Counting the Kisses (Counting the Billions, #3) Read online

  Austin gave me a look. “So what are you going to do, just give up?” he asked. “That’s not the Daniel I thought I knew.”

  I took a healthy swallow of beer, twisting the empty bottle in my hands before chucking it in the recycling bin and moving to grab another one.

  “If nothing else,” Austin said in a low voice as I closed the fridge, “you have to figure out some better end for the two of you.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, staring at the naked refrigerator door in front of me, eyes unseeing.

  “I mean that the press thinks the two of you were lovey-dovey and oh-so-happy up until the point that you walked into that trial,” Austin said grimly. “You guys break things off now, like this, with no communication whatsoever, and the media will tear the two of you apart. They’ll go after Abby for being an idiot and not seeing the signs that you’re a terrible guy, and they’ll go after you for putting her through all of this. And for just generally being a scumbag.”

  “Gee, glad to hear what you really think of me,” I said sarcastically, yanking the cap off my beer and gulping down at least half of it in one go.

  Austin moved around to stand in front of me, prying my beer out of my fingers. “I think you’ve had enough of that, and enough of self-pity,” he said firmly. “Now let’s figure out how you’re going to fix this. What are your options?”

  I sighed. “Go to her house, or wait and see if she shows up to work tomorrow morning.”

  “I know you,” Austin said flatly, “and I know that if you try to wait until work tomorrow before talking to her, it’s going to eat you alive.” He paused. “It’s not healthy to keep all that guilt and anger inside of you. That’s how you end up punching out guys like Gerrard in the first place.”

  I grimaced, but I knew he was probably right. “I’ll talk to her,” I promised Austin. “But I swear, if I show up at her house and she slams the door in my face, you had better be waiting at your place with all the booze in the world to wash away the rejection.”

  Austin smiled faintly. “Deal,” he said, clapping a hand on my shoulder.

  Chapter 14

  Abby

  FOR THE FIRST TIME in my life, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to a family dinner on Sunday evening with Matt, Leanne, and the kids. And I hated that I couldn’t feel more enthusiastic about it. The kids were always such rays of sunshine; they could brighten up any day. But it was Leanne and Matt that I was worried about. My brother knew me too well, and my best friend definitely knew me all too well. There was no way that I was getting through this without admitting to the two of them that Daniel and I had had a fight and were now on uncertain terms.

  Uncertain, I thought with a snort. Uncertain didn’t even begin to cover it.

  I had a couple more missed calls from Daniel, but now I was scared to answer for different reasons. If I had just talked things out with him like an adult, maybe we would have been able to salvage our relationship. But as it was, I had run scared. That wasn’t an admirable trait. I couldn’t blame Daniel if he didn’t want to see me ever again.

  Logically, I knew that Daniel wasn’t looking for reasons to dump me, but I just couldn’t seem to quit compiling a list of all the reasons why he would never want to see me again. I had screwed up at work, I had listened to the tabloid stories about him even for a moment, I hadn’t let him explain his side of things even as I was yelling at him to stop yelling at me and listen to what I had to say. What a freakin’ mess.

  When I got to Matt and Leanne’s, I paused on the doorstep for a moment. Normally, I would ring the bell and wait for someone to open it. Even though Matt and I had grown up together in this house, it now felt very much like his and Leanne’s. Matt always told me that I was crazy, but maybe I had to distance myself from the way that the house had been.

  The thought of distancing myself physically hurt me. That was what I was going to have to do with Daniel, if I went back to work for him the following day. Could I ever really do that? I had a hard time believing I could.

  Daniel probably wouldn’t want me around anyway. It was his office and his employees. I had been the one to jeopardize the comfortable ecosystem of McGregor Enterprises. Daniel would fire me, and I’d lose the one job I had ever really enjoyed having.

  I swallowed hard. Maybe that was for the best.

