The Gift, Book 3 (The Billionaire's Love Story) (2 page)

“I’m outta here,” he took off, waving a hand in the air as if to signal his goodbye.

Chapter 2

“You mean it, Mommy? I can really stay up ‘til midnight?”

“I don’t see why not, Honey. It’s New Year’s Eve.” She wiped down the countertops in the kitchen and was pleased that dinner and tidy-up was over.

“It’s like Christmas Eve but boring.” Jacob sat with his head bent over his Marvel coloring book and his little hand rapidly coloring away.

“That’s pretty.” She stared at the colored-in pictures and noticed that he was getting better at coloring inside the line boundaries. He scrunched up his face. “Don’t say it’s pretty, Mommy. That’s a girlie word. Say it’s
cool
.”

“It’s pretty cool,” she replied, making him giggle. “You
have
been busy.” He was almost halfway through the book and it was just as well that she’d bought a few of them. She considered the act of getting a book into his hands as progress. It was great that he used his imagination and played with his toys, and that he wasn’t hooked on devices like so many other kids. She wouldn’t have bought him a device even if she could afford one. Coloring books were good but getting him to read books of his own accord, instead of only when she or his teacher ordered him, would be next on her list of things to encourage.

He was a good kid, and even when she was on her laptop—emailing or surfing the net—he didn’t hassle her to go on it and play games.

She wanted to reply to the email she’d received before dinner. She’d been surprised to hear back from anyone during the holidays but another agency had received her résumé and had asked about her availability for a temporary contract that was due to start around the beginning of February. It would last until the summer at least, and it paid more. This had been the deciding factor for her, because as comfortable as she felt at Stone Enterprises, and as nice as some of the people were, at the end of the day, money was money, and that was the main reason she worked. It was the only reason.

This new opportunity was too good to pass up. Even though her contract at Stone Enterprises had been extended for another month, there was no guarantee of work thereafter, even though Briony had hinted that she would keep on extending it. A hint wasn’t enough of an incentive to convince Savannah to stay. She needed something more concrete.

She would have liked to stay on at Stone Enterprises. She liked Briony and the work had been easy but unless they could offer her a longer term contract, she had to keep looking around. Money was still tight, despite landing this job, and she was aware that summer would be here soon and she would need to move out of this apartment. She would be in dire financial straits then, if she hadn’t managed to secure a well-paying job by then.

The thought of returning to the office made her stomach churn. She wasn’t sure how she would react when she saw Tobias Stone again. With everyone else back at work, there would be less opportunity for them both to interact, and she considered this to be a blessing.

“What do you want to do now?” She asked Jacob, having finished for the evening. “Do you want to read together?”

He scrunched his nose up. “Can I think about it?”

She grinned and ran her fingers through his hair. “Take your time.” She picked up her laptop from the kitchen countertop and walked into the small lounge. The kitchen and lounge were connected without a door and she could still hear Jacob from behind the sofa where she now sat. “Why don’t you come in here, Honey?”

As Jacob sauntered in, she opened her email and quickly fired off a reply to the new agency indicating her interest in the position.

She stared at Jacob who now lay on his stomach with his elbows propping up his body. He had dispensed with the coloring book and now had his figurines out. There was some sort of elaborate setup going on with an empty shoe box, an empty egg-box and a few Christmas cards. He seemed content enough, so she turned the TV on and then, when she could find nothing interesting to watch, she aimlessly surfed online. And typed in the name ‘Tobias Stone’.

A photo of him with his trademark solemn look, his strong face with those cool, steady eyes stared back at her. Her heart almost leapfrogged out of her mouth as she quickly skimmed over the text—it was information about him that she already knew, and there was nothing new. When her phone rang, she absent-mindedly reached out for it.

“Happy New Year!” Kay’s shrill voice pierced her ears. She was louder than usual and over-excited.

“Happy New Year,” Savannah replied, still gazing at Tobias’ face on the screen.

