Second Rate Chances (23 page)

SECOND RATE CHANCES

CHAPTER 29

Sam had finished buttoning his shirt when his dad entered the living room. To keep up pretenses, Sam had gone ahead with his wedding party for the day’s festivities, by getting ready at his condo. After today, he’d no longer call the sparse, bland place home. As for where home would be? He hoped where his heart was. With Lil.

“You ready?” his dad asked, dressed like James Bond ready to have cocktails with the ladies while kicking ass at the same time.

Sam nodded.

“You sure about this, son? You sure this is what you want?”

Sam had to laugh. After everything he had been through the last several weeks, his dad was questioning his judgment. Now, of all times.

“Why? You think I’m making a mistake?” he asked.

Paul shook his head and took the steps that brought him closer to his son. He gripped Sam by the shoulders. “No,” he said his voice soft. “I think you’re finally doing the right thing. For you.”

“Me too,” Sam agreed.

“Car’s here!” Joshua said, entering the room dressed in his matching tux just like Sam and their father.

“You two go ahead and ride to the church in it. I’m going to take my car,” Sam told them. “I’m sure when all of this is over with you’ll need to stick around and field off questions on my behalf.”

Paul pulled his son into a tight embrace. When they pulled apart, Sam saw unshed tears in his father’s eyes. “I love you, Samson. Don’t let them give you hell. You understand me?” Sam nodded. “We’ll be here for you.” He added with a pointed stare, “No matter what happens today.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Sam asked his father who nodded.

“We’ll meet you at the airport if everything goes as planned. If not, well,” Paul chuckled, “I guess I’ll see you at the house later tonight.”

Sam’s gut tightened. He couldn’t think of the worst happening today. He had to remain optimistic that his plan would work. He had made a decision and he prayed to God that Lil would be along for the ride. If she wasn’t then Sam had his work cut out for him because come hell or high water he was going to make an honest woman out of her.

He should have felt regret once he remembered the last three years. Especially the part where he had made love to Lil. Technically he had cheated on Chloe. But a part of his brain told him that she had cheated him out of so much more. So much more than he ever realized. She didn’t just cheat him out of his friends, or doing the things he loved. She had sunk to a whole new level with her ploy to get him to notice her. One that had a huge role in how he lost Lil. Granted, he wasn’t going to put the blame solely on Chloe. She played a part but she wasn’t the main game changer. That lay with Sam.

He considered leaving the car running as he pulled into the church. Guests were already beginning to mill about in the front, kissing each other on the cheeks and offering fake hellos. All in the name of being seen at the biggest wedding Fair Haven had seen in a
longtime
.

He opened the door to the bridal suite slowly, not wanting to draw too much attention to himself. He and Chloe had visited the chapel several times during the planning stages so he knew just where to find her. She was standing in front of the floor length mirror, fixing the crown on top of her head. He shouldn’t have expected anything less. A tiara for the princess she thought she was. Daddy’s princess, perhaps, but not Sam’s.
             

             
The sight of her should have left him weak-kneed. The dress, strapless and diamond studded on the bodice pulled in at her waist making it seem smaller, as the skirt ballooned out down to the floor. The fact was, seeing Chloe in her wedding dress did nothing but remind him that he didn’t love this woman and the wedding she had planned. The wedding she thought was so important she couldn’t be there for her fiancé when she should have been. It was ironic, him and Chloe. She left him at the first sign of trouble the same way he had left Lil. But Sam was a changed man. He had paid for the sins he had committed.

He wasn’t about to let another chance at redemption slip through his fingers.

“Sam!” Chloe suddenly shrieked. She turned to face him, picking up the dress so she could move forward. “You can’t be in here! It’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding.” Her tone might have indicated that she was put out with him for showing up before the ceremony; the smile on her face told him she considered him showing up at all a victory. Little did she know that when he said everything he had to say, the smile would be wiped clean from her face as he drove off with one of his own.

             
“We need to talk,” he said, stepping further into the room as he shut the door behind him.

             
“Talk? Can’t it wait until after the ceremony? We have a church full of people waiting on us.”

             
“No, it can’t wait.”

             
Chloe put her hands on her hips. “Sam, what’s this about? What is so important you couldn’t wait half an hour to ask?”

             
Sam drew in a deep breath as he said, “Do you remember taking a phone call for me before we started dating while I was still working in the basement?”

She scoffed at his question. “How am I supposed to remember something like that? It was ages ago.” Her posture relaxed and she moved closer to him. Sam put a hand up to stop her.

“Answer me,” he demanded, then added, “it would have been the day we had the meeting in your father’s office after we finished reviewing the Holy Wars game. The game that single handedly earned millions upon millions of dollars.”

Realization registered on her face. She stood a little straighter and said, “Yes. I took a phone call for you. What’s it matter now?”

             
“Because,” he seethed, “that phone call was Ellie, Lil’s best friend, calling to tell me they were headed to the emergency room. Lil lost our baby that day and I wasn’t there for her because you took it upon yourself not to pass the message along.”

