The Billionaire's Secret Love Child(209)

Three days before the baby was due, he decided to come out, and Viola and her mother rushed to the hospital. It was a grueling ten-hour ordeal, but when it was done and Viola was holding her little baby boy, with skin the color of chocolate milk and a head of dark hair already, Viola felt nothing but happiness. All her worries seemed to go away. She thought it might have had something to do with the baby's nose. It was crooked, just like James’. There was no doubt in Viola’s mind that James was the father.

Viola named the baby Grady, after her grandfather, and she and her mother and the baby went home three days after he was born. The happiness of being a new mother couldn’t keep the crushing regret from coming back, though, and she found herself looking at the baby often and thinking of James. When it became too much, a month after Grady was born, she bundled him up and went to see James.

She got into his office building by having security call up to him, and she found him waiting for her as soon as the elevator opened. He arched a brow at the baby she held in her arms, but didn’t say anything until he led her past rows of cubicles and into his private office. The walls were glass, but he pressed a button on a small remote control he kept on his desk, and they darkened.

“Neat,” Viola said, smiling softly to James as she sat down across from him.

“You have a baby,” James said.

“I do.”

“Boy?”

“Yes,” Viola said.

“Is it mine?” James asked, not able to keep the question from springing forth from his lips.

“I think so,” Viola said, and she shifted the baby so James could see its face.

“He has my nose,” James said, and he smiled. “What’s his name?”

“Grady?” Viola said. “Like my-”

James cut her off. “Grandfather. I remember.”

Viola didn’t even remember telling James about her grandfather, but she must have, and he had listened, and remembered. It touched her, and with her hormones all out of sorts, it hit her hard, and she felt tears coming. She let them roll down her cheeks, but took a tissue when James slid the box across the desk towards her.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I really messed up.”

James sat silently for a moment. “If he’s mine, I want to help. He’s mine. I can tell.”

“The nose,” Viola said with a laugh, and James grinned and nodded. “My father has it, so does my brother.”

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Viola said. “It was you. Always you.”

“I said I want to help,” James said again.

“I didn’t come here for that,” Viola said. “I don’t want your money.”

James grinned and nodded. “I know,” he said, adding, “and that’s why I love you.”

Viola couldn’t speak for a moment. He had told her he loved her. He had never done that. Martin had, and then when she broke up with him, he had yelled and screamed. James liked rough sex, and he had never said it, but now, that he did, she knew he meant it.

“I love you too,” Viola said.

“I want to help, and I mean that I want to be with you. I want to raise our child together. No one could fill the spot in my heart that you left behind.”

Viola was crying more, the tears rushing down her face. She hadn’t known what to expect, but it wasn’t all of that. She had just wanted a man to know he was a father. They had talked about it once before, after sex one night in his apartment, wrapped up together in a bedsheet, naked bodies pressed together. He had told her he wanted kids, but he had never even been married, and he didn’t know if a woman would ever be alright with his lifestyle enough to settle down with him since he could never really settle down. There was always a meeting, always a dinner.

James stood, and he pulled something out of a drawer in his desk before he walked around and knelt down beside Viola’s chair. He held up a small box.

“I had bought this a month before you ended things with me,” he said as he opened the box to reveal the largest and most stunning engagement ring Viola had ever seen. “I think I should give it to you now. Will you marry me, Viola?”

Viola nodded and broke into wild laughter. “Yes,” she said. “Yes of course.”

James leaned forward and they were kissing. She had missed his lips, his taste, and she felt every old feeling come back to her. They broke the kiss, and James grinned at her.

“Can I hold my son?” he asked, and Viola laughed and handed him over. She sat there, watching the billionaire holding her son. His son. He looked like a natural, and he stared down at the baby with wonder in his eyes.

They were married less than a month later, and Viola and Grady moved into the massive apartment on the top floor of the sleek and shining skyscraper. She quit her job at the restaurant, and her days were filled with love. It was everything she had ever wanted, everything she was sure she would never get with Jerome. She thought back to him sometimes, and the gift he had given her. It had hurt that he was the one breaking up with her, but if he hadn’t, she would never have given herself over to her primal desires. She wouldn’t have gone to the club with James, she wouldn't have let him f*ck her that night. She wouldn’t have met the love of her life, even though she took a roundabout way of getting to him. In a strange way, she owed her happiness to the unemployed loser who broke her heart. She thanked him on the days she thought of him, but as time went on, those were few and far between.