A SECOND CHANCE ROMANCE BOXED SET

by Lewis, Laurie

  That question haunted her as she boarded a plane for three days of meetings with Ethan in New York. And, it continued to distract her as she and Ethan designed the brochure to calm the Sweet Water investors—the global committee nervously awaited the most recent set of test results of the revolutionary, but underperforming, solar-powered micro-pump required to make Hudson’s dream of Sweet Water possible.

  “You seem stuck,” said Ethan, as he clicked to open a folder of photos on his desktop. “Maybe these new photos will ignite that McAllister magic.”

  She didn’t feel like a McAllister anymore.

  Especially once images of Hudson appeared on the screen—kneeling by a mud-cracked riverbed, splashing dark-skinned children with water gushing from a hand pump, or sitting cross-legged in a circle with men dressed in tribal colors. She noticed something disturbing.

  “He looks—”

  “Thin? Sad? Terrible? He hardly spends a week a month in the office anymore. He’s practically based in Africa. He’s there now. Sweet Water has become his obsession.”

  “What happened?”

  “I thought you might know.”

  Olivia’s heart stopped beating for a moment. “Me? Why me?”

  “I thought he might have said something to you. You’re clearly important to him. I’ve watched Hudson’s reaction whenever your name is mentioned in a meeting, and I’ve seen how your eyes keep drifting to his office door. You seem worried about him, too.”

  “I am … I …” Her phone buzzed with a call from Susan, the women’s first contact since October. Olivia excused herself and slipped into the hall to answer.

  “Susan, I’m glad you called.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. Are you in your apartment? I have something I need to show you.”

  There was a tremble in her voice that set Olivia’s nerves on edge. “I’m on a business trip. I’ll be home on the fifth.”

  “All right. I’ll meet you at your place at ten on Friday. Okay?”

  “What’s going on, Susan? Just tell me.”

  “I can’t explain it properly. You need to see this. I think you’ll feel better about things when you do.”

  The woman Olivia found standing in her doorway barely resembled Susan. Her jeans and T-shirt were rumpled and grease-spotted, and her hair and eyes looked as if she had just come straight from her bed. She had an iPad in her hands.

  “Are you all right?” She hurriedly drew Susan inside and to a kitchen chair.

  “I’m fine. I haven’t really slept or gone to work since I called you.”

  “You’re scaring me. What’s going on?”

  “I told you I was going to reach out to Jeff’s college teammates to see if he ever told them anything about Arena Corp.”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, I’ve been keeping in touch with one of them. A guy named Walt. He was actually at your wedding ceremony and reception.”

  Olivia’s face blushed hot at the mention of that day. “And?”

  “He mentioned something about Jeff’s YouTube channel, so I searched for it, and I found it. It was password protected, but I figured it out, and I’ve been sitting in front of it ever since, just watching clip after stupid clip of Jeff.” She started to cry. “But amongst all the juvenile college stuff, he also kept a video journal where he recorded personal messages. Three of them were directly to you … clips he planned to send you, but, for one reason or another, never did. You’re going to want to hear these.” She booted up the tablet as Olivia held her breath and slipped down into the chair beside her.

  “He was drunk when he recorded the first one. The picture is grainy, but you can make out the words. As hard as it’s going to be to hear, I think it will help us all understand Jeff.”

  Susan typed in the search bar, bringing up a YouTube page. The header displayed several captured images of Jeff and friends, but a bleary-eyed image of Jeff filled the rest of the screen. He was wet, as if he’d just taken a shower. A white terry robe hung loose and open, revealing Jeff’s damp, bare chest. Wet hair framed his distressed face in brown ringlets, giving him a lost, childlike essence. Olivia saw him as she remembered him before their marriage. Before the deceit. She reached a hand toward the screen, wishing they could connect.

  She began to tremble as she read the logo on the robe and viewed the elegant amenities in the bathroom. She recognized the location as the hotel room where they spent their wedding night. Her mind flashed back to the morning after their marriage, when Jeff exited the bathroom with a haunted expression on his face. He had been crying, but when she went to comfort him, he refused her kindness and told her to pack.

