Second Chance Mess (Bad News Billionaires Book 1) Page 8

  I heard the front door to the office open and saw Max walk back in. I quickly turned all three monitors off and grabbed my stuff.

  “Hey,” Max said as I walked out of the office. He could see that I’d been crying. “Everything okay?”

  “No,” I said. “Max, can you please take me home?”

  “Sure. You want to go to the mountain house or Tim’s apartment here downtown?”

  “No, neither of those. I want you to take me to Kate’s.”

  Max looked at me and immediately knew something was up.

  “Brooke, do you want to call Tim first and talk to him before you leave?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Max sighed and then put his arm around my shoulders as we walked out together. I wanted to tell him what I saw and to hear what he thought of the matter. But every time I opened my mouth to talk, it just ended up being a sob. So I rode the rest of the way in silence. Max was good about not pushing for information. He would listen if I wanted to talk, and he would just drive if I didn’t want to say a word.

  When we got to Kate’s, he walked me to the door and gave me a hug before he turned to leave.

  “I won’t be into the office tomorrow,” I said as he turned around. “I’m just not feeling well right now. Can you let Tim know?”

  “Sure,” Max said as he gave me a reassuring smile, but I had a feeling he knew that I wouldn’t be coming back at all.

  “What happened?” Kate asked when she sees what an emotional mess I am again. Even Nick got up to come and give me a hug.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said as I walked back to my old room at her place.

  Fortunately, I still had most of my stuff here. I plopped down onto the bed face-first and cried into the pillow. I could hear Kate and Nick standing at the doorway watching me, but I would talk to them later. Right now, all I wanted to do was purge my emotions. I cried so much that I wore myself out and ended up falling asleep.

  When I woke up, it was already evening, and I tied my hair up into a knot on the top of my head, changed into pajamas, and splashed some warm water on my swollen eyes. I looked at my phone and saw dozens of missed calls and texts from Nick. When I listened to them, he sounded frantic and panicked. His messages looked confused and scared. I didn’t read or listen to them all.

  “Hey,” Kate said as I finally emerged from my room and sat down on the couch next to her. Nick was sitting on her other side. “We’ve been worried about you.”

  “I’m okay,” I lied.

  “You don’t look okay,” Nick said. “No offense.”

  I laughed, but it wasn’t because I was happy, it was because I was sickly amused at my own sad state of affairs. Nick was a nice guy, and he and Kate were good for each other. Things just seemed easy for them. Things never seemed easy for Tim and me.

  “Ready to tell us what happened?” she asked.

  I nodded and spilled the whole story.

  “I can’t believe that prick would do the same thing to you all over again,” Kate said angrily. She was fiercely protective of the people she cared about, and I was honored to be one of those people.

  “Maybe it wasn’t his fault, though,” Nick said. “Maybe the chick just shoved her hand down in his pants. It’s not like we can always help what happens when that piece gets touched. You can’t really blame the guy from having an uncontrollable reaction to someone stroking his cock.”

  “Very helpful,” Kate said as she rolled her eyes at him.

  “No, I’m serious,” Nick continued. “How would you have felt if it were you and me? If some girl did that to me and my pecker had a reaction that I couldn’t stop in time, would you just run off and leave me?”

  “Of course not,” Kate said.

  Nick turned his hands out in the air by his shoulders. “Well then, see what I mean?”

  “It wasn’t just about that, though,” I said. “It was more about the fact that Tim didn’t tell me about it and tried to cover it up from me. He must have known that I would find out someday. But instead of just telling me what happened and showing that it was an innocent reaction to a crazy woman who can’t seem to keep her hands off of him, he lied. I mean, he didn’t actually lie, but he also didn’t tell me the whole truth, so it’s essentially the same thing.”

  “I agree,” Kate said. “He should have just told you if he didn’t have anything to hide.

  “Not if he was scared that it might make you run again and block his number again,” Nick said.

  I didn’t think I’d ever heard him engage in such a long conversation with me before.

  “I’m telling you; I think you girls might have this one called wrong. I think this guy might really be in love with you, Brooke, which is why this shit matters so much to him. Most guys wouldn’t bat an eye at it.”

  “Well, if he loved me,” I said, thinking back to the first time I left, and this being the same thing all over again, “then he would be upfront and honest with me about things.”

  Instead, he chose to hide it again.

  15

  Chapter Eleven (Tim)

  As soon as I got back to the office, I knew something was wrong; I just didn’t know what it was. Max had messaged me, saying that he was giving Brooke a ride home to Kate’s apartment because she wasn’t feeling well, but I knew that wasn’t really what was going on. If Brooke hadn’t been feeling well, she would have sent me a text, and she wouldn’t have gone to Kate’s. I was stopping back at the office to pick up a few things that I needed to bring home and then would head straight over to Kate’s to check on her. I had called and sent Brooke text messages, but when she didn’t answer any of them, it started to feel a bit too similar to the last time.

