Page 574 of Summer Heat
Bad idea, dude. Just walk away. Now.
“I need breakfast,” I say, turning and heading into the kitchen. She can follow or not.
She follows.
And thank fuck, she seems to be back to her usual oblivious-to-everything-but-work default because I hear her rattling off what s
ounds like a long-ass checklist of things on her mind as I take out eggs and a few other things from the fridge. From some issues she foresees coming, to the design details she’d wanted to talk to me about earlier, to some interior construction constraints she’s figuring out, it’s all standard stuff, and I tune in with one ear as I make some food.
“Are you hungry?” I ask when she finally pauses to take another breath.
“No thanks. I already ate,” she says before launching back into an in-depth analysis of our progress on the project.
As always, her attention to detail is impeccable; if only she had nearly as much insight to how much I’d like her to leave right now. It would be nice to just enjoy my once-quiet morning rituals again. But, I get it. This is a big project I handpicked to have her run point on. I know it’ll take time for us to get into a groove that doesn’t drive me up the wall. The important thing is that she’s damn talented, even if her process is damn unorthodox.
I finish making my skillet scramble and sit at the counter to eat while she begins easing into what sounds like the start of a marathon explanation about how the guy we’d been considering for an open position on her project isn’t the best decision, and how she knows a guy who’d be much better suited.
“He’s hired,” I interrupt her, and she pauses, her mouth hanging slightly open as she stares at me.
I calmly take another bite of eggs, studying her as intently as she’s watching me. Does she not realize I trust her opinions on this sort of thing? If she says her guy is better, he’s fucking hired. I wouldn’t have her on the job if I thought she was in any way incompetent.
“Oh,” she says, her eyes wide, “okay. Thank you.”
She still seems surprised at my response. Has no one ever taken her seriously? So far, she’s been running a tight ship, and even when snags come up, like they always do with any project, she’s been ironing them all out before I have to get involved.
I walk over to put my plate in the sink and she watches me, utterly silent for a refreshing change. The fact that I actually miss hearing her voice, however, makes me think I’m still way too fucking tired to be functional at the moment.
“I’m going to shower,” I inform her then, leaving it to her to see herself out as I walk back toward the master bedroom.
A half a minute later, I’m standing in the shower, under a pulsing spray of hot water when I hear her start talking again.
Okay, I guess she’s staying. And now I’m butt-ass naked and she’s in the doorway of my bathroom, talking about the team and how they’ll love the new hire. Great. Fine. Whatever. The glass shower door is frosted. The woman’s not going to keep me from my shower.
She keeps talking, and I start soaping down, avoiding soaping too far down, just like I avoid the unexpected desire I suddenly have to yank her into the shower with me.
Because that would be bad.
In a so-fucking-good-it’s-bad sort of way.
3
| SUMMER |
MONDAY
(Time: 5:05 a.m.)
Jason’s in the shower and I’m rifling through my notes to make sure I get through everything I need to talk to him about before we both get slammed like we always do once we get to the jobsite. Seems like these impromptu early morning hours in his penthouse are the only times I can grab a few minutes to hammer out these details with him. So much so it’s become our thing. Over the past month and a half, we’ve had countless productive meetings just like this.
Well…maybe not just like this. His deciding to shower during one of our meetings is new. But then again, I can’t blame him. He’s a billionaire. His time is money. Literally. I read an online article once about how much billionaires make every day. For the new school blue-collar billionaires like Jason, it calculated out to about $5,000 per minute.
So, I totally get it. At five-grand a minute, it’s just good sense for the man to multitask.
Like the other night, when I’d managed to catch him before he was heading to bed after a ridiculously long day for us both, he’d simply turned around and started stripping out of his clothes while I talked, signed the form I needed him to with one hand while pulling back the covers with the other, and muttered for me to turn off the living room lights on my way out about a second before his head hit the pillow.
It’s nice that he’s so casual and blunt with me.
When I’d first discovered that I would be working directly under the new young CEO of Steele Developments International, Jason freaking Steele himself, I had been worried that I’d have to be perfectly coiffed at all times with make-up, heels, pantyhose, the whole nine yards.
