Billionaire's Second Chance

by Claire Adams

  “Ian and I are actually together,” I said. “I know you’re not going to be thrilled to hear that.”

  “Wait—you’re seeing him again?” Caroline asked. “He’s not coming here now, is he?”

  “No, he’s not, I thought we could use a little girl time, but I would really appreciate it if you would try to give him another chance.”

  She gave me a skeptical look and didn’t say anything.

  “Come on, Caro!” I said, laughing. “I’m just asking you to give him another chance, not peel your own fingernails off.”

  “That might be more appealing, actually.”

  “I would do it for you,” I said. “If I knew that you felt about some guy the way I feel about Ian, then I would certainly at least give him another chance for your sake.”

  She threw up her hands. “Now you’re going to guilt trip me! Fine—I’ll give him another chance, but I really do think this is the worst idea in the world. Well, maybe second to worst. Probably the worst would be going out with Noah.”

  “Oh yeah, speaking of Noah—he was there waiting for me when Ian and I were getting home and there ended up being this confrontation. Ian said he’s going to have a couple guys keep an eye out for me, just to make sure that Noah stays away.”

  “Like, there’s going to be security guys following you around?”

  “Sort of . . . It’s not going to be like I suddenly have this entourage or anything. They’ll be way more discreet. But that makes me feel a little better about it.”

  “I can’t believe it’s gotten to the point that you need security guards. This whole thing is messed up. Don’t even get me started on the fact that you’re willingly choosing to get back with a guy who’s having a baby with someone else. I think that’s really the story here. There are sooooo many other guys out there, Daisy! You don’t have to do this.”

  I knew that I didn’t have to do it—what Caroline didn’t realize was that I wanted to.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ian

  It’d probably be fair to say that up until I met Daisy, I didn’t really have any idea about the notion of being in love. The idea of it still sort of freaked me out, but what other explanation was there for this excitement I felt whenever I was around her, or on my way to see her?

  Before I’d stopped by her apartment a few days ago on Sunday to give her those flowers, I’d been hoping against hope that she’d be able to look past all the shit with Annie. I’d bought the flowers on a whim and had hoped she’d at least take them from me, though it wouldn’t have surprised me if she slammed the door in my face. But that hadn’t happened, and I couldn’t remember a time in my life when I’d felt more relieved about something. It surprised me, in a way, to be feeling this way to begin with, but I actually rather liked it.

  At work though, it still made sense to keep things quiet, which really only enhanced the sexual tension between us. Just watching her from my desk as she went about whatever it was she was doing, only to have her look up and catch me made me want to pull her into my office and have her right there on my desk, door open for all to see, I didn’t care. Being in the office when she was there was a good exercise in restraint.

  That Wednesday, though, I packed up my stuff on time and got ready to leave.

  “You’re heading out?” Daisy asked.

  “It’s Wednesday,” Jonathan said. “He’s got to go visit his stepfather.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Could I come with you?”

  “Uh, sure,” I said, because she’d caught me completely off guard. Why the hell did she want to come with me? Not that I wouldn’t mind her company, but it seemed like an odd request . . . until I remembered that she thought I was doing this because I actually cared about Pete. “It might not be the most exciting thing, but . . .”

  “I bet it’ll be great,” she said. “Let me just run and use the bathroom.”

  “I just talked to Dan,” Jonathan said, “and they’re down at the harbor, waiting for Martin and his group.”

  “Okay,” I said, nodding. “I don’t anticipate there being any issues. Weren’t they planning on leaving earlier? I thought I heard something about early afternoon.”

  “Yeah, but there was an issue at Logan, something about lost luggage. It’s getting sorted.”

  “All right, I’m ready,” Daisy said when she returned.

  I tried to ignore the look that Jonathan was giving me as we left. And as we were driving to the Eagle Hollow, I was thinking that “great” might not be the exact term I’d use to describe it, but who knew; maybe it would be.

  “He had a stroke,” I said to Daisy as we walked into the facility. “So he can’t actually talk. As far as anyone knows, though, he understands things completely.”

  “That must be so hard,” she said. “To lose your ability to speak but to still be able to hear and understand. I can’t even imagine.”

  “Well, I’m sure he’ll be glad to meet you. This is his room right here.” I paused before we went in. I hadn’t parked where I normally did; this time I parked in the visitors’ parking area, which wasn’t visible from Pete’s window. I cleared my throat before we went in.

  “Hi there, Pete,” I said. “This might surprise you, but I’ve brought a visitor with me. I thought you might like to meet Daisy.”

  She walked into the room, a smile on her face. She didn’t seem the least bit uncomfortable, and I felt my skin start to crawl as she went over to his wheelchair. My instinct was to shield her from him, but what was he going to do? He couldn’t get up; he couldn’t even speak.

  “Very nice to meet you,” she said, taking a seat across from him. “I’m Daisy. That was one of the first things I learned about Ian, that he had a stepfather that he came and still visited, which I thought was really great of him to do.”

