My Billionaire Secret Santa: Clean Billionaire Romance Page 4

  He blinked. “That’s unique. What contest was it?”

  “Do you remember the reality show Singout or Sellout?”

  “My wife used to watch it.”

  Wife? Brie dropped paper from the straw into her drink. “I didn’t know you were married.”

  “She passed away seven years ago. Ovarian cancer.”

  “I’m sorry.” She felt awkward, then, for misunderstanding him. She continued wrestling with feeling silly as she tried to think of a classy way to use the straw to get the paper out of her glass.

  “You were saying about the show?”

  “I never made it on. They were looking for pop singers, and I came from a gospel choir background.”

  “That’s too bad they didn’t want you. Atlanta has other places to sing and record gospel music.”

  “It got to be too much after I got divorced from my ex-husband.” Brie hoped not to get into talking about her failed singing career or the ex who ensured it wouldn’t get off the ground. Somehow she wound up doing it anyway. What a way to handle a casual first date. Dinner. It’s just dinner.

  “The music industry can be tough on a marriage,” Jackson remarked.

  “I chose to give up singing after I had Kianna. My ex chose his career over family. He was uncomfortable with Kianna’s muscular dystrophy.”

  “That’s a shame. She’s a sweet little girl.”

  “She’s my heart.” Brie braced herself for Jackson’s next set of questions to be about the other half of Kianna’s parentage. Instead, he made room for the server to set the food on the table. While the server did his job, Brie managed to fish the paper out of her glass with the straw.

  “This looks really good.” Jackson stared at his plate of pulled pork and ribs.

  “It is. Dig in.”

  “What about your family back home? Do they come to visit?”

  Brie munched a little too hard on a fry and bit her tongue. She thought about her strict family and former friends in Delaware who begged her not to run off to be in a singing contest. Her divorce from Romero only made it worse. They wouldn’t speak to her. “I grew up in a small town. Atlanta’s not really the place for them. Too crowded.” She wanted to take the spotlight off herself and shine it on her handsome-enough-to-be-in-a-Darcy’s-commercial dinner companion. “I don’t know much about you, except you like coffee and hate Cosmos. What’s your story?”

  Jackson froze with a rib halfway between his lips and the plate. He didn’t think about what he’d say if Brie asked him about his life. Exactly how long had it been since he went out on a date?

  “I’ve lived here all my life. My family’s from Atlanta.” He put the rib down and wiped his hands. “My father used to have a practice.”

  “Did he practice law, too?”

  “No, he was a doctor.”

  “Tell me about your practice.”

  Jackson hoped Brie wouldn’t ask. He still wasn’t ready to make it public that he was the new Georgie Peach record exec until he cleaned up the mess of backlog and disorganization his uncle left behind. Right now, only the employees at the recording company and several industry insiders knew, and they were legally bound to keep quiet until he was ready. “It’s nothing exciting. The people I work with are in the public eye, but I handle their contracts and paperwork.”

  “You can’t talk about it. Attorney-client privilege. I got you.”

  “Something like that.” He took a drink of his Coke. It was starting to go flat like his conversation. He had to find a better topic. “Any new RPGs you played recently?”

  Brie’s eyes lit up. That did the trick. He listened to her talk about an epic dragon quest game while they finished dinner.

  After he paid the check, he noticed Brie looking at the time on her phone. “Did you need to leave?”

  “In about ten minutes. My daughter’s at a Christmas party that’s going to wrap up soon.”

  “I’ll walk you back to your car.”

  He stood and helped her into her coat. The fitted green sweater she wore skimmed over her curves. She belted the coat around her slim waist and walked out of the restaurant with him. The wind blew a few snowflakes their way.

  She held out her hand to catch a few snowflakes on the tips of her tapered fingers. “Now it feels like Christmas. Do you mind if we walk by the shop windows for a couple minutes? It’s a weird little tradition I used to do back home when it snowed.”

