by Dani Wade
He glanced her way before returning his attention to the road. “That’s a rather pretentious question, don’t you think?”
“Actually it’s simple curiosity that springs from experience,” she corrected. “I’ve worked with a lot of Savannah’s upper class. Most have their own drivers—at least, under certain circumstances.”
The road was familiar to her from having lived in Savannah since she was fifteen years old. Though a lot of fine old houses could be found in the surrounding areas, she couldn’t think of any in this particular direction. Where was he taking her?
She tempered her curiosity with more questions about his driverless state. If she had to be thrown off her game plan for the morning, at least she could work toward finding the human behind the robot. “You’re the youngest billionaire in Savannah,” she reminded him. “Heck, the entire South. Doesn’t a driver come with that title?”
“That title came with a lot of hard work. Besides, I love to drive.”
“So you’re human?”
His locked-down tone surprised her. “More than you know.”
Great. Her curiosity was growing like an overinflated balloon. Pretty soon she might explode from it—but that was better than drooling over his blond good looks.
“Why won’t you share those personal reasons with me?”
She wasn’t sure why she asked. Maybe to get herself away from her attraction to Royce. Maybe to dig deeper into the mysteries she had begun to see. If she hadn’t been watching his face, she’d have missed the flicker of surprise that appeared on his expression before he shut back down.
“I told you, I don’t want to talk about it.”
He had, but that wouldn’t stop her from trying. “Sometimes it helps.”
“Not true.”
Stubborn man. “Have you ever even tried?” She suspected not, considering that he seemed like the all-business-all-the-time type.
She could tell her question annoyed him by the way he tightened his hands on the steering wheel. “We’re almost there,” he said, instead of answering.
Fine.
Then Jasmine looked around, realizing exactly how far out of town they were. Uneasiness started to grow deep inside. “You realize that the farther we are from town, the less likely people are to attend the event, right?”
“Oh, they’ll show up for this.”
His confident tone didn’t turn her into a believer—after all, she was the expert in this business.
The minute he turned down a particular driveway, her fears were confirmed. She’d only been down this driveway once. A very long time ago, and only by accident. Later when she’d started researching the place, she’d realized what it was. They could not have their event here.
“Royce, no.” Her grip on the seat tightened as tension took hold of her. “We can’t do this here. Do you know how long Keller House has been empty?”
“It was empty for over twenty years,” he said. “The carriage house has been occupied for five years. It’s currently the home of the caretaker.”
Okay, so maybe she didn’t know everything. “But the main house must be in need of hundreds of thousands of dollars of renovations.”
“Four hundred thousand in renovations, to be exact,” Royce said. She swore she could hear a smirk in his voice. “And that doesn’t include the back gardens, which can’t be started on until closer to spring.”
She eyed him suspiciously as he pulled the car to a halt before the front steps. He looked back with perfect calm, so she turned her attention to the house. The massive gray stone building seemed sad and silent from where she sat. “And how do you know that, Royce?”
He ignored her as he exited the vehicle. She stared up at the imposing edifice, waiting for him to come around to open her door. When he did, she got out and stood in the space between the door and the car to look him straight in the eye.
“I can’t oversee renovations while I’m doing an event,” she said. “And what owner in the middle of renovations would want an event here?”
“No, the renovations are my job. The event is yours,” he said, enunciating clearly. “Just get out of the car.”
I’ve gone from dealing with a difficult boss to biting off more than I can chew. Jasmine stepped away from the car and stood before the mammoth building. It was gorgeous, even in its rundown state. Ivy climbed up one corner. Though cracked in a few places, the gray stone still lent a majesty to the structure. Even the steps were made of it. She could imagine women walking up them in huge hoop skirts on their way to a ball here.
“I’ve always been curious about this place,” she said. “My sister, who is a big history buff, says that the Kellers used to be the most prominent family in Savannah. Their house was detailed in many newspaper accounts and gossip columns throughout the years. But then the entire family was wiped out by smallpox.”
“Shall we go inside?” he asked.
She met his gaze. “You’re serious about this?”
“I am. We will hold the masquerade here.”
She glanced between him and the house that hadn’t been a home to anyone in a long time. He’d gone from uninvolved to highly involved more quickly than she could wrap her brain around. “So you are a bit of a philanthropist,” she said.
“No. Real estate is a good investment.”
But as he turned away she glimpsed something in his expression. Something he probably didn’t want her to see. She had a feeling that like the building before her, he was hiding an awful lot behind that facade of his.
Five
Just a quick walk through to see the current state of renovations, let Jasmine take a quick peek and then they’d head back to the city. That was Royce’s plan, and, by damn, he was sticking to it this time.
But it wasn’t helping that he found her caution amusing as she stepped through the massive antique double doors. Clearly, she expected the inside of Keller House to be a disaster.
