One Weekend with the Billionaire Chapter 29

*Braxton*

I can tell how excited Julia is to be on the plane. She hasn’t stopped smiling since we arrived at the airport. As we make our way to our secret destination, it is all I can do to keep my hands off of her. I want her so badly, but we will be there soon, and I don’t want to embarrass her in front of the crew by making them wait while she puts herself back together. Perhaps I will be able to introduce her to the Mile High Club on the way back to the city.

“Do you fly often?” I ask her, trying to make conversation in order to take my mind off of how beautiful her body is, especially when she’d undressed.

“No,” she says quickly. “I’ve never been on an airplane before.”

Her admission has me raising my eyebrows, but I lower them quickly, realizing she has put some trust in me not to judge her by admitting that to me so readily. “Well, I sure hope you enjoy the ride then,” I say to her.

She beams at me. “So far, it’s amazing.” She turns and looks out the window, and I am glad that I’ve let her sit next to it so that she can get a view of the clouds from up here. I was a young boy when I made my first flight, but I still remember how magical it was. As breathtaking as the view out the window is, Julia is even more gorgeous. I would much rather watch her look out the window than enjoy the view myself.

“Tell me, Julia, when you were younger, what did you dream of doing when you were an adult?”

For some reason, my question seems to catch her off guard. I’m not sure why. It seems like a fairly normal question to me. She turns and looks at me, her lips parting but nothing coming out for a moment. “Well,” she begins, “when I was a little girl, I wanted to be a famous artist,” she admits. “But then, as I got older and realized that likely wouldn’t happen, I decided I’d like to teach art lessons to students.”

I nod. “And what happened to change that dream?”

She hesitates again, sucking in a breath. Her slim shoulders rise and fall with a shrug. “I’m not sure,” she admits. “But… Jeff had his dreams. When he got the job at your company, all of our focus went toward helping him to advance. He did, too, if you’ll recall.”

“Yes, I do,” I tell her. “He used to be a hard worker. I was impressed with his work early on. Within the first few months after he began, I promoted him. Unfortunately, he’s lost focus over the last year or so.”

I see her face fall as she rocks her head back and forth. “I didn’t understand why. I thought… Jeff told me that you were being too hard on him, that it was impossible to please you. I didn’t understand how that could’ve changed so quickly. But now that I know that he’s been doing other things, that he hasn’t been focused on his work, well, I understand why he is on the brink of being fired.” She looks as if she might cry, and I realize I’ve inadvertently upset her. That was not my intention at all.

“Julia, you do realize that your success is not tied to his, don’t you?” I ask her. “I know for the last two years since you’ve been married, you’ve invested so much of yourself in him that it’s hard for you to see where he begins and you end, but the fact of the matter is, you have done nothing to create this problem for him. Only Jeff has caused the problem. Only Jeff is responsible for the problem. And only Jeff can fix the problem.”

She nods at me, but I’m not sure she fully believes that. I imagine he has told her time and time again that it is her fault he isn’t able to do everything he is supposed to at work, that somehow she is a bad wife, and that makes him incapable of fulfilling his duties in the office. I want to send a message right now back to the office to have him fired, but it’s Saturday, and no one is there. Besides, I’ve already promised to overlook his horrible performance since he signed the contract. I will put up with Jeff Thompson for as long as I have to if it means Julia will be by my side.

Seeing that she is still upset, I go back to what she was talking about before, hoping to cheer her up. “What do you like to paint? It is painting you enjoy most, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I love to paint.” Her face lights up when she talks about it. “I also enjoy sculpting and pottery, but I don’t have the chance to do any of that now. Mostly, I painted landscapes, nature scenes, full of color and movement. I enjoyed painting people, too, trying to portray a person’s personality through their exterior, using color and shapes to show the world what they were really like. But… it’s been so long since I’ve painted anything. I’m not sure if I’m even any good at it anymore.”

“I’m sure you are,” I tell her. I don’t want to press the subject now because I don’t want her to be sad. I already knew that she used to be an artist, so I have another surprise for her later, but I can’t bring that up now. I decide to ask her another question, something even more personal. “Do you wish to have children someday, Julia?” I hope that this question doesn’t end up with her making that puckered face she made after speaking to me about her art. At the moment, she only looks surprised.

“I love children,” she says, her eyes lighting up for a brief moment before she looks defeated again. “Jeff doesn’t. He says… they are noisy, expensive, and get in the way.” She half-shrugs and ads, “Maybe he will change his mind.”

I realize then that she still feels as if she belongs to him. It is ingrained in her mind. I need to find a way to change it, to remind her that she does have choices in this life, and one of them is to no longer be married to Jeff Thompson. But it hasn’t even been a full day yet since I whisked her away from the only world she’s known in the last two years. I can’t expect miracles. Not yet.

“What about you?” she asks, surprising me. “Do you want to have children?

“Oh, yes,” I say, smiling at her. “I’d like to have several of them. I love the way children view the world. The way they look at everything through fresh, innocent eyes.”

She smiles and nods, and I hope that she sees how much I mean what I am saying. She asks me another question I am not expecting. “Did you always want to be in business?”

I have to think for a moment before I nod. “I suppose so,” I tell her. “I watched my father and grandfather as they created successful businesses, and I wanted to do the same. I love my company and can’t imagine my life without it. But… one day, when I am married and have children, I will step back away from it. I have good people in place, like Cindy, Stringer, and others, who can keep the business afloat while I participate from the sidelines. Then, I’ll concentrate on my family and visiting the world.”

“You like to travel.” It’s not quite a question, but I nod anyway. “I can’t imagine all of the places you must’ve seen.” Her smile brightens at the thought.

I smile back at her. “I’d love to take you to all of them, Julia, and then some.”

Her cheeks redden, and she looks away. I know she is having trouble believing me. She thinks it’s not possible for me to know already that she is the one I want to be with, but I have had a notion for months now that she is the only woman who can ever make me happy, and now that she is here beside me, I know that it is true. Now, I just have to make her see it.

We chat about a few of the places I’ve visited that she would like to see--London, Paris, Amsterdam--and then Priscilla comes in to tell us that the plane is about to make its final descent.

Julia’s eyes stare out the window. I hope I have distracted her enough that she doesn’t know where we are going yet. I can’t wait to see her face when she sees our destination for the first time. It will take her breath away, the same way she takes my breath away every time I look at her beautiful face.