Lucy laughed out loud, and Joel took his eyes off the road for a second to give her a perplexed look. “What?”
Lucy deepened her voice to mimic his. “I just snapped it up for a cool hundred million.” She snapped her fingers, then dropped her hand with a breathy laugh. “I love how the ultra-rich talk.”
Joel frowned.“It was 102 million, actually.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. She’d annoyed the billionaire by teasing him about his riches. “How many stories?”
“Twenty-five,” he grumbled.
They pulled up to the site. Joel got out of the car, stopping to get something out of the trunk before he met her on the sidewalk. He held out a bright yellow construction hard hat.
“Is this necessary?”
“We’re going behind the gate, so yes.” He plopped the hard hat on her head before putting on his own.
“A real tour then,” Lucy mused as she faced one of the site’s entrances. “Too bad I forgot my steel-toed boots.”
“I have some for you.” Joel went back to the trunk and pulled out a box.
“Seriously?” Lucy opened the box, sure enough a very nice feminine looking pair of black steel-toed boots sat inside.
“Safety first.” Was all she got from moneybags.
She’d been around construction enough in her life to know that going into an active site without the hardware was ill advised, she’d assumed they’d be lingering on the sidewalks outside of the site. Her mistake.
Several minutes later, a security guard opened the main gate of the construction site fencing surrounding the property. The foundation was already laid, with concrete poured and the skeleton was starting to go up.
“Who did the design?” she asked as they walked a safe distance around where the crew was working.
“We used a local architect. We felt it was important to get someone who knew the city and had their hand in other developments here. They were fantastic. It’s going to lookincredible.” Joel turned into a different person when he talked about business.
And Lucy lapped it up. He spoke with utter confidence about property development and construction, and she thought again how lucky Walter was to have a child who was so deeply invested in the family business. And how lucky Joel was that his father considered him worthy enough to entrust his empire too.
Pushing her envy aside, she followed him around the extremely organized site while she listened to him describe the differences between Oregon and California when it came to permits and building restrictions.
He slowed his pace when they reached the far end of the site. “We also decided that half would be subsidized housing and half rentals.”
This stopped her. “What?”
“It’s new for us, but there’s a need in this city, and we can make it happen. It’s not something I’ve ever done before but we’ve connected with the right people and have been working closely with city planners.”
He wasn’t making any eye contact, and the confidence she’d been admiring had diminished. Was he…nervous?
“Joel.” She stopped him with her hand on his arm. “That’s a very worthwhile project.” Did he honestly think she wouldn’t think so?
His posture relaxed as he released a long breath. “Yeah, it really has been. I’ve loved it.”
Lucy couldn’t stop her smile. His passion was so evident it was contagious.
“Tell me everything about it. How many subsidized units? What’s the square footage? How is the community responding? Can Barone & Sons do the interior? I want to know everything.” But more than that she wanted to hearhim talk about it in the exact way he just had, full of passion and drive.
For the next hour, he did exactly that, and his enthusiasm spurred on her own. At one point, she stumbled over some uneven ground, and he caught her around the waist. The way he’d leaned down, there was a moment she thought he might kiss her, and maybe he would have, but a loud horn from a truck backing up interrupted their intimacy, and Joel had pulled back. Regret flooded her on the tail end of her need. The only consolation was that he held her hand for the rest of the tour.
“What are you calling it?” she asked when they finally headed back to his car.
Joel pointed to the banner attached to the wired fencing, one she’d missed when they first entered. It readPer Sempre by Morgan Construction.
“Per sempre,” she murmured, her heart picking up speed. That was Italian for…
