One Shot At Love: A Billionaire Single Father Romance

by Weston Parker

  “Oh, okay,” I said, still feeling like I had been caught flat-footed by it all. “Well, I guess we should go, then. Where are we meeting them?”

  But Ian shook his head. “You don’t need to come with me,” he said. “There’s just something that I want to talk to them about. And I want to do it on my own.” He paused. “Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate all the help that you’ve been giving me. But I need to start asserting myself again if I want to have any chance of proving to the board of directors that you can go back to Utah.”

  He grinned crookedly at me. “And as much as I don’t want to let you go back to Utah, because it would be great to have you here with me again, I understand that that’s not totally possible. So I need to get my act together.”

  I nodded slowly. “Honestly, I wanted to have a talk with the board as well,” I admitted. “I know I should just be grateful that I got to have Adam here with me this weekend, but it’s only made me want to spend more time with him. I want to go back to Utah. So I’m hoping that the board will be reasonable and let me leave a little sooner.”

  I don’t know what I expected from Ian. Of course, he was as anxious to get back to being in charge of his own business as I was anxious for him to take over again. I knew it must gall him to have his younger sister here to look out for him, after all. He liked having me here, but he didn’t like that his company was worried to let him take over again.

  But I didn’t expect him to nod in agreement. “So actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to the board about,” he admitted. “Maybe you should come with me after all. Basically, I just wanted to point out that the longer you’re here and doing business with our clients, the more used to your presence they’re going to get. And the more of a change it’ll be when you leave again. But they can’t keep you here forever.”

  He shrugged. “I know that I messed things up before, but I’m not going to do that again. And I’m ready to make sure that everyone knows that.”

  I laughed. “All right, let’s go,” I said.

  “Let me do the talking,” Ian said confidently as he led me to one of the conference rooms.

  Inside, I was more than happy to sit back and watch as Ian chatted with the board. He had regained his confidence, but he also was deferent in a way that he wouldn’t have been before.

  “I’m ready to take the reins back,” he said. “And more than that, I’m ready to see my sister go back to doing what she loves doing. You know as well as I do that she isn’t happy working for this company anymore. She’s been wonderful in helping us get things back on track, but she has her own company to run back in Utah, and it’s not fair to pull her away from all of that. She shouldn’t be stuck here because of my mistakes.”

  He glanced over at me, and I smiled at him, grateful to hear him talk about me going back to Utah. He really understood that that was where I wanted to be, and he was willing to let me go back there.

  Even though he knew that as soon as I was back there, I would be back with Adam. That was as close to approval as I could expect to get at the moment. That meant even more than his flying Adam here to Nevada for the weekend, really.

  “As you know, I’ve been working mostly on my own this weekend, and I also chatted with a few of the shareholders this morning,” Ian continued. “I’m ready to take things back over and do things right this time. Of course, Bailey will still be in close contact. I’ll run things by her before I make any major changes in the future. And I’ll continue to run things by the board as well, to get the proper approval before I do anything. But it’s time for me to assume a leadership position again.”

  There was silence in the room. I looked around, trying to gauge the board’s reactions. Would they agree with Ian that it was time for him to take things over again? In reality, this was the same conversation that I had had with the board before, telling them that I was ready to leave. But maybe it would mean more to them coming from Ian. He certainly looked like he was poised and ready to assume his role again.

  Finally, I was relieved to see a couple of nods. “Bailey will need to be in close contact,” the board agreed, and a few of the members exchanged glances. “However, as long as she’s in daily contact to weigh in on decisions, I see no reason why she shouldn’t be allowed to go back to Utah.”

  I stared at the board, hardly believing what I had just heard. A broad grin broke out across my face. “Thank you so much,” I said. “I’ll definitely be around if you need me for anything.”

  It was an easy promise to make, after all. I got to go back to Utah, now instead of in a few weeks as originally planned. By this time tomorrow, I could be back in Adam’s arms.

  That thought made me feel surprisingly nervous. What if things weren’t as good once I was back? What if by the end of the season, we had seen too much of one another and realized that we were never all that interested in one another to begin with?

  But with that nervousness came a thrill as well. I got to see Adam again. To explore this relationship with him. Things were going to be okay for Ian here in Nevada, and I got to go back to running the business that I wanted to run.

  I could barely believe it.

  61

  Adam

  My first task on Monday morning was to talk to Kayla and Gretchen about what had happened while I was gone. Michael’s health was still causing him some trouble, so he couldn’t quite take over running the business yet. I hadn’t realized how much I was pinning my hopes on his being back to work on Monday, when I returned. I had to fight not to groan when Kayla told me that the reins were still in my hands.

  “I’m just ready to go back to being unnoticed,” I admitted to Kayla after she had caught me up on the weekend’s news. We had broken some of our records for number of skier visits in the month of January as well as number of skiers on the hill for one day. And not only that, but in spite of how busy it had been over the weekend, it sounded like things had run really smoothly. The comments box was full of compliments for how well our staff had handled the business.

