The Billionaire's Beautiful Mistake (Bold Alaskan Men Book 1) (13 page)

Violet watched the woman’s face carefully.  In the end, she couldn’t easily walk back to her house, and would be a fool to even try.  “My place is a thirty minute drive from here. I wasn’t really going to walk all the way home.  I’m not that drunk.”  She sighed, and pushed her hair behind her ears.  “I was just going to find a hotel.”

“Well, there are rooms above the bar for people who need a place to crash.  But I’m guessing you don’t want to go back there.  And I don’t mind driving you home.  I’ll even be an objective ear if you’d like to talk.”

Violet wiped another tear that started to roll down her cheek, angry that she would let that man’s words hurt her so deeply.  “I don’t know you.”

Tyla gave Violet a half-smile.  “I know.  And maybe that’s better.  You don’t know me.  I don’t know you.  And we’ll probably never run into each other again after tonight, so anything you tell me will be completely confidential.  Trust me,” she said when Violet opened her mouth to argue. Tyla stopped Violet’s next argument by saying, “Creek will never hear a word from me about anything you say tonight.”

Violet sighed and looked around.  The sun had already started to lower in the sky even though the days were getting longer.  She knew it was dangerous to be out in the cold at night.  There were too many dangers although at this point, she wasn’t sure she cared. 

But she was being ridiculous and needed to think properly.  Looking at the other woman who smiled kindly, Violet accepted that she should exhibit a bit of common sense.  “A ride would be hugely appreciated.”

Tyla smiled brightly and Violet was struck by the woman’s beauty.  Her sandy blonde hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, but there was no denying the lovely features, the high cheekbones, and the full lips that stretched into one of the most welcoming smiles Violet had ever experienced. 

“Hop in.  The heat is already making me warm and cozy.”

“Thank you,” Violet finally said with a sigh.  “This is very generous of you.”  Violet walked around to the other side of the Jeep and climbed in, stretching her hands out to the warmth blasting out of the heaters. 

Tyla put the Jeep in gear and shot down the road.  “I know what you’re going through.  Those men are just...” she didn’t finish the sentence but Violet understood. 

“Jerks,” Violet filled in for the pretty woman. 

“Exactly,” Tyla said as she carefully drove down the dark streets.  “And idiots when it comes to women,” she added on. 

The rest of the drive, the two women came up with names for men, some of them so ridiculous it caused both women to laugh hard. 

When they reached the small town of Appleton, Violet directed Tyla through the streets until they reached her shop and apartment.  When they pulled up, Tyla smiled excitedly.  “Hey!  I’ve ordered things from this place!” Tyla exclaimed.  “You have the neatest stuff!”

Violet smiled, but it wasn’t filled with pleasure like it normally would be.  “Thank you.  Would you like to come up for some coffee or tea?” she asked, trying to be polite.  The woman had driven her far out of the way and it would be a long drive back to Winthrop. A cup of something warm was the least she could do. 

Tyla considered the woman’s offer.  “I’d love some tea,” she finally said.  “Besides, I really don’t think you should be alone right now.  That was a huge blow.  You need to vent a bit.”

Violet laughed a little, but that only caused a tear to fall down again.  “Thanks.  Maybe that would be nice.”

Violet led the way up the wooden stairs and unlocked her door.  The room was filled with warmth and she moved to the stove to turn on the burner, heating up the water in the teapot.

“This is really nice,” Tyla commented as she looked around Violet’s small but cozy living area.  “Very cozy.”

Violet smiled again, but leaned back against the countertop, closing her eyes to try and stem the tears. 

“You’re not a prostitute,” Tyla said.  “I can’t imagine what Creek was thinking when he wrote the check.”

Violet shook her head, looking down and trying to hide the incredible pain she was feeling.  “I don’t know whether to be angrier with my stepfather, or Creek who would pay someone so that he could have sex with me.”

Tyla opened and closed the cabinets until she found the cups, then located the tea, making the brew for both of them.  Tyla understood that the other woman was going into shock after all of the revelations over the past hour. 

“Here,” she said, handing the cup to Violet.  “Let’s sit down and you can start from the beginning.”

