Faith had one mantra in life that hadn’t changed: The perfect latte made getting through any day easier. Today, however, she ordered it frozen, grateful the person behind the counter wasn’t someone she knew or recognized. She needed to cool down not just from the warm temperature outside but from the heat inside her body too, courtesy of Ethan.
She was glad not to have to deal with one of the many variations of greeting she’d received since moving back to Serendipity: welcomed, scorned, hugged, or ridiculed, depending on how she’d known the person in her past life and whether or not her father had violated their trust in some way.
Faith picked up her frozen drink and settled into a small table in the back to wait for Kate Andrews, her best friend since kindergarten. Kate was the only person Faith had kept in touch with when she’d left for college, through her more isolated married days, till now. And Kate was the one person Faith trusted in a world that had proven unworthy.
Faith was halfway through her drink when Kate rushed in harried as usual but predictably upbeat and bubbly. “Sorry I’m late. I had a dentist appointment that ran longer than I planned.”
Faith laughed. “Your appointments always run over.” And Kate never learned to budget for extra time.
Kate grinned. “And you love me anyway.”
“You know I do.” Faith felt herself relax for the first time since her run-in with Ethan.
“Well, the feeling’s mutual,” Kate said, then turned, her auburn ponytail flipping around with her. “Hello?” She waved at the woman behind the counter, trying to get her attention.
“Hang on!” the woman, a different person from the one who’d waited on Faith, yelled back.
Faith recognized Elisabetta Gardelli from high school. Elisabetta, known as Lissa, was one year older and one of the local town kids who’d hated the rich girls, like Kate and Faith.
“What are you doing?” Faith asked.
“Hang on a sec.” Kate waited for Lissa to look over before yelling back once more. “I’ll have the usual, please!”
“Are you kidding me? You have to go up to the counter and order,” Faith said.
“Coming right up!” came Lissa’s surprising reply.
Kate swiveled back around in her seat, a smug look on her face. “Waiting in line is how it works in a Manhattan coffee joint. Here, you just have to know someone. And when you never leave this burg, you know everyone.”
Faith glanced at Kate’s grin. “Fine. I stand corrected.”
Unlike Faith, who had gone to New York City and lived away from home, Kate had opted to stay home. Despite her family’s ability to pay for her to go away to college, Kate liked it here. She’d attended a local university where she received her teaching degree and master’s. Typical small-town-girl story. The only thing missing was the husband, but Kate claimed she just hadn’t met the right man, and unless someone new moved to Serendipity, she was in trouble on that score.
“So, Lissa doesn’t mind serving you like that?” Faith asked.
The other woman shook her head. “I guess we all grew up.”
Faith took the last sip of her frozen drink. “Good to know.” Maybe there was hope for Faith’s relationships here, but considering how her parents had treated people even before her father’s fall from grace, she doubted it.
“Coffee for Your Highness!” Lissa said, interrupting them with a good-natured laugh as she placed a tall cup in front of Kate.
Kate handed the other woman a ten-dollar bill. “Want another one, Faith?”
She shook her empty cup. “Sure. But I’ll have a hot one this time.”
Lissa’s expression turned frosty. “Then get in line with the rest of the working people, hon. Now that you’re one of us, I mean.” She turned her back on Faith and sashayed her way to the counter.
Faith’s stomach cramped at the latest humiliation, so sorry Kate had to witness it.
“No way will I let her get away with that crap!” Kate, face flushed red, rose from her seat.
Faith grabbed her friend by the arm, stopping her. She didn’t want or need Kate fighting her battles. Besides, she knew it would take time for the people in town to realize she was nothing like her father or mother and accept Faith as one of them.
“It’s okay. Lissa’s not the only one with a chip on her shoulder. I’m getting used to some people snubbing me.” Faith couldn’t deny the mean-girl treatment at this stage of her life hurt, but she’d manage to get through it and would come out the other side. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger and all that, Faith thought.
Kate’s green eyes sparked with anger. “I come from your side of town, and Lissa and I have made peace over the years. I mean I’ve tutored her daughter. She can’t treat you like that!”
“She can,” Faith said firmly. “Until she gets to know me the way she knows you, she’s going to take perverse pleasure in how my life has turned out. And believe me, she won’t be the only one. I appreciate the pit bull defense, but I can handle it.”
“Well, I can’t.” Without giving Faith a chance to object, Kate jumped up and headed behind the counter to talk to Lissa.
Faith groaned. How could she get her friend to understand that she’d expected Lissa’s kind of treatment when she’d returned to Serendipity? She’d just have to earn their respect.
