Me And Mr. I.T. (Kupid's Cove Book 2)

Me

And

Mr. I.T.

Katie Mettner

Copyright 2016 Katie Mettner

All rights reserved for this book and its content. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication, or cover art by Forward Authority, may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the publisher. The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Names, characters, and plots are a product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Dedication:

For the original ‘Me and Mr. I.T.’ ~ Ke’Aloha

Prologue

18 Months Ago

I waved at Lisa as I left the hotel. I didn’t want to be late for my date. Work could wait, because at the end of a long day I would rather go home to Bain, the man I was falling deeply in love with. I waved at Todd the doorman as I practically skipped toward my small duplex not too far from the Orchid Reef Resort, where I worked. As marketing director for Gideon Armstrong’s resorts, I could work all day every day and never run out of things to do, but that’s boring. Life can’t be all about work; sometimes you have to play a little, too.

I climbed the few stairs to my duplex and let myself in the door, tossing my purse and phone on the side table. I glanced at the clock on the wall. I had three minutes before Bain would arrive to pick me up. I stripped off my work shirt and let my skirt fall to the ground before going to the bathroom to make sure my hair was ready for an evening of crab legs and theater on Waikiki Beach. I brushed my hair out, leaving it long over my ears, the silkiness of the black tresses reminding me of the first night we made love. He held them like a lifeline as we became one and I would forever remember the look on his face when he told me he loved me.

That was two months ago now, and since then we had spent more and more time together. As a banker, he often worked the same kind of weird hours I do, but we still made time for each other every night. When we’re together, it feels like this might be the real thing. He might be ‘the one’. I’ve been afraid to invest my whole heart in someone as handsome and smart as he is, but when he told me he loved me, I knew we were all in. Well, not all in, there was one thing I was keeping from him. If we were going to go the distance, I would have to open up that part of my heart. The problem is, I don’t know how to. He’s so handsome, his face portraying his native heritage with olive skin and dark eyes. His thick ebony hair draws me in, and I’m constantly running my hands through it when we’re together. To say I feel inferior to his good looks is an understatement.

I touched up my makeup and then went to the small closet near the end of the bed to pull out the new dress I had been saving for a special occasion. I stepped into the long flowing caftan, the Hawaiian flower theme accentuating my ample chest and well rounded bottom. What better place to wear it than to Waikiki Beach for a crab feed?

I heard the front door close as I was slipping on my sandals. “Ellie?” Bain called from the front room. “Are you home?”

I gave him a key last month, so he didn’t have to knock every time he arrived for a date. “I’m in the bedroom, be right there,” I called, adding a necklace and bracelet to complete the outfit.

I turned toward the door and he was lounging there, looking relaxed in a pair of board shorts and Hawaiian shirt.

“Aloha,” he said, coming into the room and grabbing my waist. “You look beautiful.”

I could feel myself blushing, even if he couldn’t see it under the spray tan I so artfully apply every month. “Thank you. You don’t look ready for a fancy dinner and theater. Do we need to swing by your place?”

He shook his head and pushed me toward the front door. “Plans have changed, Ellie. The crab feed fell apart, so they put it on hold. We’ll go when they reschedule, but I didn’t want to cancel tonight altogether, so I made new plans.”

I picked up my purse and phone, following him out of the house, locking it behind me. “Oh really? I hope I’m not overdressed,” I complained, upset I had put the dress on for no reason.

I joined him on the sidewalk as we walked toward the beach, which wasn’t far from my flat, or my work. Truth be told, on Oahu, you were never far from a beach no matter where you were on the island.

“You’re overdressed, but only because you’ll be taking it off, and putting on a bathing suit. We’re going snorkeling on the reef.”

In his excitement, he didn’t notice me come to an abrupt halt at his words. “I’m not interested in snorkeling, Bain, I’m not a great swimmer. I wish you would have called and let me know about the change of plans. You go ahead. I’ll stay in for the night and have a glass of wine and watch a movie.”

He turned toward me, as I walked backward to my duplex. I wasn’t putting on a bathing suit or going snorkeling until I could explain to him what he would see.

“How can you not be a great swimmer when you’ve lived in Hawaii all your life?” he asked. “Hawaiian babies are born knowing how to swim.”

“Well, not this Hawaiian baby,” I said, my tone sharp, and he noticed.

He held up his hands. “I’m sorry. I should have called and given you the option. How about we order in some dinner and I’ll stay for a movie?”

I was relieved at his willingness to change plans again, but I knew I couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer. I retreated to the duplex and unlocked the door, letting him in past me.

“I’ll go change, be right back,” I said, the fear swirling in my belly when I got to my room and slipped my head out of the straps that held the long dress on my frame. I stepped out of it, hanging it again before noticing him in the reflection of the mirror.