  I had to stop thinking about all of that, anyway. I tried to paste a smile on my face but was only moderately successful. Then, I opened the front door and slipped inside without knocking. It was probably a dead giveaway to the fact that I wasn’t feeling great mentally that day, but I figured if I could find the kids first and play with them some before I even had to see Matt and Leanne, maybe I could get a better mood solidly in place so that they wouldn’t question me.

  When I got into the living room, though, following the sounds of Zach’s voice, I found that Matt was down on the carpet playing cars with his two children. He glanced up at me and grinned. For a second, I saw the flicker of a frown on his face, and I knew that whatever smile I had shown him, it hadn’t been convincing. But then, he was scooting over on the floor to make space for me.

  “Which car do you want?” he asked me.

  I slowly sank down next to him. “You must be feeling better,” I said. Matt had been pretty lucky with his accident, all things considered. Some asshole had run a red light and crashed sidelong into Matt’s car, crumpling the whole thing. He’d ended up having to go into surgery due to internal bleeding, and he’d been moving pretty slowly ever since. This was the first time I’d seen him down on the floor playing with the kids since then.

  I hadn’t realized how good it was to see him feeling better again. Matt was normally so vivacious and charismatic that seeing him in the hospital, half asleep and in pain, weak and pale, had been a shock to the system for sure. This made things seem normal again.

  I just wished I could be in a better mood to actually enjoy the change.

  We played with the cars for a while, zooming them around the whole living room while Zach narrated the action excitedly. Normally, I’d be making up funny commentary of my own to add to his, but tonight, I just couldn’t get into the game. Finally, Leanne poked her head into the living room and told the kids to go wash up. They darted off, and I started to follow them. But Matt caught my wrist before I could go.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked, his eyes searching my face.

  I tried that fake smile again, but it felt brittle. “Sure,” I told him. But when I saw the way his eyebrows knit together, I sighed, knowing I needed to come clean about everything. It would probably make me feel better to confide in someone, anyway. “Daniel and I had a fight. And I don’t need you to tell me that you told me so, but I guess he just wasn’t the guy I thought he was.”

  Matt shook his head. “I would never say I told you so over something like that,” he said gravely. “What do you mean, though? What happened?”

  “I made a mistake at work,” I finally confessed. “When I was standing in for him as CEO, during the trial. It doesn’t matter what it was. I don’t really want to talk about it. But anyway, I made a mistake.”

  “What did Daniel say?” Matt growled, and I could hear the protective edge to his voice.

  “It wasn’t so much what he said.” I sighed. “It was more just that he yelled at me. I already felt stupid enough about making such a rookie mistake and overstepping my role. But then to have him yell at me on top of that, I don’t know. I knew that I wasn’t ready to take over for him as CEO, even temporarily, and I guess the only way that I had convinced myself that it would be okay was because I told myself he would cut me some slack. But then he didn’t.”

  “That’s such bullshit,” Matt said, shaking his head.

  I shook my own head. “I don’t know if it is,” I said. “That’s sort of the way that things happen in the business world, Matt. It has to be. Mistakes in business can cost a company tons of money, or employees.”

  “I’m sorry, but if you’re tel
ling me that Daniel favors his company over you, then he’s more of an asshole than I thought,” Matt said succinctly. He paused and then shook his head. “But to be honest, I just don’t see that. I’ve seen the way the guy looks at you. And the way he talks about you, as well as to you. The guy’s head over heels for you.”

  I shrugged. “So what?” I asked unhappily. “I should just give him a free pass to yell at me whenever he wants to?” I shook my head. “It just seems like there’s a pattern there. Punching Gerrard at the bar, yelling at me now. I don’t know what else he’s done; the internet has a thousand stories, but I’m just not sure he’s the kind of guy I really want to be with.”

  Matt was frowning, but I could practically see the gears turning in his head as he carefully selected his next words. “This trial couldn’t have been easy for Daniel,” he said finally. “I’m not sure that yelling at you is establishing any sort of pattern of anger; I’d say that it’s probably more that he’s been under a lot of pressure between the trial and work, then unhappy with the way that things went. And he lashed out at you. It’s not fair at all, but sometimes, people can’t help it.”

