The Billionaire's Wife (A Steamy BWWM Marriage of Convenience Romance Novel) (14 page)

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Chapter 22

Kiona

Dead or unconscious, Cole wasn’t
responding to me.

He was
sprawled out lifelessly, lying on his stomach. All the anger and bitterness
slipped off of me in an immediate wave as I frantically dropped to my knees
beside him. Flipping him onto his back slowly, I desperately pressed my ear to
his chest – he was breathing, but slowly, and his lungs sounded incredibly
raspy…

He was moving
now, murmuring in a pained voice. I dove for my purse, whipping out my phone to
call 911 when I realized that I didn’t know how they would reach him here. The
only way down was a locked elevator…
surely
the staff can get them up here, there’s NO WAY that they don’t have some sort
of backup for times like this…

“S…stop…”
Cole murmured. “No…ambulance…”

“We’ve got to
get you to a hospital!”

“No…don’t…”

“No, Cole,
you fucking listen to me right now,” I demanded, kneeling next to him again. “This
isn’t normal for you. You’re young and healthy. I don’t care that you’re some
big-shot billionaire, or that you’re afraid what the tabloids will say…you’re
in danger. We’re going to get you some professional fucking help right this
second.”

Cole’s hand
lunged out, grabbing me tightly by the wrist.

“Cole,
you’re…you’re hurting me…” I pleaded.

“No…ambulances,”
he repeated, but this time his voice wasn’t weak. The shakes were gone –
the tone of his words
commanded
me
now, issuing a directive so firm that I knew better than to disobey him.

“Fine, no
ambulances, just let go of my wrist,” I told him.

He released
his grip, sliding onto his side and trying to push himself up from the floor.

“Here, let me
help you,” I asked him.

I halfway
expected him to cast out an argument, or maybe even physically push me away.
Instead, the weakened billionaire gave a curt nod, and I slipped myself under
his arm and slowly guided him up from the floor.

He held onto
a nearby end table for support as his leg wobbled.

“Are you sure
you’re okay?” I asked cautiously.

Cole threw a
dirty, simmering glare my way, but nodded. “Just…help me to the chair…” He
pointed vaguely towards the den, descending into a small coughing fit, and I held
him upright under his shoulder as he collected himself.

I
half-dragged him over to the armchair and guided him down into the comforting
stability. Lounging upright, he seemed a little better now, but as he coughed
weakly I ran to pour him a glass of water.

“Thank you,”
he told me in a raspy voice as I handed him the glass. He drank it all in a
single gulp, rubbing his neck with his spare hand after the last swallow.

“Ah,
that’s…much better,” he murmured.

“Sound like
your throat’s a little raw there,” I observed.

“The
coughing,” he answered.

“So, do you
want to explain to me why you were crumpled on the floor when I came in, and
why you refused to receive any medical attention?”

“This
isn’t…how I wanted you to find out,” he sighed weakly. “I came back to tell you
everything…but you weren’t here…and I collapsed…in a coughing fit while I
was…looking for you…”

Pain flushed
through my senses.
If I hadn’t stormed
off, he wouldn’t have been alone and unconscious.

He saw something
in my eyes as he turned to face me. “No, Key…don’t blame yourself. You didn’t
know…because I haven’t been truthful yet…but it’s…time.”

“Don’t
overexert yourself,” I told him sadly, running my hand along his shoulder and
clasping it as strongly as I could. “Just focus on getting better.”

“There
is
no better,” he bitterly remarked.

“Wait…what do
you mean?”

Cole looked
into my eyes with the saddest, most desperate look I’ve ever seen a human being
give.

“Key…I’m
dying.”

I felt
everything grow distant as I stared into his eyes, processing what he had just
said. Finding him alone and unconscious told me he wasn’t joking – but if
I needed any confirmation whatsoever of that, the fear in his eyes supplied it.

“You
can’t
be dying.”

“Yeah, that’s
about what I said too,” Cole smiled, but the smile didn’t match his haggard,
weary eyes.

“What…” I
swallowed back the lump in my throat, “What do you mean?”

Cole looked
like he was barely any condition to speak.

“I don’t
think I have the strength for this right now…”

I nodded,
stroking the tufts of his brunette hair as I fought back the welling tears. My
Cole gave me a weak smile and squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry, Key.”

