Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76456 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76456 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“How long did it take?” Cesare asked.
“Each step of the process took several weeks. The cleaning, though, took a lot longer. A couple of months, all in all.”
It wasn’t just the scrubbing, either.
The grout had needed to be pulled out and replaced in the bathroom. The carpets, stained with years of cat urine, had to be pulled up. The sheetrock had to be repaired in places.
New trim. New paint. Some new appliances.
It seemed never-ending.
“And then?” Cesare asked. “Did your grandmother… pass?” he asked.
“No. She slowly, then suddenly, got better a year or so later,” I told him, watching as he shot me a happy smile. Unaware of what was coming next.
“Within three months, the house was destroyed again,” I told him.
All that work.
All those hours gagging as I cleaned up feces and rat carcasses and bugs and moldy sludge. All the times I breathed in noxious fumes from the cleaning products I’d needed to use in excess.
The sore muscles. The headaches. The times I worked my fingertips to bloody points.
All for nothing.
“That sucks,” Cesare said, giving my leg another squeeze.
“I know,” I agreed. I remembered crying my eyes out in my room as the crap just kept piling in, as the smells started up again, as all that work went not only unappreciated, but resented. “I called Vega one night, and she offered to let me come here.”
I’d felt guilty leaving, knowing there would be no one to rein my grandmother in, no one to take care of her if she fell ill again.
But, at some point, you had to learn to put yourself first.
Leaving, and moving in with Vega, had been that for me.
“I was lucky. Vega was happy to have someone decorate and clean and cook.”
The only place I didn’t touch was her bedroom, though I did, admittedly, still sometimes have that sensation like I’d had in that nightmare, of bugs crawling under my skin when I walked past and saw a mess that I couldn’t clean up.
She’d let me, I knew.
If I asked.
If I told her that I was feeling weird about it.
But that was her space. She deserved a place she could be her messy self in, without worrying about my compulsive need to clean up after her.
“You two seem to have a good system going. How did you end up working as a florist?” Cesare asked.
“That was mostly happenstance, really. I was looking for a job. Dennis had a Now Hiring sign in the window. I didn’t have experience, but Dennis…”
“Is the shittiest florist anyone has ever seen?” Cesare prompted, making a choked laugh escape me.
“If you thought that, why would you invest in the business?” I asked.
“Some people have a head for business, but not one for the actual work that goes into it. Can you imagine most CEOs of restaurants serving tables, having customers yell in their faces and leave embarrassing tips? No. But they have a head for the numbers and a finger on the pulse of the industry.
“That’s what Dennis has going for him. Well, that and the fact that Balm Harbour is a great tourist town. With a lot of foot traffic. And there is the booming wedding industry around here too, so it was guaranteed success for the shop if he would step back, and hire people who actually know how to arrange flowers.”
“Has that been true?” I asked, inwardly worried that I was failing.
“It’s been better than expected,” he told me.
And it was right then that his fingers flexed, making me acutely—almost painfully—aware of their placement. Still on my thigh. A firm pressure. A heat that was moving through the thin material of my nightgown, and moving upward.
Suddenly, it didn’t matter anymore that he was, in a way, my boss. That this whole thing was a complete and utter mistake. That the repercussions could put my carefully constructed way of life in jeopardy.
All that seemed to matter was the way the heat from his hand was moving up my thigh, between, then up further still, weaving through my belly, up my chest, making my chest flush, and my breasts feel heavy and sensitive. Even just the brush of the material of my nightgown was sending shivers of pleasure through my system.
A hand on my thigh.
That was all it took.
And my heart was thrumming.
My skin felt like it was sparking.
And the pressure on my lower stomach, the excruciating ache between my thighs, was becoming almost intolerable to bear.
My gaze slid up from under my lashes, finding Cesare already looking at me, those dark eyes so hard to read, but his gaze dipped from my eyes, down to my lips, then back up again in a way that I knew it was more than just appraisal.
His fingers twitched on my leg again, and this time, I could have sworn it was intentional, like he was trying to gauge my reaction, see if there was a spark of interest.