An Heir At Any Price: The Billionaire's Obsession - Contemporary Romance (21 page)

I can see her now, standing near the
front row, turned to look at me as the wedding march plays. She’s
gorgeous in her apricot sun dress with her long, dark hair framing
her face and hanging down her back. When she was drinking, her hair
was dull and her skin a sickly yellow color. She’d looked
sixty-five then, but now if I didn’t know her I would say she
wasn’t a day over thirty-five. She was actually somewhere around
fifty and she had a lot of good, sober years in front of her. She
loved being a grandmother and she’d gotten a job at an antique
store that she loved as well. It was so good to see her happy and
thriving. She celebrated her one year sober anniversary nine months
ago. She was already going on two. On top of her job, she was
volunteering her time to counsel other lost souls through the long
and arduous recovery process. It was so good to have my mother
back.

Joe was pushing the object of this
entire relationship in his carriage as he led me down the aisle, my
precious Eric. I had only had the pleasure of knowing him for a
year now but I can’t even remember what life was like without him
in it. He was healthy and robust, curious, sweet, precocious…he was
a miracle, and I loved him so much that not only my heart, but my
entire body was consumed with it. I could be having the worst day
ever, not that there were many of those anymore, but one small
smile from Eric was like magic that washed all the troubles away. I
watch him grow every day and soak up the world like a sponge and I
marvel at how lucky I am.

Rose and Myra were constants at our
house in the country. We sat by the big window in the kitchen
sometimes and sipped our tea or our coffee and I think about that
day I’d gone riding with Aiden. I hadn’t dared let myself hope that
dream could become a reality back then, but here I was in the
middle of it. Aiden had insisted that he didn’t want his son raised
in the city so we’d moved into the house full-time not long after
Eric was born. I didn’t argue with that. I was more than happy to
live with my little family in the country. We took the baby on
horseback rides every weekend and he had a dog and goats and
sheep…he would grow up to be a regular farm boy, albeit a very rich
one. I wanted him to be touched by the beauty of the life around
him and the people who loved him before he discovered that. I
wanted him to be rich in his soul before he ever knew how rich he
was in his bank accounts.

That thought brought me around to
Aiden’s grandpa. After Aiden began to go to therapy, he started
thinking a lot about “the old man” as he called him. He said he
began to wonder if the man deserved a second chance, if for no
other reason than he was family. He obviously hadn’t forgotten
Aiden completely. He’d been putting money continuously into those
untouched accounts for thirty years. I wasn’t a big advocate of
showing your love in dollar signs, but maybe it was the only way
the “old man” knew how. I told Aiden that I would support whatever
he decided to do. I truly believed that everyone deserved at least
a second chance, and if you loved them, maybe a third.

Aiden started by investigating and
researching him and he found out that he was a philanthropist now.
He still ran his businesses but for the past twenty years he had
given almost every cent he made during that time to different
children’s charities. He had built hospitals and given aid to
starving children in third world countries. The thing that
impressed Aiden the most was that it was all hard for him to even
find. “The old man” didn’t advertise it or talk about it in
interviews, or accept public praise for it. He did it seemingly out
of the goodness of his heart.

“He couldn’t be all that bad, right?”
Aiden had asked me one night as we lay in bed. “Someone who would
do all of that, even if it’s to make amends for the way he’d
already lived his life, he couldn’t be a completely worthless
person, right?”

“I don’t think so,” I told him. “If it
is to make amends then that means he’s changed. Even if he did make
mistakes before, trying to make amends would mean that he regrets
them. I’m sure that his love of money cost him dearly. But maybe
you need to meet him face to face and decide all of that for
yourself.”

For the next few months he talked a
lot about “the old man,” but he never took the step of arranging a
meeting with him. I knew that he wanted to, but he was afraid. I
think mostly he was afraid of the reality destroying the image of
the kind and giving man he had begun to hope his grandfather had
become. Finally, just before Aiden’s thirtieth birthday I called
him myself. I found the number lying on Aiden’s desk. I told him
who I was and that I was having a surprise birthday party for
Aiden. I told him Aiden had been thinking of contacting him and
would like to finally meet him. I asked if he would have any
interest in coming to the party. He cried on the phone. He cried
again when I met him at the airport and he cried when he saw Aiden.
His tears only doubled when he met Eric. He’d been in town for over
six months now. He and Eric went to the park once a week and took
the dog out into the field and ran and played every day. Not that
Eric could really run yet, but his great-grandfather made sure he
won every race. I don’t think he’s planning on leaving again
anytime soon.

When we reached the altar, Joe kissed
me on the cheek and handed me over to my handsome groom. Other than
our son, I’d never seen a sight so beautiful. It had taken us
almost two years but here we were at last, standing with our bare
toes in the sand of our own private island in front of God, our
family and our friends, saying the vows to each other that I know
we will both uphold. We had already been through the hard times.
They were all in the past. Our future would be filled with family
and love and truth and loyalty. No one was going to leave, and our
son was going to have the best childhood ever…at least all of that
was going to happen if I had anything to say about it.

That day I heard the seven
most beautiful words my ears had ever been privy to:
I now pronounce you man and wife.

Holly Rayner