The Billionaire's Proposition (The Romero Brothers, Book 4) (16 page)

“I sure hope so.” The man sounded dubious.

“And, Dave, if you leave your phone number,
I’ll have someone from my office contact you regarding vet services. There are
foundations my family sponsors to help fund lower-income families so they can
keep their pets, whether it be for basic necessities like food or situations
like yours where surgeries are out of reach. My staff can point you in the
right direction.”

Breena looked shocked.

“You’ll help me?”

“Yes. I will. Every resident is important
to me. Every family. I want people to know that they can reach me 24/7 and I’ll
be there, or I’ll have my assistant take care of things. You will be heard.
Your situation will get my full attention.”

“Well…uh…okay,” the man sounded as
astonished as Breena looked.

Carl was sure he was probably breaking some
sort of unwritten code, but damn it, he couldn’t help himself. And this had
nothing to do with votes. He vowed that when he and his brothers fought their
way out of poverty they would help others whenever or however it was possible.
Give back. Their mother had always raised them that way, even when they didn’t
have much growing up. Always
be
a giver. Always look
for ways to be a blessing to others. It might have sounded corny then, but
heck, he lived by those words. The caller was right; he had a heck of a lot of advantages
over the average taxpayer. Why in God’s name wouldn’t he want to help make somebody
else’s burden a little lighter, if he were in a position to do so?

“Okay, that’s all the time we have for
today,” Breena concluded. “Carl, thank you so much for joining us here today.
We’ll no doubt see much more of you and your opponents as the campaign gets
underway.”

Carl’s heart thumped hard in his chest.
He’d faced cameras before but not like this. Not a live show. He glanced over
to the side. Standing by the cameras, his brother Jules gave him a thumbs-up.
Jules insisted on heading down to the studio with him for moral support. Toni
wanted to be there, but he decided against
it
as he
didn’t want the wrong signal to be given. This was about Carl Romero, mayoral
candidate, not Carl Romero, grandson of affluent tycoon Toni (Antonio) Romero,
one of the wealthiest real estate moguls in the world.

“Yes, Breena, you will see more of me,”
Carl said with determination set in his voice.

This
was one heck of a long day
, Carl thought to himself
as he pulled up to his modest four-bedroom home he now shared with Venus. The
house was located in the suburbs in a quiet neighbourhood in Mayberry Hill.

Funny thing was he couldn’t wait to get
home to lovely Venus. What was it about seeing her sweet smile, her large
beautiful brown eyes, gazing lovingly into his eyes? He kept reminding himself
this was not going to last, so he shouldn’t get too attached. Venus was doing a
job—as his wife. Nothing more. It was just a job, right? But damn, did
she ever seem so genuine. Why did it feel like anything but a job?

 
He’d given so many interviews and talked
to countless reporters. It was crazy. His mind was weary. His body ached, and
this time it wasn’t from lifting weights at the gym. In fact, he didn’t even
get to spend much time there this past week. Something he was going to have to
incorporate into his increasingly busy schedule.

Heck, running a full-blown corporation was
one thing, but running for public office?
Jeez!
He wouldn’t wish this type of stress on his worst enemy!

He parked the car and switched off the
ignition. It was evening. Where did the time go? He knew that Venus was busy during
the day doing administrative hand-over at the R.M. Fitness headquarters so that
she could spend more time in his campaign office. God bless her. What would he
do without her?

“Honey,” Carl called out when he entered
through the white French doors to their residence. The home was warm and
inviting. Cozy. The hardwood floors were spotless. They were genuine red oak.
The windows were
double glazed
. They had a long
driveway of pavers leading up to the main house. The house had everything
including the proverbial white picket fence.

The aroma of baked honey chicken and warm
apple pie wafted to his nostrils, soothing his senses and arousing his hunger.
But he wasn’t just hungry for food.

Had he just taken a turn down memory lane?
Why did he feel as if he’d just taken a turn down Leave it to Beaver lane? Only
a modern-day version of that old black-and-white TV
show
from the late 1950s.

That was just what he needed right now. He
heard the sound of dishes in the kitchen. “Oh, hi, Carl,” Venus sung out, wiping
down the warm-brown marble stone counter.

“Hey,” he said, instinctively wrapping his
arms around her waist from behind and kissing her softly on her neck and cheek,
inhaling the smooth scent of her shampooed hair. She gushed and nestled into
his chest. What was he doing? They were supposed to be a pretend
couple—not a real one. Whatever that meant. Then why was he feeling so
connected to her? Why couldn’t he wait for the day to be done so that he could
embrace her and take good care of her? What was with him? Had the pressure of
being a public figure usurped his senses? Yet, he couldn’t help himself.

“I told you, baby,” he said, whispering in
her ears. “It’s my turn to do the dishes. In fact, I don’t care how long I stay
at the office. Let me do the dishes for a month.”

She grinned and turned around facing him.
“Carl. Why?” Venus giggled as he nibbled on her ear. “I get home before you.”

“So what? You work hard at the office,” he refuted.

“So do you, hon. Really, I don’t mind.”

Much like Britain’s Prince William and his lovely
wife, Kate, Carl and Venus decided to forgo having a huge entourage of house
staff. They wanted to be intimate and do most chores themselves, enjoying each
other’s company. Just because they could afford a maid and butler, didn’t mean
they wanted to.

“Hey,” he said, lifting her chin up with
his finger. “I don’t want you to think you have to do any of the work in here.
I live here too. Shared responsibility, remember? We’re equal partners. In
fact, I want to be the one to take good care of you,” he said and a jolt of
electricity ran to his heart. Venus had done nothing but make sacrifices to
everyone in her life. Taking care of her family back home. Adopting her brother
and being the best damn mother to a child anyone could hope for and
now—she sacrificed a lot so that Carl could run for mayor. How could he
not worship her? She was all heart and soul. Here she had a lot in her life to
be bitter about—thinking the world owed her much and all she wanted to do
was make it better for others around her.