Violet perched on the edge of the sofa, not exactly sure where to begin.  “I met him a few weeks ago.  He was tending bar at The Rotten Apple when my friends and I came in for a bachelorette party.  He was sweet and handsome and…” she sighed.  “I really liked him.”  Her hands shook as she lifted the cup to take a sip.  “I thought he really liked me too.  He showed up here,” she looked around, “well, downstairs, a couple of days later and asked me out to dinner.  We went out to dinner three nights in a row, and he made me laugh, he was so kind and charming.”

Tyla blinked.  “We’re still talking about Creek, right?” she asked.  Violet couldn’t be describing the hard-driving, brilliant, mostly-reclusive man that hung out with Tucker, Knox and Saeger at The Rotten Apple. 

“Of course,” Violet confirmed.  “He was incredibly charming and amazingly sweet.  He even brought me flowers that first night.”

Tyla almost choked on the sip of tea she’d just taken.  Looking askance, her mouth fell open.  “Your first date?”  Tyla was stunned.  “Flowers?”

Violet nodded her head, not explaining that he’d brought her flowers the night they’d first had sex, and not exactly their first date.  “Yes.  I think he was a bit self-conscious of it because…well…” She couldn’t really describe how awkward Creek had looked as he’d offered her the flowers.  The man just didn’t seem like he could ‘do’ awkward.  He was normally so filled with confidence, and had that sexy aura of authority that made her smile. 

Tyla still shook her head in amazement.  “Creek was self-conscious?”

Violet nodded, smiling nostalgically for that night, wishing she’d…did she really wish that she’d never met him? 

“And he brought you flowers?”

Another nod.

“And a check for five thousand dollars?”

Violet jerked upright at that question, closing her eyes against the pain in her chest.  “No,” she replied, shaking her head.  “I didn’t see any check.  I had no idea he was paying George.”  She couldn’t call that man her stepfather any longer.  “My mother died about five years ago.  She’d been married to George for about six or seven years.  He wasn’t around the whole time though.  He’d go off, saying he had a construction job, then show up months later, wanting to be with my mom again.  She’d started to divorce him a few times when he’d just disappeared, but he’d come back and was all sweet and wonderful.  She’d give him another chance.  Then she died.  Pneumonia,” Violet sniffed, remembering the sweet, kind, gentle woman who had raised her after her father’s death when she was younger.  “My mom was really great.”

“She sounds like it,” Tyla smiled gently. 

Violet nodded.  “She loved George.  Or maybe she just thought George needed help.  Which was definitely true.  The man had a lot of trouble holding down a job.  He never had enough money.”  Violet sniffed as the memories assaulted her.  Even after all this time, she still missed her mother.  And right now, Violet really needed her mother’s hugs.  “Even before she’d died, before all the sickness and the…” she waved her hand, trying to dismiss that period in her life, “George even sold his wedding ring.  He tried to sell my mother’s too, but she laid down the law that time.  Told him if he sold her ring, she’d divorce him and never speak to him again.  She wouldn’t give him any money either.  She said if he wanted money, he needed to go out and earn it like a real man, but that she’d be home for him at the end of the day with a warm meal.” 

Tyla was starting to get the picture.  George was an ass!  And possibly a con man, if Tyla’s suspicions were true.  Not a good con man, but an opportunist who had hurt two very kind, very sweet people.  Well, Creek wasn’t very kind, not to many people.  But Tyla suspected that all of those gruff, stubborn men were real sweethearts underneath all their grouchiness. 

“What happened after your mother died?  With George?”

Violet leaned back on the sofa and curled her legs up underneath her.  “George sort of drifted off.  He’d come back every once in a while asking for money, but I remember how my mother would deal with him.  I told him that if he wanted to help out in the store, I would pay him an hourly rate.  But I wouldn’t give him money.”

“And did he?  Work in the store?”

Violet’s hands tightened around her mug.  “He would sit on a stool and grumble to the customers.  I usually just let him work there over the winter when I had to run errands or to pick up merchandise.”  She sighed.  “I think he was stealing from me too.  I know he stole my lunches.  I had to hide my sandwiches most days.”

