CHAPTER FIVEEric’s POV
CHAPTER FIVE
Eric’s POV
I leave Lydia in the capable hands of her friend Makayla, whom she introduced as her best friend and Leo’s godparent. I promised Lydia that I will be back later. She is very vulnerable and still broken, not only over Leo’s accident and her homelessness.
I feel like I’m a part of her problem, and it bites me even when I am miles away from the hospital.
I get home and I ponder on what I can do to help Lydia. Maybe I can get her a temporary home, but I am still contemplating that.
I feel stuck at this point, so I dial Max’s number to help me fix this. He has a record for fixing me.
“Max?” I ask when he picks up. “I need your help.”
“Sure. Shoot.”
“So, it’s about Lydia…” I leave the conversation open for him to come in.
“Oh nice, Lydia. I thought you didn’t care about her, or what did you say that time?” he teases me.
“She’s in dire need of my help. Well, first her son was hit by my driver, so I technically hit him.
“What?” Max yelled.
Fortunately, he only sustained a small fracture on one arm and a slight concussion.”
“I was with her at the hospital when she got the news that she had been thrown out of her house due to flooding caused by a water main break. I feel like I should help, but I don’t know where to come in.”
After a brief silence, Max retorted: “Simple. Tell her to move in,” he says easily.
“Wait, that easy? To just walk up and ask her to move in with me? I don’t feel right about that.”
“What other options have you got?” he asks.
I open my mouth, and I close it. I truly have no other options at the moment. At least, none that I wanted to seriously contemplate. I could easily afford to put her and her son up at a hotel, but somehow I felt reluctant to do so.
“Okay, fine,” I tell him. “I’ll ask her to move in with me.”
“You’re welcome.” He pauses for a moment and says, “You may find true love in the confines of your home. You never know.” I laugh and end the call. I inform Pattie, my housekeeper, to ready two of the guest bedrooms; one for Lydia and one for Leo.
As I change my business suit into jeans and a sweatshirt, I start contemplating what it would mean having Lydia and Leo living in my house…Conflicting emotions assail me. When I hugged Lydia at the hospital to comfort her, I had a weird sense of déjà vu, even a sense of homecoming.
For a second, a memory transported me back to that night I shared with the brunette so long ago. Instinctively, my arms tightened around Lydia, perhaps to hold on to that memory longer? Or is it that Lydia seems to feel “right” in my arms?
I drive back to the hospital to see how she is faring with her son. When I get there, her head is dunked in-between her thighs, and I give her a tap. As she raises her head, I see her eyes are puffy and red-rimmed.
“Are you okay?” I take a seat beside her.
She wipes her nose and clears her throat. “Um, yeah, I am. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m such a watering pot about this…”
“Well, give yourself some slack. You’ve had two major shocks today…” I began. “Where’s your friend?”
“She had to go back to work.”
“So, I figured out the homeless part, and I’m offering you and your son my home to live in for as long as you want to stay. Maybe till you get everything fixed up.”
Her eyes widen in astonishment, and her jaw drops, too. Then, she creases her face in anger. “No, thank you. You think you can buy your way out of your mess because you’re rich?”
“That is not why I am offering you to stay at my home!” I retort. I try to keep my voice from escalating.
I take a deep breath as my mind re-lives the moment of collision. “Look Lydia, I have apologized so many times.”
I glanced over at the sleeping Leo, thankful and relieved that he is relatively unscathed. I shift my gaze back to Lydia and catch her looking at me with a strange expression in her eyes. “What do you want me to do?” I asked her quietly.
“You don’t have to stay forever. Just for a time until you sort everything out” I sighed.
“I don’t want to spend a night in your house,” she snaps. “It’s not even a good environment for my son to stay in, especially with all those women crowding up your bedroom.”
Do I hear jealousy?
“Okay. I promise that as long as you both are there, I will not do anything of that sort. I promise.”
Lydia bit her lip, and looked away for a moment, seemingly struggling with some emotions of her own.
“You know you don't have to be all sweet and nice,” she tells me. “I mean, you’ve done enough for us already.” She turns her head to Leo who sleeps peacefully on his bed.