  Oh, Jesus. She continued to talk, and I tried to keep a straight face. It wasn’t that I was tempted to burst out laughing or anything—it was more like I wanted to cringe. Most people would have been somewhat uncomfortable at having to have a conversation with someone who couldn’t actually respond to what they were saying, but Daisy didn’t seem the list bit bothered. It would appear as though she had missed her calling as a nurse, or maybe a preschool teacher.

  I sat down in the other chair and watched Pete watch her. It was clearly a mistake to bring her here, as this was no doubt the highlight of his day, perhaps the highlight of his entire life. A young beautiful woman, focusing all of her attention on him. His eyes shifted over to me for a second, and I just stared at him, hoping he’d get the clue that this wasn’t some sort of kindness on my part. My phone started to vibrate in my pocket, but I ignored it. Daisy kept talking with Pete, talking with him as though he were a participant in the conversation.

  “They said it’s probably going to be very humid tomorrow, so you’re lucky you have air conditioning in here,” she said. She looked around the room. “This is a very nice place.”

  My phone buzzed again, and I pulled it out of my pocket to peek at the screen. Dan. The clock on my phone said that we’d already been here for almost half an hour longer than I usually stayed, so I stood up, touching Daisy’s shoulder. “We better get going,” I said. “I need to take this call from Dan.”

  “Why don’t you do that and I’ll sit with Pete a little bit longer,” Daisy said.

  “Sure, fine,” I said. “I’ll just be out in the hallway.”

  I stepped out into the hall and called Dan back. He answered on the first ring.

  “We’ve got a problem.” He did not sound happy.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  “I’ve been calling and calling. I haven’t been able to get a hold of you or Jonathan! Where the hell have you been?”

  “What’s going on?” I could hear a lot of commotion in the background. “Are you on the boat?”

  “No, I’m not on the boat because it’s a fuckin mob scene down here.”

  “Mob scene? What are you talking about?”


  “There’s a shitload of people down here! People that aren’t supposed to be here, I can tell you that much. Martin is furious; I think he wants to call the whole thing off. At the very least, he wants to see you.”

  “Well, where are they? Did they get on the boat?”

  “No, they went back to his house. So you should probably head over there.”

  I groaned. All those people down there, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Hollywood celebrities. How had word gotten out about it? This was bullshit.

  “If they’re all back at Martin’s house, why the hell is there still a huge crowd there?”

  “It’s dispersed a bit; half of them tried to follow the cars back to Martin’s, so we sent some guys with them, but a bunch of them stayed because they’re convinced that they’re going to come back to board the boat. This is a huge fucking mess.”

  “I’ll handle it,” I said, hanging up the phone and stuffing it back into my pocket. I gritted my teeth as I went back into the room to get Daisy. FUCK.

  I didn’t get into all the details with Daisy, but I told her I needed to drop her off because there was a crisis of sorts at work that I needed to deal with. Thankfully, she didn’t ask too many questions. Jonathan called as I was driving over to Martin’s South End brownstone.

  “I’m heading over there right now,” I said.

  “Good luck with that,” Jonathan said, sounding grim. “He sounded pissed when I talked to him.”

  “He is! His whole fucking dream cruise trip was almost ruined. Granted, it wasn’t, so maybe he should get over it, but either way, it doesn’t look good. I don’t know how it got out about that happening, but it must’ve been someone from his end. Maybe it was his daughter, for Christ’s sake. Teenagers are always going gaga for famous actors and shit.”

  “That seems the most likely.”

  “Parents are always turning a blind eye to the shit their kids do,” I said.

  “Yeah. He definitely wanted to put the blame somewhere else.”

  “Well, now I have to go deal with it.”

  “You want me to go with you?”

  I considered this. Maybe it would be better if there was two of us. But maybe not. I knew what Martin really needed to do was bitch at someone, get it out of his system, and hopefully move on.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I’ll deal with it.”

  When I got there, though, Martin wasn’t interested in hearing any apologies. He wanted to lay into someone about it, and that’s exactly what I had to let him do. “This was a disaster,” Martin said. “A complete disaster on every level. I work with you, Ian, because you’re a professional in every way—discretion being at the top of that list. You know as well as I do that there are half a dozen other companies we could have gone with, but we decided to go with you. But after all this, I’m starting to wonder if that was the right choice.”

  “We’ve always done right by you,” I said.

  “Not today you haven’t! There’s no way that information should have gotten out like that,” Martin said.

  “I can assure you, it wasn’t on our end,” I said.

  But he was shaking his head. “So what are you saying? Are you trying to blame us? Are you trying to say this was somehow our fault?”

  Yes and no. There was no way any of our guys would have leaked that information about Martin’s goddamn cruise—unless they wanted to be out of a job. Martin was right—discretion was supremely important, and though we did have a lot of guys working for us, only the ones who I could trust completely had specific knowledge of events like these.

  Martin was pissed, though, there was no doubt about it, though he was doing his best to keep it in check. His face was turning red, and I could see a vein in his forehead that I’d never noticed before. Probably because we’d never had an incident like this.

  “You got an answer for me?”

