“Joel’s the only one who’s married,” he said.
I glanced at my ten-year-old, who nodded. I smiled back at her. I hoped she would never have the kind of problems I’d had.
Then Arman slowed his car. “Well, it’s good to stay in touch. Here we are.”
And he stopped in front of our yellow colonial. It was exactly how I remembered it. Chips in the stucco had grown, and several roof tiles needed replacing. My mother, Catherine, had never once agreed with me on anything, but she was all I had left, and she hadn’t forgotten I existed.
I got out of the car, and Aurora followed. Once Arman had taken our bags out of his back seat, I took them from him. “Well, this is us. Thanks for the ride.”
Arman said, “Look, if you want to meet up and maybe grab some dinner later, I’ll buy.”
I pressed back the urge to touch him. “Maybe. Look, I’ll call you.”
He winked as he stepped back. “Glad you’re here again, Maddie.”
“Thanks.” I felt more than thankful. The sweet way he’d said my name washed through me.
Arman had seen something in me, and his nearness had awakened a part of my soul that had been dead. As he returned to his car, my heart thrashed. Once upon a time, I’d left him at my father’s demand, and my world had shattered after that. I was worried I’d made another mistake.
My mother opened the door, hugged Aurora, and directed her to the kitchen table, where a chicken dinner was set. She took a deep breath as she stared at Arman’s car, which was still on the street.
Right. We are here again. I closed my eyes and let my heart settle. Until I had a means of paying for anything and finding a job, we had to stay with my mother. She might have agreed with everything my father had ever said, but at least she hadn’t pushed.
I watched Arman’s car drive down the street. I’d made a mistake by letting him go again. But wanting to be with him was a silly wish from a long-ago summer.
My mother took my bag. “Were you just talking to one of the princes of Persia out there?” It was a horrible old nickname for Arman and his family that my father had started. He’d used it as a dividing line between us and them.
I followed her into my old room. “Our car broke down. He found us on the side of the road and gave us a ride.”
She glanced across her house. My daughter was out of sight. “Just because he was nice enough to give you a ride doesn’t mean you should start consorting with his kind. You’re a married woman.”
The words of my father. Unlike me, my mother had never questioned anything she’d been told. My father had never been violent, but he’d taken privileges from us. However, his beliefs didn’t fit with mine. I didn’t think God divided us into groups with separate rooms in heaven and only picked certain people. It was our actions that counted.
I opened the door to my old room, which hadn’t ever been changed since I left. My cheerleader outfit still hung on the wall hook. “Kind? Because of his religion? Or just because he’s rich?”
“Both. God doesn’t let his sheep sleep with the lions.”
Again, she sounded like my father. He’d died two years before, but she hadn’t become enlightened since then. I gripped her arm to thank for her kindness in letting us in but told her my truth. “Mom, we’re only here temporarily until I figure out where Aurora and I can go and until I can afford a divorce. Don’t start, okay?”
She went to the door. “You can start by going to the house of the Lord and asking forgiveness for your sins.”
Or maybe I won’t go to Reverend Jerry, who agreed with everything my father said and pushed me to marry Bob. I only said, “Right. Maybe later.”
I put my suitcase in the closet and took out my ancient, cracked cell phone and Arman’s card.
His life was so different from this. Maybe if I saw him again, after a shower, I would realize he had some faults I’d never noticed. I’d get over the what-if fantasy if I saw just one horrible fault.
My heart stirred at the plan. I shouldn’t tempt fate, but I typed out a message to him: Drinks sound great. Meet you at seven.
Dots appeared, and I smiled and waited. I’d never texted anyone except my daughter. Then I read his answer: I’ll pick you up.
I tensed. I hadn’t caused my mother more drama, but she would likely kick us out if I got together with Arman. But he was the first boy I’d ever kissed, and he’d never been far from my mind.
I typed: No. I’ll meet you there. Don’t be late.
