by J. R. Ward
After the second ring, Lizzie’s voice came through loud and clear. “Hello?”
God, she was home. “Lizzie…”
“Oh…hi.” There was a shuffling sound as if she were switching her receiver to her other hand. “How are you?”
He thought about all the ways to answer the question. The replies disturbed him because they were all about missing her. “Good. Busy.”
“I’m sure you have been.” Her voice was level. Calm.
“Work’s been hectic.” The limo came to a stop at a traffic light, a thoroughbred among the herd of taxi ponies. As it occurred to him that she’d be surprised he was sitting in something like the stretch Lincoln, he felt like a liar.
Maybe everything he was holding back from her, rather than his schedule, had been what had prevented him from calling.
Screw the maybe. “Lizzie, I need to tell you—”
“You don’t have to explain. We had a lovely evening, not a relationship.” Oh, man, her tone wasn’t just level. It was impersonal.
“Are you near a computer?” he said.
“I—ah, yes.”
“Do a search under the name Sean O’Banyon.”
“Why?”
“I want you to know who I am.”
“I already do.”
“No, you don’t.” And he wasn’t sure how to tell her without sounding like a pompous ass. “Sean O’Banyon. Do it.”
He heard the sound of keys typing. Then silence.
He knew what the search engine would pull up: References to articles on him in the Wall Street Journal. The New York Times. Forbes. Fortune. Time. Interviews logged on MSNBC and CNN and the FOX News network. Books on finance that had his name in them.
“What is all this?” she murmured.
“Me.”
More silence. “Guess you’re really not a construction worker.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Clearly.”
“Lizzie—”
“Hey, you met with the president, huh.”
“I didn’t tell you because—”
Her voice sharpened. “Because you didn’t trust me. Or you thought I was beneath you. Which one was it?”
“I didn’t know you.”
“And I guess a week away has made me more knowable?”
“I just don’t want to lie by omission anymore. It’s not right.”
He heard her exhale. Heard a mouse clicking. “God, you must have really hated your father.”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you know how hard he struggled to pay for his medications and his doctor visits? I mean, I doubt it would even make a dent in—oh, look, here’s your net worth. Yeah, whoa…wouldn’t even be couch change to you.”
“This has nothing to do with him.”
“Yeah…and you know what? I don’t think it has anything to do with me, either.”
God, he wished he’d left a couple of messages on her phone. Maybe this would have been easier. “It does, though. Damn it, Lizzie—”
“Do you think I was after your father for money? You did, didn’t you? And you figured if I knew you were loaded I’d glom on to you, too.”
“Look, like I said, I didn’t know you. And why wouldn’t I be suspicious? You mean you’ve never heard of that kind of thing?”
“Hey, check this out. You gave away a million dollars last month to the Hall Foundation. How generous.” Her voice grew heated. “Good Lord, Sean, do you have any idea how tough these last few years have been on your father? You could have helped him. You should have helped him.”
Okay, that was not a good topic to get on, Sean thought. Because he couldn’t be civil about the fact that his father had obviously poor-little-old-me’d her.
“I’m not going to discuss him.”
“Oh, that’s right. Closed-door policy on that.”
“Lizzie, no offense, but you don’t know a thing about my father.”
“Funny, the same could be said of you. I don’t think you knew him very well, either.”
Sean’s hand curled around his BlackBerry. As he fought to rein in his temper, he reminded himself that she had no way of knowing about the past and that people, even his father, could present many different faces to the world.
“Let’s keep this just to us, Lizzie. We’ll get further.”
She exhaled sharply, which he didn’t take as a good sign. “You know what? Let’s forget about us going anywhere, okay? Let me know about the house sale when you can. Goodbye.”
She hung up on him.
Sean let his head fall back against the plush leather seat. Closing his eyes, he tried to tell himself it was for the best. She stirred up too much in him. Went in too deep. Made him feel too much.
It was better to be alone than in chaos.
Taking a deep breath, he put his palm under his tie and rubbed his sternum.
Damn, his chest hurt.
When his BlackBerry went off, he answered it without looking at the caller ID.
Mick Rhodes was in midlaugh. “Twenty-two minutes. I win.”
“What did they come back with?”
“Up twenty-five cents a share and much better financing, at least to my eye. You’re a genius, SOB.”
“Tell them to get the papers to me.”
“Will do.”
Genius? Sean thought as they hung up. What a crock of crap that was. He felt like anything but.
* * *
After she ended the call, Lizzie just stared at the photograph on her laptop’s screen. It was a picture of Sean looking like a total power player: Black suit. White shirt. Red tie. A hard smile and harder eyes.
A stranger.
Oh, but then he’d been that before, hadn’t he?
She glanced at the date. The photo had been taken at a gala on the night Mr. O’Banyon had died and she thought back to when she’d called Sean with the news. Evidently this fancy party had been the noise she’d heard in the background.
She shut off the computer to get away from the image and let herself sink back into the sofa.
