Free The Billionaire's Call Girl: A BWWM Billionaire Romance by CJ Howard Page B

they were all together. She went into the kitchen and began to prepare dinner for them.
     
    She took her time, relishing the moments as they passed through her and around her, making the food with love and with thoughtfulness for her family. She relived so many memories as she cooked; holidays with her brothers and sisters when they would wait for special traditions or special meals and treats, presents at Christmas and choosing their Christmas trees every year. She remembered the kitchen at Thanksgiving, all of them cooking together and helping each other in the kitchen;  building snowmen in the yard in winter; and putting up lemonade stands on the sidewalk in the summer.
     
    She thought of the huge old oak tree in the back yard that her parents planted when they first moved into the house, and how it had grown with them over the years, how they had picnicked in its shade, flown almost to the edge of the sky on the rope swing that her father had tied to it and how they had played in the autumn leaves that it shed every year.
     
    Then there were the silly times they'd had as children; when she had tried to cut her sister's hair as a child and it had gone poorly, or how they had all been so excited when her father had brought home a puppy for them when they were old enough to help care for it. How they had all come together and mourned as a family when each of her grandparents had passed away.
     
    The home she was in held a lifetime of memories, and it was a precious place; four walls and two floors of hallowed halls and lifetimes of experiences. She thought of all of these things as she cooked for them, and more than one tear was shed as she realized that she would rarely be eating with them as a family from then on.
     
    Though they had varying schedules, and their lives had grown more hectic as time had passed and the children in their home grew older, they had always tried to eat together at least once a day, and the habit of that was something that Felicia wouldn't trade for the world.
     
    The kitchen was the heart of their home; where the fires were that kept them warm and fed, where they came together, where they laughed and cried and talked and made it through life with each other. It was where she would tell them that she was leaving them; finally flying away from her nest. She wasn't going to be totally truthful about it, but there was no getting around it, really. It was hard on her heart to know that she was living a double life, but she had to do it for many reasons.
     
    It was in her contract under the privacy clause with Jake, it was in her contract with the agency when Ms. Halstead had her sign up there, and there was just something about her whole situation that she didn't want her parents to know about. There was something akin to shame that she felt, but it wasn't enough to make her stop doing what she was going to do; it was only that her choices and life changes weren't something that she felt proud of, at least enough to share with her family. They weren't bad changes, but they weren't anything she wanted to make known.
     
    Felicia worked away at what would be her farewell meal with her family, and one by one, they came into the door of the kitchen, greeting her, thanking her for starting their dinner, and offering to help her. By the time all of them were in the room, there was the familiar buzz of conversation and movement as they worked around each other setting the table and placing the food on it. They sat down together and were partway through the meal when she knew that the time had come to tell them.
     
    She looked at her parents and cleared her throat.
     
    "Mom and Dad, I've been doing really well at work and they gave me a promotion. Ms. Halstead wants me closer to the office, so they are providing me an apartment in the city. I need to move in tomorrow. I'll still be coming by here as often as I can, you know I can't leave home for too long..." she trailed off and watched the shock