Once, I’d been a girl like my daughter, and her independent spirit clearly guided me that day. Sure, it was my time to protect her and find a new way for us to live, but I needed a clue for that. Now that her father was out of the picture, I needed to show her I could guide us both to a better life than we could have imagined. Or at least, I hoped so.
So I decided to go see Arman and watch intently to find faults and quash that fantasy so I could focus entirely on my life and what I needed to do.
Chapter Two
Arman
I stood at the bar and waited, though I’d already procured a table for us. I wasn’t interested in a drink, really. My skin had the pins-and-needles feeling I’d had as a teenage boy, waiting for her like I had on the beaches that summer.
As the doors flung open and Madeleine stepped into the restaurant, my successful life disappeared, and I was young and free. I held up my hand and waved to her.
Her brilliant smile was a beacon of hope. I went to meet her, and the second I brushed against her skin to greet her, my heart pounded. The most cultured Manhattanite lacked her natural attractiveness.
I directed her away from the crowd to get her to myself. “You look lovely.”
She stayed next to me, and her natural rosy scent tickled my nostrils like a dream. “I showered, and I feel better.”
That was another thing that made her unique. Most women I’d known took hours to get ready. I walked her to the back of the restaurant, where there were only a few people cheering about a game on TV. “I got us a table.” Once we arrived at the corner, I held her chair for her, and she sat. “I was happy you texted.” I slid into the seat next to her.
“Thanks. I needed to… breathe.”
Not what I’d expected, but then, something was clearly wrong with her. I took the wine menus from the server, who then left us. “Glad I can help with that while we catch up, Maddie.”
She jumped back in her chair. “No one calls me Maddie anymore.”
I placed my hand on top of hers and met her gaze. “I apologize, Madeleine.”
She reached up and brushed my face like we were still kids. “Oh, no. I like hearing you say it. It makes me feel a little like the girl I once was.”
I didn’t let go of her right away. “So I can call you Maddie?” She made me nervous but also made me feel alive.
She laughed. “Yes. Please do.” The shower really must have helped her, because she dazzled.
The server returned, and I let Maddie go as I asked her, “What do you want to drink?”
She sucked on her bottom lip and stared at the wine list. “Wine. Preferably a white.”
Half the menu filled that demand, so I asked, “Any particular bottle?”
Her face turned red. “I don’t know the brands. And I’m more interested in how all your eleven brothers turned out.”
Maddie probably didn’t order wine with every meal as every other woman I’d dated did. Maddie had haunted my thoughts for years—not that she knew that. I picked the best pinot grigio on the menu, and the server left. My attention was on Maddie’s smile.
I was happy too. “I haven’t heard anything about you in years. Where have you been? Are you married? You have a daughter but no ring.”
Her shoulders slumped, and she nodded and met my gaze. “Nothing exciting about Montana.”
That was not a state I went to often. And I was sure from her expression that something bad had happened there. It was just a hunch, but the lines on her forehead that appeared
in that split second hadn’t seemed natural. But I was probably just making up a story.
“You went from New York to Montana?”
Her cheeks pinkened. “Virgin Cove is not what people think when they hear New York.”
Something about her gaze and the light in her eyes seemed to need me. Maybe I was making it up out of desire, but I was there if she needed help. My mother and father had always taken care of me, and I would help Maddie now. The server brought the wine and poured our glasses.
I waited till she was done and then said to Maddie, “Fair enough, but it’s hard to imagine you were that far from me. I’m mostly in Manhattan or LA when I need to be. So, what brought you back?”
She shook her head and picked up her glass of wine. “Let’s talk about your brothers now, as you promised.” She sipped it and stared at me, looking interested.
“You gave me nothing about you.”
“I insist.”
