The Billionaire's Mistress Complete Series: Alpha Billionaire Romance (38 page)

“
T
oo
many people
,” I muttered under my breath as I carried my champagne up to where Jal was waiting on the dais.

My family – including Tao and his date – were at a special place up front. Well, technically, dates. Plural. Tony was the guy I'd seen with Tao back in March, and things had gotten serious earlier this summer after Tao explained his polyamorous nature to Tony. To my surprise, Tony hadn't only taken it well, he said he'd been trying to figure out a way to tell Tao the same thing.

Two months ago, they'd added Lyrrie to their relationship.

While Tony's complexion was similar to mine – his father was black and his mother white – Lyrrie was as different as could be. Short and curvy, she had that pale, freckled skin that most red-heads possessed. She was sweet and open, the perfect complement to the guys. And she was hard of hearing. Mom had been a bit thrown by the unconventional relationship, but Lyrrie had quickly won her over.

I still didn't know how their relationship worked, but it was their bed to lie in, not mine.

I had a bed I was perfectly happy with, and the man I shared it with was smiling at me from the podium.

All around us, people were talking, a patois of sign and speaking where the hearing sometimes stumbled over their signs, and the deaf and hard of hearing spoke just a little louder than necessary. It could've been chaotic and awkward, but the purpose that had brought us all together made it work.

The kids were up in the atrium, the part of the Philadelphia Family & Community Center for the Deaf that had been solely designed for younger adults and youth. TJ’s hands had been all over it, a fact that he had been more than happy to share with anybody and everybody who would listen. He’d been interviewed by the press for it several times over, and the attention had brought him positive attention at school, enough that the bullies he'd been dealing with had backed off. He had a girlfriend now too. She was hearing, but they'd bonded when she found out that he was ahead of her on the waiting list for a book they both wanted.

She ended up buying him the book – and he’d done the same for her – after they’d had an argument over it.

He’d written his argument down since, even though he could speak, he was self-conscious about it. She'd told him she didn't care if he spoke, as long as the two of them could communicate, and that had been that. Since then, she'd been taking sign language classes, and he'd been working on improving his speech.

They were adorable together, and even though Tyson had been wary at first, he'd been unable to deny how good she was for TJ. Carrie was cute, a head taller than TJ. A blonde-haired, blue-eyed princess. Not what either of my parents had expected, but Mom had already told Tyson that most of the time, the best things in life were unexpected.

I thought she was right. After all, the big blue-eyed prince waiting for me was the very
last
thing I’d expected.

He held out a hand, and I accepted, turning my cheek for him to kiss me. He had something else in mind, however. He caught my chin and turned my face back to him, holding me there for a hard, fast kiss that left me breathless.

The crowd went nuts. Some clapped and whistled while the majority had their hands in the air, twisting them back and forth – the sign for applause.

My face was flushed, blood rushing in my ears as he finally broke the kiss. I wasn't exactly opposed to public displays of affection, but that had been a bit much for me. My head was still spinning as Jal began to speak.

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Allie Dodds…one of my advisors for the facility. I couldn’t have done it without the help of her and her family.” Jal nodded to my mom, Tyson, and TJ.

TJ, the little social monster, threw up his hands as he stood, lapping up the attention. Carrie poked at him and signed that he was being a show-off. He bowed to her before Mom managed to get him in his seat, and the crowd roared again. He was a hit.

Then Mom looked at me, a strange, weepy sort of expression on her face. She held up her hand in the widely known shorthand for
I love you
. I returned it, my own eyes burning. We'd always been close, but the events of the past few months had bound us together even more tightly.

The little exchange only took a few seconds, but it distracted me enough that I didn’t realize Jal had asked me a question. He touched my shoulder and repeated himself.

“Oh…” Smiling at him, I nodded. I didn’t need anyone signing for me, so I moved in front of the podium and began to speak, explaining how the idea for the center had come to be, and applauded the hard work both the hearing and deaf communities had achieved by working together. When I gestured to my family, TJ restrained himself to a single fist pump, and my mom dabbed her eyes with Jal's handkerchief.

I'd been nervous when Jal told me that he wanted me to speak, but I didn't feel any of that now. It had all gone so smoothly that I should've known something was going to happen to catch me completely off guard.

As I finished, I turned to pass the reins back over to Jal.

And froze.

He was down on one knee.

My heart thudded once, hard and fast, then began to race.

Everybody could see him.

I reached out a hand, bracing myself on the podium because the world suddenly went wobbly.

Then he raised his hands and began to sign.

