66
Bailey
I woke up early on Saturday morning, coming out of a sweet dream of Adam and I curled together in bed. I sighed to find that I was alone. It was silly, really. Even though Adam and I had gotten closer and closer over the course of the month, I was still waking up on my own most mornings. I knew that he had his routine with Ethan, and he was trying to keep things as normal as possible for the young boy. I respected that.
Besides, I got to see Adam all the time, and it wasn’t like we hadn’t had sex or anything. No, things had been going really well for us. And if he hadn’t said that he loved me yet, well, it was going to take time. I knew that he still missed his former wife like a toothache that would never go away, and he was scared to fall in too deep again. I respected that as well.
But still, I couldn’t help wishing that we could take that next step in our relationship. To really commit to one another and start building a future together. I couldn’t help wishing that I could wake up next to him every single morning, curled together beneath the soft flannel sheets in his simple bedroom, listening to Ethan playing quietly downstairs.
Right now, I couldn’t have any of that. I was here in Nevada again. Just for a short trip this time, I had promised Adam as well as myself. I just had to tie up a couple of loose ends. Make sure that Ian was doing all right and that the board of directors’ confidence in him was fully restored.
For the past month, I had been doing double-duty between my work for the casino, which seemed to be never-ending, and the work for Brooks Mountain, which of course was nuts at the moment as we headed towards spring and the time for some of those planned renovations to the mountain. It had been an even more prosperous winter than we had anticipated early on, and even with the huge amount that we were saving ‘for a rainy day’, there was plenty leftover to make a lot of much-needed touch-ups to the place.
Ian had actually helped me brainstorm some ideas when he had come out to visit recently. We weren’t getting fancy coffee machines or anything like that, but he had had some great ideas for how I could enhance the place while keeping its current charm.
It was that visit, more than anything, that had shown me personally that Ian was reformed and that he would think twice before making any huge changes in the casino business. It was that visit that had spurred me to return here to tie up loose ends and quit the casino business once and for all.
But it was just a short visit. I was already eager to get back to Utah and the two boys, Adam and Ethan, that I had left behind. Plus the resort, which felt more like home, somehow, than Vegas ever had.
I sat up quickly, ready to get a start on my day. Then, I ran for the ensuite bathroom, my stomach churning. I hunched over the bowl, a cold sweat breaking out across my forehead as my gut heaved. I frowned, wondering what the hell that was about.
I thought back to the flight. There had been a couple people coughing around me, but this didn’t feel like your average cold. I was a little tired and definitely nauseous, but I didn’t feel achy or congested or any of that.
So maybe food poisoning? Thinking back over the previous day, though, I didn’t think that I had eaten anything too suspicious. And anyway, wouldn’t food poisoning have bothered me over the course of the night, rather than as soon as I sat up that morning? I at least should have felt some hint of discomfort as I lay there in bed that morning thinking about my day.
What finally helped me put two and two together was the slightly crampy feeling in my lower stomach. Almost as though…
It hit me like a bolt from the blue. I had missed my period that month. Could it be possible that this weariness and the accompanying nausea were the first signs of pregnancy?
I felt a slow grin break out across my face. Pregnant. It was Adam’s, of course. A younger brother or younger sister for Ethan. I could picture us already. The four of us. A real family.
But maybe I was getting ahead of myself. Adam hadn’t even told me that he loved me yet. Were we ready to have a kid together? Would this make him panic, freak him out to the point that he didn’t want anything to do with me anymore? Maybe it would make his memories of his first wife all the more poignant. All the more painful.
I didn’t think that was the case, though. I knew, even though he hadn’t said it, that Adam loved me. We had talked about a future together, albeit in broad sketches rather than specifics. We had talked about all the things that we were going to do together that summer and into the fall. I didn’t think the news that I was pregnant was going to shake that up.
Of course, I needed to confirm things before I talked to him about this. No use getting too ahead of myself.
I flushed the toilet and headed back into my room to get dressed for the morning, even more ready to get all of this casino business over with. Now I had twice as much reason to get back to Utah. But I made a little detour on the way to the casino that morning, stopping off at a pharmacy to buy a pregnancy test. I just couldn’t wait to confirm if my suspicions were true.
I headed into the bathroom on my way into the casino. Maybe I shouldn’t do this here. Maybe I should wait until after my meeting. This could be big news. Did I really want to confirm that I was pregnant here and now?
But I couldn’t wait any longer, and I knew that with the meeting I had scheduled that morning, I didn’t have time to go anywhere else. It was now or never.
Besides, I thought, grinning to myself, this was the same casino that Adam and I had had a great day in, together. I had been here plenty of times on my own before that, but now, this place was kind of special to me in a way. What more fitting place was there to realize this news?
I was getting ahead of myself again. For all I knew, it was just a fluke that my period was late this month. Adam and I had been careful. Maybe it was just a touch of strange twenty-four hour sickness and nothing more.
For a moment, I paused, staring in the mirror at myself. What did I hope to see when I turned that stick over? One line or two?
