Kitabı oku: «Tempting The Billionaire»

Chapter 1

September 2018 Cabrera, Dominican Republic

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud.

Chance Castillo heard the pounding of his sneakered feet beating against the packed dirt as he ran up the tree-lined path breaking through the dense trees and royal palms. He made his way up the mountains that appeared green and lush against the blue skies when viewed from a distance. He didn’t break his pace until he reached the top. His lean but strong muscular frame was drenched in sweat, and his heart pounded intensely in that way after great exertion—which for him was sex or running.

I’ve had way more of the latter lately.

He pulled his hand towel from the rim of his basketball shorts and wiped the sweat from his face and neck as he sat atop a large moss-covered rock, propping his elbows on his knees. As his pulse began to slowly decelerate, Chance looked around at his tranquil surroundings. He was surrounded by shades of green, from vibrant emerald to the muted tones of sage and olive. The smell of earth and nature was thick. He inhaled deeply, knowing he would miss his morning run from his secluded villa down along the white sand beach of the shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean to the surrounding mountains and cliff side.

His mother, Esmerelda Diaz, had transplanted her love of her beautiful hometown of Cabrera to him. As a kid, he had loved her stories of growing up on a small farm in the hills overlooking the coast in the northern region of the Dominican Republic. Her family members were hardworking farmers of fruits and vegetables whose livelihood depended on their crops. She spoke of days more bad than good. Plenty of struggle. Sometimes just a small meal away from hunger. Money spent on nothing more than bare necessities. Her life was filled with more coastal tranquility than wealth, but her memories were of a small family working hard in humble surroundings and enjoying the simple life they led.

Chance squinted his deep-set chestnut-brown eyes as he looked around at the higher elevation of the small town that was ripe with hills, oceanfront cliffs and mountains as green as emeralds. Fortunately, the town had not yet been overtaken by traffic and congestion like neighboring tourist traps. Still, there were a good number of people from other countries living in the town, experiencing the vivid Latino culture and enjoying the excellent exchange rate of American dollars while retaining their citizenship to their home country.

Chance chuckled. Technically, I am an expat.

He was a United States citizen, and although he had been living in Cabrera for the last eight months, he had every intention of returning to the States. Back to my life.

His brows deepened as he frowned a bit and turned his head to look off in the distance. The sun was setting, and he could just make out the outline of his sprawling two-story beachfront villa. It was the epitome of luxury living, with its private beach and sweeping views of the surrounding mountain ranges, tranquil waters, and azure skies.

It was the best his money could buy.

And seeing the smile on his mother’s face when he purchased it two years prior had been worth every cent. Never had he seen her so proud. It was everything she worked for as an Afro-Dominican single mother with a broken heart and a low-paying job as a nursing assistant who was determined her son not get lost in the shuffle of the tough streets of the Soundview section of the Bronx, New York.

He still shook his head in wonder at the sacrifices the petite beauty had made for him to have a better life. Chance was ten when Esmerelda began working double shifts as a certified nursing assistant to move them out of their apartment in the Soundview projects to a better neighborhood. It meant taking on higher rent and a longer commute to her job, but she felt it was worth the sacrifice to be closer to the fringes of the Upper East Side because she wanted him to attend the elite Manhattan private academy The Dalton School. Although she applied for scholarships, she fought hard to pay his annual tuition and fees while keeping them clothed, fed and with a roof over their heads.

Chance’s heart swelled with love for his mother. He’d never forgotten or taken her sacrifice for granted. It motivated him. Her happiness was his fuel through the tough days adjusting to being the poor kid who felt different from his classmates. He went on to finish at Dalton and graduated from Harvard with a degree in accounting and finance. While making a good living in finance, six years later he became a self-made wealthy man in his own right after selling a project management app for well over $600 million. That, plus the dividends from smart investing, was rocketing him toward billionaire status. He had purchased a home in Alpine, New Jersey, for his mother and ordered her retirement—she gladly agreed.

That was three years ago.

I’m not the poor kid from the Bronx with the two uniforms and the cheap shoes anymore.

In the distance, Chance heard the up-tempo beat of Ozuna and Cardi B’s “La Modelo.” He looked back over his shoulder, and at the top of the hill there was a crown of bright lights. He rose from the boulder and flexed his broad shoulders as he jumped, bringing his knees to his muscled chest with ease before racing up the dirt-packed path of the hill as the darkness claimed the skies.

At the top everything intensified. The music. The smell of richly seasoned foods being cooked in the outdoor kitchen. The bright lights adorning the wooden planks of the large pergola. And the laughter and voices of his extended family all settled around the carved wooden benches, or dancing in the center of the tiled patio. The scent of the fruit of the towering royal palm trees filled the air as the firm trunks seemed gathered around the small farming property to offer privacy.

