Page 324 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
But Bailey nodded at me, as though things were decided. “I’ll see you later,” she said, turning to walk out of the conference room while I just stared after her.
I sighed and ran a hand back through my hair. Then, I pulled out my phone and called Dad. “Hey, I was wondering if you could watch Ethan for a little longer tonight,” I said. “Sorry, but I have a work thing that I have to attend.” I didn’t want to tell him that I was going to dinner with Bailey.
I still remembered his conversation with me last weekend, about how I should apologize to Bailey and make things right with her. He was clearly rooting for things to work out between the two of us. I didn’t want to tell him about the real problem, the fact that Bailey was so far out of my league, the fact that as Ian had pointed out, she deserved much better than me. Dad had always been glad that I took to skiing when I was a young kid, but I think sometimes he wished that I had been a little less interested in it, that I had managed to start a better life for myself. I didn’t want him to remind me that I was smart, that I could have done anything with my life.
This was the life that I wanted. Beth had always accepted that. I had never had a problem providing for Ethan, and I liked my job a hell of a lot more than I would have liked some office job. If this meant that I couldn’t have Bailey, then I supposed that was the price that I had to pay.
Not a conversation I wanted to have with Dad. But he took what I said at face value. “No problem,” he said. “I’ll get him fed and everything, and if you’re late getting back home, I’ll make sure his homework’s all done and that he gets to bed early.”
“Perfect,” I said, even though there was a part of me that almost wished he would say he couldn’t watch Ethan that night and that I would just have to come straight home. I knew, logically, that that wouldn’t solve anything. Bailey would just want to see me on a different night if I put forth that excuse. But it would have given me more time to think about what I was going to say to her.
I needed to just pretend like everything was normal, I decided. Like I hadn’t been avoiding her. But like our one night together had been just that; one night together. This was a ski town full of seasonal workers. There was no ‘forever’ here.
“I’ll be home as early as I can,” I promised Dad before hanging up. I forced myself to go about my afternoon tasks as though the conversation with Bailey had never happened, as though the thought of dinner with Bailey that night wasn’t hanging over me with every new thing that I did.
I just had to act normal. Do my best to keep my job, and hope that it all worked out in the end.
CHAPTER 37
BAILEY
I glumly walked back to my office on Wednesday afternoon. I had really hoped that Adam would agree to dinner with me without me having to invoke rank. But it was hard not to see his hesitation as just another sign that he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. I didn’t know where things had gone wrong, but he was definitely avoiding me. I had barely seen him since we had slept together, and I didn’t know what to do about that.
Of course, there wasn’t really any reason for our paths to cross regularly around the resort. He didn’t need me around to keep him on track with work. That’s what Gretchen was for. And he certainly didn’t need my help, even though I could tell that he was driving himself into the ground with each passing day. He had too much on his plate, and I almost wished that I hadn’t stopped Ian from hiring that maintenance crew to help him out.
But until he told me that he couldn’t keep up with all his work, there wasn’t much that I could do about it.
I was sure that he and I needed to have a little talk, though. I just didn’t understand what had gone wrong. I had thought, last Wednesday night, that things were good between the two of us. And it wasn’t even that I was that desperate to have sex with him again. I just wanted to make sure that he was okay. Something was off, and I wanted to know what it was.
I hadn’t worked so hard to get him to open up to me just to ignore him as soon as he shut me out again.
For now, I headed back to my office, resigned to my apparent afternoon task; going through the expenses and seeing what the hell Ian had been up to. That didn’t cheer me up at all either.
I had thought that Ian was keeping out of my business here. He was still hanging around, and he wasn’t skiing all day every day. It wasn’t like I was going to kick him out, though. I still hadn’t talked to him about Vegas. I still hadn’t done what Kayla had recommended and talked to other people who still worked for the casinos to see what was up.
Was it possible that Ian had screwed things up there and was basically in exile here? Sure. But I doubted it. He was just hanging out until the new year really got under way. That was all. It had to be.
But I hadn’t realized he was actually still meddling in anything to do with the ski resort. Adam wasn’t the only person to mention certain strange purchases that had been made, though. I wanted to get to the bottom of it. Now.
I poured over the business receipts, growing more and more upset and worried. Adam was exactly right; the new lightbulbs that had been ordered had been extremely expensive compared to the ones that we normally bought. I knew that he had used at least one of them already, and I wondered about the rest of them. Was there any chance that we could send them back?
Probably not.
There were also a couple new cappuccino machines. Some new merchandise from a different supplier than we usually worked with. A bunch of little things that added up to one big chunk of our profit that had been eaten up. And sure, it had been an amazing year thus far. But because of that, we had already planned a bunch of improvement projects that all our extra profit would be going towards. Given that some of those projects had already been announced to our season pass holders, we couldn’t really go back on any of that now.
And anyway, Ian had no right to be ordering all of this stuff and making all of these changes. I sat there fuming over it for a moment and then stalked off to go find him and drag him back to my office. I almost wanted to ream him out in front of everyone, just so that everyone would know that he had no right to be doing any of the stuff that he’d been doing lately.
But this was my brother, and I couldn’t do that to him. Besides, most of the people out in the lodge at the moment were our customers, getting ready to head home for the day, taking their boots off and sipping at warm-up hot chocolates. I didn’t want to cause a scene in front of all of them.
Put simply, though, I was livid. “What the hell have you been doing with my business?” I snapped the moment the door was closed behind the two of us.
Ian raised an eyebrow at me. “Your business?” he echoed.
“Yes, my business,” I snarled. “I’m the one who bought this place, remember? And I thought you understood that I didn’t want you involved in it anymore.”
Ian sighed. “Come on, Bailey. I’m just trying to help.”
“Help with what, exactly?” I asked archly. “Driving us into bankruptcy?”
