Professor Bryant's Second Chance

Chapter Five

Dylan



“Just f*****g do it! What is so hard to understand about this process? You simply make the phone call and transfer it over to me!” I slammed the phone down onto its receiver, more than aggravated with my lovely assistant.

I wouldn’t say that I’m usually an asshole, but the window here was small. Since I’ve talked to my therapist, I’ve called every radio station to try and get this done. Of course, I had to agree to do some lame-ass interview about everything that has transpired since I’ve yet to come through with a statement. Every radio show wanted to be the first to interview me, knowing the publicity would do great for their ratings.

However, my lovely assistant couldn’t seem to manage to direct calls the way I needed them directed. Who gave a s**t about a talk show host guaranteeing me that she could hook me up if I agreed to do the interview with her instead? This wasn’t about me. I wanted to do all this for Riley. My chance would slip away if I didn’t get it done soon. She would get to go on a vacation, but one that I hadn’t planned. That wasn’t going to work.

It was shitty of me to do this. I know that Riley would be pissed once she saw me on this vacation, but honestly, I didn’t f*****g care. I wanted her too bad to care. Being around her once in the past few months was enough to make me go to extreme lengths just to get her to hear my side of things.

Carly buzzed my phone again. This time, her voice was weak and full of emotion. Great! I’ve made her cry. “Mr. Knight is on the phone for you, sir. He says that he has a Nora on the other line right this minute, trying to win tickets. He would like to speak with you.”

I didn’t have time to apologize right now. If Nora was on the line, I needed to get this quick. “Mr. Knight,” I answered. “It’s been brought to my attention that Nora is on the line with you.”

“That’s right, and I heard that you are offering a full one-on-one interview for the first time since this whole mess blew over to the one that can make the impossible happen. What are we talking here? Fifteen minutes? Thirty?”

“Ten.”

He smirked, audible even over the phone. Arrogant prick. “I don’t do favors like these for a lousy ten minutes. You make it an hour interview, and I will make this happen, whatever it is that you want.”

An hour stuck alone in a studio, discussing every detail of my life with Riley didn’t seem appealing. I wanted everything that we shared to be between us. Still, I also knew that if I didn’t agree to this, I could kiss my chances goodbye at seeing Riley again. At least Mr. Knight was offering a reasonable time. I’d assume he would be like all the other radio hosts and want multiple sessions.

“Fine. An hour it is.”

“Great. Hold on just a minute for me while I play this off.”

He put me on hold, but I couldn’t help but turn on his new station in the hopes of hearing Riley’s voice. I was pathetic, but I’d take what I could get. Sure enough, I heard her small voice in the background. I couldn’t hear what she said, but I assumed that she was second-guessing something, whatever it was.

“You are correct!” I heard Mr. Knight say with too much enthusiasm. After telling them the next steps, he popped back on the line with me. “Okay. The foot is in the door. What do you need?”

“I’m looking to surprise her. Your radio station offers getaways as prizes all the time. Tell them they have won an all-paid expense to Bora Bora for everyone.”

He cackled as if I were joking. “I’m not paying for that. That is outrageous. We offer trips around here that are fairly cheap to us. You can’t expect me to give them tickets to Bora Bora, more than two tickets at that. Also, my fans would be blowing me up, thinking they would get the same opportunity. Hell no. Can’t do it.”

I rolled my eyes. “You wouldn’t be paying, obviously. I’ll wire you the money to make it seem like your radio station paid for everything. I need four tickets. Think of the attention your radio station will get from this. This is big-time exposure, and we both know it. That’s all that I need you to do. Stall them until I can get all the details worked out with my assistant. I’ll call you first thing in the morning with the details, and you can share that with them. I won’t take that away from you.”

When he gasped, I did another little eye roll. “Is this all for Riley Bell? The woman that you were sleeping with behind your wife’s back? Oh, this is getting too damn good!”

“Shut the hell up!” I snapped. “I wasn’t cheating on my wife, whom I am separated from. You will get your interview and a chance to ask all the juicy questions. Are you in or not?”

“You bet your sweet ass I am! Call me no later than seven in the morning with the details. If you can’t work it out before then, I’m out.”

When he hung up, a huge smile spread over my face. f**k. I might actually get to pull this off. All I had to do was get the rooms, determine how much time I’m going to pay for, try to bundle some activities for the women to do, and purchase everything for myself. Yeah, not a lot at all. Who was I kidding? This was going to be hell.

