by Lee Heaven
Copyright © 2013 by Lee Heaven
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Not recommended for children under the age of 18 due to strong ‘Authentic Jersey’ language, sexually language and intense scenes.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover art done by: Dawné Dominique
Editing done by: Collen McSpirit
Dedication
To Ely,
To this day I love you. Our time was short, but I love you just as much today as the day I lost you all those years ago.
“I know that's what people say-- you'll get over it. I'd say it, too. But I know it's not true. Oh, you’ll be happy again, never fear. But you won't forget. Every time you fall in love it will be because something in the man reminds you of him.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Note From the Author
Playlist
Prologue
I swear to God if one more of these women throw themselves at me during an interview, I’m going to flip out. It’s not like I’m not used to it. It’s not like it doesn’t happen on a daily basis, but I mean come on really where is your self pride? You’re in an interview for a potential job and you’re going to put the moves on the person who is hiring you. What kind of work ethic is that?
I look across the table at my lawyers, Zane Summers and Jason Gandy. I can tell they’re just as annoyed with these women as I am. “How many more do we have to go?” I asked with a sigh.
“Just one more today and two tomorrow,” Zane said looking at the sheet of paper in front of him.
“I think I’m about to give up and just take my mom up on her offer to move in here. She’ll annoy me to death but it might be easier.”
Both Jason and Zane start laughing. They know my mom is a mother hen and will fuss and worry over every little thing. She has been staying with me to help out since I got the cast on three weeks ago. But I just can’t take it anymore, she is driving me crazy. I just don’t need that and that’s why I have been in search of an aide to help take care of me.
However, finding an aide to help me and doesn’t want to screw me is becoming a harder task than originally thought. I’ve interviewed nearly two hundred people from New York to Florida, where I also have a house, and no matter who walked in the door as soon as they saw me they turn into a giggly high pitched flirty girl. You know the ones most men bring home from the bar for a night of sex and then never call again. The type a normal girl would never act like and would want to smack herself if she ever did.
“Decker, we have about twenty minutes till the next one gets here, is there anything you need?” Zane asked walking toward the kitchen.
I hate to say this, but this cast takes up my whole leg and makes it impossible to do anything on my own. “Tell my mom to stop fussing over the clean counters for the twentieth time today and let her know I need to use the bathroom.”
Jason snickered besides me and I shot him a look. He quickly pulled his face together and hid his amusement, although not too good. I know he is going to laugh and joke with Zane as soon as I am out of the room. That’s what I get for making the play of the century and landing on my leg breaking it in three spots.
Just as Mom got me settled back at the table the doorbell rang. Looking at the list I see I’m about to meet Sarah Starr. Great, I can tell by the name this one is going to be like the rest. She’s just going to giggle and flirt her way through, hoping to score points with the big studly baseball player. Bet she’ll even ask to take a picture with me so she can post it on her Facebook page with a caption of something along the line of “Hey all you bitches look who I met today. Aren’t you like totally jealous!” Bet there will be like a million exclamation marks and hearts too.
As Zane enters the room with Ms. Starr my head automatically snaps up from the paper I’m reading. She smells of vanilla and it has taken over my senses. Zane completes the introductions and she isn’t giggling like a school girl; in fact, the woman was barely looking at me. I think I may have just found my aide, as long as she doesn’t turn all giggly and throw herself at me. She has a small shy smile on her lips and kept her face down.
Come on, baby, lift that head up and show me what you look like. Show me what beauty you are keeping from me. Holy crap that thought just came out of nowhere. I quickly scan her from head to toe. She has a white button down dress shirt and a black skirt on, they look to be good quality but aren’t expensive, probably purchased at Kohl’s. The black knee high boots look to be old, they defiantly aren’t designer. However she does have a Coach bag, a rather expensive one, wonder if it’s real or a knock off. If it’s real where did she get the money for that?
Ms. Starr is short, I’m guessing five feet two inches at the most. She has a few extra pounds on her but it doesn’t distract from her beauty, rather it shows off curves no woman should have because they are just that sexy. I find myself rather attracted to her, even though I’ve barely seen her face.
Zane pulled a chair out for her. She sat at my right side, as I sat at the head of the table. Then he took his seat to my left next to Jason, across from her so they were looking at each other. She slowly lifted her head so I could see her face.
“Hi, Ms. Starr, I’m Decker. It’s nice to meet you,” I said trying to get her to interact with me. She was killing me, I wanted to see her entire face, but she was obviously shy and was hiding herself.
She finally looked up at me and my breath froze. She was absolutely beautiful. She had a round face, full lips, cheeks that I just wanted to run my thumb across, a perfect nose, and the most gorgeous blue eyes I have ever seen. Something in me skipped a beat as I took in her eyes and saw a world of sadness and pain in them.
