ELEMENTAL LOVE: A Second Chance Single Dad Romance Read online

  He was my age, but he’d barely ever said two words to me. Like his older brother, he went to a private boarding school, which I was sure was nothing like the local high school I’d attended. He was home for the summer too, my father said, and just hearing the news yesterday had sent a shiver of exhilaration down my spine.

  We were both home now, for eight whole weeks and while I had work to be done, girlfriends to see, and oceans to swim in, there were now also fifty-six days for me to try to get Thomas Maitland to notice me. It was my last chance because I’d been head-over-heels for him since I was thirteen, and soon I was going to be on the other side of the country. It was now or never.

  I continued to snip flower after flower until I had enough to take back to the house to make three beautiful bouquets for Connie’s bedroom. As I walked past the house, I couldn’t resist looking up, gazing at the window I knew was that of Thomas’ bedroom; wondering if he was up there, maybe looking down at me.

  But, there was no-one to be seen.

  Chapter 2

  ________

  ALEX

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  I looked over at Mom and shook my head, rolling my eyes as I did so. She shrugged a little, and pulled a face that said, “What can I do?”

  But Tom didn’t seem to be kidding at all. He idly scratched his face and began flipping through his phone. I stood up and took it from him, putting it in my back pocket and batting his hand away as he tried to grab it back.

  “Come on, don’t be an asshole,” he moaned and Mom tutted.

  “Language, Thomas,” she said.

  “Tell him to give me back my phone, then,” he whined, like a petulant child. But I put a hand on his shoulder and made him look at me.

  “Please tell me that you’re not seriously thinking about going there,” I said, and he looked at me and blinked.

  “It was just a thought.”

  “It’s not even in the top one hundred schools in the whole of the United States. Why would you even consider applying?” I said.

  “Wrong, dear brother. I believe it’s rated ninety-third and it’s called keeping-one’s-options-open,” Tom replied, and he made a grab for his cell phone once more. This time, I gave it to him, and he grabbed it and grinned. “Come on, bro. If you keep clenching that tight you gonna pull something. Not all of us want to go to some Ivy League palace like you did. Some of us have social lives, you know?”

  “I had a perfectly good social life at Yale, thanks,” I said, “only I didn’t have to maintain it at the expense of a real education.”

  “What’s wrong with Santa Cruz? A degree’s a degree, right?”

  “No,” I said. “Wrong. You can’t just throw away the years of education you’ve had by attending a third-rate college. It’s not even third-rate. It’s ninety-third rate.”

  He looked at me and shook his head as though he were the one despairing of me. “I’d go to Harvard, but I doubt the girls wear bikinis there during the weekends,” he said. He sat up on the kitchen counter and began swinging his legs, still swiping away on his phone. “Besides, I don’t want to think about that stuff now. It’s the first day of summer vacation, for God’s sake. I should be on the beach, not talking about something as mind-numbing as college.”

  “You should have made up your mind months ago, before graduation,” I told him.

  “Mom, please tell your firstborn to get off my back,” Thomas said, and he jumped down from the counter and grabbed an apple. “I’m going for a swim. Are you coming?”

  “No,” I replied. “Dad wants me to sit in on a conference call in twenty minutes.”

  “Damn, you’re about as dull as a fat lap-dog after dinner,” Tom laughed. “Have fun, grandpa.”

  And he left the kitchen. I sat down at the table opposite Mom again and sighed. “What are we going to do with him?”

  “You’ve never been alike,” she said, and she looked weary from the conversation we seemed to have been having for the millionth time since January. It was always the same. We were all trying to pin Tom down to making up his mind about attending the best college.

  But he never took it seriously, as if he was hoping that he could close his eyes, point to a map and magically be accepted to the first school where his index finger landed; preferably one close to the ocean and somewhere where the sun always shone and the weather was good all year round.

  “What’s Dad said?”

  “Your father agrees with you, of course, but there’s only so much that we can say to him. Maybe he needs to take a little time out to think about what he wants to do.”

  “He’s had the last twelve years to think about what he wants to do,” I said. “And he got good grades. He’s going to throw it all away and someday, he’ll regret it.”

  “You’re both wired very differently, my dear,” Mom said as she poured me a glass of iced tea. “When you were his age, don’t you remember it being the other way around? Your father and I encouraged you to slow down and maybe take a gap year. But, no. You were determined to go to college and finish top of your class. And you’ve done exactly that and we’re very proud of you.”

  She smiled and stroked my hand. “We’re proud of your brother, too, but you’re just two different people.”

  I nodded and sipped the tea. Ever since we were kids, Mom liked to sit in the kitchen. It was her favorite room in the house. She could have been sitting in the drawing room, or the den, or even the study, but here was where she liked it most, whether she was working on her laptop or arranging yet another one of her fundraisers. I recalled how I loved watching her, hunched over the large oak table, pushing little colored flags into the corkboard to which the seating plan was pinned, her glasses balancing on the tip of her nose while she hummed her favorite tunes.

  She even liked to sit here late at night, with a book in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. Something about the room just felt homely and comforting to her.