I grinned slowly. I wanted a family with Adam. And even though I already felt like Ethan and Adam were family enough for me, even though I knew that Adam and I probably should have had more serious talks about the future before skipping ahead to this step? Well, if that test was positive, I knew for a fact that I was going to be over the moon about it.
Even if it wasn’t positive, I knew, right then in that moment, that I wanted to talk to Adam about having kids together. Giving Ethan a younger brother or sister. Sharing the ins and outs of parenthood with one another.
I looked down at the test in my hand and then hurriedly consulted the box one more time, just to make sure that I was remembering it correctly. I couldn’t help but grin. Pregnant.
Adam and I were having a baby.
I fought the urge to whoop and holler right there in the bathroom. I also fought the urge to pull out my phone and call Adam right away. No, this was something that I needed to tell him in person. I could already picture the stunned look on his face. But in my minds eye, he would be just as excited as I was about this new chapter in our lives. He would pull me close, hold me tightly. But carefully, respectful of the baby growing in my uterus already.
I glanced at my watch and then took a deep breath before heading out into the casino. Time for all of that later. For now, I had a meeting to be done with.
Ian gave me a quizzical look as I walked into the board room, and I knew that something of my earlier elation must have shown on my face. At some point, I was going to have to tell Ian that he was going to be an uncle.
I thought back to Ian’s previous frustration about my relationship with his erstwhile friend. He had thought that I could do better than Adam. But he seemed to have come around. I think it helped having him see the two of us together. He could tell how happy Adam and the resort in Park City made me. He could tell that this was what I wanted with my life.
And I couldn’t have asked for a better man than Adam, really. He was kind and caring, sweet and honest. Maybe th
e way that he lived was a bit simple, a lot less fancy than what I had been accustomed to here in Vegas. But at the end of the day, did I really need all of this glitz and glamor?
No, I was coming to realize. My favorite nights lately had just been nights spent over at Adam’s house, playing board games with Ethan before bed, and then cuddling with Adam on the couch. We could really talk with one another, about anything and everything.
Well, except for the fact that we loved one another. I had held off saying it, even though I’d been thinking it for a while now. I didn’t want him to feel pressured to say the same thing back to me. I wanted him to wait and say it when the time felt right for him.
But now, I felt just a moment of indecision. What if Adam hadn’t said that he loved me because he didn’t really love me as much as I thought he did? What if I was still just his rebound from Beth and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to be with me long-term? I knew that he had said that he could never compare me to Beth, and that he wasn’t the same person now that he had been with her. But at the end of the day, maybe that meant that he didn’t really want to have me as part of his family.
No, I was just panicking. I squared my shoulders, and tried to focus on the meeting.
“As I’m sure you know, we’re really pleased with the way that things have been going over the past month,” Pat, the new head of the board of directors was saying.
There had been quite a bit of change in the personnel gathered here in this room. Some of them, I knew. Others, I had only met in passing the night before. Ian hadn’t changed too much about the way that things were run, but we’d both decided, over time, that he needed to run the business the way that he wanted to, more or less, without just keeping everything the same as when Dad had been at the helm. And the board of directors, once they heard some of Ian’s better ideas, agreed with that. The company had restructured to make room for more growth, and things were going well.
I was proud of Ian, I really was. And I was more than ready for him to take over the rest of the duties that I was still doing. Apparently, I had more to think about than just Brooks Mountain at the moment anyway. Not that I was going to tell all of them that right now.
“Now Bailey, I know that you’re here today to relinquish your duties here with us, but I think we have an offer that you can’t refuse,” Pat said, grinning at me. He gestured towards Ian. “As you know, we’re looking to put another of our casinos overseas. Your brother would like you to be head of operations there.”
I stared incredulously at Ian. Was that his way of separating me from Adam? Ship me off overseas? Pat handed me a contract to read over, even as he told me all about the position.
“And you’ll notice, of course, that the position comes with a substantial raise,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
I flipped through the contract feeling dazed. How could Ian do this to me? He had to know that I was going to turn it down. But as I tuned back into what Pat was saying, I realized that no, maybe I had it wrong; maybe Ian was actually looking out for me. Just like he always did.
The new casino would be in Europe, located near a ski resort. The salary was more than I could make in two lifetimes. Plenty of money for me to be comfortable. Plenty of money for me to be able to give my family whatever they wanted in life. I could picture it now; Ethan at some fancy international school, his younger sibling brought up speaking as fluently in five different languages as in English. Weekend trips to foreign countries, Christmas markets, a life of luxury.
Not only that, but Pat was careful to mention the relocation fees, as well as allocations for housing and more. Ian had cut me a deal that would allow me to bring Adam over there with me.
I thought about Adam’s simple life in Park City. Had he ever even been out of the country? Did he even have a passport? What would he think of all of this? I knew that he took pride in his job. But I was sure that we could find work for him over there. It definitely sounded like there were ski resorts in the area, and I was sure his skills as a lift mechanic and maintenance person would translate, regardless of the local language.
But was that really what I wanted for my family?
