The Billionaire's Call Girl: A BWWM Billionaire Romance (7 page)

He looked at her, waiting for her response, but it wasn't immediately obvious to him, and for a moment he thought that she might say no. No one ever said no to him. An unfamiliar feeling twisted his stomach: the feeling of dread... or maybe fear, that she may not stay with him as he wanted her to.

Felicia tried to get a hold on the situation and couldn't, so she shook her head to clear her thoughts, and Jake's eyes widened.

"I... I don't know what to say. That's an unbelievable situation. I don't know how to make any sense of it. I feel like someone has just handed the world to me and I just don't know what to say!" She stumbled through her words.

He held her hands in his and lifted them a little, pulling them toward him and looking at her with anticipation. "Say yes!" he laughed nervously.

It didn't seem like anything about the arrangement was negative, although she would have to stretch the truth a little in explaining to her parents why she was moving out, but with a five hundred thousand dollar bonus, she would be able to pay off all the money they owed on the house, and they would own it free and clear.

That, more than any other reason, stood out to her. That, and she liked Jake quite a bit already.

"Yes." she answered him. "Let's give it a try." She could not hold back the shy smile that spread over her face, especially when her answer registered in his mind and he looked at her and laughed, smiling in relief.

"Good! Great! I thought for a moment that you were going to say no, and I'm so glad that you said yes!" He lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them lightly. "Thank you! I think this is going to be a wonderful change for the both of us. I'm sure of it." 

She raised her eyebrows a bit. "When will we be starting this agreement?"

He shrugged and smiled back at her. "I'd like to start it as soon as possible." 

Felicia felt her heart flip over in her chest and she bit her lower lip again, distracting Jake's attention for a moment as he seriously considered foregoing the conversation and kissing her soundly once more.

"Could you give me a few days? Maybe we could start at the beginning of next week? That would give me time to take care of packing my things and saying good-bye to my family." Her heart lurched at the idea, and she drew a breath while holding her smile for him.

She had never lived away from home and, while she knew it was uncommon for a girl her age to still be with her parents, it had never been an issue for her or them and it had been done so that she could have a way to afford to make it through college.

She had planned on moving out when she graduated. That plan had just changed.

Jake nodded to her and the corners of his mouth turned up in a grin. "I can do that. It works well for me." He stood up and, taking her hands in his still, pulled her to her feet.

"We have some documents to sign then, so let's head to the library and get that taken care of." He turned and walked toward the library and she followed him, all the while looking around at the splendor that surrounded her. She couldn't believe she was going to live in such a place! How had any of this even happened? How could it be real? She was amazed by it all.

When they reached the library, they sat opposite each other at the desk and he opened a file and pulled out a thick stack of pages . It was a contract. It specified exactly what she was going to be to him, and what he would be to her, and she read the entire thing and found that it was just as he had said it would be.

Satisfied with what she had looked at, she took the pen from him when he offered it to her, and though she was tingling from head to toe with excitement and fear, anticipation and wonder, she signed the contract. She would be his until one of them broke the contract and ended their arrangement.

Jake watched her with growing anticipation. He liked her when he saw her profile, but after he  met her, she  stirred up feelings in him that he hadn't felt in so long that he thought they were gone. He wasn't sure he’d ever felt quite the way he did while they had been together that evening, just enjoying one another's company, and when he kissed her... the sensation of it took him to a whole other place.

He let his mind wander just a bit, while she was reading the contract and her eyes were downcast over the papers; what it would be like to make love to her, to hold her in his arms and feel all of her with him. Jake felt the heat and arousal in his groin and he looked away and eased his thoughts into other things.

He didn't want to rush anything with her. He wanted the two of them to take their time and get to know each other. He wanted intimacy with her, but he wanted them to both be comfortable with each other before they embarked on that change in their relations. Still, he thought, he had a feeling that it wouldn't be long at all before they were together that way, and it made him hungry for her.

When the contract was signed, she slid it back across the desk. She looked up at him and held her breath for a long moment. He smiled and took it from her, and their fingers brushed, making them catch their breath, each of them knowing that soon they would be touching much more than that.

