Second Time Around: A Small Town, Second Chance Romance (The Billionaire Brothers Series Book 1)

by Kelli Walker

  A knock at my office door brought my hands to my face, quickly wiping away the tears while sniffling my melancholy into submission. I spun around and, in a rush, fixed an irresolute grin to only juxtapose and magnify my red, swollen eyes.

  The loan-manager poked his head into the room respectfully. “Hey, Miss Andrews, good morning. Um… I’m sorry, but Mr. Lawson is here. Again. Is it okay if I send him in? It doesn’t matter how many times I tell him - He never leaves until he’s heard it from you.”

  I nodded with way more enthusiasm than was necessary but was still concerned with trying to disguise my demeanor. The last thing I wanted was to have to dismiss well-meaning questions of concern on top of dealing with everything else going on in my head.

  “Yes, David. It’s fine. Go ahead and send him in.”

  Relief briefly combined with the apologetic display on the man’s face before his head again disappeared beyond the threshold. In a spur of decision, I flew to my bag and grabbed a pocket mirror. As the hunched corn-cob shape of Mr. Elbert Lawson entered through the doorway, squinting his facial creases into his best attempt at charisma, my appearance was already under control.

  With a welcoming smile, ready to fade into the pretense of mutual disappointment, I pushed all thoughts of Ryan from my mind and prepared myself to dive into the workday at hand.

  Ryan

  “Mr. Masterson and I didn’t start this company because we wanted to be businessmen. In fact, owning any kind of organization, having subordinates, being responsible for the welfare of thousands of our employees’ families… We’re happy and fortunate to be where we are today, but none of these things, which are realities today, were even a small part of our priorities when we met as roommates at university.”

  I paused, letting my representation of calm confidence silently cascade forth and cover the room, blanketing the board members until I knew they would be bound into submission.

  “I can’t represent Joe’s motivations on every account - I’ll let his own actions and words suffice as evidence enough - but I can, however, speak to my own. I never wanted power or dreamed of any sort of eccentric prestige. We created Magnus-Machina because the Silicon Valley brands we’ve known and trusted for years simply weren’t doing enough to earn that commitment from the rest of us - the families, the businesses, the consumers. Today, ladies and gentlemen, we have not only met those expectations… we’ve exceeded them.”

  I gazed intently at every face in the room in-turn, lastly falling on my partner and co-founder of the business. “Would you agree with that, Joe, or do you perhaps have an even better way to communicate the strength of our position?”

  My friend and colleague, looking impressive as always, like the genie of suave ready to disperse slickness and cool with a snap of his fingers, stood from his seat and joined me, standing at the table’s crown. I artfully took a step back, just as we practiced, and he smiled, casually clasping his suit buttons and waving a well-manicured hand as he spoke.

  “I couldn’t agree more, Ryan, but I do think that we can leave the poetic legacy of our company for future generations to marvel over. For now, let’s simply let the numbers speak for themselves.”

  Now solidly in the background, I subtly redoubled my efforts to follow Joe’s instructions and appear totally calm and collected, without a worry in the world. I avoided making eye contact with any of the board members, preferring not to even invite the nervousness that would probably precipitate. Instead, I stared, smiling, just over Joe’s ear and pretended to listen along with them.

  “My friends, what my friend, Mr. Fleming, is too modest to say is this: With this last fiscal quarter’s armada of record-breaking revenue, the acquisition of our last significant competitor, multiple progressive supply-chain investments, and the utilization of - if I might say so - some rather sneaky tax loopholes, I am proud to say that Magnus-Machina is on pace to surpass the valuations of Delletoss, Beta Brokers, Garland Sand, and Winston Whitaker. Ultimately, there exists little doubt that we will someday soon rival the stock prices of even the world’s most valuable institutions.”

  I smiled broadly with his last note, not even having to fake it. I remembered the days when Joe and I subsisted on nothing but beer, pizza, and endless hours bleary-eyed behind computer monitors. To reach such a monumental height after so much hard work truly was breathtaking.

