Page 55 of The Don’s Virgin Obsession

A beautiful older Black woman named Denise.

Sharp as hell too.

“Vaughn approved this already,” Denise told me while showing me something on her tablet.

“Well, Vaughn approved wrong,” I said, looking over the layout again. “This setup is gonna crowd the entrance.”

Denise looked at it another time before nodding slowly. “You might be right.”

“I know I’m right,” I replied, making Laila laugh behind me.

By noon, I was fully in work mode, calling shots left and right, moving crews around, fixing placements, and changing small details that would matter long term. Vaughn finally started working with us later in the afternoon, but something about him still felt… off.

He answered questions short.

Barely joked.

Barely looked at me.

At one point, I walked over while he was reviewing numbers with Denise.

“You still want the lighting fixtures moved to the west side?”

“Whatever works.”

I blinked. “Whatever works?”

He finally looked at me. “You the expert, right?”

His tone caught me off guard a little.

I crossed my arms. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means do what you paid to do. I didn’t pay you to ask questions.”

I stared at him for a second before taking the paperwork from Denise and walking off.

The tension stayed weird after that.

Around hour seven, things got worse.

A delivery arrived at the wrong place, and everybody started looking around, confused, while the workers stood there waiting for directions.

I looked at the invoice immediately. “This is the wrong material.”

“No, it’s not,” Vaughn said without even checking first.

“Yes, it is,” I replied calmly. “This isn’t what I ordered.”

He grabbed the paper from me, looked over it quickly, then sighed hard through his nose.

“It’s usable.”

“It’s also wrong.”

“Sade, every time something happens, it doesn’t gotta turn into a whole production.”

My face tensed instantly. “A production? I’m trying to do my job.”