Love after Betrayal: An Interracial, Billionaire Romance Read online

  Love after Betrayal: An Interracial, Billionaire Romance

  Yuwanda Black

  Published by Inkwell Editorial Publishing, 2019.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  LOVE AFTER BETRAYAL: AN INTERRACIAL, BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE

  First edition. September 10, 2019.

  Copyright © 2019 Yuwanda Black.

  Written by Yuwanda Black.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  PREVIEW

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Epilogue

  End Notes

  About the Author

  Further Reading: Until You Loved Me

  Also By Yuwanda Black

  PREVIEW

  A DEVASTATING AFFAIR.

  An unexpected pregnancy.

  A new love waiting to be explored.

  An old flame longing to be rekindled.

  Could there possibly be Love after Betrayal?

  HOW DO YOU FLUSH TWELVE years of marriage down the drain? Can you flush twelve years of marriage down the drain?

  When Gunner, Bria's husband of a dozen years, tells her that he's fathered a child outside of their marriage, her whole life plan is turned upside down.

  While she freely admits that she's been married to her career, she thought they were on the same page: she'd make partner at her corporate law firm, his construction firm would thrive, and then they'd start a family. They'd be financially secure – creating a life without the money worries they both grew up with. That's why Bria couldn't process what Gunner was telling her.

  "I'M SORRY, BUT I HAD to tell you. I'm sorry, Bria. You have to believe me," Gunner pleaded. "I want to work through this. I'm hoping that in time you can forgive me. I love you. You're the only woman I've ever loved. You know this."

  He looked sincere.

  He sounded sincere.

  She knew this man.

  She loved this man.

  But ...

  "Work through this?" Bria laughed humorlessly, drowning out the voices in her head and the love in her heart. "Let me get this straight. You‘re telling me that you've been cheating on me; that you have a one-month old baby with whoever the slut is, and you want me," she said, putting her index finger to her chest, "to somehow find it in me to work things out with you? Have you lost your ever-loving mind?!" she exploded.

  IT COULDN'T BE TRUE. It just couldn't. But it was. And she had to accept it.

  However, when Bria suddenly finds herself pregnant, will she and her ex-husband find their way back to each other?

  Or, will she find lasting love with a new flame?

  Chapter 1

  BRIA STARED BLANKLY at the glass of red wine in front of her. Her heart hammered in her rib cage. She could feel her chest tightening; an awful tension building between her sternum and stomach.

  She was dreaming. She had to be. There was no way this was actually happening.

  No.

  Fucking.

  Way.

  Not to her.

  "I've been wanting to tell you for so long," Gunner almost pleaded. "But I didn't want anything to interfere with your work. That's why I waited until after you made partner."

  Did he really think he was justifying this shit?!

  Bria cut her eyes at her husband; her wonderful, loving, devoted husband of twelve years. He was playing her. He had to be. His eyes, so dark and velvety brown they looked black, reflected very real regret and pain. His thick, black brows were drawn in concern.

  He reached out and took one of her hands in his. "Bria, say something please," he said, kneading her stiff digits.

  Bria noticed her stomach moving in and out. It clenched painfully. She snatched her hand away from her husband, jumped to her feet and backed away. No. No. No. She had to stop him; to stop this. It wasn't part of her plan; their plan. "This is a joke, right?" she asked shakily. Her eyes were wild and manic. She smiled. A smile made everything okay. It did. It had to.

  Gunner stood. His lips were whitish-pink in their pinch; his brows furrowed, deep lines between them. Worry and fear were the smell of his cologne.

  Oh god, this was real. Bria wrapped her arms tightly around herself to keep her insides from spilling out. "Please tell me you're joking. You have to be joking. You have to be," she begged. "Please tell me it's not true Gunner. Please," she implored.

  Gunner watched her. He shook his head slowly.

  Bria felt the rumbling; the tingling of a sob from the bottom of her feet. It was a full roar by the time it reached her mid-section. She dry retched, sick to her stomach. Hot tears burned a trail down her face, dripping onto her shirt like pellets of a sudden rainstorm.

  Gunner stepped forward to wrap her in his arms.

  "Noooooo!!" Bria howled, her cry a sudden blast of rage.

  Gunner landed against a wall, the thud making her realize that somehow she had moved him. Was it the sheer force of her fury or had she actually made contact with his body? She couldn't remember.

  "Don't touch me!" she screamed.

  Gunner caught himself on the arm of the couch as he bounced off the wall, trying not to fall onto the large, glass coffee table in front of the leather couch in their living room. "What the hell?!" he snapped, looking back at a wine glass that crashed against the wall where his head had been a second ago.

  "How dare you! How dare you fucking do this to me!" Bria thundered, her body trembling from head to toe.

