Читать книгу Untamed Love - Lindsay Evans - Страница 12

Chapter 2

Mella didn’t know how long she had stayed out the night before with her friends, but it had been much too late for someone who had to be at work by 5:00 a.m. Sitting on the patio of the North Beach flagship location of Café Michaela the next morning, she clutched a giant cup of black coffee while going over the previous week’s sales and current stock to decide what needed to be reordered.

It was still early, barely 5:30, and she was the only one in the café. Her first employee would arrive within half an hour to begin dealing with the morning rush, but for now, it was just her and the rising sun that seeped into her skin through the thin tank top and shorts she wore.

Mella sat on the patio with her laptop open, the sound of waves quietly whispering nearby. Her shop was on prime real estate. She’d been lucky to get it for a reasonable price a few years before. She never stopped being thankful for all her blessings, despite the other things in her life that hadn’t quite gone her way.

She was sending off an order to her supplier in Ethiopia when her cell phone rang. “Hey.” Mella kept her voice low to baby the last remnants of her hangover. She ruffled a hand over her thick hair and stretched out her legs in the sun.

“Good morning, Michaela.” Nala Singh laughed at her through the phone. “Either you’re trying not to disturb the other early birds, or a killer hangover is about to crack you wide-open.” Mella had to smile. Only Nala could make her laugh at herself in this condition.

Since they’d met, the billionaire orphan and jet-setting photographer refused to call Mella by the shortened version of her name, instead insisting, since their names sounded too alike, that she would call Mella by the name her parents gave her.

“What are you doing up so early?” Mella asked.

“I haven’t been to sleep yet. But I figured you’d be up doing something very responsible.”

“Good guess.” Coffee in hand, Mella stepped away from the table and walked to the railing, looking across the paved street to the glimpse of ocean through the bushes. The early-morning sun burned the sky with its incendiary reds and golds, spreading all that lush color through the clouds and over the virgin day. “What did I do to deserve a call so close to your bedtime?”

“Your email, of course. I just read it.”

Mella hid her surprise. She’d only sent the email a few hours before while she’d been at Fever. Before the drinks had started to dull her senses. “Good. I think we lucked out with the Raphael Design Group.” She ignored the way her stomach fluttered when Nala said the name of Victor’s firm. “They have a great reputation, and the projects they’ve done in Miami and across the States are phenomenal. They’re the perfect fit for your Sanctuary project.”

“It looks like it. Thanks for sending the links to their website and the Herald articles about their work.”

“I like to be thorough.”

Nala had inherited a mansion from her long-dead parents. It was a place she didn’t want to live in and had left to basically rot for years. But then she had the idea to turn it into a nonprofit space for homeless kids, kids who were kicked out of their homes for one reason or another and wanted to stay in school or get jobs but weren’t quite able to do it on their own. A sort of semipermanent home for formerly homeless kids. Nala wanted to complete the renovations to the mansion, have a party to celebrate her best friend’s marriage and new baby, then turn it over to the kids who wanted to move in.

When Nala told her the idea the night they’d met at a party on Star Island, it instantly captivated Mella. Helping kids who had been abandoned by their parents, people who were supposed to love them no matter what, had resonated with her immediately. She offered to help with the logistics of the mansion’s renovations, even finding a firm to deal with the applications to live in the home. The project and what it would eventually do for an underserved part of the city’s population made Mella feel she was doing something worthwhile with her life. She was thankful to Nala for giving her that chance.

“I’m hoping the firm would get some good publicity out of this, at the very least,” Mella continued. “Victor Raphael has been a good sport about this whole thing, especially since it wasn’t even him that put his services up for auction.” She explained Kingsley’s prank.

Nala snorted. “That sounds like something Kingsley would do. For someone who runs a Fortune 500 company, he has a lot of damn time on his hands.”

“You know him?” Mella took another sip of her coffee, then balanced the cup on the railing.

“He’s my best-friend-in-law’s brother.”

Mella laughed, almost choking on her coffee. “What?”

Chuckling, Nala explained their connection, that Kingsley was the older brother to her best friend’s husband. “Not complicated at all,” she said.

“Of course not.”