I knew the moment she really looked at me as she broke out in a blush and her shy smile turned just a little bigger showing off a dimple on each cheek. I wanted to kiss those dimples so bad. I wanted to take away whatever pain and sadness that had caused those blue eyes not to sparkle any more. I want to make this woman mine and protect her for the rest of our lives. I want to love this woman like no one else has. Fuck, there are those thoughts again.
“It’s nice to meet you to, Mr. Jensen,” Sarah said in a small voice.
I held her gaze for a few minutes without a word being said, till she blushed again and looked away. She faced Zane and Jason. I caught a smile on both their faces before they locked in their serious faces. I knew they were both thinking the same as I was— she was perfect for the job. Hopefully they weren’t thinking the other thoughts that I had.
During the whole interview Sarah stared at the painting I had hanging on the wall. Not even sure what was so exciting about it. I bought it from a street vendor so it’s not like it was by
anyone famous she would know. She made eye contact every now and again. I couldn’t even tell if she knew who I was. I had my mind made up the second she walked in the room, but I had to go through the formality of an interview.
After all the questions, answers, and formalities, I stuck my arm out to shake her hand. I needed to touch her skin. I wanted to know what she felt like. She stuck her small hand into mine and I tightened my grip. She looked up into my eyes and I stared back into her blue eyes. They reminded me of an ocean, so blue and full of waves of torment. I held onto her without breaking our contact. After what seemed like an hour, but I’m sure was only a minute, she blushed, looked down and pulled her hand from mine.
“It was nice meeting you, Mr. Jensen. Thank you for the opportunity to interview with you,” she said as she stood up.
“It was my pleasure. I will be making my decision tomorrow. I will call and let you know either way,” I said and noticed how she blushed when I said I would call her.
Upon returning from walking Sarah out, Jason raised an eyebrow at me. He looked at Zane and then both looked at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Come on. What was that? You never took you eyes off her, even when she wasn’t looking at you,” Zane said.
“She wasn’t all giggly like the rest. Hell, I don’t even know if she realized who I was. But most of all there’s something about her. There’s something that drew me to her before she even said a word.”
“I think someone is smitten with little Ms. Starr,” Jason said.
“Well, she was pretty cute. I could see why,” Zane said in return.
I don’t know why, but I shot him a dirty look. He started laughing. The thought of someone else noticing what I saw in that woman made me want to strangle them.
“She’s perfect for the job either way, even though she has no experience. She’s been a stay at home mom for the past seven years, but I think she could do the job,” Jason said.
Stay at home mom. Fuck! Does that mean she’s married? I didn’t notice a ring. In fact the only jewelry she had on was a small silver necklace. Why did I notice that? So that means what a boyfriend? Single?
“I think she was lovely and exactly what you need,” my mother said suddenly from the kitchen doorway.
“Mom, were you spying?”
“Offer her the job and cancel the other two interviews tomorrow. You know they’re just going to be like all the other women,” she said before she went back into the kitchen.
Jason, Zane, and I looked at each other for a minute. When they both raised an eyebrow at me I nodded. “I’ll call her in the morning and tell her she can start Monday. Cancel the other two.”
For the rest of the day I was thinking of her haunting blue eyes and that shy smile. I wondered what secrets she held and why her eyes showed such sadness. I reached for my phone three or four dozen times to call her, but always stopped myself not wanting to seem to over anxious. I’ll hold out until morning.
~~~
It’s been six days since I interviewed Sarah. Five days since I offered her the job and she accepted, with a small giggle that I’m sure I wasn’t supposed to hear. Today starts her third day of work and I couldn’t wait for her to get here. I continued to look for an aide to help out during the night and weekends, until then mom was still spending them with me in case I needed help, but I always look forward to the mornings when I knew Sarah would be walking in my door around seven-thirty in the morning.
She’s a wonderful cook and if she keeps cooking the way she does by the time I’m able to get around on my own I’m going to have to lose thirty pounds I put on eating what she cooks. I love having her around even if we are just sitting on the couch reading a book or listening to her in the kitchen whistling as she cooks something.
Mom had gotten me out of bed this morning and situated me on the couch. She had gone back to her bedroom to take a shower and get ready to leave for her day of errands. I was flipping through the morning news when I heard the front door open then close and the rustling of fabric as she removed her coat.
“Ms. Starr, I’m on the couch all ready,” I called. I hated calling her Ms. Starr I wanted to use her real name. I wanted to call her baby. I wanted to call her— “What the…what’s the matter? Why are you crying?” The sight of tears rolling down her cheeks and her red rimmed eyes angered me.
