by Sandi Lynn
“I have extreme organizational skills, and I’m very detail-oriented. I’m not going to lie, Miss Marcus. I googled you and from what I can tell, you’re a very busy woman who doesn’t have time to deal with the other daily tasks besides putting on your game face and selling luxury apartments. You can’t be at two places at once and I can help with that. I can keep you on track so you won’t miss appointments, I can schedule all your calls, help you find new clients, take care of all the marketing reports, research, etc. I believe together, we could take the real estate industry by storm.”
I sat there with a smile on my face as I listened to him. He had a great personality, and I was enthralled by him.
“How do you feel about personal errands?” I asked.
“Anything you need. Coffee runs, dry cleaning pick-ups. I’m at your service.”
“How do you feel about cats?”
“They are my favorite animal. In fact, my partner, Luke, and I have a Persian at home named Snow White. She’s our baby and our pride and joy.” He grinned. “Would you like to see a picture?”
“Oh my God, I’d love too.” I smiled.
He pulled out his phone, brought up a picture of Snow White and showed me.
“She’s beautiful. Let me show you Duchess.”
Grant sat there staring at me with a look of disbelief splayed across his face.
“Oh wow. She’s gorgeous,” Cody said. “She and Snow White could be twins.”
“Right?” The smile never left my face. “I like you, Cody, and I think we’d make a great team. The job is yours.”
“Really?” he asked with excitement as he stood up from his seat.
“Can you start tomorrow?”
“Yes. Of course!” He gave me a hug. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
We exchanged phone numbers and he left the office.
“You didn’t even ask him why he left his last job,” Grant said.
“Who cares. I love him and he likes Duchess.” I arched my brow.
“I like Duchess.”
“Do you, Grant? Do you really?” I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Yes. I just don’t like how her fur gets all over my expensive suits.”
Rolling my eyes, I went back to my desk.
“You never answered my question about dinner tonight. There’s something else I need to talk to you about.”
“Can’t we talk about it now?”
“No. We can talk about it over dinner. It’s strictly professional. I promise.”
“Fine. What time?”
“I have a showing at four-thirty. In fact, why don’t you come with me. After, I’ll take you to the building I need to show you and then we’ll go grab some dinner and talk.”
“Building?”
“I’ll explain it to you later.”
“Okay.” I turned my chair around.
Chapter 18
Grant
As she sat working on her computer at her desk, I leaned back in my chair and stared at her. I still couldn’t believe she was here. Thoughts about last night had been in my head all day. I couldn’t get rid of them even if I tried. She was so damn beautiful and as hard as I tried to stop it, everything was coming back again. Hell, it never really left to begin with. Opening the top drawer of my desk, I stared down at the picture of us when we were teenagers. Even though we’d known each other only five days, it was the best five days of my life. She got up from her seat, and I immediately closed my desk drawer.
“I’m going to grab a cup of coffee. Do you want one?” she asked.
“No. Thanks.” I gave her a smile.
My phone rang and when I saw it was Lamar calling, I immediately answered it.
“Hello.”
“Hey, man. How’s your day going?”
“It’s going, Lamar. How’s yours?”
“Good. Good. Listen, how about we meet tomorrow morning in Central Park and go for a run.”
“Sure. Sounds good. What time?”
“Six a.m. work for you?”
“Our usual spot?”
“Yeah, bro. Our usual spot. We have some things to discuss.”
“That we do, my friend. I’ll see you in the morning.”
After my showing in Nolita, I took Bella to the building on West 21st Street. After inserting the key into the lock, I opened the door and gestured for her to step inside the lobby.
“What is this place?”
“Our building we totally renovated.”
“So, it’s empty?”
“For now. There’s a total of one hundred and four apartments that need sold and you’re going to sell fifty-two of them within six months.”
“Excuse me?” Her brows raised.
“And I’m going to sell the other fifty-two.”
She let out a loud roaring laugh.
“You had me for a minute there.” She pointed her finger at me.
“I wish I was joking, but I’m not, Bella,” I spoke with a serious tone as I stared into her eyes.
“You want me to sell fifty-two apartments in a matter of six months? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“It’s not me. It’s my father. We’ll talk about the rest over dinner. I want to show you a few of the apartments, so we’ll start with the penthouses. There are two of them. Both are different floor plans. I’ll take one and you can take the other.”
Myles
When Cassandra sent me her address, I smiled because it was one of my rental buildings in Midtown. Taking the elevator up to the sixth floor, I knocked on the door of apartment 6N. When it opened, I lost my breath at the beautiful woman who stood there smiling at me in a fitted black dress that showcased her lean body.
“Hi, Myles.”
“Wow. You look gorgeous, Cassandra.” I eyed her from head to toe.
“Thank you. Please, come in.”
I stepped inside and looked around the small space. It was decorated beautifully in muted grays and white.
“Nice place. How long have you lived here?”
“About a year and a half now. I’ll go grab my purse and we can leave.”
