Dance for the Billionaire by Jewel Moore Read Free Book Online Page B

mother in charge.  But Shawn at seventeen seemed sensible and responsible enough.
    “Is this your car?” he asked in alarm when she crossed the road and stopped beside a 2002 model Ford Escort.
    “Yes,” she responded, quickly opening the door and getting into the driver’s seat. “It may not look like much, but it’s very reliable.”
    “I hope so!”  Dominic opened the front door on the passenger side and slid onto the seat, grateful to see at a quick glance that the car was at least spotless inside.  “I should really call my driver.  I don’t think this will get us to Knightsbridge.”
    “Trust me, this little baby would get us safely to Land’s End and back.”  Chantelle  patted the steering wheel affectionately before she started the engine and pulled off smoothly.
    The car’s engine sounded good, Dominic acknowledged, but there was no way he was going to let her keep driving around in the rust bucket.
    “I’m sorry…about my mum.”  Chantelle’s voice was husky as she continued, “She used to be a beautiful, vibrant woman—Charmine looks like her—but she’s been this way since my father left her for the son of a family friend ten years ago.”
    “Son?”  Dominic stared at her in surprise.  “I thought that I’d misunderstood what she was saying.”
    “My father’s gay.”  Chantelle laughed at his stunned expression.  “My mother’s friend Pauline said that everyone in the neighborhood where they grew up in Jamaica thought Dad was gay…except Mum, of course.  She was a nurse and when she got the chance to come here due to a shortage of nursing staff, she asked Dad to marry her and brought him with her.  Dad told me, when he finally called for the first time after leaving on my eighteenth birthday, that he couldn’t have turned down the chance to come to the UK, although he’d known then that he liked men.”
    “That was a seriously underhand move,” Dominic said politely.  Privately he thought the man sounded a real bastard.
    “He said that he’d received several death threats from the men in the village after he’d gotten close to an older man whose wife lived in the States.  He said he got a lucky escape when he came to London.  I think he did try to make the marriage work.  He was a great father.”  Chantelle was surprised to find herself smiling fondly in remembrance—usually thoughts of her father triggered memories of the harrowing times they had endured after he’d left them abruptly to follow his heart’s desires.  “He worked at the local barber shop and used to braid our hair.  We had the best cornrow styles for miles.  He was a good cook, too—much better than Mum—and each night he used to tell us funny stories about growing up in Jamaica.”
    Chantelle paused, looking pensive for several moment.  Dominic didn’t attempt to break the silence.
    “I don’t blame him for marrying Mum.  From what I’ve heard there was a lack of tolerance for homosexuals in Jamaica at the time…even now it’s not really accepted.  He probably did have a lucky escape.  But I can never forgive him for leaving without saying goodbye.”
    “He didn’t call for seven years?” Dominic confirmed.
    “No.  He said he was too embarrassed at first and then it got harder and harder to pick up the phone.”
    “But did you know that he was alive?” That was the part that would have torn Dominic up—the not knowing if his father was dead or alive.
    “Oh, we knew he was alive.”
    Chantelle’s answer was laced with hurt and Dominic suddenly realized that the knowledge could probably be as bad as the not knowing.  Her father had deliberately ignored her and her siblings and his responsibility to them.
    “When he first disappeared Mum was convinced that someone had murdered him.  She was furious  with the police for not taking the necessary action.  But, apparently they had managed to contact my father as soon as she’d reported him missing.  He had