“Is she okay?” The thought of some poor older woman dying in a fire, and standing in the place where she might have died, was overwhelming and sent a wave of nausea to her stomach.
“Yup. Thankfully, a neighbor pulled her out before she could get more than a little smoke inhalation.” Damian smirked as he led her into the kitchen, which was little more than a black box. “Even the cats all made it out. The neighbors had fun trying to wrangle them all up. I think a few are even keeping them since the woman is going to live with a niece a few states away.”
Relief flooded Lydia’s system as soon as she heard everyone made it out okay. The scene was still devastating, but not quite as nauseating with that knowledge. “So, what are we doing here? Or do you bring all of your dates to the scene of tragedy?”
Chuckling a little, Damian bent to pick up a sledgehammer. “No, I’ve actually never brought someone to the houses I work on before. My buddy owns a nonprofit helping people who lost their homes due to a disaster rebuild. I occasionally help out on the crew. I also flip houses, though I’ve been slowing down on that front now that I am concentrating more on my main company.”
“Wait, so you’re telling me you not only own a tech firm, which I looked at today and now know is one of the largest tech companies in the world. But you also work construction—I’m assuming for free—and you flip houses. Do you sleep?” This man truly fascinated her. Most CEOs at his level spent their time golfing or sleeping with their receptionists, but this guy restored homes instead.
“Well, like I said, I had been stepping back from the company for a while because I was getting burnt out, and I didn’t have the passion for it I once did. I’m only now retaking the reins to concentrate on our project—”
“Proposedproject—”
“Right.” Damian smirked again, as if he knew everything he had planned would work in his favor, as if it were already set in stone. How did that both arouse and annoy her? “But I bore easily, and I find it is best to have a number of outlets to put my energy into. Whether it is creating a new program, joining in some raunchy fun at Zion, or demoing a house in need of some help.”
Damian handed the large hammer over to Lydia, and she took the weight of it into her palm. “We’re going to demo this house? That’s our date?”
“Yup, you afraid to get a little dirty?” Damian picked up a much larger sledgehammer and slung it over his shoulder while giving Lydia a challenging look that got her competitive side revving. The muscles and veins in his forearms stood out in stark relief thanks to the effort of holding up the heavy tool in his hands, getting other things revved up inside her as well.
“If I remember how this works, everything with a redXgets destroyed, everything with a blackXgets saved. At least, that was how my uncle did it. Same here?” Moving over to a burnt-out wall with a huge redXspray-painted across it, she looked back at him for an answer. Catching Damian in the midst of checking out her ass, Lydia was suddenly very happy she went with the pair of jeans that hugged her ass perfectly. “Alright. Well, let’s get this house on the road to a new kitchen.”
A surge of energy ran the length of Lydia’s arm as she swung and hit the weakened plaster before her. It crumbled into a pile at her feet, and she went in for another hit, the pile of ash and dust growing around her Chucks.
Laughing, Damian came up next to her and began beating the barely recognizable cabinets until they fell from their precarious hold on the walls.
For a while, they worked in silence side by side, stripping away the damaged walls and fixtures until the room was reduced to studs. But once they began sweeping up the debris into wheelbarrows and carting it out to a Dumpster in the backyard, the conversation flowed freely between them.
“So, if the woman who owned this house is moving in with a family member, what will happen to the house?” Sweat poured down Lydia’s temples, and her muscles ached in a way they hadn’t since she was a teenager and had a part-time job at her uncle’s construction company. But it felt good. It felt like something she had been missing in the years she sat behind a desk growing her company.
“Well, my buddy’s nonprofit will fix it up, covering all the costs for demolition and remodeling, then our other friend will take care of selling it, waiving all the normal commission fees that he would normally take. The money will go to the care of the woman since she really needs round-the-clock nursing.” Damian bent low to scoop up a pile of drywall and tile, hefting it into his wheelbarrow. “We’ve already paid off her mortgage, so she doesn’t have to worry about that. And we’ll look for a family that needs help getting on their feet to buy the place, and give them assistance to help afford it.”
“So basically all of your friends, and you, are like Robin Hood, without the theft. You take the money you make and do good with it?” Why did her heart speed up each time he spoke? She wanted to keep him talking but could tell from the slight blush on his cheeks that it wasn’t something he was used to.
He shrugged and avoided eye contact. “Well, none of us came from money. We all worked hard and made opportunities for ourselves to get to where we are. The five of us made a pact in college that we would always look out for each other, and for other people. Trent likes to help people who have been through a tragedy and lost their homes. I like to help people who have buried themselves in debt to find a way out while teaching them how to live within their means. We each have our things.”
