Be My Babygirl A Billionaire Romance - Jane Henry Page 0,68
I head back home to Georgia. I need some clean air and a change of pace. I call Gran on the way.
“Darius, how are you?”
I sigh and don’t reply at first.
“Coming home for a bit.”
“Alone?”
“Alone.”
“Oh, dear,” she says sorrowfully. “Did something happen with Katie?”
“How do you know from a sigh?”
“Oh, you don’t raise a man like you without getting to know when he isn’t himself anymore. But I also had some help. Just wanted to hear straight from the horse’s mouth.”
A pang hits my chest. I swallow hard. “Guess you didn’t watch the news, then?”
“Of course I did,” she says with a huff. “You know I despise the things, but wouldn’t you know, Rawley and Tiffany showed up the night it aired to tell me what happened.”
Suspicion rises in my chest. Did they?
“Oh?”
“Yep. But I’m surprised to hear you sound upset, son. Surely that didn’t really impact your relationship with Katie?”
Anger rises in me, but I quickly stifle it. “Of course it did. How could it not?”
Now it’s Gran’s turn to sigh. “Come home, Darius. I’ll be waiting for you.”
“One request, Gran.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t want Tiffany and Rawley there when I arrive.”
“You have my word.”
I mull things over as I take a flight back. I order a completely different private jet to take me home, so none of the memories of Katie resurface like they do at my penthouse. It doesn’t work, though. I remember the way she held my hand when we took off, her head on my shoulder, her fear that I soothed for her when we landed.
Where is she now? What’s going on in her head?
How could I have been so mistaken about her?
And does Gran know something I don’t?
I get a ride to her farmhouse, trying to find comfort in the fields we pass, the late summer flowers, and the distance between me and the Vegas drama. But it doesn’t work. There’s a heavy weight on my chest I can’t push off. I pinch the bridge of my nose. My phone dings—my secretary waiting on signatures for a contract—but I’m too drained to look down. I look at it a hundred times a day, hoping to hear from Katie.
I need Katie.
Can I forgive her for what she did?
Work will take my mind off this... nonsense. Grabbing my phone, I look down at my screen expecting a message from work. There’s a text. But it’s in no way work related.
It’s from... Katie.
Darius. I know you’re hurt. I don’t blame you. I didn’t know what you were referring to when you were upset that night. We need to talk. Call me.
Just seeing a text from her has my heart pounding, my breath holding. I frown at the phone. I don’t want to call her. I’m apt to say something cruel and harsh if I do right now. I shove my phone in my pocket.
When I arrive, the sun’s setting low, casting golden fingers of light on the house, the fields, and the porch. I sigh. Katie would wax eloquent on something so grand but simple.
Katie, Katie, Katie.
She’s in my thoughts and in my dreams. I envision her here on the porch, sitting with a cup of cool lemonade and a plate of Gran’s cookies, telling Gran how delicious carbs are and how picture perfect her home is. I remember our time in the barn, how we acted like sneaky teens whose parents were about to catch them. I remember everything.
Gran meets me at the door, beaming. She holds the door open and lets me in. I drop the bags by the door, my stomach rumbling at the smell of her cooking.
“Is that beef stew?” I ask.
She chuckles. “How’d you know?”
It’s my favorite comfort food of hers, and she knows it.
“…And your biscuits?” I ask hopefully.
She waves a dish towel at me. “Don’t you know it.”
I bend low and kiss her paper-thin cheek. Her mere presence brings a small measure of comfort.
“Now,” she says. “You sit your citified backside at the kitchen table, and while we eat our dinner you tell me what happened.”
So we do. She ladles large bowls of steaming hot stew, laced with her thick-cut potatoes and green beans plucked straight from the garden. I tuck in, feeling better after only a few bites. When was the last time I ate?
She clucks her tongue. “Darius Morrow, I declare you’ve lost your heart for this woman.”
I don’t respond.
She sighs. “You look haggard, like you haven’t slept in days, and when was the last time you ate a decent