We both ignored the woman, but she continued to slap her hand against the door. Her eyes met mine, and I was immediately intrigued. She had pretty blue eyes. Light blue, like the color of the sky. Her long brown hair hung around her shoulders, perfectly straight. She was wearing a plain T-shirt and a pair of jeans that showed off voluptuous curves. She was a thick woman, not at all like the skinny girls that I had long grown tired of looking at with no asses and fake tits. The woman pounding on the door looked very real. She also seemed to be very hungry for some gelato.
“I think you should give her some gelato,” I said. “She might come through that glass if you don’t.”
“This is what happens when you have the only gelato shop in the city,” he complained.
“Which is why your shop is so popular,” I reminded him.
Cade stomped over to the door. “We’re closed,” he shouted through the glass.
The woman shook her head. “I need to talk to him,” she shouted back, pointing her finger at me.
Cade turned to look at me. “What’d you do now? How many girls have you been screwing around with? You know you need to start asking them if they are in a relationship. I can’t always be breaking up fights.”
“I don’t know who she is,” I insisted.
“Well, she sure as hell knows you.”
I watched as she stepped back from the door, a beautiful scowl covering her face as her full red lips pursed together, glaring at Cade, then me. I tried to think of where I might have run into her. I would have remembered meeting a woman who looked like that.
“I don’t know her,” I repeated.
“I don’t think she’s going to go away,” Cade said dryly, the woman now staring at me with fire dancing in those blue eyes.
“What if she’s a stalker?” I asked. “Are you going to send me out to a stalker?”
“If it looks like she’s going to bust down my door, you bet your ass I’m sending you out. You can handle her.”
“So helpful,” I muttered.
“I’m serious, Rand. Talk to her. Figure out what the hell she wants. I’m going to have to go clean the glass now. She got her face all over it.”
I stared at the woman staring back at me and got the distinct feeling she wasn’t going anywhere. She looked very serious about talking to me. I could see the determination and was oddly attracted to her. Maybe it was the hint of danger I sensed from her. I couldn’t quite explain it, but I did want to see what she wanted.
It was probably going to be one of those moments I regretted. She’d slap me or shoot me and tell me it was some kind of revenge for her sister that I had wronged at some point.
It didn’t matter. I had to know.
Chapter 6
Nicole
I took a step away from the door, my eyes focused on the tall, dark, and very handsome man strolling toward me. Only the glass door separated us. I had seen his picture on the internet after doing a Google search, and through a little detective work, I had finally tracked him down. I was only slightly irritated it had taken me this long. The man was an elusive beast.
I imagined Alec probably would have looked like his handsome grandson when he’d been in his prime. The guy pushing open the door had a solid build, and his deep tan told me he spent a lot of time on the beach. I couldn’t blame him for that. I spent quite a bit of time on the many beaches as well. It was too hard to resist.
The door opened and he stepped outside. He looked too cocky. The man had no idea how much trouble I had gone through to track him down. He was staring at me, his eyes roaming over my body, checking out the outfit I had thrown on after the funeral. It only served to piss me off more. My nerves were already shot, and I was not in the mood to be leered at by the disrespectful, ungrateful jerk that didn’t have the decency to show up to his grandfather’s funeral. For a brief second, I hoped the letter was a vicious goodbye that left Rand feeling guilty.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
“No. You don’t know me.”
“Then what are you doing here, and why are you banging on my friend’s shop door?” he snapped.
His rudeness only served to tweak the anger already burning through me. “No, I suppose you don’t know me, but you would if you ever visited your grandfather.”
He groaned, rolling his eyes. “I suppose my mother sent you? No, my brother?”
“No, they didn’t send me.”
“Then who are you?” he asked. “I’m not up for games.”
“I’ve worked for your grandfather for the past two years. We became very close during that time. He was a good man. A loyal, kind man, and while he lay sick in that bed the past few months, you never came to see him once!” I was angry for the way Alec had been treated by his family, and it bubbled to the surface.
It had been an emotional day, and I was furious that one of the few people in Crete that I truly cared about was gone and no one seemed that upset by it. I hated that they weren’t mourning and crying their eyes out over the loss of a great man.
“I don’t need to hear a lecture from you,” he said. “You don’t know me, and you certainly don’t know my family. You worked for him? As what? His nurse?”
“No, actually as a housekeeper, but we became close friends. He was always talking about his grandson. He acted like you hung the moon. Obviously, he didn’t know who you were. How could he have? You certainly never came by to see him. I thought he’d made you up.”
“I can assure you I’m very real. Would you like to touch me to see how solid I am?” He shot me a cocky grin.
I curled my lips with disgust. How dare he flirt at a time like this? His grandfather had just died, and he was acting like a lecherous prick. I was angry, and my emotions were running on the high side. I should have waited another day or two before I tried to track him down.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to touch you. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t even want to look at you.”
“By the way you were beating on that door, I would say you’re lying. You looked like you definitely wanted something from me.”