Jake pulled a checkbook from the desk drawer and opened it up to a blank check. He wrote it out and handed it to her, and when she looked at it, she almost fell off of her chair. It was written out to her in her name for five hundred thousand dollars. She had never seen so much money in her life, let alone with her name attached to it. She looked back up at him, unable to speak, and he gave her a smile.

"Think of it as a signing bonus. That money is yours to do with whatever you want. The bank account that you'll have will be available to you the day you move in. Please let me know if you need anything at any time; all of your expenses will be taken care so nothing you could possibly need or want would be coming out of your pocket. I'll take care of all of it. It's part of our arrangement."

He winked at her and then stood up, and she followed suit, standing up as she steadied herself with a hand on his desk.

He walked around the desk and took her hand, and then led her to the elevator. He pressed the button and as they were waiting for it to arrive, he looked at her with an intensity that she could not fathom .In a moment of surrender to his desires, he reached for her, sliding both of his hands around the back of her neck while he lifted her chin with his thumbs, and he kissed her full on the lips, tasting her and feeling the electricity that seemed to zip through them at such an intimate touch. His heart began to pound and the blood rushed in his ears as he deepened his kiss, his tongue traveling over hers, drinking her in and losing himself in the feel of her.

She moaned, although she hadn't meant to; it escaped her involuntarily as his fingers held her firmly to him and his ardent kiss created a fire in her belly as he explored her mouth and made her heart spin out of control. She felt as if it was the most natural thing in the world for her to slide her arms around his neck and pull him in a little closer to her.

At this, he felt a desire in him for more than just their kiss, and he let go his grasp of her face and, brushing his fingers ever so lightly over the sides of her breasts to her waist, making her draw in her breath sharply. He slid his hands around her and pulled her snugly up against him, incredulous at the feel of her body pressed against his.

They were locked in each other's embraces, the kiss having caught fire and their bodies catching fire almost as quickly, when the bell for the elevator rang and he let her go in one swift movement, stepping back from her, breathless and inebriated by her kisses.

She stared at him with her half closed eyes, her lips parted, her breath panting as her chest heaved with their heat, blinking as she realized that it was time to go.

Jake smiled at her a little as the tension in the air between them began to decompress, and she gave him a smile back, and then turned and walked into the elevator. She watched his eyes as the doors began to close, those green eyes that seemed to have no bottom to them, and she wondered what this next chapter of her life would be like.

Chapter4

Felicia stopped by her bank early the next morning and when the bank manager saw who had given her the check, he authorized an immediate release of the funds to her account. He also lifted the daily spending and withdrawal limits so that there weren't any.

She could not believe her balance when she walked out of the bank and the door closed behind her. Her life felt like she had taken a sharp turn; almost like a right angle, and suddenly nothing in it was familiar to her anymore.

She went home and saw that no one was there. She had expected that; it was the middle of the day. Her parents were both at work and her brother and sister were both at school. She walked over to the desk in the corner of the living room where her parents did all of their financial matters. She opened the top drawer and found pens and pencils, white out and paperclips, and she closed the drawer.

She opened the lower drawer that had hanging files in it, and she found the file that held all of their mortgage paperwork. Her mother was very neat about how she kept everything, and so Felicia was able to find the most recent statement from their bank on the top of the stack of statements in the file.

Felicia pulled out her cell phone and called the mortgage company. A friendly representative answered the phone and offered to help her.

"What can I do for you today?" she asked, with a lilt to her voice.

Felicia pulled her checking account debit card from her wallet in another profoundly surreal moment and said, "I'd like to pay the full balance of the mortgages on all of the loans on this account please."

The girl on the other end of the line stammered in response, and after a long moment’s pause she said, in a derisive tone, "
All
of the balances? The total is three hundred and seventy nine thousand dollars," she stated it as if saying the number would put Felicia in a more realistic frame of mind and inform her that it was not possible to pay it in a lump sum.

