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“Zoey’s a lot tougher than she looks.”
Hudson gives me a funny look as I say this. “I meant,” he says quietly, “the proving you have heart thing.”
Oh. Right.
I outline my next moves. When I get to the one about the reading center, Zoey wanders into my mind, infecting me with the unease I’m beginning to know well.
Guilt. That’s what it is. Misguided, unwanted, unwarranted guilt. I squash it once more and will it to stay that way, but the woman has a way of somehow breathing life into my conscience and letting the guilt flare up.
Damn pretty, sweet Zoey.
I can’t wait to be rid of her.
And I just hope that one day when my dream is built, I’ll be able to believe that.
One day.
Amelia Johnson isn’t exactly grandmother material when she sashays into my office. More Studio 54, Good Time Gal, and broad who intimately knows the block and has it exactly where she wants it. She has to be around seventy, and I’m ready to dismiss her when she leans over my desk and pins me down with a hard glare.
“Boy, I’ve been dealing with your type long before you were born.”
I lean back and look at her. “Billionaires.”
“Yup. And movie stars. Mobsters. All kinds. You have a job, you have the pay, and I can show you why I’m worth my weight in gold. Also, I don’t have a pesky conscience.”
I point at her. “Sick gran. Frail. But has life. And someone a bleeding heart wants to give her life and soul and building to save.”
She smiles. “Bathroom?”
It’s Thursday night and I have a reading center to open in the name of my actual maternal great grandmother. So I check my watch, straighten my tie, and point to the executive bathroom.
The woman who emerges looks old. Frail. Sweet. Amelia hasn’t done much, her dark hair is pinned differently, old fashioned, and she’s moving slower, like things hurt. But it’s her aura.
Somehow, someway, she’s captured the idea I’ve been struggling to build.
The woman might have a heart as black as mine.
She hobbles up and talks to me in a slightly quavery voice. I hold up a hand and offer her a cool smile.
“If you manage to help me part this woman from her building, then I’ll pay you triple.”
And with that, I shake her hand, wait until she goes, and grab my jacket.
If my stomach seems a little heavy, I ignore it and head out. I have an empire to build, family heirlooms to grab, and a legacy to secure for my brothers and myself.
I don’t have time for Zoey or emotions.
Of any kind.
By Friday afternoon I’m quietly amazed at Zoey.
Not her sweet smiles, or the way she works way too hard for too little, but at how she cares. People come in, more than I saw in my first week, and they’re all concerned about the handful of days her store stayed shut.
She’s also very easy on the eye, and the tension between us grows more palpable by the passing hour, as it’s done since that…session on her sofa.
Did we nearly fuck? Yeah. I’m aware of that, painfully. I need to do something about it, because me not having sex and being attracted to Zoey is a dangerous recipe, a disaster waiting to happen.
It’s not I don’t think I can handle it, sleeping with her, but I’m playing a game and I moved too soon and—shit. I don’t know. I like her. That’s the problem. Too much. That’s the other problem.