Mella laughed again and shook her head. It was a small world. “Anyway, Victor’s going through with the project, although obviously he doesn’t have to.” She remembered Victor’s melodic and downright sexy voice explaining what his friend had done. “But I sent him an email about Sanctuary this morning. He agreed to meet me at the site later on this week to take a look at what needs to be done.”

“Have fun. I know Corinne thinks he’s smokin’ hot.”

Corinne talked to Nala?

“I’m not sure if you can take Corinne’s word on something like that. She thinks any man with a pulse is a viable choice.”

Laughter snorted at her from the other end of the phone. “Are you saying Victor’s not sexy?”

“I’m definitely not saying that...” Mella bit her lip as she remembered Victor sitting at Fever, his furred forearms resting on the bar, the smell of faintly spicy cologne, and beneath that the more natural scent of a man. “He’s definitely sexy. But he’s too serious. You know I like my men with a sense of humor.”

“According to Nichelle, all men have a sense of humor—you just have to tickle them the right way.”

“I’m not ready to work that hard,” Mella said with a dismissive wave of her hand, although obviously, Nala couldn’t see it. But even as she said the words, she wasn’t sure she actually believed them. They had been true before she met Victor. She generally liked her men fun and uncomplicated. That way, the affair was light, just like she preferred it. And when it came time for it to end, nobody would cry any disappointed tears or make a scene. But it was a moot point. Victor wasn’t a fan of “taste testers.”

Her mouth tightened at the phrase he’d used. Not that his reaction hadn’t been her fault. What else would a man like that say to someone who basically compared a potential affair with him to having a monthly round of drinks?

Nala’s tsk-tsking brought her attention back to their conversation. “Most hard work is worth the reward, Michaela,” Nala said with a teasing lilt. Although Mella hadn’t known her long, she knew that Nala didn’t necessarily subscribe to that philosophy herself.

“Right.” She sipped her coffee, mouth curving in a reluctant smile.

Nala chuckled. “I’ll let you get back to your morning routine. But call me if anything comes up about Sanctuary or anything else.”

“I will. Thanks.”

Mella disconnected the call. Despite what she’d said to Nala, she knew she was already being an idiot. Victor was serious, unlike any of the men she’d dated before. The way he looked at her made her want to both run away from and curl up into him. She didn’t want him to laugh at her weak jokes. She didn’t want him to smile. She had no interest in changing him into what she liked. She just wanted him to come closer and cover her with all that masculine intensity.

* * *

It was raining. An expected rain, but still an annoying one. Victor would rather be in the office for the rest of the day, working on the looming Barcelona project, ordering in lunch and leaving only when it was time to go home. Instead he was in the rain. Granted, he was actually safe and dry in his SUV, but the main point was that he was at a mansion in the farthest reaches of Miami, waiting on a woman whom he didn’t quite know what to think of. Michaela Davis. Mella.

She was nothing like he’d thought she would be, yet she was everything his entire being gravitated toward. He’d expected her to be like a butterfly, flitting from one interesting thing to another, laughter always hovering on the curve of her lips. Mella was that, but even more. It seemed that actual light emanated from her. A radiance that he longed to bask in even as he tried to convince her, and himself, that her brand of living was not for him.

In that dark corner of the bar, she had been like a glowing curve of bioluminescence that begged for his touch. But no impulse he’d ever gone with had ever gone well in the end. So he pushed her away.

Besides, she was more into Kingsley, anyway. Victor didn’t miss the way Mella and his best friend had immediately clicked at the auction. She’d laughed at his jokes, looked up into his face with a smile radiating from her eyes. It wasn’t new to him, being looked over in favor of the more outgoing and better-looking Kingsley. But it still sparked something like pain in his chest.

After Fever, he went home to cook, accepting that she wasn’t into him, but he found his mind wandering to her. Her smile, the way she tried with a swipe of her hand to push the kinky curls from her face only to have them float back, tickling her nose into an amused wrinkle. It had been an interesting ballet to watch. All beauty and light. Nothing that belonged in his life. Only for someone like Kingsley.

Victor looked at his watch. It was nearly ten thirty. Michaela had been scheduled to meet him at ten. He wondered if she’d canceled the meeting without telling his secretary. No. Though he didn’t know her well at all, he figured that wasn’t something she would do. Not with this, a project she seemed to care very much about.

