That Was Then: A Second Chance Romance (Fated Loves Book 2)

by Zee Irwin

  “Lily? Is that you?” My sweet, book-loving, head-in-the-clouds, romantic roommate pinned a random guy against the building with her arms wrapped around him and her tongue shoved down his throat. The dude’s hands were all over her, one getting twisted up in her teased hair and the other threatening a lift of her skirt, giving everyone a show by squeezing her ass. It wasn’t a pretty PDA.

  I stomped up and tapped her on the shoulders, making her part ways with the guy she held captive. “Um, excuse me, but it’s not even midnight. What are you doing, Lily?”

  The guy shooed me away. “Get lost, lady. Me and the flower here are having a little fun. Ain’t we sugar? How about we go back to my place and keep having fun right on through midnight?” The guy was possibly the quirkiest guy I’d seen all night.

  Dressed like going to a retro jazz club, his look was complete with an old suit and greased hair combed over to the side, which was visible once Lily took off his fedora hat and placed it on her head. I didn’t believe it was possible for two quirky people to exist in one relationship. Which is why I was positive he wasn’t right for her. Lily needed an oppositely attractive man who could appreciate all her quirks and not outdo them.

  “Lily, a word over here, please?”

  Lily threw me a cheeky smile and chewed bubble gum at the same time once we stepped five feet away. She motioned to the condoms in my hand. “Hey. Good thinking. Glad you came prepared.” She tore off one condom, hesitated, then took a second with a giggle. She read the size, “Extra large.” After assessing the guy at the wall, she turned back to me and wiggled her brows. “They might work.”

  It stunned me into a reaction. “Lily, I thought you wanted only a kiss. A nice, respectable kiss at midnight.”

  “Lighten up, Cass, I’m having fun.” And back to the dude she went, making plan number two obsolete. I couldn’t move, unable to process how this night turned out to be such a failure.

  Hank reappeared at my side then, eyeing the three condom packages still in my hands. “For the record, those are the right size.” He gave me a sly half-smile and a sexy wink.

  I winced. “Oh! Emily! We should get you back inside, Hank. She’s probably wondering where you went.” I rushed into the pub and scanned for Emily, finding her out on the dance floor between two guys wearing BU sweatshirts.

  “Why me?” Hank pulled me back from the dance floor. “Why would Emily be wondering where I was?”

  “Well, because you two are hitting it off tonight, aren’t you?” I gaped at him.

  He threw his head back and laughed at first, but when I didn’t join in, he stopped. He gave me a sideways glance and squinted his puppy dog eyes. “Emily and I are just friends. There’s nothing there. Wait. Did you invite me here tonight so I could hook up with Emily?”

  “Yeah, Hank, that’s exactly why. I mean not to hook up, but yes, for Emily. Which is why you’re here, isn’t it?”

  He blew out a breath, ran his hand through his hair, sort of paced a few feet away, and then came back. His face reddened. “Cass, when you invited me here, I thought it was because you and I were . . . Oh, but you’re not interested in me like that, are you?”

  Certainly, my face turned a pale shade of pink, and I almost looked around for the trash can to lose the contents of my stomach What had I done? How had the night gotten worse? And there was Hank’s face, his eyes turned down where the twinkle in them disappeared. I swear his ears flopped forward and down like a sad golden retriever.

  “Oh Hank, you’re a sweet guy, but . . . a friend.”

  “But all of our texts this week . . .?”

  “I was trying to learn about you, thinking how right you’d be for Emily. I mean, I texted about Emily the whole time back to you.”

  His sad face crossed over with irritation. “Why is that? Does Emily like losers? Because that’s all I am to you, isn’t it? I’m a loser.” He turned and slumped away as the music switched to another popular song. A swarm of ladies split my path to Hank as they strutted to the dance floor. I craned my neck in time to see him leave the pub.

  Emily bounded off the dance floor and into my arms. “Isn’t this the best night? Hey sis, my friends and I are hitting a party near campus. You want to come with us?”

