Shine Bright Like A Diamond: A BWWM Billionaire Love Story (12 page)

They ate their eggs and toast together, chatting about the day ahead. Eventually, Jacob had to leave to go look over some papers with Mr. Arko Kumi, and Almasi got up when he did, slipping on a simple blue cotton dress. They kissed goodbye, and Jacob went down to his study.

Almasi decided to take a walk in the garden. It was a beautiful day outside, and she wanted to see the garden and hear all of the birds singing. She felt a little sad when she remembered that it might be one of her last days at the Adamson mansion. She tried to put that thought from her mind, and continued on her way down the path to where the sunflowers were.

The garden had grown more since Almasi had first come to the mansion and gone out back for the engagement photos so many weeks ago. She had become far more familiar with the place, and she often took long walks in the garden when Jacob was busy and she had nothing to do in the house. She had discovered an apple orchard about two miles out, although it was too early in the year for the apples to be anything but sour little buds.

It had been interesting, seeing how the flowers had changed, how they had bloomed and died in the time since she had been living there. The sunflower stalks that matched her engagement photo dress had grown even taller, and they provided some shade as she made her way along the path.

The tulips were gone now, withered away, but the purple freesias were just beginning to bloom, and there were red and orange gerberas and some lovely purple-blue irises. As she walked on, Almasi saw some dusky pink stargazer lilies, colorful zinnias and beds filled with many colored variations of snapdragons. She smiled a little, remembering.

Almasi knew the names of all of the flowers without reading the name-plated planted in the ground next to the flowers. She worked at a flower shop throughout her high school years, selling beautiful bouquets to the people who passed by the store.

On Saturdays in the summer, she worked at the farmer’s market; standing in the hot sun and helping people pick out beautiful flowers to take home to their tables. At the time, she had not enjoyed the job. No fourteen-year-old liked to be out in the summer heat of July and August when she could be by a pool, drinking a lemonade and having fun with friends, or inside in an air-conditioned house. But the job had made five dollars an hour, and she and her family had needed the money. Besides, their house had no air conditioning, and Almasi didn’t know anyone in her neighborhood who had a pool.

The rich girls in her classes had often talked about the summer trips they would go on, whether to London or Paris or Los Angeles, or even just to the cottages, their families owned out in the country. Almasi had always been jealous.
It’s so unfair
, she would think
, that some people got so much luxury when others had to work for every bit of food and clothing they got
. Her fate had changed now, and it was Almasi who lived in the mansion with the handsome husband, twenty servants, and a beautiful, beautiful garden.

As much as she had resented having to work summers back in high school, now she had the pleasure of knowing the seasonal  flowers anywhere as if they were old friends, and they made her feel at home. So she continued on her walk, taking in the sight of all the beautiful life around her, humming a little song to herself.

When she got far enough away from the mansion to know that nobody would be around to hear her, she began to sing aloud. Almasi had never taken a music lesson in her life, but she used to listen to her mother sing in the kitchen while she worked, chopping peppers and peeling onions, preparing cheap but tasty meals out of beans and rice, making something wonderful out of next to nothing.

The songs her mother sang were an eclectic mix of folk songs, old jazz standards, and whatever she would hear on the radio. The radio in the kitchen was old and battered, and often the sound they got was fuzzy, but there was always music in the kitchen, with Almasi’s mother singing along or singing to herself.

Almasi had sometimes joined in, and her mother would always smile down at her little daughter, the smiling young girl whose braids were always coming out and falling apart. She was a happy little child who danced around the small kitchen while crooning along to Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald, often holding a pot lit and a wooden spoon in her hands and banging along to the rhythm of the music.

Sometimes, if she wasn’t too busy, Almasi’s mother would lift her up in her arms and dance around the room with her, and even when she was too busy with dinner preparations to play along, she would always have a kind word for her beaming little girl.

Almasi smiled when she thought about it, thinking of the smell of the old apartment kitchen and the cooking oil in the frying pan. It had been a cheap place in a sketchy neighborhood, but it was the home where she had lived for a good portion of her childhood. When her parents had faced eviction over rent issues with the bad landlord, they had had to pack up and live on the couches of family friends, surviving on other people’s good will for a long eight months until they had gotten another place to live. That had been one of the hardest times in her parents’ lives, when both of them had been in between jobs.

They had continued sending her to school, making her promise to do her best and learn everything she could. Being in the United States meant having access to an education, and that education was what would save Almasi from ever having to be in that position again.

Her parents’ firm belief in working hard and doing things the right way, had been part of why she had initially decided not to tell them the full story of her situation with Jacob. She knew her mother and father would be disapproving and disheartened if they knew that she had sold out like that; that she had let herself be talked into taking money from a rich man as a part of a deceptive scam.

Because of the nature of it all, and because of the rules of discretion in her contract, Almasi had bent the truth when she had told her parents about the arrangement with Jacob. She had told them that the owner of the company had needed an intern to come work for him on secretarial duties that would require her to commute too far for public transit to be a viable option.

She had explained that she had been offered this position based on her merit and reputation as a hard worker, and that it would be for a month in the summer while Mr. Adamson worked on a specialized diamond deal.

That part, she figured, had been true enough, and there was no need to elaborate about the real nature of her work. She had explained to them that it was too far away to use public transit, and since it was only for a month, she would take up lodgings closer to her place of work for the time being.

Jeremy had provided enough paperwork to make everything seem legitimate, and Almasi had promised that she would call them to talk as frequently as possible, and so far, she had kept her promise. She felt bad for lying, but she needed to do what she needed to do, and she had also told them, without being too specific, that it would pay well, so they understood. If worst came to worst, she would simply explain everything after the fact and ask for their forgiveness for lying to them.

