Rise of the Billionaire (29 page)

Her body was alive and yearning for him.
She rubbed herself against him and loved how instantly he was hard and ready for her.

With eyes ablaze with hunger for her, he amended huskily, “Or we can take up where we left off.”

Even as she began to drown in the delight of his nearness, she asked, “Did you really enroll here just to be with me?”

He reached
around to unbutton the top of her blouse and said, “Yes and no.” His hand stilled. “In my rush to make money, I made some bad choices. The night I left you, it was because I had gotten myself involved in a situation that promised to be profitable because it was so dangerous. Before you, I didn’t care if anything happened to me. I felt like I had nothing to lose. But you changed all of that. I couldn’t let you and your father pay the price for a mistake I had made. I see now that I have a lot to learn.”

“Oh, Jeremy. I didn’t know.”

“I should have explained it to you.”

Jeisa remembered the state she’d been in that night and admitted,
“All I could see that night was that my greatest fear was coming true.”

He reached down and took both of her hands in his. “I had no idea you
were waiting for me in the kitchen. If I had known that, nothing could have stopped me from going to you.”

“I believe you,” she whispered.
“I had just decided today to come find you and apologize.”

“You did nothing wrong,” Jeremy said passionately, but Jeisa disagreed.

“I did everything wrong. You never lied to me, Jeremy. You were honest every step of the way, and I should have believed you when you said that you loved me. I was scared. I’m not scared anymore.”

“Good,” he whispered against her lips.
“But you can stay angry with me a bit longer if you’d like. I’ve heard that makeup sex is fantastic.” The twinkle in his eyes was irresistible. Their lips met in a hungry expression of what they could no longer deny.

He swung her up into his arms and crossed the room to the couch, a sexy smile on his face. Returning her to her feet, he made quick haste of her skirt’s button and zipper. It slid to the floor at her feet. She stepped out of her shoes and kicked the clothing aside. Without taking his eyes off her, he loosened and removed his tie.
They continued to strip off their clothes, one by one, until they were both nude and his need for her was erect and pulsing between them.

He kissed his way across her cheek, down her neck
, and cupped both of her breasts in his hands, taking a moment to appreciate them before circling one of her puckered nipples with his hot tongue. He stopped briefly to blow on it before shifting his attention to the other one. When Jeisa was gasping with pleasure at the creative ways his finger and tongue were working together to increase her excitement, Jeremy paused and said, “I’ve been reading about how to do this better. Information drives ingenuity,” he said and bent to kiss her neck again.

Jeisa’s head fell back and she moaned with
elation, “I’m not complaining.”

The door of her office opened and a flash of a female head poked in, quickly followed by a familiar
squeak of a voice that said, “Oh, my God, I’m sorry! I wanted to make sure you were okay.” The door slammed shut. Before either Jeisa or Jeremy could react, the door opened again slightly, a hand came around to the handle, locked it, then slammed the door again.

“I like the people you work with
,” Jeremy remarked with some humor.

Laughing half out of mortification and half out of the sheer joy of being in Jeremy’s arms, Jeisa
replied, “I do, too.”

Now, where were we?

Later, wrapped in Jeremy’s jacket and tucked against his side, Jeisa was jerked back from near sleep when Jeremy
exclaimed, “Shit, I forgot to ask you to marry me.”

Jeisa smiled against his chest. “You scripted this?”
She knew he only did that now when he was nervous, and that made her love him even more.

He smiled a bit ruefully. “I didn’t want to forget anything, but you were so beautiful that I forgot everything.”

You could forgive a man anything with that excuse.
She propped herself up on her elbow and kissed him lightly. “Not everything.”

A slight flush spread across his cheeks. He reached behind her and felt around the pockets of his jacket until he found what he was looking for.
He laid it on his chest in front of her and said, “Jeisa Borreto, I love you and I intend to marry you. Today, tomorrow, or however long it takes for you to be ready.” He tapped the ring box with one of his fingers. “You don’t have to open this right now. You can think about it if you—”

She stopped his words with a kiss, one that held all the heat of their prior union but also something much more significant
: her answer. She whispered it against his lips as she broke off the kiss. “Yes, Jeremy. Yes. Yes. Yes.”

His grin could not have been broader as he smiled up at her. “It’ll be good, Jeisa. You’ll see. You’ll be the big
director of grants and production and I’ll get the degree my mother always told me I should.”

She paused and cocked her head to one side. “That’s not my title. I’m really a glorified intern supporting the fundraising department.”

“Not since the Borreto/Kater donation moved up the production timetable and opened a new position. Or was it the Kater/Borreto donation? I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

Jeisa stilled his hand with hers. “You made a donation to the university?”

“Yes, and your father matched it.”

Because when it’s right, you don’t have to choose.

“When did you speak to my father?”

“Every day. He didn’t like me at first, but I wanted him to know how serious I
was about you. I told him how much this project means to you and he believed me. I hope I was right because he might have used your inheritance. You may be poor now, so it looks like you’re stuck with me.” Suddenly serious, he put a hand under her chin and raised her face to look into his. “I want forever with you. I’ve seen the kind of love that endures even when intimacy is no longer possible, and I want that.” When she couldn’t think of what to say, he blushed and quickly added, “I want this, too. I just mean . . .” He looked down as he searched for how else to say it.

With tears in her eyes, Jeisa raised a hand to caress his cheek as she spoke
. “I know exactly what you mean, and I want that, too.”

With a little maneuvering, he opened the small box and slid the ring on her left hand.
She held her hand out in front of her and admired the unusual stone.

