“I wanted to ask you to move in with me. I know you had a bad experience with your ex boyfriend, but I was thinking that maybe we’ve spent enough time together to know what to expect now,” he said and let go of her. She could see the anxiety in his eyes. To him this was as good as asking her to marry him. Baby steps.
Belle burst into a laugh, and when he looked wounded, she leaned over to kiss him again.
“You don’t have to look so afraid, Devon. Of course I want to move in with you. My living experience with Jesse…my whole relationship with him was nothing like what we have,” she said. Devon looked pleasantly surprised. For some reason, he hadn’t been expecting her to say yes.
“So you’ll move in with me?” he asked and Belle nodded her head.
“And I want to be a little more open about our relationship too, without letting it affect my work here,” she said and Devon kissed her forehead.
“Yes, I agree. We shouldn’t let it affect your work. Maybe we can think about that, and for now just work on getting you settled into my place,” he said and started leading her away from her desk.
They were walking in and arm towards the elevators on the floor. Belle was still blushing and Devon was still beaming like a teenager. It had been eight months since they first started seeing each other, and Belle knew that it was the best decision she had ever made.
“Where are we going?” she asked him, as the elevator doors pinged open and he led her in.
“Wherever you want to go, my love,” Devon told her. Belle pressed the button for the ground floor and turned to place her hands on his broad chest.
“How about we go to my new home?” she said and they were kissing again.
BOOK 2: HIRED BY THE BILLIONAIRE
BLURB
Lena has always been a free-spirited woman. She’s traveled to every corner of the globe, searching for happiness. She managed to find it within her career as a world-renowned chef, but she’s still missing one very important thing. She’s missing love.
After nearly a decade abroad, something has called her back to the city where she first put down her roots. Now that she’s back in New York she’s ready to settle down for a little while and accepts a job at a brand new restaurant owned by a man named Jamison.
Jamison has a reputation as a playboy, but Lena is sure she can handle his swagger and charm. What she doesn’t expect, however, is the bond that builds between them and his genuine interest in her. She is the first woman to ever resist him and it only makes him want her more.
And she certainly never expected that this man, this womanizer turned gentleman, might actually come to love her and help her face the things she’s been trying so desperately to run from.
Lena
One hundred and twenty-two. What does that number mean? Well, it’s the number of countries I have visited in my lifetime and it is what I have chosen to introduce myself with. My name is Lena Patterson and I don’t think there’s a better way to impress upon people what kind of person I am than the number of countries I’ve visited. It doesn’t tell you how much I make in a year or what political party I belong to, but what it does say is that I have a deep desire to learn, explore and live life to the fullest. This wasn’t always the case, however.
I grew up in a small town in Alabama called Bellefontaine. It was the type of town where everyone knows everyone else’s business and people whisper cruel things behind their neighbors backs but smile at them on the streets. People who’ve never lived in a small town in America think of it as wholesome and some even want to raise their children in places like Bellefontaine. I understand the appeal to an outsider, but to me it was a cage.
People in Bellefontaine were born there and most of them died there. No one went college, people distrusted the ‘big cities’ and change was unwelcomed. I remember my mother talking about New York City like it was a stain that needed to be erased. It was a place to be avoided where children’s minds were corrupted. It was the Devil’s City and my mother would do anything in her power to keep me away from the sins and temptations of the world.
That’s why we never travelled. Anything outside my parent’s little bubble was terrifying to them. They didn’t want to be away from the church and the people that they’d grown up with. They wanted everything to stay the way it was when they were kids, even if that wasn’t the best thing.
I was happy to listen to them when I was young. I didn’t really have a choice. Our TV didn’t have cable and my access to the internet didn’t really begin until I was already a teenager and even then, it was limited. I knew very little of the world outside Bellefontaine.
When we were forced to go to Birmingham, my mother kept me close, keeping me from anyone who might want to compromise my morals. Birmingham is relatively small as far cities go, but to me it was a shining metropolis that was full of hope and promise. I wanted to live in a city like that. I wanted to get out of Bellefontaine.
I spent my teenage years rebelling against my parents like most teenagers. I would get rides with my friends and we would go to the city and stay with relatives or people we barely knew. It wasn’t the safest way to live, but it made us happy.
As the internet became more prevalent and smartphones put the power of information into people’s hands, I started to get more and more curious. I wanted to know more about the world and I was determined to find answers to my questions.
My mother was appalled when I was accepted to New York University. She pointed a bony finger in my face and told me that if I moved to New York, neither her nor my father would visit me. I accepted it and moved away to begin the best years of my life.
While I went to school I took full advantage of what the city had to offer. I explored every nook and cranny of the city, spending my weekends and days off crashing in people’s apartments, enjoying parties and all the things I’d missed out on growing up.
My first year was wild, and if I have to be honest, I don’t really remember much of it, but that doesn’t matter. I enjoyed being away from home, but soon realized that a college education wasn’t for me. I bounced around in several majors, but never really found my niche until I joined a study abroad program.
I spent a semester in France where I shacked up with a boyfriend who showed me my love of cooking. We would spend hours in the kitchen together, showing each other family recipes. The relationship didn’t last, but my love of cooking did.
I never went back to NYU and instead applied for a visa and started culinary school. I learned from some of the best chefs in the world and when I was done, I travelled world, taking various jobs to hone my craft. After my first three years working, I started getting recruited by five star restaurants all over the globe. I made a name for myself in the culinary world and soon everyone knew who I was. Magazines interviews me and some of the most powerful people in the world were hiring me to cater their events. I traveled the globe doing what I loved, feeding my wander lust and feeding people.