  Would he mind spending a little more time with her? What kind of silly question was that? “I don’t think it’s weird. No one else here does, either.” Jackson looked around at the crowd of people on the boulevard, bundled up and going in and out of stores open late for holiday shoppers.

  He walked with Brie past the store windows and their decorations. There was something nostalgic about the gold lighting and the wrapped boxes designed to look like presents. Of course, that was the point, to make people think about happy times in the past and spend money to recreate it.

  Humbug much? He chided himself for being a temporary Scrooge and returned to being present with his engaging date and fellow epic dragon quest gamer.

  The street was getting pretty crowded. Several people bumped into him. Jackson saw a man carrying one of those life-size stuffed bears up the street. The bear’s ears were as big as saucers, blocking part of the man’s vision. He beelined a couple times. He didn’t see he was about to walk into Brie.

  Jackson put his arm around her waist and pulled her towards him, out of the other guy’s path. She gave him a surprised, confused look.

  “That guy was about to walk right into you with a giant teddy bear.”

  “Ah.”

  Jackson wasn’t sure if that was acknowledgment or her thanks for helping her avoid collision. Brie looked down at his arm still around her waist. He quickly released her.

  They crossed the street and walked up to get to her van. She got to it and did a face palm. “Oh, no. I forgot your pocket square again.”

  “You can return it to me next time.” Next time? That sounded too much like an expectation. “I mean, when I see you again.” He wanted to do a double face palm. Each sentence that came out of his mouth sounded more awkward and sillier than the previous.

  Brie opened the van door. “Dinner was nice. Have a good night, Jackson.” She closed the door, backed out, and drove down the boulevard.

  I blew it. Jackson walked around the shops of Peachtree Boulevard alone after Brie drove away to pick up her daughter. The date went bust, and it was all his fault.

  He shouldn’t have done that thing with his arm. Obviously, she got weirded out by him pulling her close. But he couldn’t let her just get hit with a giant teddy bear, no matter how soft the saucer-sized ears looked.

  Stop worrying over it. He looked in a store window and shook his head at himself. He was too mature to be acting like a fifteen year-old on his first date.

  A couple saw what he did and gave him a wide berth, stepping out into the street. Time to go home before he made everyone think he was a lunatic.

  He headed for the rail station to ride the train back to his house. So much for trying to take Cooper’s advice to get out during the holidays and spend time with people.

  He didn’t want to spend time with people. He wanted to spend time with Brie. Now it looked like he wasn’t going to be doing much of that.

  Monday morning, Jackson entered the doors of Georgie Peach Records to find phones ringing and people running around like proverbial headless chickens. He also saw a line of men and women in various forms of flashy dress. Some were in suits while others looked like they were trendy enough to take a picture right that second and post it on Instagram. He looked again and noticed many, if not most of them, were musical performers. Why were they all congregating in the building lobby? He took the elevator to his office suite and went straight to Lamar’s desk.

  “I just saw half of next year’s Grammy winners downstairs. Is there a meeting I don’t know about?”

 
“The artists and their attorneys are here to speak to the legal team about a class action lawsuit.”

  “Why do they want to sue us?”

  “Remember those data entries and artist catalog you went through?”

  “They’re almost finished. What about them?”

  Lamar took his time answering. “Before the previous CEO passed, he signed off on the company’s annual report to the employees. It was released last night by accident when the new data was put into the system.”

  “It’s just a mistake, then. We’ll get the correct report out.”

  “There’s one thing, though.”

  “I get nervous when you say things like that.”

  Lamar handed him a print report of a complicated spreadsheet. “Mr. Pierson didn’t exactly pay out all of this year’s royalties. The artists are here to collect.”

  Jackson tucked the spreadsheet under his arm. More mess of his uncle’s to clean. “Clear my morning schedule. I need to help the legal team track down the artists’ money. Get PR to help avoid this leaking onto social media.”

  He took the box and headed to the legal department to do more damage control.

