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  “Where are you going?” she asked, her voice changing its tone when she saw me walking towards the window in my room.

  “Making a smooth exit,” I said, looking at her over my shoulder with a smirk.

  “You’re leaving through the window?” she asked in a shrill voice as I slid the glass pane up and stuck my leg out, feeling for the drain pipe I always relied on.

  “Always have, always will. Thanks Maisie. You’re a doll,” I said before hauling myself out of the window in one smooth motion.

  Chapter 2 - Connor

  Nothing had changed at all. It had been five years since I had left town, yet Paddy’s Pub looked exactly the same. Even the same regulars sat around the small circular tables in the place just like they used to when I had come before.

  Paddy was behind the bar serving drinks and polishing glasses. He greeted me with a bear hug and a free beer. I sat down in front of him on a stool and chugged the beer down thirstily.

  “What’s up with you, man? Someone said you left town for good?” Paddy asked, grabbing the damp rag off his shoulder to give his glasses a wipe.

  “Moved to Texas. Bought a ranch,” I replied and grabbed myself another beer from the crate.

  “And you’re just visiting now? Your mother threw another one of her posh parties?” Paddy laughed and I laughed along with him. This guy knew me from when it wasn’t even legal for me to be drinking. He’d seen me through bad times and could very well be the only positive presence for me in the Hamptons.

  “Just like the good ol’ days,” I said and lifted my beer up in the air for a would-be toast.

  I heard the door of the bar open and turned partially in my seat to have a look. I could only hope that it was Lewis, Jack, or one of the other guys walking in. As far as I knew, they were still in town and it would have been great to catch up with them. Instead, a woman had walked in. I nearly choked on my beer.

  When was the last time a woman had that effect on me? But this one was perfect. Big breasts stretching the material of her thin cotton t-shirt, a slim curvaceous waist, and dark jeans hanging low, revealing a flat strip of belly. My gaze travelled up towards her face and, for a moment, she looked familiar. Luscious dark hair fell down in waves around her shoulders and framed a slender heart-shaped face. Her deep green eyes surveyed the bar – presumably for an empty table. When she saw one, she walked towards it, a hand clutching the strap of her purse on her shoulder.

  She weaved around the tables in the bar, and I saw heads turn. A sudden feeling of jealousy coursed through my veins. How dare they look at her? I’d seen her first!

  “Paddy, the usual!” she called out from her table by the window, and I whipped around to him, my brows furrowing with curiosity.

  “Who is that?” I asked while he prepared a gin and tonic.

  “You don’t recognize her? Lesley Evans, man!” Paddy said, and then, with a grin on his face, he walked around the bar to carry the drink to the girl’s table.

  For a few moments, I didn’t think I’d heard him right. Lesley Evans? The neighbor’s kid I used to babysit? The family whose money I . . .

  I shook my head to rid myself of those thoughts. Paddy was walking back towards the bar, and I chanced a look at her again. I tried calculating how old she could be now . . . She was at least ten years younger than me . . . So, twenty-four?

  “That’s Lesley Evans?” I asked Paddy again, trying to sound as calm and natural as possible. He smirked as he polished some more glasses.

  “Didn’t you, like, babysit her or something? I thought you guys were friends,” he said casually while I gulped down some more of the beer. Even though I wasn’t looking at her now, the sight of those breasts, the curves of her hips, her arched plump lips . . . It was all fresh in my mind. I shouldn’t have been thinking about her like that. She was like a sister to me when we were growing up.

  “Yeah, kinda . . . Not really friends. Her family lived next to us. That’s all,” I told him. Paddy clucked his tongue and shook his head as he worked.

  “It’s a shame what happened to them, though,” he said and I felt my throat run dry. I had a pretty good idea what happened to them, but I needed confirmation.

  “What happened to them?”

  “They lost all their money. Bad investments or something. They had to sell the house and move into a small, cramped apartment. The poor girl had to give up her college fund to sustain the family,” Paddy continued. I couldn’t stop tapping my feet on the floor.

