30. Goldyn
My project lead, Cris, walked up to me the next day with an unreadable look on her face.
“What’s wrong?” I looked at the clipboard in her hands, expecting the worst.
“Oh, nothing bad,” she assured me, raking a hand over her fluffy, jet-black Afro. The hair bounced back into place the moment her fingers were gone. “I wanted to run something by you, actually.”
“Oh? Go for it?” Turning away from my laptop and the open spreadsheet on the screen, I gave her my attention.
Cris was the best in the business. At least that’s what Lorenzo told me. She could take a gutted shoebox and turn it into a coveted destination. And I was counting on her to do at least a fraction of that with my bookstore and cafe.
“Considering what you want to do with the space, we think it would be best to create a second floor since the ceilings are so high.”
“I’m listening.” I angled my head to look at the clipboard she held between us, pretending I understood even half of the plans drawn on them.
“It would more than double your square footage since we knocked out the wall separating the bakery. The lounge area could extend in that direction without you having to sacrifice space for books. And it would give you better separation between your retail and lounge areas.”
“Yea, but that can’t be the only place we have seating.” I imagined Ms. Ruby trying to climb the stairs with her ailing hips. Or readers in wheelchairs not being able to utilize the space and shook my head. That wouldn’t work. “It’s not accessible if we put all the couches upstairs. customers with mobility issues won’t be able to enjoy it and that defeats the purpose.”
The woman’s face fell before she gave me a curt nod.
“I’m not opposed to the idea, Cris.” I laid a hand on her forearm. “But I need it to make sense. For everybody. I think we can still do that by having the top and bottoms mirror each other. Of course, the top floor will just have more room.”
Her smile returned and she nodded, jotting something down. “I’ll draw up new plans and get those to you right away.”
“And how much time would that add to my timeline?”
“Twelve weeks. But that’s a conservative estimate. We need to get electric and plumbing back in here to make sure everything is good to go and then we could start.”
A sharp squeeze tightened around my chest at the thought of the mounting price tag, but Lorenzo’s voice filtered through my head before I can make an excuse not to do it.
The thought of you spending my money and it making you happy turns me on.
He hadn’t done anything to make me second-guess it, but the ongoing tally still made my head spin. Between the cafe and bookstore, I was already half a million into the project and we hadn’t even fully finished designing the space. All that money went to demolishing the old interiors, redoing electric and plumbing and pre-ordering building materials. I still needed to figure out what appliances I wanted in the cafe, what couches were the most comfortable and durable for the reading lounge, and where I was going to source all my books once my custom shelving was built. Then there was the matter of hiring employees for both sides of the operation once the doors opened to the public. It was…a lot.
An avalanche of emotions assaulted me, sudden wooziness making me sway on my feet.
“You alright, Ms. Ambrose?”
“Of course, I just need to sit down for a minute.”
Giving Cris another smile, I turned to find a seat. I plopped down on an overturned bucket and released a shaky breath.
It was happening, every single dream I’d had for years was falling into place, and I needed to calm the fuck down.
I was overwhelmed. Happy. In disbelief that this was my life. And a small part—the part of me that still felt like an eighteen year old finding out her grandmother passed unexpectedly—wanted a hug from Benita to tell me I deserved this.
Deep breath, Goldy. It’s happening because you deserve it. You deserve to be here, receiving all the love and support that you are.
If my grandmother was here, she’d gently tease me for crying, and I could hear her raspy voice as if she were standing in front of me.
“I know my grand baby ain’t sitting up here with tears in her eyes.” Then her rough hands, weathered from years of gardening and factory work, would wipe away the tears while she smiled at me. “See? You a’ight. Just as pretty as you wanna be.” A kiss against my forehead. A squeeze against my shoulder. “You still my sunshine. I don’t care how old you get.”
When I came down from my episode, Cris had vacated the space in front of me and I looked around the shop with a smile on my face.
Benita Ambrose might not be here to see all my dreams come true, but I could still honor her. She’d be proud of me for getting this far. For not letting the idea die with me as a doodle in my journal.
I’d just braced my hands on my knees to stand up when the front door opened, sending the bells above it into a musical trill.
My eyes traced the new arrival with alarm.
Lilith Summers? What the hell was she doing here? And why did she look so mad about it?
Her tart expression didn’t take away from how stunning she was. Her bone structure was unreal. Her gorgeous chestnut skin was unblemished. And her stride was confident and attention-grabbing.
“Mrs. Summers, what are you?—”
Ignoring my greeting and everyone else in the room, she pulled to a stop in front of me in a cloud of Chanel and calculated calm.
“My husband is obsessed with you and I want to know why,” she grit out, her lips barely moving as she looked me over.
Brows hiked, I narrowed my gaze on her. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Don’t you fucking act clueless. Who are you? Did you bribe him with sex to get this place?” She looked around with a haughty sniff before staring icy daggers at me.
“Of course not.” The words came out on a nervous laugh. What the hell was this woman talking about?
