Page 318 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
“Ian, can I see you in my office?” she asked, keeping her tone sweet. But I could hear the underlying frustration there, and I was sure that Ian could as well.
Ian glanced towards me, giving me a dirty look like he thought that I had planned this. But he nodded curtly at his sister. “Sure thing,” he said, leading the way towards her office.
Bailey finally glanced towards me, but I didn’t meet her gaze, still thinking about what Ian had said about her deserving better than me. For a moment, she hesitated like she wanted to say something. But what? She must regret this as much as I did.
We never should have gotten involved with one another. I didn’t know what kind of madness, or loneliness, had driven me to go against all my better judgement, but I knew that I had definitely made a mistake. If she somehow didn’t realize that now, then she would once she had talked to Ian some more.
I didn’t stick around to say anything to her, I just headed straight to my office and grabbed my tools. Ian was right, it was time for me to get to work. Because I was just a maintenance man, after all. One step up from a plumber.
I sighed and shook my head, wishing that his words didn’t hurt so goddamned much. But I knew what I was. It was really just a wonder that it had taken those words from Ian for me to remember it. Girls like Bailey deserved the handsome, worldly, rich guys from the movies. They should never hope to end up with someone like me. And I had been foolish to think otherwise, even for a moment.
CHAPTER 33
BAILEY
I barely managed to keep my temper in check as Ian and I walked to my office. I had kind of expected that he would have words with Adam if he saw him here. But I guess I had naively thought that it might take a little while longer for their paths to cross. Poor Adam. I didn’t know exactly what Ian had said to him, but Adam had looked pretty upset when I had walked into the lodge and seen the two of them going at it.
There was part of me that wanted to send Ian off to my office and stay with Adam to see if he was okay. But before I could say a single word to Adam, he brushed past me and headed towards his own office. I froze there in the middle of the lodge for a moment staring after him. Should I call him back? Or should I deal with the Ian situation first?
Suddenly, though, like a knife to the heart, I wondered if Adam really was upset about something that Ian had said to him. Maybe there was something else. Maybe he regretted sleeping with me and felt awkward at the fact that we had run into one another there in the lodge. Maybe he wanted nothing to do with me anymore.
After all, he had barely looked at me. I had been caught up in talking to Ian, but when I’d turned to look at Adam, he could barely meet my gaze. Maybe he didn’t want to be caught up in the drama that my brother seemed intent on causing. Or maybe he just wasn’t interested in being with me anymore. He had told me that I would need to be patient with him. He had clearly already been having some sort of reservations about the two of us.
I sighed, wishing that I could follow Adam and talk things through with him. But he had made it very clear that he didn’t want to talk to me, at least not right now. And I had a feeling that if I didn’t head into my office and talk things over with Ian, then he would come looking for me, and I didn’t want him and Adam anywhere near one another again.
I shook my head and stalked off towards my office. “Everything okay?” Kayla asked as I walked near her.
I rolled my eyes and grimaced. “I’ll tell you later,” I told her.
She gave me a sympathetic look but didn’t say anything else as I headed towards my office, trying to put my thoughts about Adam out of my head. Right now, it was Ian that I needed to focus on.
I took a deep breath and opened the door, frowning at Ian. “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked him. “I thought I made it clear that I don’t want you meddling in things around here.”
Ian raised an eyebrow at me, holding up both his hands. “I know you want me to stay out of the business,” he said. “I still think that we could do some really great things together, but I respect that. I didn’t realize you were banning me from the resort though. Or is it Park City?” He said the last teasingly, but I met his gaze flatly, not in the mood to kid around.
He sighed. “Bailey, it’s almost Christmas. I know you’re mad at me for stepping on your toes, but I didn’t think you wanted me to go back home. I thought we could spend the holidays together here. I just came up today to go skiing, and I was in the lodge looking for you because I hoped you might join me. I wasn’t looking for Adam or anything; I just happened to run into him.”
I frowned at him, but I could already feel my suspicions easing. I sighed. “I do want you to stay for the holidays,” I admitted. Ian might have exhausted my patience ever since he came back to Park City, but he was still my brother. And this was the first holiday since Dad had died. I wanted to spend time with the family that I had left. I knew that I would regret it otherwise.
I just didn’t know what he had against Adam. “What were you and Adam talking about anyway?” I finally asked. “He didn’t look happy.”
Ian shrugged. “I don’t know what’s up with that,” he said. “Maybe he has a lot of work to do and he was just feeling frazzled. I actually stopped to ask if he needed any help with anything, but he brushed me off. So I asked if he wanted to get beers later. That’s when you walked up.”
I thought back over the scene from before. I could imagine Adam brushing off Ian when he offered his help around the resort. After all, I knew how Adam could be about his work. It was the whole reason why he wouldn’t let me hire someone to help him out around the resort. And really, hadn’t Ian been trying to help before, when he had hired the other maintenance company? He was right; the resort really was getting busier, and it would ease Adam’s job a lot if he could focus on the lifts instead of having to deal with everything around the place.
Maybe I’d been too hard on Ian. I still wasn’t happy about those things that he had said about Adam not being good enough for me, but maybe I had overreacted about everything else because of that.
“I really want to make sure that everything is okay,” Ian said quietly. “But I know I overstepped. And I’m sorry.”
I stared at him for another beat and then smiled, shaking my head. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “And I’d love to go skiing with you, but I have a few things that I need to do around here first. Maybe after lunch?”
“Sounds like a plan,” Ian said, grinning at me. He slung an arm around me for a moment. “I’m going to head out there, but I’ll come track you down in a little while.”
“Don’t wear yourself out too much,” I taunted him.
Ian laughed and gave me a little push. “Speak for yourself, Ms. Businesswoman,” he joked, before heading outside.
I exhaled noisily and shook my head. Everything about Ian’s story sounded true enough. And in spite of his recent actions, I didn’t think that he would lie to me. Besides, I had already wondered if maybe Adam’s earlier silence had more to do with me than it had to do with anything that Ian might have said to him.