I blinked and everything got all blurry. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I missed that.”

Everyone laughed, but it was a soft, sweet kind of laughter, the kind that enveloped me, making this moment even more perfect than it already was.

Jal stood and started again.

“Allie, I love you. Will you marry...”

I flung myself at him before he finished and whispered my answer in his ear.

“
M
y father’s out there
.”

I looked up and met Mallory's eyes.

Mallory was the younger of my half-sisters, still almost four years older than me, and we'd met as sisters for the first time in November. She said she'd always suspected who I was. Considering we had eyes of the same shape and color, that wasn't surprising. She'd never said anything, however, because she'd been dealing with her own family issues and had known asking about me would've only made things worse.

A few months ago, however, she and her girlfriend, Dayna, had come back to Philadelphia for Thanksgiving, and everything had hit the fan. I hadn't been there, but Mallory gave me a play-by-play of what happened when Diamond and Jal's mom, Ginnifer, had gotten into a heated argument.

I have no idea what Mom said to set Ginnifer off, but when I came in, Mom was raging like she’d never done in her
life,
and Ginnifer just laughed at her. Then she said it was clear your decent genes must have come from Kendrick, which was bizarre since he clearly had a strange grasp of what decent even
meant
. Then, she saw me and told me that you'd mentioned me once or twice and that if I wanted to see you, just call her. She’d arrange it.

We'd met two days later. Now, it was May and Mallory was one of my bridesmaids. Tao, of course, was my maid of honor. Jal's parents had been polite about my choice, though it was clear they didn't completely agree. They hadn't argued about it, so I'd given in to some of the more elaborate things Ginnifer had wanted. We seemed to be doing well compromising, even if things between us were still a little stiff.

I was still trying to process what Mallory had said about Kendrick when I heard my name. I jerked my head up and met Ginnifer’s cool gaze. She gave me a tentative smile as she reached out to brush a stray tendril of hair back from my face.

“Would you like me to deal with Kendrick? I can get him to leave. Quietly, of course.”

“No.” I looked over at Mom.

“Kendrick's here?”

I nodded. “
What do you want to do?”

“This is your wedding. It's your call.”
She smiled at me and went back to adjusting the train on my wedding dress. Tao's designer friend, Tarja, had been thrilled when I asked her to design my dress. We'd gone through a couple different possibilities before deciding on this one, and I knew it was perfect. She'd also done the dresses and tuxedos for the entire bridal party, and the dresses for both my mom and Ginnifer.

I took a deep breath, smoothed down the front of my dress, then looked up at Ginnifer.

“Why don’t you bring him back here? I want to see what he wants.”

She nodded and turned to go. Then she paused, looking at Mallory. “It was just Kendrick, right?”

She nodded. “Yes. Mom and Paisley aren’t even in town. They left for Italy a couple of days ago. I drove them to the airport.” The smile on her face was decidedly strained.

The room had been bright and laughing a few minutes ago, but now it was quiet, too quiet. I had the sudden urge to ask someone to turn on a radio.

Mallory came up behind me. I was standing on a stool while Mom and Tarja were making last minute tweaks, so I towered over my sister. She was already two inches shorter than me, but now I looked like a giant next to her. I grinned at her. “You look like one of those characters from that book you used to sneak to me –
Gulliver’s Travels
. The Lilliputians?”

She laughed. “Sometimes I
feel
like a Lilliputian. You’re a beautiful bride.”

“Yes, you are.”

Mom put a steadying hand on my back, but I wasn't sure who was supporting who. Slowly, I shifted my gaze in the mirror to see Kendrick standing in the doorway, Ginnifer at his side, looking like she was standing guard. I felt a rush of affection for her. She was trying so hard to make up for everything she'd put Jal through.

Kendrick looked around the room, his face flushing at the sight of a bunch of women, decked out in their best, surrounding me. Mom had a pin in her hand, and I wondered if she was seriously considering stabbing him with it. I wouldn't stop her.

He nodded at everybody, and when he saw my mom, something softened on his face. “Malla.”

She inclined her head. “Hello, Kendrick.” Then she looked at me. “
I expect you’d like a moment alone?”

Panic flooded me. I didn't want to do this alone, but she was already ushering everybody in the sitting room off to the side.

In seconds, everyone else was gone, and it was just us.

“I’ve already made my apologies to Jal.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, ruining the lines of one very expensive suit. If Diamond were here, she’d have scolded him.

I considered stepping off of the stool, but it put me closer to his height and, at the moment, I liked that. “I know. He told me that you’d written to him.”