Trouble was, she was still trying to respect herself. Not for being blindsided by her father. She hadn’t been alone in that. But for believing in him so deeply she’d allowed him to lead her into a marriage and a life that benefited no one but Martin Harrington and her ex-husband, Carter Moreland. Instead of searching for her independence like most girls in their early twenties, Faith had looked for the same security she’d had growing up. So when her father had introduced her to the smooth-talking Carter Moreland, Esquire, the summer after her college graduation, she’d been swept into his world. A familiar world she’d accepted without stopping to think whether or not the dinner parties and charitable works Carter encouraged her to participate in fulfilled her.
Thanks to Faith and Carter’s union, Faith’s father took over the investments for Carter’s co-workers, while Carter gained entry into a world far wealthier than he’d ever imagined. By the time Faith’s father’s crimes came to light, Carter was already firmly entrenched as legal counsel to the upper crust. Faith was merely an accessory, trapped in a situation she felt powerless to change or escape.
To add insult to injury, the same day she’d discovered the accusations against her father were true, she’d caught Carter screwing his paralegal. He hadn’t even pulled up his pants long enough to look her in the eye and inform her she could accept it or leave. He’d already gotten what he needed from their marriage. It didn’t take a genius to figure out this hadn’t been the first time he’d cheated or that her father’s disgrace had merely given Carter license to not hide his affairs.
In that one unbelievable night, Faith had lost the life she’d known and the security she thought she’d still have because her asshole husband had already buried his assets. Somehow his law firm, which had enabled them to live in a penthouse with furnishings that rivaled the house on the hill, suddenly showed a loss. The bastard had sat across the table from her, looked her in the eye, and claimed he was broke. Nothing to be had or shared, and he’d sold the penthouse to cover their debts to prove it.
Fortunately her father had informed her that Carter knew more about Martin Harrington’s business dealings than Carter would want the world to know. And he had proof. So Faith had asked the lawyers to leave the room and presented her soon-to-be ex with a quid pro quo. Her silence for a fair settlement. Faith hated dirtying her hands with blackmail, but her very survival had been at stake. She’d come away with enough money to keep her in Manolo shoes if she wanted. She didn’t. Faith wanted only to use enough to subsidize her new beginning. The rest she’d put aside for a rainy day. Because Faith Harrington intended to make it on her own in the only town she’d ever truly called home.
And Ethan was living not just in town but in her old house. The only solace she found in that particular irony was the fact that Ethan’s life hadn’t been easy either.
She still couldn’t believe he was back. The only contact Faith had had with him after that incredible bike ride had been when she’d pass him in the hall at school. He’d lock that arrogant gaze on her, the corner of his sexy mouth tipping upward in a knowing grin. Remembering, her stomach did that crazy flip again now, reminding her she hadn’t felt anything like it since.
Until today.
Kate returned, slamming her covered coffee down on the table, pushing another tall cup toward Faith.
“Successful?” Faith asked, trying to keep the sarcasm from her voice. She knew better.
“Lissa knows how I feel about her attitude. Which sucks, by the way. She’s just bitter because her husband ran off with a wealthier, younger woman.”
Faith opened her eyes wide. “Well, I know how being cheated on feels.”
Kate cringed. “I’m sorry.”
Faith waved away her apology. “How about we just change the subject?”
“Gladly,” Kate said. “Are reporters still hounding you for your story?” She propped one elbow on the table.
Faith exhaled hard. Ever since her father’s arrest, reporters had bombarded her with requests for an interview. They wanted any tidbit of information or understanding they could get into Martin Harrington’s mind and business. Faith’s story was worth a huge chunk of change, but she wasn’t telling it. Her father might not have taken the high road, but Faith would.
“I changed my cell phone number and I’m unlisted here in Serendipity. That should keep them away for a while.”
“Glad to hear it,” Kate said vehemently.
Ready for a subject change of an entirely different sort, Faith scooted her chair closer to her friend. “By the way, I have news.”
Kate loved gossip the way Faith loved lattes and she inched nearer. “Tell me.”
Faith wrapped her hands around her empty cup. “The rumors are true. I took a walk past my old house and guess who I ran into?”
“Who?” Kate’s eyes opened wide with curiosity. “The girls at Babs’s Beauty Salon have been speculating for weeks. They even have a pool going, but the realtor who sold the place signed a confidentiality agreement. All anyone knows is that it was bought under some big corporate name.”
“Ethan,” Faith whispered. And squeezed her plastic cup so hard it cracked in her hand.
“Shut up!”
Faith grinned. “You sound like your students.” Kate taught middle school.