  Yet, somehow, I knew that I wasn’t happy. Something was still missing, but there was no way for me to get her back.

  I felt my phone buzz in my pocket as I joined the room in thunderous applause. You could practically see the dollar signs dancing in the eyes of the board members, but my mind was drawn to the unknown caller waiting to be answered.

  There are only a few people with a number that can get through when I’m in a meeting. But who is it? Or is it Tom? I swear, that kid means well, but he’s never going to make it as my assistant if he can’t remember something as big as this. But what if he has some kind of emergency with the quarter’s financials? Oh shit, what did we miss?

  My mind moved at lightning speed, imaging all the catastrophes that could’ve been festering in the company beneath my very nose, but each subsequent seemed more implausible than the previous.

  Joe clapped his hands and looked my way, beaming with a gleam even brighter than my initial excitement. I widened my eyes without lowering my painted grin. He caught the gist of the message, conveying enough urgency or danger to make him abruptly turn back to the room and prematurely quiet the ovation.

  “Uh, ladies and gentlemen… trust me, we are just as ecstatic about this as you… but, if you’ll temper the celebration until we can properly toast the occasion, we do have one order of business to attend to. As you know, our acquisition of Programatronics International has been approved by the Securities and Exchange review committee. Now all that is left is a vote on the matter. Mr. Chairman, would you please do the honors?”

  A portly, weasel of a man, still wearing a suit from the Reagan administration, pompously stood and cleared his throat.

  “All those in favor?”

  The unanimous shouts of “Aye!” hit with the concussive force of a greed-grenade.

  “And those opposed?” Not a whisper could be heard. An aide, stuffed in the pile of assistants and secretaries in the room’s rear, dropped a fountain pen while readying it for the inevitable signing ceremony. Although no louder than someone shuffling their shoes, the clatter drew every eye along the table with an accusing glare. Satisfied by the absolute absence of a single dissenting, “Nay,” the chairman raised his arms, emphasizing the protruding gut beneath his collared shirt.

  “Resolution passed! Hear, hear!”

  The room boomed an echoing response. “Hear, hear!”

  I waited to catch a glimpse from Joe, who finally turned, still smiling. He saw my eyes and, remembering the look I’d given him, nodded approval to leave. I slipped out as casually as possible, clapping my hands and smiling the whole way to the boardroom doors. As soon as the doors were shut again behind me, my facade fell like a hammer in the sand. I scrambled for my phone and clicked its display into life.

  Andy? Jesus Christ, why the Hell is he calling?

  I did not notice at the time, nor could I have, but I was actually relieved. Gone were my fears of a corporate disaster, but all of the stress incurred and suspense endured throughout the days prior kept me in a flustered state.

  I don’t have time to shoot-the-shit right now. I gotta remember to tell Tom to contact the phone company. There has to be a way to prompt my contacts, ‘press one to leave a message; press two for an emergency.’

  I turned back to the room at the sound of renewed cheers and laughter. Already free of the dividend-hounds and futures-foxes within, I had no desire to re-endanger myself by rejoining their midst and further submitting my sanity for their approval. Instead, I turned back around and, using the phone call for justification, I practically ran from the meeting’s anteroom.

  I dialed the n
umber back and turned down a hallway leading to the more secluded of my two offices, the one I used for actually getting work done, while the other was reserved for entertaining clients, lawyers, and investors. As Andy’s ringing line clicked open, I was surprised to hear, not his voice, but that of our middle brother.

  “Ryan?”

  “Andy, wh... Hollis? Why’re you using Andy’s phone?”

  The silence that followed was strange, but not alarmingly so. I pulled the phone from my ear to diagnose whether it remained connected. Finding it to be a live line, I tried speaking again.

  “Hello? Hollis? …Andy? Hello… Can you hear me?”

  “Ryan. It’s Hollis.”

