Destiny_A Billionaire Second Chance Romance Read online

  Destiny

  A billionaire second chance romance

  Scarlet Ellis

  Copyright © 2018 by Scarlet Ellis

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  To DJ.

  You were always my destiny.

  Destiny

  How would you feel if your first love suddenly came back into your life with an offer you can’t refuse - even if you wanted to?

  Gavin Wolfe is heir to the Wolfe family banking billions, but he’s a disgrace to his family. He’s sent to small-town Greenwick as punishment for his wild antics, but when he runs into the girl he let slip through his fingers at college, he see’s an opportunity to win her back and be the man he was always meant to be.

  Rosie Hanes loves her florist shop, but times are hard, and she doesn’t know how much longer she can keep the doors to her business open. Filled with guilt because she promised her parents when she took over the shop that it’d be in good hands, time is running out and she needs help.

  Gavin offers Rosie a way out, a fake relationship to buy both of them some time, and in return, he’ll help turn her business around.

  Rosie is reluctant to accept his help but feels like she has no choice. She makes it very clear that it will be nothing more than a business arrangement,.

  But can Rosie keep her feelings in check and keep denying how she really feels? And most importantly will Gavin ever be able to tell Rosie why he really walked out on her eight years ago?

  Scarlet writes beautifully romantic stories with lust and steam. and never any cheating. A HEA is guaranteed every time.

  To keep up to date with Scarlet’s news and new releases, you can sign up to her bi-weekly newsletter HERE

  1

  Rosie

  “Thank you, Mrs. Copeland. I hope to see you again next week.”

  I finish wrapping one of my most loyal customers’ weekly purchase of six yellow roses in layers of luxurious pink tissue paper and finally, I tie them with pretty patterned ribbon before handing the bunch to her.

  “Of course you will Rosie. It’s always nice to be able to get personal service here, Not like the terrible service at the supermart on the way out of town. They don’t take care of their flowers at all. They always die within a few days without fail.” Mrs. Copeland followed this with tut of annoyance before a disappointed shaking of her head.

  I smile back at Mrs. Copeland and nodded meekly in agreement before she turned on her heel and left the shop. The little bell above the door tinkled gently as the door closed behind her.

  I look around at my little florist shop and I sigh a little. I love this place more than anything in the world.

  When I was a child, I loved flowers of all kinds, but I particularly loved the scented blooms. My parents must have known because they named me Rosie. Our house always had climbing roses covering the walls of our house, and every summer their sweet scent would fill my bedroom with their wonderful perfume.

  So It’s probably no coincidence that I love flowers so much, or that I ended up being named after a flower since my parents started this place when my mom was pregnant with me. ‘Paradise Blooms’ was their other baby and my parents ran this place until they retired a few years ago.

  My beautiful little shop is in a sleepy little town called ‘Greenwick’ on Main Street. We have a thriving community, but it’s hard to be a local business around here when you are competing with the big grocery store chains just out of town. People like convenience, they like to be able to do a one-stop shop, and so Main Street is a lot quieter these days, which is really bad for business.

  Paradise Blooms sits in between the local baker and an artisan chocolate shop and we each fill the air daily with the glorious scents wafting from our shops. My shop has metal buckets of flowers outside my front windows in a vain attempt to try and tempt the passers-by into impulse purchases.

  Inside the shop, I have every type of flower anyone could wish for in displays of all different heights around the floor and walls. There is barely a space free of flower or foliage, and it’s my real happy place. Anyone who comes into my shop for the first time always remarks on what a beautiful space it is, and it is, even if I might be a bit biased in that opinion.

  I pride myself on being able to guide even the most hopeless of husbands trying to buy their wives flowers into putting together the most beautiful bouquet of flowers. I even help them to write the card to go with the bouquet. I want my customers to keep coming back and value the personal service I offer. It’s the kind of service you can’t get from big faceless stores.

  The shop phone rings suddenly and disturbs my thoughts.

  “Good Morning. Paradise Blooms.” I say brightly.

  “Hello darling, it’s your mother.”

  “Oh hi mom, How are you?”

  “I’m good thank you, darling. I just thought I’d catch up with you. I’m always out and about these days, I don’t honestly know how I ever found time to work!”

  I smile. I love that my parents are enjoying their retirement. They have a real spring in their step again these days. They’ve been taking trips together, my dad has taken up golf, and my mother has more time to be involved in community events again.

  It made absolute sense that I should take over the family business after I finished college and moved back into town. I helped my parents out in this place after school and on weekends while I was growing up. Who better to take over than me? I know this shop better than anyone.

  I feel guilty because I haven’t been seeing my parents as much lately. I’ve been so wrapped up in this place that I barely notice the days going by. Mondays rapidly turn into Fridays and before I know it another week has gone.