  “College fund?”

  “Yeah, she was preparing for law school. Got into one of those Ivy League ones, too, but they couldn’t afford it. Now she works mornings at some diner on the Highway and at a gas station at night,” Paddy said. I ran a hand through my hair.

  Nobody knew anything about what those bad investments were. I could have bet a million dollars that Lesley’s dad hadn’t told his family about the scheme I devised for him. It would have been too shameful to admit to being duped by a twenty-eight-year-old guy. A neighbor whom he trusted and relied upon. I thought I was having fun. I thought I was taking risks and being a big guy. When the Evans family went bankrupt, I didn’t bat an eyelid. I had my own shit to worry about . . . Natalia and Alfie . . . Now, hearing about what Lesley was going through made me shift uncomfortably in my seat.

  I was responsible for everything.

  “Shit happens to good people, doesn’t it?” Paddy’s voice cut through my thoughts and I quickly emptied the bottle of beer down my throat.

  Why did Lesley Evans have to grow up and look like this? Now my brain and cock were at war with each other, and I wasn’t sure whose side to take.

  Chapter 3 - Lesley

  I sat with my legs crossed at my usual table at Paddy’s Pub. I tried to keep my chin up as I sipped at my gin and tonic. Another hour to go before my shift began at the gas station, and I knew I’d need a drink before I got there . . . to help me get through the night.

  My days were the usual. It was the same routine over and over again – no change. Diner, lunch, Paddy’s Pub, gas station, and then driving dejectedly back to our tiny apartment in the wee hours of the morning, hoping I didn’t wake mom and dad as they tried to catch up on sleep. Hoping to get a few winks in myself, so that I wasn’t yawning the whole time at the diner. The meager tips I collected paid for gas and my daily drink at the pub. My paychecks all went towards rent and putting food on the table. We were struggling to stay alive.

  I’d been sitting at the table for no more than a few minutes with my drink when I heard a voice at my side.

  “Heard you’re looking for work,” the voice was deep and familiar. I jerked my head around to see a man standing over me. When our eyes met, I knew instantly who it was. Connor Marshall. I didn’t even know he was back! My eyebrows furrowed as we stared at each other. There was no hint of friendliness on his face. Instead, he looked like he was about to burst a vein. He’d always looked rebellious, like he hated his life, even though he had so much to be thankful for.

  “Who told you that?” I said and took a sip of my drink. Who did he think he was, just turning up five years later and not even greeting me with a hello? But, damn, those eyes! I realized that my teenage erotic fantasies about him had not exactly disappeared.

  He had the same glacial blue eyes that gave away nothing. The same chiseled features, strong jaw, and sophisticated pointy nose. However, there was something distinctly different about him now as well. He was more muscular. I could see his shirt stretching over his expansive chest, his biceps bulging . . . His neck was wide and strong. Even his skin looked tanned. Like he’d been out in the sun all day for a while now!

  “You’re saying you don’t need a job?” he asked, his voice sharply jerking me out of my gushing admiration of his body. Even Connor’s hair was longer now; it reached his shoulders but was the same dirty blond as before. He had developed a certain roughness about – like he didn’t live in the lap of luxury anymore.

  “I already have a job,�
�� I said and he took in a deep breath. Connor’s wide shoulders shook and my mind instantly went to what he was hiding under his pants.

  I might have been a kid when Connor was in the prime of his Casanova days, but his legend had lived on. Girls I knew spoke about Connor’s cock like it was a thing to be worshipped. Apparently, he was known to make a girl come just with one measured stroke of his cock. I shifted in my seat.

  “You work at a diner and a gas station. Those aren’t jobs – they’re slavery,” he said, keeping his lips rigidly firm. I felt a sudden urge to jump off my seat and slap him straight across the face. Who was he to judge my means of living? What did he know about earning a livelihood? Heir to the Marshall business legacy!