I sped through the news about my brothers, and it still took longer than I wanted. “Hmm. Joel is my newly married partner. Cyrus is a heart surgeon now. Elon’s an ob-gyn. Warren started his own trading company. Gerard started his own petroleum company. Kir is like my dad was and became a financial investor. Charles was the rebel and became a pilot. Jeff is the family lawyer. Roman and Xerses started a tech company together. And Adrian’s still in college.”
She laughed and put her glass down. “So everyone’s financially successful with brilliant futures, or they will be.”
“We were, luckily, set up for success.” I hoped that didn’t sound privileged, but she knew I’d never been poor.
She intrigued me. I sipped my wine and remembered her sweet kisses that summer like they’d just happened. The server came, and we ordered. I picked the cod as that was always a good fish, but she only ordered a burger.
Once we were alone, I clinked glasses with her as she grew quiet. “Now, it’s your turn. What happened?”
She sipped her wine and closed her eyes. The lines on her face grew deeper, and my heart sped up. I wished I had the power to erase whatever pain she had.
Then she met my gaze. “Two days ago, I hit the road. My husband has a new girlfriend and a new victim of his anger. I want a divorce and to not have to run.” She brushed her cheek, and I peered closer. Under her makeup, there was a trace of a bruise. “And I have no place to live, no job. I used my last few pennies to get here, and I’m probably dreaming that all will somehow be okay.”
My heart ached for her. Her pain was palpable. I brushed against her hand. “I’d like to help.”
She finished her glass and shook her head. “No. I have my mother. I don’t need a handout.”
Pride often stopped people. I poured her the second glass and changed tactics. “Look, I need an assistant who can handle my never-ending schedule and help me coordinate events.”
The food came, and she waited till we were alone and then asked, “So you’re offering me a job?”
I would do anything to keep her smiling and happy. And I’d never had an assistant stick around for too long. I didn’t trust the ones I hired enough to train them fully, and the better ones all ended up quitting on me. Maddie was perfect. I’d always trusted her.
I cut my food. “I’d need you to take my calls, arrange my schedule, run events—which is your specialty—and ensure that everything I need to do in a day is organized. I’m hard to please, my HR manager said, but I pay well.”
She stared at her plate like it was a lifeline. I didn’t want to cause her pain, so I waited. Then she asked, “You’re serious?”
I sipped my wine to clear my palate. “Fuck yeah. You’re not scared to talk to me, which already gives you an advantage over the last few assistants, who couldn’t handle the job.”
She cut her burger in half and grinned like she’d just found a present from Santa. “So, you’re a demanding boss.”
Maybe not entirely with you. She’d accepted my help, and this way, we would stay in touch. And when she was ready, she would tell me more.
I tasted my food, which was perfectly cooked. “The job would come with a place to stay that’s close to me and in the right school zones.”
The second I said that, I felt my face heat. I hadn’t meant to push. The information had slipped out. We ate in silence. But my shoulders felt stronger, like I could handle whatever problems she threw at me.
As we finished, she sipped her wine and then said, “Maybe I should say no to the job. I don’t want to take your charity.”
Right. I said too much. The truth was, I was drawn to her. “It’s not charity. I’ll take a lot of your time, so the place is a perk of the job. The markets in other countries means I need you at strange hours. And you’ll be able to save some of your paycheck if you’re good at budgeting.”
She twisted her glass, then she sipped her wine and took a deep breath. “Let me think about it. I didn’t meet you tonight so you could give me a job. I haven’t decided what we’re going to do yet or even slept really. I just thought it would be nice to catch up.”
At work, I was the boss and solved all problems. I was sure I could figure out her problems, too, but I would need her permission and her trust. So I changed directions. Since we’d talked about my family, I asked about hers. Her father had died two years before, and she hadn’t come home. I’d looked for her when I was on the island the weekend of her father’s funeral.
I sipped my wine. “Your dad wouldn’t want you working for me.”
“That doesn’t matter.” She sat straighter. “He died two years ago.”
My family was my support system. I put my glass down. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost mine.”
She wiped her face and said simply, “Yeah, well, your family is not a lot like mine.”
