The Billionaire Player (In Too Deep)

CHAPTER30

LARISA

“Ican’t, Brit,” I said into my phone as the canopy of trees overhead opened up. “I’m just about to turn in at the house. It’s a long drive. I can’t just cut it short and come back tomorrow.”

“We can always have a late lunch after,” she suggested. “You can’t just drop a bombshell like telling me you took the job again and hooked up with the client and then leave me hanging. Obviously, you guys made up, but I want the details. I want to know all the sappy, romantic bits about his apology and I want to hear all the not-so-romantic bits about what happened after.”

I slowed to a stop in front of Tanner’s property and rolled down my window. Then I typed in the code he’d given me before and watched the dramatic metal gates swing open to admit me. “I’ve already told you all the important stuff. We spent some time with his friends and I realized there’s more to him than just being a player who sleeps with anyone that moves. That’s all there is to it.”

“No, it’s not all there is to it. How are you feeling about it now? That’s definitely something else that’s important. Do you regret it? Do you think it will happen again?”

Once the gates were open, I put my car back in gear and drove slowly up the driveway. Tanner had gotten some local landscapers to clean up the garden, and it was already starting to look so much better. All the overgrowth had been cleared, the lawns trimmed, and the dying hedges removed.

With only those changes made, the place already felt more cared for, and it was becoming easier to imagine what one’s arrival would feel like once it was restored to its former glory. What Tanner would be seeing on the weekends when he came out here.

Too bad I won’t get to experience it with him. I sighed. “No, I don’t regret it, but I also don’t think it should happen again. I don’t know why it’s like this with him, but it’s like there’s a magnet in each of us and I just can’t help the pull to be near him whenever he’s around.”

“That doesn’t sound like it shouldn’t happen again, then,” she said. “At the risk of stating the obvious, you like him. If you don’t regret it and you had fun, there’s no reason not to see where it goes.”

“Uh, yes, there is.” My handbrake came up with a soft zip when I parked in front of the doors. “You don’t get it, Brit. He’s not Trevor. I can’t let myself like him. If I do, I’m just going to wind up getting hurt.”

“This might come as news to you, but it doesn’t really work like that. It’s not about what you let yourself feel, it’s about what you feel regardless of how you think you should feel.”

“Well, I think I’m in dangerous emotional territory.” I opened my door and climbed out, digging around in my purse for the keys. “I haven’t been able to get him off my mind and that’s not good. I thought that maybe focusing on my work would help, but now I just don’t know.”

I wasn’t even in the house yet, but just having let myself in at the gate and now unlocking the front door with my keys was making it even easier to imagine myself living here one day. This was what it would feel like if the place was mine—or ours—and I came home to it.

Of course, imagining Tanner here too came with the territory. It was his house, after all, and in my mind’s eye, I saw myself coming home not only to the house, but to him.

Brit made a sympathetic noise at the back of her throat. “At the moment, he is your work, so not being able to stop thinking about him while you’re focused on it is only natural. You’re there now?”

“Yep.” I stood in the stillness of the foyer, taking in the vast space without any worries about the time I had left there alone. “It’s beautiful. You should see it. The rooms are so spacious, and the windows at the front of the house, where I am now, look out over what is going to be a magnificent garden. It just has the most incredible feel to it when you walk in. Like the house remembers the happy memories that were made here before and there’s family, love, and laughter built into the walls themselves.”

A dreamy sigh came from the other end of the line. “Well, maybe I will see it someday. It could happen that you end up living there with him eventually. I’d hate if you were that far away, but we could come out to see you and spend the night. All our kids could run around in those gardens, and is there a pool? Kids love pools. I can see us sipping cocktails outside while the kids splash around in the water.”

“There is a pool, but it’s not functional right now.” My feet carried me deeper into the house of their own accord while we talked. I walked across the bottom story to the back door, looking out at the empty husk of the pool and seeing the scene she just described playing out in front of my very eyes. “You shouldn’t put ideas like that in my head. Coming out here might not have been such a great idea. It’s making it much too easy to imagine everything you just said and more, and that’s just dangerous for me.”

“It’s called a fantasy,” she said. “Enjoy it. Indulge. If you put it out there into the universe, you’re making it more likely that it will become reality.”

“The universe isn’t going to change who he is and what he’s looking for. He told me that he’s been trying to make that change himself, and I believe him, but let’s be real. Any guy who’s that used to having any woman he wants and sex practically on tap isn’t just going to stop.”

“There are a lot of those guys who have stopped,” she argued. “When they meet the right woman, they don’t want any other women anymore. Who knows? You could be that woman for Tanner.”

“Let’s stop being fanciful. It’s fun, but I can’t afford to start hoping that it’s true. Our situation is what it is. We hooked up once and it didn’t mean anything except that we were attracted to each other. We gave in to that attraction. That’s it.”

“We’ll see,” she said. “As for the actual work you’re there to do, just let the house speak to you. You’ve always been good at listening to the place itself. Do that, and he’ll be happy with the result. I’ll leave you to it.”

We said our goodbyes and hung up, but I kept my phone in my hand and opened my camera, turning in a slow circle and trying to get into the right frame of mind. There were so many possibilities in this house that it was almost impossible to pick one out and run with it.

That was why I’d come back here. I needed to spend some time in the space and see what came through the strongest.

Going back to my car, I fetched my trusty notebook and sketchpad. Then I set them down on the kitchen counter and hopped up next to them, sitting quietly and drinking in the space. When I finally picked up my sketchpad and a pencil, it was like something otherworldly was guiding my hand.

Without meaning to do it, I sketched up images of the rooms based on what I was imagining of it as a family home. I knew I was getting way ahead of myself, but I couldn’t help it. Momentarily entertaining the fantasy of us being here together, I allowed the thoughts to flow onto the paper, creating the most beautiful designs I’d come up with in a long time.

They were all my style, though. Not Tanner’s.

Stop wasting your time, Larisa. You’re supposed to be designing the ultimate bachelor pad for him.