One Last Mistake: A Billionaire Romance (The Ironwood Billionaire Series Book 3)

by Ellie Danes

  I started to climb out of bed and reached for the nearest item of clothing—my boxer briefs.

  I was about to slip them on when another image of last night’s fun came back to me. The woman had the sexiest smile, and she’d been playful, fun. I don't know what it was, exactly.

  Maybe I didn’t need to be in such a rush to go. Maybe this hottie wouldn’t mind a reprise.

  Inside the bathroom, the water stopped running. This was it, this was the now-or-never moment. If I wanted to hightail it out of here, I had to go right now. She would be coming out of the bathroom in a couple of seconds.

  I took a half-step toward the door, my boxer briefs dangling around my right ankle.

  Come on, man, go go go, what are you waiting for?

  But, no. I wasn't going to run. I couldn't pinpoint it, I couldn't figure out exactly what it was about this girl – this girl whose name I couldn't even remember – but there was something different about her, about how she had made me feel.

  Sure, there was the fact that she was smokin' hot and curvy, and man, I liked my curvy girls. But there was something beyond that, some sort of a spark that existed with her, a spark that I couldn't remember feeling for a very, very long time.

  She was about to come out of the bathroom now, and any chance to escape had now passed. A sudden case of nerves gripped me though, and suddenly, I almost regretted the decision to stay. Almost.

  I needed a little more time, just a few seconds to get myself together before she and I spoke. And damn it, what was her name?

  The door opened, and there she was, dressed only in a baggy t-shirt. She screeched at the sight of me, as if she had just seen a ghost, but then she quickly regained her composure. She smiled. Wow. Her smile was just as radiant as I remembered.

  “Kyle,” she said warmly. “Good morning.”

  Great. She remembered my name, and I couldn't for the life of me remember hers.

  “Um, Mary?” I said, smiling awkwardly.

  “Close,” she said with a chuckle. “It's Meredith.”

  I grinned. “It could almost be your nickname, huh?”

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  She looked down at the boxers on my foot and smiled. “I'm guessing you want to go to the bathroom?”

  I nodded. “Please.”

  She stepped out and then smacked me playfully on my bare ass. “It's all yours.”

  I hurried in and closed the door behind me, and then turned on the faucet and splashed some cold water onto my face, which went a long way toward waking me up. There was only one toothbrush but there was at least some mouthwash. I squeezed some toothpaste onto my finger, rubbed it around my teeth, and then sloshed a mouthwash over my tongue. After that, I at least felt like my mouth was a little cleaner. A nice hot shower would have gone a long way toward making me feel even better, but I didn't want to ask for too much at this stage.

  Now I at least felt ready to face her.

  As I reached for the door handle, something made my hand pause and hover in mid-air. What was it about this girl that had made me stay? It wasn’t just thoughts of repeating the night we’d shared. With pretty much any other girl I did this with, I would have been out of the door a few seconds after waking up, without even a single look back over my shoulder.

  But with her, something had compelled me to stay. Something. I was kidding myself if I said it was just for sex.

  It wasn't like I wanted a relationship. Hell no. That was the last thing I wanted. Relationships...I just wasn't a relationship guy. It wasn't my thing. So, it wasn't that.

  There wasn't much point in standing in here and overanalyzing it all. I pulled on my boxer briefs and stepped out into the room.

  “You all good in there?” she asked.

  I nodded. “All good, thanks.”

  “You don't want to, uh, take a shower or something?”

  “No thanks...Meredith.”

  “Ah, good, you remembered this time,” she said with a wink.

  I chuckled. “I remembered this time, yeah. So, last night...”

  “Last night...”

  We both looked away, and out of the corner of her eye I caught the crimson of a blush on her cheeks. I felt more than a little awkward myself... but to be honest, it really wasn't as bad as I had assumed it would be. In fact, I was already starting to feel a lot more comfortable in her presence. And I sensed – I'm not sure how but I did – that she was feeling pretty comfortable around me as well.

  “Last night was really great,” I said. “I had a great time.”

  “I did, too.”

  I could tell from the look in her eyes and from the way that she said this that she meant it; she wasn't just trying to make conversation or make the moment less awkward. She seemed to genuinely mean it.

  Even though I wasn’t interested in a relationship, I wanted to see her again. I was about to say so, when from somewhere outside the bedroom I heard a familiar ringtone – mine. She looked up, too, as the sound cut through the silence.

  “That must be yours,” she said.

  I could feel her eyes on my almost-naked body, hungrily taking in the sight of me. I couldn't deny that my eyes were roving across her form, too; her bare legs, the breasts so thinly veiled behind that t-shirt. But I needed to take this call.

  “I'd better get that,” I said, hurrying out of the room in search of my pants.

  I found them lying in a heap just outside the bedroom. When I finally managed to get the phone out of the pants pocket, though, it had stopped ringing. It had been my father, and he had left a message.

  “Kyle, there's an urgent matter you and I need to discuss at the company. Hurry your ass up and get here.”

