I Choose You (The Billionaire Brothers Series) (29 page)

How true those words had been. Because now I wasn’t just ruined.

I was shattered.

Friday night caught me sprawled on my sofa watching Joan Rivers dish it out on Fashion Police. Hearing Jahleel’s Timberland boots climb up the stairs, I turned my head in that direction and waited.

When he rounded the corner, he wasn’t wearing his signature crooked smile, but a full-on grin. A blissful grin. One of those grins he kept for rare occasions.

“Guess what?” he dragged, raking his teeth over his lower lip.

“What?”

He jogged to the sofa and dove down on top of me, knocking the air from my lungs. “You’re gonna be so proud, bad girl.”

Getting excited, I started grinning, too. “Tell me!”

“Andrew Lucas’ contract to judge on Dancin’ 2da’ Beat isn’t being renewed for the comin’ season. Annnnnnd … guess who they’ve asked to take his place?”

“Holy shit!” I exclaimed. “JK, that’s freakin’ awesome! You’re going to be like, like … a superstar.”

Jahleel threw his head back and laughed at me. “Just gonna be a
judge
on the show. Whichever of the contestants win the competition, they’re gonna be the superstar. Not me, crazy.”

“Shit, that’s like
the
biggest dance show ever. Tops all. And they chose
you
… how did that even … damn.”

“Hard work, bad girl,” he said, pushing off me and getting to his feet. He dragged me up by the arms. “Let’s go out. Celebrate.”

I started to find an excuse, but he shook his head at me. “Really gonna blow me off again?” His gaze narrowed. “You know, since you started datin’ that egotistical fucknut, we don’t do shit together anymore. Hardly even see you, ‘cause when you’re not overworking, you’re at his place.”

“Because that’s what people do when they’re in a
relationship
, JK,” I retorted. “They spend time together.”

“And to hell with everyone else in their life, right?”

The hard edge in his voice harbingered anger, and I didn’t want to throw him into a pissy mood after the awesome news he’d just delivered with such a rare, wide grin. Jahleel was forever there for me when I needed him, so I needed to do the same for him instead of staying home on the sofa wallowing in pathetic thoughts of a man who didn’t give a shit about me.

“Breathe easy, JK,” I whispered. Wrapping my arms around his middle, I pressed my cheek flat against his chest and hugged him hard, breathing in his familiar scent of Clive Christian cologne and bike exhaust. “Clubbing it is.”

His edge dissipated as he hugged me back and nuzzled my hair. “Thanks.”

After a minute of just hugging each other (Oh, how much I needed that hug), he added, “You can invite Marsha if you want.”

I laughed in his chest and muffled out, “Well,
that’s
a surprise.”

“Yeah. Her loco ass will stave off the ladies. You’re stayin’ by my side, no corner chats with any douchebags.”

I leaned back so I could stare up at him. “Aren’t I always by your side, JK?”

A reminiscing gleam flashed in his eyes, and I didn’t have to be a physic to know what he was remembering at that juncture. I pressed my cheek to his chest again and listened to the beat of his heart. “I’ll forever be your bad girl.”

H
e heard his parents’ footsteps coming down the hall long before they knocked on his bedroom door. Faster than a Michael Jackson leg split, he closed the browser of the Usher music video he’d been watching, shut down his laptop, and shoved it under his pillows just before his parents entered his bedroom.

Mom smiled at him, with Dad’s arm wrapped around her shoulders, watching him with calculating eyes. “Hi, son. You missed us?”

Trying to hide the guilt of doing something he knew he shouldn’t have been doing, he jumped off the bed and ran to hug both of them around the waist. “Yes, I did.”

But that was a lie. He loved when his parents weren’t home, because those were the times he got to watch music videos and practice dance moves. Mom and Dad had been gone for a week. They left to finalize some sort of adoption process, or whatnot, and said they were bringing home his new brother and sister who they’d been going on about for the past year.

He wasn’t excited about that either, because he didn’t want to share his Mom and Dad with other kids whose parents didn’t love them like his Mom and Dad loved him. He
hated
sharing. They should get their own parents to take care of them and leave his alone.

