Never Say Never, Part Two (Second Chance Romance, Book 2)

by Shaw, Melissa

  They were to be his little angels, the American dream to better his chance of becoming president one day.

  God save the country if that happened.

  “Kids, no.” Sadness crept into Amanda’s tone. “I want a little baby girl so bad. One of my own. We’d wear matching clothes, hold hands, go shopping together.”

  Emily blinked at the vision of an equally pink girl holding Amanda’s hand.

  “I’m sorry about that. Really am.” She wasn’t. Amanda wasn’t exactly fit to be a mother. Too selfish. “But here we are.”

  She pulled into the long drive and drove up to the house, gravel crunching beneath the tires.

  “Thank God. Took you long enough.” Amanda fumbled with the door handle but couldn’t get it to work.

  “I’ll get that.” Emily jumped out and rushed to the passenger side. She opened up and gripped her companion around the waist, then leveraged her from the car.

  Amanda clung to her with both arms around her shoulders, and craned upwards to stare at Emily.

  “Why are you being so nice to me?”

  “What are friends for?”

  A flash of guilt passed over Amanda’s expression and was gone a second later. Emily slammed the car door shut with her hip and half-walked, half-dragged the drunk congressman’s wife to the front door.

  She fished the keys out of Amanda’s handbag and let them into the house. The alarm wasn’t armed at least. A small blessing.

  “Where’s your room?”

  “Upstairs, first on left.” She yawned wide and indicated at the same time.

  Emily got her up the stairs, covered in a mauve plush carpet of course, and into her wood-paneled bedroom. Brian liked everything to look stately, no matter how off-putting it was.

  Emily had begged to change the décor, but the man had been set in his ways. That hadn’t changed at least.

  The sheets were the same.

  She drew them back and delivered Amanda to her bed.

  “Thank you.” Amanda mumbled, eyes already drifting closed. “Don’t tell Brian.”

  “Oh, I won’t.” Emily grinned at her sleeping ‘competitor’.

  This was her chance. She could see the kids. Make them understand.

  She hurried out of the main bedroom and to the room at the end of the hall – Becci had slept there when she’d lived in the house.

  She opened the door and let herself in.

  “Who’s that?” Jared sat up in bed and Emily gave a start.

  “It’s mom.”

  “Oh. What are you doing here?”

  Becci sat up beside him, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. She was seven now. Seven whole years old – and her blonde curls were also intact.

  “I brought Amanda home and I wanted to check you two were okay,” she said, putting on a brusque motherly attitude. “What are you two doing in the same room?”

  “Becci was afraid.” Jared answered, and Emily went to the bed, still outfitted in white sheets dotted with purple flowers.

  She sat down on the edge and gave a sigh. “I want you two to know something.”

  Becci stared at her in disbelief, a small glimmer of recognition in her gaze. “You’re my mommy.”

  “Yes, my darling, I am.”

  “Not anymore.” Jared refused to look at her.

  “Jared Henry Ross,” Emily snapped and he flinched and focused on her, “you listen to me right now. Time and distance may separate us, I may not always be around, but I’m still your mother. You don’t have a choice in the matter.”

  The two children sat in silence, paying rapt attention.

  “And that’s going to change now, anyway.”

  “What is?” Becci piped up, gripping a floppy brown teddy to her chest.

  “I’m going to be here for you guys from now on. No matter what.”

  “No, you’re not allowed to get our hopes up and then just leave again anyway.” Jared shook his head, furious.

  “Jared, you can believe what you want to, but when I make a promise, I keep it.” Emily sighed and touched his cheek and then Becci’s. “I want you to know that I didn’t leave by choice. I did a very stupid thing, something I’ll never forgive myself for, and it cost me years of my life.”

  “What did you do?” Becci asked.

  “I can’t tell you, now, but one day I’ll explain it to you. It’s my fault that I don’t get to be around you as much, so I don’t blame you for being angry, but I want you to understand that it wasn’t my choice. I didn’t do this on purpose. I don’t want you two to live with Amanda.”

  “Amanda,” Becci said and pulled a funny face, “wears a lot of pink.”

  “Yes, please don’t take style tips from her.”

  “Blegh, never!” Becci burst out laughing and Jared let a few chuckles escape, then plastered his frown back up.

  “All right, back to sleep you two. It’s late.” She gave them a kiss and a hug each and tucked them in. Then she tiptoed to the door and left it open a crack so there’d be a sliver of light for them – Becci had liked that as a toddler.

  “I love you mommy.” Becci whispered.

  “I love you too.”

  The tears spilled down Emily’s front. She crept down the stairs and towards the front door, but stopped when something beeped nearby.

  She glanced over at the table near the door. Mail, newspaper, and… it was a tablet.

  Brian’s tablet?

  She had to find out.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Emily stared at the tablet like it was a viper.

  What was on that thing?

  She paced towards it, then back again. Snooping was below her, surely, but she’d done it with Chase’s phone, and she needed as much information about Brian and the kids as she could get.

  “Don’t do it,” she whispered to herself. But she couldn’t resist. She glanced back up the stairs, but they were clear, then checked for cameras in the corners. Nothing. Brian was too paranoid for them. He’d been obsessed with the idea of people watching when he took a shower or shit or something.

