Maid for the Millionaire (11 page)

He jumped into the truck. On the passenger's side, Billy followed suit. With a flick of a key, his truck's engine roared to life.

Liz stepped back, out of his way, then she ambled to her car and slid inside. When Cain's truck rolled out of the driveway and into the street, she laid her head on her steering wheel in dismay.

She finally understood why he hadn't made a big deal out of calling her or even out of kissing her the night of Joni's barbecue. This life they were building had become normal to him. Working with her on the Friend Indeed houses, mentoring Billy, calling her to talk about his family, even kissing her had become routine for him. He was different, eased into an entirely different way to live, and he was easing her in, too. And the next time they were alone she had no doubt he'd suggest a reconciliation.

She lifted her head and started her car. She hadn't forgotten that she had something she needed to tell him. She'd been waiting for the right time. But she finally saw the right time wasn't going to magically materialize. And even if it did, he might take hold of the conversation and she'd lose the chance to tell him about their baby.

She had to visit him, at home, and get the final piece of their past out in the open.

M
ONDAY MORNING
,
when Ava paged Cain on the intercom to tell him he had a call from Liz, he dropped to his desk chair and grabbed the phone. “Liz?”

“You know your assistant hates me, right?”

“Ava? She doesn't hate anybody.” He paused. “But I'm glad you called.”

She sighed. “You don't even know why I'm calling.”

He was hoping that she'd missed him. Hoping she wanted to see him outside of work or A Friend Indeed. He'd settle for her simply wanting to talk to him. “I'm hoping you wanted to talk to me.”

“I do. But privately. Would you have a few minutes to see me tonight?”

Privately?
He fell back in his chair in disbelief. Then he scrambled up again. “Sure.”

“I'll be over around six. Right after work.”

“Great.”

He hung up the phone. “Ava! I'm going to need a bottle of champagne and some fresh flowers for the house.”

She walked to his office door and leaned against the jamb. “And why would you need that?”

“I'm having a guest tonight.”

Her eyes narrowed. “The Happy Maids woman?”

Ah. So Liz wasn't so far off the mark after all. Ava didn't like her. “Am I sensing a bit of a problem?”

“Cain, you're a rich guy. You don't like little people, remember? It amazed me that you were working for A Friend Indeed, then I remembered how pretty Liz Harper is.”

“Why do you care?”

“I worry about you because you're doing so many things out of character lately that you're scaring me.” Sounding very much like his mother, she pushed away from the doorjamb and came into the room. “How do you know she's not after your money?”

“Because she refused alimony when we divorced.”

Ava looked aghast. “She's your ex-wife.”

“I probably should have told you that before this.”

Ava studied him with narrowed eyes. “Getting involved with an ex is never a good idea.”

He forced his attention back to the work on his desk. “I don't want to get involved with my ex.” He
didn't
want to get involved with his
ex
. The old relationship hadn't worked. He wanted something new. Something better. He wanted something with the new Liz.

“Then why the champagne and flowers?”

Trying to ignore her, he tapped his pen on his desk. He and Ava had never really had a personal conversation. Even though she'd handled every nitpicky need in his life and knew him as much as anybody could, she'd kept the line of propriety with him. He couldn't believe she was walking over it now.

She took a few more steps into the room. “Cain, I know you well enough to know that you're up to something. Why not just tell me? Maybe I can help?”

Help? He wasn't the kind of man to confide about things like relationships with anyone let alone someone he worked with. But he'd ruined his marriage by being clueless. And right now he might be making progress with Liz, but he knew one wrong word could ruin everything.

Maybe he could use some help?

He
did
trust Ava. Plus, he would do anything, even ask for help, to figure out the best way to start over again with Liz.

“I don't want to get involved with my ex-wife because I want us to start over again.”

“There's a difference?”

“Liz is different.” He leaned back in his chair and tossed his pen to his desk. “I'm very different. I want our relationship to be different.”

Ava walked closer to the desk. “You're serious.”

