by Emma Quinn
“You’re late,” was the answer Helen received right before the gates opened.
At first, Helen thought she was entering an apartment complex, but after getting beeped through the gate, she realized that it was just one huge house.
“Holy crap,” she muttered under her breath while driving her beat up old car up the driveway towards the mansion.
It was bigger than her little apartment and her parents’ two-story restaurant and apartment combo. The mansion was bigger than most schools Helen had attended.
Does he really live here?
Helen parked in the driveway, figuring it was large enough that there was no way she could be blocking anyone in. Getting out of her car, she straightened herself out once more and with the file in hand, she marched deliberately up the steps to the front door.
The intricately carved thick wooden door.
Bracing herself, she knocked. Then she decided that probably no one could hear that anymore than they could hear a mouse gnawing on cheese, so she tried the doorbell instead.
She waited outside for several long moments, risking a glance at her wristwatch. Thanks to that business at the office and the traffic, she was now thirty minutes late for their meeting.
If he’d been where he said he would be, I wouldn’t be late, she thought ruefully.
After a few minutes, a woman with a severe bun pulling her hair back answered the door. Her mouth was pinched and her brow was pressed together. “It’s about time. I’ve been waiting for thirty minutes for you to show up!”
She opened the door wide to usher Helen in.
“I’m sorry,” Helen began to apologize. “I didn’t realize I would be meeting Mr. Roth here.”
The woman snorted indelicately. “Meet him? Please! It’s highly unlikely that you will deal with anyone other than me.”
The woman was scurrying away quickly, making Helen scamper after her. “You? What do you have to do with this?”
Stopping abruptly, the woman spun on her heel to face Helen, causing the other woman to barrel right into her. “Excuse me? You need to check your manners. I take care of the house and you’ll answer to me. Mr. Roth has no time to deal with temporary maids—”
Helen took a step back, holding up her hands palms first. “Whoa, I think there’s been a mistake,” she began, ready to explain that she was certainly not the maid.
“Yes, obviously there has.”
Helen spun quickly at the sound of Mr. Roth’s voice. He was descending the staircase like some god coming down from on high. She couldn’t tell if that made him more or less attractive, but either way, he looked amazing.
“I apologize for the confusion, Ms. Easel. I wasn’t aware we were expecting company at the same time.”
Ms. Easel straightened after giving a quick nod of deference that annoyed Helen slightly. “It is my mistake, clearly.”
Helen resisted the urge to tell her “duh”. That seemed childish.
“It’s no trouble, just a misunderstanding,” Mr. Roth assured her. “Ms. Easel, this is Miss Helen Willems. She is my eleven o’clock meeting.”
“So she is late still,” Ms. Easel muttered.
Helen shot her a quick glare, but Mr. Roth seemed not to have heard. Or didn’t care.
“Miss Willems, this is my housekeeper Ms. Easel. She keeps everything in this house running and I simply couldn’t do without her.”
Ms. Easel seemed to melt beneath the praise and Helen understood why. His smile was blazing and she found herself wishing it was directed at her.
Focus, Helen, she ordered herself silently.
“Thank you, Mr. Roth. I will meet the new maid if she ever arrives.”
“Thank you. We’ll be upstairs in my office. Please let me know if there’s trouble.”
“Would you like me to bring up some tea?” she offered, almost eager to please.
He shook his head. “That won’t be necessary. I’ve made sure there are some refreshments available if Miss Helen—I apologize, Miss Willems, is hungry.” Turning to Helen, he smiled and said, “If you’ll follow me. We’re just upstairs.”
She felt like she was in some retro fiction movie. It made her a little uncomfortable, so all she did was nod and follow him as he led her back up the stairs. She didn’t glance back, but felt like Ms. Easel was staring at them the entire way to the second floor.
Mr. Roth pushed open another solid, intricately carved wooden door to reveal a rich, cozy room with floor to ceiling bookshelves on two walls, a window on the third wall, and a desk against the adjacent one.
His office.
On his desk was what looked like a tea set and biscuits or cookies, she wasn’t sure which.
Again, the sense of being in the past tickled at her.
“Please, have a seat.”
8
Helen
T
he office was beautiful and elegant, like something out of the nineteen twenties. It wasn’t the Great Gatsby, but it was something milder and more subtle than that. There were red velvets tucked into the chairs and the walls were dark wood beneath the bookcases. And outside… The window looked out onto a beautiful garden.
There were several trees along the edges of her vision, reaching around the edges of the window and there was one large tree in the middle of a field of flowers deliberately planted. Different colors made semi-circles around the tree and there was a pair of benches on either side of the circles, just barely caught beneath the shade of the tree.
“It’s beautiful,” she found herself telling him, forgetting for a moment that she was here on business and she was dealing with some uber rich asshole.
“Thank you,” he told her gracefully. “I put a lot of work in, though I admit I haven’t had near as much time as I would like to lately. Business gets in the way.”
Helen looked to him with wide eyes. “You worked in the garden?”