  That was a relief. But not only that, it made me proud of a couple of the changes I had made in how things were run. Some of our staff had managed to fill in roles that we wouldn’t normally have had them in. They were just changes that made sense to me, like having our marketing team double as happy on-snow ambassadors, cheering up people who were sick of waiting in lines. We’d even had one of them dress up like our snowman mascot and entertain the kids out at ski lessons.

  It was those personal touches, I knew, that made people want to come to Brooks Mountain, after all. And it was those personal touches that Bailey was trying to preserve as owner of the resort. I had a feeling they were all changes that she would have been on board with.

  People were downright peppy when I went into our morning meeting. Hal clapped me on the shoulder. He was the head of the ski school and not someone that I normally had to interact with. But he seemed pretty happy with me right now. “Your plan worked,” he said. “I can’t believe how many people we have returning to ski school today after the weekend. And it’s a Monday!”

  I blinked in surprise. “Shouldn’t they be headed back home to get their kids back in school?” I joked. It wasn’t like it was the holidays anymore. “If they’re still here, they were probably planning on staying anyway.”

  “Believe it or not, we’ve actually had a record number of people extend their stays in the condos,” someone else chimed in. He shrugged. “I guess they were impressed with how things went over the weekend and weren’t ready to leave yet. One missed day of school won’t hurt the kids.”

  I shook my head, at a loss for words. “Well, I guess that’s great,” I said lamely.

  Kayla laughed. “It’s amazing, really. We’ve already been having a stellar year, and this is just more icing on the cake.” She leaned in close to me. “I know you’re ready to go back to being unnoticed, but have you realized how happy people are with you in charge? That translates into company morale, which t
ranslates directly into making our customers happy. I hope you realize that.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.

  I wasn’t doing anything that anyone else couldn’t do. It wasn’t that I was particularly good at this job or anything. It was more just that I had been at the resort for longer than most people, and I knew how things could run most smoothly. That was it.

  There was definitely a part of me that hoped that Bailey would appreciate the effort that I was putting in, though. That she would appreciate the small tweaks that I had made to how things were run. And I kind of thought that she would.

  Not only that, but I was getting better at handling the customers. In the past, I tried to avoid them as much as I could. Of course, it wasn’t always possible. People recognized that I worked for the resort and asked me questions about various things. But I was never the first person in the line of duty when it came to calming down our customers or changing their frustrating days into better ones.

  Now that I was acting head of the resort, though, all those complaints came to me. And I was getting better at handling them.

  First, I had to listen. Ninety-nine percent of people who had a complaint weren’t, it seemed, looking for someone who was going to make things better. They wanted you to listen as they complained. They wanted to know that they were heard and that their business was valuable. And if you threw in some vouchers or whatever at the end, then they were over the moon about staying at the resort, even if they still had the same problem from before.

  Like this guy, named Mr. Hadley. “I’m just frustrated with the way that you have the ski school set up at the moment,” he said. “We have a ski-in-ski-out property for a reason. We can drop the skis on the snow at the start of the day and get the kids into them, and then they ski straight over to their lessons, and I never have to juggle all their skis. I have three kids, you know, all taking lessons, and now you’re asking me to take off their skis and carry them over there so you can check their ski passes and then get them up the hill and back into their skis for their lessons.”

  “I know it’s inconvenient,” I said sympathetically. “And I know that of course you know how important it is for them to have their lift passes in their pockets first thing in the morning. But unfortunately, some of the other parents, especially ones who aren’t familiar with our program, either forget their kids’ ski passes or else they have them in their pocket and leave their kids without the passes. That’s a big problem for us, because we want to make sure when the classes get over to the ski lifts, everyone is ready to go.”

  “I understand that,” Mr. Hadley said, “but then maybe you should have more than one gate that the kids can go through. Like one that’s on the snow so that we can just ski right through it like we would for a lift.”

  “That would be nice,” I said. “The trouble is that then we have this giant piece of metal machinery right here at the bottom of the ski run where it becomes an inconvenience, not to mention a safety hazard, for everyone skiing down, particularly at the end of the day when we’ve cleaned up all of the ski school fencing that you can see right now.

  “I totally understand your frustration, though, and we’re looking into getting some handheld scanners to make the process run a little more smoothly for you in the future. But for now, why don’t I go ahead and get you guys hooked up with free ski locker storage down here in the base area? I know it doesn’t solve everything, but we do have wagons that you can use through the base area so that you don’t have to juggle all their skis.”

  I didn’t know if that was exactly how Bailey would have handled the situation. I hadn’t seen enough of how she handled the business before she had gone back to Nevada. But I knew that we rarely filled all of the available locker spaces, especially not now that we were through the busy holiday season and not into spring break time yet. So it was an easy way to diffuse the situation.

