Sure enough, he was staring. With so much intensity it stole her breath.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“I...I have the strangest question,” he said, coming closer.
“Yes?” She braced herself for whatever it might be. A cleaning suggestion? A proposition? Maybe something as innocent as his favorite beer in the fridge? Guests could be strange. Not usually this drop-dead delicious, but strange.
He let out a self-conscious chuckle, shaking his head, a little color rising. Good heavens, was he nervous? Did this tall, dark, imposing master of the universe even know what insecurity was?
“Are you...” He angled his head, frowning hard, looking almost apologetic. “Are you Mandy Mitchell?”
Oh. Her knees buckled a little. Maybe with relief, maybe with that same shame that threatened her when Tori taunted with “senior adjectives” ripped from the pages of a yearbook.
“Not anymore,” she said softly, the weight of the bucket becoming too much at that moment. As she set it on the step, she nodded with resignation. “But, yes, I was. Do I know you?” Because, whoa and damn, how was it possible she didn’t remember meeting him?
“It is you.” He broke into a slow, glorious smile that was like someone had switched on a spotlight, blinding and white, that softened the sharp angles of his face and shadow of whiskers in hollow cheeks.
“Zeke Nicholas.” He took a few steps closer, reaching out his hand. “Mimosa High? Class of ’02?”
She’d gone to high school with this guy? And hadn’t dated him? Impossible. Without thinking, she lifted her free hand to his, getting another shock to the system when his fingers closed over hers, large and warm and strong and...tender. “I’m sorry...Zeke.” Zeke? She’d never met a man with that name.
“Don’t be sorry,” he said, reluctantly releasing her hand. “We didn’t exactly run in the same circles.”
And why the heck not? “Are you sure?”
He laughed, the rumble in his chest a little too hearty and sincere. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t remember...” Anyone or anything that looked like him. “A Zeke.”
“I went by my full name then.” He gave her the most endearing smile that reached right into her chest and twisted her heart. “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?”
“To help me out?”
He looked down for a split second, then back to her face, the gesture shockingly humble for a man who couldn’t be too familiar with humility. “Ezekiel Nicholas.”
Her jaw dropped as a memory snapped into place. “Ezekiel the Geekiel?” The second she said it, she gasped softly and lifted her hands to her mouth. “I’m sorry.” God, she was as bad as Tori throwing kids’ nicknames around.
“No, no.” He turned his hands up in surrender. “Guilty as charged by the dreaded senior adjectives.” Then he leaned a little closer and lowered his voice, his face close enough for her to count individual lashes. “Mandy the Magnificent.”
This time the words didn’t sound ugly, spiteful, or laden with jealousy. On his lips, the words were a sexy, sweet whisper of admiration that made every nerve in her body dance.
Ezekiel Nicholas. How was this possible? How had that nerdy, skinny, four-eyed freak who could do Einstein-level math but couldn’t make eye contact with a classmate turned into...a god?
“You’ve changed,” she managed.
“You haven’t.” There was a softness to the words that nearly did her in, especially coming as an echo to the ones that had haunted her on the way up here.
Honey girl, have you looked at yourself lately?
Certainly not the way he was looking at her right now. A slow flush rose up from her chest and probably gave her cheeks some much-needed color. “Yes, I have changed,” she said simply. “But clearly the years have been good to you.”
“You work here.” It was a statement of painful fact, but not the way he said it. “That’s great.” He actually sounded like he meant that, unlike others, who couldn’t hide their amusement at the irony of Mandy Mitchell’s fall from magnificent to maid. “Really, that’s great.”
“And you’re staying here,” she said after an uncomfortable few seconds passed. “With...your family?” He did say his mother was on the patio. Was there a Mrs. Nicholas? A Zeke Junior?
“I’m alone. My parents still live in the same house off Harbor Avenue, but I came back for a surprise party for my dad, so I decided to stay here.”
For a long, awkward beat, they looked at each other through completely different eyes than the ones that met five minutes ago. Now, they had a history—or at least a shared past.
“Yeah, wow, Mandy.” He shifted from one foot to the other, still kind of shaking his head like he couldn’t believe what he was looking at. And who could blame him? She was a maid. He was a guy who rented thousand-dollar-a-night villas when he came to his hometown.
“Well, I...” She gestured toward the stairs. “I better get to work.”
He gave her a slow smile, the kind that took long enough for a woman’s heart to rise to her throat and fall to her feet.
“I’ll be here for a week,” he said.
“Oh, really?” Great, she’d have to see him every damn day. Him in his custom shirt over granite muscles and she in her housekeeping uniform and mop.
“Yeah, I was able to combine this trip with some business on the mainland, so...”
So...what? She nodded, unsure if she could simply walk away. Not that he was magnetic or anything. It would have been rude. And, dang, he was magnetic.
“Any chance we can get together?” he asked.
Was he asking her on a date? “Oh, I don’t...” Date. Ever. Remember, Amanda? Ever. “I don’t know...”
His gaze dropped over her uniform, lingering on the lanyard hanging around her neck, zeroing in on her name. “Oh, of course, you work here. Sorry.” And no doubt her last name made him assume she was married.