I was naked except for my bra and panties, and I turned slowly around. There was no hiding it now. He could see everything I had been keeping from him. “Bain, there’s something we need to talk about,” I said, but he stayed planted on the doorjamb, “especially if our relationship is going to go any further.”

“Our relationship is where I like it right now, Ellie. I’m not ready to make a bigger commitment than I already have.”

His words were like a small punch to the gut. I knew he wasn’t ready for marriage, but he was the one to say I love you, first. All I wanted was a commitment on an emotional level. Since I started dating at barely eighteen, Bain has been the only guy to love me with no stipulations, or so I thought.

“I wasn’t implying that you were ready for more than what we have going on, I simply meant the natural progression of a relationship is important, and I don’t want anything holding us back.”

The way he looked at me as I sat there made me feel like the main exhibit at the freak show. His lip turned up as his eyes traveled the lower half of my body. I could feel my heart breaking inside my chest as I withered under his gaze. It felt like a crushing blow right before someone ripped it in half. I thought he would love me through anything, but it looks like I was wrong. Bain isn’t the man I thought he was. I reached for the robe on my bed and huddled in it.

He came in the room and pulled my key from his pocket, setting it on the nightstand. “I’m sorry, Ellie, but I can’t do this.”

“Do what?” I asked, but my heart already knew the answer.

“Do this,” he said again, his hand going back and forth between us. “I’m not looking for a charity case. I need a woman I can take to events and be proud of, not have to hide.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, standing up and grasping the robe closed. “You don’t have to hide me. I work in the public eye all the time. We’ve dated for almost a year and I’ve managed to keep it from you this long, what makes you think I can’t do the same for the public?” I asked, putting “public” in quotation marks with my fingers.

He shook his head as I spoke, when I finished he crossed his arms over his chest. “I wish you hadn’t kept it from me all this time. It would have saved us both a lot of heartache. It’s been fun, Ellie, but I never planned to make this a permanent situation. It’s time for us to go our separate ways.”

I grabbed his arm as he turned to go. “Bain, you’ve told me you love me for the last two months. How can you turn that off just like that?” I asked, snapping my fingers.

“I do love you, Ellie, but it’s better to end it here, tonight, before I find someone better and leave you after we’ve been married, and I can promise you, I would find someone better to have on my arm. Goodbye, Ellie. Don’t call me, and don’t text me, please. I wish you well in life, just not in mine.”

His words felt like a thousand swords thrust through my body at once. I sank to the bed and hung my head, not willing to cry in front of him. I heard the swish of his board shorts as he left the room and then the opening and closing of the front door. It sounded final and echoed through my soul in a way that made me feel less than I ever had in my life, and I’ve felt worthless more times than I can count.

I lifted the receiver on the phone next to my bed as the tears fell hot and wet down my face. I punched a familiar number and sobbed as the phone rang in my ear.

“Aloha, baby girl,” answered the voice on the other end as a wracking sob tore across the line. “Ellie, what’s wrong, baby?” my mother asked.

“Momma, I need you,” I cried into the receiver, knowing she would drop everything to come here and comfort me, the same way she had all my life.

Chapter One

Present Day

I staggered down the sidewalk like a pirate on a peg-leg, singing the old childhood song.

“Step on a crack, you’ll break your…” I stumbled to the left when my heel caught in a piece of the sidewalk. I righted myself using the side of the building and went back to my rhyme. “You’ll break your no good, lying, cheating, mean boyfriend’s back!” I stomped down hard on the sidewalk with my leather pump for emphasis and fell forward, landing on the only patch of grass on the street.

I pushed myself up again and brushed my hands off. “You’re drunk, Ellie, go home.” I laughed like a lunatic and took my shoes off, holding them in one hand while I tried to walk in a straight line down the sidewalk again.

“Hey, Eliana? Is that you?”

I heard his voice and tried to stop walking, but had to back up two steps to keep from tripping over my feet and falling down again.

“Whosssse askin’,” I asked, my words slurred even to my own ears.

“I saw you fall. I thought I better check and make sure you didn’t hurt yourself,” he answered as he came up to me.

I tried to jump away, but lost my balance, again, and fell, again. I looked up at him from the sidewalk and worked to focus my eyes on the very cute man in front of me.

“You’re adorable,” I said, clapping my hands a couple times. “Like irresistibly cute. I bet your grandma makes you an ugly Christmas sweater every year, but even though it’s ugly, you still wear it, because you’re a good grandson. I bet you even look nice in it.”

I noticed one side of his mouth pull up into a smile and he crouched next to me, one hand on the concrete. “Have you been drinking, Eliana?”

