The Billionaire's Call Girl: A BWWM Billionaire Romance (11 page)

It was all that needed to be said then, and as their energy drained from them, they fell asleep in each other's arms, drifting off to sleep and drifting into the night together for the first time.

They slept peacefully and soundly, their hearts beating together, their arms wound around one another, their dreams sweet and pleasant. The night passed silently and beautifully, but as the morning dawned, it came with a shattering awakening.

There was a loud noise and they both jumped in their bed, opening their eyes to see a tall gorgeous blonde woman standing before them at the foot of the bed. Felicia gasped and yanked the sheet up over her body to cover herself, and Jake groaned and flung himself back into the pillows, covering his eyes with his hand.

"Good morning." she said with a smile at them both.

"Who are you?" Felicia asked in shock.

Jake sat up in the bed with a huge sigh and lifted his hand toward the woman in front of them.

"Felicia, this is my wife, Mariah Johnson, Mariah, this is Felicia Bennett."

Chapter6

Panic flooded through Felicia as she looked from Jake to Mariah and then back to Jake again. She sucked her breath in so fast that she choked and tears stung her eyes. She had no idea what she was going to say or how to react, but then she noticed that both Jake and Mariah looked perfectly at ease.

Jake sat there looking at his wife as she stood at the foot of the bed where he and Felicia had spent the night making love, and where, just as they were falling asleep, Felicia had been sure she heard him whisper that he loved her as he kissed the top of her head.

Jake was fine. He looked completely unruffled. His wife, Mariah, stood there in her business suit with her long wavy blonde hair curling around her shoulders. She had a square jaw, full pink lips and round blue eyes. She looked beautiful, but, as Felicia's gaze stayed on her longer, she realized that the woman looked very tired as well.

Mariah smiled lightly down at Felicia and said softly, "Jake, Christopher was taken to the hospital late last night. He was complaining about a sore throat and now they are going to take his tonsils out."

Jake went into a full panic. His eyes were wide as he leaped from the bed and began to pull on his clothes with no thought at all to the fact that he was standing there nude in front of his wife and his lover simultaneously.

"Is he alright?" Jake said as he dressed himself in record time and grabbed his phone and wallet. He looked at his phone and then back up at his wife. "Why didn't you call me?" A second glance at his phone told him exactly why she hadn't called him: his phone was off. He turned it off when he had come into the bedroom with Felicia between their escapade in the pool and their love sessions in the bed. He grumbled, disgusted with himself. "I'm sorry I didn't have it on,” he said to her.

Mariah looked at him calmly. "He's got a sore throat, but otherwise he is fine. They are checking him for another infection besides the tonsillitis they say he has. My mother is with him now, so he isn't alone, but he has been asking for you. I came to get you since your phone is off.

They are waiting until his fever goes down to operate, so they don't spread the infection. He has a higher fever than he should with regular tonsillitis, which is why they are checking him for other infections and problems. When they get it under control, they will operate on him and remove his tonsils."

Jake was fully dressed by then. "I'm going to go now. Are you coming with me, or am I meeting you over there?" he asked her matter-of-factly.

She looked at Felicia and sighed a little. "I'm going to take Felicia out for a coffee at the cafe down the street for a little bit. I was at the hospital all night. I could use a decent cup of coffee before I go back over there. They won't operate until we are both there and, right now, they are more concerned with getting his fever down, so I'm not expecting it to be anytime very soon. I'm sure it won't be for the next twelve hours at least."

Felicia looked at Mariah and asked curiously, "Who is Christopher?"

Mariah spoke to her politely. "He's our son. He's three years old."

It became much clearer to Felicia what Jake had meant by saying that he and his wife didn't have any intimate relations; they were speaking to each other as if they were in a boardroom, at any old meeting, not standing around an extra-marital bed with the mistress still laying nude in it.

Jake leaned over and surprised Felicia with a soft kiss on her lips. "I'll call you." He said nothing at all about Mariah staying to talk with her. At first, when Mariah had said it, Felicia was worried, wondering if they were going to have a fight. She was especially concerned because Jake was leaving her alone with Mariah. He was more concerned about his son being in the hospital than his wife and his lover getting into a fight, or he knew that there wouldn't be a fight. Either way, when she saw that he was unworried about it, her anxiety ebbed some.

Jake looked at Mariah and nodded. "Thank you for coming to get me, I owe you one." With that, he turned and walked out of the room. They heard the elevator bell ring and the doors close, and they knew he was gone.

Felicia looked up at Mariah and Mariah gave her a soft smile. "Perhaps I better step out to the landing at the elevator and wait for you while you get dressed. I'll see you out there." She, too, walked out of the room and Felicia was left to wonder what in the world was happening.

She had just begun to get a handle on the countless oddities of being a billionaire’s mistress when the biggest and strangest oddity l appeared at the foot of her bed.  Where was the woman's anger? Why did she seem so calm? Her son was in the hospital and her husband was making love with another woman. She looked as if she could have been window-shopping at a boutique: completely unruffled.

Felicia pulled on a pair of jeans and a pretty top, brushed her teeth, pulled her hair back into a messy bun and then walked out to the landing by the elevator to find out what in the world was going on with Jake Johnson's wife.

They took the elevator downstairs together and walked quietly to the cafe down the street. All the while, Felicia was wondering how it would go and what they would say.  Mariah had not behaved at all in a way that made sense so far.

They entered the cafe together and the staff waved and smiled at Felicia; she was usually in there once a day or more to get coffees and teas. They ordered coffee and chose a table in the corner between the sunny windows.

