Ways in the Guardian: A Menage Romance Book Collection

by Barbara Downey

  THE END

  See the next bonus story at the next page!

  20 of 25 Bonus Stories

  The Billionaire’s Forgotten Past

  Evan was beginning to feel caged and there was no explanation for it. He’d traveled the world and tried every kind of food known to man, even the really odd stuff like deep-fried insects covered in chocolate. He’d seen most of the wonders of the world and slept his way through nearly every fashion model on every continent. Life was becoming tedious and no amount of thrill seeking would shift the feeling.

  He had taken to walking the streets and parks, enjoying the fresh city air, or what passed as fresh air. It was autumn, and the leaves had turned red and yellow, scattering the sidewalk with a multitude of autumn tones. It was beautiful, particularly in his neighborhood, but there was something missing. He watched the couples hand in hand or arm in arm and, for the first time, he craved someone. Models made great plus ones but when it came to conversation, he hadn’t found one that had kept his interest for long.

  The trouble was that with his family gone he’d lost his roots and the stability that he’d created when his empire took off wasn’t something you could snuggle up to. He missed his grandmother’s home cooking and his mother’s cuddles. His grandmother was the last to go and, with her, all the grounding influence. He felt alone in his sky-high suite with all his gold, gadgets, and designer everything. He also felt hollow.

  His walks were taking him to increasingly darker places and when he ended up on the edge of the neighborhood where he’d grown up he felt a pang of nostalgia. The place was a dump. There was graffiti and litter on the streets and homes were tightly packed with rusty chain fences. The shops were dull and dirty rather than sparkling and welcoming. Many were boarded up.

  When he passed the school that he had gone to as a small boy he saw the same scruffy kids and the tired mothers waiting at the gate. His mother had worn the same look and she’d died before he had managed to create a successful business. She had died poor and been buried poor. He had upgraded her gravestone but she never got to see her son do well or benefit from his success.

  Several days in a row he skirted the border of the place that he’d called home his entire childhood and he’d unconsciously begun to dress more suitably for the walks. He’d left his Rolex on the kitchen counter and opted for less obvious labels. He didn’t like the way people judged him in the poor areas; it made him feel dirty, somehow, and he wasn’t used to that. He had spent the last few years feeling proud of his accomplishments and to have someone look him over and then turn away with a sneer was alien to him. There had been a time when he’d had the same reaction for the opposite reasons and now he was back walking the streets of his early life with a nostalgic viewpoint. He was obviously going through a glitch in his life.

  When he saw a group of people lining up outside the church hall, the same church hall that he had spent every Sunday morning in as a child, he was curious as to what they were waiting for. As he got closer, he could smell the scent of warm bread and the cozy glow in the windows drew him in along with everyone else.

  “Well, I know you didn’t come for soup?” a loud voice rang out.

  He flinched, feeling like a trespasser who had been caught red handed, and turned to the sharp voice. He was surprised to find that it belonged to a woman who couldn’t have topped the five-foot marker. She had her hands on her hips and a whole mountain of voluptuous braided hair swung from her head and across her shoulders. Her dark skin was accented with cherry lipstick that drew his eyes to her pretty, full lips.

  “Well, don’t just stand there. You’re blocking the entrance. You want soup you can line up; if not you can wash up and grab an apron,” she said shooing him off.

  He entered the warm yellow painted room that was both familiar to him and looked different, maybe smaller. A man motioned for Evan to join him and he followed into a smaller room. It was strangely comforting to have people, strangers at that, telling him what to do. He decided that it couldn’t hurt to see where the night was going.

  “Hang your coat here,” the man said handing him a stiff apron. “I’m Stu by the way.”

  “I’m Evan,” he replied and pulled the apron over his head.

  “Tonight, Evan, I need you to wipe tables when they get dirty, retrieve the used bowls and bring them back here. When they pile up, I’m gonna need you to wash up. But first of all, you can hand out the rolls,” Stu said, leading him to several trays full of freshly baked rolls.

  Evan’s stomach rumbled because the rolls brought back the smell of his grandmother’s kitchen. As he handed them to the shabbily dressed people that filtered through the door he remembered the afternoons when he’d sit in his grandmother’s kitchen discussing his day with her and, later on, his aspirations. She’d always encouraged him and he had trusted her opinion. He was pretty sure that without her input he wouldn’t have made the brilliant decisions that led to his first million.

  He also watched the dainty woman with the big hair but she ignored him. She was quick on her feet and firm with the customers. She reminded him of someone but he couldn’t figure out who. She was nothing like the women he surrounded himself with these days. Her cheeks weren’t angular, they were plump and dimpled; her cleavage was covered with a plain wooly jumper, and her feet were encased in flat boots that looked warm and snug. She was dressed for practicality but she wasn’t dowdy.

  “Dream on, buddy,” Stu said snickering.

  *****

  When Evan stood in the doorway to her soup kitchen she nearly fell down with shock. The last time she’d seen him he’d been packing to live on the other side of town and she had been crying in the apartment opposite. His parents had died in quick succession, leaving him to live just a few miles away at his grandmother’s house which shouldn’t have been far enough to keep them apart, yet somehow it had. She had lost her friend and now that friend stood before her with no clue as to who she was.