  “What about Hank, Emily?”

  “Hank? Oh, did he leave?” She looked around, then shrugged her shoulders. “Oh well, I’m sure I’ll see him in class this semester.” She glanced back at her BU friends.

  There was no project left, and I was in no mood for good times anymore. “You go on, but be safe. And text me.”

  At a half-hour to midnight, I found myself alone, standing in a crowded pub, surrounded by people I didn’t know, abandoned by people I knew and loved, and about to ring in the next year—all alone.

  If misery was a person, then he/she/they were not pleasant company, bringing me the gift of tears brimming over right now. At least I knew Maddie behind the bar, and her boyfriend Daniel at his usual barstool talking with her. She placed a cup of coffee in front of me with two sugars and three creams the way my sensible roommate knew I liked it. But coffee didn’t have a fighting chance since I sobered up quickly by watching my friends walk out on me.

  “Are you okay, sweetie? The coffee is from the guy down at the end of the bar. I can’t be sure, but he looks like the picture you showed me of Bronson, maybe an older version. If it’s not, then I can tell him you’re not interested.”

  My head snapped up to the end of the bar. I strained my neck and squinted my eyes to see while swiping at my tears when a tap came on my shoulder behind me. I turned on my barstool right into Bronson. His closeness, exactly what I didn’t know I needed right then, came as a total surprise since he was the person who had hurt me the most.

  “You look like you could use a friend.” His cinnamon tainted Guinness breath drifted my way while the sound of a soul I knew warmed up to my ears. I didn’t want their invasion, but I couldn’t stop them.

  “It didn’t seem like we were friends last night,” I blubbered out. “Why are you here, Bronson?”

  “Hank told Tony he was meeting you, Tony told me where.”

  My surprised look turned into eyebrows raised. What did he want now?

  “I had to see you tonight and tell you something important. Are you ready for this? I found out Matilda changed your printing code. She’s the one who changed the coupon last minute.”

  My eyes went double-wide. “I told you it wasn’t me, but why would she accuse me?”

  He shifted on his feet and scratched the back of his neck. “She sort of had a thing for me, I guess. Look, after you and I broke up, and I started working for her at Chick In Bun in London, she took me under her wing, and we slept together. But in my defense, I was missing you and stupid and getting drunk a lot, trying to self-medicate. Matilda meant nothing to me and it was over as fast as it started. I guess since I was back, she thought we could resume, but I squashed the idea quickly. I never thought she’d sabotage a marketing campaign.”

  Bronson and Matilda? I couldn’t picture it. I let my face tell him what I thought of this news. “Okay, first, yuck, and it might take me a while to lose the vision of the two of you together. Second, I get it, and we’ve been over this. It wasn’t an easy time for either of us. I also tried replacing you with other guys at first.” I watched his jaw tighten. “But, Bronson, there’s something else. When I was at Acme Printing, Tom showed me the first drafts of the Tater Spud campaign. They were my ideas. I shared them with Matilda, and she said they were awful, but they were right there in the middle of the campaign somehow.”

  “You mean ‘The Love Match’ marketing campaign was your idea?”

  I nodded vigorously. “Yes. I don’t need recognition but some acknowledgement that I had a hand in it would be appreciated. If you need proof, I can give it to you. I keep my initial ideas in my pink notebook, and I always date the meeting notes. And I took photos of my storyboards on my phone. I can show you.” I pulled it out of my pocket to
find the photos.

  He moved too, taking out his wallet and pulling something out. I held up my phone, and he held up my pink paper at the same time.

  “My notes! You had them? But how?”

  He pointed to my cursive handwriting of our names scrawled together through my doodles. “I might have passed by your desk one night and found this on it. I remembered in college how you had a notebook full of these pages with my name doodled on them, and I guess I was sentimental, so I took it.” He shrugged with a sheepish grin. “I believe you, Cassidy. And I already fired Matilda over the printing fiasco.”