Granted, the exterior still needed work, but there was plenty of time to get to that. The exterior would be a years-long project, just as the inside had been. And the craggy, cracked surface had character that Royce kind of enjoyed.
The wonder on her face as she took in the already renovated foyer made his heart speed up. Royce quickly looked away. No distractions. Focus. He had a feeling her enthusiasm, in addition to being attractive, would be infectious.
But he was here for business.
As per his usual MO, he mentally identified what he needed to do. Then he started purposefully down the main hallway that cut the house virtually in half. The kitchen lay at the other end, which was where he hoped to find his construction crew hard at work.
“Wow! Is this staircase the original? Or a reproduction?”
Royce froze. “It’s the original,” he conceded, then moved a few more steps. Maybe if he kept moving, she would follow.
Her gorgeous blue eyes were roving up and down the magnificent two-story structure. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “Who did the renovations?”
He took a few more steps, even though she hadn’t budged. “Jasmine, I don’t have much time to get this done, so if we could move on—”
She nodded and moved to follow, though her gaze stayed glued to the refinished mahogany and blue tile patterns along the edges of the steps. He turned away and picked up speed. His brain started to produce a list of all the things he needed to discuss with the foreman.
“All these tiles...are they Italian?”
Royce heard the question but kept moving.
At first he thought he heard her following, but then the footsteps stopped and her voice sounded farther away. Royce paused, glancing over his shoulder. No Jasmine in sight. Then he realized what room she had disappeared into.
The ballroom. Of course that would interest her.
The urgent pull of business needled him to keep going. She could explore while he got things done. Problem solved. But there was also the worry that she would wander somewhere that she could get hurt. Not all the rooms were finished. Since they hadn’t been expecting company, the dangerous areas weren’t necessarily marked.
Then there was the question of her excitement and how he wanted to read it in her expression as she explored. He shouldn’t care. The fact that he was even thinking about this meant he should keep going. Instead his steps took him back toward the open doorway.
The ballroom walls had been carefully stripped of ancient wallpaper to reveal intricate painted murals. They’d decided to clean and preserve them as is, rather than recreating them. Wear and tear showed in spots, but it was the kind of damage that one would find in an antique museum piece. It simply added to the charm. The crown molding surrounding the windows, murals and chandelier bases had been stripped and refinished in an off white. Eggshell, his mother had called it.
The elaborate crystal chandeliers had been refinished and rewired. The wood floor had been stripped of decades of dirt and grime and was waiting to be stained and protected with a thick coat of polyurethane. There was still a series of mirrors waiting to be hung.
The room was a showpiece in and of itself.
Jasmine twirled slowly in the center, taking in all the delights. She stopped as she came to face him. Some of his indecision must have come across as irritation in his expression, because her eyes widened for a moment.
Then a grin that could only be classified as cute spread across her face. “I can’t help it,” she said. “I need to see what I’m gonna have to work with.”
“So you do approve?”
The expression he’d come to associate with her trying to figure out a way around him made a quick appearance. “Possibly.” She turned away. The skirt of her dress swirled with her movements, giving him another glance at sculpted calves and pretty ankles. Didn’t the woman ever wear pants?
“But I will need to see more before we know for sure.”
Vixen. The minute the word crossed his mind, Royce had second thoughts. After all, he’d never thought about any of the other women he worked with, now or in the past, in such a way. It was surely inappropriate. But completely and totally true.
Jasmine knew exactly what she was doing—keeping him on his toes.
Resigning himself, he gestured for her to continue down the hall. “Everything else on this floor has been completed, except the kitchens.” He hoped. “That’s what I need to check on today.”
As they made their way down the hall, he opened various doors. She got to explore. He got to maintain forward momentum. Win-win.
Only every peek into a room elicited the same excitement as a child opening presents on Christmas morning. The first gasps jumpstarted his heart, even though he tried to ignore them—and his physical reaction.
“Are these fixtures original?” she asked.
He nodded, warming to one of his favorite subjects outside of business. He and his mother had had two things in common—antiques and cooking. Their shared interests had strengthened their bond.
“All of the fixtures are original, unless they were broken beyond repair. Some of the back rooms had busted windows and weather damage, so we had to do some extensive replacements there. Everywhere else, I had what I could refinished. Some of the electrical components had to be updated. But the feel of the original should be maintained wherever possible—”
He noticed her watching him and felt a moment of unfamiliar self-consciousness. “In my opinion,” he added. An opinion he had only shared with his contractor and his mother when she was still alive. Not only was it no one else’s business, Royce had always found himself extremely protective of projects that he was full-on enthusiastic about.
Projects that sparked his creativity and drive, instead of the logical side of his brain. Only certain people who shared that drive were let in. He wasn’t ready to let Jasmine in. These softening tendencies she inspired in him made keeping things strictly business with her an absolute must.