All around her, everything seemed too quiet. The drone of the AC unit. The dulled murmur of a passing car. The soft wind catching a piece of siding and making it whistle.
She wished she had to go to work or had someplace to go. The only thing she had here at home was a whole lot of smothering introspection that she could do without. Trouble was, she wasn’t moonlighting until tomorrow night and she was not the bar-hopping type.
Exhausted and cranky, she headed for bed for lack of a better alternative, but she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to sleep. Sure enough, as she turned off the light and lay back, the mattress beneath her felt as if it were stuffed with gravel and her sheets were like sandpaper against her skin.
Man…this thing with Sean was such a mess.
She’d spent the last four days waiting for the phone to ring, if she was home, or checking her message light first thing as she came in the door. Naturally, when she’d decided he was never going to call, he did…only to drop this news flash that he was a big shot.
A big shot who evidently hadn’t had enough cash to spare for his father in spite of being on the Fortune 500 list. Which was just wrong. Granted, Mr. O’Banyon hadn’t starved, but things could have been a lot easier on him if he’d had a visiting nurse and if his medical bills had been covered.
Lizzie pictured the photograph of Sean she’d just seen. How he must have laughed at her. Thinking that he was a construction worker—
The phone started to ring in the living room, the cheerful chirping sound coming down the hall as if the noise were skipping.
The first ring she ignored. The second ring she ignored. On the third, she almost got up, but then she let the call dump into voice mail.
She didn’t care what he had to say.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she closed her eyes.
Three minutes of pulling the mummy routine and she was out in the living room, finding the phone. There was a messag
e so she dialed into the system and held her breath.
Her mother’s voice was excited: “I have had a breakthrough with the clay! My fingers are singing! This is such a revelation, which…”
Lizzie closed her eyes and let the message roll on. After she deleted it and hung up, she stared at the phone and knew going back to bed was not an option.
She went to the couch, fired up her laptop again and logged into the Boston Globe’s online classifieds site. Since she was not going to get some shut-eye anytime soon, she might as well focus on something that would help her.
Which stewing about Sean O’Banyon would definitely not.
Plus it was about time she got into her job search. She’d moonlighted every day this week so she would earn some extra cash, but as a result, she hadn’t been able to find time to apply for a new position.
Two hours later, she had her résumé updated and had made online submissions to four jobs: one down on the South Shore at Quincy Hospital’s ED and one each to Boston Medical Center, New England Medical Center and Brigham & Women’s.
Next she hit the apartment ads. Even if Sean wasn’t going to sell the house right away, she had to get out of here. There were just too many memories. And now too many complications.
She braced herself for what she’d find. She knew that the Boston real-estate market for rentals was tight right now because of all the college students returning for school in August. And it would probably make more sense to wait until she knew where she would be working, but she figured it couldn’t hurt to start looking this Sunday when there’d be some open houses scheduled.
Oh…man. Everything was so expensive compared to what she was paying now. Part of it was that Eddie had refused to raise her rent over the two years she’d been here. The other half was simply supply and demand coupled with inflation.
She put the laptop aside and stared out the bay window. With her job at the clinic ending tomorrow, she was relieved to have plenty of moonlighting work lined up. But that was not the way she wanted to live. Pulling night shifts on a regular basis really screwed up your life.
Besides, she had her sights set on bigger things than being a floor nurse. What she wanted to be, eventually, was her boss, Denisha Roberts. She wanted to run a clinic like the one in Roxbury, and to do that, she needed more education and some experience on the administration side of patient care.
Unfortunately, she had a feeling school was going to be delayed for a while.
She turned off the computer and the lights, then went over to the armchair in front of the big window. Sitting down, she curled her legs up under herself and let her head fall to the side. Through the slits in the blinds she saw the dark path of the road and the sidewalk’s ghostly glow and the bulky outlines of the houses across the street. As the night went on, occasionally a car would float by like a boat on a still river, its headlights flaring white then its brake lights glowing red.
Funny how losing a job made you look over your life and reassess things.
And the ending of a relationship did that, too, didn’t it?
Except, had she even had a relationship with Sean? Not really. Just a couple of days…Still, the effect was the same. In the quiet darkness, she found herself thinking back to her two earlier boyfriends. Neither one had come close to Sean for intensity. But then she couldn’t imagine many men did.
Just her luck.
Lizzie was still sitting in the chair a couple of hours later when a car pulled up in front of the house. The headlights went off, one of its doors slammed and a huge shadow of a man came up the walkway.
She got to her feet in disbelief and went to the blinds. Sean couldn’t possibly have come all the way up from New York. In the middle of the night. Could he?
Good…Lord, he had.
In the glow of the porch light, he looked totally out of place, more like he should be walking up to the door of a Park Avenue penthouse rather than a well-worn duplex in South Boston. He was wearing a beautifully tailored dark suit with a fancy black-and-peach–colored tie, and as he reached forward to put his key in the lock, a big fat gold watch gleamed on his wrist.
Lizzie stepped back from the window. Maybe he hadn’t come to see—
The knock on her door was a single, sharp rap.
