The Ex Upstairs by Maureen Child

Three

The next day, Henry took three meetings before lunch and considered it a damn good day. He had taken over a vineyard in Napa, struck a deal with the new game designer in Austin and formed a merger with a medical supply company.

“Dad was right,” he muttered, slipping his suit coat on. “Diversification is key.” Hell, Porter Enterprises had so many different interests, he could live three lifetimes and never get bored. Not that business bored him anyway, but Henry couldn’t imagine running a company that dealt with only one product. How the hell did you get yourself motivated when you were looking at another day of the same old thing?

“Which is just another reason to move the company headquarters,” he told himself, with a hard look around his office.

This place still carried the stamp of his father, and while he didn’t begrudge it, Henry wanted to do some “stamping” of his own. Michael Porter had retired and turned over the reins to Henry four years ago and since then, Henry had been more interested in building the company than in redecorating. But it was time. Hell. Past time.

With Michael in Texas, playing golf and going fishing on the bass boat that had been his first purchase, the company and its physical home were Henry’s business alone. Time to start doing things his way.

He turned for a look out the windows displaying that view of Los Angeles and the distant smudge of the Pacific and knew he was doing the right thing. He wanted to look out at more than buildings. He wanted to see the ocean. He wanted new views, and if that new headquarters brought him closer to the Carey family—and Amanda—well, that was all right with him, too.

Just thinking her name had her image rising up in his mind and his blood stirring into a simmer. Seeing her yesterday had given him a new image to focus on, and just remembering the snap and fire in her eyes made him want to see her again. He didn’t even question that continual burn he felt for her anymore. What would be the point? What he did about it was the more interesting question, anyway. One he didn’t have an answer to...yet.

When his assistant buzzed in, he answered. “What is it, Donna?”

“Mr. Haley’s here.”

“Great, send him in.”

The door opened a moment later and Henry’s best friend walked in. Mick Haley was tall, with a hard jaw, sharp green eyes and muscles you would expect from a former Navy SEAL. These days, Mick owned and operated the world’s top security company. Which was how they’d met several years ago.

Mick had been hired as a bodyguard by the actress Henry was dating. Well, the affair with the actress hadn’t lasted, but his friendship with Mick had. A few years ago, Mick’s company had expanded to include cybersecurity and Henry had wasted no time hiring Mick’s company to secure Porter Enterprises.

Mick said, “If you want to beat traffic, we’d better get moving.”

“There’s no beating the traffic no matter what time of the day.”

“Yeah,” Mick said with a grin, “but I’m driving.”

“Fine.” Henry sighed. Mick had the habit of driving as he once had, dodging bullets or land mines or enemy troops. He called it defensive driving. Whatever you called it, it made for a terrifying ride. He didn’t much care for cars on the best of days, but riding with Mick was a damn adventure. “My life insurance is paid up.”

“That’s the spirit.” Mick grinned again and turned for the door. “If you’d let me take you to the track and teach you how to drive defensively, it wouldn’t bother you as much.”

“Pass,” Henry said. Bad enough to ride with Mick. No way did he want to increase the risk by doing it himself, too.

“About time you got out of LA,” he was saying as they walked out of the office together.

“Yeah, so you keep saying.”

“Must be true, then.”

Henry laughed shortly and stopped at his assistant’s desk. “Donna, once you finish that correspondence, you can take the rest of the day.”

“Are you serious?”

Henry shrugged. “I am. Let’s call it a holiday.”

“For all of us?” someone two desks over called out.

“Is that you, Jeff?”

A young guy with a half-assed goatee pushed his chair back in a fast roll. “Yep. Did I hear ‘day off’?”

The other three employees in the big office were all watching him now, waiting for an answer to Jeff’s question. Henry thought about how hard everyone had worked to put a recent merger together. And how much work they’d be doing handling the move. He glanced at Mick, who was quietly chuckling, before turning back to Jeff and the rest of the crew.

“All right. It means all of you. When Donna’s finished and checks out, so can the rest of you.”

“Woot!” Jeff threw both hands in the air and some applause came from the others.

“Fine. Enjoy. Tomorrow we’re all working on the move.” Shaking his head, Henry walked through reception and down the hall to the elevators, with Mick right behind him.

They stepped into the small area and as the doors swished shut, Mick looked at Henry and asked, “Bucking for Boss of the Year?”

“Yeah, I’m making space on my trophy case.”

“The size of your new house,” Mick mused, “you’ve got plenty of room for it.”