  "Bria, wait, let me—"

  "I will let you do nothing. Ever again!" she screamed, spit dripping down her chin as she advanced on him.

  Gunner backed away, the look in her eyes told him this wasn't his Bria.

  Backed into the same wall she'd pushed him into seconds ago, Bria brought her hand up and landed a slap to her husband’s left cheek, the sharp sound like a gun at the start of a race. She took off – balling her fists up and hitting him as hard she could as fast as she could, as if she was in a race to get in as many punches as she could before some timing device expired.

  "Bria stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!" Gunner said, grabbing her hands.

  He twisted her around, held her hands crossed in front of her, and felt her heaving as she la
y back against his chest.

  Bria kicked and fought as if her life depended on it.

  Gunner grunted and steadied himself against the wall, holding his wife until she exhausted herself.

  "You did this. Look at what you did to me," Bria sobbed, her body going limp.

  "Baby I'm sorry," Gunner said, loosening his hold on her. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

  Against all reason, Bria turned to him and sobbed in the circle of his arms. It had always been where she found comfort whenever things went wrong.

  She cried for everything that had been ... and everything that could no longer be.

  Chapter 2

  "HOW YOU HOLDING UP?" Stuart asked.

  "It hasn't been an easy few weeks, but I'm fine," Carrington said, swiveling the leather chair that had belonged to his father around with one hand. He could still smell his ole man in the office; in the leather of the chair.

  "This is all yours now," Stuart said, his arms outstretched in the spacious corner office that had belonged to the premier founder of Shelby, Long, Anderson, and Wasserman; affectionately known as SLAW by all of its associates. Although competitors made fun of the acronym "SLAW," nobody laughed at the results they got for its clients. The attorneys were top-notch, and they covered every niche – from immigration, to corporate and environmental law. Bria was a corporate attorney, specializing in mergers and acquisitions. She'd chosen it because it paid well, and she was good at it. A natural stickler for detail, it served her well in her profession.

  "Will you be taking an active role at the firm, maybe go back to practicing? I know nothing would have pleased your father more."

  "I won't go back to practicing, but I will join the board; take father's place because it's what he wanted."

  "That's true. A Shelby has sat on the board of directors since SLAW was founded. At least that tradition will never change. I know your father is looking down, proud of you."

  "I'm afraid that tradition is in jeopardy. Alexandria has no interest in the law, and I wouldn't want her to sit on the board out of some morbid sense of duty to me. Even father wouldn't want that. He'd want his only grandchild to pursue her dreams."

  "That he would. He doted on his granddaughter – and his only son," Stuart smiled, looking up at Carrington from the bush of his wise brows. "But the tradition doesn't have to die. You're still a young man. You have time to produce an heir who would be interested in taking over this firm one day."

  Carrington laughed. "Stuart, the way you talk, I think you still think of me as the little boy scrambling in and out of father's lap. I'm forty-two – beyond the age where I care to have another child, especially as the only one I have is, thankfully, grown and desperately independent," he smiled, thinking of his daughter. She was a lot like her grandfather. Fiercely independent, but steadfastly loyal.

  "I remember Jeb telling me about the day you told him your girlfriend was pregnant. I thought he was going to have a stroke right then and there," Stuart said, slapping his knee as he laughed at the memory of a teen-aged Carrington and his teen-aged pregnant girlfriend.

  Carrington winced, recalling that day only too well. Now he could make light of it, but almost twenty-five years ago, it had been none too funny. "That is the very reason I only have one child. He made sure that I shouldered full responsibility from day one; threatened to disown me if I didn't do right by my child and her mother."

  "And he meant it too! He had an alternate will drawn up. It cut you out completely."

  "I never knew that," Carrington said.

  "It's because the entire time he was ordering me to draft it, I was trying to talk him out of it. I knew he didn't mean it. He was just angry and disappointed, especially when you refused to marry Alexandria's mother."

  "We were both too young," Carrington said. "It never would have lasted. Even at eighteen, I knew that. I think father realized it too as time went on."

  "I know he did. Just dictating the will did away with a lot of his anger, but the disappointment remained – until the day his granddaughter was born. Then he forgot all about you being a teen-aged father. He forgot that you refused to marry her mother. He forgot everything but Alexandria's smile. She had him wrapped around her little finger from day one."

  "And it lasted until the day he died. Lucky for me," Carrington said, sighing as he remembered the watery smile on his father's face at his only grandchild's birth. "But he didn't forget to make me live up to my responsibility. I had to work a full-time job, go to school and be involved as a father. He cut me no slack."