I shook my head. “What is wrong with you? Do you have rocks for brains?”
He shrugged, a cocky smile still resting on his lips. “I don’t believe I do, but maybe we can get together for dinner, and you can try to find out the answer.”
I growled, stomping one foot before spinning around and walking away from him. I couldn’t even. Not then.
“Hey, wait up!” Rand called out.
I could hear his footsteps behind me and walked faster. He reached out and touched my shoulder. I spun around, one finger pointed directly at his nose. “Get away from me.”
“You came after me. Why? Who sent you, and don’t tell me no one because obviously someone did. How did you know where to find me?”
I scowled at him. “I was at the funeral. You know, the one you skipped? You weren’t there. I asked around and was told you were probably at work. I went to your work, and you weren’t there. Someone there said they had seen you come into this place, so here I am. Does that answer your questions?”
He shook his head. “No. Now we’ve established how you found me. Good job, Nancy Drew. Now I want to know why you were looking for me.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m leaving. Touch me again, and you’ll be pulling back a nub.” I stomped away.
I heard him laugh and was half-tempted to turn around and slap him. I hated being laughed at. It brought back some very ugly memories. I shook it off, unlocking Alena’s car door and getting in the driver’s seat. She was letting me borrow her car while I stalked the very ungrateful grandson. That had been a huge waste of time.
I tossed the letter I had folded and stuck in my back pocket into the passenger seat. I had felt a little guilty for folding it, but I didn’t want to risk dropping it and losing the damn thing. It was becoming a huge burden.
I drove back to the apartment. Alena was just getting out of the shower, her dark hair twisted up
in a towel. She took one look at me and winced. “I take it things didn’t go well.”
I snarled, feeling downright ferocious. “No, they didn’t.”
“Did you find him?”
“Oh, I found him all right,” I said, my voice rising. “After tracking him all over the damn city, I finally found him at a gelato shop. Seriously, gelato? He couldn’t go to his grandfather’s funeral because he was eating ice cream?”
“Maybe he was eating his feelings,” she offered.
“He was just sitting there, looking smug and handsome and completely horrible!”
“Smug and handsome?” she asked, questioning my choice of words.
I hadn’t meant to say he was handsome. It had just kind of tumbled out. “That’s not what I meant.”
She grinned. “He was attractive, huh?”
“Stop. Now you’re acting like him. His looks don’t matter. He’s a jerk. A horrible, rude, callous jerk that didn’t have the common decency to pay his respects to his grandfather.”
“Did you give him the letter?” she asked quietly.
My shoulders slumped before I pulled the damn thing from my back pocket again, tossing it on the kitchen table. “No.”
“Nicole! Why didn’t you give it to him? You stalked the man for one reason only!”
“Because he was a jerk,” I said, pouting. “I couldn’t give him the letter. I didn’t want him to have the luxury of reading anything Alec had written. He doesn’t deserve it.”
“Nicole, that isn’t for you to decide. A man’s dying wish was for his grandson to get that letter. You may not like it, but it was what he wanted you to do. Do you really want to be responsible for that letter? What if it contains a deathbed confession that could change Rand’s life?” She was doing her best to be gentle, but I could hear the firmness in her voice as well.
“He wasn’t very nice,” I pouted.
“Maybe not, but that isn’t your concern. You know what you have to do.”
I grimaced, wanting to stomp my feet and protest against responsibility in general. “I know.”
“Are you going to do it now?”
“No. I have to get to work. The family is expected to be there later for a big dinner. It seems weird to me, but I need the job for as long as I can keep it.”
She smiled. “It’s traditional to have a lunch or dinner after a funeral. Don’t you do that in America?”
“I suppose we do, but it just feels strange to be going to the house and letting in all those strangers,” I told her. “It’s like the house is sacred ground. I don’t like the idea of strangers milling about, touching his things and invading his space.”
“They’re his family,” she reminded me.
I walked to my room to change into the outfit I was supposed to wear today. Thankfully, it wasn’t some sexy maid costume. It was a more reasonable pair of black slacks with a white button-up shirt. We were supposed to wear our name tags for the day. Alec had been a very relaxed boss and never insisted we wear the name tags.
I smiled thinking about the first week I had worked for him. He’d been up and around a lot more back then. He’d come upon me cleaning one of the guest rooms and looked at my nametag. He’d introduced himself and told me I didn’t need to wear the tag anymore because if he couldn’t remember the name of a pretty girl like me, he had no business breathing the same air.
He’d been a flirty old man, but genuinely kind. I missed him.
I stopped and turned back to look at her, slowly shaking my head. “If they were his family, they should have showed up when he invited them all to dinner a few weeks back. He’d been so excited and had helped plan the dinner for days. When none of them replied to his invitation, he’d been so disappointed. I think that incident was a turning point. He practically stopped eating after that. I hate them for what they did to him.”
“I’m sorry they mistreated him. Families are complicated. You of all people should know that.”