But he didn’t let Mom and Dad know his true thoughts on that, because he knew what punishment that would get him: They would extend those morning and evening devotions to longer hours until he understood ‘his God-given purpose’ — whatever that meant — and he would rather share his parents instead of having those boring Bible sessions extended. So he kept his mouth shut.

Mom and Dad believed in a man he couldn’t see. They explained he created the world and everything in it. When he’d asked them how they could believe in someone or something they couldn’t see, they’d said, “
Because you can’t see germs, it doesn’t mean they are not there. God is too pure and strong a force for any impure human to look upon him and still live. Don’t believe in God by sight, Jahleel. Believe by faith, feel his love for you and listen to his voice. Just like you can’t see or hold the wind, but you can feel and hear it. That’s what God is like.
”

Jahleel was still trying to feel and hear this God they blabbed about all the time, and this ‘faith’ thing. He had a feeling he would go through the rest of his life not knowing what they know, feeling what they feel, or hearing what they hear. Maybe their God didn’t want him. Their God
knew
he did bad things, so this unseen God wouldn’t speak to him or allow him to feel him. Because he was a bad boy.

A very bad boy.

And he had a strong feeling God didn’t like bad boys.

“Are you ready to meet your new brother and sister, son?”

No! I want them to go back to wherever they came from.
“Yes, Dad. I’m excited.”

Mom held out her hand. “Come on, then.”

He placed his hand in hers and let her lead him downstairs with Dad walking behind them. Their house was very big, so it took them awhile before they reached the living room where their housemaid, Marcia, was standing patiently behind their big ivory sofa a young boy and girl were sitting on, having milk and cookies. Mom and Dad led him to sit on the sofa opposite from them.

“Jahleel,” his mother started in her soft voice, “this is Trey, your new brother. He’s seven. Only one year younger than you. Say hi.”

Jahleel didn’t want to say hi to Trey. This Trey kid was scrawny with hair longer than his, and he was chomping down the cookies as if he’d never eaten cookies before and … and … he needed to get his own parents!

But Jahleel respected his Mom and Dad and would never want to do anything to hurt them. So, smiling politely, he told Trey, “Welcome to our family, Trey. It’s great to finally have a brother. I can imagine us doing lots of fun stuff together.” He should have ended there, but the bad boy in him wouldn’t allow him to. “You seem to like cookies, though. A lot. You’re not leaving any for your sister?”

Dad cleared his throat in that silent-reprimand manner he used, while Trey grinned back at him with his teeth covered in chewed-up cookies and milk rimming his lips. Too caught up in devouring all the cookies to spare a word, Trey just nodded enthusiastically.

Jahleel wrestled down a sneer and shifted his attention to the tiny girl sitting next to his new ‘brother’, and he felt a weird curling in his chest. The tiny girl had really long, blonde hair caught in pigtails and her face … he couldn’t see, because her head was turned up to the ceiling, twisting from side to side as she studied the paintings there. The glass of milk and the cookie she held in her hands were forgotten.

“And this,” he heard his mother say from beside him, “is your new sister, Krissan. She is six.”

The tiny girl didn’t seem to hear her name, because her eyes were still trained on the painted ceiling: murals of Mary and Baby Jesus, Jesus on the Cross, David and Goliath and all the other Bible stuff his parents were obsessed with. Obsessed enough to have their ceilings painted with it.

“Krissan?” Mom called.

The tiny girl remained lost in her world, and Jahleel was growing impatient to see her face.

“Krissan?” Dad called louder.

This time she heard and snapped her head in their direction.

Jahleel felt the weird curling in his chest again. She had the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen. Like … like … the ocean. No, no, they were prettier than the ocean. Jahleel tried to remember all the beautiful things he’d ever seen in his life to compare her eyes to, but couldn’t. Because her eyes had just became the most beautiful of
all
things he’d ever seen.

Her lips were very, very red like she had been drinking Kool-Aid or something. The cherry-red flavor he liked most, too. He decided, then, he was really, really excited to meet his new sister.

“Hi,” she said, and her voice was as soft and airy as a fairy’s.

He liked it.

He must have been staring at her for a long time, because Mom nudged him with her elbow and scowled. “Don’t be rude, Jahleel. Say hi to your sister.”