“I just got back,” her cousin gushed.

“From where, or shouldn’t I ask?”

“You know that dinner I went to? On Christmas day? Some of the people from there had a party which went on until three in the morning.”

“What time is it?”

“Almost 10 o’clock in the evening,” Kay replied.
Of the next day,
Savannah reminded herself and found it difficult to reconcile the fact that there was such a long gap, thirteen hours, between their time zones. She wondered what Kay had been up to for most of the day, if she’d only now gotten back. It was better not to know.

“Aren’t you going out tonight?” Kay asked her.

“I was asked to go for drinks.”

“Drinks?”

“With the people from work.”

“What people and what work?” Kay bellowed. “You never told me you were working.”

“Didn’t I? Sorry, I must have forgotten. It’s a temp job, only for another month.”

“Why didn’t you go for drinks with them?”

Savannah got up off the sofa and moved her laptop to the small wooden coffee table then walked into the kitchen, away from Jacob’s prying ears. “It’s not easy to go out, when I don’t have childcare,” she whispered. Rosalee would have offered to look after Jacob, but Savannah didn’t want to impose. Besides she hadn’t been so keen to go out with Matthias. This was nice, being at home, with just the two of them and no amount of drinking in a bar with people she barely knew would have made up for that.

“Oh!” Kay yelped, as if she’d been hit over the head. “Did you ever find out who your mysterious admirer was?”

“Huh?”

“The gift basket? Who sent it?”

“Work people.” Savannah lowered her voice and looked over her shoulder to check if Jacob was listening.

“Uh-huh.” Kay seemed to be giving her response careful consideration. “Your work people?” Kay questioned. “Is that a collective ‘people’ or someone in particular?”

Savannah didn’t want to elaborate because she knew how vivid Kay’s imagination could be. The less her cousin knew about Tobias Stone, the better.

“Oh, the department got together, you know,” replied Savannah breezily, curling a lock of hair around her finger. “They wanted to say ‘Thank you’ for my efforts.” Technically this wasn’t a total lie. Stone Enterprises was a collective.

Yet Tobias’ face flashed into her mind and along with it memories of how he had grabbed her hand. She couldn’t easily forget the tortured look on his face. She had thought about it for days afterwards—about the grief that had hardened him. She didn’t know what he had been like before but she had studied the photos of him with his wife and there was none of that hardness about him then. He must have loved her completely, to not ever have gotten over her death. “They’re a nice bunch,” she murmured.

“Hmmm.” Was Kay’s response. She doubted whether her cousin would have believed her even if it had been true. Kay often embellished stories by adding romantic overtones to them. “I’m there until the end of January,” she said, hoping to fill the gap and prevent Kay from asking more questions. “But I might have a chance to start another contract elsewhere.”

“That’s great news, Sav. Things are looking up for you and about time, too.”

“Thanks. How’s it working out for you over there?”

“Hong Kong is crazy. They work ridiculously long hours here. I thought New York was bad but it’s worse over here. To be honest with you, I can’t wait to get back.”

“Are you still coming back in the summer?”

“It’s looking that way. I wish it were sooner.”

Savannah wrapped her arm around her body, not so much because she was cold but because news of Kay’s return always made her anxious. She loved her cousin, but Kay’s return to New York meant that she and Jacob would have to leave and find a place of their own. If she couldn’t stay here, near the city, she would have to move out further to the suburbs or, if she didn’t get her finances in order by then, she’d have to return home to her parents. That would be the last resort and the worst case scenario because returning to her small home-town in North Carolina would mean she’d failed on an epic scale. Her ex-husband still lived there and she didn’t want to be within a ten-mile radius of that man ever again.

“It’ll be nice to see you,” murmured Savannah, hoping her life would be sorted by then. “Are you home alone tonight?” It sounded uncharacteristically quiet, for a change, at Kay’s end.

