“Nestor Construction is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cain Corporation.”
“Fantastic.” She pivoted and walked back to the center island. “Here’s the deal. I have six employees and enough work for seven. But I can’t hire the people I need and work exclusively in the office until I get enough work for eight.” She also wouldn’t tell him that she was scrambling to employ every woman from A Friend Indeed, a charity that provided temporary housing for women who needed a second chance. He didn’t understand charities. He most certainly didn’t understand second chances.
“Then my profit margins will allow me to take a salary while I spend my days marketing the business and the expansions I have planned.”
“Expansions?”
“I’m getting into gardening and pool cleaning.” She combed her fingers through the loose hair that had escaped the knot at her nape. “Down the road. Right now, I’m on the cusp with the maid service. I seriously need thirty more clients.”
He whistled.
“It’s not such a stretch in a city like Miami!”
“I’m not whistling at the difficulty. I’m impressed. When did you get into this?”
She hesitated then wondered why. It shouldn’t matter. “Three years ago.”
“You decided to start a company after we divorced?”
She raised her chin. She would not allow him to make her feel bad for her choices. “No. I took a few cleaning jobs to support myself when I moved out and it sort of blossomed.”
“I offered you alimony.”
“I didn’t want it.” Squaring her shoulders, she caught his gaze. Mistake. She’d always imagined that if she ever saw him again, their conversation would focus on why she’d left him without a word of explanation. Instead the floodgates of their chemistry had been opened, and she’d bet her last cent neither one of them was thinking about their disagreements. The look in his dark eyes brought to mind memories of satin sheets and days spent in bed.
“In a year I had enough work for myself and another maid full-time. In six more months I had four employees. I stayed level like that until I hit a boom again and added two employees. That’s when I realized I could turn this business into something great.”
“Okay, then.”
“Okay?”
“I get it. I know what it’s like to have a big idea and want to succeed.” He turned away. “And as you said, our paths won’t cross.”
“So this is really okay?”
“Yeah. It’s okay.” He faced her again with a wince. “You wouldn’t happen to be doing laundry first, would you?”
“Why?”
“I sort of made fifty percent of my underwear pink.”
She laughed, and visions of other times, other laughter, assailed her and she felt as if she were caught in a time warp. Their marriage had ended so badly she’d forgotten the good times and now suddenly here they were all at the forefront of her mind. But that was wrong. Six years and buckets of tears had passed since the “good times” that nudged them to get married the week they’d accompanied friends to Vegas for their elopement. Only a few weeks after their hasty wedding, those good times became few and far between. By the time she left him they were nonexistent.
And now she was his maid.
“Is the other fifty percent in a basket somewhere?”
“Yes.” He hooked a thumb behind him. “Laundry room.”
“Do you have about an hour’s worth of work you can do while you wait?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll go to your office or study or to your bedroom to do that.”
“I have an office in the back.”
“Great. I’ll get on the laundry.”
A little over an hour later, Cain pulled his Porsche into the parking space in front of the office building he owned. He jumped out, marched into the lobby and headed for the private elevator in the back. He rode it to the top floor, where it opened onto his huge office.
“Ava!”
He strode to his desk, dropping his briefcase on the small round conference table as he passed it. He’d managed not to think about Liz as she moved around his home, vacuuming while the washing machine ran, then the dryer. To her credit, she hadn’t saunteered into his office and dumped a clean pair of tidy-whities on the document he was reviewing. She’d simply stepped into the room, announced that the laundry had been folded and now sat on his bed. But it was seeing the tidy stack on his black satin bedspread that caused unwanted emotions to tumble through him.
When they were married she’d insisted on doing laundry. She hadn’t wanted a maid. She had stayed home and taken care of him.
As he’d stared at the neat pile, the years had slid away. Feelings he’d managed to bury had risen up like lava. She’d adored him and he’d worshipped her. He hadn’t slept with a woman before her or one since who had made him feel what Liz could. And now she was in his house again.
Which was wrong. Absolutely, totally and completely wrong. For a woman who’d adored him and a man who’d worshipped her, they’d hurt each other beyond belief in the last year of their marriage. She hadn’t even left a note when she’d gone. Her attorney had contacted him. She hadn’t wanted his money, hadn’t wanted to say goodbye. She simply wanted to be away from him, and he had been relieved when she left. It was wrong—wrong, wrong, wrong—for them to even be in the same room! He couldn’t believe he’d agreed to this, but being nearly naked had definitely thrown him off his game.
Underwear in his possession, he had dressed quickly, thinking he’d have to sneak out, wondering if it would be prudent to have Ava call her and ask her to assign another of her employees to his house. But as she promised, she was nowhere to be seen when he left.
“Just a bit curious, Ava,” he said when his short, slightly chubby, fifty-something-assistant stepped into his office. “Why’d you choose Happy Maids?”
She didn’t bat an eye. “They come highly recommended and they’re taking new clients.” She peered at him over the rim of her black frame glasses. “Do you know how hard it is to get a good maid in Miami?”
“Apparently very hard or I’d have one right now.”
“I’ve been handling my end. It’s you who—” Her face froze. “Oh.” Her eyes squeezed shut. “You were there when the maid arrived, weren’t you?”
“Naked, in a towel, coming out of my laundry room.”
She pressed her hand to her chest. “I’m so sorry.”
He studied her face for signs that she knew Liz was his ex-wife, but her blue eyes were as innocent as a kitten’s.
“I should have realized that you’d sleep late after four days of traveling.” She sank to the sofa just inside the door. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No. Seriously. I am sorry. I know how you hate dealing with people.” She bounced off the sofa and scampered to the desk. “But let’s not dwell on it. It’s over and it will never happen again.” Changing the subject, she pointed at the mail on his desk. “This stack is the mail from the week. This stack is the messages I pulled off voice mail for you. This stack is messages I took