CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Jelly
“What do you think?” Tiffani Grace, the beautiful, classy blonde realtor Carmen had suggested was showing Paolo and me some houses.
She apparently worked closely with Javier Salazar and was in the same office as Nadine.
I really liked her and thought she was a good replacement for Nadine.
If we couldn’t have my best friend because she was out of town, at least we’d gotten someone I felt like I could be friends with.
It felt strange, knowing that Paolo was paying for an actual house for me. I had stirrings of nausea and self-doubt in my stomach. I bit my bottom lip.
“Could you give us just a moment, Ms. Grace?” Paolo asked, looking at me and seeing my distress.
“Of course. But you have got to call me Tiffani. I can’t handle someone a few years younger than I am calling me Ms. like I’m middle aged or something.”
Paolo smiled. “Sorry about that.”
“I’ll be out on the deck. Just come out when you’re ready to see the backyard.”
“Thank you.” Paolo waited for the door to close behind her before coming over to me. “Hey, what’s wrong? You don’t like this house? We can skip it and go to the next one…”
“That’s not it,” I said quietly. “It’s great. It’s everything I could ever want,” I said honestly. “I love the neighborhood, the floorplan, the kitchen, the front porch… everything.”
“Then what’s wrong, baby?”
I couldn’t help but stare at him. He was just so damn good-looking. He was wearing khakis with a white button down, his sleeves rolled up to show his ridiculously muscular forearms. But even faced with all that manly beauty I couldn’t get my mind off feeling guilty.
“It feels wrong to accept a house from you,” I blurted out.
His eyes widened. “Why?”
“Because… well, I’m getting it because I’m sleeping with you.” I glanced outside quickly to see that Tiffani Grace was walking around outside. She wasn’t listening in or anything. I didn’t want her to know about our arrangement.
“Jelly, I’d have been happy to buy you a house anyway.”
I gave him a look. “What the hell are you talking about?”
He shrugged. “I’ve gotten to know you over the past year or so. If you’d come to me and said that you needed a house, I swear I would’ve bought you one. So, this might be in our Cinnamon Auction contract, but you are not getting it because you’re fucking me. Okay?”
I still wasn’t quite sure I could believe him, but I’d try.
“Also, I hate to brag, but I’m a billionaire. A billionaire. This house is going to be like six hundred grand. That’s nothing to me.”
“You sound kind of douchey,” I laughed.
He nodded. “I know. But it’s true. There’s a time for false modesty, but this wasn’t it, baby.
” He grinned at me and pulled me into his arms. He held me for a while, his hand on the back of my head as I rested my face against his chest. “Are you feeling better? Are you ready to look at the backyard?”
I pulled back and nodded. “Yeah.” I pushed a strand of hair behind my ear and followed him onto the back deck.
I had already decided I loved the house.
If I hadn’t? Seeing the backyard would’ve done it for me.
It was large with a big back deck that led down into a plush, nicely landscaped yard.
There were trees, which was one of the things I loved about this neighborhood.
Instead of coming in and tearing all the trees down, the builder had made a conscious effort to keep all the hardwoods he could.
It was gorgeous, and I could just imagine sitting outside in the fall and reading a book or drinking a cup of hot tea or cocoa.
This was my house; I felt it in my bones.
It was bigger than I needed, but it was one of the smaller homes in a nice new neighborhood that had gone up near the hospital.
I hadn’t even picked this neighborhood as one I wanted to look at houses in, but Paolo had changed up my listings with Tiffani Grace this morning.
I’d considered it too expensive, but he’d vetoed that.
He liked how close it was to the hospital and how safe it was.
“You love it, huh?” Paolo asked, wrapping his arm around my shoulders as we stood outside admiring the yard and the back view of the house.
“I really do.”
“I do, too. I could totally imagine living here,” he said absently.
I stiffened, but he’d already walked off to talk to Tiffani Grace about something.
What was he talking about? He’d made it sound as if he wanted to live here with me.
