by David Horne
“Now, mother, that’s just disgusting.” Her cheeks flamed and it was my turn to laugh. She swatted me with her gloves while telling me how horrible I was. After the abuse she smiled fondly at me and I took the gloves from her and slid them on.
“All right woman, let’s go, that garden isn’t going to weed itself.”
Something sparkled in her eyes as she looked at me, I couldn’t decipher it’s meaning but I did know she was happy and that was all that mattered to me.
She laced her arm through mine and led me to the garden shed. She grabbed another pair of gloves, her gardening tools, before she found another oversized hat and placed in on my head. I frowned at the ugly thing and Mom just laughed as I followed her out of the shed toward the garden.
It wasn’t until I was on my knees in the grass that I took notice of what I was wearing. My polo shirt was one of my favorites and I didn’t want it covered in dirt, so I removed the hat and pulled the shirt over my head before I folded it and sat it on a nearby chair. I wore nothing underneath and Mom clicked her tongue at me before she tossed a bottle of sunscreen at me.
“Put that on before you burn,” she said, and I rolled my eyes.
“I never burn. I tan gloriously,” I replied, and she chuckled before she shook her head. It was the truth though because she was the same. Mom had naturally tanned skin thanks to her Italian heritage and I’d inherited it from her. So we tanned well.
“Either way, it’s better to protect your skin while you’re young. The better care you take care of it the less likely you’ll need Botox before you’re forty.”
I laughed and Mom shot me a grin as she began pulling weeds from the garden. I removed my gloves and began slathering myself in suntan lotion.
“Oh dear God,” a voice said from my right and I turned my head and stared in shock as Jaxon stood there. At first, I thought the heat had caused me to have a mini stroke and that I was only imagining him standing there. But then his eyes trailed down my torso and I knew he was real because I could feel the heated trail his eyes left of my skin.
“Oh, Jaxon, you’re here early,” Mom said as she dusted off her pants. Jaxon seemed to struggle to look away from me, but he finally turned to Mom and smiled.
“Yeah. I’m sorry about that. Mom was supposed to call and tell you I’d be picking up the boxes early. There was a mix up with the venue and we need to set up earlier than expected.”
Mom waved him off with a smile. “It’s no problem, sweetheart. I have the boxes right upstairs. I’ll have Elijah bring them down.” She then turned to me and a wicked grin appeared on her face. I didn’t care what anyone said, my mom had a mischievous streak in her like you wouldn’t believe. My Nona told me she was a troublemaker as a kid, and I hadn’t believed her. I now knew she spoke nothing but the truth.
“I guess I don’t have to introduce you two,” she said, and I glared at her. “I’ll just leave you two alone to chat while I head inside.” She winked at me and I groaned as she walked toward the deck and through the glass doors.
Jaxon and I stayed quiet for a moment before he finally cleared his throat.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi,” I returned and then there was another awkward silence.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you today,” he said, and I glanced at him.
“Um, yeah, me either. What are you doing here anyway?”
Jaxon looked a bit sheepish as he rubbed the back of his neck. He was adorable and I wanted to eat him alive.
“My mom does this charity auction once a year and your parents usually donate a ton of items for the auction.”
I knew exactly what auction he was speaking of and it was then that it hit me.
“Wait… wait a minute! You’re Jaxon Archibald?”
Chapter Six
Jaxon
His voice squeaked on my last name and I groaned as I felt my face beginning to heat. I’d seriously hoped to avoid this a little longer. “I thought your last name was Karr?”
I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair. “I am. It is,” I stuttered before I took in a deep breath. “I go by Karr. It’s my mother’s maiden name and it’s easier for my business to not be associated with my father’s last name.”
Levi frowned and shook his head. “Why? Your father is a huge business mogul. I’m sure having his name on anything would make it a success,” he said, making my point for me without even realizing it.
“Which is why I wanted him to have no part of it,” I said, and Levi’s frowned deepened. This wasn’t a conversation I liked having with anyone and I especially didn’t want to have it with Levi. I didn’t think he’d understand considering he was the type of guy who would happily use his father’s name and status to help him get ahead.
That may have been a bit judgmental of me, but I’d known guys like Levi Croft for most of my life. The types of guys who lived off their families wealth and bragged about the things they had. The types of guys who looked down on housekeepers, gardeners and bakers like me. They saw no value in the working class, it was why I tended to stray away from guys like him.
“Look, I don’t expect you to understand this, but I wanted my business to succeed because of my own hard work and belief in my product. I didn’t want or need Daddy’s help or name to make my business thrive or to prove it could be successful. I believe in the value of hard work, I don’t like things being handed to me and again, I don’t expect you to understand that.”
Levi winced and his expression looked as if I’d slapped him. I immediately felt like an asshole for the way I’d spoken to him, “Levi,” I began but he shook his head.
“No, you’re right. What would a spoiled, entitled rich guy like me know about anything? I just see life through rose-colored sunglasses, right?” He pulled his gloves off and tossed them in the bucket at his feet. He looked defeated and I wanted to take back what I’d said. Levi had proven in on week that he was capable of hard work. He did his job and rarely complained. He’d proven to be a hard worker and I just took a dump on something that couldn’t have been easy for him to do. I didn’t think people realized how much went into creating dishes, especially at the speed, my staff had to push them out and Levi had taken to it like it was his secret calling and I’d just made it seem like it meant nothing.
