Page 6 of The Billionaire's Lover (Second Chance Romance 3)

Chapter 6

(Dawson)

My heart told me to run to Selah’s apartment and sweep her off her feet, beg her to come back. My mind, on the other hand, told me that plan had not worked out so well before and would likely not work out again.

I sat outside her apartment building the day after I sent the roses and waited to see her. I was undecided about my next course of action, but I knew I had to at least see her. I had filled out one of those tiny cards to go with the flowers that said, simply, “Call me”. My phone number was on the card, but she had not. It was possible that she still wanted nothing to do with me. It was also possible that she just needed some time to come around—it had been a good long while since we’d last spoken. It was probably a shock to her seeing my name and number on a bouquet of flowers.

Several hours passed and as I began to feel more like a stalker than a man in love, I drove back to the hotel and paced, distraught that she obviously didn’t intend to contact me.

I flew back to Chicago the next day, all the old pain and hurt feelings surfacing again. I fought to keep them manageable. There was a way to get her back, I just had to figure it out.

Three weeks later, the answer came as I was looking over property for sale in Corpus Christi. It had started out as a way to keep an eye on what Selah was doing down there and turned into an obsession. I had come to the decision that I would buy some property down there and move close to her. That way I could shower her with gifts, dine at Gilly’s Gladhouse, maybe even start up a branch of my electronics business down there.

Those plans changed when I saw that her seaside property had been put back on the market. I called the realtor to validate that it was indeed the same property. It was. After a few short moments of chatting her up, the realtor chuckled.

“Well, I’m not supposed to say anything about clients’ reasons, but this girl just bit off more than she could chew. She doesn’t have a hope in hell of ever building a restaurant there with her finances. She spent her last dime buying the property.” She laughed again. “I expected her to put it back on the market much sooner actually.”

“Well, thank you, Angela, for all your help. I doubt you’ll have that property on your hands much longer.” I thought she was a real bitch for talking about Selah behind her back, but I was also glad she had. Now I knew why Selah had put the property back on the market.

And, I knew exactly how to win her heart.

I called up my financial department, set an impromptu meeting for that evening, and went home. There were papers that I had to retrieve. Selah’s plans for her restaurant, to be exact. The ones she had drawn so painstakingly while she still lived in Chicago. She had left them at my home, and I still had them. They were in the same drawer as the ring of keys.

At the end of the meeting, with my financial department shaking their heads, I had put into motion the best plan I could manage. The property would belong to me by the end of the week. By the end of the next week, construction would begin. But the business was not going to be in my name, nor was the property—they were to be signed over to Selah upon completion, which meant the first two years of financial backing would also be covered. In cash.

The next set of keys I would give her would be to the restaurant of her dreams.

How could any man hold on to her heart when I was giving her the thing she had dreamed of for so long?

---