Color Blind (BWWM Interracial Billionaire Single Mom Steamy Romance Novel) (25 page)

“
It is! But you have to wait for your mom to come in so she can watch you open it.”

She started calling for me to come into the living room. “Momma! Look what Dale
bought
me for Valentine’s Day! Can I open it now?” she looked at the two of us for approval.
 

Nodding our heads, she ripped the paper off the box. Then she opened that box to find another box. After several boxes, she started getting frustrated. “Is this a joke?”
 

“
No, there’s a present in there. I had to disguise it,” he smiled at her.

Finally, when she got down to the last box, she noticed how tiny it was. “What’s in this?” she asked, ripping the last box open.

A small white jewelry box was inside. She recognized it immediately as I had several of these in my jewelry box. Carefully, she opened it and saw a gold locket necklace.
 

“
Oh, it’
s so beautiful
!” she exclaimed as she took the necklace out of the box and began to put it on.
 

“
There’s something inside of it if you open it up,” he told her.

She opened the locket, curious to see what was inside. Once it was opened, it revealed a small heart-shaped picture of her and Dale in the swimming pool from the previous summer. A smile beamed across her face.
 

“
It’s
us,
Dale! It’s me and you! I love it!” she threw her arms around him and squeezed him tight.
 

“
It was the best picture that I had of us. Your mom took it on her phone and put it on Facebook. I stole it from her
images
and printed it out. Now I’ll always be with you, no matter where you are.”
 

“
But you’ll always be with us anyway. Mommy says you two are getting married!”

“
Does that make you happy?” he asked. He hadn’t thought to seek Nevaeh’s approval before popping the question.
 

“
It makes me happy and proud,” she smiled up at him as she fastened the locket around her neck.

A few hours later, Lorraine came to pick up Nevaeh as promised. She showed off her new necklace as they were walking outside; Lorraine smiled at Dale and winked at him before giving a
thumbs up. When they were gone, I flopped onto the couch, exhausted from cooking.
 

“
What are we having? It smells delicious.”

“
I’m making lasagna. It’s one of my favorites.”

“
I can’t wait to dig in. I’m starving,” he admitted.

“
Me too!”

The two of us enjoyed a candlelit dinner in the dimly lit dining room after it was ready.
 

“
I noticed you’re not drinking any of the wine that I brought. Don’t you like it?” He was surprised to see that I’d hardly touched it.
 

I dropped my fork on my plate. “Dale, we need to talk,” I announced.
 

Oh, shit here we go. It’s never good when a woman says that phrase. “About what honey?” he sweetly asked.
 

I paused and intently stared at him for a moment before beginning. “I’m pregnant,” I announced.
 

“
You’re pregnant?” he repeated. “How is that possible? I mean, I know how it’s possible, but when? Never mind. I know that answer too. Are you okay with it? How do you feel about it?” Shock began to set in. He was going to be a father.

“
I’m scared. It’s so soon in our relationship. We’ve not even been together for a year and
we
only just got engaged. I’ve thought about it, and I’m glad you asked me to marry you before I found out that I was pregnant.”
 

“
Why?” he asked.

“
I wouldn’t want you to think I was only marrying you because I’m pregnant. I
'm going to marry
you because I love you.”
 

“
I know that, and I would never think differently.” Tears started beading up at the corner of my eyes. “Come here, sit on my lap.”
 

I walked over to him and sat on his lap, resting my head on his shoulder. “Tell me it’s going to be okay.”
 

“
Kimberly? It’s going to be fine. I’m a billionaire. I can take care of us. You haven’t mentioned it yet, but I was wondering when are
you going to move in with me? I can hire movers to pack your things so it’s less stress on you.”
 

“
That’s the
thing,
Dale. I haven’t said anything about moving because, I sort of don’t want to.”
 

“
What? Why?”

“
I love your house, it’s spectacular, but…” I looked around the room. “It’s not my grandparent’s house, and this one is. I don’t want to let go of it. I’m not ready yet. Do you see that door over there?” I asked, pointing at the bedroom door.
 

Dale nodded.
 

“
That was my grandma’s bedroom door. When she lived here, she used to put her hand on that
doorknob
to open the
door
. She touched it.”
 

He began to understand what she was getting at.

“
And that garage right there? My dad and grandpa used to go out there to drink beer and work on their cars that he’d buy and rebuild. I have so many memories here.”
 

“
Baby,” he whispered, “you don’t have to sell it. You can keep it, but there’s not enough room here for all of us. Soon there will be another person. You can move into my house—our house—and keep this one. No one said you have to get rid of it.”

I was elated to hear that he understood. “Are you sure? I figured you’d want me to sell it, and I’m not ready to do that.”
 

“
I’m positive,” he reassured me.
 

Over the course of the next week, we hired a moving company to help me pack up her house. Nevaeh finally returned to school and was happy to be back. She was even more excited to move into Dale’s humongous
house
and bragged about it to all of her friends. For once, things seemed to be looking up for everyone. After we
were
all moved in and settled, I thought about our upcoming wedding.
 

