Chapter 10
Phil leaned against the leather headrest and closed her eyes, letting the gentle bumps in the dirt road lull her. She was trying frantically not to panic at the thought of everything she’d let slip with Jamal.
Let slip?
Yeah, right. She was like a damn guest on a talk show, broadcasting her business to the world.
What on earth had possessed her to run off at the mouth? The only people who knew about her bad business deal with Kevin were the coward himself and a couple of faceless people at the bank. She hadn’t confided in anyone else—not even her best friend. Yet she’d shared everything with Jamal?
It was the sex. That had to be it. Give her just a little action down there and she lost all of her common sense.
Well, she hadn’t lost all of her common sense. She’d had enough to refuse his offer of money.
Phil still could not believe he’d suggested it. They barely knew each other. She could take his money and leave him high and dry, skip out to California just as Kevin had done to her. Of course, she’d never leave her mother, but Jamal didn’t know that.
Even as she applauded herself for rightly refusing his offer, she let herself imagine, just for a moment, how it would have felt to take him up on it. Having the burden of all her financial worries eliminated just by uttering a simple yes.
“Why are you so quiet?” Jamal asked.
Phil jumped slightly and lolled her head toward him. “Just recuperating from the last hour,” she said.
“Sorry about that,” he said, his grin wicked. “But with no condoms left, that was the only way I could think to satisfy you.”
“Mission accomplished.” She laughed.
“If you didn’t insist on going back to work on the house, we could do a whole lot more of that, all afternoon and into the night.”
“We’re on a timetable, remember?” she said. “I need to bring the crown molding in the downstairs parlor to my shop. I want to see how closely I can match those pieces we picked up at the salvage yard. If you want to, you can come over to my place and watch me work.”
“You know how much I love watching you work,” he said. “And that goes for more than just what you’re doing on the house.”
Phil rolled her eyes.
She should have known they would fall into this light, easy banter; it had been this way the night of Mya and Corey’s wedding.
Even though she’d kept the conversation purposely superficial—talking about hot news items, movies they’d seen, books they’d read, and other things that usually comprised first-date conversation—she’d sensed that finding something to say to Jamal would never be all that hard.
Phil had discovered that talking to him wasn’t the only easy thing to do. She’d never in her life fallen into bed with a man so quickly, let alone completely dismissing her inhibitions and allowing him to do all the things he’d done—and the things she’d done to him.
She stopped just short of licking her lips. She could still feel his silky hardness against her tongue, taste his deep, musky flavor. She was dying to taste him again.
Without warning, acute panic tightened her chest.
Was she setting herself up for heartache? She knew better than to lose her head over a man. Wasn’t she still paying the high price of falling in love once before?
But this wasn’t love. This was lust.
Phil glanced over at his strong profile, at the powerful jaw and those incredibly talented lips.
Oh yeah. She was in serious lust with this man.
His eyes on the road, Jamal said, “Unless you want me to pull the truck over, you may want to stop looking at me like that.” He glanced at her. “It’s an option, you know. The windows are tinted. No one will see what’s going on inside.”
“Just drive,” Phil said. “I think I can control myself until we get to an actual bed.”
“You’re stronger than I am,” he said. “I’ve had to stop myself at least five times from finding a tree to park the truck behind so I can have at you again.”
Goosebumps traveled across her skin at the image that popped into her head. At this point, Phil was happy to get any man who was willing to provide a bit of sexual relief. To find one who was a downright master at it was better than winning the lottery.
She made a show of leaning over and peering at the speedometer. “Can’t you drive any faster?”
Jamal’s deep chuckle resonated within the truck’s cab.
A few minutes later, they turned onto Loring Avenue.
Phil almost suggested that he park in the back of the house so they could make use of the truck’s ample cab room.
It had to be more comfortable than going at it on the Victorian’s bare floors, and she wasn’t sure she could wait until they drove to her house and her comfortable bed.
“I’m giving us five minutes to load the molding into the truck,” Jamal said. “Whatever doesn’t get in there doesn’t get done. And you’re not touching them until after I’ve had you at least twice.”
“Are you expecting a complaint?” she asked.