  Three Days Later

  Brie finished stocking the fridge and set the ingredients for sugar cookies on the kitchen counter. “Kianna, I’m getting started on the cookies,” she called into the other room.

  “Okay, Mommy.” Kianna’s reply was laced with the soft ting of jingle bells.

  “We’ll decorate after we bake. Come help me.”

  “Coming.”

  Brie and her daughter just got back from running errands after she picked her up from school. On the way home, they stopped at the discount store to get Christmas decorations and the grocery store for food. She was glad she didn’t have to work this evening so she could spend the time with her daughter. The past week at Darcy’s was rough.

  She didn’t see Jackson all week at Jumpy Java. Maybe he had a tough court case or took an early holiday vacation. Or was he going out of his way to avoid her because she was so bad of a dinner date?

  This shouldn’t worry me. She kept telling herself to let it go. First dates tanked sometimes. Why was she calling it a date now?

  “Here I am.” Kianna announced herself upon entering the kitchen. “I want the mixing spoon when we’re done.”

  Brie refocused by putting on some holiday music on shuffle from her phone’s playlist. “Let’s get started on those cookies.”

  For the next couple hours, she and her daughter made cookies, got them in the oven, and taste-tested half the batch before going to decorate the Christmas tree in the living room. Brie still couldn’t believe she was able to pull it out of the storage shed outside by herself while Kianna was at school.

  The ring of the doorbell chimed over Bing Crosby’s smooth croon. Brie wasn’t expecting company. Who could it be?

  Chapter 6

  Brie turned the music down. “Keep separating those gold and red ornaments, sweetie, while I answer the door.”

  She left the living room and stepped over tangled strings of lights and elf figurines on her way to the door. The Christmas wreath blocked her view of the peephole. She pushed one of its red ribbons aside to see who was outside. Her shoulders sank when she saw her ex’s face. Romero didn’t say he was in town.

  She pulled the door open slowly. “Romero.”

  “Hey.” He had his head down, staring at the phone in his hand. He was either scrolling through texts or one of his twenty social media pages. “Just a second. I’m checking my followers.”

  The bling from his gold necklaces and diamond earrings caught the sunlight and flashed in her eyes. She had to blink a few times. “Knock when you’re ready to come in. I don’t want to let all the heat out.”

  “You sound like my grandmother.” Romero put his phone in his pocket. He rubbed his hands together. Brie couldn’t figure out whether it was to make them warm or to signal anticipation of something. “I’m in the ATL on business. Thought I’d stop by to see Kianna while I’m in town.”

  She stepped aside so he could enter the house. “I wish you would’ve called me to say you were coming over first.”

  “Are you about to head out?”

  “No.”

  “Then why does it matter? I shouldn’t need a VIP pass to come see my own daughter.”

  Brie started to open her mouth when Kiana called out to her. “Mommy, who are you talking to?”

  “Your father’s here to see you, sweetie.” She kept her voice light and pleasant. No need for Kianna to sense her tension at having her ex-husband standing in the hallway.

  A couple moments later, her daughter emerged from the living room. Her little face broke into a smile. “Hi, Daddy.”

  “Hi, baby. You look like you’re doing good.” Romero folded his arms and focused on his daughter. He waited until Kianna wheeled her chair further into the hallway before he took steps toward her. “Getting ready for Christmas?”

  “Mommy and I are about to decorate the tree. You want to help?”

  “Sorry, I don’t have time. Daddy’s got to head to a meeting, but I came to see you first.”

  Kiana looked disappointed. Then she glanced in the direction of the kitchen. “We baked gingerbread cookies. Want some?”

  Romero winced and shook his head. “Wish I could, but I gotta watch what I eat.” He turned to Brie. “My trainer’s got me on a low-carb, gluten-free diet to get in shape in case I go on tour in February.”

  “Uh-huh.” Brie heard her own curt response to his statement. She cleared her throat. She couldn’t let him get to her. Kianna didn’t need to see her irritation at Romero.

