Alpha Billionaire Series

GRANT

Mandy was before me. She glowed with radiance and beauty. Maybe I was overreacting, maybe I needed my eyes checked. Even surrounded by an air of sadness, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. And she was full and round with pregnancy, with our child.

I didn't have the words I needed to tell her everything I felt, to beg her the way Mina had told me I needed to. I understood now. I saw the burden I had placed on her, a burden that she never needed to suffer under because I could have so easily carried it for her. I should have carried it for her, but she had endured and bore it with the strength of her pride.

“What are you doing here?" Her words cut me to the core. Her voice was full of accusation and venom.

I dared to look her in the face. Her anger and beauty stole my words.

“I've been expecting you, you know, to come and gloat. I would have figured you've heard by now that I no longer had the money. MiMa Play is yours. I'm done fighting for it. I'm done fighting you."

She hated me so much. She actually thought I would come to her in the hospital where her mother was undergoing treatments and dangle her failure over her head. I would never do anything like that, but she didn't know that. She only knew that I was demanding and relentless when it came to taking over her family’s business. I had been so wrong. I didn’t want her to see that part of me anymore.

I didn't have words. I sank to my knees before her. “I am so sorry Mandy. Can you ever forgive me?”

She didn't move, didn't say anything. She was quiet for so long, maybe I had been wrong, maybe she wasn't real but an hallucination of my desires. Maybe I was too late.

“I'm here to beg your forgiveness, to make amends. To fix all the wrongs I've done to you in the past months.’

She let out a bitter laugh. “Get up, Grant. I'm not talking to you while you're doing this."

I'surged to my feet and stepped toward her. I wanted to take her in my arms and have her tell me everything would work out Instead, she grabbed my arms and pulled me onto an empty room, shutting the door behind us.

“What are you doing here, Grant? You can take the business; I don't care anymore. I have other things to worry about” She rested her hand on her prominent pregnant belly.

My gaze followed her hand. “I didn't know,” the words came out in barely a whisper. I lifted my eyes to meet hers.

“I didn’t know anything, Mandy. I didn’t know who you were over the summer, I didn't know your mother was so sick, and I didn't know you were... you were pregnant”

“You certainly knew who I was a few months ago. Don't give me that"

“Yeah, well I didn’t know just how big of an asshole I could be at the time.”

I reached for her, but she spun away from me.

She scoffed, “All you had to do was ask”

Itook a deep breath. “Yeah, well I had to be told by several people before I started listening. You are the last person I ever wanted to hurt.”

“And yet you're putting me in the position of choosing between my company or my mother’s life. You're the one pushing me beyond the brink of bankruptcy. I have to choose between paying my light bill or paying the few employees I have left.” Each one of her tears was a dagger into my chest. I deserved her vitriol. I would take every tear if it only eased her burden. “I don’t want your money. I don’t want your company,” I said.

“What?” she spun to face me. “You've put me through so many days of wondering where I was going to find the funds, of selling off our lives in order to pay you back, and all of a sudden you don't want the company? What the f**k do you want, Grant?”

“I want you. I've always wanted you.”

“My Mother is down the hall. I don't know if she's going to die or recover, and you tell me you want me now? I can't deal with you right now. I have bigger problems.”

She tried to brush past me, but I caught her arm. She was trembling. I eased around her until I held her. Suddenly all of her reserves shattered, and she fell against my chest, sobbing.

Her tears soaked my shirt, and she fisted my jacket in her hands. I hadn't been there when she needed me. I had pushed he; to the edge. Now I was holding on for dear life, trying my feeble best to hold her together as everything shattered.

I stroked her hair. And murmured soothing words.

“I'm here for you now. I know I'm late. I need you to tell me I'm not too late. I'll do whatever you need, whatever it takes.” She held tight as she continued to cry. Her breaths were ragged, but she continued to hold tight. After long minutes of her ir my embrace, entirely too soon for my liking, she moved away from me. She still grasped my jacket. She rested her forehead against my chest, as if the physical requirements of standing upright were still too much.