  Well, that was that. I would need to leave right away; my father wasn't a patient man, and if he said the matter was urgent, it likely was. I typed out a quick message to him to let him know that I was on my way and then shoved the phone back into my pants pocket and pulled the pants on. When I was fully dressed, I went back to Meredith's bedroom.

  “Hey,” I said as I stepped back in.

  “That wasn't your girlfriend or wife on the phone, was it?” she asked, looking at me with a glint of suspicion in her beautiful, large brown eyes.

  I shook my head and smiled. “I don't have either of those, don't worry.”

  “Oh, that'll make it a bit easier when I tell my husband about this,” she said with a sigh.

  I almost jumped out of my shoes with shock. “Husband?”

  She grinned. “Gotcha!”

  I chuckled and breathed out a sigh of relief. “You did,” I admitted.

  “I'm sorry, it was a little cruel, but I can't resist a good joke. Don't worry, no husband or boyfriend. We're both in the clear here.”

  “No problem. Well, anyway, that was my dad on the phone. He and I work together, and there's a problem so I have to run.”

  She nodded knowingly. “Of course.”

  “I know that this was just a one-night thing,” I began, hoping to get her to agree to see me again.

  “It's okay, I understand,” she said, looking suddenly wounded. “You can go. We don't really need to say anything else to each other.”

  “Oh, that's not what I meant,” I replied hurriedly.

  “Really, you can leave,” she said, getting up from the bed and walking out of the bedroom to go open the front door for me. “I'm a big girl. We're both adults here. You and I both knew what we were getting into last night, and now it's not last night any more. So, seriously, it's fine. Just go.”

  I nodded and swallowed slowly. I guessed she didn't want to see me again, so there really wouldn't be much point in me pushing for that to happen.

  “All right,” I said. “Well, I guess I'll see you around.” I walked past her, out of her apartment, and out of her life.

  “Yeah,” she mumbled flatly as she closed the door behind me. “See you around.”

  Chapter 3

  Meredith

  I watched Kyle walk o
ut of my apartment and closed the door behind him. A strange tumult of emotions was gushing through me. I felt a little sad, a little disappointed, a little angry, a little embarrassed – and I felt a sense of longing that I really couldn't explain.

  I didn’t know why I was feeling these things. I mean, it had been a one-night stand, and it wasn't like that was something I had never done before. I couldn't figure out why I thought this might be different than the other couple of times I'd done it before.

  It was weird, though. It had almost seemed like he had wanted to stay. Like he had wanted something more. That had intrigued me but it had also frightened me—not because I thought he was creepy or dangerous or anything like that. I really, really didn't want a relationship, yet it felt almost natural to be able to fall into something like that with Kyle. Why I felt this remained a total mystery. Besides, he had left, I didn't know anything about him but his first name, and it wasn't too likely that either of us would ever see the other again. I mean, he had forgotten my name before, and even though I had just reminded him what it was, he would probably forget it again – and then it would be gone from his mind forever.

  Just a casual fling, forgotten in a few moments when some other woman captured his attention.

  I sighed. Why was I feeling like this? I needed to put all thoughts of him out of my head, seriously. I had a new job on the horizon – fingers crossed that the guy would call – and it would be a fantastic stepping stone for me. Getting distracted by thoughts of a guy – especially some guy I had only had a one-night stand with – was totally not what I needed right now.

  I headed back to bed, thinking about last night. We’d danced, there were more drinks, and then the tequila shots, which had obliterated any last iota of self-restraint or inhibitions I may have been harboring up to that point. Ella had called a Lyft to come to pick us up sometime around midnight, and that was when I asked this amazing, sexy man if he wanted to come back to my place.

  A bold move, and something that I usually would never do but like I said, this guy ignited something of a fire within me. There was just such a powerful attraction and connection that I just hadn't been able to resist.

  We’d made love with the kind of passion on only ever reads about in novels or sees in movies. He was one of the best I'd ever had, if not the best. But then we talked. We talked a lot.

  And now I was starting to remember some of the stuff we had talked about. Yeah, it was all coming back to me quite clearly now. I had been pretty drunk but I could remember some things.

  He’d said he was in charge of a company. Hadn't said which one though. It had sounded, though, as if it had been something that he really hadn't been that interested in. But nonetheless, he had divulged some pretty interesting details, if that was the right word. I remembered him saying that he was thinking of laying off a bunch of people, and also planning to sell a large portion of the company to investors. That, apparently, had been a secret that he had never told anyone. It was probably a good thing I didn't know exactly who he was, because I figured with this kind of information I could probably do some considerable damage to his company. Of course, I would never do something like that but seriously, that was the kind of information that could totally sink a company, or get someone fired. I had to wonder why he had confided such things in me.

  There had also been something else. A big secret, he had said. Something about his older brother, something intense. But for the life of me, I couldn't remember what it was now. I do remember him being very emotional about it though. It had seemed to be more important to him than anything else he had just told me.

  My phone rang, interrupting my thoughts.

  I picked it up, and my heart started to beat a little faster.

