S is for Second Chance

by Annie J. Rose

  Ron came to a halt in front of us. His cheeks were flushed, and his eyes were flashing with anger. “What the hell is that asshole doing here?” he seethed.

  Elly looked up at me, an apology in her eyes before she turned back to her father. “We’ve been working together on this deal.”

  “What?” he snapped.

  She sighed. “He’s helping us get the IPO set up.”

  Ron glared at me. “He has no business here!”

  I opened my mouth to reply but quickly shut it when Elly shot me a look. It was her party. I had no idea what was going on, but I was going to guess Ron didn’t know I was involved. Elly had kept him in the dark? I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I was going to be very interested to find out.

  If there was any double-dealing going on, I was going to lose my damn mind.

  Chapter 18

  Elly

  I couldn’t believe my father had shown up. He was going to ruin everything. I had planned to explain what I had done, but I wanted to wait until everything was completely tidied up. I knew there was a chance he would puff out his chest and do exactly what he was doing.

  He was pissed. More pissed than I had ever seen him. The last thing I needed was for him to try and start shit with Devin. Devin was not a man to back down. The two of them had been circling each other for years. It was a lit match hovering over a pile of dry straw. If there was a brawl, it would ruin our credibility. I wouldn’t blame Toby a bit if he decided to pull the deal, no matter what it cost him.

  I stepped in front of my father, trying to block his view of Devin. I knew it wasn’t possible, but I wanted his attention on me—not Devin. Honestly, Devin would shred him given the opportunity. I couldn’t blame him for wanting to go after my father. Not really. My loyalty was to my father, but he had been a scoundrel. He would have screwed over Toby, himself, and ultimately me. I hauled my ass out to New York, did something I wasn’t proud of, and he was going to destroy everything I had worked for.

  “Dad, what are you doing here? How did you even know I was here?”

  He glared at me. “I didn’t know you were here!” he snapped. “It appears I arrived at just the right time. I get to see your betrayal with my own two eyes! The better question is what are you doing here with him? He’s our enemy!”

  I rolled my eyes. “Nobody is betraying anyone.”

  “Not this time,” Devin muttered behind me.

  “We don’t have any enemies either. This isn’t the Dark Ages.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Devin mumbled under his breath.

  I turned to shoot him another look, asking him to keep the comments to himself. He barely looked my way. His eyes were locked on my father like a tiger locking his gaze on a juicy T-bone steak. “Again, why are you even here?” I directed the question at my father. “You said you had a meeting today.”

  My eyes went to the young man standing behind him. The kid actually had pimples on his face and looked like he was playing dress-up in his daddy’s suit. The poor guy was looking at me and Devin with fear and confusion. I wondered if he was my dad’s assistant. My dad couldn’t afford to pay an actual professional. It made sense he would hire a kid fresh out of high school.

  I watched him straighten his tie and jerk his chin up. “I came by to introduce my new VP to Toby. I wanted to see how things were going, check in with the guy. I told him I would keep in touch, and I always follow through with my promises.”

  Devin’s loud choking sound was very deliberate. The tension between them ratcheted higher. I needed to defuse the situation before it came to a head and the police were called. The last thing either of them needed was to be arrested on assaulted charges.

  I sighed. “You don’t need to worry about any of that,” I told him. “I’ve got everything taken care of. I told you I would handle it. I’ll set up a meeting with you tomorrow and go over all the details.”

  He scoffed. “Oh, I can see that. You went running to Devin McKay for help. What did you tell him?”

  Before I could answer, Devin stepped forward. “You’re damn right she did, and it’s a good thing she did. You were dead set on bungling another deal. It’s all you know how to do. It’s a miracle you still have a company.”

  “You shut your mouth.” My father seethed. “This is none of your business. This is mine! My deal! You are not going to worm your way in on this. You think you can flash your smile and wear your expensive suits and woo anyone. I’ve got news for you, not this time. Your flashy looks aren’t going to keep you going forever.”

  Devin chuckled. “My flashy looks are doing just fine. And, it is my business.”

  “No, it isn’t. Elly and I got the contract. Your name is nowhere on those documents.”

  Devin turned to look at me, questioning me. I winced, knowing Devin was about to tell my father exactly why it was his business. He was going to enjoy the telling of it as well. There was no stopping it now.

  “You may have gotten the contract, but I’m the one doing the legwork,” Devin started. “My company is getting a share of the profits because of my contribution. I’m paying the IPO team—you are not. I’m making sure this is worthy of my name being attached to it. You damn well better believe I’m going to make sure there is a profit to make. I’m not backing off this time. I’m in this, and I will not be withdrawing.”

  “What the hell is he going on about?” My dad turned his furious gaze on me.

  I shrugged. “I had to do something. Your shortsighted plan wasn’t good for anyone. We needed a team to put together a package that would entice people to buy shares. I needed help.”

  “And you ran to him,” he growled.

  “I made an agreement that will be beneficial to all parties involved,” I said, barely keeping my cool. “I needed Devin’s expertise and experience.”

  “What am I, chopped liver?”

