I sighed heavily. “I know you will, anyway.”
“Why do you always attempt to jeopardize something good that comes your way?”
Willow jumped in. “That’s actually a really good question. You’re terrible with that shit, and you need to stop.”
I furrowed my brow. “I do not.”
“Uh-huh, yes, you do,” Sadie said. “Remember Michael?”
I rolled my eyes. “Michael was a musician. He would’ve been gone too much.”
“And Brock?” Willow asked.
“Too young. I thought it was kind of weird for me in the first place. I like men older than me, not younger,” I said.
“And Ricky?” they asked in unison.
I swallowed hard. “All right, okay. I get it.”
“We love you, girl,” Willow said, “but you’re a commitment-phobe.”
I balked. “I am not!”
“Yes, you are. And the sooner you admit that, the sooner you can figure out why,” Sadie said.
“You always find little ways to discard the men who find you attractive; who really do care. And then you end up going on dates with men like that asshat from the gas station. I don't know what you feel you’re protecting yourself from, but Bart’s about as good of a man as you’re going to get. All of the Remington brothers are. And if you can find fault with him? Then, the issue isn’t with him. It’s with you,” Willow said.
I closed my eyes. “Thanks for talking with me, I guess.”
“We love you, but sometimes it has to be a tough kind of love,” Sadie said.
I licked my lips. “Love you guys.”
“Don’t give up on him just yet, okay? Promise me,” Willow said.
“And me,” Sadie said.
I shook my head. “I’ll try my best.”
“That’s all anyone can ask,” Sadie said softly.
As I hung up the phone call with the girls, I thought back to my childhood. Bart had always been the one to stand up for me, especially with bullies on the playground. I’d been bullied for my weight my entire childhood, at least until the boys around me hit puberty and realized having a massive ass wasn’t a terrible thing after all. He’d been just as protective of me as my father had been. But, he always had aspirations of getting out of Conroe, starting his own business, and finding his own home.
His leave from Conroe again wasn’t just an eventuality; it was set in stone by him. It had always been his dream to set up somewhere else. Somewhere a bit bigger with more entertainment and more nightlife. So, I needed to protect myself in whatever form that protection came. Not because Bart was a bad man, but because he wasn’t a forever man.
And that had to be taken into consideration.
9
Bart
“Luna, do you have that paperwork for property number four? I’m trying to crunch numbers and—”
She rolled her chair toward me. “The stack of folders to your right is all to do with that property. The top file is past bills, middle two files are contractors quotes and information to make necessary changes, and the bottom file is filled with the schematics and blueprints of the property.”
I peered over my shoulder. “You getting hungry? It’s almost lunchtime.”
She rolled back over to her desk. “Already ordered! I figured pizza would be a good way to go since we probably aren’t at an actual stopping point.”
“Nice. Did you get—”
“A three-meat for you with red peppers? Yes. I also got myself a separate one because I’m a—”
I grinned. “Veggie pizza person.”
She giggled. “Yep. I guess you know.”
I murmured to myself, “I know more than you think.”
She swiveled around in her chair. “What was that?”
I matched her movements. “Nothing. Just talking to myself.”
“I do that a lot, too. Especially in—”
“The shower?”
She snickered. “I win all of my best arguments there.”
The two of us just clicked. All week long, we’d been working side by side in my hotel suite, trying to crunch the numbers of these places. None of them really stuck out to me, but Mr. Derecho was giving us the space we needed because we were now faced with a decision as to which of the six properties would suit us best. It would cost way too much money to build a refinery from scratch, but a great deal of these properties needed so much work that we might as well have done exactly that.
And all the while, my chemistry with Luna mounted.
Every day she worked with me, I found another reason to be amazed. With each passing hour, her perfume filled my nostrils and invaded my workspace, tugging at my cock as I tried to keep my desires at bay. Neither of us had brought up what happened the other evening, and part of me didn’t want to. We’d gotten back into a comfortable rhythm, and I didn’t want to do anything to ruin that. But dammit, I needed this woman.
And not just professionally.
It gutted me that she wouldn’t even consider making this a permanent position for herself. But, I was on a mission to change that. I knew I’d never find another assistant who I worked so smoothly and so diligently with, whether or not we had slept together. Work didn’t feel like work whenever she was around.
I have to find a way to get her to stay.
Our pizza arrived, and we ate while we worked. We passed folders back and forth, updating numbers and trying to total out the closest number we could for our investors. I needed portfolios to them by the beginning of the week, and that meant getting these numbers and the names of these contractors as accurate as possible.
But, once the day wrapped up, I had everything I needed to give the investors what they wanted. “You’re a powerhouse, Luna; you know that?” I swiveled around in my chair just as she got up from hers.
“Well, if there’s nothing else for the day, I should be getting—”
I stood to my feet. “You’ve technically completed your first week back at work.”
She paused. “It doesn’t even feel like a week, does it?”
I snickered. “No, it doesn’t.”
She smiled up at me. “I really want to thank you for this opportunity. It’s going to change a lot of things in my life for the better.”
I slid my hands into my pockets. “If you’re up for it, I’d like to take you out and celebrate the success of your first workweek.”
She grinned. “Or, you’re just sifting for platonic reasons to take me out because of what happened last week.”
I shrugged. “Then, if you don’t want to go out with me, a simple ‘no’ will suffice.”
Her eyes danced between mine, but her lips didn’t move. A smile grew against my cheeks, and when she smiled back, I knew we were on for the evening.
“Give me fifteen minutes, and I can give you a ride back to your place, and you can get changed. I just need to slip out of these clothes and into—”
Luna furrowed her brow. “Why would I want to get changed? Do you not like my dress?”
My eyes fell down her body. “I love everything you wear. But, I figured with my brothers and the girls coming out with us tonight, you might feel like changing. You certainly don’t have to, but I thought you might want to.”