  “Hi, Meredith,” said the voice on the other end. “This is Phil from last night at the Marketing Masters convention.”

  “Hi, Phil, great to hear from you.”

  “So, about that job...”

  Chapter 4

  Kyle

  I trudged out of the apartment building, still feeling a little wounded because Meredith didn't seem to want to have anything to do with me. I mean, we had both known what we were getting into when I went home with her. It wasn't as if either of us had planned for it to be anything more than a simple one-night stand and a bit of fun.

  And sure, we'd had sex a few times throughout the night. It had been fantastic sex; she had been hot and passionate, and that killer curvy body of hers really got my motor revving. But then there had been the talking, the opening up, the outpouring of stuff that I really hadn't told anyone.

  I stopped in my tracks as a recollection of what I had said to her the previous night suddenly popped into my head.

  Man, had I really said all that stuff? I had definitely told her about the business and how I was thinking of laying a couple of people off and possibly selling off a large portion of the company to investors. I distinctly remembered telling her about my heart not really being in it.

  And yeah, those were pretty big secrets but I couldn't help but wonder – and worry, slightly – whether I'd told her my biggest secret. The one about my brother.

  That really managed to shoot a barbed dart of anxiety into me. That was big stuff right there, stuff nobody knew. Damn it, I wish I could remember! The details of what I had said to her last night were fuzzy in my mind. I had certainly had far too much whiskey for my own good.

  Still, even if I had told her, it wasn't as if she knew who I was. She knew my first name and that I was thirty-three years old but that was about it. I hadn't told her my last name or where I worked. Or...had I? No, no, I was fuzzy about a lot of the stuff I had said last night but I knew that much for sure. I was safe.

  I stopped on the sidewalk, looking up and down the street for my Porsche, and a stab of panic hit me when I realized that it wasn't there. Then the panic gave way to relief when I realized that it wasn't there because we had taken a cab here last night, and that I had taken a cab to the club as well, so my car was at home.

  Just then my phone rang. I pulled it out and groaned as I saw that it was my father again. I had told him I was on my way. What more did he want?

  “Hi, Dad,” I said flatly as I answered the call.

  “Kyle, are you on your way?”

  “Yeah, I am, I already told you.”

  “You'd better not be smelling of whiskey and cigarettes when you get here.”

  His voice was stern and serious.

  “In that case, you might be disappointed,” I replied.

  “Come on, son. You know that you need to be acting with a bit more responsibility with what's going to happen at the company. Especially with what's about to happen. You can't keep acting like a college freshman. Those shoulders of yours need to be ready to carry the weight of a very serious responsibility, and you can't do that if you're going all around town living the lifestyle of some damned playboy.”

  I sighed and shook my head. “I know, Dad. And haven't I already demonstrated that I can handle my responsibilities? Haven't I already proved myself to be not only capable and reliable but pretty damn exceptional, if I don't say so myself?”

  “You are a man of rare talent, my boy, and I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. I just don't think that burning the candle at both ends is going to be good for you, especially when you take on all the extra responsibilities that this position entails. You need a good night's sleep and a sober mind, every day, to be able to properly handle all of this.”

  “I understand that. And look, it's not like I'm doing this every night, is it? I just need to cut loose sometimes.”

  “Just don't make a habit out of it like you did before.”

  I sighed again. “I'm not twenty-three years old anymore. And hey, it wasn't as if I ended up in prison or anything like that.”

  “You almost did though.”

  My patience had just about run out. I really didn't feel like talking about all this stuff right now, not while I was feeling dehydrated,
tired, and hungover. “All right, all right. Look, don't worry about me, everything is under control. I'll see you shortly.”

  “Okay. I'll see you in a few minutes.”

  I hailed a taxi and mumbled the address to my dad's company. I dozed off in the backseat, knowing that the ride would take around twenty-five to thirty minutes.

  It seemed like I had just closed my eyes when I felt the taxi driver shaking my arm.

  “Mister,” he said. “Wake up, mister, we are here.”

  I groaned, rubbed my eyes, hauled out my wallet, and stuffed a few crumpled bills into his hand and got out.

  “Hey, wait, mister,” he called out as I walked away. “Your change is twenty-three dollars.”

  “Keep it, buddy!” I called over my shoulder as I strode into the building.

  “Morning, Mr. Williams, sir,” said the receptionist as I walked in.

  “Morning, Wendy,” I replied.

  “Out late last night?” she asked with a wink and a smile.

  “What gave it away?” I asked, returning her wink. “I'm going up to see my dad. See you later.”

  “He's in a bit of a mood today,” she warned.

  “Then what’s new?” I said, chuckling.

  I got into the elevator and headed up to the top floor, where my dad's office was. I walked straight past his PA, who was typing something up on her computer. We acknowledged one another's presence with a brief nod but not much else. I didn't quite have the same rapport with her as I did with Wendy downstairs; I guessed because Wendy was a lot closer to my age, whereas Linda, my dad's PA, was a lot closer to his.

  The door was open. Dad sat at his desk, poring over some papers. I walked in, and it took a few moments for him to notice me.