“Levi,” I tried again but he brushed past me just as his parents came out the door. His mother took one look at her sons face and whatever she saw caused my chest to ache. She approached him and cupped his face in her hands. She glanced at me before she put her focus back on her son. She then kissed and wiped at his face and my heart split right down the middle. I’d made him cry. God, I was an asshole.
Levi hugged his mother and shot a quick goodbye to his father before he got in his car and drove away. We all stared after him until he was gone then Liliana turned her gaze at me. She didn’t look angry, but I knew a mom look when I saw one and I was in big trouble.
Elijah sighed and I glanced at him as he glanced at his wife. He then looked at me and said, “I don’t know what just happened, but I know my son and it takes a lot to hurt him. He’s little, he’s spoiled, but my kid is tough as nails. He’s had to be. Most of his life he was teased for something or another, so he had to grow thick skin. For anything to make him that emotional it had to cut him deep. Which means, my wife is probably going to secretly plan your murder and I’d rather not be an accomplice.” He then sat the boxes on the ground and patted my shoulder. “Good luck, Jaxon.” I grumbled a thanks as he walked away.
I never would have thought Levi was the type to get teased. He came off as confident and arrogant. I would have never pegged him as a guy who got teased. Not when he came off as better than everyone. It then made me wonder if it was a shield. His way of hiding that he wasn’t as confident as he seemed. Yep, I was a total asshole.
I hung my head as Liliana approached me. She didn’t say anything at first and I finally met her gaze. She studied me and then she said something that would stic
k with me for the rest of my life.
“One of the things I love and respect about your mother is she doesn’t judge. She doesn’t stereotype or put people into boxes. It could come from our upbringing. We grew up in the same neighborhood in The Bronx. We were poor and we both worked our asses off to get where we are today. So it may be that we know what it’s like to grow from nothing to something. It may be that having nothing made us want to give our children the world. We just went about it differently.
“I know you grew up the same as my Levi, I know that your parents had a path set out for you and that you chose to go a different way. Levi didn’t have that and it’s no fault of his. We spoiled him, sheltered him and it wasn’t because we didn’t believe he wasn’t capable of leading his own path. It was because he was our little miracle and I was terrified of anything ever happening to him. Terrified that the world would make him jaded and cruel. That was my mistake because he did become oblivious to the world around him.”
She looked at their home and took in a heavy breath. “But my son is also a good person. He may be slow when it comes to some things but he’s also very brilliant. He graduated at the top of his class, but he refused to be recognized for it. He’d already been teased enough for being short, or for being overweight. He didn’t want to be teased for being smart, as if that was something to be ashamed of. He went to college and made The President’s List, every semester during his first year. But he felt alone and out of place with his peers. He was suffering from anxiety and depression because people just didn’t understand him. I said all of that just to say Levi is not averse to hard work. He isn’t lazy and he sure as hell isn’t deserving of the way you spoke to him.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and felt shame creep beneath my skin. I’d wondered if they’d heard us. And I hated wondering what it was Liliana and Elijah thought of me.
“I don’t think you’re a bad person Jaxon,” she said, and my shoulders slumped. “But I think you try so hard to separate yourself from your family name that you sometimes forget the good associated with it. Like your mother’s charity for example. It isn’t a big deal because her last name is Archibald. It’s a big deal because she made it so. She put her heart and soul into it, and it has been successful because of her passion and perseverance. Not because she is Melissa Archibald. You are a product of what your parents made you, and so is Levi. We just waited too long to make him see some things he should have seen a long time ago. So if you want to blame anyone, blame me and Elijah.”
She hadn’t lied. I did work overtime to disassociate myself with my father. When people heard the name Archibald, they had one of two reactions. They were either afraid or saw it as an opportunity to help them come up. I’d had so many people who’d wanted to befriend me simply because of the power my last name held. It sucked to realize your friends weren’t truly your friends. So I’d tried to distance myself from my family’s name. I took my mother’s maiden name when I decided to start my business. My father had wanted me to be a business mogul like he was. But his idea was for me to take over as CEO of his company. That wasn’t my dream. It wasn’t my path. But because I held the name Archibald, it was expected of me. So, I did away with it and disassociated myself with the name completely. But even doing so, it didn’t change the fact I was who I was. No matter how much I hated it, I was still Henry Jaxon Archibald III. And I’d just treated Levi like my father would treat someone beneath him.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Croft. I was out of line and I shouldn’t have spoken to him that way.”
She grinned and placed a hand on my shoulder. “It isn’t me who deserves an apology,” she said, and I knew she was right. I needed to apologize to Levi.
That night I wasn’t as into the auction as I usually was. I loved my mom’s charity auction and seeing how much her hard work paid off. My mother was a huge advocate on poverty in America. And every year she’d have this charity auction and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars toward the Melissa Love’s Fund. Her promise was to match the amount received at the end of the auction and put it toward the charity. Her charity had built over ten homeless shelters in the state of New York and was branching out to the surrounding states. Her goal was to have them in every state. It required a lot of donations which was why she made such a big deal out of it. I was proud of her. A lot of people were.
