Interesting. But I’m not keen to play Sherlock tonight, so instead I show her Lila’s text. “You’re wanted, it seems.”

She beams. “I wonder what it could be. Do you have any idea?”

I shake my head. “No clue. But we’ll find out tomorrow. Think we can fit this in?”

“The next job doesn’t start for a while. Let’s get the details, but I think we can do it.”

“Pretty sure you deserve a raise,” I say.

She beams. “I’m really glad I’ve been able to help you, Wyatt.”

“Me, too,” I say, because even though she’s a stone-cold fox, even though she’s gorgeous in more ways than I can count, and even though if she weren’t my assistant, I’d be a persistent motherfucker to get her to go home with me, she’s also fucking amazing at what she does.

She sets down her napkin, looks at her watch, and shoots me a sad smile. “I should go. I have a class tonight. Only time I could get at the dojo this week.”

“Totally understand,” I say, and when she takes off, I half wonder if she’s really going to class, or if some guy was texting her when she was checking out her phone. Maybe hanging out with me was torture? Nah. I’m a barrel of monkeys. Besides, I remind myself, it’s not my place to know about her life beyond work.

That’s exactly why I don’t think of her when I head to my apartment later. Or when I take a shower. Or when I crash into bed, and thumb through an article of interesting facts about animals, including that dolphins never enter deep sleep. Their brains are too active.

That’s one of the nice things about being me. I can turn off my brain.

Women are complicated, but the situation with Natalie is simple. I keep my hands to myself.

And I swear it’s not made more complicated the next morning when Lila presents us with her plan.

3

Lila Mayweather serves us coffee in delicate china cups with a rose pattern around the edge. For the record, I’m not a delicate cup kind of guy. But when in Rome . . .

Seated in a high-backed chair in her dining room, Lila wears a tennis skirt, and her brown hair swings high in a well-groomed ponytail. Everything about her is impeccable, down to the fact that she offers us cream in one of those specialty thingamajigs with the spout and then holds up pewter tongs for sugar cubes.

“I’m all good,” I say. I can’t remember the last time I drank coffee from anything but a paper cup or a mug with a broken handle.

But Lila’s home oozes class, and her remodel is one of the fanciest I’ve ever done. I have a feeling it’s going to open a lot more doors for the business. She and Natalie had hit it off from the start, and right now they’re discussing Natalie’s martial arts skills.

Lila drops a hand on Natalie’s arm, bare in her short-sleeved white blouse. “I’d love to take one of your classes sometime. I love to try new workouts.”

“I promise I will make you sweat,” Natalie says playfully, as she crosses her legs.

You can make me sweat.

What the fuck? The horny aliens are back, taking over my brain again.

“I’ve been wanting to learn self-defense. How long have you been teaching karate?”

Natalie is a high school karate champion. Yeah, like that’s not a major turn-on. Not the high school part—the karate. But if I let myself linger on the fact that she knows how to fight, the flag will be flying at full mast all day long.

Instead, I think about sugar cubes. And rose petals on cups. And matching china. Because I’m not Floyd.

They chat for a few more minutes and I drain the coffee, because prissy cup or not, I’m a coffee whore, and I can pound that delicious substance morning, noon, or night. Lila sets down her mug, folds her hands in her lap, and says, “The reason I asked you both to be here today is I have an exciting new project. Craig is investing in some property, a beautiful new building, and I have carte blanche to redo the penthouse any way I see fit.” Glee seems to radiate off the woman, as she shares more. “Naturally I thought of WH Carpentry & Construction first, and I’d love to see if you’d consider doing the kitchen remodel. I’m simply in love with what you’ve done here, and I can’t imagine letting anyone else put his hands on my appliances.”

I can’t even try to contain my grin, not just because of the unexpected innuendo, but because the work could help fund the new hires. And the smile just stretches across my face because this would be the definition of a no-brainer. I’m not really sure why she wanted to set up coffee to ask me to do more work. Of course, I’m interested. I like work. I like building. I like happy clients.

“It sounds fantastic,” I say.

“Where is this lovely apartment?” Natalie asks.

“It’s on the twenty-second floor. It’s absolutely gorgeous, and it has a stunning view.”

“Sounds amazing. What do you have in mind for a start date?”

“I thought first I could show it to you, so you know what you’re working with,” Lila suggests.

I nod. “Definitely. Want to check it out now?”

She laughs lightly and shakes her head. “Oh no, I’m sorry, I didn’t make that clear. You’ll need to take my private jet to get there.”

I swallow dryly and look at Natalie. She blinks at me. Unspoken words pass between us. I’m pretty sure they are all of the holy shit variety.

You don’t have to say private jet more than once for me to say when do we take off? So I do. I shrug happily. “When do we go wheels up?”