I scoffed, curling my lip. “My family is beyond complicated. No one would bat an eye if no one showed up to my dad’s funeral.”
“Go change,” she said. “Get your butt over there, and I think you’ll feel better. I bet there are going to be a lot of stories shared about him. It’ll do you some good to hear them talk about him. You never know what may have happened to lead them to the point of abandoning him in the final years of his life. I suggest you give them the opportunity to prove they aren’t terrible.”
I rolled my eyes and walked into my room. In my mind, I had given them plenty of chances. There had been random visits over the past two years, but no one visited regularly. None of them called to check on him or sent him flowers when he started to take a turn for the worse. I couldn’t get over the idea they had abandoned him. Alec had never let on that it bothered him, but I knew it had to.
And Rand? Rand was the worst of all because Alec had loved that guy more than anyone else in the world.
I never asked Alec why Rand didn’t visit. I didn’t know if the glorious Rand was even still alive until he’d given me the letter to pass along. To know Rand had been alive and well and living in the same city pissed me off. Of all the family members, he could have stopped by at least once.
“Asshole,” I muttered, thinking of the gorgeous man that had made me so angry.
His eyes were dark and so damn sexy. He’d looked at me with desire and then actually flirted with me. That had caught me by surprise. I wasn’t used to men like him looking twice at a curvy girl like myself. They tended to go after the waif-thin models that strutted around the beach in dental floss.
Too bad he was such an ass.
Chapter 7
Rand
I felt like everyone was looking at me as I walked toward Adrian’s office. My grandfather was kind of an institution in the city, and I supposed a lot of them would know he passed away. Thankfully, no one dared asked me directly about it.
I had a standoffish vibe at work, one which I felt was necessary. I didn’t want to blur any lines between employees and boss. I was a boss, even if Adrian was the ultimate boss and one of my best friends. We knew where we stood and didn’t have to worry about unnecessary drama getting in the way.
I walked into Adrian’s office, closed the door, and took a seat across from him. He looked at me, waiting for me to talk. It was one of the things I valued most about our friendship, so much could be said with so few words.
“You good?” he asked.
I nodded. “I am.”
“You know you can take some time off? We’ve got things covered here.”
I shook my head. “No, I need to be at work. I need to keep my mind busy.”
“I stopped by the funeral,” he started, the words an opening for me to talk about it.
“I didn’t go.”
He smirked. “I saw that. I didn’t stay for long, just paid my respects and left.”
“I didn’t want to see them,” I said, knowing he knew who them was.
He slowly nodded. “You don’t think a funeral was a good place to try and touch base with them?”
“No. Definitely not at a funeral and not at my grandfather’s funeral. It would have been tense, and I know my brother and mother would have made a scene. They would have tried to talk about the past, and I don’t want to deal with that.”
“One of these days, you’re going to have to deal with all of that,” he lectured. “I don’t know what it is that drove you apart, but I know that kind of thing can eat at you. I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you. Not talking to my family for a few weeks was rough on me. Greeks are all about family.”
“Not my Greek family,” I replied. “They’re more about guilt and blame and not so much about unconditional love and all that other stuff. It’s good. I’m good. I just need to keep moving forward. I hadn’t had much contact with my grandfather in the last couple of years anyway.”
I knew he cared and wasn’t intentionally prying, but I didn’t want to talk abo
ut my family or why we didn’t talk. I liked things in neat little boxes. I could be the carefree guy everyone knew me to be when I had all the real stuff neatly tucked away.
“I won’t push it, but know you can talk to me if you want,” he offered.
“I think my mom or maybe Demokritos is stalking me,” I grumbled.
He raised an eyebrow. “Why would they stalk you? Why wouldn’t they just call you?”
“I don’t know. I was at Cade’s shop yesterday, and some woman showed up, pounding on the door and demanding to talk to me. I thought she was a little crazy, but Cade insisted I talk to her before she messed up his glass.”
“A woman you’ve slept with or stood up?” he asked.
I gave him a look. “No. I’ve never seen her before. She was on the weird side. I guess she worked for my grandfather. She laid into me over my lack of visits to the house and the fact I didn’t go to the funeral. Like who is she to say shit to me?” I was getting angry all over again.
Adrian nodded his head. “What did this woman look like?”
I shrugged, not sure why it mattered. “I don’t know, maybe five-five, curvy, honey-brown hair, long and straight. Pretty blue eyes that are so light they’re almost clear.”
He was still nodding his head. “Full lips?”
I scowled at him. “Are you conjuring up an image of her for some weird fantasy? You might be my friend, but I will tell Bella in a heartbeat.”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he pointed a finger at the door behind me. I turned around and saw her through the window, talking to Bella. I turned back to look at Adrian.
“She found you again,” he said.
“Fuck. What the hell?”
Bella opened the door. “Rand, you have a visitor,” she announced.
The woman stood behind her, looking a little uncomfortable as she shifted from one foot to the other. “Hi,” she said, putting up a hand and waving at me.
My Favorite Mistake Page 4