  “Excuse me?” I said instead, feeling my hands shaking a little as I gripped my glass of gin. All those years, when we were neighbors, I’d admired him from a distance. Watching him climbing down the window of his bedroom, bringing home girl after girl every night. My parents told me that he used to babysit me when I was five or so, but I didn’t remember. All I remembered was Connor Marshall’s dangerous blue eyes and his rough large hands and that voice . . .

  “You know what I’m talking about. You’re free to continue working those shit jobs if you want, or you could come work for me,” I heard him say and I gritted my teeth at him. All those years of fantasizing about this guy, and now he was throwing me a job offer like it was pocket change. I despised his arrogance, but what more should I have expected from him?

  Connor’s gaze travelled over my face, down my neck, to my breasts, and I suddenly felt naked. Like he could see right through me. I was aware of the way men looked at me, but nobody had undressed me with their eyes the way Connor was doing right now. And I was surprised to realize that I liked it. I liked being watched by him.

  “I’m leaving you my card. It has the address of my ranch in Texas. If you’re willing to take a risk and move, you can come work for me at the ranch,” he said and gave me one quick once over. Connor had turned and walked straight out of the bar.

  I stared after him, my lips hanging open in utter surprise. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. That he’d actually offered me a job, no questions asked and no details provided. Did he really expect me to leave everything and follow him to Texas?

  Did he really think I was that desperate?

  I tried not to think about how desperate I actually was. That a few minutes ago, before he had walked up to me, I would have given my right arm to get away from this town in search of a new life. But how could I accept his offer now? I knew exactly the kind of man Connor Marshall was. I knew the effect he had on my body.

  Chapter 4 - Connor

  “Where were you last night?” Mother sat at one corner of the breakfast table, buttering her toast. I had just walked in, feeling a dull ache throbbing at the back of my head. After I left Paddy’s Pub the previous night, I’d bought a six pack from a convenience store and sat in my car and drank them all.

  I sat down at the other end of the table while Mother’s housekeepers fussed around me with their danishes and pots of coffee.

  “I went for a stroll,” I said to her and met her eyes. She liked to sit on the same chair that she sat in while father was still alive. Nobody was allowed to sit at the head of the table anymore. Even though there was no romance or love in my parents’ marriage, I had to hand it to my mother for her feeling of deference towards him even when he was dead.

  A sound like a snort escaped mother’s lips and she shook her head.

  “Thirty-four years old and you’re still sneaking out of your bedroom window and going to the bar,” she said while I munched on an almond croissant. Back at the ranch, I ate toast and beans every morning for breakfast. It was comforting, hardy and exactly the kind of food I needed to sustain me for my work on the ranch.

  “What do you want from me, Mother? I came here, I mingled with your guests, and then I left,” I replied and glanced at the stack of newspapers that somebody had politely placed beside me.

  Mother drew in a deep, annoyed breath and shook her head some more.

  “Why didn’t you bring Alfie with you? I haven’t seen my grandson in months!” Mother exclaimed and I bit my tongue to stop myself from telling her the truth. That I was shielding my son from the coldness of this house and his grandmother’s ways.

  “He has school,” I said instead and mother clucked her tongue.

  “And you left him in a house full of country men?” she asked and I shrugged my shoulders.

  “He’s seven, Mother. He needs someone to watch him,” I said, even though I knew exactly where this conversation was going.

  “Which is why you need a wife. Alfie needs the presence of a nurturing woman in the house. He should be rightfully pampered and brought up with manners,” Mother continued and I gritted my teeth so that I didn’t burst out in fury. She had no idea about what she was talking about. I had seen firsthand what the nurturing qualities of a mother like Natalia could do. Even though she lived in the same house as Alfie, she could go days without actually seeing her son. I had never seen them hug. When she eventually left, to move to New York with the lover I always knew she had, Alfie didn’t even realize that his mother was gone.

  “I don’t need a wife,” I snapped at Mother eventually. She looked up at me sharply. She was upset that I had spoken to her that way, but what choice did I have? I needed her to shut up. I didn’t need any more advice on how to bring up my own son.