His voice came through the panels. “Lizzie, I saw you at the blinds. I know you’re up. Can we talk?”
Holy hell, she wasn’t sure she was ready to see him. And even if she was, she felt as if she should throw on a dress and some heels before she opened her door. “It’s late.”
“I know.”
“I should go to bed. Maybe tomorrow.”
There was a brief silence. “I have to go back tomorrow morning.”
She frowned and glanced at the clock on her wall. “But it is tomorrow morning.”
“I realize that. I have to go back in three hours.”
“You came all the way up here for three hours?”
“Some things need to be said in person.”
Stunned, she walked over and opened the door. Wow…he seemed so much taller in the suit, even though the top of his head was no higher off the ground than before.
“You don’t look the same to me,” she murmured. And it wasn’t just because of his clothes.
“Can I come in?”
She stepped aside, and as he walked by, she looked him over. Even after having traveled five hundred miles, and in spite of the fact that it was now almost three in morning, he was as polished as the hood of a Ferrari.
But then maybe that was what expensive clothes got you. Perma-gleam.
As she closed the door, she resisted the urge to tug at her sweatshirt. Rearranging it wasn’t going to change the fact that she’d paid nineteen dollars for it at Target. And anyway, she liked the darned thing. It was soft and comfortable…which was evidently more than could be said for what Sean had on. While he paced around, he yanked his tie loose as if he were dying to take it off.
He stopped and faced her. They both spoke at once.
“Sean—”
“Lizzie—”
She shook her head. “You first.”
“No, what were you going to say?”
“Would you like something to drink?”
“I was wrong to think you were bilking my father. And I’m very sorry.”
Lizzie’s brows shot up. So much for social pleasantries and just as well. “I didn’t use him, Sean.”
“I know.” He went over to the Venetian blinds, fingered them apart and peered outside. “I just couldn’t figure out why you would be so close with him. Other than that.”
“He was kind to me and he needed help.” Censure creeped into her voice. “He had no one.”
“Indeed.” He dropped his hand and turned back to her. “Anyway, I’m honestly sorry.”
“Apology accepted.” Boy, he looked tired. “You know, you really could have said this over the phone.”
“Assuming you’d have answered my call. And I wouldn’t have blamed you if you didn’t.” He ran his hand down the length of his beautiful tie. “I should have told you about me earlier, but I liked the anonymity. I wanted to just be me with you.”
“So you really thought I was a gold digger, huh?”
“Maybe.”
“Definitely.”
He shrugged. “Most of the women I’ve been with are fiscally minded. And not because they’re in banking.”
“Your poor choices, not my fault. Dear God, I don’t want your money. Sure, I’ve got some problems with my job situation and my mother, but I wouldn’t solve them by using you. I liked being with you.”
He frowned. “Liked…past tense.”
“Come on, Sean. You left and didn’t look back this week. And besides, what do we have in common?”
His eyes traced over her face. “I thought of you the whole time. I wanted to call you, but the deal I’m working on is complex and at a critical—”
“People make time for what they want to do. They make the
time.” She shook her head and wrapped her arms around her waist. “It’s okay, though. I mean—”
“I also didn’t know what to say. I just didn’t know how to tell you I missed you. I haven’t missed anyone in a long time. I’m not used to it.”
Lizzie’s body stilled until her heart barely beat. The apology she expected. The revelation was a surprise.
“You mind if I sit down?” he said as he wrenched his tie off altogether and stuffed it in his jacket pocket.
“Ah, no…please do.”
His big body sank into her sofa and he crossed his legs, ankle on knee. Stretching one of his arms out over the top of the cushions, he looked not just tired but depleted.
In the silence, she tried to see past the fancy suit and the big-shot job and the net worth to the man she had been with before.
Because she’d really liked the person she’d watched playing Frisbee.
She truly had.
CHAPTER TEN
As Sean sat on the sofa, he had to hold on to the back of the damn thing to keep himself in place. He’d been fighting the urge to hug Lizzie since the moment she’d peaked out from between the blinds, and now that it looked as if she’d partially forgiven him, he wanted her against him so badly.
Plus she looked adorable in her baggy blue sweatshirt and those loose men’s boxer shorts.
A surreptitious glance at her smooth legs had him tightening his grip on the couch. Oh, man, he really didn’t trust himself to stay away from her. He was feeling the effects of a week of not sleeping on top of his manic rush to the airport, the hour-long flight and the drive into Southie.
So he was weak right now. Or rather, his hold on himself was weak.
What he wanted was to reconnect with her skin to skin and to hell with the talking. But he respected her too much to try and seduce her, and besides, it was clear she was wary of him, as well she might be. Hell, he was wary of himself. Nothing about this thing with her was making any sense to him, and when he felt off-kilter, he tended to get more aggressive, not less.
Letting his head go lax, he eased back into the cushions and eyed her from beneath his lids. She was pretty, her hair all disheveled, her face clean and a little shiny. She reminded him of things that were real, not pretension.