One Shot At Love: A Billionaire Single Father Romance

by Weston Parker

  I knocked on the door to her office and Bailey called for me to enter. I hesitated before shutting the door behind myself. If I was getting fired, I didn’t really want anyone to overhear. But at the same time, shutting the door behind us made things feel so personal and private, and that made me think of the last time we had been together in the privacy of her condo.

  Not that I would dare do anything like that here. Ian had already walked in on us kissing; he would kill me if he walked in on something more than that. I didn’t need anyone else around the resort seeing it either.

  I sat down across from Bailey at her desk as she smiled at me. “I’m going to have to go back to Nevada for a bit, but I wanted to talk to you before I left,” she said.

  I stared at her, shocked into silence. “Why?” I finally asked. And what’s more, why was she telling me this now, in private, rather than telling all the employees at one of the all-staff meetings? This was definitely something that everyone else deserved to know.

  Unless what she was saying was that I was the reason that she had to go back? Did she feel like I had been causing too much drama between her and Ian, and she wanted to get away from me for a little while? I grimaced at the very thought of that.

  “Ian’s in some trouble with the casino, like I said,” Bailey said, shrugging. “I talked to Bill, the head of the board of directors, and he thinks that it would be better for me to come back and smooth some of the ruffled feathers. I used to do a lot of the PR work for the company, so these are guys that I know pretty well. Our regulars.” She shook her head. “It’s not really any of my business since I’m not part of the company anymore, but I don’t want Ian to lose his job, and this seems like the only way to help him out.”

  “So you’re going to Vegas,” I said, trying to keep my tone neutral. “When?”

  “Tomorrow, actually,” Bailey said. She made a face. “To be honest, I really don’t want to go. I feel like I’m just starting to find my rhythm here, and I don’t want everyone to think that I’m only going to be here when I don’t have other things to do elsewhere. This is my whole focus.” She sighed. “But like you said before, family comes first. If Ian’s in trouble, I have to help him out. I couldn’t handle myself otherwise.”

  I stared at her for a moment and then slowly nodded. I had been the one to tell her that she needed to help out Ian. So if that meant she was headed to Nevada, well, that was my own fault.

  There were a dozen questions I wanted to ask. Not least of which, when would she be back? But she probably didn’t know the answer to that. Hell, she might not be planning on coming back. If the only way to ensure that the business was going to be okay was to have her back as part of the business, there would probably be some people who didn’t want her to leave again, who would only agree to smooth things over with Ian if Bailey remained there at his side to temper him.

  So what Bailey was really saying, the reason that she wanted to do this in private, was that she wasn’t coming back and that we had to forget about anything that had ever happened between us. This was goodbye, basically.

  It hit me like a ton of bricks. Of course, I had expected her to leave sooner or later. It was part of why I didn’t want to get involved with her in the first place. It was just what Ian had told me before; Bailey and I were from different worlds. She had about a dozen projects on her plate, different things that all needed her attention. She had the whole world at her feet. And I just had this, my job at Brooks Mountain and my life here in Park City. I couldn’t keep up with someone like her. No sense in even trying.

  I shrugged at her. “Well, I guess I hope you have a good trip,” I said, trying not to sound bitter. I started to get to my feet, but Bailey shook her head.

  “That’s not all,” she said. I slowly sat down again, even though every bone in my body was telling me to get out of there before she really crushed my heart. I hadn’t realized just how much I wanted her, just how much I had expected things to get better between us once Ian went back to Nevada. I had set my expectations way too high, I saw now.

  But I couldn’t bring myself to walk out of there. Call it masochism, maybe, but I couldn’t walk away from Bailey when she was looking at me with that earnest look in her eyes.

  45

  Bailey

  I still had mixed feelings about leaving the resort. I had talked to Ian about everything the night before, though, and he’d seemed surprisingly relieved to hear that I would be coming back to Vegas with him.

  “I hate to say it,” he said, “but I feel like part of why things got so crazy is that I lost my best sounding board.” He smiled crookedly at me. “Have I ever told you how much I appreciated being able to run through business things with you before?”

  I laughed and shook my head. “You still can, silly,” I told him. “I’m only a phone call away, whenever you need me.”

  “I know,” Ian said. He shrugged. “I guess I was just worried that you’d be so busy with things here that you wouldn’t have time to hear all the crazy plans that I had for the casino business.”

  “I’ll always make time to hear your crazy plans,” I promised him. I paused. “To be honest, I’ve missed having you here too. I know I didn’t really give any of your ideas the time of day, but you really were trying to help. And I do think that you’re right about some of the stuff. We need to step up our game in a couple areas. If we could get the restaurant to be more of a staple and things like that, we wouldn’t have to worry so much about where our winter profits were going, because we’d know that we would have a little more profit coming in during the summers. Things like that.”

  “I shouldn’t have just stepped in like I did, though,” Ian said, grimacing. “If you had done that to me, I probably would have bought you a one-way ticket back home and never talked to you again.”

