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It was probably a promise I shouldn’t have made, but it was the only way to get her not to worry. “You should get going. It’s almost nine, which is the universal geriatric bedtime.”
She let out a choked cry and swatted my arm. “You’re a geriatric jerk.”
I chuckled. “Love you.”
Her eyes squinted at me. “You’re kicking me out so you can go back to work, aren’t you?”
There was one stack of paperwork that needed to be completed for the women who were moving out next week and another stack for the next group coming in. Not to mention, there were two grants I wanted the organization to apply for, and two letters of recommendation I needed to write for two women who’d graduated from the house last year and were going back to college.
I pressed a kiss to her forehead and ignored her question. “Enjoy your vacation and congratulations.”
“If you don’t have an assistant by the time we’re back from our cruise, I’m going to hire one for you,” she warned, and then her face softened when she added, “Love you, too.”
I had to hope that by the time she came back from vacation, she’d be too busy catching up on her own life and the prospect of a new addition to their family that she’d forget to worry about mine.
CHAPTER2
ZEKE
My office was a glorified closet—a small room near the end of the main hallway in the house that terminated in the kitchen. It had been a pantry in the original footprint of the home when we were growing up here with our grandparents. After Blooms’ second year in operation, Addy and I remodeled the back of the house to add a commercial kitchen, and the pantry had become our shared office; that had only been for a few years until she moved in with Ace, and since then, I’d taken over the sole desk that was two sizes too big for the room and the singular bookcase filled with all my reference books and law reviews.
With a sigh, I picked up a fresh pile of folders from the middle of my desk, each belonging to one of the new residents, flipped through them and then set them on my chair to be dealt with later.
After saying goodbye to Addy, I’d helped the rest of the girls clean up from the celebration. With everyone chipping in, it hadn’t taken more than thirty minutes to put everything back to rights. After that, they’d headed upstairs for the night, and I’d come here.
Just for a little bit, I told myself. If I could organize my desk tonight, I could spend tomorrow morning on the laundry list of things I was behind on instead.
My office in town was much neater than this, but only because I hardly ever worked out of it. Callie manned the desk there, handling the details for my private clients and any cases for the Blooms residents.Unless I was meeting with a client, my presence in town existed on the fringes of my time at Blooms.
I reached for another haphazard stack of papers sitting right in front of my computer monitor. As soon as I tipped them upright, a Post-It fluttered free. I plucked it up before it reached the ground and read the note.
I’m so sorry. I have to work a late shift tonight at the center. —Kenzie
My body tightened. Even her handwriting was a combination between soft and strong, and the note itself? A testament to one more person who couldn’t say no when someone needed her.
In all our years of doing this, I couldn’t say I’d ever met someone who was so determined to get better—to succeed. She went to every counseling session we offered. Every adjunctive therapy program. Every guest seminar. All that on top of helping around the house and working her cleaning gigs.
If I didn’t bury myself in all the behind-the-scenes work for the business, Kenzie would’ve been unavoidable. And there was a second—a single second—when she’d come into my office to get my approval for her cleaning job when it had been on the tip of my tongue to offer her a position as my assistant instead.
But it was only for a second.
A momentary lapse of conscience fueled by an all-nighter of work and Addy’s nagging because instantly I’d imagined other ways she could assist me at my desk. Namely, her soft lips on my rock-hard cock. And at that point, I immediately scrawled my signature on the form for Kenzie to clean the local coffee shop in town—willing to approve anything to get her out of my sight.
From there, she’d added cleaning Fleurtations and the Carmel Bakery to her schedule and finally, the community center. I approved it all because I wanted to encourage her, but now, I had to wonder if I’d gone too far—if I’d let her overextend herself for my own selfish, self-preserving reasons; the more she worked, the less she was in the house and the less chance there was of seeing or speaking to the woman who made my blood heat.
If those were really my reasons, they gloriously backfired.
Business owners wanted their property cleaned either before or after working hours, and that meant Kenzie was leaving Blooms in the early mornings when I arrived or returning to the house later in the evening, right before curfew when I was leaving.
There were a handful of rules strictly enforced for any residents of the house, and a ten o’clock curfew was one of them.
Out of all the minutes in a day, fate always double-booked our comings and goings through the front door into the same sixty seconds. So, instead of avoiding her, more often than not, Kenzie was the first face I saw when I started my day and the last one I glimpsed before I went home.
In any other world, those lavender eyes and warm smile would be the perfect way to bookend an entire day, but in this world—my world—they were nothing short of pure torture.
I crumbled the note and froze, hearing a soft crash from the kitchen. Not enough to make it to the upper levels of the house, but enough to reach my office.
What the…