That was true, but she was all I’d wanted at one point. I whispered like we were sharing a secret no one else should hear, “No, but when we were kids, I wanted us to find a way to work out. I missed you that summer when I was eighteen and alone here.”
“With your family, you were never alone.” She held up her glass. I did the same, and we clinked them. “If I’d been here, maybe my life would have been very different, but let’s just be thankful we had this evening.”
“Fair enough. I’m with the only woman who ever dared to tell me no.”
Her eyes widened, but she finished her sip. “That can’t be true.”
Actually, it was. I handed my platinum card to the server, who then left. “It is. Money usually makes people agree to anything.”
She tilted her head like she agreed and finished her glass. “We all need it.”
The last thing she needed to do was lie to herself. I finished my own glass and shook my head. “No, we don’t. It’s a tool, but it’s not the reason to do anything.”
“Tool, right.” She threw her head back and laughed. “You sound like a rich boy. Thank you for meeting me tonight, but I should get home.”
And once again, she hadn’t given me permission to fix her life. The waitress returned with my card. I signed and then walked out with Maddie. “I’ll pop over tomorrow, and we’ll talk about the job again. You can read over the contract via email.”
She sucked in her lips, but then she texted me her email and headed toward the black truck that her mother usually drove to the garden. She turned and waved. “Good night.”
Most women I had drinks with offered to warm my bed, but that wasn’t Maddie. She was a lady. I had no idea what I needed to do to get her to trust me, but I had to figure out how to prove myself to her. For some reason, she made the world nicer to live in when I was around her. And I knew it was wrong, as she was married, but I wanted to find out if she still tasted like she had when I was a boy.
Chapter Three
Maddie
All morning, my mother gave me chores she needed done. I was not in the mood to help her carry boxes, as the bruises on my belly still stung, but I hopped from the spare bedroom to the attic or t
o clean the oven, doing what she asked me to do. I was staying in her house and had no place else to be, so in my book, it was a good day. I had yet to dodge a fist, and as of yet, Bob hadn’t found us. Maybe he never would.
I went from project to chore in a distracted, haphazard fashion. It seemed I couldn’t complete anything. My mind raced, and focus seemed something I’d lost along the way even though I wasn’t living in constant state of fear and I wasn’t facing a constant threat.
My mind went to Arman, and I checked my email every five minutes. He was a hero, and while he was stronger than Bob, he would never hurt me. I knew that. I wanted to be near him, but I wasn’t sure it was a good idea.
Perhaps it was the wine we’d had that had made him mention a job. Or maybe it was his sympathy for me. I wasn’t sure. All I knew was I’d watched Arman closely and waited for one, just one, flaw to surface that would annoy me. Sure, he’d been confident—a quality that oozed off him—and privileged. But I’d seen nothing truly horrible.
The clock read ten thirty in the morning, and I still hadn’t received the promised email. Maybe his flaw was that he made promises when he was out and then hedged on them later. Sweet lies were easy on the body but hard on the soul.
I wiped my eyes and mopped the hallway, deciding to finish this small job. As I put my phone down, it beeped. I picked it up again, and this time, on the cracked screen, his name popped up.
He was a sweetheart, and my soul was lighter. My heart raced as I opened it and read the contract. Six figures. I dropped the mop, and it thudded on the floor, but I kept reading.
Executive assistant meant, basically, I did whatever he needed, from filing to typing to scheduling events. I could handle this, as it mostly meant keeping Arman on a tight schedule, though his belief that I could create meetings for him seemed misplaced. That required a different life skill.
I heard footsteps in the distance. If we’d been back in Montana, that sound would have made me shrink in fear, wondering what I hadn’t done to my husband’s satisfaction. As I blinked, I saw my sweet Aurora and her long blond hair standing in front of me with her arms crossed.
Honey Bun: Virgin Cove Trillionaire Single Brothers Page 2