  I laughed. “You wouldn’t have done that,” I said confidently. “But you definitely wouldn’t have been too happy with me.” I shrugged. “But either way, I want to make sure you know, I’m not planning on taking over the casino business. I don’t even really want to be back on official payroll or anything. As far as I’m concerned, my position is here in Utah.”

  “With Adam?” Ian asked shrewdly.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I’m not really sure where we stand at the moment. But maybe.”

  Ian nodded. “Well, I’ll be glad to have you in Vegas for a bit,” he said. I could tell that there was probably a part of him that hoped that once I got back to Nevada, I would forget all about Adam and move on to someone else. That wasn’t going to happen, but I didn’t push it for now.

  It was difficult now, though, to tell Adam that I was leaving. And the next day, at that. I wished that I could put it off, spend a little more time here before I left. But I knew that the sooner the Ian situation was resolved, the sooner I could come back here. Now was the perfect time to go, too, while things were getting less busy by the day. I’d be back before things got busy again at the start of February for the Winter Festival, I hoped.

  I could see Adam wasn’t happy about the fact that I was leaving, though, and it killed me to have to leave him. I wished that I could ask him to come with me, but I knew that even if he might possibly have agreed to that, it just wasn’t possible. I needed him here; there was no one who could take over his job here. And more than that, there was Ethan. I couldn’t ask Adam to leave his son behind for however long it took to sort things out in Nevada. Nor could we bring Ethan with us.

  But it didn’t make this any easier.

  If I had my way, if I had my way… Well, Adam and I would have been in a relationship. I would have stayed the whole winter here in Park City, and he and I would have gotten closer and closer, spending the long, cold nights curled up together on the couch, watching bad movies and waking up together in the mornings. But that wasn’t going to happen. Not yet, anyway.

  “I need a favor from you,” I said to Adam.

  “Yeah?” he asked.


  “You know everyone here,” I said slowly. “And you know how things are supposed to run.”

  “I guess so,” Adam said, shrugging and looking uncomfortable.

  “No, come on. You were the one to tell me about all the whacky stuff that Ian ordered and everything,” I said.

  “That’s just because my job involves all those things,” Adam said, frowning.

  “Yeah, well. Look, I just need someone to keep an eye on the place while I’m gone. Keep me in the loop about everything. And I know that’s a huge favor to ask you on top of all the work that you already do, but I’d pay you extra to write up a weekly report for me. And of course you’d get a little raise if you were running the all-employee meetings and stuff.”

  Adam stared at me and then shook his head. “I’m not the person you want for that,” he said immediately.

  “Why not?” I challenged.

  “Uh, because you already pay someone to be the general resort manager?” Adam tried, sounding like he could barely believe we were having this conversation.

  I shook my head. “I know that,” I said. “But I’m not looking for some cut-and-dried feedback about bottom lines and company morale. I want to know what’s really happening around here. If people are upset with the way things are being run, I want them to be able to air those grievances. Now, I’d love to be here so that people can bitch to me about whatever’s bugging them, but that’s not possible right now. So I need someone checking in with people on my behalf.”

  “Kayla would be better at that than me,” Adam said, shaking his head.

  “Maybe,” I said. “But Kayla’s a little too emotional, herself. I want someone who’s going to be able to calm people down, let them know that their griping has been heard, and that things are going to be fixed as soon as possible. Or else someone who can explain to them why things are done the way that they are.”

  “Still doesn’t sound like something you’d want me for,” Adam said. “Look, I don’t have any sort of business skills. I can’t tell them why things have to be done a certain way.”

  I snorted. “Bullshit,” I said. “You’re smart. And you know how this place should run. And I saw the notebook on your desk with all your ideas for long-term improvements for the resort. Hell, you’re probably the person who should be running this place full-time, not me.”

  Adam stared at me for a moment. “You’re really serious about this,” he finally said, and I could hear the surprise in his voice, like he could barely believe it.

  But I nodded gravely at him. “Honestly, I was thinking about this even before I found out that I was going to have to go to Vegas,” I told him. “I’ve seen you with everyone around the resort. Hell, I’ve seen you with Ethan. You’re good with people. And I know it’s some extra work and a lot of extra responsibility. If you don’t want that, let me know. But don’t try and tell me that you can’t do it, because we both know that that’s a lie.”

  Adam was still silent for a long moment, and I felt my hopes start to wilt. I had a feeling that he might not want to help me out with this. I’d spent half the night trying to come up with some way to get him to agree to it anyway, but the only surefire way I could think of was to remind him that I was the boss.

  I didn’t want to feel like his job was on the line if he didn’t agree to help me out, though. I knew that I was asking a lot of him, and more than that, I knew that if I forced him to help me out, I was only going to make things worse in the long run. He would resent me as a boss, and he would never want anything to do with me in a more intimate way in the future.

  And I hated the thought of either of those things.

  I knew that he and I were already on thin ice. I didn’t know what exactly Ian had said to him, but from the surprised look that Adam had given me when I hinted at it, I could tell that there had been something. And even if there hadn’t been, well, it was no secret that Ian had tried his best to sabotage Adam’s job ever since he had come back to Park City. Adam had been worried about getting involved with me in the first place, and I had only given him a dozen reasons not to want to be with me anymore.

