The Billionaire's Second Chance (23 page)

Shannon smiled just a little at that. His parents sounded like people she would like and she was momentarily staggered by how awful the loss of the father he so obviously adored had affected Nick.

“I always
went by my
middle name whenever I stepped outside the rigid confines of New York City and the Barrett influence. It never occurred to me to ever say ‘
And oh, by the way my last name isn’t Temple’
.
Honestly Shannon, even when I was at Oxford I didn’t use Barrett. Yeah my diploma carries the name but it was never intended to be a subterfuge of any kind.”

Very solemnly he added, “I’m not that big a prick.”

Shannon considered what he’d said while she sipped a hearty California Cabernet which perfectly complimented their dinner fare. It
seemed
safer just then to turn her gaze away and concentrate on the crystal goblet in her hand.

He was basically telling her that he hadn’t been pretending to be someone he wasn’t. With a heaving sigh Shannon realized this was yet another piece of their painful past narrative which would need to be re-written. She was uncomfortable with some of her behavior toward him in light of what she’d been learning.

From there the conversation became lively and engaging as Nick suddenly launched into a fascinating explanation of all the changes he’d brought to the company; especially in the area of new technology and green energy. He talked enthusiastically about carbon neutral footprints and how he wanted to help bring about planetary changes to benefit all of humanity.

This was the Nick she remembered. Lit up like a Christmas tree, full of ideas and strategies to bring about effective change.  Once again it seemed the more things changed the more they stayed exactly the same.

He laughed joyously telling her about his latest Asian adventure which started out as a straightforward business acquisition but which ended with Barrett getting a wind farm complex in the deal. It was like giving him the keys to the candy shop!

In an absent-minded gesture, Nick scooted his chair closer to Shannon’s as he talked and patted the top of his thigh in signal for her to give him her foot. So engrossed was she in his storytelling that she did so without thinking.  It all seemed so natural in that moment. The two of them, hanging out and talking.

She was a great person to bounce ideas off of and asked smart questions. He liked that about her; she wasn’t all silicone injected, spray tanned, Spanx’d to the max and dumbed down to the nth degree like so many of the social climbing career women he
’d become
used to.

As had become a habit he gently massaged her foot while they continued talking.  He must have picked up on some of her hippy-dippy L.A. habits and found himself sending healing energy through his touch to her injury. She didn’t hesitate at his
touch
quite so much now as she had previously, a good sign not only that she was feeling better but that she wasn’t still barricading herself behind a wall of anger.

She asked what he liked doing the most and he found himself telling her about his and
Alanna’s
plan to open several niche hotels and spa retreats. 
The first
,
a funky hacienda complex wit
h world class private bungalows
located in the desert southwest, was slated to open in the spring.

Nick’s devotion to his mother was plain to see. Funny, she never thought of him as
the family type
and yet what she’d learned first and foremost over the last few days was that he was a fierce and loyal family man. An affectionate and over-protective older brother. A superhero uncle.  A long-time best friend. And a loving son. Where had the ogre gone?

Nick was still working on her ankle when he told her that the reason his mother Alanna had missed Dom’s big party was because the cruise she was on with her sister was actually a scouting trip to assess Mediterranean resort possibilities. He got her laughing with stories about the endless emails she’d been sending him usually with pictures of everything from what their food looked like to how much it cost to buy bottled water and promised to show her the latest when he pulled his phone off the charger.

Shannon sighed. This was all so nice she thought. Their conversation had been completely normal, without lingering drama. It felt good, damn good. Everything happens for a reason her inner voice whispered and she wondered if this slice of normalcy was meant to remind her of what was missing from her life or show her how it could be again. Either way, both scenarios were inextricably tied together.

“In fact, she’s just returned home um, yesterday I think.” Nick was still talking and Shannon mentally shook herself to get back up to speed before the contentment from their big meal and the languid way he was stroking and rubbing her foot turned her brain to mush.

“Part of my original plan had been to fly home to be with mom for a few days in Connecticut where she lives before heading back to the city. I’d like you to meet her Shannon; I think you two would hit it off….”

Before he could say another word a zip line of panic snapped through Shannon when she realized he was making plans that included her.
Her
flinching reflex and quick intake of breath stopped the conversation dead cold as Nick went on high alert and asked “What’s wrong? Did I say something? Hurt you?”

Thank god he threw in the
hurt you
because it gave Shannon
the
perfect duck and cover for her unfortunate reaction. She rotated her ankle just a bit and said
,
“Oh, sorry. It feels good right now but you must have been touching where the bruising it really bad.” That sounded good, right?

Nick’s eyes narrowed fractionally; the cowboy pirate was back and watchful.  She knew he could read her like an open book so she made an apologetic moue with her mouth, shrugged and then got very busy removing her foot from his lap and testing it against the floor. He wasn’t fooled, she knew that from his silence
,
but she had to do something while she corralled her wandering emotions.

They were back to the emotionally charged silence again but maybe that’s what they both needed at times as this journey of rediscovery moved them along toward a still uncertain future. Each ha
d quite a bit to think about.  And a
s he purposefully moved her to the outside patio so he could clear up from dinner, that’s what they both in fact did.