  “Yes, you do. And any of those girls from last night would have been a perfect choice!” mother continued and I clenched my jaws as I stared at the front page of the newspaper. I wasn’t really reading. I was thinking about the girls from last night. Not Maisie or any of the other blond haired, shrill-voiced ones . . . My mind had wandered to Lesley. I’d sat in my car thinking about her all night, too.

  “Alfie needs a womanly influence. Someone to teach him how to use cutlery in the correct order . . . ” Mother’s voice continued in the background. No, what Alfie needed was someone to help him with his homework, to read him a bedtime story, to make sure that he took his baths in time. Someone he could share inside jokes with. I didn’t know how to be a father to him without being reminded of Natalia.

  “And you need a woman to knock some sense into you. Someone you’d be proud to have on your arm. Someone you can return to the Hamptons with. That house of yours is lying empty now. You need a wife to help you redecorate,” Mother went on. I jerked my head up to look at her. I had enough.

  “I don’t need a wife and Alfie doesn’t need a mother. What we need is a nanny!” I barked at her and then stood up from my chair and left the dining room.

  Lesley’s face was whirling around in my mind. I couldn’t help but wonder how soft her skin was, what her lips tasted like . . . If those breasts would fit in the palms of my hands. I’d offered her a job on a whim. I knew I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t her capacity to work for me that I wanted. It was her body that I was after.

  My cell phone beeped in the pocket of my pants and I drew it out. It was a text message from an unknown number.

  Okay. I’ll go to Texas and work for you. I’ll be there in two days. Thanks – Lesley

  I had to read the text five times before the words actually sunk in. I hadn’t expected her to accept the offer. This was going to be a huge mistake. She was the last person I wanted to come work for us as a nanny because it would mean I’d have a perpetual hard-on – every day, all the fucking time!

  I should have just kept my mouth shut and walked away from the bar without saying anything to her. But instead, I’d gone and dug my own grave.

  Chapter 5 - Lesley

  I arrived at the ranch, following the directions that Connor had scribbled down at the back of his business card. Besides that, he had also replied to the text that I had sent him with a curt but informative response. I wasn’t exactly expecting him to be a great communicator.

  I’ll expect you at the ranch on the sixteenth
by midday - Connor

  Given that he was expecting me now, I assumed he or at least someone would be present at the gates to greet me. Instead, I carried my own bags down the dirt path which also served as the driveway. Everywhere I looked about me there were open fields. I couldn’t quite believe it. Connor Marshall lived in this place? It had to be some sort of a joke. I could hear the sound of horse hooves at the back of the ranch house. I expected one to just appear out of nowhere any moment.

  The decision to take Connor up on his offer had been simple yet difficult in so many ways. I knew I needed a job, a job that wasn’t working part time at a diner where my ass got groped on a daily basis or working at the gas station at night, fending off the advances of drunks and fearing for my life every time someone walked in who I didn’t recognize. It was only now, when I really thought about it, that I realized I was living in constant fear.

  Fear of not being able to provide for my family and fear of something going wrong at my jobs. When Connor offered me a job at the ranch, my first instinct had been flight. But when I thought about it, how could any job on a ranch in Texas be any worse than the kind of work I was already doing? I needed to try something different. I needed an adventure. I needed to get away from our matchbox-sized apartment.

  And, of course, there was the matter of my crush on him. Even though I tried to tell myself was a silly teenage infatuation, I couldn’t help reliving it now that I had seen him again.

  I was curious and thirsty for change, so I left the only home I knew and came here.

  Now, no human soul came to greet me at the ranch until I walked up the steps of the porch and knocked on the mesh screen door.

  Even the air our here smelled fresh. The sky was clear and, despite the dust clouds in the distance, everything looked clean and serene. This was the last place on earth I would have expected Connor to build a house in, considering the lifestyle he led in the Hamptons.