“I’m home alone,” she giggled. “I need a rest!” Savannah didn’t want to ask her what she needed a rest from, but she had a good enough idea. She turned around to see Jacob staring at her laptop screen.

“You get some of that much needed rest. Jacob and I are going to wait up for the New Year to roll in.”

“Have a good one and give Jacob a big kiss from me.”

Savannah hung up. “Aunty Kay says to give you a big kiss.”

“His wife died,” said Jacob, his voice flat. She walked over to the coffee table and took the laptop from him.

Damn it.
She’d left it on Tobias’ page.

“Is it true, Mommy?”

Savannah sat down on the couch and pulled Jacob onto her knees. “Yes, Honey. Mr. Stone’s wife died a few years ago.”

“How?”

“She…she died in a car accident.”

“Did he have any children?”

“No, Honey.”

“So he’s all alone?”

“Uh—no, he has friends, Jacob. And family, I imagine.”

“But he always looks so sad.”

“You think he looks sad?” Tobias Stone had a stern, unsmiling face most of the time, and she could imagine he was the same in his dealings with most people but her impression was that he’d shown nothing but kindness with Jacob.

Jacob nodded quietly. “He doesn’t smile much. When you smile, your eyes go all shiny and crinkly. When Mr. Stone smiles, his eyes stay the same.”

“I think he’s still sad, Honey.”

“I would be sad forever if that happened to you.” His eyes glistened and she hugged him close to her as she inhaled his sweet scent. “It’s not going to happen to me. I won’t ever leave you.”

“You promise?”

Her heart ached to see his lower lip tremble. “I promise.” It was an impossible promise to make because what had happened to Tobias’s wife had been out of her hands. But Savannah lived her life with the sole intention that nothing and nobody would ever separate her from her son.

“How about tomorrow we go ice-skating?” She suggested wanting to make him happy again. Tomorrow would be the perfect day for it. Sure enough, it had the effect she wanted and as quickly as that, Jacob had forgotten the thing that frightened him the most.

Chapter 3

‘Happy New Year’

It was a text from Naomi, thankfully that was all it said. No whiny, needy questions. Since their last interaction she hadn’t been in touch again until this morning.

It was about time she got the hint.

As desperate as he was for sexual release, Tobias no longer wanted her. He could have easily brought home any number of girls from the bar, except the one who continued to elude him. The one who most intrigued him, the one who seemed to have an intense dislike for him—she was the one he couldn’t stop thinking about.

He stared out of his window at the silver sky and the frost-lined hard surfaces outside. He’d felt the sharp fall in temperature and braced himself. New York winters could be brutal. Yet the sun was struggling to break from behind the hard cover of the sky, hopefully, it would and then it would be the perfect day to be outside, if he dressed warmly. For once, Tobias didn’t want to mope around the house by himself and he didn’t have anyone to visit, not family or friends…or anyone special.

Work was out of the question. He could go in, but where was the fun in that especially when Savannah Page wouldn’t be around?

What he needed to do was what all the well-meaning people in his life had been telling him for the longest time. He needed to get out into the world and mix with people. A walk along the Avenue of the Americas, maybe even a stroll along Madison Avenue where, hopefully, the crowds would be sparse.

It would do him good to get some fresh air. At the very least it might even help him to get a few things clear in his head.

~~

“I can do it, Mommy! Let go! Let go of me!”

She wasn’t sure how much he’d remember, though skating was like riding a bike, once mastered, it was hard to forget. Still, she seemed hesitant to let go. It had been a while since they had last been; years in fact. But he seemed so sure and so, pushing her fears to the side, she begrudgingly let go of Jacob’s hand. “Stay close to the edge!” She watched as he glided away from her in his military green new coat and red woolen scarf, hat and gloves. Lights glittered around the outdoor skating rink in the Winter Village. Bryant Park was a place that Rosalee had mentioned many times and walking around here today, she was thankful she had come.