Esther Pinnett groaned as she rolled over and silenced her alarm. At least it wasn’t dark despite the earliness of the hour. She should be used to getting up by five o’clock, but it still seemed like a chore every morning.
She sat up, the tropical breeze coming through the open window only a hint of the storm that was coming toward the island. Sighing, she got herself into the shower, choosing to use her purple shampoo that morning, along with a blonditioner that was supposed to make her highlights brighter.
So she’d been coloring her hair for a few years. It was still naturally blonde, but every once in a while, everyone needed a bit of help. Esther took hers in the form of coffee with caramel and cream, and hair dye. It wasn’t a crime.
She brushed her teeth, put magnesium oil on her softer upper arms, and went through her hair routine with the creams and gels and dusts.
Esther thrived on routine. Lived for it. Stepped into her neatly pressed black slacks and paired them with a blue, white, and black flowery blouse, exactly the same way she did every morning. Just before she left her bungalow for the day, she’d put on her black suit jacket, all she ever wore on the island, rain or shine.
True, she didn’t drive every day, but her first client of the morning did sometimes work seven days a week. And it was seven days a week of torture, because her first client of the day was Marshall Robison.
Tall Marshall, with dark-haired, black sand-colored eyes, and the richest man in the islands. And the man Esther had had a secret crush on for two years.
Two very long years.
Over seven hundred days of torture, driving him from his cliff-side mansion to his offices at the Robison Plantation, the largest conglomerate of pineapple plantations in the islands. Sometimes she drove him to the beach. Or to his favorite restaurants. Or to his best friend’s hotel, Sweet Breeze, right on Getaway Bay.
He also went to multiple company functions, each with a different woman on his arm. Esther had started giving those jobs to someone else, as she could hardly stand to be in the car with him and his giggly girlfriend-for-the-night.
She knew how he took his coffee, that he did a crossword puzzle every single day, and that his birthday was coming up in just a couple of days. She also knew she wanted more than one date with the man who didn’t go on second dates. She wasn’t sure what that made her, other than delusional.
Hopeful, she told herself. Optimistic.
After she’d brushed her teeth, slipped into heels, and applied her makeup—in that order—she went into her airy kitchen. Bending to smell the fresh flowers she kept on her small table for two, Esther took three seconds from her routine to take a deep breath and face another week. Marshall had texted her business number last night to confirm he needed a ride this Sunday morning, and that meant a long work week.
With the storm, though, Esther had already canceled all the jobs for Tuesday and until noon on Wednesday. Even the afternoon clients knew that it might not be safe to drive around the island after the storm. It was just too unpredictable, though Esther had never seen the weather shut down the island for very long.
Even if she wasn’t driving that morning, she didn’t make her own coffee. So she put her credit card and her driver’s license—which she kept in a slim billfold—in her front right pocket, and a tube of mint Chapstick in her left. After shrugging into her jacket, she plucked the keys to the sleek, black Lincoln town car from the hook by the carport door and went outside.
The scent of sea and flowers met her nose, and she took another moment to savor it. She wasn’t a Hawaii native, but she did enjoy living here.
She got behind the wheel and headed for The Roast down the street. Sunday didn’t normally see too many people before six a.m., so there was no wait. Victoria leaned out of the window, her face brightening when Esther rolled down her window.
“Esther. Aloha. The usual?”
“Plus one,” she said, which was her code to get her coffee as well as one for Marshall.
Vic knew how to make them, and she ducked back into the hut. Several minutes later, Esther lifted her to-go cup to her lips, the sweet caramel and the rich cream making the dark roast coffee delicious.
A sigh passed through her whole body and she twisted to accept the second cup.
Marshall’s coffee. Regular roast. One splash of chocolate. One of milk. He took his richness in the cocoa, not the cream, and Esther had tried his concoction once, on a morning when he didn’t need a ride. Vic hadn’t been any the wiser, because Esther had gotten her usual too.
And while she thought nearly everything Marshall did was perfect, she much preferred her caramel cream concoction to his.
Not that it mattered. Marshall barely knew her name, and if he had to pick her out of line-up, Esther felt sure that he’d fail. Even the women he took to fancy dinners and business parties barely got a glance from him.
