And scary, if I was being honest. Things had gone well the night before, and I could tell that Bailey didn’t just want it to be a one-time thing. But there were all sorts of complications to our relationship, not least of which was her brother, who didn’t seem to want me to have anything to do with her. There were plenty of ways that we could screw up, end up going our separate ways. And what would happen to my mental state then, if I was this elated after just one night with her?
Still, I couldn’t stop the silly smile on my face, the continued whistling as I flipped pancakes. When Ethan came into the kitchen, still rubbing sleep from his eyes, he paused in the doorway, staring at me. Then, slowly, he smiled as well. “Guess you had a good date,” he said as he climbed up on his seat.
I sputtered at him. “It wasn’t a date,” I said, even though I didn’t know why I felt the need to defend myself to a six-year-old. Ethan gave me a knowing look and then rolled his eyes, and I laughed. “You’re too smart for a six-year-old,” I told him.
He rolled his eyes again. “I’m almost seven,” he reminded me.
“True,” I said, nodding at him. “Well either way, you’re still too smart.” I paused. “But I did have a really good night.”
“Course you did,” Ethan said, shrugging. “Bailey’s the best. Do you think we can go skiing with her now?”
“Soon,” I told Ethan, even though I still wasn’t sure that that was something that I should be promising him. It was enough for me to be allowed back to work. It was enough that Bailey had apparently gone head-to-head with her brother in an attempt to let me keep my job. I didn’t know how much I was really going to be able to be around the resort until Ian was gone. And even though I doubted Ian would say anything bad around Ethan, I wasn’t sure that I really wanted Ian to meet my son. Not just now, anyway.
But I did like the idea of the three of us going skiing together, and I was starting to realize that it was my dream as much as Ethan’s. I wanted to see Ethan get to know Bailey more. I wanted to spend more time with her.
My good mood lasted until I arrived at the hill. I had barely set foot in the lodge before I ran into Ian. I paused, tentatively smiling at him, wondering if maybe he had finally cooled off a little. We might have fallen out of touch recently, but once upon a time, we had been good friends. If we were going to see one another a bunch now that Bailey owned the lodge, I hoped there would be some way that we could salvage our friendship.
“Hey, how’s it going?” I asked.
Ian scowled at me, folding his arms across his chest. I tried not to grimace. Clearly, he hadn’t cooled off yet.
“Look, I’m sorry that you don’t want me dating your sister,” I said quietly. “I know that you’re just looking out for her. But I’m not going to dick her around, and I’m not trying to break her heart. I wouldn’t be with her if I didn’t really like her.”
Ian scowled at me, as though I had said exactly the wrong thing. “I’m not worried that you’ll break her heart,” he snapped. “She’s a big girl; she can handle herself. But you know as well as I do that she deserves someone better than you.”
“What?” I asked, genuinely shocked to hear him say that. I thought back over everything that I had ever done with Ian, every conversation that I could remember. I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about, though. What had I ever done to make him think that I was a horrible person?
Ian narrowed his eyes at me. “Come on, Adam. You’re a maintenance man. That’s, like, one step up from a plumber. Barely. And rumor has it, you live out in the middle of nowhere in what basically amounts to a shack. Bailey deserves better than you. You know that as well as I do.”
I stared at him, surprise coursing through my veins. I started to defend myself and then paused, not even sure what to say. Because the truth was, everything that he had said was true. I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought about that before, but in all my uncertainty about whether I was ready to get into a relationship again, all my worries about the fact that Bailey was my boss, I had never stopped to consider just how wrong we were for one another.
She and I were from two different worlds. She had grown up rich, coming to the resort on her family vacations. Me, I was from here, and I had never left. This was my hometown, and I had taken a trade job.
Bailey should be with someone who could give her the whole damn world, not just someone who could show her a little slice of this piece of paradise. She might be happy here at Brooks Mountain for the time being, but I didn’t even know if she planned to stay around there.
By next winter, she might be back in Vegas again, or somewhere else. I might never see her again. I could never compete with the whole world for her affection.
I swallowed hard, the words dying in my mouth. What could I really say to Ian? Granted, it was none of his business, really. If Bailey was interested in me, then that was her choice. But maybe Ian wasn’t telling me that I couldn’t be with Bailey. Maybe instead, he was warning me that I shouldn’t get too involved with her, that I shouldn’t let my heart get tangled up in interest for her.
Still, why did he have to say it like that? One step up from a plumber? Ian didn’t know half of the work that went into my job. He probably had no idea how ski lifts operated or how tricky they could be sometimes. But then again, did that really matter? All he knew was that Bailey deserved to be with someone who had money, who had a good life, who could give her everything that she wanted. All he knew was that she was educated and smart and deserved to be with someone who didn’t spend their whole life working with their hands and covered with grease.
And the more I thought about it, the more sure I was that he was right. I swallowed, still trying to think of something that I could say in response to him. But Ian just rolled his eyes. “Shouldn’t you get to work?” he asked, sounding impatient. “Or should I try to get Bailey to hire on the perfectly respectable crew that I tried to bring on before?”
“I’m going,” I muttered, moving to step around Ian.