  And now, I was asking him to add even more to his crazy workload, all so that I could take time off to deal with a personal problem. It just wasn’t fair to him at all.

  Still, I sighed minutely. “Sorry,” I told him. “I shouldn’t have asked, I know that. I just didn’t know who else I could rely on.”

  Adam stared at me for a long moment and then cleared his throat. “No, I’ll do it,” he told me. “I’m not making any promises about how it’ll go, but if this is what you want, then I’ll do it.”

  Relief coursed through me. “Thank you, Adam,” I said quietly.

  He nodded at me, then raised an eyebrow at me. “Is that all?”

  I stared at him for a beat. Then; “I’ll miss you,” I blurted out.

  Adam stared at me for a moment, his lips quirking up into a smile. “I’ll miss you too,” he said quietly, getting to his feet.

  I got to my feet as well, coming around the desk towards him. “I wish that things hadn’t gotten so weird,” I said. “And I’m sorry for that. I know the drama was all my fault.”

  Adam cocked his head to the side for a moment. “Not all of it,” he finally said. He shrugged. “I’ve got a bunch of baggage as well.”

  “Are we okay?” I asked, even though I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to hear his answer. Not that the question was all that specific. It wasn’t like I had asked him if we were in a relationship or anything. He could say yes and simply mean that, yes, he was willing to keep working for me.

  But Adam stepped closer to me, pulling me close with an arm around my waist. He kissed me deeply, his lips plying mine until I was breathless. But I didn’t dare pull away from him, not even to catch my breath. He nuzzled his nose against mine. “We’re okay,” he whispered quietly. “I’ll see you when you get back.”

  I nodded, eyes closing for just a moment. If I had my way, I wouldn’t be leaving. But Adam had been patient with me for this long. Maybe leaving wasn’t the worst thing. Especially if it meant that I could come back and focus more of my attention on us.

  46

  Adam

  Bailey smiled at me again. “You really didn’t have to drive me to the airport,” she said. “I could have taken a cab.”

  I shrugged and glanced over at her as I flicked on my blinker to change lanes for the departures section of the airport. “I know you could have,” I said. “But I didn’t have that much to get done this morning, and this could have been a long cab drive for you. Plus, I never know if I trust the way those guys drive. You know, they’ll give just about anyone a job as a cabbie. I don’t think there’s any sort of driving test. Which there probably should be, given the amount of snowy, winter driving they have to do out here.”

  Bailey looked like she was trying not to laugh as she reached over and lightly squeezed my thigh. “I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say at once,” she said teasingly, and I fought not to feel embarrassed.

  It wasn’t that I was feeling particularly chatty that morning. But I was feeling nervous. After the kiss in her office the previous afternoon, I had hightailed it out of there before things could get too heavy. I knew that I probably shouldn’t have kissed her. But I hadn’t been able to stop myself. And besides, I had a feeling that she was going to find someone she was more interested in when she went back to Nevada. So really, that kiss was just a way of saying goodbye. Reminding myself of what I could never actually have.

  I hated to think of it that way, but it was the truth. This was goodbye, and it wouldn’t do to treat it otherwise.

  Somehow, though, I was only now starting to realize just how much I cared for her. I hated the idea of her ending up with someone else. Who would it be? Some smooth-talking businessman? One of their regular clients at the casino, a guy with more money than he knew what to do with? Someone who had never had to work a day in his life?

  Definitely not
someone like me, either way. And the truth was, I would be happy for her, if she found the right guy. She deserved so much more. I just wondered if I would ever get to see her again. Maybe she would find another project more suitable for her. She clearly planned to be gone for a while, if she was worried about finding someone to be her liaison here, in case anyone had problems with the way that things were going.

  It was funny, really. It wasn’t like the previous owners had really been too involved. Life would go on like it always had. But I was already imagining what it would be like in the lodge, without Bailey’s smiling presence. It would feel like something was missing, I was sure.

  Stupid as that might be. She had barely spent any time there at all; that place had been going for a lot longer than she had been the owner of it. And not only that, but we didn’t really need her to help with running things. So she wanted me to write up weekly reports for her? I would do that at least until her interest started to wane. I doubted it would take too long.

  I pulled up to the departures drop-off area and got out to help Bailey with her bag. She laughed and batted my hands away. “Come on, you don’t have to do that,” she said. “I barely packed anything; I’m not going to be gone for that long.”

  “Do you already have your return ticket?” I asked in surprise. She hadn’t mentioned anything about that the previous day, and I thought that she would have told me if she was only going for a short time. She had made it sound like she didn’t know exactly what she needed to do or how long it would take. But now she seemed so sure that it would only be a short time.

  Bailey grimaced and shook her head, though. Just as I had suspected. “No. But I figure if I tell everyone that I’m only there for a week or two at the most, then we can get everything done and I can get back here.”

  I could hear in her voice, though, that she didn’t actually believe it would be that easy. She knew she could be there for a while. Packing light was just optimistic.