  “I’m surprised to hear you defend him,” I told Matt. Because even though he and Leanne had come around to Daniel at the hospital, thanks to how helpful he had made himself during that hard time, I still had sort of expected both Matt and Leanne to say good riddance when they found out about the fight.

  Matt shrugged at me. “Abby, I can tell how happy he makes you. And like I said, it’s easy to see that he adores you. I’m not saying that the guy is perfect or that you’re wrong. I’m just saying that if you haven’t already talked to the guy again since you had your fight—and I know you well enough to know that you probably haven’t—you should at least give him a chance to explain himself.” He grinned at me. “I’m sure you know exactly how many stupid things I’ve said to Leanne over the years. We’ve had our fights.”

  “I know,” I said. The two of them were good about not coming to me during their fights, realizing how awkward it would be for me to be caught in the middle of the two of them. But Leanne had told me about a few of them afterward, when their tempers had both cooled off a little. I knew how much work it took to maintain a relationship.

  Wasn’t that something I had reminded Daniel of, once upon a time when we were first starting this thing? That the relationship would be work and that we were going to have to put in some effort to try to make things okay between us? Maybe I really was just running scared.

  My phone rang, as though I had summoned his call with my thoughts. I glanced down at it. Daniel again.

  I knew that Matt was right, that I needed to talk to him and at least hear what he had to say. If he wanted to fire me, then so be it. But maybe he just really wanted to apologize. If so, it wasn’t fair for me to continue ignoring him.

  I thought back to that text message he had already sent me, in which he had already apologized. Suddenly, I felt horribly guilty, knowing that I should have called him back sooner, no matter my myriad reasons for not doing so. They were all just excuses. I was so afraid of falling for the wrong guy again that as soon as I had an excuse, I ran.

  “Is that him?” Matt asked.

  I nodded. Then, I sighed. “You’re right,” I allowed. “I need to talk to him. To at least give him a chance to say whatever it is that he wants to say. Then I can make my decisions from there.”

  Matt nodded approvingly. “If you want some privacy, the kids are probably already at the table, and I’ll join them and let Leanne know what’s up.”

  I shook my head, knowing that I was chickening out again but unable to help it. “Nah, let’s just have dinner,” I said. “I don’t want to disrupt the whole night. But I’ll call him back later.”

  “If you’re sure,” Matt said, nodding at me.

  We headed into the kitchen and found that Leanne had already gotten the kids started on their dinner of chicken nuggets and mac ’n’ cheese, plus plated out food for the grown-ups. “Everything okay?” she asked, giving her husband a worried and quizzical look.

  “I’m fine,” Matt told her gently, squeezing her shoulder as he passed her to sit in his normal seat. I realized she must have been worried about him, thinking that maybe it was something to do with his injuries. Instead, it was just my drama all over again.

  I was hating how much drama there was in my life, ever since I started dating Daniel. But suddenly, I realized that I was the cause of at least as much of that drama as Daniel was. After all, I had been the one to break things off with him the first time, and I had been the one who refused to even talk to him this weekend, all because we’d had a little fight.

  And as I looked around the table at Matt and Leanne, as I listened to Zach and Layla tell me all about their week at school and everything else that they had gotten up to, I realized suddenly that I wanted this. All of it, the whole package. I had never really thought that I might want children. Or rather, I had been sure that I would never find a man that I wanted children with.

  Daniel might have his faults, but I knew, deep down, that in spite of everything, he was a great guy. Not perfect, but not some terrible asshole with anger management issues either. I had only seen him raise his voice twice, once at the bar with Gerrard and once toward me. That really wasn’t all that much in the scheme of things. Not only that, but Erin had seemed sure that Gerrard deserved a good punch to the face, and maybe she was right.