“Don’t you
dare apologize to me, Cole Andrews,” I told him without a trace of anger in my
voice. “You just rest, and when you wake up, you tell me everything. You hear
me? Everything. From the top.”

“That sounds…good,”
he murmured, his eyes slowly closing. “When I…wake up…”

His head
slowly slid down, and I caught it, propping it with a pillow. Cole smiled a
fatigued acknowledgement, and I poured a fresh glass of water and set it within
arm’s reach. I knew I couldn’t leave his side, and cursed myself for our last
conversation –
how could I have
been so childish? So indignant?

It broke my heart,
but what I was seeing now was breaking it even harder.

My intention
had been to sit in the other chair near him, listening for his every need, but
I felt so drained all of a sudden…
I can
just close my eyes a moment,
I thought to myself.
I’m right here, Cole…right here beside you…

*
      
*
      
*

I awoke with
a start.

Shit. How did I fall ASLEEP?!

Panicking, I
couldn’t get out of the armchair. I must have smacked it or something in my
sleep, and it had reclined into the most comfortable position…but I couldn’t
claw myself free from it. I glanced over at Cole’s chair, but it was empty.

“Cole?
Cole?!”

Finally, my
arm clasped onto a soft rod near the side, but I couldn’t figure out how to
disengage it. Still, this gave me the leverage to pull myself up…
damn these rich people and their stupid
furniture. This isn’t like any recliner I’ve ever seen!

Just as I was
climbing out, the rod slid, and the mechanisms of the chair swung back into
place. I slid to the tile painfully, but quickly grasped onto the chair and
lifted myself up to a flustered standing position.

“Cole!” I
called out, seeing him step into a hallway.

He had
changed into baggy, comfortable clothing, and his face was freshly wet. Wiping
with a rag, he walked over towards me and grabbed me by the shoulder.

“I heard you
calling, and then a commotion – are you okay?
 
Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m…I’m
fine,” I muttered, glancing out to see that the night had fallen across New
York City. “I was just so scared that something had…you weren’t…”

“I’m okay,”
Cole smiled. “I just needed to get out of those constraining clothes, splash
some water in my face. You took care of me. Thank you,” he whispered, pressing
a kiss to my cheek.

“So it wasn’t
a dream, then…I really found you on the floor in a mess.”

His smile
faltered. “Yes.”

“And you
said…you were dying.”

“I am,” he
confirmed glumly.

“Cole, I
don’t understand…”

“Here,” he
said, guiding me towards the outer counter of the kitchen, where some bar
stools were seated. He pulled one out and plunked me down, pouring us a pair of
waters. I accepted the glass and stared at him with a confused expression.

“It’s time
that I came clean,” the billionaire told me. “It’s time that you learned
everything.”

“From the
top,” I nodded.

“From the
top.” He spread his palms across the lower counter, leaning towards me. He
lifted his face, staring me in the eyes as he steeled himself. “Are you ready?”

I nodded. “I
think so.”

“Good.”

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Chapter 23

Cole

“
Gifted
is the word that they used,” I began. “The schools, I mean. Elementary
school. My teachers noticed that I had a particular skill for high grades and
test scores, and after a year or two of observation, I was placed on an
accelerated learning curriculum, alongside a few other students. There were
perhaps a dozen students in the entire school – several grades included
– who were in this program.

“My parents
were understandably very proud of me,” I reminisced. “They didn’t really get
it, but all they knew was that I was a bright kid, and that meant that I was
getting into a good school. It was good enough for them. They weren’t terribly
smart themselves, either of them, but my continuing education justified their
long work hours. My father was a woodworker, a carpenter; my mother worked in a
bakery. Neither of them were going anywhere in life, but they wanted the best
for me, and they always joked that they didn’t know where my brains came from.

“When I was
still younger, my mother sat me down and told me a single, life-changing truth:
I would have had an older sibling. Five or six years before I was born, she had
become pregnant, during their senior year of high school. Unfortunately, the
child was a miscarriage. Naturally, it was perhaps for the best, given where
they were in life…but my mother would sometimes stare into space, and I
wondered how often she thought of the child that would have been my older
brother or sister.”

I shifted the
topic back towards myself. “As a gifted child, I had a lot of pressure to
perform well, although both my parents remained highly supportive of my
academic endeavors. They were so pleased to see me happy, healthy, and rising
to the challenge. But when it came time to transition to middle school, there
was a restructuring of the divisions. You see, there were four middle schools
in my town, and my home fell on the division between the best middle school in
twenty miles, and what was arguably the worst.