Felicia remained calm and polite, though her body was tense from the her down as she prayed that her attempt to help her parents would work. "That's fine. I'll give you the number on my card whenever you're ready."

The girl sputtered again and then was quiet as she typed away on her computer and replied shortly, "Very well, then." She took the number from Felicia and in moments, the full balance of all the loans on the house she was standing in was paid, and the girl on the other end of the line was stunned by the unheard of act.

"Well, that will take care of all of your business, then. We'll be sending out final paperwork today and you should have it in just a few days. Thank you for your business and please think of using us again for any future monetary needs."

Felicia smiled in huge relief to herself as she thanked the woman and ended the call. She laid the mortgage statement back on top of the thick pile of statements beneath it, closed the file and slid the file back into the drawer. She decided she would wait to tell her parents. It was indescribable to her to find herself in such a position; one in which she could take care of her parents and make their lives easier in the process.

She stepped away from the desk and walked over to the sofa, sinking down into it as she had so many times before, and she looked around the room, at every part of the room, and took it all in.

This house; the house she had always lived in and called home, now belonged to her parents, and it would always belong to her family. Even after her parents passed away she and her siblings would always have a place to go if they wanted or needed it.

Tears of relief flooded her eyes and her heart swelled as she thought of how she had been able to do this for her family; not just her parents, but for all of them. Her brother and sister wouldn't have to change schools or friends or any part of their lives. They would always have the same home, just as she had, and it was overpowering to her to have been able to give them that.

Her thoughts went to Jake in utter gratitude. She knew that no matter what happened with Jake, it would be worth it for what she had just been able to do with the simplest of gestures. A stop at the bank. A phone call. Their lives had changed forever because of that, because of Jake, and she was so grateful for it.

She wiped a tear from her cheek as she thought about how, just at the moment she had made their home their own, she was leaving it to be with him. She was going to go up to her room and pack a good portion of her life up and take it the luxurious penthouse that she would now be calling home. She just could not seem to wrap her mind around it, and it seemed that the best thing to do was to just go with it, just let it happen and take it a bit at a time.

She gave a long last look around the room and then walked up the stairs to her bedroom. It took longer than she had anticipated to pack her things. She thought initially that she could go to her room and pack the clothes and things that she wanted to take and be done with it, but what she didn't take into account was the fact that she was saying goodbye to her old life.

She was going through years of mementoes and sifting through parts of her life that she had to make decisions about whether to keep or to let go, and it became a massive cleaning project for her. It became a cleansing not only of her bedroom and her whole life, but of her inner self.

It was so intense that by the time she had finished it and she was satisfied with what she had packed, she felt the sensation of everything in her and around her being lightened, as if years of weight had been lifted from her and she could breathe easier. It wasn't troubling weight, it was just the weight of time and compilation, and letting it go freed her in ways that she had not expected. She realized as she walked down the stairs toward the front door that it had opened her up to some of the new changes that were taking place in her life.

She felt more ready to accept the coming time with Jake, and she was looking forward to it more than she had allowed herself to when she had signed the agreement with him. Her apprehension diminished considerably.

When she got to the front door, she set her bags down and looked through the living room. She hadn't expected to pack and be ready to leave so fast; she thought she would give herself more time, a few days even, but once she had started, her momentum built, and before she knew it, she was ready.

Felicia wanted to wait to leave, until her family was home, so that she could tell them part of what was going on and explain it to them when they were all together. She went into the kitchen and began to prepare dinner for them.

She took her time, relishing the moments as they passed through her and around her, making the food with love and with thoughtfulness for her family. She relived so many memories as she cooked; holidays with her brothers and sisters when they would wait for special traditions or special meals and treats, presents at Christmas and choosing their Christmas trees every year. She remembered the kitchen at Thanksgiving, all of them cooking together and helping each other in the kitchen;  building snowmen in the yard in winter; and putting up lemonade stands on the sidewalk in the summer.

She thought of the huge old oak tree in the back yard that her parents planted when they first moved into the house, and how it had grown with them over the years, how they had picnicked in its shade, flown almost to the edge of the sky on the rope swing that her father had tied to it and how they had played in the autumn leaves that it shed every year.

