Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (51 page)

“What do you want me to say?”
 
He picked up a piece of fence and threw
it onto the pile of broken wood.
 

“I want you to tell me why you’re acting this
way,” she said.
 
Now that she’d
broken down, now that she was yelling at him and no long trying to hide how she
felt, she was determined to get answers.

“What way?”
 
The ax came down again.

“This way!
 
Blowing me off that night after we slept together.
 
Coming over here last night, then acting
like a total jerk to me this morning.
 
Kissing me and then pretending like you’re completely irritated by my
presence.”
 
She crossed her
arms.
 
“Why the hell would someone
act that way?
 
Give me a good
reason.”

“You want a good reason?” he yelled, and threw
his ax on the ground.

The intensity of his reaction startled her, and
she took a step back.
 
But he didn’t
move forward, just stood there, surrounded by the dismantled fence.

“I’ll give you a good reason,” he said.
 
“How about the fact that my restaurant
is completely failing, how about that?
 
How about the fact that I have no fucking idea what I’m doing, have no
idea how to run the goddamn place?”
 
His eyes flashed, and his voice got louder, breaking through the
calmness of the crisp autumn morning.
 

She shook her head.
 
“Everyone has work stress, Chace,” she
said.
 
“Ask your dad for help.
 
Or go back to Boston and get your old
job back.
 
There are things you can
do.
 
The restaurant being in trouble
doesn’t give you the right to be a complete asshole.”

“I can’t ask my dad,” he spat at her.
 
“My dad is dead.”

The words were like a slap to her face.
 
It was the last thing she’d expected him
to say.
 
She took a step back, her
mind reeling.
 
“I… I’m sorry,” she
said.
 
“I didn’t…I had no idea.”

“Yeah, well, he is,”
 
Chace said.
 
“And now you know.”
 
He picked up the ax.
 
“My stepmother’s dead, too.” The ax came
down again. “And my stepsister.”
 
Again.
 
Again.
 
Again.
 
Over and over he brought it down, harder
and harder as he chopped at the fence.

Lindsay flinched every time the blade made
contact with the wood.
 
“Chace,” she
said. “Please.
 
I didn’t know.”

“And what would you have done?” he asked,
turning to her.
 
His eyes
flashed.
 
“What would you have done
if you’d known?
 
If I’d told you it
happened the day after we met?
 
That
they were in a car accident, that I was the one driving?
 
What would you have done then?”

Hot tears slid down her cheeks and over her
lips, off her chin and onto the leaves.
 
“I don’t know,” she said softly.
 
“I don’t know what I would have done.”

“You would have looked at me exactly like
you’re looking at me now,” he said.
 
“And I can’t take that shit, Lindsay.
 
I’m not good for you.
 
I’m no good for anyone right now.”
 
He shook his head, turned away from
her.
 
“So, please,” he said
softly.
 
“Please. Just leave me
alone.”

She gave him what he wanted.

C
hapter
S
even

The accident had happened on a rural stretch of
road right near his father’s house.
 
Chace had been driving back from an anniversary party at the Trib that
was being thrown for his dad and his stepmom.

Chace had been excited that night, heady and
happy from the night he’d spent with Lindsay.
 
He hadn’t been able to stop thinking
about her all day -- her body, her laugh, the way she’d looked at him when he
was making love to her.
 
Before
they’d met in person, he’d told himself not to get to get his hopes up.
 
They’d had the best phone conversations,
the best emails, the best everything he’d ever had with a woman, and he was
being to think she was too good to be true.

He knew it would be different in person, knew
there was a chance the chemistry might just not be right.
 
When he’d gone down to the lobby and
seen her there, standing by the elevators, his heart had stopped.
 
That’s the woman I’m going to marry, a
voice in his head had whispered.

She was more beautiful than he’d imagined.
 
Long dark hair, curves for miles, and a
sweet smile that made him want to kiss her immediately.
 
Making love to her had been the best sex
of his life.

He’d been looking forward to spending that Saturday
with his family, but since he’d met Lindsay, he couldn’t stop thinking about
getting home and calling her.
 
He’d
thought about bringing her along, but much as he didn’t want her out of his
sight, he knew it might be a bit much for her to meet so many people in one
night.
 
Now that he had her, the
last thing he wanted to do was scare her away.

So he’d left her in Boston and driven down to
the Cape. The party had been nice, with a seafood buffet and a huge pumpkin and
cream cheese anniversary cake.
 