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

Following their conversation over dinner, Shannon had a myriad of thought-provoking new details to ponder in what was fast becoming an entirely new world view.  Nick wasn’t the money hungry fiend she’d been painting him as, although the anguished strokes of bleakness and anger which had been drawn all around him weren’t entirely off the mark. He’d all but put the brush in her hand and instructed her to portray him as a villain. She couldn’t help but think that if she’d been more mature or perhaps less shaken up by their parting and the events which followed, perhaps she might have tried to bridge the painful gulf he’d placed between them once the dust had settled.

The money, which she’d seen as the root of all evil in the old narrative, had actually empowered Nick to blaze new avenues of earth-friendly technologies and systems. To say she’d been surprised to learn all the ways he had turned the entire Barrett empire on its head and reformed the family business into a forward thinking concern he was proud to helm
,
was an understatement. She’d all but wept at the sound of pride and excitement she’d heard in his voice when he went off on
a
rambling explanation of wind farms and renewable energy sources because that was the Nick she remembered. That person, smart, hopeful, driven and completely committed to changing the world one good idea at a time was the one she’d fallen in love with. That he’d found a way to turn-around the business he regarded as a life sentence made her so very proud of him.  An image of Nick as a phoenix rising from smoldering ashes warmed her more than it probably should.

All the heavy sighs and head-shaking though wasn’t goi
ng to change what happened and
made Shannon realize that in order to move forward she was going to have to let much of that old paradigm go. He’d certainly been trying to clarify his past behavior using consistent and at times uncomfortable truths and also been damn near on his knees with regret. These things mattered to her and while she wasn’t entirely at ease with the convoluted way his perceptions and actions combined to create such a perfect storm of broken hearts and dashed dreams, she did have to admit that he was dripping with sincerity now. He’d allowed her to vent years of anger and hurt at him and had taken her responses stoically as if he knew he deserved her reproach and much, much more.

Lord almighty but Shannon wanted to trust him. Wanted to simply make all those empty years go away and replace them with something happy and joyful; a brighter future that would see them find their way,
together
. She’d been so hurt and confused and downright angry for so long but with his non-stop campaign to right the wrong he’d committed it was becoming harder and harder for her to keep him at arm’s length.

Their meal, which had been absolutely fabulous, had satisfied one hunger but it seemed as though with each new reveal Shannon was battling a deeper craving, something raw and primitive that just would not be denied. She wanted him in a way that caught her breath and not just to assuage a physical desire although that was a big part of what she was feeling. She
needed
to feel his unique spirit again, surrounding her, invading her, making her remember the way it had been between them, once upon a time.

Dusk had begun to enfold the hideaway patio where Shannon sat in pensive reflection. Raising her eyes to a long row of framed wood windows bursting with light from inside the house she could make out Nick’s figure as he moved around her kitchen dealing with the aftermath of the huge dinner he’d whipped up.

No matter the past, she admitted heavily, because with every glance and gentle touch, with each conversation whether it be full of heated emotion or quiet deliberation, and with each passing minute she was falling all over again. And apparently not even trying to stop herself. 

She wondered what her expression revealed for try as she might to stay passive, she was far,
far
from being unmoved. What would the evening ahead bring she wondered. Releasing another in a seemingly endless supply of heavy sighs, Shannon sat back to enjoy the remnants of another fading day and waited for whatever came next.

It hadn’t ta
ken long for Nick to clear the
dinner table and tidy up the kitchen so why he was finding more and more in the way of trivial tasks to keep him busy and away from Shannon’s side wasn’t ex
actly a mystery. He was nervous;
uncharacteristically so.  He cared so damn much about what was going on in that pretty little tousled head of hers
.  F
eeling as he
did
made him a bit unsteady emotionally.

She’d asked smart questions over their meal and he had answered each one with heart-felt truthfulness that was
unusual for him
.  One advantage of being who he was the simple
fact
that he pretty much
answered to no one; t
he majority of the time it was entirely the other way around. Others answered to him
. E
xpecting private feelings and emotions to burst forth from someone in his powerful position was almost ridiculous. But with Shannon, he enjoyed sharing himself. That she wanted to know the real him and not just the public persona was deeply satisfying and damn exciting at the same time.

Nick knew he’d been
emotionally closed to
real human
connections
beyond his immediate family for a very long time. Another example of how profoundly he had cut off his personal needs after having lost the only person who had ever found a way into his heart.

Right now he was all but giddy with years of pent-up reactions and feelings and sensations that he was happily sharing now that Shannon was the one who was listening.  It reminded him of how they’d met
;
the way it had made him feel a hundred feet tall that the sweet girl with the knowing eyes looked upon him with unabashed delight and affection. He really didn’t give a damn what anyone else thought of him or how he lived his life but Shannon was the one exception.

He was mindlessly wiping down the already immaculate stove, killing for time, while he
paused over
that last thought. Yeah, he cared about Jules and his mom and how they felt about things but in the end he had also been shutting them off from his private thoughts for far too long. When he had extinguished the bright light of love which he had shared with Shannon, he’d been reluctant to give any more of himself to the life he had left than was absolutely necessary.

All that changed when he’d found himself staring once again in to a pair of turquoise eyes which had instantly shattered the ice around
his
frozen heart and illuminated every nook and cranny of his lonely soul. The relief had been enormous and had shaken him up with insight into how barren and desolate he had been for
far
too long.