Next to You Read online

  Obviously, he had not received the same kind of medical care that Phlox had after her accident. Plastic surgery at this point might not completely restore his face, but it could help. Maybe enough to make him less self conscious about it. She could check with Dr. Ryan. Insurance wouldn’t cover Dr. Ryan at a hundred percent but Phlox could pick up the difference. As his employer, she could give him the time off he needed to recuperate. She could pay for a therapist. Personally, she hadn’t found her own post-accident therapy sessions to be all that useful but others often did.

  She opened up a new file on her computer and began listing all the things needed to help Jared Connor. Then she clicked it closed. In theory, she could help him. But, as Rye was forever pointing out to her, people were not scientific inquiries to be looked into. She barely knew Jared Connor, but she knew enough to realize that he would never let her help him.

  Chapter 7

  Jared was pulling weeds in the garden and fuming.

  Jared! I understand. The fuck if she did.

  He’d probably be fired by the end of the day, as soon as the owner found out he’d nearly bitten the head off her guest. He shouldn’t have done that. Yes, she was being way too forward and nosy for her own good but that was no excuse for his behavior. Most people just stared in horror at him, gasped and exited his presence as quickly as they could. He should be used to it by now.

  Then there was the raging hard-on he had gotten when she had tried to massage his phony leg cramp. He hoped she hadn’t noticed that. No employment reference there, that was for sure. He was great with the flowers but a bit of a pervert.

  He heard the sound of a car door shutting. He walked toward the house, then stopped short at the sight of a sleek black BMW parked in the driveway. Another guest? Just what I need. A tall man in a conservatively-cut suit unfolded himself from the car. He looked like an attorney, Jared thought. I’m about to be fired. Well, can’t say I didn’t earn it.

  Just then the front door to the house flew open and the woman raced across the porch and down the steps. He held his breath until her feet were safely on the ground. She was tempting fate, that one. Jared watched as she threw her arms around the man’s neck, beaming up at him, obviously happy to see him. Maybe not the attorney. Maybe the boyfriend.

  Jared retreated quietly back to the garden, picked up his shears and recoiled the hose. So her boyfriend was up for the weekend. Well, they probably wouldn’t want him around, working and preventing them from enjoying the grounds or the pool. Owners and guests generally wanted him out of sight when they were around. Reachable in case they needed something, but otherwise invisible.

  Heaven knows, Jared liked to be invisible. He had no problem with that. Things were in good shape around the property. There were still some weeds to trim out on the perimeter but those could wait until next week. He doubted the guests would venture that far out. Probably he should have warned her about the recent black bear sightings. Mr. Big City will protect her, right? Jared snorted. He was probably right about the guy being an attorney. She was dating a lawyer. Great. Just his luck.

  He stomped the mud from his work boots, harder and louder than necessary—as if he could stomp out the bubble of irritation rising in his chest. Why did he care if her boyfriend was an attorney? He didn’t give a shit. Maybe they would spend all weekend in bed boning each other’s brains out and then leave on Sunday without him seeing either of them again. That would be ideal.

  He unlaced his work boots and traded them for hiking boots. Then he grabbed his keys and hopped into the truck. He had no particular destination in mind when he started out but he soon found himself heading northwest toward one of the state parks. Connecticut was surprisingly green and lush; that had surprised him when he moved east after selling the company. The state’s cities were in bad shape but once you got outside those, there were miles of winding country roads, snaking rivers, and rolling hills. Cycling and kayaking were popular pastimes.

  Personally, Jared liked to hike. He loved the smell of pine and the softness of wet earth beneath his boots. He liked being surprised by a breathtaking view at the top of a trail. He liked the solitude of it.

  He knew all the trails in the park, including the section of the Appalachian Trail that crossed through it. Today, he chose the most difficult trail. There would be fewer people on it, he reasoned, and he liked the little clearing at the top where one could sit and look out over miles and miles of trees. Jared wanted to just zone out for awhile, reset his equilibrium after the stress of the week. He’d founded and built a technology company, then negotiated its sale to Google, but none of that had been more stressful than just being around people. Computers didn’t care what you looked like. Nor did money, for that matter.