She handed over the cash for the coffees and eased the car back onto the road. It was a twenty minute drive up twisty, turny roads to Marshall’s cliffside mansion. Esther could make the drive in her sleep, and sometimes she did. She never wore her power suits in those fantasies, but fun, flowy, flowery dresses, with flirty footwear and lip gloss the color of ripe raspberries.
Her hair flowed over her shoulders, and Marshall pushed it back to kiss her bare skin there.
She cleared her throat and her thoughts, and glanced at herself in the rear-view mirror. Maybe she seemed a bit flushed, but that could’ve been from the coffee, or the humidity. She completed the drive and parked with the front bumper right up at the gate.
Marshall never buzzed her in; she’d never seen the inside of his home. He came down the black, asphalt driveway, always wearing a perfectly tailored suit in black, gray, or navy blue. Esther much preferred the navy ones, and as he approached today, Esther didn’t deviate from her routine.
She got five seconds to ogle him, and then she’d look straight through the windshield, acknowledge him professionally, and unlock the doors.
Today her five seconds saw him saunter toward her, so sexy and so untouchable it hurt. When her time was up, she turned and looked at her birthday gift for him on the back seat. Should she grab it now before he saw? What would he think?
She’d been driving him for years and never given him a birthday present. He’d never acted like it was his birthday on the day of, but he’d mentioned his summer birthdate a few years ago. Esther was a master at remembering small details. Her knack for it had kept customers loyal to her for long periods of time, and she trained all her drivers to pay attention to what people told them as they drove around the island.
She gave him a single nod and clicked the locks open. Marshall always sat on the passenger side, in the back seat. Today was no different. His long legs came first, followed by that toned body that must see hours in a gym.
Esther wrenched her thoughts from his body and watched as he spotted the blue-wrapped package on the seat.
“What’s this?” He lifted it, the pale paper contrasting with his half-dark skin.
“Happy birthday, sir,” Esther said.
He shook his head and started to chuckle. “You never cease to amaze me. How do you remember all that you do?”
“Oh, I can’t reveal my secrets.” She could also never reveal how warm his words made her.
“Should I open it?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
He ripped the paper along the tape, always so proper. She wondered what it would be like to see him in a pair of shorts, casually eating with friends, or spending time with his family. She knew the Robison’s were a tight-knit group, as she drove him to his parents’ home every Thursday for dinner.
There really was so much to learn about a person just by watching them.
His laughter filled the car, and it was glorious. Esther wanted to bottle it and unstop it in the few moments before she fell asleep at night, so it could accompany her into sleep.
“A crossword puzzle book.” He held it up for her to see, as if she didn’t know what she’d wrapped. “Thank you, Esther.” He gazed at the book with fondness, and when those dark eyes switched to her, he lit up her whole world.
She cleared her throat again and adjusted her sunglasses to make sure she wasn’t giving anything away. That was another thing about Esther. She could hold an incredible amount of information and emotion close to the vest.
“Of course, sir,” she said, flipping the car into reverse. She watched him covertly, and he flipped through the pages of the puzzle book, appreciation in his eyes. He glanced up at her a couple of times, but Esther kept both hands on the wheel and her eyes forward.
Marshall liked music, but nothing too loud. So the tropical tunes played at level three, and Esther’s heart beat seemed to be bumping in time with them. Down, down, down she drove, and Marshall seemed to be watching her more than usual, which means he didn’t immediately bury himself in his phone or something from his briefcase.
But he kept stroking his thumb along the cover of the puzzle book and looking at her. It was so out of his routine that by the time Esther pulled up to the pineapple plantation, she was positively jumpy. She managed to keep her hands still on the wheel though she felt like squirming and twitching.
Marshall also didn’t heave a sigh and get out the way he normally did. He leaned forward like he might say something to her, but in the end, he settled back against the seat.
“Thank you again,” he said, his voice like the hibiscus honey she loved in her evening tea. Warm, sweet, thick.
“Happy birthday,” she said. “I hope the storm doesn’t ruin it.”
A smile lit up his face and he collected his coffee and his briefcase, and he got out of the car, the way he always did. He walked toward the steps, the same way he had yesterday and every day before that.
But then he paused, turned around, and looked at her. Seemingly right at her, despite the mirrored lenses and layers of glass between them.
Esther pulled in a breath and then pulled away from the curb, cursing herself for buying the man a birthday gift. She may as well have screamed, “I have a crush on you!” and left it at that.