  For a few moments, we sat in silence, the ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer the only sound. It was just after lunch, and I thought about how much I’d like to go for a swim myself, but for me, there was no longer any such thing as a summer vacation.

  My final year at Yale had unsurprisingly been the most difficult yet. I knew, deep down, that I’d brought a lot of it on myself, but now I was reaping the fruits of my labor. It had all been worth it.

  The late nights of studying while almost everyone else was fast asleep. The countless times waking up in the early hours of the morning only to find that I’d, yet again, fallen asleep on top of my textbooks with my head pushed underneath a desk lamp in the library. But, it had all paid off as I graduated summa-cum-laude. For some, they’d have viewed it as a waste of time. For me, there was no other option.

  I’d thought for a long time about how I could help my younger brother see how important it was that he go to a good college. And it wasn’t just for the quality of the degree he would walk away with. It was because we were Maitlands.

  The name has long carried its own sense of importance, but as I understood from a very early age, the real concern is living up to the moniker. Being a Maitland wasn’t something to be taken lightly.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” Mom asked, her voice drawing me back to the present moment.

  I grinned. “Tom just called me grandpa,” I said. “I wonder if he might be right.”

  “Oh, now. Don’t you take that to heart,” Mom said, shaking her head. “You’re studious and serious, but you’re far from being an old man. You’ve still got a good five years left.”

  We laughed and I glanced at my watch. “I have to go,” I said. “It’s about the Emmett project.”

  Mom nodded. “I’ve heard it’s hit a complication,” she said. “Good luck.”

  Leaving the kitchen, I strolled down the hallway towards the study. I knocked lightly before pushing the door open. Dad was already talking to someone over the phone, and he beckoned me to come in.
/>   “Neil, my son’s here now, and I’d like him to sit in on this call,” Dad said. “I’m going to put you on video conferencing. Hang on a second.”

  He reached for the pod in the center of the desk and with a push of a button, the monitor to our right lit up, and I saw five men sitting around a boardroom table. They were at the office in Washington, and we were on the other side of the country. While we could see them, they couldn’t see us.

  “Right, Neil,” Dad said. “Just go through that part again. What’s this about Bolton Merritt? They’re withdrawing?”

  “We’ve got no direct problem with them, as such,” Neil said, and he leaned forward and straightened his tie, knowing that he was now on camera. “It’s more that there’s a bit of ambiguity surrounding their most recent investment. The news has not broken yet, so we’re expecting a little bit of heat this afternoon when it does.”

  Dad looked at me, frowning, and I was the one to sit forward now, listening carefully. Dad narrowed his eyes and looked back at the screen where it seemed the four members of the legal team and Neil, my father’s accountant, seemed uncomfortable.

  “What are you referring to? I need to know what’s happened,” Dad said. “From what you told me two days ago, Ellis Emmett was ready to sign today. Shit, the old man shakes so much these days it won’t be long before he won’t be able to put pen to paper. So, if I understand you correctly, there’s a problem with the sponsoring partners and not with Ellis, right?”

  “Ellis Emmett isn’t a problem, Beau, I assure you,” Neil said, hurriedly. “He’s sweet. He’s agreeable. He’s loving life in his retirement home and more than happy with the deal on the table.”

  He paused, and I could see that my father was beginning to lose patience. Even I was becoming frustrated with the way Neil seemed to want to break the news gently. Dad prompted him to continue.

  “Bolton Merritt is being audited,” Neil said, in a quick burst of air, and he gave a thin, awkward grimace into the camera. “I have a guy over there in the legal department who owed me a favor. He called me this morning and gave me the heads-up. Something about an investment in PanaNex Pharmaceuticals. Seems like the deal was a little too under the table, if you know what I mean.”

  Dad rubbed his eyes. “I think I get the idea. I thought it strange for Bolton Merritt to step out of the corporate development game and dive into the refreshing waters of pharmaceuticals.”

  Neil shrugged. “A good deal’s a good deal,” he said, “only Deloitte has decided to file it under the label of insider trading. My friend over at Bolton told me they got the heads up on a new liver drug that’s getting imminent FDA approval. I guess they thought it was too good to pass up.”

  “And in the process, they’ve possibly lost us a billion dollar deal because it’s more exciting than good old-fashioned business.” My father leaned back in his chair and tapped his thumb against the tip of the middle finger of his right hand; a quirk I knew meant that he was thinking about his next move. And he was right to do so, too. This was a huge blow.

  Ellis Emmett, a ninety-year-old bachelor who happened to own a disused shopping mall in Tacoma, Washington, was about to receive the windfall of his life. It was a mystery as to how he could possibly spend the money we’d offered him, but I liked to think he’d live out the rest of his days bathing in champagne and receiving three bed baths a day, courtesy of buxom Swedish nurses.

  From what we knew of him, he was a genial old man, who’d had a dream many years ago, and who’d seen that dream become a reality. After his grandmother left him a rare piece of art in her will, he’d sold it and from the proceeds, built himself a five thousand square foot department store. The only problem was that he was seventy years too early. The town’s industry had died off only two decades after the store was built.