“Seriously? He’s back? How’s he look? What’s he like? Did he remember you?”
“Gorgeous, still brooding, and yes, he remembered me.” Faith’s body tingled at the memory.
“Oh my God!” Kate let out an actual squeal.
“Shh!”
“Okay, sorry.” Kate twirled her long ponytail around one finger, staring at Faith like she knew where her thoughts had gone.
Which of course, she did.
The bike ride.
The kiss.
Ethan’s attempt to go further.
And how much Faith sometimes wished she’d let him.
She shivered, the tingling she was experiencing at the moment as fresh as it had been then, because he was every inch as spectacular.
At sixteen, Faith had shared every last detail of her time with Ethan with her best friend. At twenty-six, she did the same thing, whispering the entire scenario into Kate’s eager ear.
As she spoke, Faith’s stomach did that silly, excited flip that only Ethan had ever caused. Back in high school, the flip had been little and she hadn’t understood the impact of what it meant. Thinking about seeing him again now, she experienced a full body slam of desire that she comprehended completely.
“The last time I heard about him was the summer after graduation,” Kate recalled.
“After he, that Pickler kid, and a bunch of other idiots were arrested for joy riding,” Faith said, nodding. “And then his parents died in that awful car accident the same night.”
“On the way to the police station to bail him out.”
Faith shuddered at the horrific memory and wrapped her arms around herself much as she had then. Because today she’d seen the pain in his eyes and knew he hadn’t forgiven himself for the tragedy.
Faith had been devastated when she’d heard the news, her heart breaking for Ethan and his brothers. Her relationship with her mother might have been rocky. It still was. But she couldn’t imagine losing her parents that young. The judge had taken pity on Ethan and had given him a suspended sentence and a second chance. But he’d disappeared, leaving his siblings behind.
“Do his brothers still live in town?” Faith asked.
“Both Nash and Dare are still here,” Kate confirmed. “They’ve both done well for themselves. And considering they both went to different foster homes on different sides of town, they’re still close.”
“I wonder if they kept in touch with Ethan.”
“No clue.” Kate shrugged.
They lapsed into silence, each alone with their thoughts. “You and Ethan have unfinished business,” Kate said at last.
“That’s the last thing I want in my life right now.” But her toes curled at the prospect.
“But maybe it’s exactly what you need. A way to get you back into the dating scene. Unless Nick Mancini gets you hot and bothered?” Kate raised an eyebrow, shooting Faith an inquiring gaze.
“Why would you think that?” Faith wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “No, my high school boyfriend does not do it for me.” Those sparks had died the day she’d taken a motorcycle ride with Ethan.
And they hadn’t rekindled since her return.
“You said yes to dinner with him next week. Was that so you could let him down gently?” Kate rubbed her cup between her hands as she spoke.
“I said yes to dinner with an old friend. I told him up front I wasn’t ready to get involved with anyone right now. It’s too soon after my divorce.”
“I believe you. I just don’t think he’ll drink the Kool-Aid as easily.”
Faith laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure he knows how things stand.”
“And does Ethan Barron’s return have anything to do with your disinterest in Nick?” Kate prodded, a smile curving her lips.
Faith shook her head. “No! All Nick and I had was a high school thing. As for anyone else, it’s too soon for me to be thinking about getting involved.” She repeated the mantra she’d already told herself.
“Not even a dark, brooding bad boy with the last name of Barron?” Kate teased.
Faith rolled a napkin into a ball and tossed the crumpled paper at her friend. She was sure it didn’t escape Kate’s notice that the question went unanswered.
Faith and Kate walked toward the door.
Kate paused to wave at Lissa before turning back to Faith and pulling her aside. “Did you mean what you said about wanting people to get to know you?” she asked.
“Of course I meant it.”
“Then can I tell you something that I mean in the nicest possible way? With complete love and admiration for my best friend in the whole world?”
Faith’s stomach rolled at the prelude. “Umm, sure. What is it?”
“You could start by fitting in more.”
She narrowed her gaze. “I don’t understand.”
Kate plucked at the sleeve of Faith’s suit jacket. “Ditch the Chanel.” She fingered the chunky pearls around Faith’s neck. “And the bling. And the heels, unless we’re going out at night to somewhere nice. Not Joe’s. I’m sorry,” she said quickly.
“Don’t be.” Faith closed her eyes and shook her head. “The clothes belonged to Faith Moreland.”
“I know. Faith Harrington preferred—”
“Her cheerleading uniform?” She tried for a laugh.
Kate wasn’t buying. “No. Funky jeans. Denim jackets. Anything she could get past her mother and still like for herself.”