“Never more serious. She's the only woman I've ever really loved. Our marriage got screwed up when my brother died.” He wouldn't tell her the whole story. Just enough that she'd understand Liz wasn't at fault in their bad marriage. “I withdrew and I basically left her alone. I wasn't surprised when she left. She's one of the most kind, most honest, most wonderful people I've ever met. Another woman would have been gone after six months. She stayed three long years. And I hurt her.” He pulled in a breath. “She shouldn't want me back.”

“But you think she does?”

“I think she still loves me.”

“Wow.”

“So now I want her back and I have no idea how to go about getting her back.”

“You're sure this is the right thing?”

“Absolutely.”

“You're not going to hurt her again?”

Cain laughed. Leave it to Ava to so quickly take Liz's side now that she knew Cain had been at fault.

“I swear.”

“Okay, then for starters, I wouldn't do the things you did the last time around.”

“That's the problem. The last time I wined and dined her. Swept her off her feet.” He half smiled at the memory. “If I don't wine and dine her—” He caught Ava's gaze. “How is she going to know I'm interested?”

“Lots of ways. But you don't want to use champagne and flowers. That would be too much like the past. Plus she's a businesswoman now.” Her face scrunched as she thought for a second, then she said, “What time is she coming?”

“Six. Right after work.”

“Feed her dinner.” She sat on the seat in front of Cain's desk. “Trust a working woman on this one. Be practical.”

“I've spent the past few weeks being practical. Pretending we were work buddies at A Friend Indeed.” He wouldn't mention the kiss after the barbecue. The sweet memory might linger in his mind, but spending the following two weeks in Kansas had wiped away any opportunity he might have had to talk about it or expand on it with Liz. When he returned home, they'd had to pretend to be just friends in front of Billy. Private time was at a premium and he didn't want to waste it.

“This might be my only chance to be romantic.”

“I didn't say you couldn't be romantic. I just said be practical first. Feed her. Have a normal conversation. Then do whatever it is you want to do romantically.”

Cain's mouth twisted with a chagrined smile. What he wanted to do and what he had finally figured out was appropriate for a first date were two totally different things. Still, this might be his only shot. He had to play by the rules.

“All right. I'll try it your way.”

Ava rose. “We should talk more often. Makes me feel like you're almost human.”

He laughed. “Trust me. I'm fully human.” Otherwise, Liz wouldn't have been able to break his heart the last time around. He also wouldn't be worried that she could very well break it this time, too.

 

At a quarter to six that night, with steaks sizzling on the grill and his refrigerator stocked with beer, Ava's words repeated themselves in Cain's head. The first time around he'd done his damnedest to impress Liz. He hadn't been practical at all. His head had been in the clouds. This time around he would be better, smarter.

The doorbell sounded just as the steaks were ready to come off the grill. He raced through his downstairs, opened the door and pulled her inside. “Steaks have to come off the grill. Follow me.”

“I didn't want you to cook dinner!”

“I like to grill.” He did and she knew that, so that eased them past hurdle one.

She followed him through the downstairs into the kitchen and toward the French doors to the patio. “I still didn't want you to cook for me. I can't stay that long.”

“You can stay long enough to eat one measly steak.”

He said the words stepping out onto the cool stone floor of his patio.

Liz paused on the threshold. “This is beautiful.”

He glanced around at the yellow chaise lounges, the sunlight glistening off the blue water in the huge pool and the big umbrella table with the white linen tablecloth rustling in the breeze coming off the water just past his backyard. He hardly noticed how nice it was. With the exception of grilling and sometimes using the pool, he was never out here. In the past six years, he hadn't merely worked too much, he missed too much. He didn't enjoy what he had. Or the people in his life.

Maybe that's what Ava meant when she told him to be practical. To be normal.

“There's beer in the fridge.”

She stopped midstep. “Beer?”

“Yes. Get me one and one for yourself, while I get these steaks off.”

“Sure.”

By the time she returned, he had the steaks on two plates, along with foil-wrapped potatoes and veggies, both of which he'd also cooked on the grill.

Studying the food he'd prepared, she handed him a beer. “This looks great.”

He shrugged and motioned for her to take a seat. “All easy to do on a grill.”

“I'm impressed.”

He sat across from her. “I don't want you to be impressed. I want you to eat.”

She unwrapped her potato and reached for the butter and sour cream. “I think you really were serious about seeing me put on some weight.”

