Chapter 25
25
VIOLET
I walk around the enormous space, looking around the remodeling work that’s begun in the gym. I’m always the first one to arrive.
This is my favorite part of the day. The check-ins, updates, problem solving. Every day in my job pretty much starts the same way.
Today, I have multiple location checks to make and it’s already scorching outside. I’m relieved I wore my thin summer dress. I would’ve melted otherwise.
Although Lincoln said I look better naked. I smile at his beautiful words.
Tearing myself away from Lincoln every morning while he continued to rest this week was very difficult.
I dreaded the last four working days, something I have never felt before. Boredom, yes, but not dread. However, today I’m excited as he’s meeting me at the gym this morning.
Today is the first morning he’s not been dizzy and felt good enough to drive, so he left my house early to go back to his hotel to shower and change. It’s the first time he’s been back there since Saturday.
Having him living in my home has been oddly natural, and coming home to a warm hug, welcoming smile, and someone who cares about me is a novel experience for me.
When I was growing up, my mom and dad never saw eye to eye, so he stayed away when she was around, making the excuse that he was working late . To be honest, my mother wasn’t around much either; she was always too busy shopping, dining, or cocktailing with God knows who, doing God knows what, and it’s not as if Francesca and I were ever close, so most of my childhood and teenage years were spent by myself in that big, empty, loveless home. Why my mother and father had me, I will never fully understand. While Francesca was an accident, I was an even bigger one.
As awful as it was, when my mom and dad divorced, it was also such a relief. Like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. While Francesca continued living in our tomb of a home with Mom, I moved in with my dad and the peace and normality I craved happened overnight. And I finally had a father. The change in him was remarkable.
That’s when my father and I became very close. He shared his days with me and it’s where I learned all the ins and outs of West Oracle Corporations. I decided, over all our many dinners, that I wanted to work for him.
It was the best decision I ever made. As soon as I left college, I joined West Oracle and worked my way up the ranks. I love my job, but I’ve been doing the same role now for six years and I’m feeling an itch for change.
I’ve felt restless in my job for a while. I still want to work for the family business, but I can do my job in my sleep and it’s becoming a bit like Groundhog Day for me. A new challenge is what I think I need.
And for the first time, all I have wanted to do is stay at home. With Lincoln.
The times I haven’t been at work, we’ve spent every waking moment with each other, and he keeps surprising me.
On Monday, he did all my laundry. Tuesday, I returned from work to discover he had cleaned my pool and made a three-course meal for dinner. Wednesday, he cleaned my house, and all day Thursday he texted me telling me how much he missed me and all the things he wanted to do to me when I got in from work.
I’ve never met anyone like him.
I know he craves the love of a woman. Every morning I wake up with him wrapped around me. He cuddles me every chance he can and all week he’s asked me what time I was going to be home.
It’s almost like he needs to know I will return to him.
To reassure him, every night this week, I sent him a text message to let him know I was on my way back, and every night butterflies danced in my stomach as I drove closer to him.
His warm Scottish voice awakens my lucid dreaming: “Morning, Petal.” Familiar hands skim my waist and his soft lips trace the back of my neck. “I like when you wear your hair up.” I lean back against him as his zesty scent floods my senses. Lincoln kisses the pleasure patch he found behind my ear, and it sends a wave of goosebumps across my body, making me shiver. I love that he likes my body so much and enjoys kissing every part.
I want to go back home with him.
A needy moan escapes my lips.
“I think my girl needs me,” he mumbles.
“She does.” I turn myself around in his enormous arms and loop mine around his neck. “It’s been a few days; I’ve been letting you rest.” I check his glued-back-together head. “It looks so much better today.”
“It does and I feel great today too. Plus, this little dress of yours makes me feel even better still.” He grabs my ample ass.
“Easy access.” I giggle. I’ve become a giddy schoolgirl around him.
“You had better have panties on today.”
“That’s for you to find out.” I rise on my tiptoes and give him a kiss. “But first, work.”
“Show me everything you’ve been up to this week.” His eyes light up.
I go over the dozens of architectural plans with him that plaster one of the walls and show him the final phase, the new gym layout. He studies it in great detail, shuffling left and right and back again, then he frowns. “Who did these?”
“The architect.” I thought that was obvious.
“What do they normally design?”
“Bars, clubs, restaurants, hotels. This was a new project for them.” We’ve never used them before.
“You can tell.” He points to an area on the plan. “Also, the person who designed these doesn’t work out.”
“How do you know that?” I look at what he is pointing to.
As the workmen filter in through the doors, Lincoln explains to me in fine detail how the new layout of the gym has no flow. Highlighting the lack of distance between the equipment, the areas aren’t distinctive enough, how each zone should have a different vibe with lighting and flooring. He goes on and on, making incredible and valid points that no one else has picked up on, and when he stops, I realize he’s drawn a crowd of workmen who all agree with him.