Tyla’s blood was boiling at how horrible this kind woman’s stepfather was.  How disgusting he was inside, and how he’d hurt her in so many ways.  “Any idea how he…”  Tyla wasn’t sure how to finish that question.

Violet knew what the woman was asking.  “How he sold me?” she offered, then shook her head.  “No idea.  I suspect that Creek probably came by to talk to me and George just figured out what was going on.”  She looked up at the ceiling, startled by so many questions.  “I can’t understand the amount though!  That’s a lot of money.”

Tyla’s lips compressed.  “Violet, how much do you know about Creek?” she asked gently. 

“I know he’s an only child, just like me.  And he’s tough and strong.  He works at The Rotten Apple and,” she paused, thinking back to all the nights she’d shared with the man she’d thought she’d been in love with.  But she couldn’t be in love with Creek!  She couldn’t have fallen so hard for a man who could think that she…that…

She shook her head and pushed the memories away.  “We had a lot of fun, just talking and laughing about politics and life and just whatever popped into our minds.”  She sniffed.  “I know that he most likely can’t afford five thousand dollars a night for a prostitute.  At least not for more than five nights.”  She dropped her head into her hand.  “What was he thinking?  The man tends bar!  That must have been his life savings!”  She shook her head.  “I’m not worth that much, and he never should have thought I would be for sale anyway!  Nothing in our conversations indicated I would be for sale!  Why would he think that?”

Tyla leaned forward.  “Well, first of all, you need to know something about Creek.  He’s not a bartender.  He and three other guys own The Rotten Apple.”

Violet’s mouth fell open after hearing that.  Owner?  Or a part owner?  Shaking her head, she sighed.  Even if that were true, having a partial stake in a bar here in Alaska, where the populations weren’t very dense, didn’t seem to be a big money maker.  “Still, that’s not a huge profit center.”

Tyla suppressed her amusement.  “It’s their hobby.  The Rotten Apple is only a place for them to hang out when they want to be around humanity.  They all have houses up on the mountains.”  She let those words sink in, watching Violet’s features carefully.  “Their own mountains,” she explained further.  “And their houses, well, I haven’t been inside any of them, but they’re not small.  They are huge actually.  And the technology that is rumored to be inside of those houses is crazy.  They don’t need electricity to their houses because each of the homes generates their own power.  And Creek isn’t poor.  The last estimate on his net worth was around the forty billion dollar range.  That’s billion with a B.”

Violet’s mouth fell open for a long moment as that news sunk in.  She wasn’t really sure that she believed it, but…actually, Creek being wealthy would explain a lot of things about his personality.  “Well, I guess he could afford five thousand dollars a night,” she whispered.  And her face crumpled into tears.  All the anger and pain that she’d been trying to hold back just tumbled out of her now. 

Tyla moved to the kitchen and grabbed the bottle of vodka she’d seen in one of the cabinets, then came back and poured some into Violet’s tea.  Sitting down beside the woman, she put her arms around her and hugged her tightly.  “I’m sorry,” she said softly.  “I just thought you should know the whole truth about the man you thought you knew.” 

Violet nodded against the woman’s arms.  “Yes.  Thank you for telling me.  I just…” she paused as the information muddled her mind.  “I feel like such a fool!”

Tyla shook her head.  “No.  You’re not a fool.  You just fell in love with a guy.”  She sighed, thinking about her own heartache problems.  “It happens to the best of us.”

They sat there for a long time, Violet’s tears flowing freely now as the full reality of her foolishness hit her.  For a long time, she simply let the tears flow, accepting the comfort of this stranger because…well, the pain slashing at her heart wouldn’t allow anything else.  She just let the tears fall but nothing seemed to diminish the pain and humiliation she was feeling. 

When the tide finally started to abate, she leaned back, her head resting on the cushions as she stared up at the ceiling.  “What a night,” she said out loud.  She sniffed and plucked a tissue from the table beside the sofa. 

She looked around, still astonished by all that she’d learned tonight.  “I’d gone over to talk to him, to find out why he’d just stopped calling me.  I thought I’d done something to insult him or maybe that I was bad in bed.  It never occurred to me that he just didn’t want to pay for my services any longer,” she said, and hiccupped a laugh.