  “Fired?” The emotions of the entire week along with this news finally sent my tears breaking down the dam and streamed their way down my face. Lucky for Bronson, he was my towel as I thrust my body into his, burying my face into his chest. His muscled arms wrapped tight around me and his body molded around mine like they welcomed me home.

  I needed this. The memory of his embrace wasn’t half as good as this, and my tears flowed harder, and my shoulders shook. He held me close and then, against his chest and between my muffled sobs, I filled him in on the worst possible New Year’s Eve ever.

  “Nothing turned out the way it should have. Aggie wanted a huge penis, and Adam got all mad, and then Lily found some quirky guy for a public display of affection. And then Hank thought he was here for me when I thought he was here for Emily. They all hate me now. I only wanted a happy ending for all of them.”

  He listened to my blubbering mess, patiently stroking my hair. When I finished, he leaned down to my ear and said all the things making him a perfect candidate for the hero in a second chance romance. “For the record, I don’t know who some of those people are, but I know you, Cassidy, the happy maker. You give your heart out to the people you care about and try so hard to help them and be there for them. So things didn’t work out the way you planned tonight? They’re adults. They’ll figure out how to be happy on their own without you. Maybe it’s time you gave yourself a break. Let someone take care of you and do all the things that add to your happiness. Like me. I’ll take on that role if you let me back into your life.”

  Why did he have to say all the right things ringing to the tune of perfect in my ears? I had remained steadfast against the idea of Bronson and I having another chance. I had given Fate the middle finger. Or so I thought. Then Lily’s words came rushing back as a warning. You found your right person twice, don’t throw the second chance away.

  All around us in the pub were people seeking the right person. It was tough to find the one in this crazy world, but Lily was right. Bronson was mine. He always had been. I kept denying it and pushing him away, and he kept trying, even when forces rose against us. But how many chances was Fate going to give me before Bronson gave up?

  “Will you let me back into your life, Cassidy, please? For so many reasons, but especially because there’s no one else I’d rather kiss at midnight on New Year’s.”

  He lifted my chin, wiped away my tears, and studied what must have been my Picasso face, with mascara smudges all over it.

  The pub erupted with the sounds of a countdown around us. Denial, anger, fear disappeared when I reached up, bringing his face closer to mine. We held there, our lips two inches away from each other, his heated breath twirled with mine, our hearts seconds away on the brink of starting again. And finally, on the stroke of midnight, his cinnamon lips brushed across mine, testing the waters and questioning if I’d join him, and when my lips didn’t pull back, he tested again, lingering this time on mine with hope. When I parted his lips with my tongue, seeking his, they swirled together. Nothing stood in the way now, nothing would dissuade his tenderness in the full-bodied intent of his midnight kiss.

  He had his answer. Yes, I’d let him back into my life.

  And dammit, this moment had all the makings of a perfect kiss for a second chance romance. Yes, Fate, you won.

  26

  Reunited at Midnight

  Bronson

  One kiss at midnight wasn’t all I had in mind. I hoped to convince Cassidy we were ready for the next level.

  “Come back to my place,” I groaned.

  The crowd around us breaking into the traditional Auld Lang Syne song wasn’t stopping our progress in getting reacquainted with each other’s lips. And no matter how many people clapped my back and danced and moved around us, excited for another year’s birth, my arms were not letting Cassidy go.

  She pulled back, a look of horror on her face. “Where are you staying? Your parents’ house? No thanks.”

  “I’m checked into a hotel for now until I get a place of my own. So, it’d be only the two of us.” I knew her fears before she even said them, and moved in to kiss her again. A second away from her lips was a second of torture. But she pulled away.

  She found her coat on the barstool. I took it as a sign that she agreed. I pulled out my phone and called an Uber, but she stopped me.

  “Bronson, as much as I want to, I can’t. I know tonight would be so amazing, but after tonight, then what? What makes you think your family would accept me this time around? I’m sorry. I’ll call my own Uber.” If I thought she was sad before, she looked downright torn up now.