  The trail made a five-mile loop, with the first half a winding ascent. After the first mile, Jared’s thighs were burning with exertion but the pain felt good. It kept his mind off other things he’d rather not think about. Like what the woman at the house was doing right now. Specifically what she was doing with her boyfriend. If he had to take a wild guess, he’d say she wasn’t baking muffins with him. Her muffins were delicious but—hell—Jared didn’t want to bake muffins with her either.

  That was the bitch of it. He found her attractive, and that was a dangerous thing. He couldn’t afford to develop a crush on a woman. He’d allowed that to happen once, in college, and it had ended badly. Really badly, for him anyway. For the woman, she’d won a two hundred dollar bet for sleeping with the disfigured guy. Since then, he had kept his relationships with women inside strictly drawn parameters. When he founded his company, Accendo, he discovered that there were quite a few women willing to go out with a wealthy man no matter what he looked like. It hadn’t been that difficult to find women who would sleep with him in exchange for cars, exotic trips, expensive baubles. Since the company’s sale though, Jared had been staying away from pretty much everyone, women included.

  At the top of the trail was a broad, flat boulder warmed by the afternoon sun. Jared collapsed onto it and took a long swig from his water bottle. He turned his face up toward the sky, letting the heat sink into his skin. He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the woods, birds in the trees, the breeze rustling through the leaves, the trickle of a nearby creek.

  I don’t even know her name.

  Fuck. Even out here, he couldn’t get her out of his mind. What was that guy doing to her right now? Jared pictured him undressing her, noticing the bandages on her knees, asking how she had injured herself, kissing the scars. Then he would push those lovely thighs apart and …

  Jared tugged at his shorts. Damn it all to hell. He was as hard as the boulder he was sitting on. This was no good. There was absolutely no use in thinking about something he couldn’t have. If he was going to do this, he should have stayed back at the cottage and surfed porn for an hour or two.

  He pulled his phone out of his shirt pocket, praying for bars. He had two. At least something had gone right today. He tapped Jake’s name in his contact list.

  “Jared, what’s up?” his brother answered.

  “Not much. Taking a few hours off. There are guests at the house this week. Thought I’d make myself scarce.”

  Jake snorted. “How long are you going to do this shit? If you want to mow grass, get some grass of your own to mow.”

  “Yeah. I’m thinking this might be the last caretaking gig I do.” By “I’m thinking” Jared meant the thought had literally just occurred to him. Two minutes ago, he’d been considering no such thing.

  “You could always start another company,” Jake suggested. “You are good at that. Although … we’re looking for a nanny or an au pair. Mina wants to go back to work in the fall. You could come be our manny. Job’s yours if you want it.”

  Jared heard muffled laughter on the other end.

  “Don’t get an au pair.” Jared and Jake had been cared for by a succession of au pairs when they were young—comely girls with big smiles from Brazil, Bulgaria
, Ireland, Denmark. Their father had slept with them all.

  “Don’t worry,” Jake said quietly, following Jared’s train of thought. “Mina rules out all the pretty ones. Not that I’d ever …” His voice trailed away.

  “I know you wouldn’t, man.”

  Jake was a devoted family man, and why not? He had a beautiful wife and two adorable kids. Then again, so had their father.

  “Why is Mina going back to work? You can give yourself a raise if you need the money,” Jared said.

  “Naw, it’s not that. Although I appreciate the offer, bro. Aidan’s starting kindergarten in the fall and Emma will be in third grade. Mina wants to return to her career, that’s all. We just need someone to watch the kids after school.”

  The conversation fell quiet for a moment, then Jared asked the question they always tried to avoid. “Any news?”

  He waited for Jake to answer.

  “No. He’s on his last appeal. The attorney said he didn’t know when the state would rule on it.”

  “Well, he’s lost every other appeal.”

