Best Friend's Ex Box Set

Taking a deep breath, I stepped over to the piano and sat down at the keys. I launched into a new song, surprised when Owen came to stand behind me, the mic in his hand. He began to sing the lyrics. We had practiced a few times before, but his voice still brought tears to my eyes. Maybe because he was singing a song we had created together, and he sang from his heart what we created from the heart.

The crowd fell silent as I poured myself into the song. And with the intensity of the music and the performance, coupled with Owen’s sweet voice, my heart was overwhelmed with love for him. His voice trailed off as he finished the lyrics and waited as I finished the last few notes. I simply sat there for a moment, my heart pounding in my ears as silence fell over the entire space.

Then, abruptly, the place erupted with shouts and cheers louder than I could have ever imagined. Smiling bright, I stood and glanced back, intending to prompt Owen to take a bow with me.

But he wasn’t where I had expected to see him. Instead, my eyes fell toward the floor where Owen was behind me on bended knee. In his hand, he held a small, black box. The crowd’s applause died to silence, and Owen looked up at me, smiling with tears rimming his eyes.

“Nalia Dean, no one has ever made me feel the way I do when I am with you, and I don’t ever want to find out what it feels like not to have you by my side. You are the most compassionate, loving person I have ever known, and I am so damn happy to have you in my life. I love you, more than any words could ever express. So, in front of all these witnesses, I’m asking if you will make me the happiest man on the planet. Will you marry me?” He opened the black box, revealing the most exquisite ring I’d ever laid eyes on.

“Owen,” I whispered as my hand covered my mouth in surprise, tears blurring my eyes. “Yes, yes, yes, I will. A million times, yes.”

He smiled and slipped the ring on my finger before rising to gather me in his arms, kissing me and holding me tightly against him. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you so much.”

“For what?” I asked, pulling back to look at him.

“For taking a chance on me. For believing in what we could be. We are going to make a beautiful future together.”

And we did.

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BILLIONAIRE AND THE AMISH GIRL

By Claire Adams

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 Claire Adams

Chapter One

Grace

When I walked out of the front door of my apartment building, I realized that this morning was one of those perfect, Chicago summer mornings. The temperature was warm, the humidity was low, and the whole city was awash in the lush greenery that made slogging through the cold, wet winters totally worth it. I smiled as I smoothed my new, red sheath dress and bent to wipe a bit of dirt off of the matching pumps I'd bought on my last trip to my favorite boutiques on Michigan Avenue. I dug into my bag, looking for my sunglasses, and quickly found them, then checked to make sure I had the presentation I was drafting for next month's meeting. When I was certain that everything was where it was supposed to be, I turned and headed toward the L, breathing deeply and feeling cheerfully optimistic.

A half an hour later, I stepped inside the large, glass and steel office building where I worked as a CPA for a large tech company. I stopped for a moment and thought about how far I'd come and how different my life was from my rural upbringing in northern Indiana. When I was a child, I couldn't have imagined living in this city or working at a job like the one I had now. The only thing that I had known back then was scripture and dutiful service to the community.

I shook my head, trying to let go of the memories that hovered in the recesses of my mind as I waved at Gertie, the security guard who sat watching the front desk, and headed for the bank of elevators that would take me up to the 37th floor.

I punched the up button and thought about how I loved my family and missed them all terribly, but from the time I was a young child, I knew that following the traditions of the Amish had never felt right to me. Thankfully my parents had been accepting of my differences and had supported me when I announced that, after my rumpspringa, I'd chosen not to be baptized, but instead would be applying to the University of Chicago so that I could pursue a degree in finance.

The car arrived and I stepped into it, holding the door for a man who was consulting a piece of paper before choosing a floor. I smiled and recalled how the next spring, against all odds, I'd received a letter of acceptance from UC and an award from the Amish Descendant Scholarship Fund covering the cost of tuition and room and board for all four years. That summer, my sister Faith got engaged to Samuel Yoder and I spent the entire time before I left for college helping plant celery and get the house ready for the October nuptials. I felt sad that I'd be missing out on such a happy celebration, but Mamm reassured me that there would be others and that I would always be welcome in our family home.

We stopped on the 25th floor and the man got out. I recalled how tensions rose in the community when word got back to the bishop of our district who also happened to be my father's older brother. He'd warned Dat and Mamm that if I left, I'd not be welcome back in the church unless I agreed to be baptized. Dat had stood firm against the edict and told his brother that all of his children, baptized or not, were welcome in their own home at any time. My uncle didn't take the news well and it made things tense when I'd return home for a visit.

The elevator dinged as I reached the 27th floor, and when the doors opened, I found myself standing face to face with my boss, Mike Killian.

"Good morning, Mike!" I said as I waved and headed toward my office.

"Morning, kid," Mike grunted as he sipped from a Styrofoam coffee cup and scanned the screen of his phone. "Oh, hey, Grace, I need to talk to you about the New York presentation. Come by around ten, will you?"

"Sure thing, Mike," I said as I pushed open the glass doors that led to the front lobby of Riser Tech. "I'll drop my things off and come down to your office." Mike simply nodded before disappearing into the elevator.

I said good morning to the front desk staff and then headed back to my own office, tucked away in the back of the accounting department. The year before I had been promoted and made assistant to the director of auditing. Our department examined potential new client accounts and reconciled the books before Riser Tech did any business with them, and then