Billionaires Dollar Series

A familiar jaw.

A familiar face.

Surely it can’t be… can it?

Is this the boy-now a man-who had once been my neighbor? I haven’t spoken to him since he moved out of my hometown at sixteen.

Liam Carter’s eyes widen, and the fingers I’m furiously wiping clean curve around mine. “Why are you so familiar, then?”

He doesn’t recognize me?

I take a step back and smooth my hands over my apron to stop the sudden sweat on my palms. We might have been best friends once, but he’s a guest here and I’m a caterer.

One who’s just ruined a very expensive shirt.

“We used to know each other, many years ago. We were neighbors.”

Recognition flashes in Liam’s eyes. “Madison Webb?”

I nod. “In the flesh.”

He smiles, the dimple in his cheek coming out to play. I’d almost forgotten he had that. “Maddie… it can’t be!”

“Why not? You’re not the only one who could leave Fairfield, you know,” I say, reaching for more paper towels. “Here. For your shirt.”

Liam’s lips curve up into a smile. “I think the ship has sailed for the shirt.”

His voice is different too. It had dropped before he left, but it was never this, this deep, masculine sound. He’s taller than I remember. The promise of the man he’d become was always there, in the set of his shoulders and the strength of his jaw, but seeing it fulfilled in front of me is something different altogether.

“I’m afraid it might have, yeah.”

Without taking his eyes off me, Liam shrugs out of his suit jacket and hangs it off one of the kitchen chairs. His hands move to the buttons of his shirt next. Our eyes lock, and silence fills the space between us. His hands don’t stop moving and soon his shirt hangs off his wide frame in all its marinara-sauce-stained glory.

Keep your eyes on his face, Maddie, I tell myself. Not on the evident fact that Liam Carter, at thirty-one, is no longer the lanky teenage boy I’d once known.

He shrugs out of the shirt and starts to ball it up. The muscles in his arms flex, and oh Lord, he has a little trail of hair down the expanse of a rippled stomach.

I can’t reconcile the image I have of Liam-of his gap-toothed smile as he raced me down the hill on our bikes-with the man standing in front of me.

It doesn’t compute.

“Trash can?”

I swallow. “Over there. I owe you for this.”

He throws the shirt away. “You know, I didn’t expect there’d be quite so much sauce when I met you again. Some sauce, sure. But not so much of it.”

Behind us, Alma chuckles.

“It’s very good sauce,” I say, like an idiot.

“It smells delicious.” He leans back against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. “So you’re working as a caterer?”

“I’m a cook, yeah. The restaurant I work at is often hired for Mr. Porter’s events.”

He glances toward the door leading to the dining room beyond, to where life and guests beckon. “Does Ethan know you’re here?”

“Ethan’s here?” I haven’t seen Liam’s big brother in years, either-not since they both moved away from Fairfield.

Liam’s smile curves, transforming his features into casual charm. “So that’s a no.”

“That’s a no.”

His eyes travel down my body, but I’m not in a cocktail dress or an evening gown. Jeans and a chef’s jacket, now ruby-red down the front. I can feel the marinara soaking through to my T-shirt underneath.

“A chef. Doesn’t surprise me, actually.”

“No?”

“You always loved cooking with your mom.”

“What about you?” I ask, like he’s not standing there shirtless and I haven’t just bathed my client’s guest in expensive sauce. “Why are you here?”

“I work together with Cole.”

Right. Of course.

He works together with the billionaire who hired me. Why am I surprised? When the Carters left Fairfield, they left their humble beginnings behind as well.

The days when Liam and I rode our bikes through familiar streets, when our adjoining backyards were our kingdoms to rule, are long gone.

“Speechless, Maddie? That’s certainly a first. I remember it being difficult to ever shut you up.”

My mouth drops open and Liam laughs at the expression-a glimpse of the old familiarity. “And you’re just as arrogant as always,” I tell him.

He inclines his head. “More so, I’m afraid.”

“Evolved in the wrong direction?”

“Oh, but I would call it the right one.”

Behind me, a door opens. Liam’s eyes shift from mine to whoever just entered.

“I’d ask why you’re half-naked in my kitchen, but I’m not sure I’d get a good explanation.”

Oh shit.All text © NôvelD(r)a'ma.Org.

Liam just grins, answering Cole Porter like this isn’t one of the city’s most influential businessmen. “I walked headfirst into a tub of marinara sauce. It was delicious, by the way. Your caterers know their stuff.”