“It’s nothing. Plus, I feel responsible for Leo’s accident, so that’s on me.” I wait for her to say “yes” because deep down, company is all I need in that big, empty house. Her dramas aren’t bad after all. And maybe we could start again – get off on the right foot somehow.
Today I saw a different side of Lydia, not the stiff, efficient assistant who looks at me with disdain, but a fiery yet gentle and vulnerable version. “I am getting hooked,” I thought.
She takes a deep breath and nods slowly. “Okay, fine. I accept. Thank you so much, Mr. Greene, but as soon as I get a new apartment, I’ll be leaving.”
I chuckle. “Come on, Lydia, we are not in the office now. Eric is just fine. And yes, you can leave any time you want to. It’s not like you are in prison or anything.”
“Thank you…Eric,” she corrects herself. “When can I move in?”
“Today, tomorrow… any time you want to, my door is always open to you and Leo.”
She hugs me, and I return it. For a long time, I haven’t felt so much emotion through a hug. There were no hugs in prison. I stroke her hair slowly and breathe in that tantalizing fragrance again.
The smell of strawberry shampoo hits me in the face like a freight train and my breath catches in my throat. She is a walking, breathing reminder of everything I couldn't have. I think back to the beautiful brunette from a past life and how her hair had this exact same smell, how it conjured up a feeling of sweet hominess that pulled me in with ease. I bite back the sigh that's resting on my tongue.
She breaks away from the hug and looks away. “Sorry.” She doesn’t even glance at me; instead, she walks towards the exit of the hospital and to the carpark.
I let out a soft groan at the loss of contact. I would give a lot of things to have that hug go on for much longer, have her delicious scent wrapped around me and her soft warmth cradling the darkness of my existence. Too bad I cannot have any of that, for more reasons than one.
I drive her down to her old house to see most of what she owns out on the lawn. Her Landlord and some workers are still working and she confers with them. I try to stay out of the conversation, but the gist of what I gather is that the building is not livable until they fix the foundation of the house.
In order for them to fix that, all the tenants need to be evacuated, and the landlord could not give her an estimation of when everything would be finished. He mentioned permits and inspections that could take some time to secure…
She gets most of the belongings that she needs or are of value to her, and we put them in the trunk of my car, heading for my house.
I show her around the house: the kitchen, her room, Leo’s room and my room. She seems to take in everything well. Then I help her unload the items we retrieved from her house.
When she is settled, I take up my briefcase. “I have to leave now. I have a meeting to attend by three p.m. this afternoon. So, I’ll see you later.”
She nods. “There’s a chicken salad in the fridge and some bread if you’re hungry” I told her as I made my way to the garage.
“And Lydia?”
“Yes,” she replies.
“You do not have to come to work for now. You can stay back and take care of Leo till he is okay. I’ll manage.”
She shakes her head. Another reason I like her is her stubbornness. “Nope. I have to work for my money. How else do I get a new apartment?”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll still pay you.”
She snorts. “That’s not going to happen. I work for my money and don’t sit on couches and wait for a man to give me what I want. I might have to take some days off to care for Leo, but I’ll work; you pay me. That’s fine by me.”
I laugh and nod. “Fine, fine. You’ll work. That’s fine. I’ll see you in the office tomorrow, then.”
“Yes, yes. I’ll see you there. Wait up, there is one more thing.”
I turn back.
“Rules. Firstly, we don’t have to interact with each other. We can both avoid each other, and you don’t have to talk to Leo if you don’t want to.”
“Well, I can manage to avoid you if that’s the case, but you can’t stop me from extending my love to Leo. He’s adorable.” I flash her a smile and walk out.
My steps are heavy as I retreat. I just made a promise to stay as civil and uninvolved as possible with her, and it drags at my guts. I want a lot more than that.
I want to have access to the beautiful depths of her and her son's lives. She reminds me so much of the only woman who had brought me the peace I had no idea I needed, and maybe this is life's way of giving me a second chance. Am I being wise by throwing it all out?