  I laced my hand with hers and didn’t let go. “It’s not like that. I’m calling my own shots now, doing things my own way. I’m stronger, so it won’t be like it was. They won’t be telling me what to do, and they won’t have a say in who I can love. I want you, and they will have to live with my terms. And if they can’t, well then I’ll leave the family and Chick In Bun behind. I have money saved now, and I’ll find somewhere else to work. As long as you and I are together, it’s the only thing that matters to me.”

  She cocked her head at me. “You’d do that for me? Leave the company? Your family? But how long would it last? Until Buck worms his way back so deep into you again and pressures you to leave me? I don’t know. We’ve been down this road before.”

  I brought her into my arms again, because now I could do that any damn time I wanted. She was halfway on the same page with me, and I needed to get her fully on it so we could write our next story together. “That was then, Cassidy. We can do this now. Will it be perfect? Likely not. But we’ve learned from the past. We’ll face whatever happens together, because we’re meant to be.” I pressed my lips to hers again to seal my words with tenderness, understanding, and longing.

  “Cassidy Masters, it’s you, it’s always been you. We’ve lost five years. I can’t go another second without you.”

  She nodded and smiled and cried and laughed all at once. “I want you too, Slugger. And I still love you.”

  My forehead connected with hers. “Oh baby, I still love you, even more.”

  She was mine, and I was hers. Once again. Only this time, it would be forever, or I would die trying.

  For my next move, all I could think about was taking her back to my hotel tonight and then waking up tomorrow morning with her in my arms, and—well, I was thinking about a lot of other sexy stuff that might occur in between night and morning. But we hung around the pub an hour more. Maddie introduced me to her boyfriend, Daniel, and we had a good talk over beer about business, baseball, and investments. He seemed like a good guy. Cassie and Maddie helped Lily sober up with coffee. And we all watched the New Year’s Eve crowd die down, with hopes high for another year.

  Later, in the Uber on the way to my hotel, I pulled Cassidy closer in my arms, snuggling her as comfortably as we could in the small sedan backseat.

  “I think we need a selfie of us together again.” She held up her smartphone and snapped a few while we smiled, and another where I nuzzled her neck, making her squeal. She saved the last one to her phone wallpaper.

  “Do you mind if I post to my Instagram?”

  I winced. “I don’t do social media. It’s your thing, and it’s fine, but not for me.”

  “Here, look . . . ” She showed one of our photos but enlarged, focused on our hands laced together. “I’ll onl
y post photos like this one.”

  “Okay, but I want you to myself and not have your millions of followers know our business each second of the day. So try saving some private moments for us.”

  She snorted. “Millions. As if.” I watched her thumbs fly across the screen. When she hit post to her profile, she exclaimed. “Oh. I broke a hundred thousand followers.” She squealed and threw her arms around my neck and hugged tight.

  “I don’t blame people for following you. You’re an amazing woman attracting people to your positive outlook on life.”

  Her phone pinged with a text. We both looked at it.

  Hank: I’m sorry. I’m an asshat. Still friends?

  Cassidy: Friends forever. :)

  I smirked down at her phone. A little jealousy might have kicked in, but it was no big deal. I knew I had her loving heart, and it wasn’t going anywhere. As long as she made our relationship a priority, then she could take on as many projects as she needed to feel happy and fulfilled in her life’s mission to make the world a better place for all. Even for someone like Hank Amato. Because my Cassidy cared for the people in her life.

  She giggled. “Relax, Slugger, he’s not competition.” She turned off her phone and put it away.

  “I know he’s not competition for me, because I know you’re mine and I’m yours. And when we get to the hotel, I’ll prove it by doing anything and everything I can to satisfy you.”

  “Hmm. Sounds like a promise.” A sultry and deep groan teased my ears as her head burrowed into my chest and her hand rested on my thigh.

  I moved her hand up higher. Her fingertips explored, grazing across my pants, daring to see how hard I already was.

  “It’s more than a promise, Cassidy. It’s a plan. This is now, and it’s our time.”

  27

  Second Chance Valentine’s

  Bronson