The Billionaire Next Door

“I’m positively inspired…. The wings of creation are fanning me….” As her mother started in on one of her soliloquies about artistic vision, Lizzie just let her go on.

All she could think about right now was that two thousand dollars they’d lost.

The call didn’t so much end as flame out, with her mother getting more and more caught up in her own excitement until she had to go express herself.

As Lizzie hung up, Sean appeared from under the sheets, his dark hair tousled. “Trouble with mom?”

“Nothing unusual. Unfortunately.”

He eased onto his side and propped his head up with his hand, the gold cross around his neck lying flat on the mattress.

He ran his finger down her cheek. “You know something, Lizzie, I have an idea.”

“What?”

“Let’s play hooky today.”

“Hooky?”

“Yeah, let’s grab some eats and a blanket and drive over to Esplanade. We can sit by the river and just forget about everything.” When she hesitated, he murmured, “Unless you have other plans?”

While she thought about the day, he idly lifted her hand to his mouth and sucked her forefinger between his lips. As he swirled his tongue around, the circling movement was liquid and warm and oh so smooth. His eyes flipped to her face and he stared at her from under heavy lids.

Other plans? As if her job search couldn’t wait until tomorrow?

“No…” she said. “I don’t have anything I have to do.”

He released her finger and slowly rolled on top of her, his body flowing over hers, a heavy weight full of strength. As his thigh fell between her knees, she yielded to him.

He suspended his torso on muscular arms and looked down into her face, hovering above her like some great bird of prey, all latent power. With the way he looked at her now, he made her feel marked and she knew then without a doubt they were going to be together.

Even though he would leave and never look back and she would miss him for a long, long time, she was going to have him.

He dropped down and kissed her lightly. “I’ll see you in twenty minutes.”

When she nodded, he leaped out of bed and disappeared through the door.

Before she got up, she made two quick phone calls. One was to the art store’s manager, who confirmed there was no returning the kiln now that her mother had used it. The other was to the bank, which informed her that her only option to keep the check from bouncing was to do a credit-card transfer.

Two thousand dollars at nineteen-percent interest. Terrific.

She hung up the phone and told herself that at least the kiln could be sold when her mother moved on to her next big inspiration.

So everything was going to be okay. Eventually.

***

Chapter Seven

Lounging beneath a blue sky dotted with cotton-ball clouds, Sean stretched his legs straight out in front of him and crossed his ankles. Lizzie was next to him on the plaid blanket, curled on her side, eyes closed, a little smile on her mouth.

Life was just about perfect right now, he thought.

After they’d staked out a stretch of grass on the Esplanade, they’d had turkey subs for lunch and backed up the foot-longs with oatmeal cookies the size of hubcaps. Now, in spite of the shouts from some guys playing Frisbee and the barking of dogs and the occasional horn on Storrow Drive, Lizzie was fading like a sunset.

And just as lovely.

Abruptly, he thought about all the hours she pulled between being at the clinic and moonlighting downtown. He frowned. Although he respected people who worked as hard and as long as he did, for some reason, Lizzie’s going around the clock bothered him.

Probably because she seemed so delicate right now, the fine bones of her face showing too prominently under her pale skin.

She covered her mouth with the back of her hand and yawned. “I’d better sit up soon.”

“The hell you should. Don’t you know how to play hooky?”

She laughed and opened a pair of very sleepy green eyes. “I’m afraid I always followed the rules in school. So I’m not all that familiar with the hooky routine.”

“Well, learn from the master. Hooky means you do whatever you want. And I’m no mind reader, but you look like you’re really jonesing for a nap.”

“I am.” She yawned again and smiled up at him. “Were you a rebel in high school?”

“Yup.” A rebel who had pulled As, but trouble nonetheless.

“And you still are, aren’t you?”

He grinned at her. “My tattoo is an old one, I’ll have you know.”

“Except it’s not the ink in your skin, it’s your nature. I could tell by the way you looked at me that first night. You weren’t all that interested in social pleasantries. But you weren’t mean, though. Your father was the same way.”

Sean’s eyes shifted out to the Charles River. His father not mean? Yeah, right.

He felt his hand get gripped. “What happened with your dad, Sean? I know you don’t like to talk about it, but…”

As her words drifted, he absently rubbed her palm with his thumb and watched a crew boat stroke under one of the bridges that stretched over the water. Eventually, he said, “Nothing happened that matters now. It’s all over and done.”

“Do your brothers feel the same way?”

“Yeah.” Although actually, he didn’t know that for sure. None of them had ever talked about it. Especially Mac, who’d taken the lion’s share of the abuse.

“Do you see your brothers often?”

Sean smiled a little. “Billy and I are tight. He comes down to the city a lot on the off season and we have a great time.”

“Off season?”

“He’s a football player. Linebacker for the Patriots.”

“Boy, what a life that must be.”

“Yeah, he gets around. And I’m not just talking about all the traveling he does. My brother’s a real ladies’ man, but he’s also a spectacular athlete. Think the world of the guy, I really do.”

“And your other brother?”

Sean shrugged. “I love him just as much, but no one knows Mac well, not even us.”

“What does he do?”

“He’s in the army. Special forces.” At least that was the story. Mac had been very quiet about his job so both his brothers suspected he was involved in some very high-level covert ops.

Yeah…there was some possibility Mac was an assassin. Although that was based on one dropped comment made years ago.

“Where does Mac live?”

“He has a place just outside of D.C., but he’s not there all that often.” Not there at all, frankly.

“What was your mother like?”

“She died when I was very young.”

Lizzie lifted her head. “I’m so sorry. Do you remember anything about her?”

Sean broke the contact of their hands. The idea that secrets were escaping him, that revelations were being made that he couldn’t retract, that she was getting into his head, made him twitchy. In the home he’d grown up in, and in the profession he excelled at, vulnerabilities were used against you.

Silence was safety.

He brushed his finger down her straight, slightly freckled nose. “So how about that nap for you?”

She smiled and closed her eyes. “I’ll stop prying.”

In the silence that followed, Sean frowned, thinking there had been no censure in her tone. Just acceptance. The fact that she didn’t get on him made him feel grateful…and even closer to her.

“You don’t mind?” he said softly. “That I’m not a big talker?”

“Not at all, Sean. Just being out in the sun with you is enough for me.”

He stared down at her for the longest time, thinking how perverse it was that now that he knew she didn’t care whether he said another thing, he found himself wanting to talk.