But the rain, a light but endless drizzle, made him regret his Italian-leather ankle boots and the pissing away of his morning. Victor glanced at his watch again, remembered that he had a pair of old Timberland boots tucked away in the back of his SUV. He reclined the seat and felt around on the floor of the large truck until his fingers bumped into the hard leather of his boots. He was tying the laces of the second boot when he saw a flash of light green, a Fiat convertible making its way up the long driveway through the rain.

The small car came up the circle drive and swerved neatly around him to park in front of his SUV. A sticker on the back of the ridiculously tiny car read My Other Car is a Motorcycle.

The car’s taillights flickered out, and the driver’s-side door opened. Purple rain boots splashed into the standing water. Black knee socks, bare legs, then a small denim skirt that clung to curvaceous hips. Mella was wearing a light green T-shirt that said “I didn’t claw my way up the food chain to eat vegetables.” A clear umbrella popped open before her head emerged fully from the car. Her hair was damp around her face, and she was smiling.

“Hi, Victor.” She waved the umbrella at him, then snapped it shut after gauging the intensity of the rain with one upraised palm, not bothering to apologize for being late. “Come on.”

After a moment’s pause, he left the safety of the truck, locking the Mercedes with a click of the remote. “It’s raining,” he said once he was at her side. She smelled like soft mint candy.

“I know. Isn’t it nice?” Mella unlocked the massive front door and wiped off her boots on the mat before stepping into the house. Despite the overgrown mess of the front yard and the large fountain that was crumbled and needed fixing, the inside of the house was immaculate. It smelled of fresh paint and furniture polish. The banister to the wooden staircases on both sides of the foyer gleamed from a recent cleaning. There was no furniture. “They did a great job fixing this place up,” she said. “You should have seen it a few months ago.” Her voice echoed in the empty space.

There was something about her, standing in the entryway of a deserted house, that he found dangerous. The whole look of her was inviting, the tilt of her head, the scent of rain and tangerine shampoo that sweetened the air around her, the clinging invitation of the short denim skirt. Victor wanted to move closer, so he stayed in the doorway. If he were Kingsley, he wouldn’t want a man who hadn’t had sex in over two years sniffing after the next woman to end up in his bed.

“We’re here to look at the grounds,” he said carefully, wanting very much to wrap his hands around her hips and test the feel of her. “But the rain makes it too difficult to see what needs to be done. We can come back another time when it’s dry.”

Mella looked at him with her big eyes from under her big hair, her head slightly tilted as she smiled. “We’re here. We might as well look at the grounds now. A wet lawn looks pretty much the same as a dry one.”

When he didn’t move, she shrugged and walked toward him, coming back out of the house. He stepped out of her way before she could reach him. “But you’re right about one thing, though. Why go through the house when the exterior is all you need to see?” Mella hooked her umbrella over one arm and looped the other through his. It was only his surprise and her boldness that allowed her to tug him around the wide wraparound porch, down a flight of marble stairs and out to the overgrown backyard.

The rain was light as a woman’s fingers on his head and cheeks, its touch cool but soothing after the heat of the morning. Despite his earlier complaints, Victor breathed in the smell of the rain and of the green grass under his feet with a minute shudder of pleasure. This was another part of his job he loved—wading into the disorder of nature and finding harmony in it.

The grounds were large, but he’d worked on larger. The grass was overgrown, the weeds bold enough to take over nearly every inch of free space, leaving room for occasional sprouts of wildflowers and dandelions. A small orchard of mango trees lined the back of the property while a high garden maze, at least seven feet high, that had lost nearly all of its rigid form, took up nearly half the space. He would have to fix that.

“It looks daunting,” she said. “What do you think?”

Watching her with the wind flinging her wet hair at her cheeks, her hands on her hips and the wet curve of her smiling mouth, Victor thought he just might be in trouble. Big trouble.

* * *

He surveyed the property, the back first and then the front, walking around the acre plus of overgrown land, dried grass, wild fruit trees and out of control weeds. Juggling his umbrella so his iPad wouldn’t get wet, he took notes and pictures, briefly sketching ideas of what he wanted to do. Mella sat on the steps as he worked, having finally opened her umbrella, eyes taking in the gloomy morning, the heavy clouds, while Victor walked through the untamed gardens.