“Unfortunately,
I was forced to attend the worse one. Not only did they lack the superior
educational resources for me, but the kids here were rough – extremely
rough. I remember that there were these thick fences around, and bars on the
windows of the labs with the expensive equipment…but anyway. I had to learn to
stop raising my hand in class. I had to learn that my friends here weren’t
really friends – they were always looking for bully me into doing their
homework, or blackmail me, or enough of them would gang up on me…

“Learning
introversion was a survival tactic. It drew less attention to me, and I began
to harden up from the experiences. But the problems continued, because there
were also multiple high schools…and the same division lines. So, I was sent to
the wrong one, still trapped with these teenage thugs, surrounded by disaster
at every turn.

“My parents
didn’t know how to help. I reached out to the school board myself, but the
impression I was given was that they wanted to keep me where I was – to help
raise the test scores. So I went above them, writing to the superintendent. She
took pity on me and made an exception in my case, and I was placed back in a
high school with accelerated programs. With dedication, I was able to gradually
claw my way back up, to compensate for the weak schooling I had received for
five years…but the tradeoff was that I didn’t have time for friends or a social
life.

“So, I passed
my SATs with flying colors, I won a few essay contests, and I was given
options. I had drawn the attention of several Ivy League schools. Every
university in the closest three states was headhunting me. It was a good time
for me.

“My parents
were even prouder than before…but horrified. They could never afford to send me
somewhere like Harvard or Brown…Yale eventually offered me tuition assistance
and one of their heftier scholarships, and combined with my other grants and
student aid opportunities, I was able to make it work – and the rest went
onto what still wound up being a large student loan.

“Fast forward
to my second year at the Business University of Yale. I made the only real
friend I’d had since I was a child. His name was Hunter, and he was my assigned
roommate in the dormitories. He was an eclectic character, highly insightful,
very
unhygienic, and his head was filled
with all these ideas…he was fascinated with the opportunities inherent in the
Internet.”

I smiled,
remembering him as he had been, all that time ago.

“He was a
computer whiz. Constantly seeing all these bugs and database errors in even the
biggest e-commerce retailers… Somewhere along the line, he figured out some
kind of pattern. An algorithm that could predict the success of entire
companies Key. He could ‘see’ the future, and he could manipulate it. Small
changes to marketing and corporate policy changed the math. The man reduced the
rise and fall of empires to something you could solve as simply as one plus one
equals two… And nobody believed him.”

I took a
momentary pause, holding in the desire to cough once more. “He hoped to acquire
a business degree from Yale to legitimize himself, finish his thesis, and
revolutionize the world… But he failed to attract the kind of attention he
wanted. He fell into a bitter depression, and sometimes he’d just shut himself
away from the world for days at a time. I tried harder to pull him out of his
shell, to convince him to see a therapist, but I was so wrapped up in my
studies. Remember that I hadn’t been close to someone my age in a long time. I
thought people just
did that
sometimes.”

Key gave me a
sideways glance, and I continued.

“One day, I came
back from a final exam to discover that he’d hung himself in our dorm room.”

Kiona stroked
my arm as I paused, taking a deep sip of water. Her eyes were filled with pain
for me, but I pressed on.

“I dropped
out immediately, shouldering an immense amount of student debt with no plans,
no money, and no way out. I only had one saving grace.”

“Hunter’s
algorithm…” Kiona whispered.

“Hunter had
left me all of his notes, and the basics for the database infrastructure he had
built. A stack of hard drives, binders, and a laptop computer with a customized
build of Linux that tied everything together. All I had to do was turn that
computer on, connect it to the internet, and feed it the stock symbol of a company.”

“What did it
tell you?” Kiona asked.

“It told me
the future. Up, or down. Ninety-one percent accuracy. I started using it, Key.
I used it to start my company. I used it to build and grow. I used the work of
a dead man to try and give him a life after death. Through building Andrews
Enterprises, I saw Hunter’s work come to fruition, his passions realized. We
moved past his early algorithms and improved upon his foundation. I was
significantly grateful to every last employee who joined my company and helped
me drive it towards where it is today.”

I paused for
a moment, giving my words a moment to sink in.