  She clicked the play button, and Jeff’s slurred voice filled the silence.

  “Olivia.” His head dropped into his hands. “I’m so sorry.” She heard muffled moans and then his head lifted again. “If you’re seeing this, it means I left. I didn’t mean for this to get so far.” His face twisted as he fought to control his emotions. “I didn’t want Hudson’s handout. I just wanted him to admit that what I contributed mattered.” He grew more animated. “I thought he took off without me, as if I was nothing to him or the company. Just extra baggage.” His finger pointed forward as if punctuating the next statement. “So I headed to the bar and turned off my phone. I swear I didn’t get any of his messages.”

  “Stop,” said Olivia. “I don’t understand.”

  Susan paused the clip. “You have to listen to all of the clips to understand. Jeff lied when he told you the Arena Corp meeting had been postponed. Hudson must have taken off early in the morning for some reason, and Jeff assumed he had left for the meeting without him. He felt neglected and angry, so he started drinking and turned off his phone. That’s why he missed Hudson’s calls and texts and the real departure time, and why Hudson ended up pitching the Arena Corp deal himself. Sit back down. It will all make sense in a minute.”

  As Olivia sat, Susan resumed the video.

  “I told you Hudson was pulling away from us. That he was tossing us aside. I was afraid for me, but I knew he would never bail on you. He was going to propose to you. He was going to have it all—success, wealth, the beautiful wife who supported him.” Jeff groaned. “Hudson was always smart, Olivia, but you … you made him believe in himself. That’s why you’re special.” Tears rolled down his face. “So different from the girls I dated. I thought if you could do that for Hudson, maybe you could do that for me too. I needed someone in my corner so badly. I needed you. But I had a very short window to win you over, so I borrowed from Hudson’s playbook, and I managed to make you believe you loved me the way I was falling in love with you.”

  A soft gasp escaped on Olivia’s next breath. “Stop the clip.” She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself like a shield. “He did love me?”

  Susan placed her hand on Olivia’s back. “Yes. That’s what I wanted you to hear. What he did was wrong, terribly wrong, but he did love you, Olivia.”

  She hit “play,” and the video continued. “I should never have agreed to a round of drinks at that bar. Our wedding celebration turned into a victory party about me taking what Hudson loved most. I expected you to turn and run any minute, but you didn’t.” Confusion filled his face. “You stayed. I thought maybe you really did love me.” He hung his head and shook it. “But I got so drunk that I forgot the exit strategy.” He quieted as his hands covered his head like a helmet.

  His head shook as he said, “I swear I was going to tell you the truth. All of it. I was going to tell you that two men loved you—me and Hudson—and let you choose. I thought if I had time alone with you, you might see what I could be, and you might love me the way you loved him. If you chose Hudson, I’d take you home, and we’d annul it all the next day. But I got so messed up.”

  Jeff bent over and wrapped his arms around his head again, rocking and groaning. When he stood, his eyes glanced down, avoiding the camera. Olivia could barely pull her eyes from the tortured face before her, but
neither could she sit. Her body felt like gelatin.

  “You were just too kind, Olivia. Too protective. You got us to that hotel, and there you were. So beautiful. So innocent. So loving.” He closed his eyes. “I got lost in you.”

  “Please,” cried Olivia, “no more.” Her hands came up, shielding her face.

  Susan stood beside her. “I can only imagine what you’re feeling. I’m just his sister, but the biggest hurt these past six months has come from thinking I never really knew my own brother. That he was Jekyll and Hyde. Now I know that he was a good man who made an unspeakable mistake, and who spent the rest of his life trying to fix it. Please, Olivia. Sit back down and at least finish this clip. I promise, you’ll feel your own guilt wash away.”

  Olivia wondered if she were having a heart attack. Somehow, in that moment, the thought of dying right then didn’t frighten her, at least not as much as the regret of knowing what she and Jeff had squandered.

