she moved around his home, vacuuming while the washing machine ran, then the dryer. To her credit, she hadn’t saunteered into his office and dumped a clean pair of tidy-whities on the document he was reviewing. She’d simply stepped into the room, announced that the laundry had been folded and now sat on his bed. But it was seeing the tidy stack on his black satin bedspread that caused unwanted emotions to tumble through him.
When they were married she’d insisted on doing laundry. She hadn’t wanted a maid. She had stayed home and taken care of him.
As he’d stared at the neat pile, the years had slid away. Feelings he’d managed to bury had risen up like lava. She’d adored him and he’d worshipped her. He hadn’t slept with a woman before her or one since who had made him feel what Liz could. And now she was in his house again.
Which was wrong. Absolutely, totally and completely wrong. For a woman who’d adored him and a man who’d worshipped her, they’d hurt each other beyond belief in the last year of their marriage. She hadn’t even left a note when she’d gone. Her attorney had contacted him. She hadn’t wanted his money, hadn’t wanted to say goodbye. She simply wanted to be away from him, and he had been relieved when she left. It was wrong—wrong, wrong, wrong—for them to even be in the same room! He couldn’t believe he’d agreed to this, but being nearly naked had definitely thrown him off his game.
Underwear in his possession, he had dressed quickly, thinking he’d have to sneak out, wondering if it would be prudent to have Ava call her and ask her to assign another of her employees to his house. But as she promised, she was nowhere to be seen when he left.
“Just a bit curious, Ava,” he said when his short, slightly chubby, fifty-something-assis-tant stepped into his office. “Why’d you choose Happy Maids?”
She didn’t bat an eye. “They come highly recommended and they’re taking new clients.” She peered at him over the rim of her black frame glasses. “Do you know how hard it is to get a good maid in Miami?”
“Apparently very hard or I’d have one right now.”
“I’ve been handling my end. It’s you who—” Her face froze. “Oh.” Her eyes squeezed shut. “You were there when the maid arrived, weren’t you?”
“Naked, in a towel, coming out of my laundry room.”
She pressed her hand to her chest. “I’m so sorry.”
He studied her face for signs that she knew Liz was his ex-wife, but her blue eyes were as innocent as a kitten’s.
“I should have realized that you’d sleep late after four days of traveling.” She sank to the sofa just inside the door. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No. Seriously. I am sorry. I know how you hate dealing with people.” She bounced off the sofa and scampered to the desk. “But let’s not dwell on it. It’s over and it will never happen again.” Changing the subject, she pointed at the mail on his desk. “This stack is the mail from the week. This stack is the messages I pulled off voice mail for you. This stack is messages I took for you. People I talked to.” She looked up and smiled. “And I’ll call the maid and tell her not to come until after nine next week.”
“She’s fine.” She was. Now that his emotions were under control again, logic had kicked in. The fact that she wasn’t around when he left the house that morning proved she didn’t want to see him any more than he wanted to see her. If there was one thing he knew about Liz, it was that she was honest. If she said he’d never see her, she’d do everything in her power to make it so. That, at least, hadn’t changed. Though she was the one to leave, the disintegration of their marriage had been his fault. He didn’t want to upset her over a non-problem. He’d upset her enough in one lifetime.
“No. No. Let me call,” Ava chirped happily. “I know that you don’t like to run into people. You don’t like to deal with people at all. That’s my job, remember?”
“I can handle one maid.”
Her expression skewed into one of total confusion. “Really?”
The skepticism in her voice almost made him want to ask her why she’d question that. But she was right. Her job was to keep little things away from him. Not necessarily people, but nitpicky tasks. It was probably a mistake that she’d said people. But whatever the reason she’d said it, it was irrelevant.
“I won’t have to deal with her. I’ll be out of my house by seven-thirty next week. It won’t be a problem.”
“Okay.” She nodded eagerly, then all but ran from the room.
As Cain sank into his office chair, he frowned, Ava’s words ringing in his head. Had it been a mistake when she said she knew he didn’t like dealing with people or was he really that hard to get along with?
Once again, irrelevant. He got along just fine with the people he needed to get along with.
He reached for the stack of mail. All of it had been opened by Ava and sorted according to which of his three companies it pertained to. He read documents, correspondence and bids for upcoming projects, until he came to an envelope that hadn’t been opened.
He twisted it until he could read the return address and he understood why. It was from his parents. His birthday had come and gone that week. Of course, his parents hadn’t forgotten. Probably his sister hadn’t, either. But he had.
He grabbed his letter opener, slit the seal and pulled out four inches of bubble wrap that protected a framed picture. Unwinding the bubble wrap—his dad always went a bit overboard—he exposed the picture and went still.
The family photo.
He leaned back in his chair, rubbed his hand across his chin.
The sticky note attached to the frame said, Thought you might like this for your desk. Happy birthday.
He tried to simply put it back in the envelope, but couldn’t. His eyes were drawn to the people posing so happily.
His parents were dressed in their Sunday best. His sister wore an outfit that looked like she’d gotten it from somebody’s trash—and considering that she’d been sixteen at the time, he suspected she might have. Cain wore a suit as did his brother, Tom, his hand on Cain’s shoulder.
“If you get into trouble,” Tom had said a million times, “you call me first. Not Mom and Dad. I’ll get you out of it, then we’ll break the news to the wardens.”
Cain sniffed a laugh. Tom had always called their parents the wardens. Or the guards. Their parents were incredibly kind, open-minded people, but Tom loved to make jokes. Play with words. He’d had the type of sense of humor that made him popular no matter where he went.
Cain returned the picture to its envelope. He knew what his dad was really saying when he suggested Cain put the picture on his desk. Six years had gone by. It was time to move on. To remember in a good way, not sadly, that his older brother, the kindest, funniest, smartest of the Nestors, had been killed three days before his own wedding, only three weeks after Cain and Liz had eloped.
But he wasn’t ready.
He might never be.
Chapter