“Not to mention the view,” Henry said, leaning back against the elevator wall and watching the floor lights blink on and off.

“Yeah, it’s a good one.” Mick stood almost at attention, facing the elevator doors as if expecting attack at any moment. He’d spent so much time over the years as a warrior, Henry suspected his friend couldn’t—or didn’t want to—turn it off.

“From the roof especially,” Henry said, thinking about the rooftop patio that had pretty much sold him on the house. From up there, he could see for miles in every direction. The wind blew hard, unimpeded by other houses or office buildings, and the previous owner had set up shady spots and tubs filled with flowers that he hoped a gardener could keep alive, and damn it, he liked the space. In Beverly Hills, even with the acreage surrounding the house, he was still in the middle of the city. In South Irvine, it was definitely suburban. Surprised the hell out of him just how much he liked it.

The conversation died off until they were in Mick’s Range Rover sliding in and out of traffic. It was enough to make anyone seasick.

“So you’re moving into the house tomorrow?”

“Starting to, anyway.” He winced when Mick slid past a Prius and bulleted on. “The movers will get it all done in Beverly Hills, then drive it down here. Martha’s got help to supervise the unpacking, so it should go smoothly.”

“Never could see you in BH,” Mick said, casually steering through the slowing traffic, never slowing down himself.

Yeah, it really wasn’t for him. Maybe things would have been different if the Porter house had more good memories than bad. But for Henry there was just too much misery wrapped up in those beautiful walls.

“It’s a good house,” Henry argued. “It’s just not mine.”

“I get that.” Mick darted over two lanes, then back again, managing a kind of flow that no one else was able to devise.

Henry grabbed the door and just managed to avoid hitting the invisible brake when Mick squeaked between two cars with less than a whisper to spare. “You do know there are no IEDs to avoid on the 405, right?”

Mick tossed him a grin. “Better to be prepared.”

“Right. I’ll go with ‘better to be alive.’” Henry tore his gaze away from the cars flashing past as Mick showcased more of his “defensive driving.” The man had been a bodyguard to princes, celebrities and heads of corporations, so he prided himself on being able to drive himself and his passengers out of tight situations.

So instead of watching the approach of possible imminent death, Henry looked at his friend and said, “Have you got your cyber guys meeting us at the house?”

“No, not today.” Mick whipped past a minivan driven by a woman who looked horrified at how closely the Range Rover came to her. “I’m going to give the place a good look over and we’ll have Teddy and the team come out tomorrow. I want an idea of what we’re going to need.”

Nodding, Henry thought it was good to go with the experts. He wanted as good of an alarm system on the new house as he’d had on the Beverly Hills property.

“You ought to think about getting a dog, too.”

“I’m not home enough to have a dog,” Henry said automatically. He’d considered it, of course, because he’d had a dog as a kid and sometimes missed having a pet. “Wouldn’t be fair to an animal to leave it on its own all day.”

“You have a housekeeper,” Mick reminded him.

“Housekeeper, not dog keeper,” Henry countered. “Not fair to Martha to ask her to not only move, but to housetrain and care for a dog along with it.”

“So go to a shelter,” Mick said, weaving in and out of traffic like a ballet dancer on steroids. “Get an older dog. You don’t have to start with a puppy. Get a dog that needs you, too.”

He hadn’t considered that, but now wasn’t the time. “Just handle the alarm system, will you?”

Mick grinned. “We will, but it’s going to cost you.”

Since Mick’s company had installed the system on his current house, which was half the size of his new house, Henry already knew the bill would be staggering. But hell, that’s what happened when you insisted on the best.

“We ran basic background checks on the movers you’ve hired.”

“A little overkill, don’t you think?”

Mick shrugged. “They’ll have access to the house, no matter how briefly. Doesn’t hurt.”

“Fine, but you don’t need to check out the household staff. That’s been done.”

“Anyone new?”

Henry thought about it. “Housekeeper’s hired the sister of a friend to come in and help with packing and setup in the new house.”

“Do you know her?” Mick asked.

“No, but I know Martha, so don’t worry about it.” Henry snorted a laugh. “I’m not one of your projects, Mick. Just set up the new alarm system and new locks on the doors and we’re good.”

“All right. You’re the boss.”

Mick steered out of the diamond lane and headed for an exit. Henry glanced up, surprised they’d already made it to Irvine. Terrifying or not, Mick’s driving cut a good half hour off the trip, even with traffic.

