Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
No matter how long Jordan stared, the image in front of him wouldn’t go away. Vanessa Barone was holding a drill. Not just holding a drill, but using it.
She wore denim overalls, safety goggles, noise-protection earmuffs, and work gloves. And she was drilling a piece of wood that she’d set up on a sawhorse.
It was comical and…hot. Comical because she was a supermodel wearing oversized overalls with glue stains on them, and hot because she was handling the power tool like a badass. Brow creased in concentration, hand steady, focus clear.
Hot. As. Fuck.
And he’d been staring for far too long. As he got closer to the double doors leading to the courtyard, he saw wood panels and supplies stacked all around the outdoor space.
She couldn’t hear him approach over the noise she was making, so he leaned against the open door and waited.
Spooking her while she held a drill likely wouldn’t end well for anyone.
Sawdust shot up around her, landing in her hair and all over her overalls and long-sleeved shirt.
Jordan knew that Vanessa’s father had built the successful cabinet-making company, Barone & Sons, from the ground up.
After her father retired a while back, her sister had taken over the business, and he knew Lucy was quite the craftswoman herself when she spent time in the shop.
Joel had sent him pictures of the beautiful pieces Lucy had recently built.
But Lucy had worked long and hard to take her place as head of the family business. As far as Jordan knew, Vanessa had wanted nothing to do with it. So the fact that this clearly wasn’t her first time handling a power tool surprised him.
When the drilling stopped, he waved, trying to draw her attention. She whirled around, long ponytail snapping over her shoulder. Her mouth popped open in surprise, hand flying to her heart as she ripped off her hearing protection earmuffs.
“I didn’t mean to spook you.” He lifted his palms. “I heard all the racket and wanted to see what was going on.”
Vanessa tugged off her earmuffs and propped her goggles on top of her head. The faint red lines from where they’d suctioned to her face framed her eyes. Of course she looked damn cute.
“There’s no practice today.” She scowled at him. “I made sure to come on a day that wouldn’t interrupt you.”
“Careful, princess, I might get used to you doing me favors.” When her scowl deepened, he grinned. “I’m here to do paperwork.” He shoved away from the door and approached her. “Where’s your coat? It’s freezing.” As he spoke, cold air puffed around him, proving his point.
“I took it off an hour ago. Lugging all this stuff around warmed me up.”
If the thought of her cold twisted like a knife in his gut, the thought of her out here for an hour, hauling fucking lumber, was a death blow. “What in the hell have you been doing out here, in the middle of winter, dragging all this heavy stuff alone?”
A sneer curled her perfectly shaped lips. “What do you care, Zeus?”
When he simply glared at her, she finally lifted her slim shoulder. “Building a stage.”
“A stage,” he repeated, deadpan.
Vanessa set her fists on her hips. “Yes, a stage. We’ll need one for the fashion show. What else did you think the girls would use for their catwalk?”
He hadn’t thought about it, to be honest. If he had, he would’ve built her the damn stage himself.
“I want to finish this by tomorrow, so they can practice properly before the big show next week.”
He nodded toward the sawhorse. If what he saw stacked around the courtyard was any indication, all the pieces for the stage were right there. “Lucy have her hand in this?”
“My dad,” she replied, her lips lifting in a small smile. She grabbed some papers and handed them to him. “He designed these plans, had all the wood cut, and then had everything shipped from San Francisco.”
Jordan perused the plans, which contained solid, lightweight pieces that easily fit together. Like Ikea furniture, but far superior quality. Barone quality.
“You got anyone helping you?” He couldn’t deny that he was impressed to see Vanessa out here, by herself, surrounded by power tools, setting a stage up. But it didn’t mean he liked it. What if the power saw slipped? Or the drill? Just the thought—
“My dad taught me how to build. I spent my youth surrounded by sawdust and drafting papers. I learned how to use a hammer before I learned how to write my name.”
He tried to imagine it. A pint-sized Vanessa beside her father in a workshop, hammering a nail into a piece of wood.
A gust of wind blew through the courtyard, and a shiver wracked Vanessa’s body. Jordan watched the tremor as it rippled through her slim frame. Fuck’s sake. Why was she so damn stubborn?
For a second, he thought of letting her freeze her ass off to teach her a lesson. But then she rubbed her hands up and down her arms, like she had that night at the club, and the sight softened something in him.
