Page 335 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
Unless what she was saying was that I was the reason that she had to go back? Did she feel like I had been causing too much drama between her and Ian, and she wanted to get away from me for a little while? I grimaced at the very thought of that.
“Ian’s in some trouble with the casino, like I said,” Bailey said, shrugging. “I talked to Bill, the head of the board of directors, and he thinks that it would be better for me to come back and smooth some of the ruffled feathers. I used to do a lot of the PR work for the company, so these are guys that I know pretty well. Our regulars.” She shook her head. “It’s not really any of my business since I’m not part of the company anymore, but I don’t want Ian to lose his job, and this seems like the only way to help him out.”
“So you’re going to Vegas,” I said, trying to keep my tone neutral. “When?”
“Tomorrow, actually,” Bailey said. She made a face. “To be honest, I really don’t want to go. I feel like I’m just starting to find my rhythm here, and I don’t want everyone to think that I’m only going to be here when I don’t have other things to do elsewhere. This is my whole focus.” She sighed. “But like you said before, family comes first. If Ian’s in trouble, I have to help him out. I couldn’t handle myself otherwise.”
I stared at her for a moment and then slowly nodded. I had been the one to tell her that she needed to help out Ian. So if that meant she was headed to Nevada, well, that was my own fault.
There were a dozen questions I wanted to ask. Not least of which, when would she be back? But she probably didn’t know the answer to that. Hell, she might not be planning on coming back. If the only way to ensure that the business was going to be okay was to have her back as part of the business, there would probably be some people who didn’t want her to leave again, who would only agree to smooth things over with Ian if Bailey remained there at his side to temper him.
So what Bailey was really saying, the reason that she wanted to do this in private, was that she wasn’t coming back and that we had to forget about anything that had ever happened between us. This was goodbye, basically.
It hit me like a ton of bricks. Of course, I had expected her to leave sooner or later. It was part of why I didn’t want to get involved with her in the first place. It was just what Ian had told me before; Bailey and I were from different worlds. She had about a dozen projects on her plate, different things that all needed her attention. She had the whole world at her feet. And I just had this, my job at Brooks Mountain and my life here in Park City. I couldn’t keep up with someone like her. No sense in even trying.
I shrugged at her. “Well, I guess I hope you have a good trip,” I said, trying not to sound bitter. I started to get to my feet, but Bailey shook her head.
“That’s not all,” she said. I slowly sat down again, even though every bone in my body was telling me to get out of there before she really crushed my heart. I hadn’t realized just how much I wanted her, just how much I had expected things to get better between us once Ian went back to Nevada. I had set my expectations way too high, I saw now.
But I couldn’t bring myself to walk out of there. Call it masochism, maybe, but I couldn’t walk away from Bailey when she was looking at me with that earnest look in her eyes.
CHAPTER 45
BAILEY
I still had mixed feelings about leaving the resort. I had talked to Ian about everything the night before, though, and he’d seemed surprisingly relieved to hear that I would be coming back to Vegas with him.
“I hate to say it,” he said, “but I feel like part of why things got so crazy is that I lost my best sounding board.” He smiled crookedly at me. “Have I ever told you how much I appreciated being able to run through business things with you before?”
I laughed and shook my head. “You still can, silly,” I told him. “I’m only a phone call away, whenever you need me.”
“I know,” Ian said. He shrugged. “I guess I was just worried that you’d be so busy with things here that you wouldn’t have time to hear all the crazy plans that I had for the casino business.”
“I’ll always make time to hear your crazy plans,” I promised him. I paused. “To be honest, I’ve missed having you here too. I know I didn’t really give any of your ideas the time of day, but you really were trying to help. And I do think that you’re right about some of the stuff. We need to step up our game in a couple areas. If we could get the restaurant to be more of a staple and things like that, we wouldn’t have to worry so much about where our winter profits were going, because we’d know that we would have a little more profit coming in during the summers. Things like that.”
“I shouldn’t have just stepped in like I did, though,” Ian said, grimacing. “If you had done that to me, I probably would have bought you a one-way ticket back home and never talked to you again.”
I laughed. “You wouldn’t have done that,” I said confidently. “But you definitely wouldn’t have been too happy with me.” I shrugged. “But either way, I want to make sure you know, I’m not planning on taking over the casino business. I don’t even really want to be back on official payroll or anything. As far as I’m concerned, my position is here in Utah.”
“With Adam?” Ian asked shrewdly.
I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I’m not really sure where we stand at the moment. But maybe.”
Ian nodded. “Well, I’ll be glad to have you in Vegas for a bit,” he said. I could tell that there was probably a part of him that hoped that once I got back to Nevada, I would forget all about Adam and move on to someone else. That wasn’t going to happen, but I didn’t push it for now.
It was difficult now, though, to tell Adam that I was leaving. And the next day, at that. I wished that I could put it off, spend a little more time here before I left. But I knew that the sooner the Ian situation was resolved, the sooner I could come back here. Now was the perfect time to go, too, while things were getting less busy by the day. I’d be back before things got busy again at the start of February for the Winter Festival, I hoped.
I could see Adam wasn’t happy about the fact that I was leaving, though, and it killed me to have to leave him. I wished that I could ask him to come with me, but I knew that even if he might possibly have agreed to that, it just wasn’t possible. I needed him here; there was no one who could take over his job here. And more than that, there was Ethan. I couldn’t ask Adam to leave his son behind for however long it took to sort things out in Nevada. Nor could we bring Ethan with us.
But it didn’t make this any easier.
If I had my way, if I had my way… Well, Adam and I would have been in a relationship. I would have stayed the whole winter here in Park City, and he and I would have gotten closer and closer, spending the long, cold nights curled up together on the couch, watching bad movies and waking up together in the mornings. But that wasn’t going to happen. Not yet, anyway.
“I need a favor from you,” I said to Adam.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“You know everyone here,” I said slowly. “And you know how things are supposed to run.”