The problem was that things were getting so much more complicated. Even without taking the whole pregnancy thing into account, she still had a heart-wrenching decision to make about Mr. Kofi Kumi’s advances. She couldn’t bear the idea of leaving Jacob, of breaking his heart and her own, but she would have to leave him at the end of the month anyway once her contract was complete.

If she didn’t go with Mr. Kofi Kumi, Jacob’s business would suffer for it. He would certainly lose the diamond deal once Mr. Arko Kumi found out about the deception. At least if she went with Mr. Kofi Kumi, she could save that.

The diamond deal was, after all, the reason she was there in the first place. If it hadn’t been for that, she would never have had her month of bliss with Jacob, and it was a matter of principle, too. Almasi never backed out on a deal, and she never abandoned a project halfway through.

If this was what she had to do, it was what she would do, but her heart… her heart was telling her otherwise. Her heart was screaming to her,
Just tell Jacob, and everything will be fine. Jacob loves you! He loves you!
She shook her head. He had never said that, he had never told her that, but she had felt it, oh, she had felt it every day.

She felt it in the way he looked at her, and she felt it in the touch of his hand, and she even felt it in the growing weight in her belly from her unborn child, and what about that child?

How could she go to Ghana with Mr. Kofi Kumi when she was pregnant with Jacob’s child? How could she raise one man’s baby in another man’s household, halfway across the world from her son or daughter’s father? Even if Jacob didn’t want her once the month was up, at least she would be in the United States with her family.

Even if he wanted the annulment, even if it meant facing her parents’ disappointment and judgment, she that their unwed daughter was carrying a child. Even if she never ever told Jacob about it for fear of burdening him… at least she wouldn’t have to be lost and alone in another country, on another continent so far away from home.

Almasi walked with her confused thoughts for hours and hours, visiting every corner of the garden, walking all the way out past the pond, the orchard, the big berry bushes, and the hundreds and hundreds of flowerbeds. Eventually she looped around and began to make her way back. There were tears on her face when she got to the gate, and she wiped them away with a shaky hand. She sighed. It was time to get back to the mansion. Yifeng had promised to meet her in her dressing room at five thirty, and she didn’t want to miss her.

When Almasi got up the many flights of stairs to the rooms, she sat down in the dressing chair and looked at her reflection in the makeup mirror. She didn’t expect any difference from the previous day, so she didn’t inspect her appearance so much as look at herself and wonder. What had she become? Who was this woman—this tired, sad woman looking back at her?

She had experienced so much joy since coming to the mansion, and Jacob’s presence in her life had been a gift; a blessing, something that had filled her days with so much happiness. So why was she so, so exhausted and full of this aching feeling in her heart? Was this the trade-off for falling in love?

There was a soft knock at the door, and Almasi got up to let Yifeng in. The younger woman smiled, hugged her, and then went right in to chattering about dresses and accessories and all the frivolous things that they discussed. Almasi allowed herself to get lost in the lighthearted conversation for a little while.

Eventually, though, Yifeng turned the topic to a more pressing issue. With a glance at the closed door, she lowered her tone a little bit and said, “I have the thing I promised you.” She moved away from the closet and went to fetch the pregnancy test from her purse, which was sitting across the room with the bags of makeup and accessories she had brought. She handed it to Almasi. “Here you go.”

Almasi took the pregnancy test in her hands. Even though she was already certain she knew what the results would be, she might as well try the test and make her suspicions official. “Thank you, Yifeng,” she said, looking up at the girl, who smiled a little nervously. “I’ll be right back.”

“Here,” said Yifeng. She handed Almasi a purple shawl. “You can wrap it up in this, just in case someone sees you in the hall.” Almasi smiled. Yifeng really did think of everything. She thanked her again, and after carefully hiding the pregnancy test in the shawl, she made her way across the hall and to the bathroom.

Sitting on the toilet, Almasi suddenly felt more nervous than she had before. This was silly, she knew, since she had already accepted that she was pregnant, but somehow the tangibility of having the pregnancy test there in that little drugstore box made her heart race. Well, she might as well get this done Almasi took a deep breath and opened the blue cardboard package. Inside was a little plastic stick and an instruction pamphlet. After reading it carefully, she positioned the stick between her legs and peed. After waiting a minute, she looked at the test. Two pink lines had appeared. She was pregnant.

Almasi almost felt calmer now that it was certain. Of course, there was always the possibility of a false positive, but she just
knew
it, even before she had taken the test. There was a tiny life growing inside her. She looked down at her belly. “What am I going to name you?” she whispered aloud. She shook her head. That was silly. She had more pressing issues to deal with than coming up with a name for her unborn baby whose gender she didn’t even know yet.

She stood up and put the test and its packaging in the garbage, making sure to cover it in tissues so that nobody would come in and see it. Then she washed her hands, dried them off, and opened the door to go back to the dressing room. It was time to tell Yifeng.

“Oh. My. GOD!” Yifeng cried when she saw the expression on Almasi’s face. “It’s for real! You’re—” The excited young woman caught herself before revealing Almasi’s secret to the entire household in one screech. “You’re pregnant!” she whispered, smiling widely.

“Yes,” said Almasi, and she allowed the young woman to hug her excitedly. “Yes, I guess I really am.”

“Well, there’s just so much to do,” exclaimed Yifeng. “When are you going to tell the father?”

Almasi’s heart sank. Yifeng understood, or thought she understood, the expression. She patted her sympathetically on the shoulder. “It’s daunting, I know it is. When my older sister got pregnant, she cried about it for nearly a week before she told anyone. She refused to even tell me! She just locked herself up in her room while we wondered at why she was so moody and sad!”