“Carly, please come into my office,” I buzzed her and hung up quickly.

I felt a little bad for snapping at her earlier, but the woman couldn’t take directions well at all. Eventually, I would have to get an assistant that was more capable of multi-tasking because she clearly couldn’t.

“Yes, sir?” She bit her lip, staring into my eyes.

I swear, for a second, just a quick flash, she reminded me of Riley. Every time I would run my fingers along her delicate skin, she would look at me that way.

“I’m sorry for snapping earlier. It’s been a long day. I know that your shift is almost over, but I need you to stay a little longer than usual today.”

Her face brightened, and I wasn’t sure why. That was until she shut my door and skipped over to me. Instantly, she straddled my lap, and her lips were on mine before I could stop her.

When I got over the initial shock of what she was doing, I grasped her arms and pulled her back. “Carly, what in the hell are you doing?”

“Well, you asked me to stay late. You never ask me to stay late. I thought that meant you finally noticed me. Don’t pretend that you don’t see me bending over right in front of you with my short little skirts on. I know for sure that you think about taking me against this desk of yours every time your eyes burn with fire.”

She ripped her shirt open, revealing that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Oh, my damn! I’ve never thought about Carly in that way, honestly. As sad as I was to say it, she didn’t do it for me. After Riley, no one else would.

“I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, Carly,” I said while putting her shirt back over her chest and moving her to sit on my desk instead while I stood up to get some space from her. “You are a sweet girl. I’m sure that any man would be lucky to have you, but my heart already belongs to someone else. It would be wrong of me to take advantage of you, knowing that I have no intention of taking it further. You deserve a man who is willing to put you first, and I can’t do that.”

Carly stared at me in disbelief. Don’t worry. She wasn’t the only one. It’s been over two months since I’ve last had s*x, and trust me when I say that I was taking notice. Even with that said, being with Carly would confuse her and lead her on, and I couldn’t do that. Also, I still belonged to Riley and always will. Being with any other woman besides her just felt like I was cheating.

Feeling thoroughly embarrassed, she hopped down from my desk and wrapped her arms around her shirt. “Mr. Bryant, I am so sorry! I was way out of line. Please don’t fire me!” When the tears started to fall, I became more uncomfortable than I was when she was halfway naked.

“Shh. It’s okay. You aren’t fired. However, I would like to keep that strictly between us. I was going to ask you for a small favor, but you deserve the rest of the day. Go on, and I will see you tomorrow.”

Carly couldn’t get out of that room fast enough. I couldn’t help but laugh as I sat back down on my desk. If this had been only a few months ago, I would have taken Carly up on her offer, knowing I would hurt her in the end.

When I first met Riley, I was drawn to her in a way that was sort of hard to explain. Even with my fixation on her, I had no interest in anything outside of a one-night stand. I thought if I had her once, I would be able to forget about her. How wrong was I? Riley made me feel things I searched my entire marriage to feel and never once did with Veronica. Riley was sweet and so innocent, but she turned into the queen of seduction with a bit of persuading. The time that she let me f**k her against my desk while on a phone call was one memory that I would never be able to forget.

I shook my head, trying desperately not to go there. It was already hard enough, no pun intended, without thinking about all the ways we used to be together. Hopefully, this little retreat would allow me to grow close to her again, at least long enough to tell her the truth.

Because I felt awkward asking Carly to do anything for me after what she did, I took it upon myself to call around and make reservations. To stay in the huts was an arm and a leg already. They didn’t have side-by-side huts. I wasn’t about to stay in a lousy one-bedroom, so instead of getting the cheaper huts, I decided to go with the larger huts on the other side of the island that was more spacious. These huts had your own private pool and sat directly on top of the ocean, spas, and top-notch restaurants. This was the only resort that would work. It just happened to be the most expensive one in any of the packages. Somehow, I didn’t mind. You couldn’t put a price on trying to win the love of your life back.

When it was all said and done, I paid for five round trip tickets, which was almost as much as the stay at the resort. I decided it may take longer than one week to get her to open up to me again, so I booked the huts for two weeks. I planned to leave first thing in the morning, ensuring that I was there before she arrived so that she didn’t suspect much. I had already transferred all the funds over to Mr. Knight and made sure that my driver took care of the rest.

Where else would be a more romantic spot to start our relationship over again? Damn, I couldn’t wait to see her again, as nervous as I was about it.