Henry wasn’t going to be sorry to see that drive to the office end. He’d been living in a hotel in Newport Beach for the last couple of years and making that trek into LA every day along with thousands of others.

He hadn’t wanted to live in the Beverly Hills house. Too many memories, most of them not great. Should have sold it years ago, but at the same time, on those nights when he worked late, he stayed there, rather than face the drive.

Soon, that wouldn’t be an issue. With the new house only a few miles from the company headquarters, fewer headaches. Plus, there was the knowledge that his being in Irvine would drive Amanda and the rest of the Careys nuts.

And, he knew it was time to build something of his own outside the company. Time to think of making a life. Or pretending to.

He’d tried it once, eight years ago. He’d met and married a socialite and within three months, he’d known it for the mistake it had been. Lauren had wanted more from him than Henry could give and it hadn’t taken long for her to figure that out. After a huge settlement and a divorce, Henry had steered clear of relationships. He preferred the one-night-stand kind of woman because they both knew going in that there were no expectations on the table.

There had been only one woman in his life who had ever made him want more. Amanda. Hard to be married to one woman while still thinking about another. He’d thought at the time that marrying a nice woman with whom he shared good sex would be enough to wipe Amanda out of his mind. But all it had done was define just how much Lauren wasn’t Amanda.

Not that he was still in love with Amanda or anything. It was only that whenever he saw her, his blood buzzed and his body burned. Lust he could deal with. It was love he wasn’t interested in.

What did that say about him?

And did he really want to know?

Being a spy wasn’t easy.

Especially when it involved packing crystal glassware the housekeeper didn’t trust professional movers to pack correctly.

Amanda still wasn’t sure exactly how Serena had managed it, but her sister had gotten her into Henry’s house—that he had sold. He was moving to Irvine, which was way too close to her own home in Laguna. And practically on top of the Carey Corporation building. He’d done that on purpose, she just knew it. But that was a worry for another day. God knew she didn’t have the time to worry about it at the moment.

Since she’d arrived that morning, she’d been too busy to get any snooping done, so unless she was going to find some information in the butler’s pantry, she was out of luck.

Amanda wore what she thought of as her disguise pretty well. A short, chin-length black wig, a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and her shoulders hunched to make herself look shorter. Her black slacks and no-longer-completely white shirt were so plain, even she wouldn’t look twice at her. She wore simple black flats and kept her head down as she worked. Martha, the housekeeper, was a nice woman but a tough taskmaster.

“When you finish with those goblets,” the older woman said to her, “you can start on the wineglasses. You’ll find them in the butler’s pantry.”

“Right.” Nodding, Amanda kept working while Martha scrubbed out the insides of the now mostly empty cabinets. Since she couldn’t snoop, maybe she could get some information another way. “So, I have to ask, why would anyone want to leave this beautiful house?”

Martha glanced at her and gave a sharp look at the half-dozen goblets sitting on the island, unwrapped. Dutifully, Amanda took a sheet of brown packing paper and carefully wrapped one of the heavy water goblets.

“Well,” the woman said while she worked, “Henry’s never really liked this house much.”

“What’s not to like?” Amanda loved it. A Tudor-style mansion, it had window seats, leaded-glass panes, dark wood floors and rich, dark colors on the walls. “It’s like a fairy castle.”

Martha paused, looked at her and smiled. “I agree.” Glancing around the room, she sighed a little. “I’m going to miss it, I’ll admit. But Henry will be happier with the move.”

“You’ve known him a long time?” Finally, some information.

“Since he was eleven,” Martha said. “I came to work for the Porters right after they moved here from Texas. The house was different then.”

“How?” Curious now, she could silently admit that she wanted the information for herself rather than for her self-appointed spying mission. After all, knowing what Henry’s life was like when he was a boy wouldn’t help her any now.

“They were a good family,” Martha said and moved on to the next cabinet. “Mrs. Porter, she was a sweetheart. Kind. Funny. Henry and his father adored her.”

She’d known that Henry’s mother had died when he was a boy, but she didn’t know much more than that since he hadn’t wanted to talk about it. This wasn’t why she was here, in the house Henry was about to leave, but learning more about the man she’d never been able to forget was irresistible.

“What happened?”

Martha turned to look at her and lifted one eyebrow, and Amanda reached for another goblet to wrap. Uh-huh. Taskmaster. Nodding, the older woman went back to her own work, but she kept talking.