  I heard Devin’s guffaw and had to fight to hold my own in. “Dad, this is a fair deal. Toby is very happy with the package we’ve put together. He’s completely on board with it. The best part is you are going to make a lot more money than if we would have stuck with your idea. This is a win-win. You’ll have the capital to keep investing and build up the company again.”

  His lip curled, his face turning a deep shade of red. He did not look well. His hands curled into fists as he stared me down. “Bullshit! I will not stand by while this man tries to steal this deal out from under me. I found this investment opportunity. He’s trying to cash in on my hard work! He thinks he can steal another deal from me! I’m not letting the little thief get his hands on it!”

  He sounded ridiculous. I had a very good understanding about why Devin did not like him. He was acting like a childish fool. I was embarrassed for him. I was embarrassed for me as well. “He—” I started to argue but Devin stepped forward. His broad shoulder blocked my view of my father, forcing me to step to the side.

  Devin was a commanding force. He towered over my father, and the lanky child playing with the big boys was no match for Devin in any way. “I’m not a thief,” Devin hissed. “I don’t steal. Ever. I only play fair.”

  “Bullshit!” my father spat. “You wouldn’t know fair if it bit you in the ass.”

  I winced, hoping Devin had a cooler head than my father. “I’ve entered into a legally binding agreement. Elly came to me. Toby is on board with what I’ve put together. This deal will go through, and it will be my way.”

  My dad shook his head. “No, it won’t.”

  Devin gave an incredulous laugh. “I don’t know who you think you are, Ron, but this deal is done. I’m involved, and I’ll be damned if I let you get mixed up in this and fuck it up. That’s what you do—you fuck things up. You don’t know the first thing about how to make money. You sure as hell can’t keep money. Let Elly and me handle this and sit back and count the profit that falls into your lap. Watch me do what I do and think about how much better I am at doing it.”

  “Nope, I don’t think so,” he replied w
ith a smug look on his face.

  Devin’s deep, sinister laugh had me on edge. I could see him barely restraining himself. My father kept poking him. Someone should have told him never poke an angry bear. “I’m not wasting any more of my time discussing this with you. It’s well in hand. Scurry off and go see what else you can screw up for your daughter to fix.”

  “You won’t have a damn thing to do with this deal. You’ll walk away from this deal, just like you walked away from your daughter.”

  I froze. My mouth fell open. I quickly snapped it shut to keep from throwing up all over Devin’s immaculate Italian leather shoes. “Dad!”

  Devin looked at me with confusion and then back at my father, who was grinning. “Run away. That’s what you do best. I’m going to tell Toby and everyone else what kind of man you are. You walk around like you’re king of the world, but you’re a piece of shit that deserts his own kid.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Devin hissed.

  “Dad, shut up!” I protested, silently hoping the sidewalk would open up and swallow me.

  “No, I won’t keep my mouth shut any longer,” my dad said, clearly realizing he had just found a thread to pull that would get to Devin. “What will people think of you when they find out you knocked up your twenty-one-year-old intern and then left her alone to raise the baby without giving her a damn penny.”

  “That isn’t what happened,” I argued, my voice lacking any real authority. Everything was happening too fast.

  Devin was looking at me with confusion, as if he didn’t understand the words that were being spoken. When it dawned on him what my father was actually saying, his confusion morphed into anger. He glared at me with such fierceness I actually recoiled.

  I turned my own anger on my father. I stepped forward and shoved his shoulders, pushing him back several inches. “Go! Get out of here!”

  “That man doesn’t get to get away this!” he protested.

  “Go!” I shouted. “You’re making a mess of things.” I shoved him again.

  “God dammit, Elly!” he shouted.

  “Go home!” I yelled.

  “I’ll go,” he groused, waggling his finger at me, then Devin. “This isn’t over. It isn’t over by half. I’m going to get my money.”

  He turned to his new VP and grabbed his arm, pulling him down the sidewalk. I almost asked him to come back. I suddenly didn’t want to be alone with Devin. I could feel the anger radiating off him. I dreaded what was coming. It had been almost three years in the making. It was time to face the consequences of my decision that had been made in haste.

  I closed my eyes, gathering the courage to face the man. I turned and found myself taking a step back. He was beyond furious. I had thought I had seen him pissed before. What I saw on his face in that moment was so much more than anger.

  “Devin—” I stopped. I didn’t know what to say. There was nothing to say. My dad had said it all.

  Chapter 19

  Devin

  My head felt like it was stuck in a beehive. There was an intense buzzing in my ears. Initially, I thought Ron was drunk, confusing me with himself. He said “your daughter.” I thought maybe he meant his daughter. It hadn’t occurred to me he was actually telling me I had walked away from my own daughter. How could it?

  His words replayed on a loop in my head. I watched as Elly shouted at him to shut up. She’d been horrified when he’d kept talking. That should have been the point where I realized Ron was speaking the truth. Sadly, my sluggish brain didn’t pick up on it until the man was walking away. He said Elly had gotten pregnant with my child? It couldn’t be. It didn’t make sense.

  But it made so much sense.