“That’s why I
care so much about this company,” I told Kiona. “The money isn’t everything.
I’ve barely done a thing with it, besides buying this penthouse that I barely
see, donating sums to mental health charities, and traveling to speak with
prospective partners. I have spent more money on
us
since meeting you than I have on myself in years. Everything I
did was so focused on giving Hunter’s death meaning, that I failed to notice
something was wrong with me…”

“Oh God,”
Kiona said softly.

“I attributed
it to the long hours overpowering my youthful vigor, but I was becoming weaker
– succumbing to something inside. My breathing grew harder sometimes. My
joints felt worse for wear. My sleep quality began to suffer. After it all grew
too hard to ignore, I finally gave in and went to see a doctor.”

“Cancer?”
Kiona asked.

“They hadn’t
seen anything like it. They thought it was cystic fibrosis at first, isolated
in my lungs. That’s how they began trying to treat it, but their efforts only aggravated
the disease. All the times I’ve heard the name of this stupid affliction, and I
can never remember all the syllables…” I smiled bitterly to myself. “But it
doesn’t matter. My lungs are compromised beyond repair.”

Kiona was
stunned, but I didn’t want to stop. She needed to know more – to
understand more.

“I’ve had all
sorts of tests done. If I’d caught it early enough, maybe there would have been
some hope…but by the time they began the scans, it was too late. I was too
stubborn about my health, too focused on building my empire.”

Kiona smiled
weakly, clearly fighting back tears. “How long do you have?”

I sighed,
averting my eyes. A particular swirl across the kitchen on the tile flooring
caught my attention. Mentally, I focused my gaze onto it. “I saw my primary
specialist this morning. I’m sorry I couldn’t bring myself to take you with me…
After last night, I just…”

“It’s ok
Cole,” Kiona said, trying her best to hold a resolute look upon her beautiful
face.

“It’s not ok.
He gave me three weeks.”

My eyes stayed
on the floor. It was interesting to say it aloud to another person – it
forced me to really deal with the expiration date that faced me.

Kiona was
barely holding herself together. I hadn’t really expected anything out of her
– after all, we had only slept together the once. I knew that she had
some developing feelings for me, feelings that New Orleans had introduced and
then reinforced. But it was too much for me to give in to my own, even now.

“This is why
you’re so distant to everyone,” she finally spoke. “It all makes sense.”

“What do you
mean?”

“It was
reinforced, ever since you were a child. Holding yourself back to stay safe.
Keeping yourself detached from everyone else. You finally start to have a
meaningful connection with someone else, and he dies…so, you dedicate your life
to seeing his ideas come to fruition. By the time you realize you can slow
down, you’re diagnosed, and you can’t bear to keep anyone close, because you’ll
just hurt them when you die…”

This woman,
I thought to myself as I
marveled at her powers of quick, effortless perception.
Who on Earth IS this woman?

“I want you
to know something,” Kiona continued, slipping off of the barstool. She walked
around the counter and entered the kitchen, coming straight up to me.
 
“My job… My real job… I was trying to get
inside deep enough to get my hands on your little magic box.”

Cole started
to laugh, then broke into another fit of coughing. Finally composing himself,
he smiled. “It’s ok Key… I forgive you.”

“I’ll be here
for you, Cole. We can fight this thing. I’ll be by your side the entire time,
no matter what.”

“I can’t
fight it,” I told her. “The only way I can escape this thing is with a double
lung transplant, and there isn’t a match in the donation pool.”

“So, I’ll get
tested,” I told him.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No, you
don’t understand…I have to have both lungs replaced at once. Otherwise, there
will be reinfection, and I’ll only buy myself a few weeks. If it’s not both, it
won’t work.”

“Cole, you’re
the most selfless man I’ve ever met,” I told him. “You deserve a few more
weeks, and I want to be there with you to enjoy them.”

I knew her
intentions were good, but that wasn’t going to work. “Key, you’re being brash
and impulsive,” I told her. “First of all, we’re not even the same
race
– the probability of you
being a match is close to zero. Secondly, I’m
not
going to let you make a mistake like this. You’ll move on with
your life, you’ll take what I leave you and live a life free of fitting into
everyone else’s rules and restrictions to get by…”

“There
HAS
to be a way!” She shouted, throwing
her arms around me. Kiona buried her face into my chest. “There just…there
has
to be something else…”

“There
isn’t,” I told her gravely. “We’d need a miracle.”