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

by Kelli Walker

“You don’t have to wait, Miss Andrews. Go right ahead. I appreciate you asking, though. I have to say: I’m pretty sure that you are the first person ever aboard this aircraft that has even considered… Well, I shouldn’t say that. Mr. Fleming’s always been very kind and thoughtful.”

  I forced a smile but didn’t comment on the matter. The pilot vanished into the cockpit, and soon we were rolling toward the airstrip.

  I pulled out my phone, lamenting that the battery was low before noticing the plethora of charging accessories available for each seat within the fuselage. I plugged it in and dialed Eleanor, needing to hear a familiar voice. Mom and Dad might assume I’d done something wrong, believing Ryan to be a saint, and I was not in the mood to break the news to either of them just then. On the other hand, I knew that Elle would instantly understand without an ounce of judgment. She’d tell me exactly what she thought, and it might not be precisely what I wanted to hear, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that my best friend would rise to my defense and help me not feel so alone.

  “Hey, girl. How’s the big city? Don’t tell me you’re moving there. I swear to god, I’ll… well, I was going to say I’d dump Andy’s ass and move in next door, but I doubt that I’d be able to afford it. How about this, we’ll tell Ryan that I’m your personal trainer! Then I won’t have to work, and we can just hang out all day!”

  The tears were already starting to form again as I let my emotional blinders fall away for the first time since leaving Ryan’s apartment. A moment of silence passed without a response from me apart from my muted sobs. It didn’t take Elle long to figure out that something wasn’t right.

  “Harley? Come on, talk to me. At least get me started so that I know whether to be funny, mad, or sweet.”

  I croaked into the phone, trying to keep my voice lower than the pilot might hear. I was embarrassed enough as it was.

  “Start with something funny, then I’ll tell you.”

  “Okay… Let’s see. You’re upset… I’m going to try and guess why, alright? Um… Did Ryan ask you to do something in bed you weren’t expecting? Like, did a bunch of clowns walk into the room, and he asked if he could watch while they took turns?”

  I laughed through my tears, thankful for her terrifying ability to jump to the weirdest conclusions. “I wish.”

  “You wish? Oh, damn. Okay. Well, if it’s worse than a surprise clown gangbang, I’m not sure that I should keep guessing. Tell me what’s going on.”

  I told her everything, replaying the entire trip from start to finish. She broke in and made me laugh a few times, like when I first mentioned Joe, and she begged me to describe him with even greater detail while she drew a hot bath, but otherwise, she simply listened.

  “And, so I left. I got on the plane, and we’ve been in the air since I called you, so we’re probably about three of four hours away now.”

  “Jesus, Harley. I’m so sorry. I know you aren’t okay; that would be the dumbest question I could ask, but, on a scale from… forgive him instantly if he apologizes and buys you Thailand to… hire a hitman to hold him down while we freeze his dick off with wart remover, how would you say you’re handling it?”

  I laughed hard, having to cover my mouth as I became self-conscious of how loud I was.

  I made her promise not to say a word to anyone, not even mentioning that I was coming back.

  “Harley, I won’t say a word. Find out when you’ll be landing, and I’ll be there with enough ice cream and double fudge to cause a coronary.”

  “Thanks, Elle. Throw in a bottle of wine… or twelve… and you will have saved the day. Oh, wait… Shit! Are you kidding me?!”

  “I know, I’m sorry, Harley. The hits just keep on coming. I’ll rent a storage locker, and we’ll fill it to the rim with every kind of alcohol imaginable over the next nine months.”

  “Promise?”

  “Everything will be okay, Harley. You hear me? We’ll figure it all out together, alright? Hey, do you think your dad’ll kill him?”

  “Ummm… No, Harley. I do not think you need to worry about that, for either of their sakes. Your dad is one of the most level-headed individuals that I have ever met. And… even though I’m proud of you for following your heart and taking a risk, Harley… at some point, you will have to acknowledge that you knew what kind of person Ryan can prove himself to be. You’ve seen it before. Now, do not for one second think that I am saying this is your fault. Because it isn’t. I’m not just saying that because you’re my friend. Unless there’s more to the story, I think anyone would agree that he’s an asshole.”