  Tacoma had thrived on logging and lumber mills until the mid-forties when the end of the war meant an end to heavy industry and the diversification into more renewable materials. Residents left the town in search of a greater life nearer to the city of Seattle, and the department store had closed only twenty years after it opened.

  Now that Shelton was enjoying a revival, though, Maitland Development knew it was time to step in; a three-story department store the size of two lumber mills was too good an opportunity to ignore. Maitland had courted Ellis Emmett for five years, as far as getting down on one knee. And, finally, the old man had accepted the proposal.

  Dad wasn’t about to let the deal go pear-shaped because of investors, but at this late stage, it was unthinkable to bring a new sponsor to the table. We had to find a solution and I had a sudden thought.

  “Neil. It’s Alexander here.”

  “Alexander!” Neil said, smiling. “Great to hear your voice. Heard all about the distinction. Well done.”

  I didn’t correct him. There was no need to remind him it was an Exceptional Distinction. After all, the title meant nothing if my idea flopped right now, but I was pretty sure that this might just work.

  “I know a little about Bolton Merritt,” I said. “Not just from Yale, of course, but from the business over the years. And if I’m not mistaken, they recently bought out Mason-Metcalfe-Holder, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes,” Neil said, and he seemed to sit up straighter, and his eyes became brighter.

  “Right. So what if we simply use MMH instead of Bolton Merritt? It’s a shell company, but the team’s the same. And it’s completely untouchable by the audit and shouldn’t affect the deal.”

  The legal team looked at each other and slowly a nod of agreement went around the table. Neil leaned toward the camera. “Beau, I think that education of your son’s might just have been put to good use on his first day on the job,” he said. “Give me an hour to make a few calls and I’ll come back to you.”

  He hung up and Dad grinned at me. He reached out his hand and I shook it. “Great call, Son,” he said. “Of course, I can’t say I wouldn’t have arrived at that idea in five minutes’ time myself, but…”

  “I’m sure you would’ve, Dad,” I quickly interjected, smiling. “It’s Neil who should be kicking himself for not thinking of it first. It seems like the most obvious fix.”

  Dad leaned back in his chair and opened his drawer. “Maybe a little Cuban to celebrate your homecoming?” he asked.

  “No!” I said, laughing. “And you shouldn’t have one either. Mom’s in the kitchen.”

  He closed the drawer again, a rueful look on his face. He might be a billionaire businessman with an iron will and a ruthless, if not fair, streak, but he was still putty in the hands of my mother.

  “Once the deal goes through,” he muttered. “We’ll wait until then.”

  We talked for a little while longer, both of us deliberately avoiding the subject of Tom, at least for today. We had enough to worry about, and Neil would soon be calling back with an answer. In the meantime, we were interrupted by a phone call from another client. Dad had to take it, so I left the study.

  I went to fetch my cell phone from my bedroom where it had been charging. On the way there, I passed my grandmother’s bedroom, and I heard a noise. Knowing my grandmother wasn’t due to arrive until the evening, I had to investigate.

  Pushing the door open slightly, I looked inside and there, with her back to me, was Rachel Evans.

  I’d known her practically all my life, although only from a distance, but now, the teenager I’d seen the last time I was home, suddenly seemed very grown up. Her thick, curly hair was scooped up in a messy bun, held in place by two drawing pencils. She was wearing only a black vest and bra, and I could see the shape of her long neck and the swell of her breasts. Her hips were curved and her ass filled out her jeans very well indeed. For a second, I was a little surprised at how attractive she suddenly seemed.

  She was busy putting together a beautiful bouquet of flowers for my grandmother’s room, no doubt. Suddenly, she took a step back, pushed her glasses back on her nose and stood staring at the arrangement with he
r hands on her hips, inspecting her handiwork, still unaware of my presence. Then she bent over again and reached for another one of the long-stemmed flowers.

  Once more, my gaze fell to the curve of her ass.

  I smiled to myself, and quietly slipped back out of the room. I didn’t want to disturb her, and it looked like she was doing a fine job.

  I hadn’t expected to stare quite so long at her backside, though, and tried to expel the thought of her from my mind as I shook my head and carried on to my bedroom.

  Chapter 3

  ________

  RACHEL

  I gingerly stretched out on my towel and wiggled my toes so that the sand would fall away, careful not to get any of it on my towel. Then I took a deep breath and sighed with bliss.

  “I don’t think there’s any better feeling than this,” I said. “The only thing that could make this more perfect would be if someone could bring me an iced mocha.”

  Alice tossed me her sunblock, but it wasn’t for me. Instead, she came and plonked herself down on my towel, getting sand everywhere. “Do my back,” she instructed, and she scooped up her blonde hair and held it up over her neck. She left me with little choice but to sit up and squirt a blob of cream onto the palm of my hand, which I then applied to her back and shoulders.

  I noticed a red mark on her neck and prodded her with my finger. “Oh, what’s this?” I teased. “Either you’ve been visited by Edward Cullen or Frankie Delgado’s been sucking your neck again.”

  She smiled and shrugged. “He’s joining the army in three weeks’ time,” she said. “I want him to have a few treasured memories before he leaves.”