He laughed. “I like you just the way you are.” His compliment didn't surprise him as it popped out of his mouth. Ava wanted him to behave normally, which he took to mean behave as his real self, and that was how
he felt. But the compliment embarrassed Liz. Her cheeks reddened endearingly.

He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was but Ava's words rang in his head again.
Be practical.
He hadn't been practical the first time and as a result they'd never gotten to know each other. They'd each married a stranger.

“So tell me about your family.”

She peeked up at him. “I did, remember?”

“You told me about your dad…about your past. I'm interested in your family now. You said you had sisters.”

She licked her lips, stalling, obviously thinking about whether or not she should speak, what she should say, if she should say anything at all. Cain's heart nearly stopped. This was it, the big test of whether or not she was interested in a real relationship, and she was hesitating over the easy questions.

Could he have read this whole situation wrong? The kiss before he left for Kansas? The lifeline she'd been while his father was sick? The heated looks and lingering touches at the Friend Indeed houses?

“My mom works as a nurse.”

Relief poured through him. “No kidding?” Feigning nonchalance he didn't feel, he unwrapped the foil around his veggies. He had to be comfortable if he wanted her to be comfortable. “What about your sisters? What do they do?”

“My older sister is a physician's assistant. My younger sister is a pharmaceutical sales rep.”

“Interesting. Everybody's in medicine in some way.” He took a bite of broccoli.

Liz cut a strip off her steak. “Except me.”

“You're still helping people.”

“Yeah, but my degree's in business. I didn't get the nerves of steel my mother had. I couldn't have gone into medicine. I'm the family rebel.”

“Me, too. My dad owned a chain of hardware stores. And here I am in Miami, running three companies that use hardware but aren't in the hardware business.”

“I always wondered why you didn't just stay in Kansas and join the family business.”

“When it was time for me to go to school, the stores hit a rough patch. That's why I put myself through university.” He shook his head. “But what a backhanded lucky break. It led me to the work I love.”

“You
were
lucky.”

 

The second the words were out of her mouth, Liz regretted them. Cain might have been lucky in business but he hadn't been lucky in life. He'd suffered a horrible tragedy in the loss of his brother, particularly since he'd been the driver of the car. Their marriage had failed. Now she was here to tell him of another heartbreak. The conversation had been going in the absolute right direction until she'd made her stupid comment about him being lucky.

“I was lucky, but not entirely. Once I figured out what I wanted to do with my life I had to work hard to make it happen.”

She nearly breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn't taken her comment the wrong way and challenged it as he could have. “True.”

He slid his hand across the table. “And that's why I'm glad you wanted to talk tonight.” He pulled in a breath, reached for her fingers. Before Liz could stop him he had his hand wrapped around hers. “I know I'm
going to say this badly, but I can't go on the way we have been over the past few weeks.” He caught her stunned gaze. “I don't want a reconciliation. Neither one of us wants to go back to what we had.” He brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “But there's no law that says we can't start over. We're both different—”

Liz's breath froze in her lungs. She was too late! She loved him and now he was falling for her. She'd thought she'd fallen first and maybe too fast because Cain was so different that it was easy for her to see that and respond to it. But he was right with her. Falling as fast and as hard as she had been. Now she had to scramble to set things right.

Only with effort did she find the air and ability to speak. “Oh, Cain, we can't pretend we don't have a past.”

“Sure we can.”

“We can't!” She sucked in a breath, calmed herself. For weeks she'd been waiting for the right time to tell him her secret. She'd hesitated when she should have simply been brave and told him. She couldn't let another opportunity pass. “Cain, I can't forget the past and neither can you. We have to deal with it. I left you because I had a miscarriage. I needed help. Real help to get beyond it.”

His face shifted from happy to shocked. “You were pregnant?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn't tell me?” He let go of her hand and combed his fingers through his hair.

“I
couldn't
tell you—”

Music suddenly poured from Liz's cell phone. She
pulled it from her jeans pocket, hoping that a glance at caller ID would allow her to ignore it. When she saw it was Ayleen, she almost groaned. She couldn't ignore a call from A Friend Indeed.