Faith swallowed hard. “I lost myself somewhere,” she admitted.
“But you came back to find her. You told me as much. Otherwise I wouldn’t have said anything, but I know this isn’t you.”
Kate was right. Faith couldn’t expect anyone in town to welcome her if she was presenting herself as someone above them. Someone who thought they were better than the average person. Someone who still lived in the house on the hill.
“Are you mad?” Kate asked.
“Not at you.” Faith pulled her friend into a long hug. She was mad at Faith, the girl she used to be, for allowing herself to change, to become someone she didn’t recognize and no longer liked.
She’d told herself she was coming back to Serendipity to find herself. Apparently she’d have to dig deeper than she’d ever imagined.
Ethan sat down at his desk, one of the few pieces of furniture he’d purchased and moved into the house right away. That and a bed. Shows where my priorities lie, he thought wryly. He liked the dark wood paneling in this room. Besides, it was the only place in the house without oppressive ornate wallpaper crowding him and making him uncomfortable.
He kicked off his shoes and prepared to look over the government paperwork for upcoming contracts, but he couldn’t concentrate on business. Couldn’t see the papers in front of his face. Couldn’t think or visualize anything except Faith Harrington.
She hadn’t been dressed for summer, no visible skin or body parts for him to drool over, and yet he’d been drawn to her in so many ways he couldn’t begin to count them all. Their brief shared past. The road not taken if she’d just said yes all those years ago. Her unexpected wit. The brief glimpses of a sadness he could relate to. And the sexual attraction that had only grown stronger over time.
Then there was the fact that he was sitting here in her old family home, which was now his empty house. He’d bought the place expecting to feel a strong sense of satisfaction when he’d moved in here. Bad boy made good or some such cliché. Instead, he’d discovered he owned an echoing mansion.
Reminding himself he’d come here for family, he thought about approaching his brothers again. Nash, a lawyer, had purchased a town house on the edge of town; and Dare, a cop, was living with Nash until he finished renovations on an old house he’d bought and was working on in his spare time. His brothers were close; he was the outsider.
Self-imposed and self-created, he knew. Taking a deep breath, he picked up the phone and called Nash at the office—Ethan didn’t have his home number and it was unlisted. He hoped they could meet somewhere on neutral ground. Dinner, maybe.
Luckily, his brother answered the phone himself. “Nash Barron speaking.”
Ethan cleared his throat. “Nash, it’s Ethan.”
“Not interested,” his brother said, ice in his voice.
Ethan gripped the phone harder. “Just give me a chance . . .”
“You had yours ten years ago,” Nash said, and hung up in his ear.
Ethan winced. No way was he calling Dare right now. Maybe tomorrow, when the rejection wasn’t as fresh. He balled up a sheet of paper with old useless notes and tossed it into the trash across from the desk.
He missed.
“Make sure you pick up after yourself,” his housekeeper said, poking her head into the room.
The woman had eyes everywhere.
“And Mr. Ethan, didn’t I tell you to take your shoes off before you come into the house?”
If any of his other employees had spoken to him that way, Ethan would have fired them on the spot. But something about the older woman amused instead of insulted him, and he actually looked forward to their verbal sparring.
“Are you sure you work for me and not the other way around?” he asked her.
She stepped into the office, duster in hand, and began cleaning the mostly empty bookshelves.
“I tol’ you. I have to work here. I need the money and you need me. But that doesn’t mean I have to like you.”
“So you’ve said.” He shrugged, not surprised by her bluntness.
They’d made an agreement on day one. She’d keep his house clean and he’d pay her for her services. She intended to speak her mind, and no, he could not dock her pay when she did.
“I’ll win you over yet, Rosalita.”
She mumbled something in Spanish, and then, “When hell freezes over, Mr. Ethan. You a bad boy.”
“Was a bad boy,” he reminded her for the umpteenth time.
“When are you going to have furniture in this house?” she asked. “Just so many times I can clean the floors and dust.”
“There’s laundry and food shopping too,” he reminded her, not wanting her to grow too complacent.
But she had a point. If he was going to make this place home, it needed to be furnished. Actually it needed to be decorated so the house reflected his taste. Not an empty shell of what the landmark used to be.
I’ll be opening an interior design business in town, Faith had told him. He needed an interior designer and maybe a connection to someone who didn’t hate him quite so much. It seemed that all roads took him back to Faith Harrington.
Luck?
Good fortune?
Serendipity, he thought, shaking his head.
Of course he had no idea if she’d agree to take him on as a client. But at least now he had a legitimate excuse to see her again that had nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with necessity.
Or so he needed to believe.