“It was heartbreaking to see, I can tell you that. Mrs. Porter was out, picking up Henry’s birthday present. She was two blocks from home when a drunk ran a stop sign and hit her car.” Martha turned, memories of pain in her eyes as she added, “Poor woman died instantly.”

Everything in Amanda fisted. Her heart ached and a swell of sympathy for the boy Henry had been rose up inside her, thick enough to choke off her voice. He had never told her any of that, but then, who would want to talk about it? Looking back, she remembered that Henry had never been interested in road trips. He’d never talked about cars as if the perfect one was the holy grail—as Bennett and every other guy she knew had. And this explained it. Horribly.

But Martha didn’t wait for her reaction. She simply rinsed out the cloth she was using and bent to her task again. “Mr. Porter was devastated, of course. That man doted on his wife.” She shook her head and sighed. “She was the center of his universe and when she died...well. I’ve never seen a man so broken and hope to never see it again.”

“And Henry?” Amanda finally managed to ask.

Sighing at the memory, Martha said, “Naturally, the poor boy was just lost. Plain and simple. It was so quick. So impossible—and yet very real.” Another sigh. “When that first awful grief passed, Henry’s father closed himself up tight, letting the anger of her loss just burn inside him. He closed Henry off, too. The man acted as if his wife had died on purpose. Used to mutter about betrayal and how she’d left him. He was constantly torn between grief and fury and poor Henry had to navigate some hard water there.”

Amanda was discovering more about Henry than she’d planned to. She didn’t want to feel sympathy, yet couldn’t help it. She couldn’t even imagine what it had been like for him. Her own mother, Candace, had always been the rock in the family. And while she and Martin were currently doing battle over the retirement thing, they had always been a team. Candace was like the sun and the rest of the family sort of revolved around her. Amanda realized that without her steady presence, she and her siblings would have had very different lives.

Because now that she thought about it, her father would have reacted to her mother’s loss much as Henry’s father had. And Henry was an only child. He didn’t have siblings to help him through the pain. He’d had only his father and it sounded to her as though Mr. Porter had been so devoted to his own agony that he’d missed his son’s.

But even as her heart ached for Henry, her mind insisted that tragedy and pain in childhood didn’t explain being a hard-ass in adulthood. Didn’t excuse his calculated attempts to take down the Carey family. Deliberately, Amanda set aside the pity she felt for the boy Henry had been and remembered that she was here because the Henry she knew was busily trying to ruin her and her family.

“Do you need me to do anything else besides the glassware?” she asked, changing the subject because she had to put aside her feelings for Henry’s past. Not to mention the fact that she wouldn’t find out much about what he was up to by wrapping glassware in the kitchen.

Martha glanced at her, then at the box where only a half-dozen glasses rested. Her eyebrows lifted. “Maybe the kitchen isn’t the best place for you. Just...finish up what’s in front of you, then you can join Ellie in Henry’s study. Most of it will be packed up by the movers in a day or two but there are some things he wants us to take care of.”

His study. Now things could be getting interesting. She hid a smile and said, “I’ll finish up, then, and join Ellie.”

Martha laughed a little. “Oh, to be young enough to have that much energy.”

It wasn’t youth. It was excitement. Amanda was close now. With a little luck, she’d find out how Henry was getting information on the Carey family.

By the time Henry got back to the Beverly Hills house, he was ready for a beer on the patio. Just a chance to sit still without Mick trying to kill him on the freeway. Besides, in two days he’d be out of this house, so there wasn’t much time left to enjoy the patio beneath a pergola blooming now with the wisteria his mother had planted so long ago.

But he stopped by his study first. He just wanted to get a couple of files to read while he relaxed. He hadn’t meant to scare the crap out of the women working in the room.

“Mr. Henry!” Ellie, about forty, with short red hair and bright green eyes, turned, one hand clapped to her chest as if holding her heart in place. “I swear, you move as quiet as a ghost.”

Made sense, he thought idly, since there were plenty of ghosts in this house. The memory of his mother. The memory of what they’d been as a family before she left. The memory of his father before he’d become so...different.

But all he said was, “Sorry, Ellie. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you. I won’t bother you for long. I just need a few things.” She’d been packing his first editions and Henry was grateful she hadn’t fallen off the library ladder.

“You go ahead,” she said on a choked laugh. “Once my heart starts again, I’ll finish up in here.”

He grinned and shot a look at the other woman, packing his desk drawers into a box set on the blotter. She had to be one of the new people Martha had taken on. “I don’t know you, do I?”

