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“This could definitely work for your bathroom,” he said after he’d watched ten or so seconds of the video, “especially if you continue the tile over the toilet, like this.”
As he traced the screen, she could almost feel him caressing her skin in gentle lines and circles. He turned, felling her with a smile that would either knock her dead, or make her heart start beating right out of her chest.
“I’ve got an app on the website where we can sketch it out.”
We.
She loved the sound of we. Even if she hadn’t been alone for over three months, she would have loved the sound of we. She’d always been a people person, always felt more energized after a great conversation or party than by a quiet evening in. And it felt terrific to have him in her house—the only home that had ever truly been hers. To talk to someone besides the squirrels and birds and herself. Plus, he was surprisingly good at listening.
But she was in exile. She was here to do penance. To atone for her sins.
Which meant she couldn’t let herself feel all breathless and giggly and sexy around him. She most certainly couldn’t fall for gorgeous billionaire Daniel Spencer.
Really, she reminded herself, she didn’t even know him. What if the man seemed nice and helpful—but was really a secret ax murderer, or was running his company as a front for illegal activities?
She’d proven herself to be absolutely terrible at reading people’s true characters and motives. For God’s sake, this guy owned the biggest chain of home-improvement stores in the world. And he was on TV, too handsome for mere mortals. A celebrity. A rich guy. They always had their own agendas, didn’t they? Okay, so there wasn’t one single thing about him that screamed ax murderer or money launderer or even snooty know-it-all.
Then again, she hadn’t thought her family could be any of those things either.
“The app is free,” he added, as though he thought that was why she hadn’t responded. “Would you like to download it?”
It struck her that he was asking what she wanted to do instead of telling her, the way her father would have done. Or Eric.
As if she were wiping her windshield clean, she deliberately scraped all those thoughts out of her mind. Or she would go stark crazy. Besides, Daniel would be gone soon, and then she’d have to settle back into her solitude.
For just this one teeny-tiny moment, she wanted to enjoy him for all she was worth and savor the memory for the endlessly quiet days and nights to come.
So she said, “Yes, please.”
After he demonstrated how to use the app, she couldn’t help raving. “That is so cool. I could even do the kitchen using this. Plus, I can test out the log cabin paneling you talked about.” Maybe it wasn’t right for her to be so excited about turning her vision for the cabin into reality, not when living in a dilapidated shack was supposed to be part of her penance for her family’s con jobs. But after a lifetime of longing for a real home, she simply couldn’t help herself. No more than she could keep herself from excitedly asking Daniel, “Did you build this app yourself?”
“I told a designer exactly what I wanted.” He gave her a half-smile that only made him look more gorgeous. “I’m pretty sure he hates my guts now. I’m damn picky.”
“I would love to have built something like this for you.” She spoke without thinking.
He raised his eyebrows. “You build apps?”
Silently cursing herself for her mistake, she said, “I’m a graphic designer. Or at least I was…until I moved up here.” She waved her hand at the screen, trying to be nonchalant about it. “I used to develop websites and do interactive stuff like this.”
He turned, their noses almost touching, and homed in on the one thing she hadn’t wanted him to focus on. “Why did you come here? All alone. To renovate a cabin by yourself.”
Her racing heart thudded to an abrupt halt. This was exactly why she needed to keep away from other people. If she hadn’t been chattering on, he wouldn’t have felt he could ask her such a pointed question. Now that he had, she would have to tell him the same thing she’d emailed to her friends before she headed off—not a lie, but not the complete and very difficult truth either.
“I hit a crossroads and needed to unplug from the rat race.” Unplugging was something everyone always said they wanted to do, so thankfully, no one argued with it. The irony was that Tasha was someone who longed to be plugged in all the time, not to digital devices, but with other people. “I needed to learn to depend on myself and no one else.”
“Well, you should definitely be proud of what you’ve accomplished.” Again, he was far kinder than a billionaire needed to be. “How-to videos are practically my bread and butter, and yet I never knew anyone could get so much done simply from watching them.”
“I also asked a lot of questions at the hardware store. So many that now the staff run in the opposite direction when they see me coming.”
“None of my clerks had better do that.” He was surprisingly stern. Gorgeously so. “You’re exactly the kind of customer we want. Eager, willing to experiment, open to trying new things.”
A blush crawled up her cheeks, despite her trying not to melt into a puddle at his feet. Eager. Willing to experiment. Open to trying new things. It was really hard to remind herself that he wasn’t talking about sex.
He pushed the laptop toward her. “Show me your work. I’d love to see it.”
She was so busy trying to shove her hormones down that it took her several beats to realize what he’d said. “Work? You want to see my work?”
“Maybe I could use you when I’ve got another project.”