I push my fingers into my temples, feeling a headache coming on. “I was trusting the interior designers to get this right. They assured me they knew what they were doing. We have never owned a health and fitness business before either, so this is all new territory for all of us and they knew that. How the hell did I miss this?” I look at the plans on the wall, getting more and more frustrated for not seeing this before.
I’ve been juggling multiple acquisition projects for months. It’s no wonder I’ve dropped the ball recently. My father was right. I need an assistant.
The enormous space is so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
As pissed as I am, I refuse to fall apart in front of them. Shoulders back and head held high again, I turn to face them.
Jeremy is our site manager, and his face right now says it all. Lincoln is right.
“Okay, I’m on it.” I hold my hands up.
Lincoln jumps in. “Hey, don’t change the plans because of what I have said. This could cost a lot of money to redo the plans.”
“But you’re right, Lincoln, we need to change it.” I pull the plans off the wall. “Lincoln, you’re coming with me. Jeremy, can you do as much as you can today? I’m off to the architect’s office with Lincoln, and can you rally all the other project managers together at the other sites and explain the situation?”
“On it.” He salutes me.
“Thanks, Jeremy.”
“Sounds like you have a busy day ahead of you now, Violet.”
Oh, poop. I spin around when the deep voice of my father makes his presence known.
He does not look happy.
Around fifty burly men scamper faster than a mouse eying some cheese to begin their work for the day .
“And who are you?” Hands still in the pockets of his dress pants, he tilts his head at Lincoln.
World, swallow me up now.
Lincoln starts to answer, but I blurt, “This is Lincoln. Lincoln Black.”
“And he is?”
“My boyfriend?”
“Was that a question or a definite answer, Letty?”
“Definite answer.” I place the now-abandoned gym plans on the large wooden table beside me.
“You sure?”
“Oh, behave.” I move toward him and throw my arms around his waist. “Morning, Mr. Grumpy.” His mood changes in a heartbeat. He may be a big gruff bear with his workers, but with me, he’s a big soft-hearted soul.
He kisses the top of my head. “Morning, Letty.” He then whispers in my ear, “Boyfriend?”
I pinch his side. “Don’t embarrass me, Dad.” I pull out of our hug. “Lincoln, this is my father, Anthony West. Dad, this is Lincoln. My new boyfriend.”
Lincoln strides forward with an outstretched hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. West.” My father shakes his hand firmly.
My dad frowns. “Scottish? I recognize that accent. Did I not meet you at the team-building day?”
“You did. I don’t work for S I’m finally going to have a vacation for the first time in years. Except who will I go with if Lincoln is gone?
Maybe I should spend it overseas. I can do that as my passport is up to date, or there is always Hawaii; I’ve always wanted to go, or perhaps Cancún. Riviera Maya is supposed to be incredible. I could always surprise Lincoln in Scotland. Forget that. No one ever comes back from a British vacation and says the weather was great. I’m not sure my Californian bones would survive the cold.
And would Lincoln mind if I visited him?
I’m jumping the gun.
It’s only been a week since we met. Is it really only a week? It seems longer.
“Violet?” My father’s voice makes me jump.
“Sorry. What were you saying?”
“We’re not expecting a lawsuit, are we?”
I screw up my face in confusion .
“With Lincoln,” my dad blurts out.
“Oh God, no.”
“You fired him?” He shakes his head again in amusement. “He must like you if he stuck around.”
“I think he does.”
You feel like the part of me that’s been missing. His words, after the first time we had sex, spiral through my thoughts.
“Right. I need to go.” He checks the time on the digital screen of his car.
“Before you run off. Did you tell Francesca she could buy the beach house?”
“Your house?” His lips hitch up in an Elvis curl and he frowns.
“It’s not my house, Dad, it’s yours.”
“No, never. Why? Is that what she said?”
I sigh.
He reaches out for me to take his hand. “That house is yours and Pom-pom’s until the end of time. She’s not getting your house, sweetheart. Also, there is not a hope in hell Richard could afford it.” He scoffs. “That girl is a dreamer and an opportunist.”
I knew she was lying.
He winks. “We’ll catch up later, okay? Call me when you leave the architect’s. I want to know what they have to say. Take no bullshit from them today and demand they redo the plans within the next twenty-four hours at their expense or we take our business elsewhere.”
“That was already my plan.”
“That’s my girl.” He slips his sunglasses back on. “He had some great ideas.” My dad nods his head at Lincoln, who has just stepped out of the building holding all the neatly folded plans and my black leather purse. “I might steal him from you. We could use another analytical and practical mind in acquisitions. You sure he’s only here for another few weeks?”
“Yeah.” Bile rises in my throat.
“Shame.”
“I know.”