I heard a drip noise, so I walked to the kitchen area and noticed the faucet was dripping.
“Did you know your faucet is leaking?” I asked.
“Yeah. The bathtub is doing it also. I’ve put in three maintenance requests, and they still haven’t been up here. Every morning when I leave for work, I pray it’ll be fixed when I get home.”
“How long has it been?” I asked.
“Three weeks now.”
“Give me a second,” I said as I pulled out my phone. “Don, it’s Myles Roman. Are you in the building?”
“Yes. Mr. Roman.”
“Come up to 6N right now.”
I ended the call and placed my phone back in my pocket.
“What did you just do?” Cassandra asked in confusion.
“You’ll have your faucets fixed by the time we get back tonight.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I own this building.”
“Oh.” Her brows raised.
When I heard the knock on the door, I opened it and invited Don inside.
“Myles, what’s going on?”
“In case you didn’t know, this is Cassandra Peters, and she lives in this apartment. She has two leaky faucets. The kitchen and the bathtub. She’s put in three maintenance requests over the last three weeks, and it still isn’t fixed. Care to explain why it’s taking so long for maintenance to get up here?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll call him and ask what the problem is.”
“You do that, and you get his ass up here right now. I’m taking Ms. Peters to dinner and the faucets better be fixed when we get back. Once they’re fixed, I want you to start looking for a new maintenance guy. When he’s hired, you fire the one you have. There’s no excuse for it to take three weeks and three maintenance requests to get a job done. If you can’t handle that, I will look for another property manager.”
“I got it, Myles. I’ll get him up here right now and I’ll supervise him.”
“Good. Now if you’ll excuse us, we have dinner reservations. Shall we.” I smiled at Cassandra as I held out my arm to her.
“We shall.” She grinned as she hooked her arm around mine and we walked out the door.
The moment we climbed into the back of my car, she placed her hand on my thigh.
“Thank you, Myles.” A beautiful smile crossed her lips.
“It was my pleasure, Cassandra. That never should have happened, and I’m sorry it did.” I placed my hand on hers.
The moment we were seated at our table, I ordered a bottle of Pinot for us to share.
“Tell me all about Cassandra Peters.” I smiled as I sat across from her.
“What exactly do you want to know, Mr. Roman,” she spoke in a flirtatious tone.
“Everything.” I picked up my drink.
“Well, I should start by telling you that my husband passed away about a year and a half ago from cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. It was a long battle, but now he’s at peace. We didn’t have good health insurance, so our entire savings went to pay all the medical bills. When the check from the life insurance company finally came through, I decided to use it and open the bakery. When I discovered that it was going to cost a little more, I sold our apartment and put some of the money towards the bakery. That’s how I ended up renting in your building.”
“Have you always wanted to open a bakery?” I asked.
“Ever since I baked my first cake with my mother when I was seven years old.” The corners of her mouth curved upward. “I’ve been baking ever since.”
“Why did you wait so long to open a shop?”
She inhaled a sharp breath as she picked up her wine glass.
“My husband opened an insurance company. His dream came first, and I supported him. We sunk every dime we had into that business and when it went belly up, we were in a lot of debt. I ran a small business out of my home baking goods for people, but it wasn’t enough to cover our debt, so I had to go back to work full-time to help pay the bills. When we finally got our debt paid off, I quit my job and started baking full-time from my home. My business was just starting to really take off when my husband got diagnosed with cancer. He made me promise him before he died to open a bakery with the life insurance money.”
“He sounds like he was a good man.”
“He was.” She looked down as she ran her finger around the rim of her glass.
“You never had any children?” I asked.
“No. I had to have a hysterectomy when I was twenty-nine. Barry and I had decided to adopt. We tried twice and both times the adoption fell through at the last minute. I never wanted to go through that pain and heartache again, so we both accepted the fact that we were never meant to have children.”
Our waiter walked over and set our food down in front of us.
“This looks delicious.” Cassandra smiled as she picked up her fork. “So, tell me about Myles Roman. Are you divorced or were you never married?”
“I’ve been divorced for twenty years. My ex walked out on me and our son and never looked back.”
“You’re kidding. You haven’t heard from her or seen her in twenty years?”
“No. I came home from work one day and found a note. She said she was leaving us to find herself and to tell Grant she loved him. About six months later, I received the divorce papers in the mail. Without hesitation, I signed them and mailed them back to her attorney.
“Wow. That is just so cruel. How did Grant take it?”
“He took it really hard. But he was a good kid and my best friend. We weathered the biggest storm in our life together.”
“May I ask why you got married so young?”
Olivia and I were eighteen when she got pregnant with Grant. Her mom kicked her out when she found out, and I left behind a full-ride scholarship to Columbia. I loved her, and I couldn’t leave her when she was carrying my child, so we got married at the courthouse, rented a box of an apartment, and while I worked full-time, she worked part-time until Grant was born.”
“Did you work in real estate back then?”