             
Chloe’s eyes widened. “A baby?” she whispered. “You and Lil were going to have a baby? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

             
“Because it was my business, not yours. I’m asking you why. Why didn’t you tell me she called?”

“First of all,” Chloe said holding up a single finger to signify her point, “this Ellie never said you were needed at the hospital.” Chloe pleaded with him, “If I had known that was why she was calling I would have interrupted the meeting, I swear.”

“But the fact that it was an emergency, which I know for a fact she told you, didn’t constitute you telling me immediately? Hell, even writing the message on a post it note and sticking it on my computer monitor would have been better than not telling me at all!”

             
Sam saw rage and hatred behind his eyes. He knew that with the broken look Chloe now shot him that she saw it too.

             
“Everything was ruined after that day, Chloe. My job, my life, the woman I love.” At his admission, Chloe’s face turned hard.

             
“I did what I had to do to get you out of the basement and into the towers where you belonged. I moved you up from some lowly gamer to the head of the department because I saw promise in you.”

             
“No,” Sam said, shaking his head. “You saw an opportunity for yourself and your father. Well guess what, Chloe? I’m no one’s opportunity. You made a decision for me that day that has affected my life in the worst possible way. But not anymore. From this moment on, I make my own decisions. I’ll decide who I hang out with, where I live, what clothes I buy, and most importantly who I love.”

The seconds ticked by as the silence filled the room. Chloe stood across the room from him, on the brink of tears. She knew what was coming next.

             
“I’m not going to marry you,” Sam finally said. “Not today, not next year. Not ever.”

             
Sam turned around to open the door just as a vase crashed to the side of his head. Without acknowledging her fury, Sam walked out of the door and out of her life, for good.

             
He started his descent down the hall when Jonah Miles rounded the corner. He smiled when he saw Sam approaching him.

“Thought you’d sneak in a visit before the wedding?” He asked, nodding to the bridal suite Sam had just left. Mr. Miles laughed and slapped Sam on the back. “I understand all too well. Especially given how you haven’t seen each other in a couple of weeks.”

“Mr. Miles --”

“Jonah,” he said correcting Sam. “We’re about to family, son.”

             
“I need to speak with you,” Sam said. “In private.”

             
This only caused Mr. Miles to laugh harder as he ushered Sam into a vacant room.

             
“Need some advice before you slip the ring on my daughter’s finger? Perhaps some tips for the wedding night?”

             
When they were safely in the room where prying eyes couldn’t see them, Sam broke the news to Chloe’s father.

“Sir, I’m not going to marry your daughter today.”

             
“You need more time? That’s fine, Sam. We can arrange that. I’m sure it seems very sudden after you regained your memory. Chloe will understand.”

             
Yeah, Sam thought. If throwing a vase across the room at his head was understanding, Chloe had the art down to a tee.

             
“I tell you what. We have everyone already here, why don’t we postpone the wedding and use the reception as a celebration of your recovery.”

             
“No sir, I don’t think I can do that.” Sam looked at Mr. Miles, a man that almost became his father-in-law, a man that he worked for, a man who was going to do worse than throw an object at him.

             
“I’m not marrying your daughter at all,” Sam said with a steady voice.

             
Sam could see the veins in Mr. Miles’ forehead throb. He was angry and that anger was seconds away from being thrown at Sam.

“After everything she’s done for you? After everything I’ve done for you?” he asked. “And you’re not going to marry her? I don’t think so. You’re going to march your happy ass out of this room and stand at the end of that aisle with your plumber father and good for nothing brother and you're going to marry Chloe. I own you, boy. You work for me; you live in a building I own. You're nothing without me.”

             
An argument was on the tip of Sam’s tongue. He was everything
without
the Miles name connected with him. So much more that he had forgotten who he was. Instead he said in a surprisingly calm tone, although underneath his words were venom.

“Don’t you ever talk about my family like that again. I’m not walking down that aisle. I’m not making your daughter my wife.”

             
“You’re fired!” Mr. Miles shouted. He walked over and stood toe to toe with Sam.

             
“You can’t fire me,” Sam threw back in his face. “I left my letter of resignation on your desk this morning. I quit. And not just me. There are two other letters there also. Two of the best gamers your company has.

“As for living in your building, I’ve already moved out.”

Sam spun on his heel and wrenched the door open determination to get to Lil with every step he took. He didn’t know if Mr. Miles followed him, or if he went straight to Chloe, and Sam didn’t care.

For the first time he was going after everything he had ever wanted.  And he hoped she wanted him too.

CHAPTER 30

Lil picked up her purse and overnight bag as she headed out of the door of her house. Ellie had called the day before begging her to spend New Year’s Eve with the whole gang at Rusty’s.

             
The whole gang.

             
Without Sam they wouldn’t be whole. Lil
wouldn’t
be
whole. But she was trying. Damn it, she
was
trying.

             
What Ellie didn’t know, was that Lil didn’t plan to ring in New Years with her friends. This year, Lil had a date. And she planned to leave the details as just that. She didn’t have to explain to her friends as to what, or whom she was ringing in the New Year with. Ellie had Zach; Kane and Abe had each other. Wasn’t it only fair that Lil have someone too?