Ian grabbed my arm as I turned to walk away. “One more thing,” he said, but whatever he planned to say, I never got to hear it. Just then, Bailey appeared, her hands on her hips. She barely glanced in my direction.
“Ian, can I see you in my office?” she asked, keeping her tone sweet. But I could hear the underlying frustration there, and I was sure that Ian could as well.
Ian glanced towards me, giving me a dirty look like he thought that I had planned this. But he nodded curtly at his sister. “Sure thing,” he said, leading the way towards her office.
Bailey finally glanced towards me, but I didn’t meet her gaze, still thinking about what Ian had said about her deserving better than me. For a moment, she hesitated like she wanted to say something. But what? She must regret this as much as I did.
We never should have gotten involved with one another. I didn’t know what kind of madness, or loneliness, had driven me to go against all my better judgement, but I knew that I had definitely made a mistake. If she somehow didn’t realize that now, then she would once she had talked to Ian some more.
I didn’t stick around to say anything to her, I just headed straight to my office and grabbed my tools. Ian was right, it was time for me to get to work. Because I was just a maintenance man, after all. One step up from a plumber.
I sighed and shook my head, wishing that his words didn’t hurt so goddamned much. But I knew what I was. It was really just a wonder that it had taken those words from Ian for me to remember it. Girls like Bailey deserved the handsome, worldly, rich guys from the movies. They should never hope to end up with someone like me. And I had been foolish to think otherwise, even for a moment.
33
Bailey
I barely managed to keep my temper in check as Ian and I walked to my office. I had kind of expected that he would have words with Adam if he saw him here. But I guess I had naively thought that it might take a little while longer for their paths to cross. Poor Adam. I didn’t know exactly what I
an had said to him, but Adam had looked pretty upset when I had walked into the lodge and seen the two of them going at it.
There was part of me that wanted to send Ian off to my office and stay with Adam to see if he was okay. But before I could say a single word to Adam, he brushed past me and headed towards his own office. I froze there in the middle of the lodge for a moment staring after him. Should I call him back? Or should I deal with the Ian situation first?
Suddenly, though, like a knife to the heart, I wondered if Adam really was upset about something that Ian had said to him. Maybe there was something else. Maybe he regretted sleeping with me and felt awkward at the fact that we had run into one another there in the lodge. Maybe he wanted nothing to do with me anymore.
After all, he had barely looked at me. I had been caught up in talking to Ian, but when I’d turned to look at Adam, he could barely meet my gaze. Maybe he didn’t want to be caught up in the drama that my brother seemed intent on causing. Or maybe he just wasn’t interested in being with me anymore. He had told me that I would need to be patient with him. He had clearly already been having some sort of reservations about the two of us.
I sighed, wishing that I could follow Adam and talk things through with him. But he had made it very clear that he didn’t want to talk to me, at least not right now. And I had a feeling that if I didn’t head into my office and talk things over with Ian, then he would come looking for me, and I didn’t want him and Adam anywhere near one another again.
I shook my head and stalked off towards my office. “Everything okay?” Kayla asked as I walked near her.
I rolled my eyes and grimaced. “I’ll tell you later,” I told her.
She gave me a sympathetic look but didn’t say anything else as I headed towards my office, trying to put my thoughts about Adam out of my head. Right now, it was Ian that I needed to focus on.
I took a deep breath and opened the door, frowning at Ian. “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked him. “I thought I made it clear that I don’t want you meddling in things around here.”
Ian raised an eyebrow at me, holding up both his hands. “I know you want me to stay out of the business,” he said. “I still think that we could do some really great things together, but I respect that. I didn’t realize you were banning me from the resort though. Or is it Park City?” He said the last teasingly, but I met his gaze flatly, not in the mood to kid around.
He sighed. “Bailey, it’s almost Christmas. I know you’re mad at me for stepping on your toes, but I didn’t think you wanted me to go back home. I thought we could spend the holidays together here. I just came up today to go skiing, and I was in the lodge looking for you because I hoped you might join me. I wasn’t looking for Adam or anything; I just happened to run into him.”
I frowned at him, but I could already feel my suspicions easing. I sighed. “I do want you to stay for the holidays,” I admitted. Ian might have exhausted my patience ever since he came back to Park City, but he was still my brother. And this was the first holiday since Dad had died. I wanted to spend time with the family that I had left. I knew that I would regret it otherwise.
I just didn’t know what he had against Adam. “What were you and Adam talking about anyway?” I finally asked. “He didn’t look happy.”
Ian shrugged. “I don’t know what’s up with that,” he said. “Maybe he has a lot of work to do and he was just feeling frazzled. I actually stopped to ask if he needed any help with anything, but he brushed me off. So I asked if he wanted to get beers later. That’s when you walked up.”
I thought back over the scene from before. I could imagine Adam brushing off Ian when he offered his help around the resort. After all, I knew how Adam could be about his work. It was the whole reason why he wouldn’t let me hire someone to help him out around the resort. And really, hadn’t Ian been trying to help before, when he had hired the other maintenance company? He was right; the resort really was getting busier, and it would ease Adam’s job a lot if he could focus on the lifts instead of having to deal with everything around the place.