“
Dale, I wanted to talk to you about the wedding,” I said as he came in from work one evening.
 

“
What about it?”

“
I would really like to be married before the baby’s born, but I’m worried that I won’t have enough time to plan everything,” I confessed.
 

“
Hm,” he thought about it, “what if we hired a
wedding
planner? How soon were you thinking?”
 

“
I’m not sure, maybe before I start showing. That would give us a couple of months.”

“
Yes, it would,” he agreed.

“
Nevaeh’s doing so much better since the doctor started her on Humira. I think this would be the perfect opportunity to take advantage of that; I’d like to have her in the wedding.”
 

“
That’s a fantastic idea. What would you have her do? Be the flower girl?” he suggested.

“
Yes, I was even looking online and found a beautiful flower girl dress that would look amazing on her.”

“
Call around tomorrow, see what you can come up with and hire a
wedding
planner.”
 

The next morning, I searched wedding planners in the St. Louis area and began calling around. Most of them said that it wouldn’t be
viable to plan a wedding in such short time. The more I called, the more discouraged I started to become. Just when I was about to give up, I saw one wedding planner who advertised short notice weddings. With an inkling of hope, I dialed the number and hoped for the best.
 

“
No, that wouldn’t be a problem at all. We’ll have one of our planners organize and help you plan every detail of your wedding. We offer a wide variety of services, you just tell us what you need and we’ll see to it that it gets done.”

Those words were music to my ears. I hired them on the spot. Within a few days, a woman named Ann was knocking on the front door with a clipboard in hand, ready to plan my special day. The two of us sat at the kitchen table and poured over every single detail and idea that I had in mind. By the time Ann left, I was confident that my wedding was going to be something amazing.
 

A couple of months later, we tied the knot as Mr. and Mrs. Dale Halloway in our backyard. Under a white arched trellis elegantly decorated with white and red roses, we read our vows and said
our
‘I Do’s’ on a warm early-summer afternoon. Lorraine was the maid of honor and Charlie was the best man. Most of Dale’s family flew in from San Diego, including his proud
parents, as well as his grandmother. My entire family was also there. While I knew my dad wouldn’t be attending the wedding, I could feel him in spirit. Just as I met Dale in front of the podium that the ordained minister was standing behind, I caught a whiff of my dad’s scent—I knew he was smiling down at me.
 

Epilogue

“
Slow down, Nevaeh!” I yelled as she zipped down the highway.
 

“
Dad, I’m going so slow. Chill out!” she yelled back over the wind whipping through the car as her hair blew in front of her face.

“
The speed limit is only 70 miles per hour, and you’re doing 75!”

Nevaeh looked down at the speedometer and saw that I was right. “Oh, sorry,” she smiled at me as she slowed down.
 

This was only her fifth driving lesson. She couldn’t believe that I was already letting her take the car out on the highway. She may have been a good driver, but she still needed to work on her parallel parking before she could take her driver’s test to get her license.
 

“
Okay honey, let’s get off at the next exit so we can go pick up Dale and Alyssa from summer camp.”
 

Our first child together was a boy, Dale Jr. A few years later, Alyssa was born. Every year they went to summer camp, but this was the first year their big sister would be picking them up. Dale was now seven and Alyssa was four. Nevaeh was approaching her sweet sixteen, which Kimberly had secretly been planning a surprise party for.
 

“
All right, now take a left turn where that sign is; the one that
says,
Camp Clarkson. After that left, you’ll go straight for quite a ways until I tell you to turn again.”
 

She turned on her left turn signal and began traveling down the road that led to the camp. The warm summer air whipped through the car, threatening to tangle every strand of hair on her head as they drove down the paved country road.

“
Oh, daddy! That’s my favorite song!” she said, turning the car stereo up.

Singing along to her favorite song as she followed the turns and twists of the road, I looked over at her and admired how much of a beautiful young lady she was becoming. She reminded me so much of her mom and she was the spitting image of her. She was a little on the skinny side since she had to keep so physically active due to
her condition—which had been in remission for a few years now.
 

Nevaeh kept herself busy with sports all throughout high school, though, her favorite sport was
volleyball
. She also did the swim team,
track,
and basketball. Now that she was learning how to drive, she couldn’t wait until she was able to take herself to all of her meets and practices. Kimberly was relieved too.
 

Kimberly spent most of her days at home, tending to our three children. Occasionally, she would help me when it came to buying or selling properties. She’d typically go sign off on the purchase or sale of the commercial spaces if I was occupied doing something else. Life had never been sweeter since she married me.
 

“
Turn right where this road forks up there,” I said, pointing to where it was.
 

“
I know dad! I’ve been here before. Remember? When I was younger, you and mom would send me so I could go horseback riding and do fun stuff?” she said sarcastically.

“
Yep, and just look at how you turned out,” I teased her. “But you have to admit, you’re probably the only kid in our neighborhood who
could survive out in the wilderness if something ever happened or you got lost.”