  “Yeah, I hear you. Listen, I think I’m going to go. My head is killing me, and I might try and get some sleep before we land. I’ll let you know when okay?”

  “Okay, Harley. I’ll see you soon. Bye, love.”

  “Bye.”

  I clicked off my phone and leaned back in my chair. Staring aimlessly at the private jet’s mahogany embossed ceiling, I released a deep exhale of utter defeat. I had never felt more stranded in my life.

  “Excuse me, Miss Andrews, I’m sorry, but did I hear you end your call?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry. Was I being too loud?”

  The pilot’s laugh of absurdity crackled through the intercom overhead. “Not at all. I wasn’t eavesdropping, just checking in once in a while because I didn’t want to interrupt. I wanted to let you know we’re on course to reach the airport I picked you up from at 9:30 local time. I’m not sure if you have a car waiting or if someone will be picking you up, but I thought that I’d let you know.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

  I clicked my phone back into life and sent a message to Eleanor, who replied immediately to confirm she’d be there.

  I spent the remainder of the plane ride going over everything in my head, again and again, trying to ascertain where it all went wrong. Without an answer to hold onto, my mind turned to the future, and my anxiety again returned to hound at the heels of each thought.

  A single mother, that’s what I’ll be.

  It didn’t seem real. I wondered if I would ever get used to it.

  Ryan

  “It’s been a week, Joe, and I still haven’t heard from her.”

  “You didn’t call her last time. I remember because you spent a year and a half asking me if you should. Have you reached out to Harley in any way?”

  “Are you kidding? I’ve been calling her constantly. I can’t even tell you how many times. I filled up her voicemail in the first twelve hours. I’ve sent her a text message once every morning, telling her that I love her and that I want to hear her voice. I’ve sent her an email for the past four nights, telling her that I’m worried because I haven’t heard from her and want to know that she’s safe… And what do you mean, ‘last time?’ For crying out loud, I don’t know how many times I have to say it: I did not break up with her.”

  “And you are absolutely sure: You made no mention that you didn’t want to be baby Jack or Jill’s daddy?”

  “For the final time: NO!”

  “Okay, okay, Ryan. Calm down. I think that’s the perfect amount of stuff outside the phone calls. You don’t want to freak her out, but it ensures that she’ll see that you’re thinking about her. Plus, you want to talk on the phone. Trust me, you do not want to have to decipher if she’s irritated or mad or hurt or whatever with only a bundle of typed letters to go by. Hearing her tone is the only way you’ll be able to not make it worse.”

  “Make it worse? How on earth could it be worse? I still don’t have any idea how this happened in the first place!”

  “Restraining order: that’s how it could be worse. I know I’m not speaking from any kind of experience here, but I imagine that would be like the last nail in the coffin… only you’re getting buried alive. At that point, your lawyer would be like the little bell with the string they used to have threaded to every grave so you could let someone know you weren’t dead when they put you six feet under.”

  I covered m
y face with my hands in despair. I kept listening to Joe, but he wasn’t adding anything new or useful to my recirculating mental construct of worries and ideas.

  “What else have you tried? What about her social media accounts?”

  “She doesn’t update them. Every once in a blue moon, she adds some photos of her flowers, but that’s about it.”

  “Yikes. Okay… Have you tried calling her nonstop a bunch of times in a row, so she’s forced to make a decision to answer or turn it off?”

  I conveyed my gloom to Joe by opening the spaces between my fingers and staring over at him through the gaps. “Twice. She didn’t reject a single call or turn her phone off. I’m not doing that again. It felt like I was in Hell and would be listening to it ring over and over for eternity.”

  Joe exhaled with a wince, stretching back in amazement while interlocking his hands and placing them behind his head. “Well, that’s it then, Ryan. You have to go out there. It’s either that or give up and, just by looking at you, I’m starting to realize that this isn’t like last time. At least back then, you bathed.”