But that couldn’t be right. I was pretty sure once our four months were up, he was going to go back to hitting Cayenne a few nights a week and dating debutantes.
I couldn’t let myself get attached. I didn’t want to get hurt again.
I went back through the house while Paolo and Tiffani Grace talked and filled out paperwork. I walked through all the rooms, trying to imagine living here. It would be such a wonderful place.
And someday, if I met the right man, maybe he could move in with me here. Maybe we could start a family. I loved the thought of my future children running and screaming with joy through the backyard chasing bubbles or butterflies or each other.
***
Paolo took me to Salt for lunch, and we chose to sit outside since it was such a nice day. Neither of the Salazar twins seemed to be there, which was a little surprising. But I did know they were spread thin with all of their restaurants. Even though Leo found plenty of time to harass Ardley.
Lunch was… not great. Paolo kept getting phone calls.
Instead of ignoring them, he kept taking them and walking off.
Like he didn’t want me to hear him talking.
It made me nervous. I was probably being paranoid, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he was seeing someone else.
He’d always been such a playboy it was hard to believe he’d settle for just me for four entire months.
The more calls and texts he answered, the smaller I felt.
I tried to concentrate on my salad, which was delicious, but it was too hard. Him jumping up every few minutes to take a call that lasted five to ten minutes put a huge damper on the day. I finally just stopped trying to eat. I’d lost my appetite.
“Why aren’t you eating?” he asked when he came back from his latest call.
“Just not hungry, I guess,” I said, trying to smile. I didn’t want him to think anything was wrong. I mean, damn. He was buying me a freaking house. I should be able to put up with him being distracted during lunch.
At least that’s what I told myself. But it still hurt my feelings.
“Can we get the check, please?” he asked the waitress the next time she came through. He paid our bill and we left. I figured the day was over, but he surprised me.
“Do you want to walk along the bay front?”
There was a newly finished area of downtown that backed up to the water and had a cobblestone walking area with tons of cute shops along the way.
I started to say yes, but then his phone rang again.
“Sorry,” he winced. “I have to take this.” He jogged down the sidewalk to get far enough away that I couldn’t hear him.
I stood there, unsure of what to do. I could just walk to the condo. It was only a few minutes’ walk from here. But it felt rude. I finally decided to sit on a wrought iron bench and wait on him. He was gone for fifteen minutes.
By the time he came back, all of the remaining joy from earlier in the day had drained away.
“Sorry about that. You ready?”
“I think I’m just going to head home. But thank you for everything.” I smiled, then turned to leave.
“Wait.”
I turned to look at him. He was wearing sunglasses, which only added to his unfair level of hotness. “What?”
His phone rang again. He looked down at it. “I swear, this one won’t take as long, okay?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He just jogged away again and leaned on a railing while he talked and laughed with someone.
I turned and started walking home. I’d gotten all the way home, poured myself some lemonade, and sat out on the balcony watching the people down below.
I loved people watching. I’d make up stories for families and couples, deciding what was going on in their lives.
Right now, it helped take my mind off Paolo and whatever the hell all those calls meant.
It was another five or ten minutes before my phone started ringing.
I rolled my eyes when I saw it was him. “Hey.”
“Why’d you leave?”
“Paolo, seriously? We just had a two-hour lunch because you kept having to leave to take calls. Of those two hours, I think you were with me for maybe thirty minutes. I was a little tired of it. If you need to talk to someone, just do it. But don’t make me sit there while you show me over and over again that I’m not as important as whoever it is who’s calling. ”
“God, I’m sorry. I… didn’t realize it had been quite that bad.”
“Yeah, well, it was.”
“Listen, I have some errands to run, and then I want to make it up to you, okay? Get dressed and we’ll go out for dinner. I’ll come get you at eight.”
If I wasn’t contracted to have to be with him and do what he wanted, I would’ve said no. I was really not in the mood to go out again.
“Sure,” I said instead.
“Great, see you then.”
“Wait, where are we…”
“I have another call. Let me take this.” And he was gone.