  Jared felt bad, again, for saddling his brother with this. Jared paid for the attorney but it was Jake who stayed in touch with the attorney and physically wrote out the checks. Some days—most days, actually—Jared didn’t know why he bothered paying for it. A court-appointed attorney would have had the same outcome. If you’re waiting for an apology, man, it ain’t gonna happen. Jake had told him that a million times over the years.

  Was that what he wanted? An apology? An apology for ruining their lives by taking away their mother and leaving them orphans for all intents and purposes? For leaving Jared with a twisted wreck of a face? For leaving both of them with the knowledge that their father hadn’t loved them? An apology for not leaving, for not walking away from them and their mother instead?

  Why couldn’t he have simply abandoned them? That would have been infinitely better. Even for him. Walking away from one’s family was heinous, a crime of the heart surely, but not a crime in the eyes of the law.

  Jared ran his hand through his hair as the sun fell behind a cloud. Yes, he did want an apology. He wanted to hear the man say, just once, that he was sorry. That if he had the chance to do it over again, he would do things differently.

  “Are you going to go?” he asked his brother.

  “Probably not. Mina thinks it’s a bad idea. And, as you like to tell me, she’s my smarter half.” He sighed audibly on the other end. “You aren’t thinking of going, are you?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe.”

  “It’s probably not a good idea, Jared. You could end up drawing a lot of attention to it. Maybe if you hadn’t dropped out of the public eye for so long, it wouldn’t matter. But you have.”

  The conversation fell into a dead zone again. It always did. Jared was closer to his brother than anyone. Hell, his brother was the only person he was close to. But there were too many things Jared and Jake couldn’t bring themselves to say anymore, not even to each other.

  I’m sorry to be making you manage my life, but not sorry enough to do it myself.

  Are you going to hide for the rest of your life? Why’d you knock yourself out to build a business and sell it for a bloody fortune if you’re not going to enjoy it?

  You have the life I always wanted. Nice house in the ‘burbs, beautiful wife, lovely children.

  Thank you for going to get me, for saving my life. I don’t know how to make it up to you. Please tell me how to make it up to you.

  I will never regret going to get you. How could I have lived with myself if I hadn’t saved my baby brother?

  But you did it and you still can’t live with yourself.

  “Hey, got a call on the other line,” Jake said. “Talk to you soon?”

  “Yeah. Say hi to Mina and the kids for me.”

  “They’d love a visit from their uncle, you know.”

  “I’ll work on it. Bye Jake.”

  He laid back on the rock and let the heat seep into his muscles. He was thirty-five years old. Fuck, life was long. He couldn’t see himself taking care of other people’s houses and property for the rest of his life. But he also couldn’t see what else he might do. He could take over running the foundation from Jake, but then he’d have to meet with people, be out in public. The public didn’t really want him out. People wanted his money but they’d rather get it from Jake. He didn’t blame people for this. Jake was easier on the eyes. People knew how to behave around Jake. They were never sure what to do around Jared. Look at him? Not look at him? Pretend they don’t even notice? Apologize?

  Jake had suggested he start another company. But for what? To make more money? He already had more money than he needed and it multiplied faster than he could give it away. Plus he wasn’t a young buck anymore. It was easier to get away with the face when he was young. Everyone loved a young, smart entrepreneur. Fashion sense limited to hoodies and sneakers? Awkward social skills? Messed up face? If you were going to make people a lot of money, they would forgive you everything else.

  Chapter 8

  Phlox laughed at the skeptical expression on her brother’s face when she pulled into the grassy parking area of Pizza A Go Go.

  “You sure the health inspector isn’t going to storm the place with a SWAT team while we’re eating?” Rye asked.

  “Trust me on this,” she said.

  Pizza A Go Go was housed in what some might call a cross between a mobile home and a shack, set down on the edge of a field like it had been picked up in Kansas by a tornado and deposited here. The parking lot wasn’t paved and the signage was minimal. But the pizza was to die for.

