Page 35 of Playing Games with My Billionaire

She’s thinking hard. Wait for it.

“Your father sounds like he is a terrific man. Very loving. When's the last time you saw him?”

This time I didn't hold back. The tears flowed. My voice was all choked up, but I looked at Lindsey intently, my eyes on her eyes.

I said to her, “My father died two years later. Two years after he asked me those questions and set me up in classes. I was barely sixteen. He was leaving work when he had a massive heart attack right outside his car. Before he even put the key in the lock, he hit the ground. They say he died instantly.”

I started sobbing uncontrollably and fell into Lindsey's arms.

She didn't let me go for the longest time.

Chapter 18

Lindsey

Icouldn’tbelieveTrev’sfamily story so resembled my own. And yet it was so different from anything I had ever experienced.

Funny how we humans have more in common than we think. When he arrived at my lodge, I was sure he was an arrogant jerk. Before long, I took him for a spoiled brat!

Peel off some layers from anybody, and you get a different perspective on who they are.

Trev pulled away from me at long last. “Go rinse your face,” I encouraged him, “I'm not going anywhere.” When he came back, I curled up into him.

“Well, I did speak to your mother the other day, didn't I? It was really your mom?”

“Oh yes, sure. She was as devastated as I was, if not more. Thank goodness Dad had plenty of life insurance. In fact, Mom has always worked as a hospital technician, so we didn't really need a whole lot of his insurance money. She used it to put me through college … But … you vaguely mentioned your parents in my first days here. Where are they?” he asked me.

“My parents both died when I was nineteen. I had just started college and came home to bury them.” I told him what I knew about their deaths.

Trev gasped and wrapped me more closely in his arms. “What did you do? Do you have brothers or sisters?”

“No, I was an only child. With parents who weren't planning to die yet. Yet my dad had written somewhere in his incorporation papers for the Lodge that I was the one who would take over the Lodge, to do with as I wished. One of my uncles told me just to let some random attorney sell it, but I couldn't let it go.

“I could not let it go, but I wasn't an expert at running the place either. I’ve lived in the Lodge my whole life. My parents built it when I was just six or seven years old, so I grew up knowing how to do a lot of things. Or at least knowing what things my parents were doing around the place.”

I looked over at Trev. I wondered if he had taken his eyes off me at all.

What a wonderful person he is!

“And as you might guess, I was the block-headed teenager who couldn't be told what to do or how to do it. But my parents were still successful at getting me to help around the Lodge,” I laughed ruefully. And Trev took my hand.

“In spite of my teenage resistance, my dad had gotten me involved in most aspects of managing the place, including at least watching him do some bookkeeping. That meant that, once I got over their death somewhat, I had a big overview picture of what I was supposed to take care of.”

Trev looked at me and asked, “Didn't your uncle or any other family or staff step up?”

I had to shake my head. “Much like the way I am doing things now, my parents ran it almost all by themselves, with very little staff. I knew that my strength was in the kitchen and also in taking care of the daily tasks expected by any hotel guest. I just took it from there.”

“You must have been tremendously sad, anxious, and stressed out. I'm not sure I can imagine that degree of emotion on top of the grief of losing a parent,” Trev admitted to me.

“Oh yes, there was a lot of stress, and there was also almost no money. So I had to learn how to run the place on a shoestring … and am still doing it that way today, eight years later.”

That admission hurt.

But Trev is no fool. I’m pretty sure he already knew this.

Trev and I had an amazing three-day weekend on the island. It truly was the best weekend I ever had. We both wished we didn't have to leave the island, but we did. All good things must end. I had to return to my small town and the struggling lodge I loved so much. The only good thing was Trev was still with me, insisting on staying at the Lodge as before.

Trev got back to work, and I got back to attending to my daily routine. I had no issues going in and out of Trev's room. I didn't care who saw me or at what time they did. All my policies of not getting involved with the guests were thrown out of the window. I loved spending time with Trev, and I was certain he did too.

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