But all he could think about was how much he
wanted
to share his parents with her. And how much he wanted to not share
her
with Trey. He didn’t want Trey to even look at her, because then Trey would see her beautiful eyes and her Kool-Aid lips, too, and Jahleel was calling dibs on tiny girl’s eyes as
his
most beautiful thing.

Turning to look up at his mother, he asked, “Is she going to share my room with me?”

He crossed his fingers under a cushion on the sofa, hoping his parents would say yes. He would give the tiny girl his favorite pillow and let her sleep in his favorite spot on his bed and let her play with his PSP and —

“No, Jahleel,” his mother said, looking disappointed. “Krissan will have her own room.” Her voice weakened and wobbled as she asked, “Are you not happy to have a sister?”

“Can we not call her my
sister
?”

He looked over to the tiny girl and saw she was sad. She was staring down at the milk in her glass, her bottom lip quivering as though she were about to cry. Maybe she thought he didn’t like her. But he did. He
really
liked her. He also knew, by the weird feeling in his chest, that she was something to him.

And a ‘sister’ wasn’t it.

“No, Jahleel,” his father sternly snapped. “Krissan is now your sister and you will accept her as such.”

Nodding to his father’s words, he got up and went across to stand in front of her. She was still staring down in her glass of milk. “Hi, Krissan
Kingston
.”

She didn’t look up at him, and he felt bad for making her sad.

“Hey,” he tried again, “want to see my room? It’s big. And there are paintings on the ceiling in there, too.”

She snapped her head up at that, a twinkle in her eyes. “Is it pretty like this room?”

“Better,” he smiled, and held out his hand to her. He wanted her to be far away from Trey — the cookie monster.

Krissan put her uneaten cookie down on the empty tray on the coffee table and placed her hand in his. Trey instantly snatched up the cookie and stuffed it in his mouth. Jahleel wanted so bad to knock it out of him.

But instead, he turned and nodded at his parents who were smiling their ‘so adorable’ smile, Mom with her hands clasped over her heart — glad to see he did indeed liked his … his … the thing Krissan was to him.

He turned and led her up the never ending staircase and straight to his bedroom. Krissan was still holding her glass of milk in her hand. She quietly walked into his room when he opened the door, and her eyes immediately went to the ceiling.

He’d lied, of course, when he said his room was better than downstairs. His ceiling was painted with white clouds and blue skies and angels and harps.

He hated it.

“It’s so pretty,” she whispered. Or maybe it wasn’t a whisper. Maybe it was just the natural airiness of her soft voice.

“I know,” he lied again, as he went to stand close to her and look up at the sickly peaceful painting on the ceiling. It held his attention for, like, two seconds. He looked at her and saw she was lost in the design of the room again like she’d been downstairs.

Leaving her side for a minute, he walked over to the door and turned the lock on it, and he asked, “Does God speak to you?”

Finally giving him her attention, she shook her head and took a sip of her milk for the first time, leaving traces of white over the top of her red lips. “I-I don’t know who God is. Is he going to be my new brother, too?”

Walking toward her, he shrugged. “Nope. I don’t know who God is, either. He never speaks to me. I think it’s because I’m a bad boy.”

“Bad boy?” She giggled. “What do bad boys do?”

He tried not to, but he couldn’t help himself: reaching out, he used the pad of his thumb to wipe the traces of milk from the top of her lips. Her tongue promptly followed the path of his thumb and he felt the weird curling in his chest again, lasting longer this time around. “Bad boys do bad things.”

“Well God doesn’t talk to me, either,” she said sadly. “Does that mean I am a bad girl?”

“Maybe. Do you do bad things?”

Krissan hung her head, then she sank down to the floor, setting her glass down beside her and started tracing circle patterns with her finger on his soft, blue carpet. “No,” was all she said.

Jahleel knelt down in front of her. “Do you want to do bad things?”

“Well,” she began, still tracing her finger around in the carpet. “I like you. Better than Trey. Better than any of my other brothers and sisters back at home. Because … because you have really, really nice hair. And … so … and if you’re a bad boy, then I want to be a bad girl.”