Maybe I’d been too hard on Ian. I still wasn’t happy about those things that he had said about Adam not being good enough for me, but maybe I had overreacted about everything else because of that.
“I really want to make sure that everything is okay,” Ian said quietly. “But I know I overstepped. And I’m sorry.”
I stared at him for another beat and then smiled, shaking my head. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “And I’d love to go skiing with you, but I have a few things that I need to do around here first. Maybe after lunch?”
“Sounds like a plan,” Ian said, grinning at me. He slung an arm around me for a moment. “I’m going to head out there, but I’ll come track you down in a little while.”
“Don’t wear yourself out too much,” I taunted him.
Ian laughed and gave me a little push. “Speak for yourself, Ms. Businesswoman,” he joked, before heading outside.
I exhaled noisily and shook my head. Everything about Ian’s story sounded true enough. And in spite of his recent actions, I didn’t think that he would lie to me. Besides, I had already wondered if maybe Adam’s earlier silence had more to do with me than it had to do with anything that Ian might have said to him.
Still, there was a nagging feeling inside of me that I hadn’t heard the whole story. I shrugged to myself. I had wanted to talk to Adam anyway. It shouldn’t be too hard to track him down. I wasn’t sure it was right for me to talk to him about our relationship while we were there at the mountain. After all, we were going to need to set certain boundaries. But as his boss, I should probably know if something was bothering him, shouldn’t I?
I headed out of my office, pausing when I saw Kayla. “Hey,” I said. “Any idea where Adam headed off to?”
“Think I saw him going over towards the condos with his toolbox,” she said. “Everything all right?”
“Just one of those mornings,” I said, rolling my eyes. And it really was: I was already starting to feel emotionally exhausted, and it wasn’t even ten-thirty yet. But things would be better once I talked to Adam, I was sure. I shook my head. “Thanks, Kayla,” I told her. “Full recount later.”
“I’m counting on it,” she said, grinning at me.
It wasn’t too hard to find Adam over at the condos, up on a ladder as he fiddled with the heat coils meant to melt the snow off one section of the roof so that icicles and dangerous icy patches didn’t form as the sun hit it.
“Adam?” I called from the bottom of the ladder, shading my eyes as I looked up towards the sun.
I couldn’t see his face very well from that angle, but he was definitely looking down at me, and he sounded normal as he said, “What’s up?”
“Just wanted to make sure that you’re okay,” I said, feeling foolish for asking. Maybe I had been too hard on Ian before, when he just wanted to help, and maybe now I was blowing things out of proportion with Adam too. Maybe he was feeling totally fine, and fine about us, he just didn’t want to be too friendly with me while we were at work. That was for the best anyway, I was sure.
“Yeah, fine,” Adam said shortly. “Just working away. Did you need something?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I just…” I trailed off before I repeated that I just wanted to make sure that he was okay. Clearly, he was. “It’s good to see you back at work, that’s all,” I told him, even though I wasn’t sure that that was something that I was allowed to say out here, where anyone could overhear it.
Adam merely grunted in response, and I took that as my cue. “Well, if you need anything from me, let me know,” I told him.
“I will,” he said, turning back to his work.
I walked back inside, trying to shake the feeling that he was being distant to me. He was just trying not to be too obvious about us while we were at work. That was probably a good thing. That was the responsible thing, really.
Still, I found myself thinkin
g about him all day, wondering if he was taking on too much work given the time that he’d been gone earlier in the week. I went skiing with Ian for the afternoon, and I couldn’t stop thinking about skiing with Adam and Ethan and how much I really wanted to do that at some point. I wanted to spend more time with Adam, that was it.
I couldn’t remember ever feeling this interested in someone before, but instead of scaring me or otherwise bothering me, I honestly felt excited by it. So I caught Adam as he was on his way out that night. “Hey,” I said, grinning at him.
He paused, staring at me for a moment. I blushed, patting my hair. It was probably going wild from being under my helmet for the afternoon. “Did you go skiing?” Adam finally asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, Ian and I went,” I admitted. “It was a good afternoon.”
Adam nodded slowly back at me, shifting back and forth from foot to foot. He glanced around like he was worried one of the other employees would see us and put two and two together. But nearly everyone had gone home by then.
“I was wondering if you wanted to come over for dinner before you go home for the night,” I said, wondering if he would calm down a little once we were in private. I knew that he had told me I would need to be patient with him, and I sort of wondered if I was the first person that he had dated since Ethan’s mom. His nervousness was honestly kind of cute, actually.
But for now, he shook his head. “I have to get back to Ethan,” he said.
“Oh, of course,” I said, trying not to feel disappointed. I knew exactly what I was getting into with him, after all. I wanted to spend more time with him, but I had to respect the fact that he had a life as well. I smiled at him. “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
Adam nodded at me. “See you tomorrow,” he agreed. For a moment, he hesitated, almost like he wanted to say something else. Or kiss me goodbye, maybe? But then, he glanced around again, gave an aborted wave, and left.
One Shot At Love: A Billionaire Single Father Romance Page 19