“So what if I have? I’m a twenty-five-year-old woman with no responsibilities!” My hand went into the air for emphasis and I heard him snicker this time.

“Nothing wrong with having some fun and blowing off a little steam once in a while, but you need to get home safely so how about if I help you?”

I took his outstretched hand and he tugged on my arm until I stood in a semi-upright position. “I know you. I know I know you. How do I know you?”

He put his arm around my waist and started walking with me toward my apartment. “We work together, remember?”

I started to giggle. “I know. I was just asking because I wanted to make sure you remembered that I remembered who you are. You’re Mr. I.T.”

He shook his head and kept a firm grip on my waist, something I wasn’t all that sad about. He was dressed in a GQ suit and totally hot dress shoes. The kind of shoes men wear that make my mouth water with the promise of their sexiness.

“Mally, remember? My name isn’t Mr. I.T. The I.T. Guy, or Mally the I.T. Guy. It’s Maltrand Kekoa.”

“Maltrand Kekoa, the I.T. Guy,” I sang, like a commercial. “That’s a great name. I bet you can’t say it three times fast. Maltrand Kekoa, Maltrand Kekoa, Mar-” I giggled. “Oops, I think I’ll keep calling you Mr. I.T.”

“Because?”

“It’s easier and it makes you sound really fancy, silly.” I giggled again, swatting at the tie that hung from his neck. It had white wavy lines on it against a navy blue backdrop. “I like your tie. I’ve never seen wavy lines on a tie before.”

He laughed aloud and grinned, one tooth sticking out predominately from his smile. “They aren’t wavy lines. The tie is striped, and you’re drunk.”

“Nah huh,” I insisted as he helped me into the lobby of the hotel where we worked. I stopped by the elevator and looked backward. “Did you know I live in the same place I work? How cool is that?”

“It’s definitely cool, Ellie,” he said, helping me onto the elevator. “I’m your neighbor, remember.”

“Don’t call me Ellie!” I exclaimed, my face crumbling into tears.

He held onto me a little tighter and tried to comfort me. “I’m sorry, that’s what we always call you at work.”

“Not anymore! No one can call me Ellie now that he’s gone,” I cried, burying my face in his suit. I pulled back and looked up at him. “You smell nice. What’s that cologne called, anyway?”

“It’s Colt .45,” he answered, holding me up as we exited the elevator on the top floor.

“That’s a gun, not cologne.”

He took my keycard and swiped it through the key holder. I heard the telltale snap of the door unlocking, and he turned the handle, holding it open for me. I staggered through it and fell down hard on the small loveseat just inside the door. He took my coat off and hung it in the closet, putting my purse and keys next to it,

“It’s also cologne, you can look it up tomorrow when you’re sober,” he answered patiently.

I stuck my tongue out at him when he turned his back to me. “I’m not drunk, why do you keep saying that?” I asked as he went to my kitchenette and started my coffee machine. “Wait a minute, how did you know where I live? And why are you in my kitchen?”

He sighed. “I just told you that. We’re neighbors. I live on that side of the wall.” He pointed to the kitchen wall as he put a coffee pod in the machine.

I tried to focus, but the furthest back I could remember was the last shot of whiskey I downed at Blue Reef Bar and Grill.

“Because you’re Mr. I.T. and you work here,” I said, my mouth sticky like cotton.

He shook his head from where he stood in the kitchen and set a cup under the machine. In seconds, the machine sputtered and groaned as it spluttered out a cup of coffee from the small plastic pod.

“My job is to fix computers, but my name is Mally,” he said again, handing me the cup. “You’re going to have a really bad headache in the morning if you don’t drink that.”

“Who are you trying to kid? I’m going to have a headache in the morning even if I drink this. I drank wine for hours and whiskey for an hour after that.” I gulped the hot liquid, not even caring that it was taking the skin off my tongue in layers.

“Why were you drinking for hours?” he asked, taking the cup from me as I lay over on the loveseat, resting my head on the pillow.

“I thought I would surprise my boyfriend tonight and I got this pretty dress. Do you like my dress?” I asked, smoothing the wrinkles out of the shiny material.

He nodded, his eyes taking in my robust figure appreciatively. “It’s a beautiful dress and you look gorgeous in it.”

“I’m glad someone likes it, since numbskull wasn’t even home.”

“If he wasn’t home then how do you know he doesn’t like it?”

I held my hand out and flipped it like a valley girl. “Duh, because I called him to find out why he didn’t show and do you know what happened?” I waited and he shook his head slowly, or at least I think it was slowly. It kind of spun around the opposite way the room was spinning. “Someone else said, ‘Who is it, sweetie?’ Can you believe that? There’s another woman!”