“Where were you when I needed you months ago? Where have you been Grant? Where have you been?” She continued to cry, but she managed to lift her face to mine.

“ve been lost, Mandy. I don't know who I became.”

I swallowed around a hard ump in my throat. I brushed her tears with my thumbs. It hurt to see her like this. It hurt more knowing she had been hurting for so long.

I leaned in, I didn't know how to take away her pain any other way. Her lips were salty, and still the sweetest thing I had tasted in months and months. I had almost forgotten what kissing Mandy had been like. She stayed frozen in place for a lon: minute, and then she melted into me, her mouth pliant and giving.

I moaned as she ended the kiss, pulling away from me. I didn’t want the moment to end. I never wanted to stop kissing her. “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”

“Would that have made a difference?” I could still hear the bitterness in her voice.

“It does make a difference. I could have been with you through all of this. I could have helped.”

“No Grant, you chose not to be, remember? Why didn’t you offer to help when I was in love with you?”

“Was? You are what's important to me Mandy. I will do whatever it takes for you to love me again. I didn’t offer because you never asked for help, and I'm an idiot who should have known better. Over the summer, I thought you had everything managed. I didn't know the family business you were managing was struggling. You never said, you only ever acknowledged that it was a lot of work. You were so fiercely independent. I should have offered anyway. I didn't know you were Ralph Wilson's daughter at that point”

“Would that have changed anything?”

I'shook my head. “I don't know. But it can change now. Hell, it does change everything."

She took a shaky breath, her crying subsided, but the emotions were still on the surface. “I need help, Grant. I can't pay you back for the loan my father took. I need that money to pay what few employees I have left, to pay my rent, to cover my... Oh my God, was it you who paid my mother's hospital billz"

It was. That was only my first act of atonement. I had so much to make up for, the least I could do was not put Mandy in the position of feeling the need to be grateful for something I should have stepped up and taken care of a while ago.

I'shook my head. “No, not me.”

I promised myself that was the last lie I would ever tell her. “Keep your money, Mandy. Keep your company. Tell me how I cas help. I can cover the hospital bills; I can send someone over to help manage things while you take care of your mother”

She narrowed her eyes on me.

“Okay, that sounds like I'm trying to infiltrate, not my intention. Hiring someone is a lengthy drawn-out prospect. I will put everything in writing that it's an act of goodwill and faith, with zero expectations, and a full non-disclosure agreement. I want to make up for everything. I want to take the burden of responsibility away from you while you need to care for your mother. I love you, Mandy. I messed up and I don’t know where to start to show you how remorseful I am.”

I'scanned her face for any hint that she was receptive to my apology. Tears streaked down her cheeks. I couldn't wipe them away fast enough.

“I can't do this alone anymore. Please don’t make me."

“Ym here Mandy. I'm not going away; you couldn't make me leave you alone if you tried.”

“You really love me?” she sniffed.

I pulled her tight against me, wrapping my arms around her shoulders, and cradling her head. “I've been so in love with you from the very beginning that I've been nothing but an idiot”

She shook in my arms. Her pain was sharp in my chest.

She wiggled free, and I caught the edges of a smile on her face. She continued to shake. She was laughing.This is the property of Nô-velDrama.Org.

“Are you laughing at me?" I asked.

“At us, 'm laughing at us. We both have been idiots. I'm laughing because I am sick of crying. I want nothing more than to sa if you love me, show me, and yet, you don't know what to do any more than I do. Show me, pay off my hospital bill, but that’ been done. Show me, don't make me pay you back, and you're here to tell me you don’t want the business anymore. Show me, throw money at my problems. I bet you'd pay off my student loans if I asked you to. But money isn't love.”

“I will throw money at all of your problems that can be solved with money. I will fly in the world's leading medical experts fo your mother if that's what you need. I will be by your side when time and support are what you need. And I will do my best to take care of your needs before you even realize you have them. I failed at that once. I don't make the same mistakes twice.”

“And me?”

“I love you, that has never been a mistake. And I want you to never feel that having fallen in love with me once was an error to sweep under the rug of your past”

“I love you, Grant.”