  “So Rosie, any news for me?” My mother asks.

  I roll my eyes. I love my mom, but I know what this means. It’s code for ‘Is there a guy on the scene yet?’

  “No mom, no news, I don’t have time to meet people. You of all people should know how much work this place takes!”

  “Yes dear, I do. But I also don’t want life to pass you by. I don’t want you to be working so hard that you have no time for love.”

  She’s right of course. I can’t deny that I get lonely sometimes. I don’t date much except for the occasional cringing blind dates my girlfriends set me up on that go nowhere. I also wasn’t being untruthful with my mother, I really don’t have time to date since I work all hours in this place.

  “And anyway Rosie, the shop is in great hands. I was only saying to your father the other day how pleased I am that you could take things over.”

  I sigh, I can’t put this off any longer. It’s time to do the right thing.

  “Hey mom, why don’t you and dad come over for dinner next Friday evening, it’d be lovely to catch up, and I can give you my undivided attention. I promise!” I offer.

  “Oh, we would love to honey” my mom replies slightly over the top enthusiastically.

  “Sorry mom, gotta go, a customer just came in," I say quickly before putting the phone down.

  No customer had come in, and I feel an immediate pang of guilt in the pit of my stomach. I hate lying to my parents, but I don’t want to admit to them just how bad things are here.

  I stare down at my shop counter and the pile of paperwork I haven’t had the heart to go through in detail yet. I do know one thing though, they are all bills. I never imagined that keeping this place going would be so difficult. Sin
ce the downturn in the economy and that big out of town grocery store opened last year, trade has really dried up.

  I pick up the pile of papers, let out a little sigh and place them on the shelf under the counter in an attempt to put them out of sight and therefore out of my mind. I place my palms flat on the counter and look around my customer-less shop. I can’t bear to think of the possibility that the business is in such a bad shape that I could lose this place.

  I can’t ask my parents for help because I can’t admit to them just how bad things are, and I already feel like a giant failure. The fact that my mother thinks this business is still thriving just makes matters worse really.

  I suck in my breath as if to summon all of my resolve. “Rosie, you need a plan," I say out loud to myself. I refuse to give in without a fight, and I’m determined to turn this place around. I’ll do whatever it takes to not lose the family business and I hope that my parents never have to find out just how bad things have got around here.

  2

  Gavin

  I open the door to my father's grand office located on the 40th floor of the building that houses our family business - Wolfe Banking Group. I am a third generation Wolfe, following in my father and grandfathers footsteps.

  I am greeted by the sight of my father sitting down with his back to me and looking out towards the grand view that is Boston’s skyline. He’s on the phone barking orders, probably at some hapless junior executive. He is a force to be reckoned with, and I’ve seen people literally shake with nerves when they have to deliver news to him that they know he won’t want to hear. He swivels his chair around without pausing his conversation and motions for me to sit down before rotating his chair back round to continue his tirade of angry words.

  My father was always an intimidating character. I learned from an early age to never question him and always listen to the lessons he wanted to give me about business. I can’t deny that being born into such a wealthy family isn’t without its perks and I can have whatever or whoever I want, girls practically throw their panties at me.

  I’m one of the most eligible bachelors in this city and that isn’t without its perks if you know what I mean. I lap up the attention I get from women hungry for me when I'm are out. But I have no doubt that is precisely why I have been summoned to my father's office today, perhaps I might have been a little too high profile in my antics lately.

  The shouting from my father ends abruptly, and he swivels his chair back round to me. There is a large antique mahogany wooden desk separating us, and given the fierce look in my father's eyes, I feel quite glad for it.

  “Gavin, do you know why I’ve called you in here today?” He asked. His eyes meet mine and doesn’t let up the searching look. I could guess, but I don’t want to admit it.

  My father reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out a pile of newspapers and magazines before slamming them angrily down onto his desk, and then meeting my gaze again. He is used to beating people into verbal submission in business life, but I know that it would screw with him if I said nothing and made him be the one to have to respond. I can see him clenching his fists and instantly know that I’m in for a bad time. He’s angrier than I’ve seen him for a long time.

  “Gavin, since you seem to have so conveniently forgotten I will tell you why you are here.”

  I shift uncomfortably in my chair. My father and I have never got on particularly well, he’s an unemotional man and even when I was a child, I knew better than to cross him.

  The best strategy to deal with my father was to just do what was expected, and my life would be easier. For me, going into the family business was inevitable. I don’t ever remember it being a choice, it was just expected and happened by default.

  My father often liked to make people think they had options, but the reality was that he always had the upper hand. His extreme wealth and power trumped any card anyone else had, including me.

