Free The Way to a Billionaire's Heart: Part Two: BWWM Interracial Romance by Mia Caldwell Page B

this morning, she was angry enough to come to me to tell the story.”
    “You’re being vague. Heard Celia what?”
    "She was shouting into her damned phone, the way she does, so that everyone on the Eastern seaboard can hear how goddamned important she is, but this time she was shouting about you. "
    I felt my blood run cold. Just like in the books. I swallowed. “And?”
    “She was telling the person on the other line about what a wild night she’d had with you. Rosa said ‘insatiable. Like he just got out of prison.’”
    “Did she say my name? How did Rosa know she was talking about me? Maybe she’d been up all night with some K street lawyer. What do I care?”
    “I asked the same thing, I’m not an idiot. Rosa said she knew it was you.” She paused and gave me an unreadable look. "And she said Celia told her friend that she was here to convince me to tell you to get my mother’s ring for her."
    I shook my head. What the hell?
    “And marry her, dumbass. She said she was going to marry you.”
    “Well, she isn’t. I don’t know what she was trying to pull, but it isn’t true. I’ve not laid a hand on her in months, last New Year’s, maybe? Don’t worry, I’m not asking Celia to marry me, with or without the ring.”
    “I don’t think you’re getting the important part. She was shouting into the phone while in my kitchen. While Andrea was here making my breakfast.”
    And all the blood just drained out of my body. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut.
    Clearly it showed on my face, because Mother said, "Exactly. That’s why I wanted to tell you this morning, so that if it wasn’t true, you could tell her immediately. When she came up here, she seemed distracted. I asked if I’d heard Celia. Celia had told me she was coming by to finally pick up those horrid landscapes your father had loved. I told her ages ago that she could put them in the gallery, but I’ve had trouble letting go of the ugly things. But Celia never came up and the paintings are still in the study. Rosa said Andrea left very quickly after that. You should call her."
    My mind was racing. If Rosa, who has known me for years, was willing to believe Celia’s crap, it seemed certain that Andrea would have. Dammit .
    Remember what I called Celia? Uh-huh.
    “I can’t call her. She didn’t get a sim card.”
    “I have no idea what that means, but I’m confident you can find a way around it. You’re resourceful and rich. I like that girl. Don’t fuck this up.”
    When I came downstairs and through the kitchen, I saw that Andrea had left behind the saute pan. On a whim I grabbed it.
    It was nearly eleven on a Friday, Celia would be in the gallery, getting ready to open. I considered calling a car, but knew that it’d be faster to run, plus I could pound the pavement to discharge some the anger that was building up. Celia is a selfish bitch, no doubt about it, but surely Rosa’s account wasn’t quite right. Even Celia wouldn’t make up a crazy story like that. Would she?
    I tried to calm my thoughts as I jogged, enjoying the looks I got for trotting through Georgetown with shiny cookware in my hands. Really, I should thank Celia. Although she had no idea, she’s the one that introduced me to Andrea, in a way. She’d come by my office to see if I was free for lunch one day. In pulling out her phone, a small stack of business cards had fluttered out of her pocket. She scooped them all back up but one had slipped under my desk. When I found it later, out of curiosity, I’d looked up the website. And when I saw Andrea’s picture on the homepage, I…felt something stir and it wasn’t just in my pants. I can’t explain it, but I knew I had to meet her.
    I have friends at The Post, of course, so I pulled a few strings to get Andrea featured in the “30 Under 30” issue of the Magazine. Then I pulled a few more to get me in there even though I’d just turned 30 (one line about “at the time of voting he was still 29”