  “Please stop saying, ‘last time.’ Every time you do, my mind goes off again, trying to figure out how on earth she could’ve thought that I was breaking up with her. I’m telling you, there’s nothing there. I told her, verbatim, that I would be right behind her.”

  A look of contemplation passed over Joe’s face. Mine was back to burrowing in my palms, so I didn’t notice until he hummed in thought.

  “What? Joe? What is it? Tell me, goddammit!”

  “Easy, boyoh. When you said it like that, that you told her you’d be right behind her, it made me think.”

  I was ready to fly across the table at him. “THINK WHAT?”

  “Well, Ryan, let’s stop trying to figure out why the formerly heartbroken, twenty-something female - who, by the way, had just been told by a doctor she’d never met that she was less than a year away from squeezing a screaming, blood-covered human out her vagina… Let’s stop trying to come up with some kind of logical explanation for why she was upset. THAT is the logical conclusion: to set that aside. What are you left with? You told Harley that you would be right behind her. It’s been a week, and you’re still here. That’s it!”

  I was aghast, totally unclear on what supposed truth was being revealed. “What’s it, Joe?!”

  He leaned toward me with an energy and excitement I couldn’t fathom. I huddled toward him in anticipation, crouched and cautious as if ready to be told the meaning of life, the coordinates for the fountain of youth, or any other of the many secrets of the universe.

  “She isn’t answering anything you’re saying now because you’ve already told her all that she needed to hear - she just didn’t believe you.”

  “How do I get her to believe me?”

  “To convince Harley that this isn’t just a repeat of last time, you have to communicate with her somehow, right?”

  “Right! But she won’t even give me a chance to!”

  “She doesn’t have to, Ryan. The way to convince Harley is not by communicating with her by phone or voicemail, text, email, or, hell, even a letter! Nothing you say to her from here in New York matters. When Harley left, she accepted that you probably weren’t telling the truth, that you won’t come back - that you won’t be right behind her. The only way she’s ever going to acknowledge you again, Ryan, is if you show her that you’re for real.”

  I touched and looked over the table between us as if seeing a map translated into legibility for the very first time.

  “That… That makes sense. Joe, that actually makes a whole lot of sense. Okay, but I’ve told them to get the plane three times for me to get over there since she left. Every time something with the company pops up. And none of those were small things: we had a Board member drop dead, the hedge funds tried to false-flag our stock value for their own benefit, and yesterday I found out that our lease on the building is up, and we’re being outbid by our own law firm.”

  “I know. I know, Ryan. Believe me. Just hold on for a second and take a deep breath while I think. Just settle down and realize that you know what you have to do. You can stop calling, emailing… everything short of smoke signals and carrier pigeons. That’s progress, right?”

  “I… guess… but it doesn’t make any difference if I can’t be in two places at once.”

  Joe’s eyes bulged, then squinted before growing wide again. He slapped the table hard, jumping up in the air in such an uproar that a secretary poked her head into the room to make sure we weren’t killing one another.

  “We’re fine, Sam, thank you. Ryan! You’re a genius! Well… I’m the genius. You’re… You’re like the apple that fell on Johnny Appleseed’s head and helped him invent gravity!”

  For a split second, I forgot my worries as I wondered how I hadn’t murdered Joe in his sleep at some point over the years. “Are you kidding me? You’re confusing a vagabond who wore a kettle for a hat with Isaac Newton… the mathematician who invented calculus and DISCOVERED gravity, not invented it. Honestly, Joe, how have we not gone bankrupt?”

  “Ryan, do you want to spend the rest of your life having a three-way with Johnny and Isaac?”

  “What? No! Oh, right… Uh, how… How are you a genius, Joe?”

  “You can’t be in two places at once… That’s what you said. Right?”

  “Yes, Joe. That’s how reality works.” I was beginning to become exasperated again, but at least Joe wasn’t just repeating the same things circling over and over in my own mind.