  That meant he had a lot to hide.

  Emil hurried to the table and snatched the 10.1 inch tablet up. She swiped the screen and it asked for a password. She tapped her chin. Brian wasn’t a genius and he’d used the same password for years – she’d seen him input it into the security system a few times. Bri4Prez. She typed it in and the tablet was hers.

  She checked his contacts list, but there weren't any she recognized. Except for a name. Janet.

  Nah, couldn’t be the same Janet. It was probably a business connection or something. There was serendipity and then there was just plain ridiculousness.

  She tapped through to his WhatsApp messages and checked the conversations. Janet was there too.

  She opened one up and read through it, eyebrow raising as she scrolled through the lines of text.

  Missed you tonight. Sooner you get away from Amanda, the better. I’ve got so many naughty things to show you.

  That was from her.

  I look forward to it. I’m going to make you bend and show you who’s in charge. You got that?

  That was from Brian. Reading the words chilled her to the core.

  I’m all yours, daddy. I’ll do whatever you want. I won’t put up a fight.

  Janet wasn’t a business associate, she was a fling or an affair. And a submissive one at that. Emily grimaced. She couldn’t stand weak women.

  This was too much of a coincidence. Amanda had said she recognized Chase’s Janet from somewhere, but what if this woman on Brian’s tablet really was the same bitch?

  Boy, that would be some kind of irony. No, it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.

  Emily left the text folder and brought up his gallery instead and went straight to images. They were the usual, pictures of Amanda and the kids, images of friends or holidays. Nothing of interest. But what about videos?

  She opened the folder and checked it out.

  There was one with the la
bel Biz Stuff.

  Yeah, right. Had to be some kind of porn. Emily tapped the screen and the video unfolded before her. This was different from regular pornography, though, there wasn’t any music in the background.

  She looked back up the stairs again, but the coast was clear.

  “You going to bend, bitch?” Brian’s voice echoed in the hallway and Emily jumped about a foot in the air.

  He was here! She focused on the door, but it was shut tight and locked from the inside.

  “Yeah, daddy, I’ll bend for you.” That was a woman.

  Emily gave a nervous laugh – it was the video. Looked like Brian had recorded himself and Amanda together. She made to tap away, but halted when the woman’s face lit up the screen.

  She was naked. She was a redhead. And she was Chase’s Janet.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  Janet and Brian. Brian and Janet.

  Puzzle pieces clicked into place in Emily’s mind. That was how she’d known about her jail time. She was in touch with Brian. Goosebumps broke out all over her body.

  What else did Brian know about her life?

  If they were this intimately connected, who knew what she’d told him.

  He might know where she lived, what she did for a living, her plans. God, he might even know about Chase. That thought chilled her more than the others put together. If Brian took exception to Chase, he had the power to get rid of him in true Ross style.

  Brian Ross had more connections than a woman in a Xena the Warrior Princess costume at Comic Con.

  “Yeah baby, that’s the stuff.” The video was still on, and Emily stuck her tongue out in disgust. That disgust turned to concern.

  This woman was Chase’s girlfriend and she’d betrayed him. She’d destroyed his trust as surely as Brian had destroyed Emily’s. She couldn’t let that fly. As angry as she was at the fool of man, there was no way she’d let him get hurt by this utter bitch.

  She was more than that. She was an emotionless creature to do this to him.

  Emily took several screenshots of the video, then opened Brian’s email, attached the images and sent them to her inbox. Then she painstakingly deleted the sent mail, went into his images and deleted the screenshots as well.

  She switched the tablet off and back on again to wipe any memory it had of her snooping.

  She couldn’t risk him discovering her presence too soon. Though Amanda would probably let him in on her first visit at the earliest opportunity. Another weak woman if ever there was one.

  Footsteps rang out upstairs and she quickened her pace.

  Emily wiped the tablet down with the end of her sweater and replaced it exactly where she’d found it, then hurried to the door.

  She closed it behind her and ambled into the road. She whipped out her smartphone and dialed a number.

  “Hi, would you mind picking me up?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Emily breathed through her nose and waited patiently on the comfortable armchair in the lobby of the building.

  Chase’s secretary polished her nails and ignored her. She’d asked for an appointment and the woman had phone up to check with him. He’d said to wait. It was irritating as all hell, but at least she’d get to see him.

  She’d been such a fool to reject him. She hadn’t realized that he had issues of his own. She was so wrapped up in her own drama, that she hadn’t stop to think how it would affect him. Hopefully it wasn’t too late to apologize and make things right.

  “Emily?” The receptionist spoke up and she rose from the armchair and went to the front desk, a glass and steel construction. “He’ll see you now.”

  “Oh, that’s great.” Butterflies flitted around in her belly.

  “Take the elevator to the twelfth floor.”

  “Which office is his?”

  The secretary gave her a snarky grin. “All of them.”

  That wasn’t intimidating at all. Emily gripped her tote and marched to the elevator. A man in a suit, carrying a stack of papers, opened it by pressing the button with his elbow, then scurried inside.