He laughed at her expression. “Yes, it’s my garden. When I started, there was only the tree in the middle and it wasn’t doing very well. I admit that I brought a few additional saplings from the store, but the rest I raised from the ground.”
Helen was trying to process that. There was something absolutely unbelievable about the idea that he had been on his knees, digging around in the dirt, planting seeds and watering flowers.
“I’m surprised you would do that,” she admitted. “Didn’t it ruin your suits?”
He laughed again. “I do have other clothing.”
“Everything you say is less and less believable,” she joked.
Smiling, he nodded. “I can see how it would seem that way. But I promise, it’s very true.”
He looked sexy when he smiled, she noticed, and there was something about him that seemed to pull at her. It almost seemed to call to her…
She didn’t like that.
Clearing her throat, she said, “How is everything so lush? It’s January.”
He waved off her words. “It’s a greenhouse. You can’t tell from this angle, but the light is being filtered through glass. I wanted it to be as outside as possible, but I still wanted to keep things growing.”
“Year round summer?” she offered.
He nodded. “Exactly.”
There was a long stretch between them and it reminded Helen that she was sitting in Mr. Roth’s house, in his office, talking about gardens when in fact she’d come here to give him a piece of her mind about the restaurant.
She remembered that illustration of the high rise to come and it helped bring back her annoyance. She used that to get back on track.
“What the hell is this?” she demanded abruptly, tossing the file and its contents onto the desk in front of him.
He examined it briefly, his brows pulling together. “It’s the file I left with Charlotte for you. Happy to see you’ve found it.”
“I know that, but what the hell is that stupid design?”
“Stupid?”
She rolled her eyes. “What? Am I supposed to be wooe
d by that pretty little design of smiling people on balconies overlooking a parking lot?”
“They’re looking at the city, actually,” he corrected absently, picking up the file and pulling out the illustration. “And I thought the artist did an excellent conceptual design. I’m sorry to hear you don’t like it. Can I ask why?”
“Why? How about because it’s going to be created at the cost of leveling an entire neighborhood of low-income and middle-class working families?”
He frowned and put down the illustration. “That’s not fair.” She almost burst into laughter at the word fair, but he was so serious that she let him continue uninterrupted. “I’m creating homes for people—”
“People who can afford them!” she couldn’t help but burst out.
He pursed his lips and then said, “The people in this area have been amply compensated for their shops. They can move elsewhere, into a better neighborhood, make something of themselves!”
“They have made something of themselves. They’ve made this neighborhood and there’s nothing wrong with it.”
It was his turn to scoff. He seemed incredulous of her statement. “Nothing wrong with it? Nothing but junkies in that pretty little park and a ridiculous crime rate in the area.”
“That’s not true.”
“I’ve seen the reports,” he counted. “I’ve done a large amount of research, Miss Helen, and I assure you that I’ve weighed the outcomes. Tearing down this neighborhood and putting up a nice, new apartment complex will attract money to the area. It’ll renew an old area and get rid of the crime and drug problem.”
Helen found herself grinding her teeth as she tried to stay calm. “I don’t know what reports you got, but they can’t be accurate. My family has lived in that area for a long time and while there might have been some crime here and there, because we live in a city, there isn’t a problem here! It’s a wonderful area and the community has put a lot into it.”
They fell silent again.
Helen was trying to calm herself down enough so that she could argue without yelling, but Mr. Roth surprised her by standing—and pouring her a cup.
“It’s jasmine tea,” he explained. “Do you take milk or sugar?”
She eyed it as though it was poisoned, then nearly laughed out loud at herself. He wasn’t poisoning her and they were supposed to be in negotiations, maybe. He was just being a good host.
“Sugar would be nice,” she answered stiffly after a moment.
He nodded and dropped in two cubes. Actual sugar cubes and he used those little metal tongs. It was all very fancy… and suddenly she could see why he thought tearing down that little neighborhood where she grew up seemed like the smart move. After all, to him, it must have looked like nothing but dirty poverty.
He offered her the cup and she accepted it. “Thank you, Mr. Roth.”
“Michael, please,” he corrected.
She hesitated, but after a moment said, “Michael.”
She sipped at her tea and admitted that it was good only silently. But then she set her tea down and fixed Michael with a determined stare. “You know a cup of tea isn’t going to convince me that you’re doing the right thing, right?”
He smiled at her, that smile that created butterflies in her stomach and made her think of inappropriate things.
It wasn’t fair for him to have that kind of power with only a smile.
“I would be disappointed if it did,” he answered, honestly, she thought. “But I will say that all of my reports paint a very different picture than the one you’ve described.”
She lifted an eyebrow, feeling her anger flare again. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“No,” he told her. “But I am interested in the discrepancy.”
Frowning, Helen considered him. Despite all of her ideas about him being the devil, he seemed very reasonable. The kind of man who was not only familiar with negotiating, but fair about it, too. Why else even bother with getting reports, even if they were inaccurate? And if he was lying about that… why? It was a lot of work for a man who could simply swat her away like an annoying fly.
“Give me a chance to get some other reports for you,” she finally offered. “That way you’ll have another source to compare. More information is always better, right?”