A sick feeling slid into Carl’s gut. He
could never let her go. Not now. Not even after the year. She was his close
companion and his most fierce supporter. She was golden. Solid. Heck, they’d
had great sex every night since they got hitched in Vegas. The sex was amazing!
Venus enjoyed trying new things and being pleasured by him in so many erotic ways.
There was a radiant glow about her personality, her beauty,
her
charm. Her beautiful personality shone through her and made her even more
breathtaking to his eyes and his soul. Everything about Venus was exceptional.
Her subtle sexiness captivated him.

Admittedly, his life would not be the same
without her. His grandfather was right. Having love in your life was one of the
best things that could happen to a person. They were not playing house. They
were a real family. For the past week, they’d taken turns reading a bedtime
story to Tristan and Venus would take over singing his favorite lullaby. It was
heartwarming. Just as his mother had done for him and his brothers when they
were growing up—before her health took a turn for the worse and she was
taken from them permanently. He felt like a real father to Tristan and a real
husband to Venus. None of that was phony. It was all real to him, right from his
heart and soul.

He really meant it. Old-fashioned as it
was, Carl really wanted to take good care of her. Always.

“You were wonderful today on the news show,
honey.” She reached her arms up to hug his neck and pull him closer to her. Her
beautiful,
recently-coifed
dark hair shone under the
kitchen light and his nose enjoyed the fragrance of her lilac-scented shampoo.
The aroma soothed his senses. She pressed her breasts to his chest and his body
reacted. He lowered his lips to hers and softly kissed her. His groin reacted.

“Thank you,” he said appreciatively. “I
couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Without me?” She kissed him,
intermittently. “But, Carl, I didn’t do anything,” she whispered breathlessly.

“Oh, but you did. You gave me those tips on
doing a sit down interview. You know how much I hate cameras.”

And he was right. Carl found the whole
thing damn near nerve-racking. But Venus had coached him over the past week
while they were naked in bed, of course. Well, hey, he needed a relaxing
environment—and he always felt totally cool in bed.

She’d told him the old trick everyone used.
Picturing everybody—the interviewer and all the cameramen—naked, which
didn’t help all that much. In fact, he tried
not
to picture them that way.

Then, the most important thing was that
she’d gone over some gruelling questions with Carl, rehearsing backlash and
rebuttals. The last thing he would have wanted was to be caught off guard and
thrown off his game. His opponents would have loved for that to happen. They
already called him out on being a rich boy who was out of touch with reality. Carl
had
many strengths
and could often speak on the spot
and come up with all kinds of intelligent comebacks. But there was just
something about those darned TV cameras that irked the hell out of him. This
was all to do with childhood, when authorities got involved and they’d made the
local news: Man living out of van with his sons. It was terrible. It had caused
a sad media frenzy at the time. From the perspective of a little boy, seeing tons
of TV camera equipment and gigantic microphones poking in your face, not to
mention the daunting white flashes of cameras clicking away to capture images
of them. It was
all overwhelming
at the very least. It
was terrifying. Carl cringed thinking of that memory during a sad and dark segment
of his childhood.

He continued caressing Venus’s skin with
his lips, planting sweet kisses down her shoulder and arm.

“You know you’re so beautiful, Venus.”

“Mmm,” she moaned into his lips, as he
continued to kiss her.

“No seriously,” he said, pulling away from
her gently. He gazed intently into her eyes. “You know something? There isn’t
anything about you that I don’t love. And no matter how tired at the end of the
day I get, I’m always going to make it a point to tell you how much I
appreciate you.”

“Oh, Carl. That’s so sweet of you,” she
whispered.

“Really. A man lands a beautiful woman and takes
her for granted, thinking she can read minds. You women are goddesses but
you’re not mind readers.”

She giggled. He loved her girlish playful chuckle.
Her sweet brown eyes crinkled when she smiled and laughed. Her cheeks rouged
and glowed. “You’re wonderful yourself, Carl. You always shower me with
compliments. I appreciate all that you’ve done for me and Tristan.”

Carl was about to say that she and Tristan
were his family now. But how could he? He wasn’t going to press the issue about
their one-year deal, but he wanted so much more than just twelve months with
her. He wanted forever.

“Hey, it’s the least I can do. Besides, you
didn’t have to do all of this.”

“All of what?” she said, looking puzzled.

He gently ran his fingers through her silky
locks. “Your hair is always freshly done. Every day you wear a beautiful sexy
outfit that turns me on. Even when you’re dressed down, you look good.
Fashionable. I’ve never even seen you with your morning hair. You always rush
to the bathroom first thing and style it. Like, I don’t care if your hair’s a
mess, or that you look like you’ve just rolled out of bed.
Because
to me, you’re my princess.
I treasure all that you are.”

“Oh, Carl. I…I don’t know what to say,” she
said,
then
a grin touched her lips.

“What’s funny?”

“Oh, nothing. I was told that sometimes men
go looking elsewhere when their wives…um…what’s the word…? Let themselves go.”

“Let themselves go? It’s the men who let
themselves
go by cheating. I would never do that to you, no
matter what. Hey, no woman deserves that. Period.”

“I know. It’s not just that. I think it’s
important in a relationship that both the husband and the wife always remember
that life can get hectic and it’s important to keep the romance…the spark
alive. I really don’t want to see it fade. I mean
,
my
parents fell out of love, I think. It was awful to see that before their
deaths. Dad…well, I never told anyone this before, but he was seeing someone
else. Mom found out and she was depressed about it. I think they eventually
worked things out. That’s when they had Niko, I mean, Tristan.”