  “Daddy, I made you a present. It’s in my backpack.” Kianna turned her wheelchair around and went to her bedroom.

  Romero’s phone chirped. He took it out, checked whatever notification or text, and dropped it back into his jeans pocket. He fished in his other pocket until he came out with a Gucci wallet. “Let’s see what I have.” Brie heard him mumble as he thumbed through bills.

  She busied herself by clearing elves off the floor until Kianna returned. Her daughter had a sheet of paper on her lap. “Daddy, I made this for you.”

  She handed the paper to Romero. Brie saw what it was, a pencil sketch of Romero holding a microphone on stage. “That’s really good, sweetie.”

  Romero barely glanced at the sketch. “Yeah, nice.”

  “Thanks, Daddy. I drew it using one of your pictures.”

  Brie cringed, thinking of the recent Instagram photo Romero uploaded of himself and a galley of underwear models drinking champagne beneath a Christmas tree. “Kianna, how did you see a picture of him? You don’t have Instagram set up on your computer.”

  “It was in a magazine. One of my friends brought it to school.”

  “I’m going to talk with your teacher if she’s letting children bring big people magazines to school.”

  “You always this strict?” Romero asked.

  Wow. Brie couldn’t believe he just challenged her parenting in front of their daughter. “Excuse me?”

  “Here, Kianna.” Romero handed her daughter two hundred dollar bills. “Tell your mother to buy you something nice for Christmas.”

  “Wow, mommy, look. Daddy gave me two hundred dollars.” Her daughter waved the money in the air.

  “You can spend some of it, but what do we do with the rest?”

  “Put it away and save it. I know.” Kianna made a grave sigh. “I’ll go put it in my piggy bank.”

  “We’ll go to the bank tomorrow and open up a savings account. What do you say to your father?”

  “Thanks, Daddy.” She returned to her bedroom to put the money in a safe place.

  Brie turned to Romero while she was gone. “You forgot to get her a present again.”

  “I just gave her two Benjamins out of my wallet. She’s happy.”

  “She needs medical bills paid. Besides, giving a child money isn’t the same as asking what’s on her Chri
stmas list and surprising her. I can tell you didn’t give this visit much thought.”

  “You need to reign it in, Brie. See, this is why we couldn’t work. You’re so ungrateful. I just stopped by to say hey, not start all this drama with you.” He adjusted his coat on the way to the door. He opened it, and then glanced back at Brie. “Judging from all these cheap decorations, that money is more than you would’ve given her.” He left without closing the door behind him. A cold breeze blew in, stirring the bells strung up on the fireplace that Kianna set out to alert her when Santa was coming.

  Brie hurried to close the door. She fumed. Her eyes stung. She hated how her ex was still able to jab at her exactly where it hurt. She may not be able to spend a lot of money, but she worked hard to provide for her daughter and give her a loving home, something an eight-minute visit and two hundred bucks could never do.

  She finished wiping her eyes when Kianna came back out into the living room. “Did Daddy leave for his meeting already?”

  “Yes, honey.”

  “Oh.” Her daughter pointed to the couch. “He forgot the sketch I made him.”

  Brie picked up the sheet of paper Romero left behind. “I know just the place where we can put it until we can send it to your father. We could frame it for him if you want.”

  “Okay. I’ll get us some more cookies.” That seemed to cheer Kianna up.

  Brie couldn’t say the same for herself. Her ex’s surprise visit left her frazzled and angry. Her mood tanked so low she didn’t think any amount of sugar could get it high again.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  Jackson finished reading the stack of papers that comprised of Romero’s proposed contract changes. He set the tome on his desk and looked into the faces of the R&B artist and the attorney flanking him. “You have quite a few changes you’d like to make.”

  Romero rested one ankle over his knee and steepled his hands. His pinky ring caught the light. He seemed to be entranced by it for a second, taking a moment to admire the diamonds that outlined a platinum R. “So we’re good, right? I get four record deals?”