I stood near the snack table which wasn’t a surprise. I was a big guy and I liked to eat. My mom always pulled out all the stops for the dinner and I always took full advantage. Since I had to wait until the auction was over to actually enjoy the food, I decided to get my fill on finger sandwiches and cocktail weenies. I was just loading up my plate when one of the servers approached. I groaned inwardly as I recognized him.
“Hey, Jax,” he said, his voice coming out a lot more sultry than necessary.
“Hey, Colton, how’s it going?” I said, trying to be friendly but casual at the same time which was hard considering the fact this guy made my skin itch.
He flipped his overlong blonde hair over his shoulder and looked at me from beneath his lashes.
“You didn’t call,” he said in a low voice. To anyone else it would have sounded sweet and innocent, but I knew for a fact this guy was a vulture. He was clingy and always looking for his next sugar daddy. Age didn’t matter. If you had big bucks, he’d do just about anything to keep you happy.
I learned that lesson the hard way. I’d hooked up with him once last summer and ended it the next morning when he told me that he had no limits when it came to sex. That didn’t sit right with me. It became worse when he started telling me all of his sex stories, as if they were supposed to turn me on. All it did was make me want to run to the nearest clinic. I was all for people having fun and doing what made them happy. I wasn’t a prude, but I also didn’t have sex with just anyone. Colton had been the result of a really rough week and I regretted it instantly.
He started showing up at the bakery, demanding I see him. Calling my phone at odd hours of the night. He’d even started going to my mom’s hair stylist. The guy had issues and he didn’t back off until I’d threatened to go to the cops.
Which was why I didn’t like him being at my mom’s charity function.
He took a step toward me and I stiffened but then a set of arms wrapped around my waist.
“There you are, I should have known you’d be over here with the food,” a familiar voice said, and I looked down to see Levi plastered to my side. I blinked in surprise and he smirked before he glanced at Colton.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Candy Cole,” Levi said as he glared at Cole. “Were you just putting the moves on my man?”
Colton’s face turned fire engine red as he stared daggers at Levi. He then turned his glare on me.
“Him,” he said with an indignant huff. “You’re dating him? Really? His track record is worse than mine.”
“Still lying through your teeth I see. Oh and speaking of teeth, I see you got yourself a new pair. Good on you, which one of your daddy’s paid for it?”
Colton looked so angry I was surprised steam wasn’t coming out of his ears. And now that Levi had mentioned it, I did notice the fakeness to Colton’s smile. I wasn’t against beauty enhancement. I say do what makes you feel good but whomever did Colton’s veneers had shaved them down a little too much. It was like he had baby teeth and that was just weird.
I had a feeling things were only going to get worse and I realized Levi had come to my rescue. I didn’t think I deserved it after the way I’d treated him earlier, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“Babe, the auctions about to begin, we shout take our seats,” I said to Levi. He smiled at Colton before he pressed a hand to my chest and stared up at me with those goddamned eyes that I swore could see through to my soul. I knew we were playing a game, but I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to take his mouth and kiss him for all he was worth. But I refrained.
Levi sighed and pouted as if I was ruining his f
un and maybe I was, but I didn’t want to be responsible for a cock fight. So I led Levi away from a still fuming Colton.
“Where are you sitting?” I whispered and Levi pulled out his name card.
“Table four,” he said, and I didn’t know if I wanted to sigh or groan. It seemed fate had plans for me that night.
“Me too,” I said as I led us to our table. As we found our name cards, I knew it wasn’t fate that had been playing with me, it was my mother. I knew this because I was pretty sure the name next to mine had read someone completely different only twenty minutes ago.
Levi took his seat while I took mine. The tension between us was thick and I had no idea where to begin a conversation. I knew I needed to apologize for my actions earlier that day, but I also needed to thank him for saving my ass. Instead I said, “I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight.”
“I came in my dad’s place. He had a last-minute business emergency. He gave me a list of things he wanted to buy so I’m here. My mom is around here somewhere,” he said waving his hand around the room, but he refused to meet my eyes and that spoke volumes about how he was feeling.
“Levi, about earlier,” I began but Levi shook his head.
“Not here,” he said, and I didn’t miss the crack in his voice. It made my chest ache to realize how much my words had hurt him. I wanted to beg for his forgiveness, but I had to respect his wishes, but I was going to get my apology out by the end of the night. I had too.
Chapter Seven
Levi
I wanted to be anywhere but where I was. Not because I was at a charity event but because I’d made a complete fool of myself earlier and I had no desire to see the man that had witnessed it. I didn’t know what had come over me earlier that day. I’d spent a week working with Jaxon and I’d thought we’d gotten to know each other at least well enough for him to see there was more to me than the sass. But I’d been wrong, and it had hurt more than I’d expected. I didn’t care much for other people’s opinions of me. I had to learn to ignore it when my depression had gotten the best of me. I learned early in life that people could be cruel and my mom, bless her heart, had tried her hardest to make me see I was more than what people made of me.