  "Because he knew that if he started cleaning up your messes at eighteen, he'd likely be cleaning them up for the rest of your life. You meant everything to him Carrington, and he wanted you to live up to your potential; not like some of your spoiled compatriots whose parents bailed them out of every scrape they got in. Look at you now compared to a good number of them. Lazy layabouts. In and out of drug rehab. Sucking on the tit of their parent's money. Your father worked for everything he had. It would have been a disservice to his father – and all those who came before him – if he had cut you any slack, especially when you became a father so young."

  "I know. We had many conversations about it. But as a lad of eighteen, of course I didn't see it quite that way," he chuckled. "There was a time I was pretty sure he hated me."

  Stuart, his father's long-time friend and attorney, chuckled. "Of course you thought he was a crotchety old bastard who just wanted to make your life a living hell. And for a time, I'm sure he did; to make sure you got the message that children are a responsibility and just because you come from wealth, it was no excuse for you to breed without taking responsibility ... Maybe that's why you don't want more children. You're enjoying the freedom you didn't have as a young man."

  "Never gave it much thought, but that makes sense. I think of it more along the lines of Alexandria's perfection. She broke the mold; no need for another child," he chuckled.

  "She is something – beautiful and smart. Jeb was as proud of her as he was of you. He didn't even care that she didn't want to be a lawyer."

  "I think he felt guilty for pushing me into it."

  "He just wanted what was best for you."

  "I know, and that's why I followed his wishes and went to law school. It wasn't because he pushed me into it. I knew it was a way to provide for myself and my daughter. After all, a good lawyer can always make a living, right?"

  "That's been my experience," Stuart said. "Especially when the name Shelby is attached. ... So no more children, huh? But what about a wife? Why haven't you settled down? A man of your age should be ready to settle down."

  "You are a nosy ole coot Stuart."

  "I am. But as your godfather – and your attorney – I would be derelict in my duties if I wasn't," the old man smiled.

  "I was wondering when you were going to pull the godfather card."

  "Well now it's pulled. So when are you going to get married? Now that Jeb and your mother are gone —" Stuart said, letting the sentiment trail off. He missed his friend; they'd been more than business associates. They'd been a part of each other's lives since they were in college. Jeb, Carrington's father, had been friends with him and his wife, Rita, for over five decades. As young couples, before Carrington's mother's death, the four of them had been best friends.

  "I know," Carrington said, as the acceptance of loss settled in. He knew Stuart almost as well as he knew his own father. Other than he and Alexandria, he was sure no one felt his father's loss as deeply.

  "I never felt the need to get married," Carrington said in answer to Stuart's question. "Besides, my lifestyle is not exactly conducive to it, especially now that father's passing has added more to my plate. I'm never in one place for long, and I quite enjoy that. Most women want to nest – get married, have children. I'll just have to leave that to fine men like you," he smiled as he patted the old man on the back. This had been an ongoing conversation over the last few years between him and his father. And
now, apparently, between him and his godfather.

  "Hmmm ... I see your dilemma,' Stuart pondered as he rubbed his whiskery chin. "You are at the age where the women you spend time with are ticking time bombs of impending motherhood. But the world can be a very lonely place Carrington, and there's nothing like the love of a good woman to come home to. To be honest, I don't remember what it's like not to be married. I married Rita when I was barely out of my teens, right around the time Jeb married your mother. He grieved her til the day he died."

  "Father never hid the fact that she was the only woman for him. I remember a woman or two here and there, but really, he married his work after mother's death from what I remember."

  "You remember correctly. And the few women you remember were probably very nice ladies that my wife introduced him to. But he never took to one because he never got over Margy, and for a good reason. She was quite the woman. Irreplaceable – like my Rita. Marrying her was the smartest thing I ever did. That could be another reason you don't want to have another child – you haven't met the right woman yet. What about the one you brought to Thanksgiving? She's a looker. Classy, and it was obvious to anybody with eyes that she was two sheets to the wind smitten with you."

  "I'm afraid we decided to part ways," Carrington grimaced, thinking that ‘we decided' was a polite way of putting it.

  "Already?" Stuart asked.

  "Yes," Carrington said, refusing to expound.

  "You're as stubborn as a mule; just like your father."

  "Having a child at eighteen gets you crystal clear about what you want in life. After Alexandria, I knew I didn't want more children. If you do parenthood right, it's a hard job. Knock wood – thanks to father – I think I made a pretty good stab at it. I have no desire to start from ground zero. I may not be as lucky next time," he joked.

  "Then you best start dating older women, because the ones in your age bracket want young'uns – and usually more than one."

  "So I've been told – by more than one," Carrington kept chuckling. "And that's why I'm perfectly fine remaining single. Maybe I'll wait until I'm your age to settle down. Then there'll be no chance of this being a problem."