Shine Bright Like A Diamond: A BWWM Billionaire Love Story (3 page)

“Old Mrs. Nettle says they will drop her off in ten minutes. Breathe, Jeremy. You are completely off the hook now. Go home and have a nice bath or something.”

Jeremy laughed drily. “I am never off the hook. Tell the fiancée I say hello. Give her regards from my rubber duck.” And with that, he hung up.

Jacob shook his head, smirking a little. Jeremy was so tightly wound, but he always got everything done so perfectly that he was worth having on hand. In the ten years since Jacob had inherited his father’s company at age eighteen, Jeremy had always been there for him. He was a good guy, if sometimes a little nuts.

Jacob thanked the driver of the limo and dismissed him from duty. He  entered the mansion. It had been years since he’d grown up there. He had so many fond memories forged in the acres of gardens and fields out back, and the endless rooms had been a constant source of fascination and hide-and-seek when he was a young boy. Jacob almost felt wistful that this marriage was not  real. If it were not a sham, if he really had a future with a woman, then maybe…

Jacob stopped  right there. This marriage was for business, not pleasure. He had a job to do. His job was to be charming and considerate to the woman to secure the diamond deal, and then to make a quiet annulment and go back to his normal life. His playboy, womanizer, one-night-stand life. It was what he liked… right? Of course.

Casual sex was his thing. He was good at it, he enjoyed it, and he never had to deal with messy emotions or annoying co-dependence. He didn’t need commitment, he didn’t need to settle down. Settling down was for future Jacob, and present Jacob was only twenty-eight. He still had plenty of time to have his fun. A real marriage could wait.

After a maid took his coat, Jacob stepped into the foyer and settled down  on a sofa. Almasi would be here any minute, and he had to look like the ideal husband. He glanced at the maid’s backside as she walked away. That was one hell of a—no. No. Damn it, he wasn’t like that anymore. He had a fiancée now, and he had to at least behave like a gentleman. This was going to take a lot of effort on his part.

The doorbell rang, and the maid reappeared. He willed his gaze away from her shapely form. Now was not the time. It would not be the time for over a month. He dismissed all thoughts of that sort of stuff from his head, and stood to greet Almasi.

“Hello, my darling,” said Jacob, in an affable tone. As Almasi entered the foyer, his jaw nearly dropped. Of course, she had looked good earlier that day in her work outfit, but now… hot
damn
. His future wife was beautiful. The bright pink dress she wore hugged her curves in all of the right ways, and she wore dainty high heels and some tasteful white gold jewelry. The only thing that had stayed the same was her hair—still a beautiful natural hair style with short, tight curls. Almasi was stunning. No, she was more than stunning. She was absolutely radiant. And from the look on her face, she knew it, too.

“Good evening, my love,” she said in a carefully rehearsed tone of affection. She played the role so well that Jacob almost wondered if she should have been a theater  student instead of a commerce student, after all. She reached a hand out to him, and he drew her close to his body, caressing her briefly. It was all just a show, he tried to tell himself, just a show for the servants so no rumors would start about the oddness of this arrangement. But he could have sworn that he could feel her pulse racing in her wrist, as if she, too, was experiencing the heady mix of attraction and awe that he felt.

Almasi could feel the heat rising to her face. It was good that she was dark enough not to show a blush. On an impulse, she gave him a light peck on the cheek, and then immediately felt horrified, though she tried not to show it.
What have I done?
she thought.
I just kissed a billionaire!
She took a deep breath.
This man is your fiancé now,
she reminded herself.
Act like it’s true, and it will be
.

Although Jacob couldn’t tell that Almasi was floundering, he decided to break the silence among the staring servants. “Well?” he said, looking at  them. “Why are you all gaping? Go back to your work!” There was a bustle of movement as everyone scurried back to their assigned places, and then he and Almasi were alone in the foyer together.

