The Billionaire Next Door. Jessica Bird
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cranky old friend gone. Hard to internalize the fact that there would be no more blue glow from his TV at night, no more sound of him shuffling about, no more trips to buy him the chocolate ice cream he liked.
No more talking to him the way a daughter talked to a gruff father.
She tightened her grip on the bag’s handles and hoped he hadn’t struggled at the end, hadn’t felt horrible pain and fear. She wished for him a peaceful slide as he passed, not a bumpy, frightening fall.
As she went up to the house, she felt as if there was a draft licking around her body, as if the night had turned frigid though it was in fact balmy.
It was just so hard to come home this morning. To her, there was only empty space above her now. The man whose life had animated the furniture and the objects in the other apartment was gone and the silence overhead was only going to remind her of what had been lost.
After Lizzie let herself into her place, she put her keys in a dish on her little painted table and shut the door. She was setting down the plastic bag when she froze.
Someone was walking around upstairs.
Her first thought was totally illogical: for a split second, she was sure that someone had made a mistake with Mr. O’Banyon and he’d been discharged because he was perfectly healthy.
Her second thought was that a burglar had broken in.
Except then she realized whoever it was was pacing. Back. Forth. Back. Forth.
The son had come into town.
She started for the door, but then stopped because going up to see him was ridiculous. Though she’d been close to the guy’s father, she didn’t know the son at all and it was just before dawn, for heaven’s sake. Hardly the time for a sympathy call.
After she took a shower, she sat in her living room with a bowl of corn flakes in her lap. Instead of eating the cereal, she played with it until it turned to mush, and listened to the man above her wear out the floorboards.
Twenty minutes later, she put on a pair of jeans and went up the stairwell.
The moment she knocked, the pacing stopped. Just in case he thought she was a burglar, she said, “Hello? Mr.—ah, Sean O’Banyon?”
Nothing could have prepared her for who opened that door.
The man on the other side of the jamb stood about six inches taller than her and wore nothing but a pair of boxers and a whole lot of muscle. With a gold cross hanging from his neck, an old tattoo on his left pec and a scar on one of his shoulders, he looked a little dangerous…especially in the face. His hazel eyes were sharp as razors, his jaw set as if he was used to being in charge, his lips nothing but a tight, hard line.
She could totally imagine the cold tone she’d heard over her phone coming out of that mouth.
“Yeah?” His voice was very deep.
“I’m Lizzie—Elizabeth Bond. I talked to you today—yesterday. I live downstairs.”
All at once his face eased up. “Ah, hell. I’m making too much noise, aren’t I? Worse, I’ve been at it for a while.” His South Boston accent flattened out his vowels and sharpened his consonants. Funny, she hadn’t noticed the intonation over the phone, but it was clear as day now. And she’d seen him somewhere. Then again, it was probably because he looked like his father.
“Anyway,” he said, “I’m sorry and I’ll cut it out.”
“Oh, that wasn’t why I came up. And I just got home from my shift so I missed most of the pacing.” She took a deep breath and smelled…whoa, a very nice cologne. “I’m truly sorry about your loss and I—”
“Hey, you want some breakfast?”
“Excuse me?”
“Breakfast.” As he pushed a hand through his thick dark hair, his bicep flexed up and the gleaming cross shifted between his pecs. “I’m not going to sleep anytime soon and I’m hungry.”
“Oh…well…that’s not necessary.”
“Of course it isn’t. But you just got home from work, didn’t you?”
“Ah, yes.”
“So you’re probably hungry, too, right?”
Come to think of it she was.
“And I’ll even put my pants on for you, Elizabeth.”
Absurdly, a rush went through her. And she had the illicit, inappropriate thought that while he was making love to a woman, his voice would sound fantastic in the ear.
God, how could she even think like that?
“Lizzie,” she said, walking in. “I go by Lizzie.”
Sean tracked the woman as she went by him, very aware of her smooth, gliding stride. Tall and lean, she was wearing an old pair of blue jeans and a four-sizes-too-big Red Sox T-shirt he was willing to bet she’d be sleeping in later. Her shoulder-length blond hair was pulled back in a no-nonsense way and the ends were damp as if she’d just showered. She smelled of Ivory soap.
Which he liked.
“Lizzie it is, then,” he said as he closed the door. “And you can call me Sean, of course.”
As he spoke, he realized his Southie accent had resurfaced and it was strange to hear the speech pattern of his childhood back in his words again. During his years at Harvard, he’d assiduously tamed the telltale rs and learned a different, less regional way of talking.
Less regional. Ha. Try more upper-class.
Lizzie stopped in the middle of the room, her pale green stare going over everything as if she were inspecting the place. She had smart eyes, he thought.
“So you’re a nurse?” he said.
“I am, but I wasn’t treating your father. I was a friend of his.”
Had he heard that right? “A friend.”
“Yes. I’ve lived downstairs for the past two years so we got to know each other. He was lonely.”
“Was he.”
“Very.” As she nodded, she ran her hand over the back of the Barcalounger. “We had dinner together a lot.”
For some reason, the sight of her touching his father’s chair creeped him out.
“Well, then, I guess you know the way to the kitchen.” Sean reached into his duffel for some jeans. “You mind if I don’t put on a shirt? Damn hot up here.”
He was surprised when she blushed. “Oh…no. I mean, yes, that’s fine.”
As she headed out of the room, he pulled on his pants and thought of his father.
Lonely. Yeah, right. Not with this tenant around. Eddie O’Banyon had been a loner by nature, but it was funny how a pretty young woman could get a man to feeling sociable.
And she’d obviously spent a lot of time up here. Not only did she know where the kitchen was, but along the way, she shifted the edge of a cheap picture that had tilted off center and straightened a pile of mail. He had the feeling she was the reason the place was so clean.
While Sean worked his way up his button fly, he was willing to bet she was also the reason his father had gotten off the booze, too. Nothing like love or some serious attraction to the opposite sex to turn a guy around. At least temporarily.
Except what had she seen in him?
Sean cursed under his breath. Like he had to even ask that? On impulse, he removed his gold watch and tucked it into his duffel. If she’d been attracted to what little cash his father had had, there was no reason for her to know he was swimming in the stuff.
As he went into the kitchen, he wondered if she knew who he was. He