“Yes, I work here,” she said, hoping that would be enough excuse and explanation.
“Ezekiel?” A woman’s voice interrupted Amanda, calling loudly from the patio. “I’ve got another one! Susan Fox confirmed for her and Jennifer. You remember Jennifer Fox, right? Really lovely and still single.” Her voice rose with the last word, and Zeke looked skyward with an eye roll of complete frustration.
“’Kay,” he called back. “Be right there.” He leaned on the newel of the banister. “My mother is on a mission.”
“Then you better go help her.”
He puffed out a breath. “She doesn’t need help, trust me. But...” He seemed entirely reluctant to move. “It’s nice to see you,” he finally said. “I always remembered you, Mandy.”
She couldn’t return the sentiment because, to be fair, she hadn’t thought about Ezekiel Nicholas since... No, she’d never actually given him a moment’s consideration. Ever. Until now, when she absolutely couldn’t and shouldn’t give him anything.
“I haven’t been Mandy Mitchell for a long, long time,” she said. That woman had died years ago, stomped out by a man not entirely unlike the one in front of her. “And, you know, judging from how I must have treated people in high school...” People like him. “That’s probably a good thing.”
His blue eyes widened in surprise. “How you treated people?”
“I was, you know, probably a little bit of an entitled bitch, but...” She made a self-deprecating gesture to her supplies. “What do they say? What goes around comes around?”
He gave her a look of sheer incredulity. “You weren’t a bitch. You were beautiful.”
The words nearly melted her. She opened her mouth to reply, but he lifted a hand and brushed his knuckles against her cheek. She almost shivered with the bolt of electricity that shot through her.
“Still are,” he said softly.
“Ezekiel!”
Her throat closed too much to even dream of saying a word as he walked away. Silently, she trudged up the stairs, a mop
in one hand, a bucket in the other, and the most unwanted longing pressing on her heart.
Ezekiel Nicholas was a dream, but he’d never be hers. She’d learned the hard way that dream men brought nightmares.
Chapter Two
It took Zeke a minute to force his teenage pathetic self back into the hole where he’d shoved him somewhere between MIT and Harvard Business School. He took slow steps to the open French doors, still processing what had just happened.
Since Zeke had been living in New York and amassing his wealth through hedge funds, Ezekiel the Geekiel had rarely emerged. Zeke often forgot that deep inside him lived a kid who squirmed at the thought of eye contact with any girl and turned positively pitiable when breathing the same air as Mandy Mitchell.
Who now worked as…a maid? What the hell was that all about?
Didn’t matter what she was, because some things never changed. Holy hell, he was thirty years old, had a net worth that a small country would envy, and made speculative investments before his morning coffee that were so risky that failure meant professional—or real—suicide.
And then he morphed into a fucking schoolboy at the sight of an angel who’d once picked up his whole spilled backpack after some idiot tried to plow him down in the hall. That day freshman year, when he’d finally managed to look at her and choke out his awkward thanks, she’d smiled, and the sun came out and birds chirped and he fell head over heels in love.
He’d forgotten her, of course, over the years. But seeing her today brought back so many old feelings, he—
“Ezekiel, what is taking you so long?” On the pool patio, Mom stood with one hand on a narrow hip, tapping a cell phone impatiently against her cheek. She used the phone to point to the lists, notes, and papers she’d spread over the patio dining table. “I can’t plan this whole event alone. I need your help.”
“You’re doing fine, Mom.” He attempted to focus on his mother and her issues, not the housekeeper and her...grass-green eyes. “And the event’s planned.”
“We still have to round out the final table arrangements,” she said. “And I’m having some good luck getting more young ladies to attend.” She leaned to the side to peek around him through the French doors. She wore her sixty-eight years well, he had to admit, keeping trim and making sure not a single gray hair showed among the black . Her forehead crinkled mightily when she raised her brows in question. “Who were you talking to?”
“Just...” A memory. “The maid.”
Why was she a housekeeper? The incongruity of that hit him like a two-by-four.
“Well, you didn’t have to give her your life history.”
He bit back a laugh at the irony of the statement. For a time, Mandy was his life history. At least, she was the object of a boyhood crush that had sure come crashing back at the sight of her. “I was giving her instructions.”
“Why do you need a maid when you’ve barely slept in this place for one night? And so big, Ezekiel. Why do you need all this space?” She waved the phone at the villa, her dark eyes leveled at him in accusation. “Why spend all this money?”
“Because I have it.”
“Pfft.” She blew out a breath. “Money isn’t everything, young man.”
“Tell me about it.” It sure hadn’t impressed Mandy Mitchell enough to say yes to a date.
Okay, she had a different last name and so she was married. He had to give points to her for not taking his offer anyway, like plenty of women who could have rationalized a drink with an old high school classmate. Still, the rejection stung.
His mother was looking at him with so much pity, he could have sworn she was reading his mind. And with Violet Nicholas, the world’s most intuitive mother, that was entirely possible.
“Oh, honey,” she said, coming around the table to reach for him. “You see? I’m right. You’re miserable.”
He had to laugh. “I’m not miserable.” At least he hadn’t been until ten minutes ago. Would it have been so hard to have a drink with him? Okay, married, definitely. But he hadn’t seen a ring.
