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“I hear you. You can’t forgive me for what I did at the club.”
I growled, stalking past him, wanting to throw something hard and lethal at his thick head.
“This isn’t just about the damn club. You can’t just order me into a relationship, Damon. It doesn’t work that way. Love without trust means nothing. Why can’t you see that?”
“I’m here telling you I fucked up. I was wrong. What more do you want from me?”
“I want to see all of you, even the parts you think will scare me. You want me to trust you, but you don’t trust me. You took my choices from me. It left me feeling like I had no one who believed in me all over again.”
“I’m protecting you. You don’t want to see those parts of me.”
“That’s a cop-out. I don’t need or want that kind of protection. I’ve got it handled.”
A wave of resignation and exhaustion washed over me.
I walked toward the bathroom and then said over my shoulder. “Until you understand and truly hear me, you can’t give me what I want. I have work to do. Goodbye, Damon. Please see your way out.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Damon
A little before eleven in the morning, I arrived at a closed construction site for one of my buildout projects in midtown Manhattan. Weather forecasters projected high gale-force winds starting late afternoon as a precursor to a category two hurricane, which was being dubbed a five-hundred-mile-wide superstorm.
Instead of evacuating as most of the sane people in the city should be doing, I was about to start my fourth site visit for the day to ensure my project managers safely and securely shut down all active construction locations.
Then again, considering the amount of traffic I’d just contended with to get here, half of the city had decided to ride out the imminent natural disaster at home.
One thing was always true for New Yorkers. Never tell them what to do. They will always do the opposite. It was their way of saying fuck you to the world.
Putting my car in park, I grabbed my hard hat and sunglasses and stepped out. I gazed up at the first twenty stories of the steel framing of a new high-rise going up. The building would house the corporate headquarters of an aquatics research and engineering firm. Thus, I created a design with angles that gave the illusion of water.
There were still another twenty stories until the framing was complete, but we were ahead of schedule by a month. Which I assumed would make the money men happy.
But, of course, I was wrong. When buildouts came to a grinding halt in New York City, financiers started bitching. It wasn’t as if my company was the only one shuttered in preparation for a direct hit from a fucking storm. Still, the investors acted like I made mother-fucking-nature create this cyclone to come toward the city.
Fuckers.
Well, not all of them. Lucian was one of them.
No, he was a fucker too, but on a different level.
He’d roped me into designing this project, and then my idiot self decided to take a cut of the project, so of course, I wanted in on the buildout. Now I had to deal with fucktards from Palm Beach who knew shit about Big Apple construction.
Another car pulled up behind mine. The make and the model of the sports car told me the driver was the one and only Lucian Morelli.
Not two seconds later, he stepped out of the car, setting a hat on his head. At least he remembered it this time instead of thinking his noggin could withstand a hit with construction debris.
Knowing his visit spelled trouble, I asked, “Why the fuck are you here? Shouldn’t you be evacuating with your wife and kids or some shit like that?”
“They left yesterday. I wanted to see if you imploded the building instead of finishing it.”
“It was a thought.” I stared at the equipment tied down under the tarp before me. “What is the real reason you’re here? I have other sites prepped for your specific cleanup necessities.”
“I’d use the proper channels for that type of handling.”
“Then what’s the issue?”
“According to Elaine, you sent Eva ten grand in new mother and baby products after her visit.”