  When I got to my office, I grabbed the paperwork that I needed and went to shut down my computer. It was weird that my monitors were turned off, but my computer was still running. I pressed the button to turn my screens back on so that I could power-down the whole system, but as soon as they lit up, all I could see were three monitors covered with pictures of Chelsea and me. The erotic looking ones that showed me standing in front of the camera with a rock-hard cock in my pants were in the forefront of the screens.

  Shit.

  I closed each and every one of them out until I could see the email that they had come out of. The photographer wasn’t trying to cause trouble, but she inadvertently caused a whole mess of it. I grabbed my keys and headed out of the office toward Kate’s apartment. On the way, I tried calling Brooke again.

  “Brooke, please listen to me. I’m so sorry. It’s not at all what it looks like, I swear. I just didn’t tell you about those pictures because it wasn’t anything at all, and I didn’t want you to get upset again. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Brooke. I just didn’t want you to get mad at me again for something I didn’t do. I’m on my way to Kate’s apartment now to talk to you.”

  She still didn’t answer me back.

  When I got to Brooke’s apartment, Kate answered the door.

  “Hi, Kate, can I come in and talk to Brooke, please?”

  Kate looked at my sympathetically but didn’t move out of the doorway. “I’m sorry, Tim,” she said. “But Brooke doesn’t want to talk to you right now.”

  “Please,” I pleaded with her. “I just need to explain what happened.”

  “I’m really sorry,” Kate said as she starts to close the door.

  I put my foot in the door to stop it from closing all the way. “Kate, please,” I begged her one final time.

  Nick showed up behind her shoulder and tapped her. Kate turned to go back inside, and Nick stepped out to talk to me, closing the door behind him.

  “Hey man,” he said, “I feel for you, I really do. I know you’re in a tough spot. But Brooke isn’t going to listen to you now. Trust me, I’ve heard everything she’s said to Kate tonight, and she thinks you lied to her.”

  “I didn’t lie; I just didn’t tell her everything because I knew how much it would upset her.”

/>   “Yeah, man, I get it. But to women, it’s the same thing. Not telling them stuff is the same as lying. Brooke thinks you guys are right back to square one now.”

  “Ugh!” I said as I ran my fingers through my hair and paced back and forth in front of Kate’s apartment. “What am I supposed to do then?”

  “I’m not expert on this kind of thing,” Nick said. “But my guess would be to just give her some time before trying to talk about it.”

  I thanked Nick for coming out and gave him my number. I asked him to text me if anything happened to Brooke that she might need me for.

  Brooke was refusing to see me or talk to me and was ignoring all of my messages again. And this time, it didn’t make me angry; it scared me.

  As I got into my car and drove away, the first snowfall of the season started. I drove all the way to my mountainside house tonight because I needed the time there to think and get my head straight. I realized now that I loved her.

  I loved Brooke and wasn’t going to let her go.

  I had to come up with something that would get her back, and this time, for good.

  When I got home, I lit another bonfire and sat outside beneath the light snowfall. I listened to the tiny sizzle that some of the snowflakes made as they hit the flames. I thought about the night that Brooke and I spent out here that started with us looking at the stars and ended with us feeling like we were a part of them. That’s when I got the idea.

  I walked into my bedroom and looked up at the curved glass skylight that Max had come up with. This was it. This was what I would do to prove to Brook how much I loved her and listened to her and wanted to be with her more than anything else. I immediately called Max to enlist his help to execute my plan.

  “Max,” I said as soon as he picked up the phone. “I have the most amazing idea to win Brooke back, and I need your help.”

  “She’s gone again?” Max asked sleepily; I must have woken him from a nap.

  “Yeah, she saw the pictures from the photo shoot. The photographer had emailed me all the proofs, and Brooke must have been using my computer and saw them when they came through.”

  “Oh damn,” Max replied. “I told you that you should have—”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said as I cut him off. “You were right again. But it’s already done. She’s not talking to me again, and Kate won’t let me in to see her. But Max, I know that I love her.”

  Something about saying the words aloud to him over the phone made it feel a million times more real to me.

  “I love her, Max. I love Brooke, and I need to get her back for good this time.”

  “All right, dude, I’m ready for it. What do you need me to do?”

  “Thanks, Max,” I said. “Can you come over now? I think I need to show you my idea in person. Oh, and can you bring your doodles from our meeting the other day?”

  “On my way.”

  When Max got here, I had already laid out some sketches with what I envisioned in my mind. I pulled out the notes I had taken from the day that Max, Brooke, and I were all brainstorming about the Spokane project. Max added his doodles to the pile, and I stepped back and motioned my hand toward the collection of concepts that sprawled out on the papers in front of us.

  “This is what I want to do,” I said with a wide grin. “This is my idea.”

  “I’m not sure I’m following you this time,” Max said. “You want to win Brooke back with all of our meeting notes?”

  “No,” I laughed. “I want to build a house for her.”

  “You’re serious?” Matt smiled. “A whole house?”