  I gritted my teeth and tried not to have a childhood flashback; that was what Pete was always saying after he’d used me as a punching bag: You think anyone’s ever gonna have any respect for a pussy like you? What? You got an answer for me? I can’t hear you!

  “My answer is that I don’t know exactly how this happened. You have my full apologies, though I am one hundred percent certain that it was not from our end.”

  “Then who? If I’m one hundred percent certain it wasn’t on my end, and you’re saying the same, one of us is wrong and it damn sure isn’t me!”

  I’d never seen him so enraged. I let him bitch at me for a little bit longer, and then I left, only after agreeing to at least look into the possibilities that the leak was on our end. I stepped outside, glad to be out of there, but in serious need of a drink.

  And wouldn’t you know, the first person I see upon entering the fucking hole-in-the-wall sports bar I chose to go to: Billy McAllister.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Daisy

  Ian was pretty vague about whatever it was that Dan had called him about, but after he had gotten off the phone, he hurried me out of Pete’s room and drove me back to the office so I could get my car.

  I didn’t feel like going home right away though, so I drove down to Failte. Someone was having a birthday, and the whole back area of the bar had been sectioned off. The birthday girl was someone I didn’t recognize, though she looked like she was probably around my age, except there seemed to be something different about her expression. I didn’t notice this right away, but as I sat at the bar with my drink, I’d sneak looks over, and when someone brought in a store-bought cake, stuck haphazardly with candles, and got everyone around the bar to sing a rousing rendition of “happy birthday,” I realized what it was: She looked fresh. She looked excited about the prospect of her life, all that was yet to come, like she was just assuming that it would only be good things. Or mostly good things. Really, she probably didn’t look much different than I myself had felt a few years ago when I’d graduated college, certain that my real life was just now about to start.

  Yet all that had really happened was a whole bunch of confusion and not really knowing if I was doing the right thing. I felt less sure about myself and what I was doing than I could ever remember, yet somehow I was supposed to just keep on going, believing that at some point, things might change.

  At least things were good with Ian, though. I had that much, and I was grateful for that.

  I headed home after that one drink; I didn’t feel like having more, and things were getting a little rowdy, as the whole bar had basically been invited to join the girl’s birthday party. I had to park a block over from where I normally parked when I got home, and as I was walking to my apartment, I happened to glance over and see that there was someone sitting in a black SUV parked a few buildings away from my place. He looked over right as I was going by and I realized that he looked familiar. Where had I seen him before?

  I went over to the passenger side window and he put it down the rest of the way.

  “Hey,” I said, recognizing him, though I couldn’t remember his name. He was one of the guys that worked for Ian that I’d seen come through the office with Dan once when I’d first started working there.

  “Hello there, Daisy,” he said.

  “Are you looking for Ian? He had to go meet up with Dan; he got a call from him when we were over visiting his step-father.”

  The guy shook his head. “Nope, not waiting for Ian. Just on the lookout for you. Been out here for a little while; haven’t seen any suspicious activity or anything. I think you’re good. But don’t worry, we’ll be here all night. Kevin’s parked a little further down, on the other side of the street. ”

  “All night? That doesn’t seem necessary.”

  “It’s what Ian wants. He’s the boss.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say to that. Part of me did feel comforted in knowing that there were two guys out here, if Noah did show up, but another part of me felt bad, that they were probably not too psyched about having to be stationed outside my apartment bu
ilding all night. “You’re really going to be out here all night? Don’t you need to sleep?”

  He smiled. “Don’t worry about it, Daisy. We usually work the night shift; we’re used to it.”

  “Well . . . thanks,” I said. “If you need to use the bathroom or need a drink or anything, you can come inside.”

  “We’re all set,” he said. “But thanks.”

  “Okay.” I started to turn away but stopped. “What was your name?”

  “Ben.”

  I nodded. “Ben. Thanks, Ben.”

  He smiled again and waved me off. “You already said that. No need to thank us, Daisy; we’re just doing our job. Good-night.”

  “Good-night.” I went inside, a smile on my face. Even if Ian wasn’t there himself, I still felt as though he was watching out for me, making sure that I stayed safe.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Ian

  Daisy was already there at the office when I got in the next morning, and just seeing her put a smile on my face.

  “Hey there,” I said. There was no one else in the office, so I went over and gave her a kiss, forcing myself to pull away after a moment, even though I would’ve liked to just continue on in the direction that was headed.

  “Mmm, hi,” she said. “I was wondering where you were.”

  “Am I late?”

  “A little. Or no, since you’re the boss, I guess you get to decide when you come in. But Seamus McAllister has been calling.”

  “Oh yeah? And what does he want?”

  “He wouldn’t say; he just asked if you’d call him back. Even when I asked him what it was in regards to, he wouldn’t tell me. So you should probably call him back.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll do that now.”

  I went into my office and called Seamus. This was probably about that Ghanizadeh coming back into town or some shit.

  “Ian,” Seamus said, picking up after the second ring. “Thanks for returning my call. I’d like to meet with you. What is your schedule looking like? Why don’t you meet me for an early lunch.”