“No.” He looked away, then forced his gaze back. “That's not what I meant. I went to see him before I came in here. Considering what I'd done, I figured I should man up and actually apologize, not have my assistant send him some bullshit half-ass apology.”

“Wow.” I blinked at him. He actually sounded like something of the man I'd known as a child, the man my mother had fallen in love with. I managed a wobbly smile. “You look like Kendrick Hedges, and you sound like him, but that doesn’t sound like something he would say.”

“Yeah, well. It’s occurred to me that Kendrick Hedges is an asshole.” His lips curved up in a partial smile. “And I’m sorry for it.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” He looked surprised.

“Yeah. Okay. I can’t say I’ll forget what you did, but…well, you apologized to Jal. If he can let it go…”

“He said he can.” His voice went low and husky. He started to turn to go but then paused. “Allie, you look beautiful.”

“Thanks.” I didn’t want to think about how close I was to crying.

* * *

W
hile we had
an interpreter for the majority of the ceremony, TJ’s girlfriend, Carrie, would be doing the interpreting for the wedding vows. She was a natural, having picked it up quicker than most hearing people did. She'd told us a couple days ago that she was considering going into either education with a focus on those with hearing disabilities, or becoming an interpreter herself.

Her parents sat up front, looking proud enough to burst. They were amazing. They'd liked TJ from moment one and hadn't even blinked over the differences between the two. Now, watching TJ standing at Jal's side, his face glowing as he stared at Carrie, I had a suspicion that these two would be one of the few high school sweethearts who actually made it.

He'd hit a growth spurt over the last few months and was now pushing five-nine. He’d gotten into playing basketball lately. Jal played with him quite a bit at the community center, and TJ had decided to try out for the school team in the fall. When I'd asked him about it, he'd said, “
I can’t hear, but my legs and arms and everything works fine. Other deaf people do it. Why can’t I?”

I was so proud of him, I hurt sometimes.

He smiled at me as I walked up the aisle, between both of my fathers.

Mom had come into the room shortly after Kendrick had left and had said that she and Tyson had talked and that if I wanted my biological father to walk me down the aisle, Tyson wouldn't be hurt by it. I'd only thought about it for a few seconds before I said yes, I wanted them both to do it.

Weddings were a symbol of new beginnings. Maybe something good would grow from having us all together. Kendrick had never been a perfect father, but he'd never completely abandoned me as many men in his position would have. Tyson had given me the stable father figure at home. It only seemed right that they both give me away.

Then I saw Jal.

His eyes were locked on me like nothing else existed, and my heart skipped a beat. The rest of the world faded away. The vows, the rings, all of it passed by in a blur. It was all formality – a wanted formality of course – but we belonged to each from the moment we first met. We were just making it official.

When he kissed me, the earth finally seemed to stop spinning and everything re-aligned. This was real. It was all real. He was mine, and I was his and we were married.

* * *

M
y head was spinning again
when I finally sat down. It could have been from the champagne or the lack of food, but I suspected it was a combination of everything that was making me light-headed.

Somebody pushed a plate into my hands, and I looked up, met Ginnifer’s eyes. She gave me another one of her cool smiles. “If you pass out on your wedding day, you’ll be sorry. Trust me, I know.”

I frowned, wondering if there was a story behind those words, but instead of asking, I popped a bit of toast with brie into my mouth.

“I fainted at my wedding. I hadn’t eaten, didn’t want to risk having anybody
see
me eat.” She glanced around. “It’s such a passé thing to do – eat in public. But then again, so is passing out.”

She sat in the seat next to me, holding a plate of her own. After I’d eaten a couple of bites, she sampled a crudité.

“You made an excellent choice with the caterer, Allie.”

“You recommended him.”

“But you chose him.” She studied Jal, dancing with my mother. “Just as you chose my son. You have excellent taste.”

“I like to think so.”

She nodded and rose. “Remember, the car will be here in a half hour. Enjoy the honeymoon. I’m going to find my husband for a dance.”

Husband. I had one of those now. I decided to follow my mother-in-law's example.

I spent the rest of my reception in my husband’s arms, my head on his chest. It didn’t matter if it was a fast song or a slow one, that was where I stayed. I never wanted to leave.

“Are you excited?” he asked, his lips next to my ear.

I looked up at him. “For the trip? Damn straight. I've always wanted to see New Zealand.”

His bare fingers tripped across the bare skin of my back. “No, wife. By what I’m going to do to you tonight…”