Jeremy said, “It’s
a blue-green diamond. Incredibly rare. A nearly impossible set of circumstances needs to occur at just the right time for it to form. When I saw it, I thought of you and the dress you wore the first day we met. We were nearly impossible, you and I, but it looks like nature had other plans for us. I cannot imagine my life without you in it.”

Jeisa took his face in her hands, grateful and humbled by his love, but no longer afraid. “You’ll never have to because I’m not going anywhere.”
A sudden thought hit her and she said, “I did tell my father that I was going to Boston and asked him to meet me there.”

Jeremy’s eyebrows shot up. “What did he say?”

Their earlier conversation came back to her, but now in a whole new light. She said, “He told me to stay here another day because he’d sent me a surprise. That little liar. He knew you were coming here, didn’t he?”

Smiling, Jeremy said, “Absolutely.”

She shook her head in amazement. “I can’t believe he didn’t tell me.” She slapped a hand on Jeremy’s chest. “He does like you.”

With an adorable shrug of his shoulders, Jeremy said, “What’s not to like? He knows how much I love his daughter.”

“My father has never approved of any of the men I’ve dated. Honestly, he intimidated most of them. He doesn’t scare you at all, does he?”

With a jokingly pained expression,
he admitted, “Sure, he may have threatened to wipe me off the face of the planet if I hurt you, but isn’t that what fathers say to prospective sons-in-law?”

Jeisa didn’t doubt for a second that her father would learn to love Jeremy as much as she did. Well, maybe not quite as much, but
Jeremy had a way of winning over even the most reluctant. Her father didn’t stand a chance. “Christmas is next week. Could we invite him to come for a visit? We could ask your mother, too.”

“I’ll make sure his limo is full of white roses
,” Jeremy said without missing a beat.

Jeisa laughed. “You’re so bad! Only you would consider teasing my father. Are you afraid of anything?”

He tightened his embrace in response, rubbing his chin on her forehead. “Yes. You terrify me. I had my life meticulously planned before I met you. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted. You changed all that. I’m really good at what I do, but you made me ask myself if it was important. And if it isn’t, what am I supposed to be doing? I’m hoping that taking classes here will help me figure that out.”

Jeisa laid her head on his chest and simply absorbed the magnitude of what he was sharing.
She often thought she was the only one who struggled with finding her path. It touched her that Jeremy not only asked himself the same questions, but that he shared that side of himself freely with her. “Will you miss the hacking?”

Jeremy rubbed her back absently. “I’ll still take freelance jobs now and then, but I’ll choose them more carefully. I’ve already made more money than I could even begin to know how to spend. The work I did for Rachid and Zhang was quite lucrative. Nothing attracts new clients like a royal referral.”

Lifting her head, Jeisa spoke the truth that was welling within her heart. “I don’t care about the money, Jeremy.”

He reached up and tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “Because I’m so hot?”

Jeisa pushed his side playfully. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

He kissed her nose
gently. “You should say it proudly since I’m your creation.”

With a shake of her head, Jeisa said,
“All I did was add a little frosting to an already delicious cake.”

He nuzzled his face in her neck and growled, “I like the way you describe me.”
He licked her skin, sending waves of hot pleasure through her. “And speaking of delicious . . .” He rolled over so he was on top of her and his hands warmed the places his lips would soon touch.

In late March, at the top of a long gated driveway, a driver held the door of Jeisa and Jeremy’s limo open. Jeisa didn’t move. Jeremy took her hand in his. “What is it, Jeisa?”

Just outside the tinted back window, the Andrade home loomed before them
—both a welcome sight and a reminder of how close she had come to losing him. It wasn’t their first time back there, and Jeisa couldn’t imagine being happier than she was. She and Jeremy had moved into a large apartment closer to the WIT campus, where they had spent the last several months building a life together and sharing it with the new friends they’d made through the water project. She felt guilty to have hesitated at all in the face of memories from a day that no longer mattered. She looked up into the concerned eyes of her fiancé. “Do you ever think about how close we came to losing each other?”

“No,” Jeremy
answered easily as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her forehead. “Remember my first boxing lesson?”

Jeisa laughed even though her emotions were high. “How could I forget?”

“I don’t let myself think about what could go wrong. There is too much in life that can. All I thought about that day was what I wanted and what was standing between me and getting it. And then I did the only thing I could do—I stood my ground.” He kissed her lightly and said, “I may have modified my path, but not my methods. There is nothing in the past or in the future that could change how I feel about you.”

Jeisa threw her arms around his neck and gave him a kiss
that showed him exactly how much his words had moved her. She would have never guessed by their awkward first meeting that she would learn so much from him.
Problems are best resolved when faced full-on. Run toward what you want, not away from what you’re afraid of. And stand your ground.

When she broke off the kiss, his cheeks were flushed and his eyes burned with desire for her.
“You know, we could leave our gift with the doorman and come back later.”

With a chuckle, Jeisa eased off him
and said, “No, Abby would never forgive me for missing her baby shower, and she’s gotten more emotional as her due date gets closer.”

Jeremy stepped out of the limo and took her hand to help her out.
“Which means that Dominic is going to be a wreck today.”

Jeisa
warned, “If you tease him, don’t complain if you come home with a black eye.”

“Don’t worry. I’m younger, faster
, and I’ve learned how to bob and weave like a professional.”

Their eyes met and they broke into laughter. They were still laughing when the door opened and Alessandro greeted them both with a bear hug. He stood back and gave them an approving
once-over. “Young love is a beautiful thing, no?”