“Do those things have anything to do with how you grew up?” She desperately wanted to know more about him. As she had mentioned before, she’d done research on Damian but hadn’t been able to find out any personal details. He kept those close to the vest. And despite her convictions that she wasn’t able to fall in love with someone and still concentrate on her growing company, she found herself wanting to delve deeper into what transpired in his past to make him the man he was that day.
“Absolutely.” Pausing, Damian turned toward her, resting his arm on the shovel he had been working with. Despite being covered in sweat and grime, she had never seen anyone sexier in her life. “I grew up with a single mom who could never seem to make ends meet no matter how hard she tried. We got evicted a lot. Stayed in shelters a couple times. Most of my childhood was spent sleeping in a sleeping bag in the corner of the kitchen with the oven on so we could be warm in the winter, or out on the fire escape so we could be cool in the summer. It killed her when she couldn’t feed me some nights. But no matter what, she made sure I got an education. That I knew I could do better, that my circumstances weren’t my destiny.”
“She sounds amazing.”
“She is. The first million I made I paid off all her debt, bought her a house, and made sure she would be set up for the rest of her life.” Damian chuckled, shaking his head as he went back to work. “She still insists on working, but now it is doing something she loves. Stubborn woman sends me a check every month for rent. I never cash them of course.”
Lydia had to laugh. It was apparent where Damian got his stubborn streak. “What does she do?”
“Works in a day care in the infants’ room. Says she wouldn’t spend her days any other way than rocking little babies to sleep and feeding them all day. Keeps pestering me to give her her own grandbabies someday.”
Children. Wow. That was something Lydia had never thought about. She’d been too busy making sure she fulfilled her own ambitions. Damian avoided her eyes while he put more debris into the wheelbarrow. A tension hung in the air, however. As if children had been something he thought about. Possibly within the context of Lydia.
“What about your family? You made it seem like your uncle was in construction.” Deftly changing the topic, Lydia allowed him to get away with it, having no desire to go down that road with him. Possibly with anyone.
“Yes, he owned his own general contracting business until five years ago when he retired. Like you, I had a single mother, but she wasn’t quite as conscientious. She dated around a lot and relied on help from her parents and siblings to get us through. I felt like I had to make up for some of it, so every summer in high school I worked for Uncle Tim at his construction company. He rotated me between the different departments, including construction.” Lydia smiled. Her uncle was a good man. Never found love. She strongly suspected he preferred the company of men, but he had never found the courage to come out. He never treated her as some delicate flower. Nope, she had to earn her way just as much as any of his other employees. More, even. His other employees didn’t have to sit across the dinner table from a disappointed boss if something went wrong.
“Well, that explains your way around a hammer.” They both picked up the handles to their wheelbarrows and carted them out to the Dumpster, working in amiable silence as they discarded everything they had demolished for the day.
Once the final load had been taken out, they leaned against the bare studs where the kitchen cabinets once stood and surveyed the progress. In a little under four hours, they had totally stripped the space. A sense of pride Lydia rarely felt outside her office swelled inside her chest. She had not only done more physical labor than she could remember during their date, but she had done it for someone who truly needed help. For someone other than herself.
The past few years had been nothing but a race to the top, to top her own goals and everyone’s expectations of her. It felt good to get outside that, if even for one night. And she begrudgingly acknowledged that the man who had manipulated his way into her life was to thank for it.
“So, you have me for two weeks. What next? Are you going to take me to muck out stalls tomorrow night?” She tried to contain the smile and teasing tone, to make the remark more biting. But she was in too good a mood. Felt too good about what they had accomplished together.
“You think I’m done with you tonight?” Damian turned and shifted his body so that he pressed her against the bare wood of the studs. “You underestimate me. This was just part one. Now you come home with me, and you don’t leave for the next two weeks. Like I said, you are completely at my disposal.” He ran his nose up the side of her neck, and Lydia tried not to shrink away in embarrassment. After hours of manual labor, she couldn’t smell very good at that moment. “The only way to truly uphold your end of the bargain is to be in my apartment, with me at all times in case I find I need you. Or you need me.”
Despite the quickly soaking panties and slightly weakened knees, Lydia bristled at the idea that she would be some live-in sex slave for the next fourteen days. The occasional booty call and date? Sure, no big deal. But round the clock? There was no way. “That won’t work for me. I have a company to run. I need to be in my place and in my office.”
“Everything has been arranged. I’ve ordered an entire wardrobe of new clothes for you. I promise they will all fit flawlessly thanks to the app I designed that calculated your measurements and what styles would fit you best. Which I think we can incorporate into your company down the line.” He shifted his hips forward slightly, pressing his erection into her stomach. Apparently, talking about apps got him hard. “I have an office waiting for you, with access to any files you might need on the state-of-the-art laptop waiting there. You’ll find there is not a single thing I haven’t thought of to ensure your comfort while we are together.”