“No. I sold shoes.” I let out a chuckle. “After a year of working there, they promoted me to manager. I could sell shoes to people who didn’t even know they wanted a new pair.”
“I bet.” She smirked.
“The pay was enough to be able to afford a little bigger apartment. But we were barely scraping by. A friend of mine had just gotten his real estate license and suggested I do the same. He told me to do it on the side for extra income. So I did, and guess what?”
“What?” The corners of her mouth curved upward.
“I was good at it. I could sell real estate to people who weren’t even looking to buy. A year after I got my license, I joined a real estate firm and quit my managerial job of five years. I made as many connections as I could, and my career was thriving until the market crashed and the company I worked for closed down. We had put Grant in a private school and Olivia liked to spend money we didn’t have, so the pressure was on to defy the bad market and do everything I could to survive. I worked hard but we still scraped by. I ended up getting a call from the owner of a smaller real estate brokerage firm asking me to come in for an interview. When I did, they hired me on the spot. Things were starting to look up and then they fired me because they claimed I stole a sale right out from under another agent. The entire thing was blown out of proportion, and they wouldn’t listen to me. That agent had it in for me since the day I started. The day I was fired, Olivia had asked me to pick up Grant from school on my way home. It was when we got home, I found the note from Olivia.”
“Oh my gosh, Myles. I’m sorry.”
“Thanks, Cassandra. A couple days later, I’d found out that Olivia had drained our savings account. But she was gracious enough to leave me three-hundred dollars. I had never been so hurt in my life. It felt like my entire world was ripped to shreds. I’m ashamed to admit that I let the circumstances get the best of me.”
“How do you mean?”
“I started drinking to numb the pain. The rent was due, Grant’s tuition was due, and I didn’t have the money to cover either of them. One night, Grant came home unexpectedly. He was supposed to be staying the night at a friend’s house, but the boy got sick, and they brought Grant home. I’d been drinking all night and he found me passed out on the bathroom floor. He helped me to bed and told me that everything was going to be okay. No child should ever have to tell a parent that. I should have been the one telling him. I was so ashamed that I let him down. His mother already had and now his father did. That night, I made him a promise that I would never let him down again, and the next morning, I decided I was going to start my own real estate company. I’d had enough working for other people and being used. And that’s how The Roman Group got started. Within the first year, I’d sold a billion dollars in real estate on my own and moved us to a bigger and better apartment in SoHo. I rented an office space, built a team, and it took off from there. Now, I handle the property development section of my company and Grant handles the sales. We have offices all over New York, an office in the Hamptons, Miami and Seattle.”
Chapter 19
Grant
We walked into Tavern on the Green and as we were following the hostess to our table, I saw my father and Cassandra.
“Well, this is a surprise.” I smiled as I patted my father’s shoulder. “Hello, Cassandra. You look lovely.”
“Thank you, Grant.”
“Cassandra, this is Bella Marcus. She’s a new broker we hired at the company,” my father spoke.
“It’s so nice to meet you, Bella.”
“Thank you. Are you the one who makes those amazing cookies and cupcakes?” Bella asked with a smile.
“I am. I’m happy you enjoy them. Why don’t the two of you join us?”
�
�Thanks, Cassandra, but we have business to discuss. Enjoy the rest of your evening. Dad, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
We took our seats at our own table and after placing our drink order, we browsed the menu.
“She’s pretty.” Bella glanced up at me from the top of her menu.
“Yes. She is. She seems nice as well. Maybe a little too nice for my father.”
Bella closed her menu just as the waitress walked over and took our order.
“Why do you say that?”
“He doesn’t date one woman very long, nor does he date women his own age.” I gave her a smirk.
“And your mom? Did she ever remarry?”
I stared at her as I held my drink in my hand. “We can talk about her another time. Right now, we need to discuss those apartments.”
As we ate our dinner and talked, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She’d already done to me what she did fourteen years ago. She captivated me and took my breath away. Thoughts of last night still occupied my mind. They had been all day.
When we left the restaurant, I hailed us a cab because I’d sent Mateo home for the night. As soon as the driver pulled up to her building, I held out my hand and helped her out, not letting go. She tried to pull her hand away and as our eyes met, my grip tightened. Bringing my other hand up to her cheek, I leaned in and softly brushed my lips against hers.
“Grant—,” she whispered.
“I enjoyed last night, Bella,” I interrupted her as I stared into her eyes.
She looked away and pulled her hand from mine.
“Last night was a mistake and it shouldn’t have happened. We both were drinking and—”
“I don’t consider it a mistake and the alcohol isn’t to blame.”
“I have to go. Thanks for dinner.” She began to walk away, and I lightly grabbed hold of her arm as she turned and looked at me.
“It wasn’t a mistake, Bella.”
She stared at me for a moment with a sadness in her eyes. The same sadness she had the night before she left Hawaii.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” she said and left me standing on the sidewalk.
I watched as she walked into her building and then I climbed into the back of the cab.