Then there were the silly times they'd had as children; when she had tried to cut her sister's hair as a child and it had gone poorly, or how they had all been so excited when her father had brought home a puppy for them when they were old enough to help care for it. How they had all come together and mourned as a family when each of her grandparents had passed away.

The home she was in held a lifetime of memories, and it was a precious place; four walls and two floors of hallowed halls and lifetimes of experiences. She thought of all of these things as she cooked for them, and more than one tear was shed as she realized that she would rarely be eating with them as a family from then on.

Though they had varying schedules, and their lives had grown more hectic as time had passed and the children in their home grew older, they had always tried to eat together at least once a day, and the habit of that was something that Felicia wouldn't trade for the world.

The kitchen was the heart of their home; where the fires were that kept them warm and fed, where they came together, where they laughed and cried and talked and made it through life with each other. It was where she would tell them that she was leaving them; finally flying away from her nest. She wasn't going to be totally truthful about it, but there was no getting around it, really. It was hard on her heart to know that she was living a double life, but she had to do it for many reasons.

It was in her contract under the privacy clause with Jake, it was in her contract with the agency when Ms. Halstead had her sign up there, and there was just something about her whole situation that she didn't want her parents to know about. There was something akin to shame that she felt, but it wasn't enough to make her stop doing what she was going to do; it was only that her choices and life changes weren't something that she felt proud of, at least enough to share with her family. They weren't bad changes, but they weren't anything she wanted to make known.

Felicia worked away at what would be her farewell meal with her family, and one by one, they came into the door of the kitchen, greeting her, thanking her for starting their dinner, and offering to help her. By the time all of them were in the room, there was the familiar buzz of conversation and movement as they worked around each other setting the table and placing the food on it. They sat down together and were partway through the meal when she knew that the time had come to tell them.

She looked at her parents and cleared her throat.

"Mom and Dad, I've been doing really well at work and they gave me a promotion. Ms. Halstead wants me closer to the office, so they are providing me an apartment in the city. I need to move in tomorrow. I'll still be coming by here as often as I can, you know I can't leave home for too long..." she trailed off and watched the shock register on their faces. Her mother's eyes teared up and her father nodded slowly.

"I wondered what those bags by the door were for. I thought you were taking a trip."

He didn't say anything else for a long moment. Her mother wiped a few tears that had escaped her eyelashes and rolled down her cheeks.

"I knew this day would come. I knew you would be leaving soon, but I wish somehow that I could have made the time go slower." She dabbed at her eyes. "Of course, you're the first to leave, so maybe it won't be so hard with your brother and sister, although I know I'll hate it when each of you go."

Her mother turned her gaze to Felicia. "Is it a safe place? Where is it?" she asked, worried.

Felicia had been expecting the gamut of questions she was going to be answering. "It is a safe place; it's an apartment in a secured building, so no one can get in without getting past the doorman and being announced. It's in a very nice neighborhood. I'll be totally fine. I have a company car I'll be using, and it will be kept in the secured garage where the apartment is. It's all really nice, actually. I'll be able to work better from there. It'll be a good experience for me,” she added, knowing that that was an important factor to her parents.

Her mother nodded and her father shook his head. "All of you have grown up so fast. Well, it's the way the world works. All of the children fly the nest." He looked directly at her then and began to ask her practical questions.

"So who pays for everything?" he asked and then took a bite.

Felicia smiled. "I don't have to pay for anything; it's all part of the business contract. Maybe it's all business expenses to them, who knows, but I have no expenses while I am there."

Her father raised his eyebrows, impressed, and nodded again. "That sounds like a good deal. It sounds too good to be true, but it sounds like a good deal." Then he looked right at her again.

"Make sure you sign everything for that. Don't let them fool you into believing one thing and then you find out another thing later on; did you read your contract carefully? Did you look everything over?" he asked with concern.

Felicia tilted her head to the side a little. "Of course I did, dad. Of course. I learned from the best; you taught me well. I read everything before I signed it and it's all on the up and up."