The
guests – about fifty close friends and family – had a good time,
and Chace had enjoyed getting to know his stepmother, Jane, and his stepsister,
Lara, who was a psychiatrist in Newton.

Since Chace lived in Boston, and since his
father had only been dating Jane for a few months before they’d gotten engaged,
Chace hadn’t spent much time with his stepmother or her daughter.
 
But they seemed like nice people, and
the fact that his father had been beaming all night made Chace realize how sad
his father had been without a woman in his life.

When the party ended, the four of them had
walked out to the car, chatting and laughing.
 
It was one of the first really chilly
nights of the season, and Chace remembered his father putting his arm around
Jane as they walked.
 
Chace and Lara
had looked at each other and smiled, happy that their parents were content.

They were only a mile from the house when it
happened.

Chace had made a joke, something silly about an
outfit one of Jane’s friends had been wearing at the party, and he’d glanced
into the backseat to see his father’s reaction. When he turned back around,
there was another car that had crossed into the wrong lane and was coming right
at them.

He could still remember it.
 
Every time he closed his eyes, every
time he had a moment to stop and think, he remembered it.
 
The flash of the headlights.
 
How hard he’d yanked the steering
wheel.
 
How his card had hit the
guard rail straight on. How the sound of crunching metal reverberated through
the car as they’d flown over the rail and onto the embankment below.

He could still hear the squeal of the other
car’s brakes, the sound of Lara’s scream as they fell over the side.
 
The airbags deployed on impact.
 
He’d gone unconscious, his head hitting
against the side window, giving him a gash on his head along with a concussion.

He’d woken up to find the EMTs loading him into
an ambulance.
 
His head pounded, but
all he could think about was his family.

“Are they okay?” he’d asked.
 
The EMTs hadn’t answered him, had told
him he needed to say calm.
 
That’s
when he’d known it was bad.
 
Whenever people weren’t meeting your eyes, weren’t giving you
information, it wasn’t a good situation.

They’d stitched him up at the hospital, then
told him his stepmother and stepsister had been killed on impact.
 
His father was in the ICU, clinging to
life.

Chace had spent three days at his bedside,
holding his hand, talking to him, reading to him, telling him stories, begging
him to hold on.
 
His father slipped
into a coma, then slowly lost brain function.

When it came time to make the decision to take
him off life support, Chace didn’t hesitate.
 
His father had told Chace once that if
anything ever happened, he wouldn’t want to be kept alive.
 
So Chace had said his goodbyes, sitting
with his father as they unhooked the machines.
 

He hadn’t cried. Not even once.

That afternoon, Chace drove home to
Boston.
 
The next day, he quit his
job.
 
The only thing that had meant
anything to his father besides Chace and Jane was The Trib.
 
And so Chace was determined that the
restaurant would survive.

He bought a house on the Cape and ripped
everything out
 
of it –
kitchen, bathrooms, everything -- because the rustic beach décor made it feel
too much like his dad’s house.

He put his dad’s house the market, listing it
at an insanely low price, so he could sell it quickly and be done with it.
 
He hired people to box up his father’s
things and put them in a storage unit.

The police never found the car that had veered
into the wrong lane that night.
 
There were skid marks on that side of the road, but no other clues as to
what had happened.
 
It was probably
a drunk driver, the police told him, and there was nothing he could have done,
no way he could have gotten out of the way in time.

But Chace felt responsible.
 
He should have been paying better
attention, should have turned the wheel the other way, should have done
something.
 
He
walked away with seven stitches and a headache.
 
And three people were dead.

So he buried himself in booze and women, until
Bo had the intervention with him six months ago.
 
He’d laid off the booze, but ratcheted
up on the women.
 
The emptiness
inside of him had never gone away, not even a little.
 

Until he’d seen Lindsay, and been struck with
emotions he had thought would never come back.

It was overwhelming.

But he wasn’t good for her, wasn’t good for
anyone.
 
He was damaged.
 
And to invite her into that would just
end up crushing her.

C
hapter
E
ight

Lindsay had a phone call scheduled with her
agent that morning, their bimonthly call in which they discussed any pressing
business. She got through it the best she could, the whole time feeling a
crushing weight pressing on her chest.
 
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t concentrate, and couldn’t think of
anything except Chace.
 
He was in
her thoughts, in her mind, in everything around her.