“Since the wedding is tomorrow,” said Jacob, “you will have one night staying in a separate room from me. That may make the transition here easier. I know this is very sudden. It is for me, too.” She looked at him curiously, so he continued. “I haven’t been to this house since I was a child. I grew up here, but it was put out of commission when my parents retired to the country estate we own in France, and now I live on my own in the penthouse. It’s closer to work, and, well… the staffing is easier with only three servants instead of twenty-seven.”

Almasi realized that her mouth had opened a little in surprise, so she promptly closed it and tried to assume a somewhat natural facial expression. But good heavens! Twenty-seven servants? In one house? Even three sounded absurd to her. She had always taken care of herself and her family. Her mother and father worked hard, as had her grandparents who had emigrated from Uganda, risking everything for a better life in the United States of America.

They had been far poorer than she had been before Jacob’s proposal, and even then she was still by no means upper class, or even solidly middle class. She knew she was blessed in many ways; she had enough food to feed herself and her parents, she could pay the rent and electricity bills on time most months, and because of her hard work and dedication to her academics, she had enough scholarships to pay for school to get her undergraduate degree in commerce.

All of that was changing, now. Everything was suddenly becoming easy. She made a mental note to write a check to her parents after the wedding. They would appreciate the money far more than Jacob and his snobby, affluent parents with their fancy estates in France and their ridiculous behemoth of a jewelry corporation. That much she knew for certain.

Instead of saying any of what was going through her head, though, Almasi smiled graciously and suggested that he could show her where she was staying for the night. When they got up stairs  to the bedroom where she would be staying, she found that all of her belongings had already been brought up there, no doubt by one of the maids or other service staff members. The room she had been given was large and designed daintily, with pink roses printed on the wallpaper and a large, fluffy looking pink duvet on the bed. It was like a fairy princess dream, and Almasi smiled.

“It matches my dress,” she said, delighted.

Jacob gazed at her for a long moment. “Yes…” he pondered. “Yes, I suppose it does.”

They made eye contact briefly, and then she looked away. “Well, I suppose I’ll be seeing you at dinner,” she said. She had a funny feeling in her chest, and she needed a moment alone to work through her thoughts.

Jacob seemed to be in some sort of reverie but he snapped out of it.. “Yes,” he said brightly. “Dinner is served at seven o’clock sharp. You will hear the kitchen bell.” He took Almasi’s hand, brought it briefly to his lips, and then turned toward the door. “I’ll be in the master bedroom if you need me. It is just a little ways down the hall, five doors and across. Just knock.” She nodded, and then he left, the door swinging shut after him.

Almasi took a big, deep breath. What was happening? She just had the strangest feeling. It wasn’t just the silly attraction she had felt  that morning when he grinned at her. No, there was something weird happening to her. She sat down on the bed.
It
has
been a busy day,
she thought. Then she had an idea.

Rummaging carefully through one of the shopping bags from that afternoon, she found a little diary she had bought in a boutique. It was one of the few non-clothing items that Mrs. Nettle had allowed her to indulge herself with on their tight shopping schedule. It seemed like they visited every dress shop in the city. If she couldn’t share her confused thoughts with anyone else, she thought, a diary would do well in the place of human company. So she found her briefcase and got out a pen—a simple blue ballpoint, something to remind her of her quickly fading past—and began to write.

***

By the time the dinner bell rang, Almasi’s hand had started cramping and she’d  filled four pages. It was a good start, and for the very first time that day she felt like things were finally beginning to make a little bit more sense. She took out the key to the diary and locked it carefully, and then took a chain from a necklace she had been given and put the key around her neck. Her thoughts were safe in there.

Dinner that night was a quiet and peaceful affair. Although there was still a heap of wedding preparations to be made, it was decided that the couple should spend some time alone over their meals to get to know each other better (or, as the servants were told severely by Mrs. Nettle, to give them some privacy). Almasi marveled at the many courses and rich desserts, while to Jacob this was just a modest, every day supper.