  Phlox had been surprised to see her brother’s sleek black BMW pull into her driveway at three o’clock in the afternoon. It was a pleasant surprise, though she knew immediately why he’d come. Oh sure, it was to bring the photo album she had called Cherise about. But that was merely a secondary motivation. The photo album could have been overnighted, as she had requested. No, the real reason why her older brother had driven two hours from New York was to check up on her, a motive he had immediately—if sheepishly—admitted to.

  Not that Phlox minded—not too much, anyway. She and Rye were close. A few eyebrows had been raised when she hired Rye to be the chief financial officer of Phlox Beauty, but there was no one else she trusted more.

  “I know the ambience isn’t much but the food is amazing,” she said as they walked across the parking lot toward the unassuming restaurant. “Plus, I’m supposed to be getting fat this month, so carbs and cheese are right up my alley.”

  A teenaged hostess led them through the small, dark interior and out onto the back deck, which overlooked acres of trees and overgrown brush. A child’s playset had been set up fifty feet away. An older woman dressed in jeans and a white oxford shirt set a bottle of sparkling water and two photocopied menus on the table.

  “I’ll be back in a minute to take your order.”

  “No liquor license,” Phlox whispered to her brother. “That’s the owner. She and her husband—and their kids—run the place.”

  After they placed their order for a medium spinach and ricotta pizza with thin crust, Phlox leaned back in her plastic chair and enjoyed the feel of the late afternoon sun on her face and arms.

  “I’m glad you came,” she said. It felt good to get out of the house, actually, away from the pressure to be the old Phlox—and away from Jared Connor, who had turned into a painful reminder that some people didn’t know that the old Phlox ever existed.

  “So sis, how are you? Really?”

  “I’m fine, Rye.” She smiled encouragingly at her brother. “Really.” This was the checking-up-on-her part of the day’s entertainment. And she was fine. Mostly fine, anyway. Except for her inability to use a certain part of the kitchen—which explained why she was taking her brother to Pizza A Go Go for dinner—and the fact that she had totally pissed off an employee.

  “What have you been doing up here?”

  “Baking
, reading, relaxing. A little work here and there. I’m only allowed one phone call to the company, per Zee.”

  “Yeah, I heard that.” Rye uncapped the bottle of water and filled their glasses. “Sales have been good on the A2Z. Maybe a little too good.”

  “How so?”

  “The factory’s running at max capacity. If this takes off, we’re going to have find a larger facility.”

  “Or build our own.”

  Rye grimaced. “That takes a bit of cash, though. Zee has dispatched Nicholas to the factory to see if he can squeeze a little more production out of them.”

  Something in Rye’s voice gave Phlox pause. “You don’t sound as if you think that’s a good idea.”

  He shrugged. “I’m not real keen on Nicholas.”

  “Why not? He’s Zee’s boyfriend.” Zee had hired Nicholas Ackermann as a business consultant last year, then proceeded to fall in love with him.

  “I don’t know. I just get a bad feeling about him.”

  “Maybe you’re just suffering from male territorial syndrome or something.” Rye was one of only a handful of men who worked at Phlox Beauty, as well as Zee’s honorary big brother since she was an only child.

  “Maybe. What’s the scuttlebutt online about A2Z?”

  “Mostly quiet from consumers. A few complaints here and there about glitchy kiosks and price.”

  “It’s getting good reviews in the press, right?”

  She nodded. “I think that’s driving sales but it’s still in the new purchase phase of the sales cycle. People are trying it but it’s too soon to tell if they’ll repurchase.”

  Launching the A2Z Cream had been a risk for Phlox and Zee. Everyone told them that they were crazy—no, certifiably insane—to launch it in the current economic climate. A customized product that women had to order first, then wait for it to be delivered? Cosmetics were so often an impulse purchase, they knew that. You walked into a store for a refill on your favorite tube of lipstick and walked out with three new nail polishes, a new foundation and the latest miracle serum. Phlox had done it a million times herself.