"I'm under orders," Nick said for the fifth time. "You shop, I pay."
She growled good-naturedly at him. "Do you always follow orders?"
"I do so complainingly always."
She laughed yet again as they left the store and headed back out into the mall with Nick carrying her bags. "How long have you worked for Kyrian?" she asked as they got on the escalator.
"Eight years now."
She gaped. "Really, you don't look that old."
"Yeah, well, I was barely sixteen when I started."
"You can be a Squire at that age?"
Nick turned his head to ogle an attractive young woman in a tight, short skirt going up the escalator beside them, then he turned to flash a dimpled smile at her before he answered the question. "I didn't know what he was for a long time. I just thought he was some whacked-out rich guy with a 'pity the poor kid' complex."
She frowned as they left the escalator and walked through the downstairs level. "Why would you think that?"
Nick adjusted the bags he carried. "You see beside you, my lady, the son of a career felon. My father died in Angola eleven years ago during a prison riot."
Amanda winced at the thought of losing a father like that. "And your mother?"
"She was an exotic dancer down on Bourbon Street. I grew up in the back room of the club where she worked, helping the bouncers hustle clients."
Amanda cringed at the life he was describing. "I'm sorry."
He shrugged nonchalantly. "Don't be. My mother might have her faults, but she's a good mom, and a terrific lady. She did her best with what little we had. My father knocked her up when she was fifteen and her father threw her out. So it was just the two of us while my dad hit the revolving door in and out of the penal system. We never had much, but she's always loved me."
Amanda smiled at the love she heard in his voice. It was obvious he worshiped his mother. "So how did you meet Kyrian?"
He paused for a second as if gathering his thoughts. "When I hit my teens, I was sick to death of watching my mom hang her head in shame. Of her doing without food so I could eat a little bit more. I can remember walking to work with her and watching the way her gaze would stare longingly into store windows." He sighed. "She had such hungry eyes."
His stare was hard, penetrating. "My mother is the best-hearted woman God ever put on this planet. And I couldn't stand watching her degrade herself to feed me. Men groping her all the time. Or seeing the look on her face whenever she saw something she wanted and she couldn't afford it. At thirteen, I couldn't take it anymore, so I started stealing."
Amanda's throat tightened. She didn't condone it, but she wouldn't judge him for it, either.
"One night, the gang I was in decided to mug a couple of tourists and I drew the line. It was one thing to shoplift and break into rich people's houses, but I wasn't about to hurt someone."
So, even as a thief, Nick had honor.
"What happened?" she asked.
"The guys were furious at me and decided to get a little practice in by beating the crap out of me. One minute, I was under their feet, getting bludgeoned to death, and the next thing I knew there was this guy holding his hand out to me, asking me if I was okay."
"Kyrian?"
Nick nodded. "He took me to the hospital and paid for them to stitch up my head and knife wounds. He stayed with me until my mom got there. While we were waiting, he asked me if I wanted to go to work for him, running errands after school."
She could just imagine Nick as a smart-mouthed teen. It said a lot about Kyrian's character that he had seen through Nick's caustic personality to find the goodness beneath it all. "You agreed?"
"Not at first. I wasn't sure I wanted to be anywhere near some guy who had all the money in the world. Plus, my mom was very suspicious of Kyrian. She still is. She can't imagine why on earth he pays me so much money to do practically nothing." He laughed. "She's still half convinced I deal drugs for him."
Amanda scoffed at the thought. His poor mother. "What do you tell her?"
"That he's Howard Hughes with a God complex." He sobered and gave her a harsh stare. "I owe Kyrian my life. There's no telling where I'd be if he hadn't found me that night. One thing's for sure, I wouldn't be a pre-law student at Loyola, driving around in a Jag. I know he's a major asshole, but he's really a good guy underneath it all."
Amanda thought about his words as they left the mall and stowed her purchases in the trunk of Nick's silvery-black Jag.