Jacob was less boisterous than he had been earlier, because his mind was still fixed on the feelings he’d had in the foyer. Almasi, on the other hand, was finally starting to become a little more comfortable in her environment, and soon she was chatting to him as he slowly ate his minestrone soup.

“Do you really eat like this every day?” she asked. “I mean, this is just… wow. It’s delicious. Do you think your cook could give me the recipe? I would love to make it myself sometime.” She smiled up at him.

“Oh. Almasi… I mean, uh, my dear,” he began, remembering to practice using the affectionate language that was expected of a nearly married couple, “you don’t have to cook. Cooking and cleaning—that’s servant work, not for those of us who are… above such things.”

This seemed absolutely ridiculous to Almasi, but she had no intention of upsetting her new… well, her new, almost-husband. “I like cooking, though,” she insisted. “And as the lady of the house, should I not be allowed to do what I would like in my spare time? It’s not as if I have my internship to look after anymore, right?”

She looked so earnest that he finally smiled back. “I suppose you’re right. It wouldn’t hurt to let you try your hand at it.” He paused. “Please remember, though, that you have no obligation to work here. Your only job is to be a beautiful, charming wife and to help me seal this deal. And the beautiful part will be easy, as I must say you look absolutely wonderful tonight.”

Almasi smiled widely, a true grin, and she looked even more beautiful. Jacob blushed a little and returned to eating his soup. Almasi did the same, and they spent the rest of their meal in a comfortable silence. Maybe this would work out well, after all.

***

Almasi spent that night completely restless. She knew that Jacob was a good man, and even if there was no love between them,  he cared for her and that he would be a good husband. Even so, the idea of getting married made her nervous. She paced back and forth in her pretty, pink fairy guest room, anxious about the entire situation, even though she knew she didn’t need to worry.

Finally, she returned to bed and got out the diary she bought earlier. She began to write and write and write, pages and pages of her thoughts and feelings and worries. She was glad the diary had a lock on it; she would never want anyone to find it and read it.

***

Meanwhile, Jacob laid silently on the king-sized bed in the master bedroom down the hall. He normally had no difficulty falling and staying asleep.

He had even slept that morning, he remembered wistfully, —but for some reason, he couldn’t get any rest. He thought about the conversation he  had with Almasi at the dinner table that evening. Why did she want to cook? What use was something so mundane, so boring, when you could just as easily get someone else to do that kind of work for you? He shook his head. Poor people were so very strange.

He didn’t think he would ever understand the minds of the middle class. Being rich came with a lot of power and privilege, and it was something he had been taking for granted before he could so much as crawl across the floor or lift his hand to shake a rattle. Nannies, tutors, and governesses had raised him.

True, he had never spent much time with his parents, both of whom had been rather distant. His father had always been too busy with his work to pay much attention to little Jakey, and his mother had been going on exotic vacations for as long as Jacob could remember. Neither of them  had much time for their son.

Jacob never thought about it all that much, though. What did he care? He had gotten so much attention from the service staff in his house, and later from his teachers and fellow students at his private boarding school, that he had no need to think of parents or family. As an only child, he had never wanted the company of a brother or a sister. He was the golden boy of the Adamson's, and regardless of the lack of attention he received from his parents, he was always the center of his personal servants’ concern.

All of this thinking eventually tired Jacob out, and before he knew it, he was dozing softly on the goose down pillows and soft, luxurious sheets. This was his last night of not sharing a bed with the same woman every night. He might as well get lots of rest.

***

The morning came soon enough, and Almasi was more tired than ever when she woke up. As the sunlight leaked in through the guest bedroom window, Almasi gazed around. This was her life now. Huh. She sat up in bed and stretched, yawning widely. Then she noticed a silver tray on her vanity table with a little note. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Reaching toward the note, she observed that it was written in beautiful silver, cursive script.