  It explained her vanishing from New York. It explained why she never took my calls and why I never saw her at any of the functions I knew her father would be at. I had purposely gone to parties and benefits the Savages often attended. She had never been there; it was like she’d fallen off the face of the planet. I told myself her disappearance was the result of her shame.

  I looked at her, searching her face for an explanation. I silently begged her to tell me her father was making it all up. Ron was wrong. I wasn’t the father. She had a boyfriend and he was the child’s father. I stared at her so hard, willing the truth to surface.

  The longer I looked at her, I realized I was in for a hell of a day. The guilt and worry on her face made it evident that it was true. I was a father. I felt like I had been kicked in the gut by a steel-toed size fourteen.

  “Elly?” I breathed her name.

  “Devin,” she said, shaking her head, tears in her eyes.

  I looked up at the sky before looking into her blue eyes. I had once believed she was innocent. Those angelic features were her disguise. She was the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing. The longer I looked at her, the angrier I became. She had lied to me over and over and over. I wasn’t sure she had ever told me the truth in all the time we had known each other. She was a habitual liar.

  “My daughter?” My throat felt raw.

  “I can explain,” she blurted out.

  I laughed. “I don’t think you can.”

  “Please, let me explain,” she begged.

  “You…” I seethed. “I can’t.” I shook my head. “Not here.”

  I grabbed her arm and walked down the sidewalk, heading for my waiting car. I yanked open the back door before giving her a gentle push into the back seat. I had to make a conscious effort not to manhandle her. She was a woman—the mother of my child at that, apparently.

  “Devin.” She said my name again.

  “A daughter?” I snapped.

  “Where to, sir?” the driver asked.

  I ignored him, staring at Elly. “What the hell is your father talking about?” I demanded. “Why would he think I knocked you up?”

  “Should I head to the office?” the driver asked, clearly uncomfortable with the situation.

  “A daughter!” I shouted, not bothering to answer the driver.

  Elly blurted out an address, ignoring my demand for answers. I was struggling to make sense of everything. My brain was going in a thousand different directions. Images of a pregnant Elly popped into my head. Had she truly had a child? I thought back to the frantic round of sex on my foyer floor. I noticed no changes in her body, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. I hadn’t noticed much of anything except what it felt like to be consumed by her wet heat.

  The car jerked forward, snapping me back against the seat. It was the jolt I needed to pull me back into the moment. I was spinning. My brain was going about a million miles an hour. I pictured the child she gave birth to. I couldn’t make sense of it all. Did the kid have blonde hair? Did she look like Elly? What was her name?

  They were questions a father should be able to answer. The word felt foreign, like it didn’t belong in my vocabulary.

  I turned to face her. “Elly, is it true? Do you have a daughter? Do I have a daughter? Am I a father?”

  She slowly nodded. “It’s true. I do have a daughter.”

  I put a hand over my face. I couldn’t look at her. “What the fuck?” I breathed. I didn’t miss the part where she said she had a daughter. That was too much for me to try and dissect in the moment. I told myself to put a pin in it and circle back to that little detail.

  “I didn’t mean for you to find out like this,” she replied.

  I pulled my hand away and looked at her. “What you really mean is you didn’t mean for me to ever find out. That’s why you moved across the country.”

  She shrugged. “Yes. I moved because I wanted a fresh start. I didn’t want to complicate things any more than they already were.”

  “You wanted a fresh start with my child. You didn’t answer me; were you ever going to tell me about her?”

  She turned and looked out the window. It was the answer I had expected. I cursed, turning to look out the opposite window. It was too much to take in. I was out of my element. I could handle
a stock crashing, a company executive arrested for fraud, or losing a multimillion-dollar deal. A secret child was not in my wheelhouse.

  “I honestly didn’t think I would ever see you again,” she said in a soft voice. “I didn’t think you would ever want to see me again after what happened.”

  I turned to look at her, studying the features I had committed to memory. None of it was real. Everything I thought I knew about her was a lie. “Is your name really Elly?” I asked.

  “What?” she asked, wrinkling her nose. “Of course it is. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  I shrugged. “It isn’t ridiculous, not when you consider all that you’ve told me, or not told me. It’s stupid to ask. You wouldn’t tell me the truth anyways. You seem to be pretty good at making things up as you go. You have a knack for deception.”

  She blew out a breath. “I didn’t lie to you.”

  “You had my child!”

  “Yes, I did, but I didn’t lie to you. I didn’t tell you. That is very different.”

  “Ever heard the term lying by omission? That’s what you did. You lied. And you kidnapped my child now that I think about it.”

  She frowned at me. “I didn’t kidnap anyone. She’s my child too.”

  “I underestimated you. I thought I had you figured out. The betrayal was one thing, but this, my God, this is next-level. You are, I don’t know what the hell you are, but I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

  “You’re making it sound like I purposely got pregnant. That isn’t the case at all. Trust me, it was as much a surprise to me as it is to you now. I was twenty-one and pregnant by a man that hated me. I wasn’t exactly thinking straight.”

  I had to look away from her. I was so pissed I couldn’t stand being near her. I had no words to express my anger. I was afraid to put words to my emotions. I didn’t want to say something I regretted later. As furious as I was with her, she was the mother of my child.