was better. She tried to make Sheila go home
but she wouldn’t hear of it.

“
My
first class is at like…eleven o’ clock. I got plenty of
time to get home and get to class.”

“
Yeah,
but you don’t have to. Really.”

“
Really.
I know,” Sheila said with a smile, picking up Leila’s
phone casually.

“
Oh
no you don’t! I just finished redoing my audio profile so the
ringtone goes back to “Keep their heads ringing’ so you
are not going to fuck that up with your fucking Shaynaynay nonsense,”
Leila said snatching it back.

“
Shaynaynay
rocks,” Sheila protested.

“
Weren’t
you like two in the nineties? There’s no way you even remember
the original Martin,” Leila said.

“
Hey,
first of all, I wasn’t two, second of all, I was a precocious
child,” Sheila said.

Leila laughed which
is what Sheila wanted. They watched a few episodes of the sitcom
which Leila had on DVD anyway, laughing at Shaynaynay and Martin’s
shenanigans before going to bed. Leila woke up almost every hour to
check on her mother so by morning she was still exhausted.

“
Maybe
you should skip work today,” Sheila proposed bringing her
coffee.

“
Are
you kidding me? We have this huge charity event and guess who’s
the chief organizer. There is no way in hell I can miss another day
of work without serious repercussions.”

“
You
know what your problem is Leila?” Sheila said handing her some
toast.

“
I’m
sure you’ll tell me,” Leila’s answer was wry.

“
You’re
too conscientious,” Sheila said.

“
Oh
dear, I knew it was something serious like that. What is a girl to do
about it?”

“
Slack
off a little bit.”

“
I’ll
take it under advisement.”

“
There
you go with the lawyer speak. You know I’m an Art Major right?”

“
I
know you pretend not to understand a lot of things,” Leila
countered.

Sheila laughed,
“Touché.”

*****

Leila arrived at the
offices of Venture-GRAD, a non-profit that gave scholarships to high
school and college students as well as provided support and
encouragement to ensure that as many students as possible finished
college. She went straight to the conference room where she was
scheduled to meet with vendors who were to participate in the charity
event she was organizing. She had three days to pull everything
together while worried sick about her mother, but luckily, most of
the work was done.

Her assistant came
hurrying toward her as she approached the conference room.

“
Leila,
how are you? How is your mother?”

“
She’s
ill Martha, do we have the RSVP’s all in?” she asked
briskly, not wanting the lump to return to her throat.

“
All
except ten invitees have confirmed attendance. I’ll be calling
up those ten today and making a final push.”

“
Good
good, Martha. Great. Are my vendors here?” she asked.

“
All
but one,” Martha said.

Leila lifted a brow
in lieu of asking who.

“
Mr.
Smith called to notify us that he’d be running late,”
Martha informed her.

Leila nodded. “Okay
that’s fine,” she said walking into the conference room
where refreshments sat on the sideboard, every vendor had a cup of
coffee in front of them and a folder containing all the materials
necessary for the meeting. Martha was incredibly efficient as always.

Leila closed the
conference room door and smiled at those present. “Good
morning,” she said. “Let’s get to work.”

*****

Jonathon
Leary walked onto the plane and nodded at the hostess. She smiled at
him as she examined his ticket and then gestured toward the first
class cabin. She was a pretty thing, with the obligatory blond
tresses curling about her narrow shoulders that tapered to a small
waist and an attractive swell of hips. Her smile was professional yet
warm, Jonathon was sure he could convert that smile into a more
personal version, just for him. Maybe later though, right now he had
a hangover and he just wanted to put on his sleeping eye mask and
drop off. It was a relatively short flight to Atlanta but still, he’d
be grateful for the rest. He’d had a really late night last
night, partying with his friends but his mother said he had to attend
this charity event. She said it was important. They were auctioning
him off as a prize for the night; what with the fact that he
had
to be married within the next six months; mother thought it would be
a good opportunity to scope out some talent. He would be thirty years
old in six months and if he wasn’t married by then, the party
was over. Grandpa Movie Star was gonna take it all away.

Most days Jonathon
was tempted to let him; having his life dictated to him by some
ornery old man who felt entitled just because he was rich and famous
was not really what he felt he was put in this world for. And yeah,
that old man had paid for his expensive Harvard education and given
him the seed money to start his business…but still.

His
mother had told him he could do what he wanted, but they were talking
about three billion dollars here; was he going to forfeit that just
because it came with a coda that he must be married by thirty?
Nothing had been said about a necessity for him to be
faithful
to his marriage after all…or
even that it needed to last forever. He could find some nice girl,
get her to sign a pre-nup and keep her around for a year or three.
Inherit his money and keep it moving. It didn’t even have to be
tawdry or underhanded; who had the energy for that? No, he was sure
he could find someone he could stand to live with peacefully for
three years. The fact that he hadn’t found her yet didn’t
mean she didn’t exist. The kind of women he ran into in his
daily life tended toward bottle blonde, vacuous sharks or frumpy
weather beaten and bitter. All of whom would be happy to marry him
for his money he knew; he just couldn’t do that to himself.
Even for three billion dollars and counting. Jonathon sighed, trying
to shut his mind down so he could sleep but then he felt a presence
hovering over him swathed in floral perfume. He lifted his sleeping
mask to peer at whomever it was…the stewardess from the door.

“
Hey,”
he said in an inquiring sort of way.

“
Hi.
I’m sorry to disturb you but we’re about to land and you
need to fasten your seat belt,” she intoned softly. Jonathon
stared at her in shock; hadn’t he just sat down not ten minutes
ago? He peered at his watch and was surprised to see that almost two
hours had passed since he got on the plane.

“
Wow.
Time sure flies when you’re asleep,” he commented to the
flight attendant. She offered him an empty smile and a pointed glance
at his seat belt. Jonathon fastened it and then leaned back,
readjusting his sleep mask and closing his eyes. There was still time
for a nap.

*****

The foundation had
sent a driver to the airport in a black luxury SUV. Jonathon was
grateful but he also knew it was his grandfather’s way of
ensuring he’d arrived on time. It was insulting; Jonathon was a
grown man. He could travel to Atlanta and attend a charity event
without supervision thanks. Still, he got in the back seat and
instructed the driver to take him to the nearest coffee place if he
would be so kind.

“
We
have a Starbucks if that’ll do yah,” the guy suggested
and Jonathon nodded his agreement. That was as good a place as any to
start.

*****

Leila needed to check
on her mother; she’d called twice that morning and her mother
hadn’t answered. But her schedule was full to overflowing so
she guessed she needed to wait for lunch time to make the dash across
town. She usually cycled to work because well, the environment, it
was cheaper and it was her only exercise; and she’d come to
realize it was a much faster means of getting around than sitting in
Atlanta traffic. She figured she’d need an hour to get home and
back, unless there was a problem in which case she’d have to
take the rest of the day off. With that in mind, she tried to get as
much done as possible during the morning hours. As soon as the clock
struck one pm though, she was out the door like a shot.

Lunchtime traffic was
crazy as expected but Leila had her trusty action bike and she wove
in and out of it like a pro. She was just passing Starbucks when it
happened; she swerved suddenly to avoid running into an unspecified
lump on the road and her tire bumped into the side of a huge black
SUV and the impact sent her careening into the side of another car.
Before she knew it, the world was spinning and she’d landed on
a hard surface with a huge thud. She stared, stupefied at the blue
expanse above her, unable to make sense of it. A face appeared above
her looking concerned. The lips were moving, possibly he was talking
to her.