“You’re lying,” she snarled at me. “I went through his phone and it was full of you .”
“ What ?” It was the only question I could ask as my eyes zeroed in on her flared nostrils and pinched features.
She looked stricken, like a woman reliving a betrayal and she needed to know that had nothing to do with me.
“Stop playing innocent!” A sharp rise in her voice won us a few looks before the crew went back to pretending to work. I knew they couldn’t focus on anything but the shit show playing out in front of them, and I was about to put an end to it.
“Look, I’m sure whatever you think you found upset you, but please understand, I never sle?—”
Lilith’s scoff cut me off. “What? Being shared by three men wasn’t enough for you? You had to come wreck my home too?”
“I’m not?—”
“I know all about women like you.”
Oh, my god, she wouldn’t let me finish a fucking sentence and my blood began to simmer from the blatant disrespect.
Tucking my lips over my teeth, I stood there, letting her get her little rant off and call me a slut six different ways.
When she was done, she looked satisfied with herself and hiked her purse strap higher on her slender shoulder.
Her gorgeous features contorted into a sneer. It was a shame that a woman this pretty had let insecurities turn her this ugly.
“You don’t have anything to say for yourself?”
Oh, now she was going to let me get a word in?
Another humorless laugh escaped me, and that was the wrong thing to do.
Lilith’s face hardened and the look of contempt in her eyes was enough to scare Satan.
“Seems like you’ve said it all, Lilith,” I said coolly, my voice belying the annoyance and mortification ebbing through my veins. It was one thing to call me a slut. But she brought Enzo, Rome, and Sin into this when she didn’t know what the fuck she was talking about.
“He’ll never love you.”
“I’m counting on it,” I snapped back before I could tell myself not to take her bait. “His love is the last thing I want.”
I finished with a suggestive wiggle of my brows and enjoyed the stricken look on her face at my retort.
Was I sleeping with her husband?
Hell no.
But I wasn’t about to let this sour-faced woman talk to me any type of way in my place of business either. If she wanted to go low, we could take a bullet train to Hell for all I cared.
Lilith sputtered, looking somewhat vindicated. “I can’t believe you.”
When she spun on her heel to leave, I didn’t bother trying to correct her baseless assumptions again.
Cris was in front of me before the bells above the door chimed with her exit. “You alright, Ms. Ambrose?”
Holding up a hand, I tried to ward off the pity I felt coming off her in waves. “I’m fine. It was just a misunderstanding, but I need to go handle something.”
My eyes roamed the shop, landing on the other workers.
“Why don’t you all call it a day and start fresh tomorrow morning?”
“You sure ’bout that?”
“Positive. Go get yourselves lunch on me and then go home. I’ll see everyone tomorrow.”
I didn’t wait for her response. I grabbed up my laptop, phone and keys and hurried out to the sidewalk to get to my van.
As I pulled away from the curb with a screech of my tires, I was vaguely aware of lunch plans with Rome. I’d have to call him once I got where I was going because I wasn’t going to make it. I had more important things to take care of.
There was a great possibility that the man I’d come to see was on lunch break.
There was an even greater possibility that the woman who’d just left my shop had come straight here.
But as I weighed those odds, I decided I didn’t care enough not to go through with my plan.
Double parking, I hopped down and walked to the front door of his quaint real estate firm with my shoulders set in determination.
An older receptionist greeted me when I made it inside, her matronly smile easing some of the agitation coiled low in my gut.
“Ms. Ambrose. How nice to see you again. Is Mr. Summers expecting you?”
“No. But this is an emergency. Is he in?”
Her eyes widened with concern but she gave a simple nod. “Yes. Just a moment.”
I didn’t sit down in the small waiting room while she spoke to him, too keyed up to stay in one place. So I paced until Chance showed up in the lobby, a surprised but pleasant look on his face.
Oh, good, so he was ignorant to his wife raising hell on the other side of town.
“Goldyn, come with me.”
We made it to his office in five steps. He closed the door behind me while I took the opportunity to scan for any obvious evidence of this “obsession” Lilith claimed he had.
“Have a seat.” He stopped by the guest chair facing his desk and waited for me to comply.
“I’d rather not,” I replied. “I won’t be here long. I only came to tell you that your wife has concocted some story in her head about us and you need to check her before she shows up at my business again.”
A look of horror claimed his face before he said, “I think I can explain. But I really think it’s best if you sit down for what I have to say.”
I took two deep breaths in and popped my neck. “Fine. You have five minutes.”
Chance hurried around his desk and sat down, a grateful light entering his eyes.
“I was going to contact you later, but it’s good that you’re here now. I’ve been doing some digging and I think I finally know why you look so familiar.”
He clicked around on his computer screen before turning his monitor to face me. He gave me time to soak in the image before addressing me.
In ten seconds flat, I went from angry to feeling like I was free falling from a cliff into rocky water. Thankfully, I was sitting. But even that didn’t do much to soften the blow of his confession.