  “Hey, Hollis. Listen, I’m kind of in the middle of something important here. Can this wait till later? … Hollis? Hello? … Wait, what time is it there? Christ, it’s just now seven here. What couldn’t wait that you had to call at five in the morning there?”

  A response was slow in coming, and I almost hung up the phone with an even blend of annoyance and confusion.

  “Ryan. You need to come home.”

  “Wh-What? Are you kidding? Hollis, I can’t just leave whenever I want. I have a company to run here. Come on, man, you know that.”

  To my bewilderment, he just repeated himself, and I was beginning to wonder if Hollis was still sleeping one off from the night before and that he was calling me while still half-drunk and asleep. Before I could conclude one way or the other, his voice again crackled through the phone. I would not have guessed it possible, but his next words were even more incomprehensible to me than his last.

  “It’s Mom, Ryan. She’s sick, really sick. We’ve been leaving you voicemails for over a week.”

  “Yeah, I know, I got the messages. I’ve been meaning to call back and tell her I hope she starts feeling better… you know, that I’m thinking of her and everything. Things are just a little hectic here right now. We’re buying out this other company, and, Hollis, you would not believe what it’s like dealing with the army of lawyers this deal is taking. If you could see…”

  “Ryan, shut up for a second. You need to come home. Today. Mom, she…”

  I stopped halfway into my darkened office, frozen with the sudden realization that it wasn’t just another phone call. Hollis sighed heavily, and I could tell he was exhausted.

  “Ryan, the doctors don’t think she’s going to make it through the night. They can’t control the infection; they’re afraid if they give her any more treatments for the cancer that it’ll kill her.”

  “What… What are you talking about? Hollis? What…”

  “Her body is shutting down, Ryan. There’s nothing they can do. If you want to say goodbye, which I know you do, now is your only chance.”

  My knees, rubberized and useless, unexpectedly rebelled against the ability to hold me up. They buckled, dropping me into a sprawling lean against my desk as if they’d been on a six-month sabbatical in zero-g orbit.

  “Ryan, are you still there? Talk to me, bro.”

  In an instant, I could feel my whole life crumbling beneath me. It wasn’t a shock. It was more like I was running from something for as long as I could remember, and my brother’s words made me look back, only to realize that, despite all my efforts, I was no farther than where I started.

  “Ryan! Goddammit, say something!” His voice grew distant, and I vaguely recognized that he was next speaking to someone else. “I think he passed out. No, I don’t even know who I would call. It took us eight days to even get him to pick up.”

  I could just make out another voice following Hollis’s. The sound stirred up memories that I had long repressed. The voice, so familiar, yet one I hadn’t heard in almost a decade, belonged to my father. It sobered me immediately.

  “I… I’m here, Hollis. I’m sorry, I just… I had no idea it was this bad. I just talked to her…”

  I tried to come up with the right time since I spoke to my mother, but, as I searched my memory for the number of weeks, I continued my silence, realizing that the answer would be measured in more than a couple of months - at least six, maybe more. When my mind tried to recall the time before that, my self-derision kicked in. Without instruction, my subconscious made an effort to bury the answer, but my inner conscience wanted judgment, not mercy.

  A year. I talked to her at Christmas… and the last time I heard her voice before that was Christmas Eve the year before.

  The voices on the other end of the phone became muddled in their own conversation again, but I could just comprehend the words. “I don’t know. He’s mumbling and isn’t making any sense… Dad, stop. That isn’t going to help… Because she’s his mom, too. That’s why. Besides, you know she would want him here.”

  I felt my chest, fought back the thought that I was going to be sick, and finally shook my head clear.

  “Hollis.”

  “Not now, Dad… Yes, Ryan? You there?”

  “I’m here, Hollis. I’m on my way. I’m getting on a plane, and I’ll call you once I know when I’ll get there. Uh… shit. Do you need anything? What can I do? I can… I don’t know. What else should I do?”

  It didn’t process at the time, but I later realized how strange such questions would’ve seemed to my brother. For years, indeed, for the rest of my life, I would wonder if I truly was in a state of shock… or if I really was that foolish and arrogant to think that I could somehow do something in the face of death.

