“Where are you guys?” Jamie is at the back door. “Tom, what the hell is wrong with the kitchen ceiling?”

“The kitchen?” Tom is dismayed. “I’ll be right there. Please, Darce,” he finishes in a hush. “Please help me keep it together.”

“Give me your phone, then,” I say, and he slides it into my robe’s fun-sized pocket. “Where the hell is that guy Chris? He was supposed to be here by now. Should I call him and kick his ass?”

“I would be very grateful,” Tom says, stepping a few paces away as the back door bangs open. It triggers off a sense of déjà vu. I think we’ve always stood a little too close.

“Quit wasting his time,” Jamie barks at me as he clatters down the back stairs. “We’ve got stuff to do. I hope you’re fixing these stairs, Tom.”

We watch Jamie walk around to the Porta-Potties. He opens the door to the male one. “Oh fuck no.” He goes into mine.

“That’s my bathroom. Now I want to cry harder than ever.” I exhale and put my hand over my eyes.

I will myself to trust Tom and see this from his perspective. I see everything he has to lose more clearly than my own potential losses. He’ll always carry me. He’ll never trip or drop me.

But I just can’t help myself. I’ve felt this way before, so many times. My insecure, spiky self says: “So, last night was a one-off.”

“Of course not. But as long as he’s here, I can’t touch you. You can’t look at me. We’re not … anything.”

“Wow, so we’re nothing,” I marvel in a stage whisper as the hurt begins to shimmer. “Funny, it didn’t feel like nothing. I feel like I had every glorious inch of Tom Valeska last night. Repeatedly. Just … over and over, making me come more than I ever have in my life.”

My words cause a chain reaction; my body shifts, his shifts, and we look at the bed. It’s a messed-up wreck. We want to be flat in it or bent over it. Any possible variation, we want to be moving, and deep.

I would have sex with him on a pencil sketch of this bed.

I stand up on tiptoe, grab him by the scruff, and bring his mouth down to mine. It’s instant. He’s giving me everything in a blink, an intensity so strong I lose the ability to see color. I feel a surface under my butt; I’m on the edge of my workbench and he’s between my legs. Ten seconds. I swear it would take another ten seconds for him to be back inside me. I yank at his leather belt and loosen the buckle.

“In, in, in,” I order him when he changes the angle of our kiss. Against me, I feel a tremor run through him. Last night didn’t ease anything between us. It’s made it worse. So much worse.

Now he’s facing away from me, shoulders heaving.

“Shit,” he huffs. “You see what I mean? We can’t do this all over the worksite.”

“Shit, indeed.” I put my hand on my throat where my heart is lodged like a frog. “If we’re not careful I’ll be three months pregnant with your giant triplets when the sold sticker goes up.”

His shoulders shiver and roll. He turns on the ball of his foot and I’m sure he’s going to step back and finish what we just started. Hard. Everything in him is straining. My God, his eyes. For one second, I’m terrified. I’ve provoked something I don’t know if I can handle.

But he’s got the willpower I do not, and I watch as he packs it all down again.

I cross my legs and try in vain to pull my robe tighter. “You think you can stop doing that to me for another three months? You think we can just pretend?”

His body says no. But he replies, “I’ve been pretending around you since I hit puberty. I can do a few more months. Look, I thought we had time, and I didn’t say much last night.” He’s rueful. “DB, you know you’re special to me, right?”

“I know you love me,” I reply without thought. He broke my world apart last night. His love is pressed into my skin and kissed into my cells. “How could you not?”

He bursts out laughing in response. “There’s that Barrett confidence I like so much.” He takes a risk and steps close, pressing a careful kiss to my cheek. “Yes. I do. But you don’t know how much.”

I put my palm on his jaw and kiss his cheek back. “Don’t worry. I know it. You’ve always told me, one way or another.”

Jamie’s probably toweling his hands dry by now, or snooping through my cosmetics bag. Maybe dotting concealer under his eyes. I wouldn’t put it past him.

“You don’t really know. Princess, you’re the one girl I never in a million years thought I’d get.” He presses a kiss to my temple. “Hold on for me just a little longer. Please.”

We hear Jamie’s voice—“TOM!” The door slides closed behind him and he’s gone.

I sit down heavily in his office chair. What is this beautiful complicated thing we unfurled last night? Maybe it’s not a bubble that we have. A deflating silk hot-air balloon is filling this space. It’s every color; it can float and take us places, but one single loose seam could end it all.

But still, I need to learn to be an optimist. After all, Tom didn’t end things with me just now. He asked me to wait for him. He loves me. I stretch luxuriously in the knowledge—he’s mine, he’s going to be mine forever, until he dies.

As I turn over that last little part of the conversation in my mind, I realize something that makes me feel sick.

I’ve made the same mistake as when I was eighteen. He loves me? I know.

I do nothing but take, take, take. I never talk feelings with a man I’ve had sex with. My brain just doesn’t take that logical path, to reply in kind.

“Oh fuck,” I say out loud. Patty tilts her head at me, hearing the desperation in my tone. “Patty, I didn’t tell him I love him back.”

Chapter 20

I eavesdrop as I tread soundlessly into the back hallway, two steaming coffee mugs in hand and Patty jogging along ahead, oblivious to the trouble she caused me this morning.

“So, did she freak?” Jamie says. The room echoes, thanks to Tom’s executive decision.

“Yes. I’m not doing that again,” Tom replies, and there’s the sound of bricks being moved. “She kicked my ass. Seriously, why did I listen to you?”

Jamie responds like it’s a stupid question. “Because you give her anything she wants. If you asked her first, she would have made those big eyes at you, and you’d be rebuilding a fireplace that you know will cost us money in the sale. Come on, the place looks huge. She’ll get over it.”

“Yeah, I know the eyes you mean. She’s good at those.” Bricks, a grunt. “I do think the wall coming out was the best thing for the renovation. But she’s not something for us to get around.”

“She kind of is,” Jamie says, wicked as usual.

Tom replies in a growl. “She’s part owner. I’m never doing it again. Move, Patty.”

“Okay,” Jamie agrees after a beat. “Better tell her about the dining room now.”

Exasperation. “I’m not telling her. I’m asking her.”

“Asking me what?” I walk in like I’ve got impeccable timing. “Well? What? Chris will be here in fifteen minutes. How do I look, boss?” I smile widely at Tom. “I’m finally in uniform.”

“A little big,” Jamie says dismissively.

I give him a dark look. “Truly’s going to alter it for me.”

Tom stares at my Valeska Building Services shirt and I think he bursts a blood vessel. Or chokes himself. Something instant and painful. It’s a huge fluorescent polo in a fabric blend I don’t really care for. It’s unbuttoned at the neck and the top of my bra is showing. This bra is a ten on the Richter scale. I am a bad person. As he watches, I gather the hem and knot it at my hip.

“Looks fine,” Tom says robotically, but I’m honestly surprised he doesn’t just walk over, pick me up over his shoulder, and carry me out.

“Who’s Chris?” Jamie hates being out of the loop. “Why’s he arriving in fifteen?”