“But are you happy?”
Happy? How should he answer that? Honestly, of course, and not only because he and his brother had decided years ago that Mom had “liedar.” Her secret superpower had made an über-honest man out of him, which was both a blessing and a curse.
“I’m quite satisfied with my life,” he said, adept at giving her a non-answer. And that wasn’t a lie. He was satisfied. Like he was satisfied with a good massage, or a great haircut, or even some mindless sex.
Satisfied wasn’t...fulfilled.
No surprise, she wasn’t buying it. “What does that mean, satisfied?”
“It means exactly what I’ve said. I’m content. Life is good.” He pulled out a chair, scraping the paved patio noisily. “Really good.” Grabbing the water bottle he’d left out here, he tipped it back and doused a throat that had been dry since he’d opened the door and seen...her.
He hadn’t been sure at first. She’d looked different. Natural. Plain, even, if that was possible. A tad older, but not a bit less perfect in his eyes. Even if she was a—
“I asked you a question, Ezekiel.”
She had? “Sorry.”
Exasperated, she dropped into a chair across the table. “What makes your life so good? That...that two-hundred-foot boat you have?”
“One hundred. And it’s technically a yacht.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, maybe it’s one of the six houses you pay for in all those different countries.”
“Four, and they’re all paid off. And not that many countries, Mom. Two are in the U.S.” And one in St. Barts and another in the south of France. Why wasn’t he happy?
“Then is it all that autographed old baseball equipment you’re always buying?”
He laughed at her description of one of the world’s most expensive and extensive sports memorabilia collections. “Babe Ruth’s 1920 Yankees jersey? Mark McGwire’s seventieth home-run baseball? You know I love that stuff.”
“Fifty million dollars’ worth?”
“Sixty,” he corrected. “I did a little shopping last month.”
“And that’s all you want out of life?”
No. He wanted laughter in his quiet houses and a family on his empty yacht and a partner in his massive bed. He wanted wholeness in a life that should have been overflowing but felt utterly...hollow.
“Ezekiel?” she urged.
He opened his mouth to answer, but of course no lie would come out. “I can’t, Mom.”
“You can.” She leaned closer. Love and concern etched lines on her face as she lowered her voice. “You can try again.”
He shook off the advice. “I mean I can’t lie.”
“Of course not. So these baseballs and boats and houses don’t make you happy?”
He tipped the nearly empty water bottle in a fake toast, silent.
She nodded. “I thought as much. Your father is turning seventy, Ezekiel.”
“I know, that’s why I’m here, remember?” He pointed toward the list, happy for the change of subject. “Are you finished with the table...organizing?” He really had no idea what she was doing and couldn’t care less, but he got to Florida so rarely, he owed her some attention.
She lifted a shoulder. “I thought of a few more last-minute additions. You know, some friends of mine—and their daughters—who I think I should add.”
“Please don’t do that, Mom. I do not want this party to turn into an army of eligible bachelorettes.”
She waved a hand and leaned forward. “I hope it doesn’t give your father a heart attack to walk into a restaurant and see a hundred people all there for him.”
Zeke eyed her, trying to gauge if that was a particularly adept subject change or a hint at information he hadn’t yet been able to get out of her. “Something wrong with his heart?” Last year, it had been the hip replacement. The year before, cataract surgery.
She trained her eyes on him. “Ezekiel, we’re
not exactly spring chickens, you know. We want to see the Nicholas name continue.”
Guilt and grandchildren. Man, she was in her element now. “Aaaand we’re back to the subject of the missing grandchildren.” He let his head drop forward like he’d been clocked.
“Don’t you smart-mouth me, young man. They are missing! Your brother had to marry that woman who refuses to give up one minute of her job at a bank so I could have a grandchild.”
He chuckled at how she made Laura sound like a teller. “Mom, Jerry’s wife is the CEO of one of the largest credit unions in the world. And they’re happy without children.”
“Are you?” she demanded.
“Happy without children or a CEO of a credit union?”
She glared at him. “Stop with the disrespectful mouth. I’m not one of your lackeys. You know what I mean. How long are you going to live this...” She flung a hand at the world in general. “Devil-may-care lifestyle of yours?”
Sometimes he was so lonely he wondered if even the devil did care about him. “Until I find the right person,” he admitted. Maybe he’d choose better next time.
Mom sat back and crossed her arms, flattening him with the same look he’d get when she’d find him awake in his room until three AM doing partial differential equations for fun. She knew what had happened; hell, she’d been there. Only, she didn’t know the gory details. Still, she never stopped hoping that next time it could be different, even if she refused to even say the name of his—
“Well, you’re going to be happy to know that I’m doing something about this situation.”
He wasn’t happy about anything in that sentence. Not the tone, not the fact that she was doing something, not even the reality that there was a situation. “What are you doing or shouldn’t I ask?”
“I’m...” She let her voice drift off and looked down at the pages. “I’ve really got some terrific prospects picked out to come to the party.”
“Mom, please. I really don’t want you meddling—”
“Meddling! I’m your mother. I’m helping, not meddling.”