  “Would we be able to store the boots in there as well?” Mr. Hadley asked, but I could tell that I had already won him over. “Having them walk all the way over here in their ski boots isn’t going to save us any time.”

  “They definitely can,” I promised. “Not only that, but each of the lockers has a built in boot-dryer so their boots should be nice and toasty and easy to put on first thing in the morning.”

  Mr. Hadley nodded. “I appreciate that,” he said. “Do I need to walk over there with you now?”

  “Nope!” I told him. “I’ll just take your contact information right now and get them all set up for you, and at the end of the day, you’ll just need to give them your name.”

  It was yet another thing that I needed to do that day, on an already busy day, but I knew that this sort of customer service was important so that we could keep people like Mr. Hadley coming back and putting his kids in our ski school.

  I took down his information. “And remind me of your name again?” Mr. Hadley asked.

  “Adam Katz,” I said, holding out my hand for him to shake. “I’m currently the acting manager of the resort, so if you have any problem with the lockers this afternoon, you’ll be able to get in contact with me.”

  “I’m not worried about that,” Mr. Hadley said, shaking his head. His demeanor was totally different from how it had been just minutes ago. “I can tell that you have a good head on your shoulders and that I can trust you to make things right.” He grinned at me. “You’re definitely the right man to be acting manager of the resort, and I’ll make sure to pass that comment on at the end of my stay!”

  “We really appreciate your visit, Mr. Hadley,” I said seriously. “And I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay here in Park City.”

  “I believe I will,” Mr. Hadley said before heading off in the direction of the lifts.

  I exhaled heavily and took a quick look around for anything else that might be amiss. Then, I got on with my duties for the day, starting out with organizing the lockers for Mr. Hadley and his children.

  The day passed quickly, and I was surprised to finally glance outside and see that it was getting dark out there and the lifts were shutting down for the night, staff streaming off towards their homes. I smiled a little to myself. I remembered my first season there at the resort. I had made quite a few friends amongst the staff, the kinds of guys that I could go out drinking with sometimes. But I hadn’t chatted with most of those guys in ages now. First, there had been my family, then Beth’s death, and now Ethan. But maybe it was about time that I started taking an afternoon for myself here and there.

  I’d talk to Bailey about cutting back on my hours when she got back to work. Obviously it wasn’t something that I could do right now while I was in charge of everything, but things should be winding down as we headed towards the spring anyway.

  I had just gotten home when my phone started ringing. I smiled when I saw that it was Bailey. “Hey,” I said to her, knowing she could hear the warmth in my voice. “How’s Nevada?”

  “Actually, I’m not in Nevada,” Bailey said, to my surprise. And even though I knew that the phone call would probably have been just as clear if she was still in Las Vegas, there was something about the clarity that made it feel like she was speaking from right beside me. “I was wondering if you and Ethan could come to the airport.”

  The grin on my face widened. I tried not to get my hopes up. She might not be back here for good. Maybe she just wanted to check up on the resort, or maybe she wanted to spend another couple of days with me.

  But either way, I couldn’t help feeling excited at the thought of seeing her again that very night.

  “I’ll be there in half an hour,” I promised her. I hung up the phone and headed into the kitchen, where Ethan was finishing up his homework with Dad’s help. “Ethan, get your shoes,” I said, beaming at him. “We need to pick someone up from the airport.”

  I could tell by Dad’s smile that he knew just who I meant.

  62

  Bailey

  If flying to Utah
to run a ski resort had felt spontaneous before, it was nothing compared to the chaos of my hasty return flight. I had originally planned to hold off leaving until the next day at least. I knew that Adam could handle running the resort. And I wasn’t really too afraid that the board of directors would change their minds about letting me go. Ian could hold his own here in Vegas, and I had agreed to conference in for important meetings, plus do daily check-ups on him and his plans for the company.

  But as I thought about putting off my departure for another day, I realized that I didn’t want to wait. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since I had last seen Adam, but I didn’t want to wait anymore. I knew that he knew that I was planning on coming back to Utah, but I didn’t want him to have to worry anymore that I might change my mind. I wanted to be there.

  Ian gave me a huge hug at the airport. “I’ll see you soon,” he promised. “I have to straighten things out with work for the moment and show them that I can be depended on, but I think I can plan another ski trip with some of the investors later in the spring, maybe.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said, grinning at him. “And I’ll try to get back to Vegas for a weekend or so, too. As long as you promise not to tell the board that I’m coming back. I don’t want them trying to twist my arm to get me to stay.”

  Ian laughed. “Deal,” he said, reaching out to shake my hand. “Now go and get your man!”

  I laughed and turned towards the airport, ready to do just that.

  I had barely had any time to pack anything. Not that I had much to pack. I hadn’t brought most of my stuff from Utah, since I didn’t need my snow gear here in Vegas even in the middle of winter. Besides, leaving my stuff behind before had made it feel like I definitely was coming back to Utah. Now, heading back to Park City, it felt like I was going home.