“Lived with Grandma…” Lina hummed an old nursery rhyme as she carried a stack of neatly folded bedsheets to the laundry room. Tonight was shaping up to be a busy one. The banquet hall at their hotel complex, “Radiance,” had been booked for a local businessman’s birthday bash, and most of the guests would likely stay overnight. Everything needed to be spotless.
“…two cheerful, oh so cheerful…” she continued, remembering that the light in the utility closet with the washing machines had burned out. So, she tugged open the door to the staff shower room to flip on the light there instead.
“…geeeeese!!!” she screeched the end of the verse in a voice that wasn’t her own, dropping the carefully balanced stack of linens in a heap on the floor.
In the shower of their quaint “Radiance” hotel complex stood a man, completely naked—which, to be fair, made sense for someone taking a shower. A pile of filthy clothes lay on the floor beside him, and dirty water streamed down his chiseled torso, tattooed arms, and well-defined muscles, not to mention the equally impressive physique a bit lower down.
He was so engrossed in his shower that he didn’t notice Lina right away.
When he finally did, she had already sucked in a breath to scream loud enough to alert the entire hotel and restaurant complex. But the stranger quickly pressed a finger to his lips—his own, thankfully—pleading for silence. His disheveled hair clearly hadn’t seen a barber in ages, and his rugged, rather handsome face hadn’t met a razor in just as long.
With his other hand, he made a half-hearted attempt to cover his dignity amid the soapy suds. It wasn’t nearly enough.
“Please, don’t scream!” he said, locking eyes with her, his dark gaze annoyingly captivating. “I’ll just finish washing up and be on my way.”
“Who the heck are you?” Lina managed to stammer, slowly regaining her ability to speak.
“Look, I own a winery, I’m a sponsor, a lot of people in town know me! I just got myself into a mess… not literally, damn it,” he added, catching Lina’s suspicious glance at his legs. “They dragged me out to the woods, like something out of a ‘90s mob movie, and forced me to dig a hole. Can you believe it?”
“Oh my God, are you high or something?”
“No! Listen, as soon as I get back home, I’ll pay for dry cleaning or whatever. Money’s not an issue for me!” he insisted passionately. And Lina was starting to buy it. Sure, because millionaires who own wineries just wander into rural hotel showers, filthy and stark naked, every day.
“Lin, what’s going on in there…” A young woman in jeans and an unbuttoned shirt thrown carelessly over a bra poked her head into the shower room as she hurried past.
“Whoa…” She rubbed her eyes. “Lin, is this… yours?” She pointed at the stranger in the shower, her sharp, dark eyes scanning his dirty but undeniably well-built frame.
“Of course not! I walked in, and he’s just… showering! Says he’s practically a millionaire, owns a…”
“I lied!” the man blurted out suddenly. His expression shifted dramatically the moment Margo stepped into the room. “I’m just a local drifter, no home, no nothing. And, well, no shower either, since what’s a shower without a home, right? So, I came here to… you know… clean up. I’ll pay for it! I mean, I’ll work it off, since what’s a bum like me got to pay with?” he rambled, forgetting to cover himself as he gestured wildly with both hands. The speech—and especially the gestures—seemed to entertain the women, who both forgot they probably should’ve called security. Not that security at “Radiance” would’ve been much help—Uncle Yuri, their 70-year-old guard, wasn’t likely to handle a nearly six-foot, burly guy in decent shape. Their other male staffer, Vlad, a 20-year-old part-time student, was currently quarantined with chickenpox in a remote wing of the complex, far from the eyes of potential guests.
Then there was Margo, arguably the toughest “man” of the bunch. She’d grown up here under her father’s wing, who had run “Radiance” as a family business before passing it to her when age caught up with him. But Margo’s usual fierceness was dormant now, lulled by the intriguing scene before her.
“You’ll work it off, you say?” she asked, eyeing him thoughtfully and without a hint of embarrassment.
“Yeah! I don’t make empty promises!”
“We’ll see about that! Asking for a medical certificate would be a joke, obviously. No fleas or coughs, I hope?”
“Hey, that’s insulting! I’m not a total vagrant. Just… keeping it minimal!”
“Finish up in there. Lina will bring you some clean clothes and tell you what to do next. One of our workers came down with chickenpox, so we need someone to chop wood for the grills.”
“No problem!” The stranger, realizing he wasn’t about to be kicked out or yelled at, visibly relaxed. “Ladies, mind if I finish washing up? Won’t take long.”
“Go ahead, wash up, Mr. Millionaire!” Margo chuckled and finally stepped out of the shower room. She had to tug Lina by the strap of her apron, though—her eyes were glued to their unexpected guest.
***
Alex Zalisky, the younger heir and co-owner of one of the country’s largest distilleries, let out a sigh of relief as the shower room door slammed shut behind the women. Now he could finally clean up and, if they weren’t joking, even get some fresh clothes.
Who would’ve thought, just a week ago, that he’d be sleeping in the woods after being dragged there by goons hired by an ex-girlfriend with a grudge? Or that he’d be wandering aimlessly in search of civilization, too filthy for any car to stop for him on the rural highway? And the cherry on top—that he’d end up breaking into the shower of some roadside joint, and not just any joint, but “Radiance,” the very place his lawyer had been battling over for a solid year, trying to claim the land. It was prime real estate for a future service station and gas stop. Heck, they could even keep the hotel, Alex had thought when he first started this fight.
And now—karma—he was pretending to be a homeless drifter, naked in the shower of this very “Radiance.” And on top of that, he’d be chopping wood for their grills in exchange for clean clothes, because he wasn’t one to go back on his word.
Life sure had a way of throwing curveballs… But… the owner of “Radiance” wasn’t half bad. He’d seen her a year ago at a conference, and even then, he couldn’t help but notice her sharp movements and confident gaze. He’d known right away that women like her didn’t back down. They fought for what was theirs until the very end. Yet, for some reason, he couldn’t let it go either. While his slick lawyer dug in like a dog after a fox, Alex kept waiting for her to come to him, to beg, to admit she’d lost against his power and resources. But no. She hadn’t come to him. Instead, here he was, pathetic and filthy, in her shower…