  “Yep. But not just a house; I want it to be the house of her dreams. A single converted container tiny home that incorporates all of the things that she told us she loves—a little utopia built just for her so that she knows I hear her and value her thoughts and dreams.”

  “This is an idea that I can totally get behind,” Max said as he nodded his head.

  “So you’ll help me?”

  “Absolutely, when do we start?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  I didn’t go into the office the next day. Brooke wouldn’t be there, and that would upset me, and I was also super excited to start working on my surprise for her. Max didn’t go into the office, either, but I left a few decent people in charge. There wasn’t too much on the schedule for today, aside from the continued work on the Spokane project, which everyone already knew what they were supposed to be doing for.

  Max showed up just minutes before the giant truck showed up to drop off the modular container home. I had them place it next to my house, and then after the truck left, Max and I went inside of it to look at the space. Starting from scratch like this could take a while, and I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t a factory-made thing.

  I wanted Brooke to see and know that Max and I had made this for her by hand, based on her desires. But it couldn’t take too long, either, or God only knew what would happen between Brooke and me in the extended time apart. Max had a good idea to hire just a small skeleton crew of our sub-contractors to come and do some of the heavy lifting while Max and I worked more on the design elements to push the build along quickly. I chose seven people who I knew could handle doing an excellent and fast job. I called them up, and they arrived within the hour. Max and I spent the day sketching up plans while the other guys started laying the interior groundwork.

  I tried calling Brooke again, and I sent a couple more messages, too. At least she hadn’t blocked my number this time. The tone of my messages to her changed, and instead of sounding frantic and reactionary on the phone, I sent her text messages that reminded her that I was still here and that I always wanted her and missed her. I asked Max to try to call her, too, just to see if she would pick up for him, but she didn’t. She did answer his text message, though.

  He had asked her how she was feeling, and her response was “broken.” It shattered my heart to know that she was suffering, but it made me want to work even harder and faster on this surprise. Max texted her back a little gif of a hugging panda bear, and she gave it a heart. At least he was still able to reach her.

  We worked until dark, and then we kept working a while even after that. When the sub-contractors left for the night, and Max and I couldn’t think straight about design anymore, I poured him a glass of bourbon. Then the two of us went out to sit by the bonfire for a drink after a good day’s work.

  “I need to get this done faster.” I sighed after a long sip of the amber liquid. “I can’t let too much time pass between Brooke and me. It will make matters worse.”

  “I agree,” he said. “But there’s only one way that I know to accomplish that.”

  I knew what he was referring to—the Spokane project.

  If he and I stayed here and built this home for Brooke, and if we pulled the seven sub-contractors off the Spokane project completely, then we would be able to finish this house in a couple of weeks. If not, then it would take months. But I also knew what a risk that would be for the contract. It was such a huge contract with my company. If we blew it, there would be no bouncing back, and word of mouth would get around to other businesses and potential clients. I couldn’t afford to lose the project or screw it up. I also couldn’t lose Brooke.

  “Everything is laid out for them, for the most part,” Max said as he tried to help me work through the issue toward a solution. “It will definitely impact the project, and there’s a hefty risk in doing so. The Spokane project could come to a crashing halt. But it’s also possible that your crews and your employees can pull it off based on our direction, and you might be able to have both things at once. It’s up to you; you’re the only one who can make the decision on what you want to do. I’ll stand by you either way.”

  “I don’t want to lose Brooke,” I said resolutely. “It’s worth the risk; she’s worth the risk to me.”

  “All right, man,” Max said as he held his glass up toward the sky in a toast. “We’re building Brooke’s house then. Let the re
st of the pieces fall where they may.”

  I lifted my glass to his, and the sound of our drinks clinking against each other echoed in the mountains. He was such a good friend, and I wouldn’t be able to pull this off without him. In the morning, I would go into the office and get everyone set up to be self-sufficient on the Spokane project for the next week. Then I would pull the sub-contractors that I needed with me and offer them twice what they were being paid on the Spokane project to come and build this house for me. Max would be back over first thing in the morning, and we would focus all of our efforts on this build and hope that nothing imploded along the way.

  After Max left, the last thing I did, before calling it a night, was take a picture of the stars, Cassiopeia, to be exact. It came out beautifully, even with the crappy camera on my cell phone. I sent the picture to Brooke, along with a message.

  I miss being under the stars with you.

  Then I set my phone down and went inside to brush my teeth and get ready for bed.

  When I was done, I picked my phone back up to set the alarm for tomorrow morning. I hadn’t expected to see a text there at all, especially not one from Brooke.

  Me too.

  I smiled and held those two little words close to my heart as I repeated them in my mind. She had answered me. That meant that she wasn’t ready to let go, either; it meant that what I was doing would work and that it wouldn’t be too much longer before we were back under the stars again together.

  I knew that I’d screwed-up a lot with Brooke, but maybe that was supposed to happen as it had so that when we finally got to where we needed to be, all the messing up parts were done. I just hoped that she would be able to wait that long, long enough to see the manifestation of my love for her that I was building.