  He wasn’t dressed like her usual patrons so she figured he wanted to give back to the community and nodded her head to Stu. She concentrated on handing out the soup. It had been her mother’s recipe and her mother’s venture but just as they’d managed to get the funding she had passed away. Scarlett would continue her mother’s work and give the homeless and poor people in her neighborhood some comfort. She had branched out since the initial venture, adding a clothing bank and a child care facility for single parents who had trouble finding affordable childcare while they worked.

  Evan looked as handsome as ever but the years had given him a polished edge that suited him. The sad look on his face wasn’t a new addition, though; she had seen that look when he’d packed to leave the apartment he’d shared with his parents for ten years. It bothered her that he still looked sad. Scarlett wondered what he’d been doing since he’d left. She also wondered why he’d never contacted her. She could understand his lack of recognition; she’d grown her hair, found some boobs and life had shown her a few hardships that she hadn’t thought possible.

  He had barely spoken to anyone since he arrived and she sure as hell wasn’t going to remind him of their friendship. She put all of her concentration into what she was doing and pushed him to the back of her mind. She didn’t need a blast from the past complicating her already complicated life. She definitely didn’t need his shiny blond hair bringing memories back of who she was back then.

  “Scarlett, I’m going to need to get off early tonight,” Stu said, jolting her out of her thoughts.

  “No worries, Stu,” she said. “I’ve got this.”

  “Actually, the new guy said he’d stay but I don’t know,” Stu said scratching his wavy hair. “We don’t know him.”

  “I do,” she replied quietly.

  “Oh right. That’s cool,” Stu said smiling once more. “I’m gonna take off then.”

  “Okay,” she said, waving him off.

  She didn’t know how much Evan had changed but she didn’t have him down as
dangerous and she could handle herself. She’d taken plenty of self-defense courses over the years and she was developing a taste for hitting men when they tried to lay hands on her. Evan didn’t worry her. Even if he had changed, she knew him well enough to know he didn’t have an ounce of violence in him.

  Stu had shown him where everything went and he was busy stacking clean dried plates when she finally emptied the hall. He’d rolled his sleeves up and looked a damn sight better than he had when he walked in. There was a hint of peace across his features, features that looked familiar yet different in an alarming way. He was more attractive than anyone had the right to be under the fluorescent lights and she felt self-conscious in her soup-splashed jumper and bare face.

  “Is it always that busy?” Evan asked.

  “This was a quiet night,” she replied.

  “Wow, how often do you open?”

  “Every night,” she said yawning. “People are always hungry Evan.”

  “Do you work here every night?”

  “It’s volunteer work but I am the coordinator so I’m here at least four nights a week,” she said, switching the lights off.

  Evan followed her out and waited while she locked the main door. She often had to lock up on her own but it was her neighborhood and she rarely felt threatened. However, tonight Evan was giving her goosebumps and not because she was scared. She wanted to send him home and tell him not to come back but part of her wanted to know why he hadn’t come until now.

  “See you tomorrow at six thirty, if you really want to help,” she said before getting into her car.

  She drove away, forcing herself not to look in her mirrors to catch the last glimpse of him. It had hurt her when he left and it had hurt her for months after when she didn’t see him. It had hurt when she finally accepted that he wasn’t coming back, not even for a visit. Now, he was hurting her all over again by reappearing as if by magic and the thing that stung her most was the fact that he obviously didn’t recognize her.

  “What a shithead,” she grumbled.

  When she stepped into her little house just a few blocks away the warmth was welcoming. Scarlett dumped her coat and bag by the door and hurried to the room with the night light on. Her little girl was tucked up with her favorite teddy; she leaned down to kiss her forehead.

  “She went to sleep just fine,” Sylvia said, grabbing her coat from the hook.

  “You’re a star, as always,” Scarlett replied.

  “No honey, that’s all you. You make this neighborhood worth living in. You make it a place to be proud of,” Sylvia said before closing the door behind her.

  Sylvia wasn’t just Scarlett’s babysitter and neighbor, she was her biggest help and her strength. If Sylvia hadn’t been taking care of Darla, she would never have been able to take on the soup kitchen and a day job. Her life was busy but at least she knew she had the best care for her daughter. Scarlett ran a shallow bath and did her best not to fall asleep in it; she had to get up for work in the veterinarian’s office in a few hours.

  *****

  Evan was physically exhausted by the time he reached his penthouse. The unusual act of being on his feet for hours, combined with leaning over a large sink and making small talk with people who were very different to him, had completely worn him out. He showered and went to bed but sleep didn’t come. Instead, he lay with the evening's events washing over him. Scarlett’s face as she gave her time and energy to the hungry patrons, the familiar hall filled to the brim with people that had fallen on hard times, and Stu’s words ‘dream on.’

  It all brought back feelings that he’d locked up tight for years. His parents’ deaths and the move to his grandmother’s place and then her death. He had lost so much and no matter what anyone said about the passing of time making it easier, in actuality it did no such thing. He was still raw inside, and he still felt that gnawing desire for his loved ones like a hunger in his belly. Tears came and this time he let them take over, sobbing loudly into his pillow where no one could hear him. Of course, there was no one to hear him because he was alone.