  She shadowed him, a bit like a nerdy girl at a party. She didn’t belong here. This was too high power, too high profile. Would she ever fit in with Chase’s world?

  Either way, she wouldn’t let Janet’s betrayal go unnoticed. He had to know, even if he didn’t want to hear it from her lips.

  She pressed the button for twelfth and turned to the dude with the paper chimney. “Which floor?”

  “Seventh,” he mumbled, staring straight ahead, gaze unfocussed. Obviously crunching numbers in his head or something.

  She pressed the seven and twelve buttons respectively, and the silver doors slid closed. She examined her reflection in them and fixed her hair.

  At least she’d found him. Though figuring out that he bought and sold businesses for a living had been quite an easy task. She’d simply Googled him – she’d been putting that off because it was a bit too ‘stalker’ – and brought up everything from Chase Newman the mogul, to the Newman Family Trust, to an Autism charity he was associated with.

  She’d had no clue he was this influential. Those butterflies beat against the walls of her stomach with baseball bats.

  The elevator stopped on the seventh floor and Mr Paper Stack bustled out. Thankfully, no one else joined her. It was late on a Friday afternoon, maybe things had slowed in the business world.

  The elevator tinged and the doors slid open for the second time. On the twelfth floor.

  She stepped onto marble floors which were so clean they had a sheen.

  Emily strode down the hall, looking left and right, but there were no offices, just one big open space filled with chairs, a glass room on one end with a board room table and rich red upholstered chairs, and at the very end of the space, there was a door.

  Chase Newman.

  “Shit.” This was it.

  She stopped in front of it and knocked once.

  “Come.”

  Double shit. He sounded pissed.

  She turned the golden knob and entered, then closed up behind her.

  “Emily.” It was a statement, but it came out an accusation.

  “You don’t seem happy to see me.”

  “Why would I be?” He sat behind a long desk with papers and spreadsheets strewn in front of him. His tie was undone, hair a mess and had dark rings under his eyes.

  “You look haggard.”

  “Thanks,” he answered without a smile.

  This was a total about face for him. Normally he was the one all over her, asking if they could talk.

  “Can I help you with something?”

  “I just thought we should talk. The other night at the restaurant –”

  “You were right.” He picked up a couple papers and patted them into the semblance of a neat pile, then shifted them aside.

  “What?” Emily bit her lip. He was cold towards her, even worse than he’d been the day Janet had charged in and revealed her secret. One of them at least.

  “About us not talking again. We shouldn’t be in contact.”

  It knocked her backwards. She gripped the doorknob behind her and tried to catch her breath. “Chase,” she gasped.

  “Time for you to leave, Emily.”

  “I won’t,” she said, sticking her chin out. She’d been angry with him for so long, and now she’d finally let go and readied herself to forgive and forget, and he met her with this.

  Was she right about him? Couldn’t she trust him?

  “This is pointless. I want nothing to do with you.” He stood and slammed his laptop shut.

  “Where is this coming from? The other night you were all over me, stroking my cheek, kissing me,” she choked up on the last part.

  “The other night I was delusional.”

  “Bullshit.”

  He nodded at her. “Yeah I was. I was stuck in this weird psycho-fuck connection we have. Maybe it’s because we’re both broken. But two halves don’t make a whole. I don’t
care for you anymore, and you need to leave now. Now.”

  “Chase, you can’t be –”

  “Get out.” He swept up more of those cursed papers and whipped open a file. He took out his punch, ignoring her completely.

  “What’s happened? You’re so cold.”

  She’d come to help him out, but he didn’t want anything to do with her. It wasn’t right. This couldn’t be the end.

  God, had she pushed him too hard the last time? She hadn’t rejected him as strongly as this.

  “I know.”

  “What do you mean?” But a Titanic-sized ice block slid into her stomach. Or an iceberg the size of the one which took down the Titanic.

  “Janet told me the truth about your crime, Emily.”

  Oh shit. This couldn’t be happening.

  “No, you have to let me explain this. You can’t take someone else’s word for this when I’m standing right here in front of you.”

  Emily marched to his desk, but the pressure of her crime pulled her downwards. It was like slogging through a marsh and each step took her further from salvation and closer to his ire.

  Chase didn’t flinch away. He met her gaze with cruel intensity. With a glare which froze her core and solidified the terror of losing him for good.

  “You killed someone.”

  An iron hand closed around her heart and throat, restricting her life blood. She floundered in the dark, trying to form words to tell him the truth.

  “You killed someone.” Chase repeated, and this time it was a spear through her back.

  Janet and Brian. Amanda and Brian. These three had conspired to bring her down and destroy whatever she’d tried to build up.

  “It’s not that simple,” she managed.

  “Oh, but it is. Answer me.”

  He hadn’t asked a question, but he wanted the answer she couldn’t give. At least, not without an explanation. The scar of what she’d done and been through burst open, seeping the agony she’d patched over, again and again.

  Her life was ruined. Their lives were ruined.

  “You killed someone.”

  “Please, stop, I can’t give you what you want. You have to let me explain or you’ll never see the truth. She’s poisoned you against me.” Emily sobbed, hiccupping and gasping for air which wouldn’t soothe the pain.