  “By assuming that as the fundamental problem, we only have two options. Either we need to make it so you aren’t needed here, indefinitely, not just until the next crisis hits… or we have to fudge it so you at least won’t be missed at any public gatherings - you know, making it so either no one will notice that you’re gone or just don’t care.”

  “Okay…”

  “Quit, Ryan. I’m on a roll. What would we have to do to make it so that I can sign all the paperwork but still keep everything else the same?”

  “Joe, we’ve been through this before. That would still scare the investors and stockholders into some kind of reaction, almost certainly a negative one.”

  “Forget that for a second, Ryan. How do we make it so you don’t have to physically be there to vote and sign shit?”

  “Well… I would legally need to declare a proxy. It couldn’t be you, though. It couldn’t be anyone with financial leverage within the company.”

  “So, they can’t have any stock?”

  I shook my head, trying but failing to see whatever the big picture was that Joe was getting at. “No, they can’t have any ownership of any kind in Magnus-Machina or any of our subsidiaries.”

  “Okay, can they collect a salary?”

  I thought for a moment but didn’t know the answer to that. “Uh… I’m not sure. That would be a question for the in-house counselor. Speaking of which, a personal lawyer is typically to whom proxy status would be assigned. Or a family member, I guess. It has to be someone who legally has the authority to operate on your behalf while not presenting any conflict of interest with the interior integrity of the corporation.”

  Joe’s eyes lit up. “So, we could have Swanson send us an intern and… he’d, what?... get a text from you saying, ‘vote yes,’ or, 'no,’ and he’d just raise his hand?”

  I nodded, getting tired of this line of thinking. It still didn’t answer how to handle the public side of things.

  Joe, however, remained enthused. “What about signing?”

  I nodded, rubbing my eyes with disinterest. “Yes, Joe, he could sign on my behalf. I mean, I would prefer that it isn’t an intern… I at least would want them to have finished their degree, passed the bar, and be a licensed, legal attorney - not some kid who runs late to the meeting because his grandma forgot to set his alarm clock.”

  Joe smiled. “Great! That’s one piece of the puzzle - now for the part you keep worrying about.”

&n
bsp; I gave him a wary eye. “You’re the CFO, Joe. Why the Hell aren’t you worried about the financial ruin of our life's’ work while I go chasing tail?”

  “Because Ryan: either no one will know you’ve gone anywhere… or we have to shift our understanding - and the public’s expectations - regarding your pretty mug being the face of the whole enterprise.”

  Each phrase from my partner’s mouth puzzled me even more than the last. “Wait, what?”

  He settled down, realizing perhaps that the shift in subject deserved a considerably more serious tone.

  “Ryan. Eventually, you and I are going to die, right? And the company isn’t just our thing. We want it to survive us, right?”

  “Of course, but…”

  “Which means that, eventually, someone else is going to take our roles. Somebody is going to rub cocktail glasses with the money-genies. Somebody is going to crunch all the numbers. Someday, it won’t be you and I designing or overseeing whatever the next software evolution is that the company releases. You with me so far?”

  “Yeah, I guess so, Joe.”

  “Good. So, we are left with the following conclusion: It is only a matter of time before someone else becomes the face of the company. Or, perhaps no one does? There are plenty of giants in the business that exist in the eyes of the public in brand alone.”

  “Okay… I think I finally understand what you’re getting at. You’re saying, ‘It’s going to happen eventually, so why not now?’”

  “Exactly. But that’s just one option. I think it’s safe to say… We don’t necessarily want to rush that decision… but we also want to get you to Harley as fast as possible, so… let’s look at option two.”

  “Making it so nobody knows I’m gone? Come on, Joe. Our in-house legal department spends half of their time skimming through articles online, looking for someone catching me with their cellphone camera while I’m committing some kind of act that would harm the company image. Last week I received a memo from them, begging me to either have my car painted a less noticeable color or get a window decal for each side of the car that says, ‘HYBRID,’ so I’ll stop popping up in the same internet searches as ‘Oil Spill,’ ‘Climate Change,’ and ‘Save the Whales.’”