With a muttered curse, he yanked his jacket off, stalked over to her, and draped it over her shoulders.
“M-mine’s over there.” She pointed to the coat on a large stack of boxes, but she didn’t move to grab it. Instead, she melted against the warmth of his jacket, and the movement did something to his insides that he didn’t care to examine right then.
“Yeah, well, mine’s pre-heated,” he muttered, not liking the way the tip of her nose was turning red. “Go inside and warm up for a minute. I’ll take over out here.”
She shook her head defiantly. “No, I need to keep moving. I was fine before you got here and made me stop.”
She’d been alone when he got there, and he didn’t like it.
Especially not with everything going on.
He hadn’t found any leads on the flash she’d seen the other night, but he knew she wasn’t just imagining it.
Call it gut instinct, or maybe he’d spent too much time around too many bad dudes, but ever since the club, something told him this was more than standard celebrity trolling.
It nagged him enough to call Joel, who said Vanessa had recently mentioned some online trouble to Lucy. After the club incident, someone had anonymously sent her flowers to the apartment.
Vanessa hadn’t shared that detail with him, but between the club, the flowers, and the flash, he was nervous. He didn’t like being fucking nervous. Until he connected all the pieces, he was claiming her safety as his responsibility. She was his boss’ sister-in-law after all.
Which is the only reason, he told himself, that he’d gone from drop-in to live-in rabbit sitter.
He was doing his job. Besides, his concerns weren’t unfounded.
Stalking wasn’t as uncommon as people thought, and the longer it went on, the more unhinged the stalker became.
His willingness to risk this getting out of hand was zero.
“You won’t be able to do shit if you freeze. So why don’t you grab a coffee or something, and we’ll finish this together later.”
Her bottom lip jutted out, pouting in a way that made her look five instead of twenty-five. “I want to do it myself.”
“Why?” He wanted to add that it was short-sighted and ridiculous not to ask for help on a project like this, but he decided he also wanted to keep his balls where they were.
“Because,” she stated, her gaze flicking briefly away from him.
“Because?” Patience is a virtue. Patience is a virtue.
She studied him carefully, like she was weighing how much she could trust him. Hell, if she had any idea of the secrets he intended to carry to his grave, she’d know he was a vault.
Her gaze dipped to the gravel below her feet. “Because I want to prove to my mother that I can.”
Well, he hadn’t expected that. “Your mother?” He’d met Maria Barone a handful of times.
She was loud and opinionated, competent and commanding, much like her youngest daughter. But she’d always been kind to him. And he sensed she respected him and appreciated what he’d done for Joel and, by extension, her family.
Vanessa, apparently, did not have the same experience with her mother.
“She disagrees with everything I do.” Her voice was tight, her gaze fixed on the wood on the sawhorse. “I never do anything right, or good enough. If it’s not her way, she insists on correcting me.”
That stubborn defiance crept through her posture, even as she talked about something that clearly hurt her. And damn it, he couldn’t ignore the pull in his chest anymore.
“Lucy was the rule follower,” Vanessa continued, her tone dropping a notch.
“The people pleaser, the perfect child who always did everything right. But I didn’t fall in line so easily.
I didn’t do anything my mother’s way, and—” Her voice cracked so quietly he almost missed it. “She never forgave me.”
The rawness in her words hit him like a punch.
He could see the pain clearly now—the years of living with it, the resentment that had built up between her and Maria.
He’d heard it in the bitterness, the way her words had been sharp but laced with something deeper, more fragile.
It wasn’t only anger. It was the hurt of a daughter who’d been trying to get her mother’s approval her whole life and never succeeded.
“So,” he said, gesturing around the courtyard. “This is your way of asking for forgiveness.”
“No!” She patted the wood panel resting on the sawhorse. “This is my way of proving to her that I’m not a screw-up, and I can do something right.”
As the silence stretched between them, Jordan regarded her. From the outside, Vanessa had it all. Fame, success. Hell, she was a household name. People would die for the life she had. But the more he saw her, the more he realized how fragile the facade was.
“Vanessa,” he said, his voice gentle. “You don’t need to prove anything to anyone.”
Her gaze flicked to his, and for the briefest moment, something unspoken and raw passed between them. It heated his blood until he didn’t feel the cold anymore.