  The clip began again, but Jeff was subdued in body and mind.

  “When I woke up and saw you there, I remembered everything, and I wanted to die. I’ve been hiding here in the bathroom, but no matter how many times I’ve showered, I still feel like dirt. Like a monster. I took everything from you, and I have nothing to offer.” He sniffed and rubbed a sleeve across his nose.

  “You should be with Hudson.” He looked into the camera, straight into her eyes. “I know what I need to do. I’m going to make this as right as I can. I promise. After I rush you back to Hudson, I’ll send you this link, and then I’ll slip away. I don’t know where, but I won’t interfere in your life again.” His head bent forward, and Olivia killed the feed.

  “No more. I know the rest.” She slumped into her chair. “Jeff took me back to the apartment, but Hudson had already heard about the wedding, and he was gone.”

  “That’s why Jeff decided to stay and try to be the husband you deserved, but his guilt prevented him from being that man. He made other videos when he thought he’d found the strength to leave. He knew you’d be all right. In one of the clips he says, ‘Hudson made sure of that.’ I figured it was a reference to Arena Corp.”

  The words were just white noise to Olivia.

  Susan closed the cover on the iPad, but neither woman spoke for several moments.

  “He was more resolute in the message made last June, weeks before the accident. Please listen to that clip some time. He thanked you for trying so hard to love a man whose choices left him unable to love himself.” Susan touched Olivia’s arm. “He also apologized for denying you a family. The thought of that responsibility crushed him, so he pushed you away, hoping you’d leave and find a good man, but you wouldn’t go.”

  Olivia wiped at her eyes. “If I had just known that he cared about me, maybe we could have been happy.”

  “I think the scars were too deep for both of you at that point. My brother was a proud man. He hated failure of any kind. He knew how much our family loved him, but he chose to avoid us rather than risk having us think he failed.”

  “He owned a small business. Why couldn’t that be enough?”

  “We both know he was chasing Hudson’s success. I think he hid that money in Switzerland so he wouldn’t be tempted to use it. He said he only used it once, and he knew you’d approve of his decision. That’s really the essence of Jeff’s legacy. He wanted so much to make you proud of him, to succeed on his own, and to leave a positive mark on the world. In the end, he decided that the best thing to do was to leave and end the emotional hemorrhage between you two. The last video explains his plan to take off the day after the picnic.”

  “He was going to invest in Ben Ashburn’s building project.”

  “Yes. He planned to take some of the funds and leave you the rest with instructions on how to access the Swiss account. You would have been comfortable for the rest of your life.”

  Susan packed up her tablet and stood. “I sent you the video links in case you want to view them. I think you should.” She bit her upper lip. “I miss him, Olivia, but I think that’s a good thing. My brother wasn’t a monster. Just a selfish, proud man.”

  She walked to the door and pivoted. “Jeff is the one who failed your marriage. Not you. But I’m going to repeat the advice I gave you in the hospital. Your life is yours from here on out. So are your choices and the responsibilities that go with them. Jeff hijacked your chance to be with Hudson, but it’s your decision whether that separation becomes an end or just an eight-year delay. Hudson still loves you. You clearly love him as well. Go to him. Do it for yourself, for Hudson, and for Jeff.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Jeff knew I loved Hudson. He knew Hudson was set to propose. These two facts turned in Olivia’s mind like tumblers in a lock, freeing her from the guilt she bore over her marriage. Knowing that Jeff also loved her—that he hadn’t just duped her—eased the suffocating self-doubt that had crippled her for so long. Even so, grief struck her afresh as video images of Jeff’s twisted mouth and downcast eyes haunted her, and his pained voice disrupted her sleep.

  She was lying in bed one morning after a restless sleep when her phone buzzed with two incoming texts and an attachment from Larry Brewster. The first text read,

  -Does this ring any bells?

