The Millionaire Affair (Love in the Balance 3)

What have I done?

And what would that arrangement look like to their child? She’d been concerned over becoming an embittered housewife, but now what would she look like? A woman going robotically through the motions each time she talked to Landon? Denying their emotional connection—her love for him? Did she really want her child seeing her as some emotionless robot?

And what if she wanted a second child? What if she wanted a brother or sister for the baby growing in her womb? Could she really date again? While the man she loved was in the same town, sharing custody, and making her long for his touch each and every time she saw him? No way.

Kimber shoved her food away and stared into her cooling, flavorless tea. She’d made a horrible mistake, and all she could hope for was that Landon would be magnanimous enough to hear her out. Would he consider giving her another chance to make things right between them? She hoped so.

Her phone chimed: e-mail. She tapped the screen and read the message, confused for a handful of seconds.

To: [email protected]/* */

From: [email protected]/* */

Subject: Voice mail

Dear Ms. Reynolds:

Please read this before you open the attachment.

You may recognize my name, you may not. I’m Landon’s cousin/business partner who lives in Ohio. Last night, he seems to have gotten incredibly inebriated and called my secretary Keena by mistake. The voice mail was meant for you. I debated sending it, and I’m still not entirely sure you want to hear a slurring speech of undying love from my eldest cousin, but in the end, I can’t not forward it on. It’s here, in the attachment. Sounds like he got cut off at the end, but I’ll leave it up to you to call him and hear the rest.

For what it’s worth, Landon is a good guy. He’s about as hardheaded as I am when it comes to women, but his heart’s in the right place. I was lucky enough to find the woman who was willing to wait out my stupidity. On the chance you might be that woman for Landon, I didn’t want to deny you the same opportunity.

We’re a thick bunch sometimes.

Sincerely,

Shane August, CEO August Industries

Kimber’s thumb hovered over the attachment as she digested Shane’s e-mail. She reread it, stopping to think about what “a slurring speech of undying love” might sound like.

She was about to find out. There was no way she wouldn’t open it now. She wanted to hear what Landon had to say. Drunk or not. She clicked the attachment and brought the phone to her ear.

“Kimber. Hi, it’s Landon…”

* * *

His head pounded harder this morning than it had Sunday morning. And Sunday’s hangover had been a whopper. Probably wasn’t a good idea to drink last night, too, but he figured why not? He’d made a grievous error—not letting Kimber know how he felt—followed by another grievous error. The phone call where he had. Maybe if he kept drinking, he’d kill off enough brain cells that one day he wouldn’t be able to remember doing either.

He’d held out hope she might hear his message and call him, but his phone stayed silent all day Sunday. No messages. No calls. Just a silence that spoke louder than anything she could have said to him. She may not hate him, but she didn’t love him. And she hadn’t appreciated his profession being soaked in thirty-year scotch.

Imagine that.

He remembered the gist of what he’d said in that voice mail: I love you, I miss you. Even though he’d spoken it through a throat burning from Macallan Limited Release, the sentiment had demanded a reply. But she hadn’t replied.

Which he took to mean she didn’t care. That was the only reason not to call back. If the opposite of love was apathy, it wasn’t hard to reason that Kimber felt nothing but indifference toward him. Maybe he was better off spending his nights drunk and alone in his enormous and lonely penthouse. Maybe he should get a dog.

“Mr. Downey?” his secretary’s voice came over the speakerphone in his office.

“Yeah, Cindy.” He grabbed his head with his hands to stop the throbbing in his skull. Speaking made his brain ache like he’d shouted instead.

“I have a Ms. Reynolds here to see you. She doesn’t have an appointment but—”

“Send her in.” He stood from his desk, knocking his chair with the backs of his legs and rolling it several feet from his desk. He raced across the room to his private bathroom, shocked by the man staring back at him from the mirror. He looked like hell. If hell had been subjected to freezer burn, then microwaved. He dampened his fingers and ran them through his hair, swishing mouthwash around his teeth at the same time. By the time he’d stepped into his office and slid his glasses back onto his nose, Cindy opened the door.