“God, how I love an insatiable woman,” he said.
They turned into the graveled driveway at Belle Maison, and Phil felt the blood drain from her face. A whimper of alarm climbed from her throat, and her entire body went cold at the sight of a huge backhoe tractor shoving its metal claws into the heart of her mother’s painting room.
“Dammit,” Jamal whispered as he slowed the truck to a stop.
Phil opened the door and sprang from the truck, rushing over to the side of the house where the room was located.
She waved her hands over her head, trying to catch the driver’s attention, but to no avail.
The claws impaled another section of the room, taking out a side wall and two of the huge windows.
“Shit,” she heard Jamal say as he came around the house. He ran over to the tractor and climbed the side of the moving vehicle, banging on the window. The machine screeched to a halt and the driver pulled off his earmuffs.
Phil could hear the two talking, but she didn’t try to make out what they were saying. What did it matter? The damage had been done. Half of her mother’s room lay in rubble. She wrapped her arms around her stomach in an attempt to stave off the rush of grief threatening to overwhelm her.
“Stop it,” she ordered herself.
Straightening her back, she steeled herself against the emotion clogging her throat and banished the tears that had attempted to collect in the corners of her eyes. She would not cry. After everything she’d been through these past few years, she would not let her emotions run away with her.
Jamal climbed down from the tractor and started toward her. The sorrow clouding his face brought Phil a measure of comfort…but only a small measure.
“Phylicia, I am so sorry about this,” he said. “I was supposed to cancel the wrecking service, but with everything that was going on, it slipped my mind.”
She gave him a sharp nod, not fully trusting herself to speak. Not fully trusting him, either. What if he’d never intended to save the room? What if he’d only made that promise in order to get her to continue working on the house?
Her gut told her Jamal would never do that, but she had relied on her gut with Kevin, and he’d proven to be the exact opposite of the man she thought he was. The same could be true of Jamal. She just didn’t know.
And wasn’t that the truth smacking her in the face?
Reality washed over her like a tidal wave, bombarding her with a fact that was hard to swallow. This man was more of a stranger to her than ninety percent of the population of this town. But because it had made it easier to share her body with him, she’d created a false sense of familiarity.
It was time to leave this dream world she’d been immersed in for the past thirty-six hours. Jamal Johnson was her employer. She’d allowed him to become her lover—a mistake she would no doubt pay dearly for.
“Let’s load the crown molding into the truck,” she said, turning on her heel and heading for the front entry, where she’d stacked the molding yesterday.
“Phylicia, wait.” He grabbed her by the elbow, halting her steps.
Phil pulled her arm out of his grip and turned to him. She ached to lash out at him, but she quelled the impulse. Employees had no right to be insubordinate to their employers.
“Yes?” she asked in the calmest voice she could muster.
“I’m sorry about the room,” he said.
“This is your house. You don’t have to apologize for anything.”
His head reared back, his eyes narrowing into slits. “You don’t believe me, do you?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” she said, still calm. Score one for her.
“The hell it doesn’t,” he argued. “I’m telling you the truth. I was supposed to call the wrecking service when I left your house last Monday, but I got sidetracked. I forgot to call.”
“You don’t have to explain it to me. This is your house,” she reiterated. “I have no say in what happens to it. Now, can we please load the molding into the truck so I can get it back to my shop? We’ve lost too much time over the past day and a half. I have a lot of work to make up for.”
Jamal’s eyes slid shut. He brought his hand up to knead the bridge of his nose. “Phylicia, don’t do this,” he said in a pained voice.
“Once we get everything loaded, I’ll need you to drive me home,” she said before walking away.
Twenty minutes later, they were pulling into her driveway. Phil grabbed her keys from the front compartment of the bag that held her painting supplies. She entered through the side door of her workshop and then raised the garage door from the inside. She cleared off a spot on one of her worktables.
She looked over at Jamal’s truck to find him still sitting behind the wheel, staring at her with that brooding look he’d had for the past twenty minutes. He opened the door and got out, shutting it with more force than necessary.
They hadn’t said a word to each other since she’d left him standing in the yard at Belle Maison.
Phil went around the back of the truck and reached for a strip of molding.