  ****

  Evan’s head felt clear the next day but he canceled his busy schedule, opting for a day of indulgence instead. When he’d moved in with his grandmother, he’d taken her name, Mandelson, leaving his father’s name to die out with him. It hadn’t been his decision, but it had been fine at the time and he hadn’t felt bad. Now, his money was tied to his grandmother’s last name, but he wanted to use his father’s name, Collier, for something important, something that would honor him. He just didn’t know what, yet.

  “Hey, you want to take me to lunch?” Grace said and he could hear that she was already out somewhere spending money.

  “I’m busy today,” he replied, holding the phone away from his ear.

  “Your secretary told me you were free,” she said and he could hear the snotty tone she reserved for times when she wasn’t getting her way.

  “I’ll catch up with you in a few days, Grace,” he said and hung up before she could whine.

  Grace was beautiful and wore clothes that made her body look like a piece of art but she was tied to the world of fashion and he was bored with fashion. He was bored in general, except he hadn’t been bored when he’d served soup to the people in the church hall. He had been nervous at first and then something else but he couldn’t quite put words to it.

  Instead of having a leisurely lunch at one of the many fine restaurants in the city that knew him well he drove out to his grandmother’s little house. He still owned it and, for some reason, he hadn’t wanted to sell it. He had a cleaner in once a month along with a gardener to cut the grass but other than that it was pretty much as he’d left it when she died.

  When he pulled up outside, he wondered why he hadn’t had someone replace the fence which was falling apart. Then there was the peeling paintwork, which revealed that the wood beneath had not fared well in the elements. When he opened the door, he found the interior was clean, tidy and kind of cozy in a faded, almost shabby-chic way. His grandmother’s crocheted blanket was draped over the couch and the thin floral rug was faded but it gave the room a lived-in feel even though it hadn’t been lived in for over ten years.

  His bedroom was still the same. His bed was made and the covers were thin and washed out but his posters were still clinging to the walls with what looked like chewing gum but must have once been sticky tack. There were school and college textbooks lined up on a bookshelf, along with some keepsakes. A snow globe, a deck of cards, a magazine, and a photo album were all lined up. He couldn’t bring himself to touch any of it because it all felt so raw from the previous night of remembering.

  He left the car and walked to the end of the block where the row of shops were still clinging to some kind of existence. He bought a sandwich from the deli and ignored the stares from people who could tell he was out of his comfort zone. His Italian leather shoes stood out and his jacket looked like it was worth more than most residents’ vehicles. He couldn’t remember when he’d stopped caring what things cost but it had been a long time since he’d had a reminder that not everyone wanted their noses rubbed in his opulence.

  “Evan Collier, is that really you?” a throaty voice said.

  He turned to find an old man sitting on a step that he was about to walk past. The man was ancient or at least he looked that way. Evan had no idea who the man was, but he was now standing up to greet him. Evan allowed the man to take his hand and shook it with less pressure than normal just in case he broke the thin skin that covered the bony hand.

  “Good to see you again,” the man rasped. “I was thinking about your parents the other week. Your mother was an exceptional woman, God rest her soul.”

  “Thank you,” Evan replied, still racking his brain for information.

  “I gave up the laundry business a couple of years back, arthritis,” he continued.

  The pieces clicked together. The old man had been his mother’s boss at the launderette where she had wor
ked for several years. He could remember sitting on a bench reading books while his mother took in laundry. It had been the most boring part of his childhood and it was no wonder he’d forgotten it but those precious moments he’d had beside his mother had all pretty much remained hidden. He’d forgotten so much.

  He excused himself and walked back to his grandmother’s house. He called his secretary and told her to get the maintenance company that his corporation used to take care of the house. He wanted the outside to look as immaculate as his grandmother had kept it but he had no clue what to do with the interior. It was the last of his childhood and he had a feeling that he still needed it.

  *****

  Scarlett had spent the whole day thinking about Evan Collier. She wondered what he was doing with his life and what had suddenly brought him back. The veterinary office hadn’t been busy which had given her mind time to wander. She had avoided men with blond hair since he had left all those years ago but she couldn’t help but want to run her hands through it.

  Her late husband had been her high school boyfriend but she would never use the word sweetheart. He’d been tall dark and handsome but had also had a fiery temper and plenty of muscle to back that up. He’d hit her twice before she broke his hand on her mother’s hand-me-down skillet pan. He had packed his bags and gone straight to his bit on the side.

  Scarlett had concealed her pregnancy for as long as she could and then taken out a restraining order but the fool picked a fight with the wrong man and ended up six feet under. Lucky for her, she was still his beneficiary, and it had given her and her daughter the start they needed.

  When Scarlett picked Darla up from school that afternoon she was already a bag of nerves. She didn’t know if Evan would turn up at the soup kitchen but if he did, she wanted to look her best. She rushed home, bribing her daughter with some TV time and then spent an hour going through her wardrobe. By the time she’d pulled on a pair of black leggings and a long, sparkly pink sweater she was feeling annoyed with herself.