And what’s more, was it even possible? Heading up a new casino would be challenging work. Lots of long days, plenty of frustrating hours. Lots of time on my feet. The whole offer was put together before Ian and the rest of them knew that I was pregnant. I wasn’t sure that it would be the same if I told them that I was planning on having a baby.
Maybe now wasn’t the time for a baby. Maybe this was a sign from the universe that Adam and I should slow down anyway, that we should have some long and serious talks before we rushed into things with a new child and a family anyway. Maybe I should think long and hard about what I really wanted in life. My career had always been important to me. Should I throw it all away for the chance at a family?
I wondered what Dad would have said if he was there. He had focused so hard on his career, and it was part of what had driven a wedge between him and Mom. But at the end of the day, he had still always been there for Ian and I. Could I somehow have both things? Everything?
I could never make the decision on my own. I needed to talk to Adam.
“I know it’s a lot to think about,” Ian said quietly. He gave me a rueful smile. “Sorry to spring it on you with no warning, too. But I was afraid that if I gave you a heads up, before I knew what the company was really in a position to offer, then you wouldn’t consider the whole package.”
He paused. “I know you love the ski resort. But taking over this casino for now wouldn’t put any of that at risk. You could leave them to operate on their own for a couple years, just long enough for the casino to get off the ground, and then you could always return to it. Not only that, but we’re prepared to make certain allowances. Maybe give you a few weeks off here and there through the winter so that you could fly back and supervise things there, make sure it’s all up to snuff.”
My head was spinning. I stared down at the contract in front of me, eyes glazing over as they slid across those bold, dark-printed words. I knew that this was the offer of a lifetime. A new adventure. Hell, a paycheck sizeable enough that I could funnel a fair amount of money into improvements at Brooks Mountain over time. So many things to consider.
If Ian could have made this offer before I bought Brooks Mountain, before I went to Park City and fell in love with Adam, I knew that I would have jumped at it. Was it wrong for me to turn it down now just because my circumstances had changed a little bit?
I didn’t know what to say, but from the way the board of directors and Ian were starting at me, I could tell that they expected an answer.
Finally, I opened my mouth. “I’m going to need some time to think about it,” I heard myself say. Then, I turned and walked out of the room.
67
Adam
That burble of excitement was still with me on Sunday afternoon as I headed out to the airport. I had hoped beyond hope that Bailey would be coming back soon, but I hadn’t dared to hope that she would only be in Nevada for the weekend. Waking up to a text from her that morning, asking me to pick her up as soon as I was off work that evening, had made my day. I’d spent the entirety of Sunday trying to make things extra perfect around the lodge for her return.
Of course, that was my job anyway, and I doubted that she would notice that I had gone out of my way at all. But it gave me something to do, and anyway, there had been a few longer-term projects, like fixing all the shaky tables in the cafeteria, that I was happy to cross off my to-do list.
I scanned the crowd outside the airport, but I still didn’t see Bailey. I tried not to feel disappointed. Had something happened? When I checked the arrivals board, it said that her flight had landed. But maybe she’d needed to take a later flight to finish up some last-minute things?
Or maybe she just wasn’t coming back. I knew that that thought was crazy and unfounded. She had said that she was coming back. And she had come back before. I just h
ad to trust her. But what if…
Suddenly she was there, right next to me, her arms around me. “Oh my God, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” she said into my shoulder.
I managed to get my arms around her as well. “Long flight?” I asked.
“I mean, you’ve been on this one. It’s only a short flight. But I couldn’t wait to get here, and I wasn’t feeling very well during the flight,” Bailey confessed.
I frowned down at her, worry pulsing through me. “Are you sick?” I asked her. She did look a little pale. Maybe this was why she had come back so quickly; had she gotten sick and cancelled all of her meetings for now? But that meant she was probably headed back to Vegas sometime soon. I tried not to sigh.
But Bailey’s face cleared, and she shook her head. “Let’s just go home,” she said cheerfully. She looked around. “Where’s Ethan?”
“One of his friends is having a sleepover tonight for his birthday, and to celebrate the three-day holiday weekend,” I explained.
It was another thing that had made that text from Bailey all the more significant that morning. Ethan was going to be out of the house until at least the eleven o’clock pickup the following morning, which meant that Bailey and I had the house all to ourselves tonight. If I was going to tell her that I loved her, this was definitely the time to do it.
Sure enough, Bailey grinned at me, clearly understanding the significance. “I hope you got that friend a really great birthday gift,” she teased.
I laughed and led her over to my car. “Come on, let’s go.”
Bailey was kind of quiet on the drive home, and when I glanced over, I saw that she still looked a little pale. I felt kind of bad, knowing that she wasn’t feeling well. I didn’t know why she was trying to hide it from me. But just because we were going back to my place, it didn’t mean that we had to do anything. I could pamper her a little, take care of her, make sure that she was all right. Maybe that was selfish of me and I should have just taken her home. But she seemed to want this as well.
One Shot At Love: A Billionaire Single Father Romance Page 38