While he worked, he felt her eyes on him, assessing. Her gaze made him vaguely uneasy, but there was something in him that enjoyed her attention, the focus of such a striking and unpredictable woman who couldn’t look away from him.

Unlike most people, she didn’t take out a cell phone, book or some electronic device to pass the time. She simply watched him and the rest of her world with her large and devouring stare.

When he was finished with the front and back of the house, he joined her on the stairs with his own open umbrella. Rain tapped the umbrella as he held it over both their heads. She folded hers closed and put it at her feet.

“What’s the verdict?” she asked.

“It’s a beautiful property,” he said. “It’ll be even more beautiful when I’m finished with it.”

He took out his notes and shared his ideas on the space. Trim up the English maze, install a fountain, transplant the fruit trees to another part of the yard, put in a paved walking path winding through the entire front and back of the mansion.

Victor kept his language as straightforward as possible, making sure the entire process was transparent. As he spoke, he noticed her frowning more than once, but she waited until he was finished to voice her concerns.

“I don’t like any of it,” she said.

Victor had to mentally repeat what she said to make sure he wasn’t misunderstanding her. Mella shook her head and reached over to tap the surface of his iPad, enlarging the image. Despite the layers of clothes between them, he felt her warmth, the way the muscles of her arm moved.

“The fruit trees should stay where they are. The kids would love to have their own mango trees in the backyard instead of going through the garden to get them.” Her breath brushed against his neck as she spoke, her attention completely focused on the notes he laid out on the tablet. “They’re for fun and food, not just to look good. And the English maze—” she actually put up air quotes with the closest thing to a sneer he’d ever seen on her face “—I want that to look more natural. Those mazes in English movies are boring. You can still leave it a maze, but nothing so rigid. Give the plants some room to breathe. Leave the flowers that are accidentally growing together. I don’t like rectangular plants, and I don’t think the kids will, either.”

The longer she spoke, the more he frowned until he swore his forehead had folded in on itself. Just who was the professional here? “You don’t like any of my suggestions?” He made it a question because he couldn’t believe it.

“Sorry, that’s not quite true.” She grinned at him as if she was about to pay him the biggest compliment. “I like that type of buffalo grass you suggested. It won’t need too much maintenance after it takes hold.”

“Listen...”

But she was already standing up and walking out into the rain with her umbrella. Her purple boots splashed in the puddles and squished in the grass. She stood with the closed umbrella, its curved handle draped over her arm. Mella stared out into the wide yard, her breath blowing out the drops of water falling in front of her mouth.

“This place is beautiful and natural and should feel like a home. The garden is overgrown, but that’s what makes it pretty, don’t you think?”

He didn’t tell her what he really thought.

“The grounds just need a little grooming, not a complete overhaul.” She turned to him, and Victor felt his breath catch. Damn, she was...

“Frustrating.”

She drew up to every inch of her five feet nothing. “What?”

“You can’t have it both wild and civilized, Ms. Davis. You have to choose. Having it both ways just doesn’t make sense, and it’s not possible. I’m telling you the best way to do this.”

“Well, I’m telling you it is possible. I’m trusting you to perform what’s apparently a miracle—” she lifted her eyebrows at him, mouth aggressively smiling, all teeth and little warmth “—and give Nala and the kids exactly what they want.”

“Right now, you’re the one saying what you want. Why, when your opinion, as you’ve just said, doesn’t matter in this equation?”

She was clenching her teeth so hard Victor thought they would crack. “You should assume what I’m telling you is exactly what Nala wants. Create something beautiful that won’t make the kids feel like they’re living in a showplace. It’s a home, not somewhere they’re made to feel like they don’t belong.”

Frustration bubbled up in his chest, but he tamped it down. “All right,” he said. “All right. Let’s start again, shall we?”

Her jaw relaxed, and her smile became more natural. The sight of it loosened a tightness he hadn’t known was in his chest. She grinned up at him, a small ray of sunshine glowing beneath the heavy gray skies.

“Oh, good.” Her smile widened.

He was so screwed.