  Maybe I had never given Daniel a chance to tell me his side of the story. Maybe I had been in the wrong all along.

  I could still picture a future with Daniel. More easily than I could picture a future without him. I could see him and I together at the dinner table, could see him laughing as the children complained about the broccoli on their plates. We’d fall asleep together every night, and in the morning, he would get the coffee and breakfast going while I got the kids ready for school.

  It definitely felt like it was too soon to be having these sorts of thoughts about Daniel. But then again, when I thought back to all the changes that had happened since I had started working for McGregor Enterprises, it felt as though I had known Daniel a lot better than I really could. And maybe it was just that I was used to reading people in business, but I really felt like I knew Daniel.

  Better than the tabloids ever could. Better than that jury had, for sure.

  I winced when I thought about the jury. Daniel had been on trial for two days, listening to people who believed he was a terrible person, and when he had come home to me, clearly needing some assurance that he wasn’t, I had run away. I felt terrible about that now.

  I’d call him immediately after dinner, I vowed. Right after dinner.

  Chapter 15

  Daniel

  I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT to do. I had gotten it in my head, after talking to Austin, that I would talk to Abby before work tomorrow morning. With it in my head, it was even more difficult to stomach the silence from her. I had to apologize to her. I had to make sure she knew what she meant to me. How much I appreciated her work around the office. She hadn’t had to step in for me as CEO, but she had done so. And she had done a damned good job of it, I was sure, the whole thing with Duncan aside.

  I never should have yelled at her. And I never should have let it go this long without apologizing to her, even though it was sort of her fault for not answering her phone.

  She still wasn’t answering her phone, and when I went by her apartment, she didn’t answer the door. I stood out there for a moment, indecision in every part of my body.

  Maybe she was over at Matt and Leanne’s house. It would make sense for her to go there if she was upset. It was about dinnertime right now, and I knew she and her brother and best friend had dinner together regularly.

  Even if she wasn’t there, maybe I could ask Matt for advice. I felt kind of weird going to him for advice since I knew that neither he nor Leanne had really been happy with me dating Abby to begin with. But if anyone knew Abby well enoug
h to give me advice, it was Matt. And right now, I could use all the advice I could get.

  I wasn’t ready to lose her from my life; I didn’t think I would ever be ready to lose her from my life. But with the way she was ignoring me right now, not even bothering to text me back and tell me that she never wanted to see me again or anything else, I couldn’t help but feel worried. Maybe she wouldn’t show up to work tomorrow. Maybe I would never see or hear from her again.

  I couldn’t handle that. I needed Matt’s advice, if that was what she planned to do.

  I had been to dinner once at Matt and Leanne’s house, and it didn’t take long for me to drive over there again. When I pulled in the driveway, I sighed with relief to see Abby’s car parked outside. I had made the right decision, then.

  I hoped so, anyway. I hoped she wouldn’t be mad at me for just showing up like this.

  I swallowed hard, drumming my fingers against the edge of the steering wheel for a moment, further indecision coursing through my body. Maybe I should just leave it for later. Let her have the evening she had planned with her brother and his family. I didn’t want to intrude. I didn’t want to cause any more drama in her life.

  But at the same time, could it wait until later? Tomorrow morning, Abby was theoretically supposed to come to work at McGregor Enterprises, just like usual. And I’d be back at work after the trial with Gerrard. There was no way for the two of us to avoid seeing each other. And if she wasn’t planning on being there, in light of the fight that she and I had, I deserved to know that before she just didn’t show up. Or called in sick, or whatever she might be tempted to do.

  Because then I would have to call her back, and this rejection wasn’t something I wanted to handle over the phone. We owed it to each other, and to ourselves, to have this conversation face-to-face, like adults.

  I took a final deep breath and got out of the car, then walked briskly toward the front door. I knocked softly, aware of the fact that the kids were probably there at the dinner table with them. If the door was going to get slammed in my face, I didn’t want them to get suspicious. I didn’t want to cause any more pain than I had to.