  “Gavin, these newspapers, and magazines all have pictures of your various exploits around this city. I am disappointed to see that they mostly seem to have pictures of you falling out of nightclubs at 3am with no doubt loose women.” my father starts spreading out the papers before holding various articles up to show me one by one as if I hadn’t already seen them. “Gavin, this is a disgrace, you don’t seem to understand that you are a Wolfe. You are dragging our family name into your scandalous behaviour, and I won’t have it anymore. I won’t let you drag our family name through the mud for a moment longer.”

  Oh I understood I was a part of the old money Wolfe family alright, he never lets me forget it, and that’s why I party hard.

  I drink to forget, I have meaningless sex with models whose names I never bother to learn because I don’t have to. People know who I am, they know I am wealthy and powerful in my own right. If I learned one thing from my father, it’s how to get what I want and who I want. What they don’t understand is that I am at my father's beck and call, and I have little choice about that. My life is shallow and the women I date are shallow. It’s all a front to hide my real feelings.

  My father abruptly sweeps up all of the papers he has spread over his desk into one pile. He looks at me and pauses for what seems like an age before he says anything and when he does, it is preceded with a heavy sigh before rubbing his forehead.

  “Gavin, we’ve had these kinds of talks before and despite that that your behavior hasn’t improved. You seem disinterested in towing the line, and so I feel the time has come for me to put my foot down, and to force this issue.”

  “Father…I…” I don’t know what my protest is going to be, but it doesn’t matter because my father interrupts me immediately before waving off any planned plea on my part. I’m a grown man, I actually have no desire to plead my case in any case.

  “No Gavin, I’m not interested in whatever you have to say. You’ve gone too far this time, there is nothing that will change my mind. You are in line to inherit a billion dollar company, but sometimes It’s like that doesn’t matter to you at all.”

  I look at my father hard in the face. He is looking at me intently back, each of us trying to read the other. The disappointing thing was that in some ways I was more like my father than I care to acknowledge, but in others, we are nothing alike. He is capable of making cold-hearted decisions and has no regard for emotions or feelings. I get no special treatment for being his son and if anything he is far harder on me than he was anyone else.

  I might feel like the odd one out in my family, the one with the least killer instinct, but I am no victim, I can hold my own against my father when I want or need to. It’s just that most of the time, I have no desire to even try.

  “Well, I’ve spoken to the board Gavin, and I’ve decided that it would be best for you to go back to grassroots level banking. I don’t know if you are too spoiled here in Boston, or if you truly have no regard for the Wolfe name but I think it would do you some good to go and head up one of our local branches. From Monday next week, I’m sending you to Greenwick which is about an hour outside Boston. I feel it’s sufficiently far enough away to keep you out of trouble for a while,”

  “Greenwick?” I reply

  “Yes, Greenwick.” My father replies with irritation at having to repeat himself.

  “And let me tell you now Gavin, this isn’t a choice. I’m telling you that this is what is happening and if you choose to not accept my offer, then I need to tell you that you will be cut off from this family financially. You will be fired and disinherited.”

  “What?” Is all I can muster. I’m in shock. My father knows the way to get anyone is through money. It’s the way he most enjoys controlling people.

  “Shall I take that as your acceptance then Gavin?” My father responds. He knows I have no choice. He knows that he has won and that he has beaten me in this particular round of negotiation.

  I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking he has an effect on me, so I just agree.

  “Fine. I’ll go and pack
now then shall I?” I shrug it off casually in a way that I know will infuriate him and with that, I get up and leave the office without further words exchanged.

  3

  Rosie

  I turn the ‘Open’ sign on the shop door over to show ‘Closed’. I’m closing two hours early today, I hate to miss out on trade, but something has to give. At this point it’s actually costing me money to stay open, so it’s not such a big deal. I grab my bag from under the counter and head out of the shop door locking it behind me.

  I’ve made the decision that I need some financial injection into the business. I don’t see how the shop can survive otherwise and if I don’t at least try I doubt I can survive the rest of the year, maybe not even the next 6 months.

  When I get to the bank's entrance door, I smooth down my pencil skirt and take a deep breath, and hold my head up high before confidently pushing the door open. Banks always seem so faceless and intimidating to me. I wouldn’t be here unless I literally had no other choice and so I join the short queue.

  “Next!” The teller eventually shouts. I realize that’s me.

  I walk up to the tellers' window and hand her my bank card so she can pull up my checking account. I smile nervously at the teller as she pulls up my details.

  “Hello Ms. Hanes.” the teller finally says after what appears to be careful scrutiny of my account followed by raised eyebrows.

  “What can we do for you today?”

  I detect a patronizing tone in her voice and fight myself to stay polite all the same. I need the banks’ help and biting my tongue takes all my restraint right now.