After what seemed like hours, they finally made it to the kitchen. Jasmine took herself off to pepper the workers with questions while Royce checked in with the foreman. He almost laughed at how short and to the point their discussion was, compared to the last hour with Jasmine. He had a feeling he would hole up in his office when he got back and communicate only by email. He’d used up his allotment of spoken words for the day.
It wasn’t until they were on their way back out that Royce’s relief was busted.
Jasmine’s frequent glances warned him something was up. It didn’t take her long to get to the point.
“One of the workers said your mother lived here.”
Ah. Well, it wasn’t like he’d told them to keep it a secret. “Yes. She lived in the carriage house for a few years before she died.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Royce just kept walking. He didn’t want to get into how much he missed his mother, or how he hadn’t felt he’d done everything he could for her before she died. There wasn’t much point to those types of conversations.
“Was she interested in the renovations?”
Maybe they weren’t done with this subject. “She definitely was. I bought the property for her, and she helped plan every facet of the renovations before she passed away. She was a history and museum buff.”
“My sister loves history, too. She teaches it at the community college. She’s the one who told me about this place.”
The personal nature of the conversation set off alarms in his brain, but his sudden desire to talk to someone who understood the house and his love of it overrode his caution. “We discussed everything about the direction of the renovations. How much to save. How much to gut and start over on. She loved every minute of it.”
He could almost feel Jasmine’s warm gaze on his face. Then she said, “I bet she did. That must have been a wonderful thing for her.”
He shrugged. “It was the least I could offer her. She was a single mother my entire life. She sacrificed more than any woman should. To make her comfortable and happy was a small gift in comparison.”
He remembered watching Jasmine with her daughter, and how it had given rise to the uncomfortable memories of his own childhood. He’d told the truth. His mother had sacrificed a lot. So had he. Which had fostered his attitude on single mothers and the workplace.
As they walked back down the front steps, the burning question Royce had ignored for days finally surfaced. “Jasmine, do you regret being a single mother?”
She halted abruptly. The gorgeous, expressive face he’d been surreptitiously watching all morning shut down. He should have known—should have kept his mouth shut. Reason number two that he avoided social gatherings...he wasn’t great at handling casual conversation.
Then her words hit him like bullets. “Never,” she said. As she turned away, she added, “Without me, she’d have no one at all.”
* * *
Jasmine sprinted around the corner of her regular event photographer’s house, groaning when she saw Royce sitting in his car at the curb. She’d had her sister drop her off at the side of Dominic’s, hoping she wouldn’t have to explain how her morning had gone. The last thing she wanted to get into was why she’d needed a ride here instead of driving herself. Of course, the fact that she was fifteen minutes late and running in her heels probably raised eyebrows.
At least she’d texted Royce and Dominic to let them know she was running behind.
She took a few seconds to straighten her dress as Royce climbed out of his sleek car. The chaos of the morning made it a little harder to pull on her professional demeanor. She would blame that on the difficult circumstances rather than the effect every meeting with this man had on her.
&n
bsp; Regardless, it didn’t bode well for being in close proximity with Royce this morning.
Hopefully her smile wasn’t strained enough to show the lack of sleep and worry. Rosie was teething again, so she hadn’t slept well. Then Jasmine had worried about leaving her with Auntie when she knew her daughter would be more than a handful. And then...she’d gone out to find her car dead as a doornail.
Her frustration levels were maxed out.
She thought she’d masked her feelings pretty well, but Royce’s double take as he approached her told her otherwise. For once, she prayed he’d stick to his strictly business MO. Even if she’d felt inclined to share her situation, his attitude about single mothers and the workplace gave her pause.
Instead, she tried to concentrate on the bright sunshine in hopes it would chase away her worries and gloom. Other than a brief good morning, she remained silent as they waited for Dominic to answer the bell. Unfortunately, the one day she wished Royce would stick to his robot impersonation, he had to deviate from the norm.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
This must be payback of some sort for her nosiness...
“Yes.” She knew her tone would give away that she was lying.
“You seem upset.”
Lord, why did she have to have such an expressive face? Why couldn’t she just hide behind a stone facade? Of course, that was against her nature and normal method of dealing with clients. She liked being on friendly terms and being perceived as approachable. Which was why everything about her business interactions with Royce had felt wrong.
Fortunately Dominic opened the door of the house before she had to respond to Royce. The photographer’s enthusiastic bear hug covered a lot of her strain and helped her regain her equilibrium. She’d worked with Dominic a lot over the last few years. His sheer size made clients think twice about hiring him—he looked more like a bouncer at a bar than an artist—until they saw his portfolio.
He had an ability to showcase emotion in an image that was sheer genius.
His handshake with Royce was firm but not a masculine attempt to dominate. He held the door open for them to enter the historic slate-gray and white Victorian cottage that served as his office, as well as the home that he shared with his partner, Greg.