She was tall, in spite of her hunched shoulders, with short black hair and bright blue eyes behind a pair of glasses she was currently squinting through. “No, we haven’t met. I’m Amelia. I’m just here to help in the move.”

Henry frowned when she ducked her head, avoiding his gaze. Her voice was familiar, somehow, though the speech pattern wasn’t. She had the top drawer open and was gathering up pens, notebooks and more rubber bands than he’d realized he’d tucked inside. She was going slowly, though. Methodically. As if she were looking for something in particular, but if she were, she was doomed to disappointment. He wasn’t worried about her packing his desk. There was nothing to interest anyone but him.

“Well, you go ahead with what you’re doing,” he said, walking toward the desk and the file cabinet behind it. Amelia scuttled out of his way as if afraid to get too close. He frowned to himself again as he caught her scent on the still air and something familiar raced through him. Henry shot her a quick glance and wondered. More than one woman in the world used that scent, he knew. But there was something...

“Is there anything you don’t want us to pack?” she asked and gathered his thoughts for him.

“All I need you to do is pack the desk and,” he added with a nod to Ellie, “the first editions. The movers can handle the rest.”

She nodded, still keeping her head down, and now he wanted to see her eyes again. To feed his own curiosity. But she wasn’t going to give him that. He had to wonder why.

Turning back to the cherrywood files, he flipped through them. Yes, all of his files were digitized, but he still kept some in hard copy. Reading on computer screens all day gave him a headache so it was practically a vacation to read paper. Which was also the reason he preferred actual books to ebooks.

Amelia moved around him and he couldn’t dismiss the slight buzz of recognition he felt when she did. Her scent wafted in her wake and he breathed deeply of it. The fragrance reminded him of summer nights, with its hints of coconut and lime, and the last time he’d been surrounded by that scent, he’d been with Amanda. Frowning more deeply, he drew out the files he wanted. When he straightened, he looked at Amelia again, but she was still avoiding looking at him. Interesting. No one was that shy. So why be so blatantly secretive? The very fact she was trying to hide made him wonder.

So much for a beer on the patio. He was going to stay right there in his study and spend a few minutes figuring out why Amelia was both familiar and a mystery.

Quick footsteps sounded out from the hall as Martha entered the room and called, “Ellie?” Then she noticed him and gave him a warm smile. “I didn’t know you were home, Henry.”

“Just got here,” he said, carrying the stack of files to a dark maroon leather club chair. He sat down, stretched his legs out in front of him and then reached up to turn on the standing brass lamp just behind him.

Funny. This room held more memories than the rest of the house, and most of them weren’t pleasant. If he closed his eyes, he was pretty sure he could hear his father’s voice and see him, sitting behind that ornate, way-too-big desk, burying himself in the work that had consumed him once Henry’s mother had left them.

Maybe that’s why Henry himself never spent much time here. His father had decorated this room and Henry had never bothered to change anything, because again, he avoided it, usually. He did like the chairs and the hand-knotted Persian rugs, so they’d be going with him to the new house. But the overwhelming antique desk, the boring paintings and most of the tables and lamps would be going into storage.

Henry was getting a fresh start and he was going to have a new look in his own damn study. But for now, he glanced at Martha and asked, “Is there a problem?”

“Not at all, but I could use Ellie’s help for a bit.” She looked to Amelia and said, “You stay here, finish up with packing the desk and whatever else Mr. Porter needs you to do.”

Head still ducked, Amelia nodded and Henry frowned. Was her neck permanently bowed? He studied her busily packing as Martha and Ellie left for the kitchen or wherever. She was ignoring his presence and that shouldn’t bother him, since it gave him quiet to go over the files.

But there was an undercurrent to Amelia’s silence and that did bother him. More, it intrigued him. She wouldn’t look at him. Her perfume drifted to him and stirred up memories he usually fought into submission.

Annoyed now, Henry was determined to figure out what was happening. He needed to see her eyes.

Pushing up from the chair, he walked toward the desk, where Amelia was busily and purposely looking down, focused solely on packing. He walked to within a foot of her, then simply said, “Amelia?”

She lifted her head and stared into his eyes, and Henry felt the jolt. It amazed him he hadn’t recognized her immediately. How he could have missed it was beyond him. She might be hiding behind unnecessary glasses. Wearing a black wig to hide her honey-blond hair. But now he knew who she was.

The last woman he would have expected to find, here, in his house.

Amanda Carey.