The three-bedroom villa with its one lone bathroom and barely an acre of land was modest in comparison with his beachfront estate, but it was here among his cousins, with the night pulsing with the sounds of music and laughter, that he felt warmth and comfort.

Mi familia.

He came to a stop, just barely shaded by the darkness, and looked at his petite, dark-haired mother whose brown complexion hinted at the history of a large majority of Dominicans having African ancestry due to the slave trade of the early 1700s. She stood before a rustic wood-fired oven, stirring the ingredients in a cast-iron pot as she moved her hips and shoulders in sync to the music. He chuckled as she sang along with Cardi B’s part of the song and raised the large wooden spoon she held in the air.

Everyone cheered and clapped when she tackled the rap part, as well.

Esmerelda Diaz was his mother and everyone’s beloved. Although only forty-nine, she was the last of the Diaz elders. The baby girl who grew up to lead their descendants.

His mother turned and spotted him standing there. Her dark, doe-shaped eyes lit up as if she didn’t have her own suite on his estate and had not fixed him pescado con coco for lunch. His stomach grumbled at the thought of the snapper fish cooked in coconut sauce.

“Chance!” she exclaimed, waving him over. “Mira. Mira. Mira.”

The nine members of his extended family all looked over to him and waved as they greeted him. His cousin Carlos, a rotund, strong man in his late twenties, came over to press an ice-cold green bottle of Presidente beer in his hand as he slapped him soundly on the back in greeting.

This was the home of Carlos, his wife and four small children. He owned and operated farmlands of just three acres only a few hundred yards from the villa and was proud of his work, like many other Dominican farmers, providing locally grown fruits and vegetables and taking care of his family. Chance respected his cousin’s hard work ethic and enjoyed plenty of his harvest during his time in the country. In kind, he knew his family respected him for the success he had made of his life back in the Estados Unidos.

“Tough day?” Chance asked.

Carlos shrugged one shoulder. “Same as always. And you, primo?” he asked with a playful side-eye and a chuckle before he took a swig of his own beer.

Chance laughed. His days of finance work and the development of his app had never been physically hard, and now that he just served as a consultant to the firm that’d purchased his app, the majority of his time was spent maintaining his toned physique and enjoying the fruits of his labor. Life was good, with his private jet, his estate in Cabrera and his permanent one in Alpine, New Jersey, and the ability to do whatever he wanted, whenever he chose. And during this time of his life, he chose to travel, enjoy fine food and wine, and spare himself nothing.

His days of struggling were over. As were his days of feeling less than for having less than.

“Excuse me, I’m starving,” he said, moving past his younger cousin to reach his mother.

She smiled up at him before turning her attention back to stirring the pot.

“Sancocho de mariscos,” he said in pleasure at the sight of the shellfish stew rich with shrimp, lobster, scallops, garlic, plantains, pumpkin and potatoes.

“Sí,” Esmerelda said, tapping the spoon on the edge of the pot before setting it atop a folded towel on the wooden table next to the stove.

Living in a town directly off the Atlantic Ocean had its privileges. Although Chance was no stranger to traditional Dominican cooking. On her rare days off, his mother would go shopping and spend the day cooking and then freezing meals for him to enjoy while she was at work.

“Como estas?” she asked in rapid Spanish as she reached up to lightly tap the bottom of his chin with her fingertips.

“I’m fine,” he assured her.

She shrugged one shoulder and slightly turned her lips downward as she tilted her head to the side. Translation? She didn’t agree with him, but so be it.

The radio began to blare “Borracho de Amor” by Jose Manuel Calderon, and Chance was thankful. His mother gave a little yelp of pleasure and clapped rapidly at the sound of one of her favorite songs from the past before she grabbed the hand of her nephew Victor and began dancing the traditional bachata.

Chance took a seat at a wooden table and placed his beer on it as he watched his mother, alive and happy among her culture and her family. But as everyone focused on their dance, his attention was on the words of the song. As was common with traditional bachata music that was about heartache, pain and betrayal, it was a song of a man who turned to drinking after the heartache and pain caused by a woman’s scorn. It was said that the tortured emotions displayed in the song fueled bachata dancers to release those emotions through dance.

Chance knew about heartache all too well.

His gut tightened into a knot at the memory of his former fiancée, Helena Guzman, running off with her lover and leaving him at the altar. In the beautiful blond-haired Afro-Cuban attorney he’d thought he found the one woman to spend his life with. She’d even agreed to give up her career as a successful attorney to travel the world with him.

But he’d been wrong. And made a fool of.

His anger at her was just beginning to thaw. His mother referred to her only as “Ese Rubio Diablo.” The blond devil.

Cabrera had helped him to heal.

But now I’m headed home.