  “Ryan, take a deep breath. You don’t need to do anything. Just get here in one piece. Okay? And soon.”

  “Got it. I’ll call you when I’m in the air.”

  “Okay, Ryan.”

  “And Hollis?”

  “Yeah?”

  I hesitated but let my heart say what it needed to.

  “I’m sorry, man.”

  His reply was instant. “I know.”

  Forty minutes later, I was anxiously confined to a seat, alone, on the company jet. As the craft accelerated off the runway and climbed above the New York skyline, I found myself fidgeting, sweating, and restless.

  The small private plane leveled off, heading west. At that moment, I realized what my hands were doing: Without meaning to, I had worked my watch off my wrist and was feeling its metal links one by one in a continuous circle. I saw this and stopped turning it.

  I angled the underside of the timepiece to hit the thin ray of light streaming through the plane’s portal windows.

  The inscription engraved into the metal casing might as well have been etched into my bones, but somehow it was comforting to see them then.

  Until The Sun Burns Away.

  I took a deep, steadying breath and slipped the reminder of Harley back on my wrist. For a moment, I wondered if she would be there, back home in South Dakota. Still, my imagination soon returned to my mother, trying to picture what condition I’d find her in, and thoughts of having to face my father.

  Harley

  “Roger, just tell her.”

  “I’m not trying to be difficult. Seriously, I think she should hear it from you. After all, Melissa, she was your friend.”

  At that point, I was getting anxious and irritated. “Tell me what?!”

  My mom gave one last you’ll-hear-about-this-later glare to my dad, then sighed, seeming to resign herself to some news that needed to be shared.

  “Harley, sit down, honey. We need to share something.”

  I hesitated but then abruptly sat down between them on their living room couch. Whatever it was they were going to say, wondering was worse.

  “It’s okay, Mom. Don’t build up to it. Just say it. Then we can talk about whatever it is.”

  With another deep sigh, she put one hand on my knee. “Honey, Mrs. Fleming passed away the night before last. I’m not sure if you knew, but she’s been in and out of the hospital, and her cancer treatments just didn’t seem to be working like the last time.”

  My mouth hung open without any words to compel it into any other position. The idea of
Janine being gone was so strange. I honestly had never imagined the possibility that she wouldn’t always be there. My mother kept talking, and my dad placed a comforting hand on my shoulder.

  “Apparently, Rob and the boys were so exhausted when it happened that it’s taken them a bit longer than usual to let anyone know. Your dad just got off the phone with him, and as you can understand, they’re all very shaken.”

  I turned slowly but didn’t meet my father’s eyes as he chimed in. “Yes, Rob’s obviously heartbroken, but he said that they had some warning and that everyone was able to say goodbye. She was in a lot of pain, and as much as he hated to let go, nobody could stand seeing her suffer like that.”

  Tears brimmed in my eyes as I thought of Hollis and Andy having to say farewell to their mother, knowing she would forever be gone. In a single moment, I felt the breadth of all the years I had seen Janine and Rob together. Knowing my experience with their family only scratched the surface of their relationship, I couldn’t help but think of my parents. The thought of one of them in so much pain, wanting the hurt to end, but incapable of reconciling that with having to go on without them present was too much to bear.

  I began to cry, able to control it initially, but soon I was sobbing as my mother gracefully held me in her arms. My dad came close, rubbing my back as I wept. My mom’s face mirrored my own, and, through my own tears, I could see that even my father’s eyes were watering.

  Getting ready for the funeral three days later, I still hadn’t heard a definitive answer on whether Ryan would be there. I assumed he would. No, I knew he would be there. He adored his mother. But, all the same, my parents hadn’t heard whether he was home, and my pride prevented me from asking anyone.

  Anyone except Eleanor, that is.

  My phone vibrated atop my childhood dresser. I immediately abandoned my struggle against my dress and snatched it up.

  “Elle?! What did he say?”