Page 37 of Billionaire's Accidental Marriage
I wanted to make sure I remembered the last brilliant moment I spent with the last woman I knew I’d ever love. Because now that I’d had a taste of Maggie and what she had to offer, no woman would ever measure up. No woman could ever take her place. And no other woman, no matter what country I traveled to in order to find her, could make me love as deeply or as passionately as Maggie could.
So, while she watched television, I buried my face back against the crook of her neck. I curled my body up beside hers. I pulled her closer to me until I felt my heart beating in tandem with hers.
And for the life of me, I couldn’t help but relish in the comfort of our intertwined bodies because it felt like her body had literally been made for mine.
13
Maggie
“Ireally should’ve stayed in Vegas,” I murmured to myself.
JaQuan, one of my boutique managers, chuckled at me. “With a man as hot as the one you’ve married, I wouldn’t have come back.”
I swallowed hard, trying to ignore his words. “And how long has this water pipe been leaking?”
He sighed. “Uh, a year or so now?”
I slowly looked over at him. “And no one did anything about it?”
He shrugged. “Your father was of the mindset that if the damage was hidden from our customers, then the damage didn’t exist.”
I clenched my jaw in anger and repeated myself—again. “I really should’ve stayed in Vegas.”
JaQuan patted me on the back before he walked away, leaving me with a leaking water pipe and a rotted-out storage room ceiling that kept raining down little bits and pieces of popcorn ceiling. I drew in a deep breath to try to keep my anger from completely taking over, but what I really wanted to do was yell and scream and cry out of frustration. I wanted to throw my clipboard down, quit the job that had been passed down to me, and go back to my little Vegas bubble where all Mike and I had to do was turn off the television in order to get away from all of the bullshit.
“Why did you do this to me, Dad?” I murmured to myself.
Suddenly, I heard the snapping of a picture and whipped around. I found someone standing at the storage room door. Her camera phone slipped through the crack as she tried to capture pictures. I grimaced at the woman before I charged her, slamming the door open and readying myself to yell at her to leave. But, when the door flew open, a thunder of camera shutters went off.
“Miss Maggie!” JaQuan exclaimed.
I stood there like a deer in headlights as people pulled out their camera phones to take my picture. Paparazzi stood in front of the storefront windows, snapping pictures through them in an attempt to make more money with my damn face. Anger welled in my chest. Tears crested my eyes. And as JaQuan shoved me back into the storage room, he followed me and closed the door tightly behind him. Then, tears slid down my cheeks.
“Miss Maggie, are you all right?” he asked.
I felt his hands on my shoulders, but all I did was shrug off his touch. “I need to go.”
“You can take the back way out. Where’s your car? I can walk you to it.”
I shook my head softly. “I need Michael. I need to—call—Dad, I need—no, not Dad. I need—uh—”
I looked around the storage room, hoping and praying that the dark, dank walls would have the answer written on them. But, the only thing I could think to do was call Mike. I hated to disturb him, and it made me feel like some weak-willed little girl to call upon a man to come help me. But, I heard the crowd growing outside, which meant I’d need more help than some twenty-two-year-old store manager with a mohawk could offer me.
So, I dug out my cell phone from my purse and called him. “JaQuan, go out there and announce that this boutique doesn’t allow loitering. If people are in the store to do something other than purchase an item or window shop, they need to exit. Then, close the storefront blinds for now.”
He nodded. “Of course. Anything else?”
Then, Mike picked up the phone. “Some of the pictures are already online. Are you still at the boutique?”
I wiped at my tears. “Yeah. I’m in the back storage room.”
I heard a door slam on his side of the phone. “I’m coming now. You stay put. Don’t move until I get there.”
A water droplet fell to the top of my head, causing me to seethe with anger inside. “I won’t.”
If you ever want to be successful, you have to stand on your own two feet.The words my father had drilled into me as a very young girl echoed off the corners of my mind, and it stopped me in my tracks.
“Actually, Mike?”
