The Billionaire Next Door

On some sixth sense, she leaned forward and looked out the window. Through the blinds, she saw Sean get out of a rental car.

Their eyes met. In the glow of a streetlight, she saw he was wearing another one of his suits and that this time his tie was a brilliant blue. He looked just as she remembered him: handsome, powerful, strong.

A car passed between them. Then with his typical masculine grace, he lifted a hand.

When she raised her palm in response, he started for the house. With long strides, he crossed the street and she heard his footsteps on the front porch.

She opened her door just as he came into the duplex. The cologne she remembered so clearly wafted in, going deep into her nose.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.” All she could think about as she stared at him was what she’d read in that report. She wanted to put her arms around him, hold him tight, ease him. “I was just about to call you.”

His brows shot up. “Really?”

“I, ah, found something that belonged to your father.” She motioned him in. When he walked into the living room, she shut the door. “It’s right here.”

She lifted up the tool box and his eyes latched onto the thing.

“God, I can remember him taking that to work all the time.” Sean reached out and took it from her. “Guess it’s one more donation to the church.”

“You need to look inside before you give it away.”

Sean’s eyes narrowed. Then he put the thing on her couch and opened the lid. As he peered in, his breath left his lips on a long exhale. He picked up the photograph of his mother with reverence.

“So he kept one picture after all,” Sean said softly. “I’d wondered. I didn’t find any while I was cleaning up.”

Lizzie crossed her arms over her chest and covered her mouth with her hand. She hated the strain in his voice, despised its cause.

He rifled through the contents, looking at the birth certificates and then…the Child Protective Services report.

After he scanned the document, he folded the papers back up. “You read this, didn’t you?”

“It was wrong of me, but yes, I did.” She sighed. “I’m so sorry, Sean. I had no idea. None. And from what I knew of your father, I wouldn’t have guessed him capable of it.” When he stayed silent, she said, “I’m very sorry I intruded on your privacy. I’ll say nothing, of course. To anyone.”

Sean went over to the windows. Against the backdrop of the blinds, his profile was rigid and so were his shoulders.

Lizzie wanted to jump out of her skin as he stood there for the longest time. Was he mad at her? Was he back in the past? What should she do?

His voice drifted over to her. “You know, in retrospect, I’m surprised they let us go back.” He tapped the papers against his palm. “Although I guess they really bought the ‘we’re just rough-and-tumble boys and that’s why we have bruises’ routine. I wish now that we hadn’t been so persuasive.”

“Was it the drinking?” she asked quietly. “Your father mentioned to me once he’d struggled with it.”

“Yeah, he did what he did only when he was drunk. And hell, even though he got into the sauce every night, it wasn’t all the time that he came after us. It was just…you didn’t know when it was going to happen so it felt like every day even if there were months of relative quiet.” His hazel eyes shifted over to her. “It’s okay, though. We’re fine now. Everything is fine.”

“It’s okay if you’re not.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Feeling as if she were intruding, but unable to stop because of her concern for him, she said, “Sean, have you ever talked to someone about what happened?”

He frowned. “Talked?”

“Like to a therapist.”

“God, no. No need to. Like I said, we’re fine.” He stared at her. “I wish you didn’t know.”

“Sean…there’s no shame in it. It wasn’t your fault.”

He looked away. And started to blink a lot.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Sean.”

He swallowed with a grimace, as if he had a lump in his throat. “Yeah, I know.”

“Do you?”

He swept a quick hand over his face. “Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.”

“Sean—”

His tone was hard as he interrupted her. “I really wish you didn’t know. Because you were friends with my father and it would have been better for you to remember him without this. Easier.”

“I’d rather have the truth. And I am angry at him. I can’t imagine how anyone could do what he did. Damn it, I want to go back in time and take you three out of that apartment so that you got free of it. I really—” She stopped herself and forced her tone to level out. Her getting fired up was not going to help Sean. He was looking really tense, as if he were about to bolt. “I do want to tell you something, though. As I think back to some of my conversations with your father, I believe he regretted his past. And in the two years I knew him, he never touched a drop of alcohol.”

“Did he say when he quit?”

“No, but I think it was a long while ago. Once, when I was cleaning up some detergent that had spilled in a cupboard, I found a stashed bottle way in the back. It was dusty.”

“I found a couple of those, too.”

As Sean took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling, she saw him not as he stood before her now, all tall and powerful. She pictured him as a young boy, scared and fragile. “I’m so sorry, Sean.”

“Don’t say that.” His voice cracked and he scrubbed his face again.

“Sean…” She started for him, but he stepped away and she let him go.

“Yeah…” He passed his palm over his eyes again and collected himself. “So, Lizzie, do you want to know why I came tonight?”

She frowned. Why had he shown up out of the blue? “Yes…”

“I heard from Billy. Who went to the lawyer’s today. He told me that you’re giving this house away to the center.”

She wrapped her arms around her waist. “Oh…Well…They need the money. And as I told you, I didn’t ask for that bequest.”

Sean walked over to some of the boxes she’d packed and ran his hand across them. His profile was characteristically handsome, all broad lines and dark hair.

“God…Lizzie…I really wish I could undo what I said to you. What I thought about you. What I stupidly believed you were capable of. If you’d been after my father’s money you wouldn’t have let this house go. So those checks…They really were for his expenses, weren’t they?”

“Yes.”

He cursed. “I swear I’ve never been wrong so many times about a woman in my whole damn life.”

“It’s okay.”

“How can you say that?”

She took a deep breath. “I guess…because now I understand you a little more, it’s easier to forgive.”

***

Sean looked over his shoulder. Lizzie was staring at him with impossibly warm eyes, offering him only absolution and tolerance.

Damn it, he wanted her to yell at him, felt as if he deserved nothing less.

Especially because he was enough of a bastard to want to take advantage of her pity.

“You can forgive me, huh,” he murmured. “I’m lucky, then. Because if I were in your shoes, I probably wouldn’t be able to.”

“We’re different, then.”

“Yeah, we are.” She was a saint. He was a son of a bitch. “I’m truly sorry, Lizzie. More than you’ll ever know. We were going in a great direction for a while there. You were the first woman I’d cared about in a long, long time and…hell, I blew my shot at what I’ve always wanted but didn’t think I could have, because I have no faith.”