He studied her a moment, then smiled and nodded. “That would be wonderful. I’m surprised you’d have access to additional reports. Do you work for the police?”
She laughed. “Um, no. I work for the city. Well, I actually work for Biodyne, a lab company whose focus is horticulture. We do testing for the city, sometimes on water samples to check for contamination, but usually it’s about plants and soil.”
“Ah,” he said, as though a revelation had occurred. “That’s why you’re so passionate about the park.”
She shrugged, picking up her tea again for another sip. It really was good. “Yeah, that’s a big part of it. The park is beautiful and I grew up around it. Now that I’m an adult, I get to research places like that park and look at their delicate ecosystems. It’s my dream job.”
“I’m impressed. Most of us don’t get the chance to do the things we truly love.”
“Yeah, that’s true. What about you? Do you love being a corporate giant?”
It was his turn to laugh. “Well, after my long sought dreams of being a fireman went away, I really had no other choice.”
She couldn’t tell if he was joking or not and as she let her eyes do a quick once over of him she had the errant thought that he’d have made a damn fine firefighter… at least on the calendar.
That caused heat to rise to her cheeks, so she did her best to shove the thought aside. “I see, from superhero to supervillain?”
His eyebrows rose into his hairline. “Supervillain? Is that what I am?”
“It’s probably better than the devil,” she offered.
“Perhaps. Does this make you the superhero in this scenario? Or the damsel in distress?”
“Can I get back to you on that?”
“I hope you will,” he said softly.
She wasn’t sure what to make of that statement, but couldn’t quite make herself ask either. She took another sip of her tea and his eyes were still locked on hers when there was a knock on his office door. For a moment, he looked like he might say that he was busy, for whoever it was to come back later. But then he smiled ruefully at Helen and said, “Come in, please.”
The door pushed open and Ms. Easel stepped just over the threshold. “Mr. Roth, I was to inform you that you have an appointment.” She shot an annoyed look at Helen, but it was brief before her attention was back on Mr. Roth.
He sighed, glancing at his wristwatch. “Damn,” he muttered. “I must have lost track of time. I apologize, Helen, but we’ll have to continue this another time.”
He stood and Helen followed suit, setting down her teacup hastily. When he reached out his hand, she accepted and shook it easily.
“Until next time,” he said blithely.
“Next time,” she agreed.
Then she let the housekeeper escort her out. Ms. Easel led her down the stairs and to the front door. Helen caught a glimpse of the maid whom Ms. Easel had mistaken her for earlier. She was scrubbing floors and looked up anxiously at Helen for half a second before redoubling her efforts.
Helen realized how much she would hate to be working for the woman and it made her wonder about Mr. Roth again.
Michael.
She wasn’t sure anymore if he was the devil or the supervillain. Could he be the hero?
9
Michael
T
he next day, Michael took his coffee in the green house. It was really too cold outside to be sitting on the balcony, but at least in the greenhouse he could be outside without bundling up heavily. And there was something tropical about the humidity that he enjoyed. It was soothing.
Tiffani always hated the humidity.
As he sipped at his coffee, folding one leg over the
other, he considered his ex-fiancée. He’d half expected her to call and ask to try again. But she didn’t. And more shocking still, he didn’t regret it.
Although Tiffani was lovely and the type of opposite free spirit that he’d initially been looking for, recently it seemed that all they did was fight. And not over anything important, just frivolous and unimportant things. Not like his meeting with the spirited, fiery Helen.
He pictured her flashing dark eyes and the way her lips spread into a wry smile. She was young, but passionate and determined, that much was clear by the way she spoke her mind without fear of the consequences.
Even as she called him a supervillain.
He found himself smiling at the term. It was odd to be thinking of her now, to be smiling at the way she attacked him.
But he was sure it was a result of the fire and passion burning within her, the desire to save the things she loved.
He sipped at his coffee and wondered if they could reach some sort of understanding between them. She could see that he wasn’t the villain and he could understand why she was fighting so hard to save something that all of his reports indicated was horrible.
“Mr. Roth, will you be taking breakfast with Ms. Tiffani today?”
He glanced over his shoulder to see that Ms. Easel was standing in the doorway waiting patiently.
“No, Ms. Easel,” he answered mildly. “Ms. Tiffani won’t be returning, I believe.”
Her eyebrows rose quickly before she returned to her familiar and neutral expression. “I see. I’ll make sure the staff is made aware.”
He nodded. “Thank you. And please make arrangements to have her things shipped to her Miami apartment please.”
“Of course. Shall I prepare breakfast for you?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m fine with coffee for now, thank you.”
“Of course.”
She disappeared again, leaving him once more alone with his thoughts. He finished his coffee in the greenhouse before finally heading back inside. He dropped his coffee mug off in the kitchen, greeting the new maid, a bland young woman with her mousy hair pulled up. Then he headed upstairs towards his office. He hadn’t been to the main office for a full week now, not since breaking things off with Tiffani. He hadn’t wanted to deal with questions or sympathies or any other difficulties that came from trying to make people understand that not marrying Tiffani was not a tragedy.