This celebration was his family’s farewell to both him and his mother.

The daughter of his best friend since their days at Dalton, Alek Ansah, and his wife, Alessandra, had been born and he’d been appointed her godfather. He’d yet to see her in person; photos and FaceTime had sufficed, but now it was time to press kisses to the cheek of his godchild and do his duty at her upcoming baptism.

In the morning they would board his private plane and fly back to the States. She would return to the house he purchased for her in New Jersey, and he would be back at his estate in a house he’d foolishly thought he would share with his wife and their family one day.

Chance looked over into the shadowed trunks of the trees that surrounded the property as his thoughts went back to the day he was supposed to wed the woman he loved...

“I’m sorry, Chance, but I can’t marry you,” Helena said, standing before him in her custom wedding dress and veil as they stood in the vestibule of the church.

For a moment, Chance just eyed her. His emotions raced one behind the other quickly, almost colliding, like dominoes set up to fall. Confusion. Fear. Pain.

“I am in love with someone else,” she said, her eyes filled with her regret.

Anger.

Visions of her loving and being loved by another man burned him to his core like a branding. The anger spread across his body slowly, seeming to infuse every bit of him as the truth of her betrayal set in.

“How could you do this, Helena?” he asked, turning from her with a slash of his hand through the air, before immediately turning back with his blazing fury.

And his hurt.

That infuriated him further.

“How long?” he asked, his voice stiff.

“Chance,” Helena said.

“Who is he?”

She held up her hands. “That is irrelevant,” she said. “It is over. It is what it is, Chance.”

“Who?” he asked again, unable to look at her.

“My ex, Jason.”

The heat of his anger was soon replaced with the chill of his heart symbolically turning to stone. He stepped back from her, his jaw tightly clenched. “To hell with you,” he said in a low and harsh whisper.

Long after she had gathered her voluminous skirt in her hands and rushed from the church to run down the stairs, straight into the waiting car of her lover, Chance had stood there in the open doorway of the church and fought to come to grips with the explosive end of their whirlwind courtship.

Chance shook his head a bit to clear it of the memory, hating that nearly eight months later it still stung. The betrayal. The hurt. The dishonor.

Damn.

“Baila conmigo, Chance.”

He turned his head to find Sofía, the best friend of Carlos’s wife, extending her hand to him as she danced in place. She was a brown-skinned beauty with bright eyes, a warm smile and a shapely frame that drew the eye of men with ease. They had enjoyed one passionate night together a few months ago after a night of dancing, but both agreed it could be no more than that, with his plans to return to the States. And his desire to not be in another relationship.

Accepting her offer, he rose to his feet and took her hand, pulling her body closer to his as they danced the bachata. “You remember what happened the last time we danced?” he teased her, looking down into her lively eyes.

Sofía gave him a sultry smile before spinning away and then back to him. “I can’t think of a better way to say goodbye,” she said.

Chance couldn’t agree more.

* * *

“Lord, help me get through this day.”

Ngozi Johns cast a quick pleading look up to the fall skies as she zipped up the lightly quilted crimson running jacket she wore with a black long-sleeved T-shirt, leggings and sneakers. The sun was just beginning to rise, and the early morning air was crisp. She inhaled it deeply as she stretched her limbs and bent her frame into a few squats before jogging down the double level of stairs of her parents’ five-bedroom, six-bathroom brick Colonial.

Her sneakered feet easily ate up the distance around the circular drive and down the long paved driveway to reach Azalea Street—like every street in the small but affluent town of Passion Grove, New Jersey, it was named after flowers.

Ngozi picked up the pace, barely noticing the estates she passed with the homes all set back from the street. Or the wrought iron lamppost on each corner breaking up the remaining darkness. Or the lone school in town, Passion Grove Middle School, on Rose Lane. Or the entire heart-shaped lake in the center of the town that residents lounged around in the summer and skated on in the winter.

She waved to local author Lance Millner, who was in the center of the body of water in his fishing boat, as he was every morning. The only time he was to be seen by his Passion Grove neighbors was during his time in the water, tossing his reel into the lake, or the rare occasions he visited the upscale grocery store on Main Street. In the distance, on the other side of the lake, was his large brick eight-bedroom home with curtains shielding the light from entering through any of the numerous windows. He lived alone and rarely had any guests. The man was as successful at being a recluse as he was at being a New York Times bestselling author.

He waved back.

It was a rushed move, hard and jerking, and looked more like he was swatting away a nagging fly than giving a greeting.

Ngozi smiled as she continued her run. With one movement that was as striking as flipping the middle finger, he confirmed his reputation as a lone wolf with no time to waste for anyone. When he did venture from his lakeside estate, his tall figure was always garbed in a field jacket and a boonie hat that shaded his face.