“Of course you do,” I mumbled to myself.
I waited until the last possible moment to get ready and dragged myself through the process. I was finishing my hair when I heard him come in.
“Jelly? I’m home,” he called. “Are you ready?”
“Almost,” I called.
He walked back and leaned against the door jamb and watched me swipe some lipstick on. Our eyes met in the mirror. “Hey.” He was staring at me.
He smiled. “You’re so pretty.”
I tried to smile back, but I knew it was strained.
“Come on.” He held out his hand to me, and I took it.
We walked hand in hand down to the garage and got in his car. I mainly looked out the window as we drove. I didn’t know what to say, and I’d never been good at making small talk to make other people feel comfortable.
“We’ll be there soon,” he said.
I glanced over at him and saw that he was watching me somewhat nervously.
“Cool.”
I had no idea where he was taking me. We weren’t going in the direction of many restaurants. Then, before I knew it, he had pulled back into the neighborhood my new house was in.
“What are we doing here?”
“You’ll see,” he said with a big smile on his face.
He pulled into the driveway of my house, or at least I assumed it was my house. I was pretty sure he’d paid for it with Tiffani Grace today. I didn’t know how buying houses worked, obviously. I’d certainly never done that before.
There was an air of excitement in the car, and it was all coming from him. I don’t know if he had a hard time reading people, but he wasn’t my favorite person at the moment.
“I thought you said we were going to eat.”
“We are. Here.” He handed me a set of keys. “I have to get something out of the back. Don’t open the door until I get there.”
“Okay.” What in the world was going on? I walked up to the front door and stood there, waiting on him. I started to turn around to see what was taking so long, but he yelled at me.
“No! Don’t look. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“What is going on, Paolo? This is weird!”
“Just have a little patience.” Finally, he was by my side. He set something down behind me where I couldn’t see it, then said, “Okay. Open the door.”
My hand was shaking a little when I fit the key in the lock.
When we stepped inside, I gasped. “Oh my God.” I covered my mouth with my hand.
The walls that were white when we’d toured it earlier had been painted in shades of my favorite colors.
The house had furniture in it. All the furniture and decorations were in my colors and were things I would’ve picked out myself.
I turned and looked at him. “What did you do?”
“Surprise!”
I stared at him.
“Keep looking around while I get something set up on the back deck, okay?”
I nodded. It was all I could do. I was speechless.
I went from room to room. Every room was decorated and furnished beautifully.
When I went in the main bedroom, there were even designer clothes hanging in my closet.
Everything looked ready for me to move in immediately if I wanted to. I couldn’t believe it.
“Jelly!”
I hurried out to what he was doing on the deck, and my mouth fell open.
There was a beautiful outdoor patio set with a dining table completely set for dinner by candlelight.
Edison bulbs had been strung from the pergola and hung in some of the trees.
It was incredible. Then Paolo picked up a huge wicker basket, opened it, and started pulling out champagne and a huge spread of charcuterie staples.
He pulled out a chair for me. “Come sit.” He had the biggest grin on his face.
“How… how did you do this?”
“You know all those calls I took today that pissed you off?”
I nodded.
“That’s how. I’m so sorry, but it’s the only way I could get it all done. Madeline, Carmen, and Tiffani helped me so much, but I had to talk to them to make it all happen.”
I sat there, shocked. No one had ever done something like this for me before, and I didn’t know how to handle it. Suddenly, tears came to my eyes. Before I knew it, I was crying.
He hurried over to me, pulled me up and into his arms, and held me. “Do you like it?”
“I love it. I… I don’t even know what to say.”
I was quiet through most of dinner, just taking everything in.
I was trying to process it all. It had been such a day of highs and lows.
To go from the purchase of the house, to thinking Paolo had another woman he was seeing, to understanding he’d pulled off this Herculean task for me… it was too much. It had blown my mind.
So later, I spread out a quilt in the backyard. Under the glow of the Edison lights, it was his turn for me to blow his mind. More than once.