He grimaced and held up his hand. “Wait, maybe it was innocent.”

“An innocent woman calling him sweetie?” I asked, one brow going down until it practically touched my nose.

“His mom or his sister?” he asked, trying to make me feel better.

I shook my head, but thought better of it when the room started to spin like a child’s top. “He’s an only child and his mom is dead. Nice try, though.”

He rubbed my back a little, out of kindness or pity, one of the two. “I’m sorry, Eliana. Maybe you should get some rest and tomorrow things will be better.”

I eyed him up and down. His thick, golden brown hair begged me to run my fingers through it, so I did. It felt exactly like I always dreamed it would. Soft, strong, and sexy as hell, just like him. “Maybe tonight can be salvaged,” I purred. “We could retire to my bedroom and you could help me forget all about him.”

He stood and covered me with the blanket that lay across the back of the loveseat. “Sorry, but I don’t have sex with drunk women. Especially drunk women I work with.”

I jutted my lip out in a pout. “You think I’m ugly and fat, don’t you?”

“I think you’re drunk and the alcohol is making you braver than you really are. Sleep it off, Eliana, and tomorrow you’ll be happy I kept my pants zipped tonight.”

I looked away from his handsome, sun-bronzed face. “I’ve had a crush on you since you started working for Gideon,” I admitted. I was trying to bite back the words, but the wine was making them flow faster than I could think of them. I watched a shadow go across his face at my words. “I know we work together, but we could keep it professional. I could be your neighbor with benefits.”

He knelt next to the loveseat and smoothed my hair away from my face. “I’m flattered that you think we should be neighbors with benefits, but you may feel differently in the morning. “

“The woman drunk on whisky knows that’s true, but the woman drunk on wine wants to be comforted.”

He rubbed my arm where it lay tucked under the blanket. “There are dozens of lines I could give you right now, but none of them would comfort you. The fact is, you deserve better than what he’s giving you. You liked the idea of being in love, but you weren’t actually in love.”

“How do you know that?” I asked angrily, lifting myself up on one elbow.

“It’s simple. If you were in love with him, you wouldn’t have gone to the bar and spent hours drinking alone. You would have moved heaven and hell to find him, and then fought tooth and nail to get him back. Drinking is easy; love is not.”

I flopped back down on the pillow and closed my eyes for a second. “Maybe I wasn’t in love with him, but I was in like. We haven’t been going out for very long, but we agreed to be exclusive. I don’t know what I was thinking anyway. Why would a guy like that be with a girl like me?”

“What does that mean, Eliana?”

“Don’t call me that. Only my mother calls me that.”

He opened his mouth, but closed it again after thinking about it for a moment.

“And it means that I knew we weren’t in the same league, hell, we weren’t in the same ballpark. He’s not the kind to settle down and stay with one woman for the rest of his life. I was destined for heartache when I got involved with him.”

“I refuse to believe that you were out of his league. If he has a ‘league’, that tells me the kind of man he is.”

“And I’m better off without him, right? Someone else will come along and sweep me of my feet. Better to know now than after I marry him, right?”

He shook his head and pulled the blanket up around my shoulder. “Like I said, there are dozens of things I could say, but none of them would comfort you tonight. Get some sleep, honey bunches, tomorrow is a new day.”

“Honey bunches?” I asked sleepily.

“So far you’ve told me I can’t call you Ellie or Eliana, so I had nothing left but honey bunches.” He winked and then like that, he was gone.

Two Months Later

I watched the tiny hourglass flip around the screen with the little words ‘PowerPoint is not responding’ on the top of my window. “You’ve got to be kidding me with this. Lisa, tell me this is a big joke,” I called from my corner office.

I watched her walk toward me, her tiny feet clicking along in the tallest pair of heels I have ever seen. She looked ridiculous trying to hurry, reminding me of a cartoon character trying to escape a rubber hammer. I blew out a breath and shook my head a little. I’m mean today. I better put a lid on that before I get myself in trouble.

Lisa came through my door, winded from hurrying from her own cubicle. She has tiny feet, and an even tinier chest, which heaved up and down as she lowered herself into a chair. “I think these heels are too high.”

I raised one brow. “You think?”

She bent down and pulled them off, unceremoniously dumping them into my garbage can. She moaned a little when she rubbed her left arch.

“What was I thinking?” she asked and I gave her the palms up rather than answer.

“I need to accept that I’m short and stop ruining my feet for the sake of beauty. At least that’s what the foot doctor says.”

“He may be onto something if you’re going to a foot doctor at twenty-two,” I agreed. “In the meantime, I have a very large project due and look at this.” I motioned at my computer where the sands through the hourglass just sat there spinning around.