Passion Grove was the perfect place to come to enjoy high-scale living but avoid the bustle, noise and congestion of larger cities. Home to many wealthy young millennials, the town’s population was under two thousand, with fewer than three hundred homes, each on an average of five or more acres. Very unlike Harlem, New York. She had enjoyed living in the city, soaking in the vibrancy of its atmosphere and culture and the beauty of its brownstones and its brown-skinned people—until a year ago. A year to the date, in fact.

When everything changed.

“Damn,” she swore in a soft whisper as she shook her head, hoping to clear it.

Of her sadness. Her guilt.

Ngozi ran harder, wishing it were as easy to outrace her feelings.

It wasn’t.

She came to a stop on the corner of Marigold and Larkspur, pressing her hand to her heaving chest as her heart continued to race, even though she did not. She grimaced as she released a shaky breath. She knew the day would be hard.

It had been only a year.

Ngozi bit her bottom lip and began jogging in place to maintain the speed of her heartbeat before she finally gathered enough strength to push aside her worries and continue her morning run. She needed to finish. She needed to know there was true hope that one day her guilt and remorse would no longer hinder her.

She continued her run, noticing that outside of the echo of her colorful sneakers pounding on the pavement, the chirp of birds and errant barks of dogs occasionally broke the silence. With the town comprising sizable estates that were all set back three hundred or more feet from the streets—per a local ordinance—the noise was at a minimum.

“Good morning, Counselor.”

Ngozi looked over her shoulder to find the town’s police chief standing on the porch of the Victorian home that had once served as the town’s mercantile during the early days of its creation in the 1900s. For the last fifty years, it had served as the police station and was more than sufficient for the small town. She turned, jogging in place as she looked up at the tall and sturdy blond man who looked as if his uniform was a size—maybe two—too small. “Morning, Chief Ransom,” she greeted him as she checked her pulse against the Fitbit. “Care to join me?”

He threw his head back and laughed, almost causing his brown Stetson hat to fall from his head. “No, no, no,” he said, looking at her with a broad smile that caused the slight crinkles at the corners of his brown eyes to deepen. He patted his slightly rounded belly. “My better half loves everything just as it is.”

Eloise, his wife, was as thin as a broomstick. Opposites clearly attracted because it was clear to all that they were deeply in love. The couple resided in the lone apartment in the entire town—the one directly above the police station. It was a perk of accepting the position as chief. It would be absurd to expect a public servant to afford one of the costly estates of Passion Grove—all valued at seven figures or more.

“You have any future clients for me?” Ngozi asked, biting her inner cheek to keep from smiling.

“In Passion Grove?” the chief balked. “No way.”

She shrugged both her shoulders. “Just thought I’d ask,” she said, running backward before she waved and turned to race forward down the street.

As a successful New York criminal defense attorney, Ngozi Johns was familiar with the tristate area’s high-crime places. Passion Grove definitely was not counted among them. The chief had only two part-time deputies to assist him when there was a rare criminal act in the town, and so far that was limited to driving violations, not curbing a dog, jaywalking or the occasional shoplifting from the grocery store or lone upscale boutique by a thrill-seeking, bored housewife.

There were no apartment buildings or office buildings. No public transportation. Only stop signs, no traffic lights. There were strict limitations on commercial activity to maintain the small-town feel. Keeping up its beautiful aesthetic was a priority, with large pots on each street corner filled with plants or colorful perennial floras.

Like the police station, the less than dozen stores lining one side of Main Street were small converted homes that were relics from the town’s incorporation in the early 1900s. She jogged past the gourmet grocery store that delivered, a few high-end boutiques, a dog groomer and the concierge service that supplied luxuries not available in town. Each business was adorned with crisp black awnings. She crossed the street to ignore the temptation of fresh-brewed coffee and fresh-baked goods wafting from La Boulangerie, the bakery whose delicacies were as sinfully delicious as the store was elegantly decorated like a French bistro.

She appreciated the serenity and beauty as she reached the garden that bloomed with colorful fall flowers, and soon was at the elaborate bronze sign welcoming everyone to Passion Grove. She tapped the back of it with gusto before taking a deep breath and starting the run back home.

Ngozi successfully kept her thoughts filled with upcoming depositions or cases. By the time she turned up the drive and spotted her parents’ sprawling home, the sun was blazing in the sky and some of the chill had left the morning air. She felt less gloomy.

Thank you, God.

“Good morning, Ngozi.”

Her heart pounded more from surprise at the sound of her father’s deep voice than the run. She forced a pleasant smile and turned in the foyer to find her tall father, Horace Vincent, with deep brown skin that she’d inherited and low-cut silver hair, standing in the open door to his office. He was still in his silk pajamas, but files were in hand and he eyed her over the rim of his spectacles.