Billionaires Dollar Series

*****

House-sitting a mansion for the summer sounds easy, right?

Until my rich, single dad neighbor catches me in a compromising position.

I’d just taken off my bikini top.

He’s billionaire Ethan Carter, a living legend in the tech world and father to two adorable little girls.

Oh, and he’s the kind of ruggedly handsome that belongs in a calendar with firefighters and puppies. “Welcome to the neighborhood,” he says, grinning.

The catch? He can afford to live here-I can’t.

Differences in income and age make anything more unthinkable, not to mention he’s coming off a terrible divorce and has no time to himself.

We agree we can’t be anything more, even as neighborly drinks turn into not-so-neighborly kisses, and kisses turn into… well.

Let’s just say he finds creative ways for us to use my kitchen counter.

He doesn’t know if he’s ready to trust again.

I don’t know if I’m ready to give my heart.

But as summer ends, we might not have choice in the matter.

*****

Bella

You said I lied. Misled and deceived you, that I had plans to ensnare you from the very beginning. I can understand why you would see it that way, Ethan. I truly can.

But I’m just as confused as you are. Just at lonely. More, perhaps. And I have no idea how to handle this situation-you have more experience with this than I do!

Maybe that’s why it hurts so much that you haven’t called me. Or maybe it’s because my heart had found a home in you, and then you took you away, and all the ideas I’d cautiously hoped into existence withered.

You were angry, but it went so much deeper than that. There was hurt in your eyes too. You trusted me, and you don’t do that often, and then it seemed like I broke that trust.

But I didn’t, Ethan-not truly, not in any deep way, and not in the way that matters most of all. Nothing about this is deliberate or planned. I hope you’ll see that one day. If not for me, or for you… for our child, at least.

****

“You’re going to be staying here all summer?” Trina’s voice echoes through the dining room. She rounds the chandelier-topped table, large enough to seat King Arthur and all his knights.

“Yes,” I say, twirling in the adjoining hallway. Even with my arms extended, I don’t touch any of the walls. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“Amazing? It’s mental. It should be a crime. You should be the one paying them.”

Laughing, I grab her arm and pull her into the kitchen. It’s an expanse of marble and gray cabinets, of artfully arranged copper pots hanging over a six-plated stove.

“Look at this place!”

She reaches for her phone. “I have to take a picture of this.”

“It’s so beautiful.” I open a set of the cabinet doors carefully. We can marvel, but it’s still not my home. It’s just mine for the summer. “I can’t wait to cook in this kitchen. The things I’ll be able to make…”

“I volunteer as a taster,” Trina says. “If you need one.”

“You’re always welcome, as long as you-”

“Yes, yes, I know. Take off my shoes and don’t touch any glass surfaces.” She gives me a mock salute, but behind her glasses, her eyes are glittering. “I’m still in shock that you found this job, if you can even call it that. I’m happy for you.”

“So am I. It’s an immense relief, actually.” When my ex had come home and announced he’d found someone else, I hadn’t wanted to spend another minute in our apartment. But that left me with nowhere to stay and not enough money to find a good short-term solution.

So when this opportunity appeared on my screen-a Seattle-based company looking for house-sitters for the ultra rich-I’d applied at the speed of light.

“Come out here!” Wilma calls. “You have got to see this!”

Trina is out the back door immediately, following the voice of our third friend. Already guessing what she’s spotted, I follow along, grinning.

Wilma is standing on the patio with a stunned Trina at her side. They’re facing the backyard, if that’s even the right word for it. A giant swimming pool glitters in the early summer sun. Four lounge chairs form a beautiful half-circle around an adjacent jacuzzi. Beyond it spreads a lawn impressively green even by Emerald City standards, neatly framed with a large hedge. We’re in a walled paradise.

It’s Eden.

“Bella,” Trina demands. “I need a link to the company who gave you this job, and I need it stat.”

Wilma’s tone is urgent. “I need more than that. I need guaranteed visitation rights this summer. Every day off I’ll be here, using this pool, and there’s no way you can stop me. I’ll give you anything.”

“Yes, anything,” Trina agrees. “I’ll proofread the final draft of your thesis.”Content © NôvelDrama.Org 2024.

“You’ve already agreed to do that,” I point out. “I’m reading yours at the moment!”

“Damn, that’s right.”

Wilma sinks down on one of the patio chairs. Her voice is dreamy. “I can’t understand why these people would leave their house all summer. They’re really gone until the end of August?”

“Yes, for three straight months.”

“But why?” She sweeps an arm out to the luscious surroundings, the scent of freshly mowed grass wonderfully thick in the air.

“I have no idea,” I say. “I’m guessing the Amalfi Coast beckoned? Who knows why the wealthy do what they do? I’m just happy they do. Now I have a place to stay and an extra income.”

Trina stretches out on the other patio chair, a hand over her eyes to guard from the sun. “Not to mention a beautiful neighborhood. Have you seen your neighbors yet? This is your chance to get in with high society, you know.”

I roll my eyes. “Yes, because I’d fit right in.”

“Hey, none of that attitude here. It’s not worthy of this house.”

“You’re right.” Cocking my hip, I look down my nose at her. “And speaking of attitude, I’m not liking yours. Where’s my Aperol Spritz?”

She grins at me. “That’s more like it.”

“Well, I’ve kind of already met my neighbor.”

“You have?”

“Yeah.” I nod to the hedge on the right side of us. Thick and green and high, the only thing visible beyond it is the shingles of the roof. “The man who lives there. At least, I think it was him.”

Wilma, like a bloodhound when she scents a good story, straightens. “What happened?”

“I was out here yesterday,” I say, nodding to the pool. “My first day here. And the sun was so gorgeous, how could I not be out here swimming, you know?”

“Of course,” Trina says. “Anything else would have been a crime.”

“A cardinal sin,” Wilma agrees.

“And the hedges are very tall here. So I thought, maybe this summer will be the one where I’ll finally manage to avoid any tan lines?”

“You didn’t!”

“I was in my own garden!” I say. “Well, my is perhaps not the right word, but at the moment it is. So I took off my bikini top.”

Trina’s eyes are scanning the hedge, even as Wilma looks at me with wide eyes, like she can’t believe I’d do such a thing. “There are no holes in those bushes,” Trina says resolutely. “I’m guessing where this story will go, but he can’t have seen you.”

“He wasn’t looking through the hedge, Trina. He was in that tree.” I point to the large, curved oak that rises from the property on the other side. “I looked over and there he was, sitting on a bough. I could see the top of a ladder, too.”

Wilma’s eyes grow even rounder. “And he was watching you?”