  She downloaded the attachment—a bank image indicating the transfer of eleven million dollars to a nonprofit called “The Pioneer Group.” Olivia remembered that the name of the experimental school Susan worked for was “The Pioneer School,” and it came with an eleven-million-dollar price tag. Her eyes glistened at the realization that Jeff’s one withdrawal from the Swiss account had been to fund the school’s construction. He was the benefactor.

  Then she read this:

  Seven million dollars remains. One million in Jeff’s name, and six in yours. Mailing the particulars, including my fee. This concludes our agreement.

  She stared at the information for several minutes, allowing the news to sink in. Jeff had tried to make restitution. Again, he had done it without her. They never got anything right.

  She called Susan and shared the information. After a joint cry, she hung up the phone and pulled the videos up again. After a few more days of intermittent replays, she said her final goodbye to Jeff, deleted the links, and looked forward.

  She suddenly missed her mother and stepfather, and she was no longer afraid to admit that thoughts of Hudson were never far. Her emotional development still felt arrested. She needed more time to feel whole and healthy, but she was ready to go east and begin taking back her life, so she sent Ethan a text, hinting that she would be willing to move to New York.

  Ethan’s reply came at light speed. “Yes!”

  A real estate agent found her a one-bedroom apartment on trendy Roosevelt Island with a February first move-in date. At three thousand dollars a month, she could still manage without touching the Arena Corp money. The thought of having a place of her own changed something in her. She finally felt whole, and a week later, she packed her things, hugged the Ashburns one by one, and headed east.

  Her interest in the work was real, but she couldn’t deny that her real intent was to have opportunities to see Hudson, to gauge if their already strained relationship had sustained over the ensuing months since that unplanned and unforgettable kiss.

  She took a few days’ leave to unpack and decided to settle into her office space before going back on the company clock. Ethan greeted her with a wowed expression and a quick hug on her first day in the office.

  “Your arrival couldn’t have been timed better! I’m about to address a conference of the investors for the microbusiness programs. They’ve gathered for their annual review.”

  Despite her protests, he guided her through the back door of a dark conference room where a videotape was playing. As the pair took the remaining two seats, images of dark-skinned nuns in white and blue habits standing before a whiteboard filled the screen. Dozens of dark-skinned children bearing bright smiles sat on a dirt floor, staring up at the
letters and words written on the board. The presenter, a woman with a British accent, stopped the media from time to time to explain the video tour of this Catholic convent in the Ivory Coast of West Africa.

  “The sisters are a perfect model of what these microbusinesses can become with a little assistance. Besides the bakery, there are homegrown vegetables and fruit and a flock of chickens they began raising last year. Mother Thomasine has encouraged other entrepreneurial plans, and they are now selling eggs and manufacturing candles, medical soap, syrup, and jelly, all of which they sell to support themselves and the needs of local orphans. Their goal is to build a proper orphanage and school inside a concrete wall to protect the orphans from being conscripted by local rebels. Each influx of cash or goods draws these groups’ attention and endangers the sisters, so helping the nuns earn the money themselves through our microbusiness ventures has proven to be the safest and most effective plan of support.”

  Murmurs floated up from the darkened room. It was the first time she had heard about the rebels’ threat to the school and convent. Olivia couldn’t imagine such danger threatening those joyful faces. The lights came on, and she blinked to adjust her eyes.

  The presenter continued. “Your packets contain a list of the twenty American ventures we’ve also selected for funding. Ethan Machowicz and his team prepared a dossier on each. Ethan, I saw you slip in. Would you like to say a few words?”

  Ethan stood beside Olivia. “No, you’ve covered it beautifully, Arianna. Since all the investors are here, I want to introduce Olivia McAllister. She helped with the Syrian projects, and she’s the lead on the American ventures.”

  Olivia blushed and stood at Ethan’s behest. She turned her head to acknowledge each welcoming voice and found herself staring straight into Hudson’s onyx eyes. She hadn’t seen him in a suit since graduation. At first glance, all she saw was his commanding professional presence, a stark contrast to their last meeting when he arrived exhausted and bedraggled to rescue her. When he told her that he loved her.