Felicia took a seat across from her and sat hesitantly, her eyes on the beautiful blonde woman in front of her. Mariah took one look at her and gave a very light laugh. "You don't need to be worried about me. I see that Jake hasn't told you anything at all. How typical of him to be so careful. Always the protector, that one. Well, I guess it's time for some one-on-one girl talk."

Felicia stared at her, unblinking for a moment. "Girl talk...? But you're Jake Johnson's wife!" She felt so awkward that it was almost palpable.

Mariah raised her eyebrows and smiled. "And you are his lover; the woman he craves above all other women. Yes, we need to have some girl talk."

Felicia picked up the mug of coffee waiting for her and poured cream in it, stirring it slowly, and never taking her eyes off the woman in front of her. What had Jake not told her? She was pretty sure she knew everything that was going on, but maybe Mariah was right. Maybe there were things she didn't know.

Mariah took a drink of her own coffee and set the cup down looking at Felicia with kind eyes.

"Jake and I met when we were very young. There was some attraction, but it was one of those things that burns brightly at the beginning and then fades out quickly., Not unlike a comet on a dark night, actually: brilliant at first, and then nothing but a cold lump of rock. We got married while things were blazing, we started our company, and, as the company took off and people loved our products, our love took a nosedive. We have always gotten along, we just don't have any romantic feelings for each other and we haven't in a very, very long time."

She took another drink of her coffee and set her mug back down. "The ironic thing was that we had put our picture as a couple with a stand in child as our logo on our products. It was genius marketing and our products blazed off the shelves and into homes and schools all over the nation. It was truly remarkable, but with a cold marriage, we felt trapped."

Mariah sighed and Felicia stared at her, frozen halfway in stirring her coffee. "Maybe you should drink that," Mariah said softly. Felicia started,  looked down at the cup before her, and then picked it up and took a sip with a small smile. She hadn't expected the conversation going the direction that it was going, and she was pleasantly surprised.

"Anyway, great marketing, great product, and we were both ready for an amicable divorce, but our PR team told us that if we got divorced it would destroy the entire foundation of the business we had worked so hard to build. The
family
business."

She sighed and shook her head. "What a predicament to find ourselves in. We talked about all of our options and, because our lives were so inextricably linked to the business and right in the public eye, there was no way out of our marriage without completely obliterating the company. We just couldn't do that for so many reasons.

We were making a difference in the lives of so many children, we were making unthinkable amounts of money, and a lot of the money that we made went to supporting charities around the country: children's charities for homelessness, food, education, safe houses; and my personal pet, St. Jude's hospital. We were making such a difference everywhere that we knew the PR people were right; we just couldn't get a divorce."

Another sigh and a long sip of her coffee, and a tired Mariah rubbed her forehead and continued. "We had to figure out a way to stay married for the public but find our own personal happiness and satisfaction with our lives separately within our marriage. It was tricky as hell. We are still very good friends, and we always will be, but there is just no romantic connection at all between us.

We finally decided that the best thing to do would be to keep secret lovers without blowing our cover to the public, who have always watched us like hawks. I never understood that, but the public is infatuated with us, and with the idea of our family business."

"I found David," she smiled as she said his name, light coming into her weary eyes and a genuine smile gracing her beautiful lips. "He is so wonderful. We've been together for a long time, almost ten years now. I love him so much. Much more than I ever loved Jake, and David and I will always be together. We wish we could be married, but it's just not possible, and we both love each other so much that we accept that reality just to be together."

Felicia, who had been quiet, was shocked. She could not believe what she was hearing. It was more surreal to her than anything else that she had learned from either of them.

"Well, Jake was alone for a long, long time, and it made me sad to see him so lonely. He just wouldn't take a chance with a woman; he was so afraid that he might be found out. Then all the work we had done to keep our 'marriage face' for the public would be lost, the company destroyed by our extra-marital affairs. He was so lonely for so long that I just couldn't stand it anymore. I contacted Ms. Halstead at the agency to see if she had anyone there who might be a good match for Jake. They are such a discreet company and they cater to just the sort of need that we had."

Felicia stared at her with wide eyes in absolute wonder. "You called Ms. Halstead?"

Mariah smiled at her and nodded. "I did. As a matter of fact, I was the one who chose you. Actually, I chose you and one other girl and then showed both of your profiles to Jake, and he wanted to meet you. He wasn't at all sure that it would work. He had our attorney draw up that legal agreement to protect everyone involved, and then he arranged to meet you.

I told him he should have you move into the penthouse down the street: it's easy to get to, it's a beautiful place, no one would see him and you together, and no one could get in because it's totally private. It's really the best possible scenario, and from what he tells me, it's working out well and things seem to be going wonderfully between you two." She gave Felicia a genuine smile.

Felicia leaned back in her chair and tried to regroup her thoughts. Almost nothing could have shocked her more than what she had just heard.

"He told you? He tells you what's happening between us?" she asked in amazement.

Mariah nodded. "Of course he does. He tells me just about everything. He's so happy with you. He's finally fallen in love after all this time, and it's really wonderful to see. I'm so glad that he has you. You've really become so important to him." She smiled and reached over, taking Felicia's hand in hers.

Felicia's voice was lost somewhere between a soft tone and a whisper. "He's in love with me?" she asked, thinking back to the moment the night before when they were just about to fall asleep and she thought she heard him whisper it to her, but she couldn't be sure. She thought she might have been dreaming or wishful thinking.

Mariah laughed a little and nodded. "Oh yeah, he's so in love with you." She cocked her head to the side. "Hasn't he told you yet?"

Felicia shook her head slowly. "Not in so many words, no. I feel it from him; I know he cares a great deal about me, but he hasn't said that he loves me."