Who ever made her cry like this was a complete asshole. Why do I assume it was a person, what if it was something? Well then that something is going to pay for making her cry like this. God damn it, I can’t even get up and go to her.
She stood there staring at me trying so hard to get her crying under control, but it wasn’t working and if she bit that lip any harder she was going to pierce it. I waved my arm at her silently telling her to sit next to me. She hesitated for a moment before she slowly made her way over.
Mom came out of her bedroom and took one look at Sarah and eyed me up and down with a silent plea for me to fix it before waving and making her way out the door. As the door clicked closed Sarah lowered her head into my lap and her body shook with sobs of crying.
My heart stopped beating. No, it couldn’t be, could it? I was head over heels in love...
Chapter 1
Nothing in all my life has shocked me as much as this moment. Here I sit in a bubble bath in a tub huge enough for five people. My head phones, connected to the iPod lying on the floor, are in my ears cranked up to eardrum-bursting level playing Rob Zombie’s Living Dead Girl and a cooling mask rested on my eyes. Bliss and peace have surrounded me for a few minutes.
With the music so loud, I didn’t hear the door open and close or the movement around me. It wasn’t until the movement of the water I rip off the eye mask. There sitting across from me in this huge tub was my boss. My mouth hung open and all I could do was stare as he sat across from me. Naked, wet, muscled and smelling like some very expensive cologne from Armani. This was every girl’s fantasy to be sitting in a bathtub with the hot shortstop from the New York Yankees. But it wasn’t any girl sitting here it was me, plain old Sarah Starr.
His feet touching mine, his toes playing a little dance with the pads of my feet. Such minimal contact, but oh so freaking hot. Oh thank God I’m sitting down because my knees so would have given out.
He was speaking but I couldn’t hear anything. I sat there wondering why I couldn’t hear him. Why! His arm reached out and grabbed the ear buds, yanking them out, and tossing them to the floor. My mind racing in a million different directions trying to form a full thought or sentence or just something besides the look of shock I know that was on my face.
“Hi,” he said.
What just hi nothing more. Geez what the hell is going on?
“Hi,” I finally was able to say back in a very squeaky voice.
Oh fuck, I just embarrassed the shit out of myself with that stupid voice!
“Hope you don’t mind,” he said waving his arm at himself sitting in the tub.
I just kept staring. Oh please form a sentence my subconscious was screaming at my brain. Still nothing came out of my mouth. I’m sure there was an utter look of shock sitting on my face. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen him naked. In fact, over the past sixteen weeks just about every day I saw him naked when I helped him change his clothes or sponged bathed him. But that was my job, this was completely different. This was more personal.
Up until yesterday when the cast was removed, I have taken care of this man in almost every way possible as his left leg sat in a cast that went from his toes to almost his hip. His leg was broken in three spots and had him just about immobile as one can get. I’ve cleaned this man’s house, clothes, hell, his own body. None of that affected me in the slightest but that was different, that was work. Something I can easily disconnect my brain and emotions from. This was something all together personal and damn freaking hot.
I finally connected with my brain again and suddenly realized I was naked. He had never seen me naked. Hell
, he had never seen me in anything but jeans and a T-shirt or sweat shirt. I never even removed my socks when I was with him. I quickly grabbed a towel from the shelf above my head and sank it into the water to cover myself.
“Why’d you do that?” he asked as a confused look flitted across his beautiful face.
What am I suppose to say? That I hate my body, have since I was seventeen. That my own body image was very negative and just looking in the mirror would send me into tears.
“Scared of your reaction.” Shit where the hell did that come from? I have never said that to any man. In fact, I try not to get naked in front of them for that reason.
“Why would you be scared of my reaction?” That confused look still on his face with a little mixture of hurt like I was thinking he was a monster or something.
Only the opposite was running through my head. Hell, I’ve had a crush on this guy for years and dreamed about the things he could do to me in the bedroom. It had been one of those big star-little girl from nowhere fantasies. Never in my wildest dream did I ever think I would ever meet this man, much less work for him and become friends.
“Most men don’t react the way they should to my body. I’ve had guys laugh and walk away disgusted.” What the fuck, shut up brain stop speaking.
“Why?” His confused look now turning to something I couldn’t quite describe but I could see what I believed to be pity mixed in there.
Now what am I suppose to say. Do I really want to give him my life story now? I have two weeks left on this job then I can move on and forget about how every day I get to live every girl’s fantasy and see the hot, sexy, drop dead gorgeous Decker Jensen.
Hell, I knew this man’s life already. But who didn’t? When you play for the New York Yankees and are a bachelor it’s only normal to be splashed all over the news and tabloids. To have every bit of info of your life out there for people to read scares the crap out of me, but when you’re famous or dating someone famous that’s what happens. But I’m not dating Decker, I’m just an employee.
