Worth Waiting For (2 page)

He tended to like his women with more meat on their bones, but something about her captured and held his attention. Maybe it was those dark brown eyes of
hers,
set in a vibrant face the color of an unshelled walnut. A man could lose himself in those eyes.
He’d
noticed them the minute he stepped through the door, framed by thick lashes that looked like they’d been brushed with charcoal, right under perfectly arched brows.
Or
maybe it was her immaculate coiffed hair, black except for the auburn highlights illuminated by the overhead light and pulled back from her heart-shaped face in a tight, neat style.

He studied her clothing. Her plain-looking shirt, buttoned to the collar,
was tucked
into the waistband of a pair of jeans painted on her small body. From his vantage point behind her, he had a good view of surprisingly shapely hips and thighs on such a slim woman.

He smiled to himself. She was definitely easy on the eyes.

****

“This is the space,” Julia said.

They walked through the unfinished area, and she pointed out where she wanted to have the various rooms. Her vision included the creation of an office suite and kitchenette. One of the rooms could become a movie room with a large screen and surround sound, perfect for when her nieces and nephews spent the night or weekend.

Using a laser tool, Freddie took measurements and wrote everything down on a notepad. Periodically, he asked questions to be sure he understood her needs.

“What kind of work do you do?” he asked at one point.

“I’m a venture capitalist.”

He glanced over his shoulder at her with a quizzical expression. “I’ve heard of that, but what exactly do you guys do? You invest in businesses, right?”

“Yes, but not just any businesses,” Julia replied. “We invest in businesses with a potential to make a lot of money in a short amount of time.
My
firm concentrates on technology companies. Investors are taking a huge risk, and they expect a huge reward in return.”

Freddie nodded as he scribbled on his pad. His movements caused the muscles in his arms to bunch as he wrote, and Julia
was overtaken
by the insane impulse to smooth the tips of her fingers along the flexed tissue to see if it was as firm to the touch as it appeared. She wished now she
hadn’t
worn the long-sleeved shirt. She felt rather warm.

When he finished, they migrated back over to the staircase.

“Well?” Julia asked. “How long do you think this will take?”

“I should have the entire basement done for you in about six weeks.” He looked down at his notepad and wrote something, then looked up at her again. “When would you like to get started?”

His arresting dark gaze sent a tingle down the length of her spine. Goodness, she needed to get out more.

“I’d like to get started in about two weeks.”

Freddie nodded. “No problem.
I’ll
work up an estimate and email the entire package with sketches on Monday. You can put your email address right here.”

He moved closer, and Julia took the notepad. His scent—the scent of a man who had worked all day—crowded out her ability to think. Focusing proved difficult, and she almost forgot her email address.

“There,” she said, giving him the notepad once her memory returned. It was time to get him out of the house.

He looked at what she wrote. “Great. That’s all I need for now.”

Julia led him back up the stairs to the first floor.

At the door, he turned to her. “I’ll be in touch next week, Ms. Newman,” he promised, offering her another one of his warm smiles.

“Please, call me Julia.” Calling her by her last name seemed
way too
formal, and since he would be in and out of her home for at least six weeks, they could be on friendlier terms.

“All right…Julia.” It was the first time
she’d
notice any semblance of an accent. He made the “i” in her name sound more like an “ee” sound. In fact, her entire name sounded like music when he said it. It was different. She liked it.
Too much.

Julia
didn’t
respond, choosing instead to close the door swiftly behind him once he stepped back out into the rain-filled night. She stood there for a moment with her hand on the doorknob after he left, trying to understand why her pulse was racing.

****

Freddie bobbed his head to the sound of the reggaeton CD blaring through the speakers of his charcoal gray pickup. For some reason his thoughts continued to drift back to Julia Newman.

She was attractive but not in an overt way. She
wasn’t
the kind of woman who would turn heads in a crowd, but she couldn’t be overlooked, either. Despite the hard as nails exterior, he
couldn’t
help feeling as if she needed protecting. It was odd, but that was his first impression of her.

Then his hormones took over. She may not be his type, but that
didn’t
prevent his imagination from running rampant with thoughts he shouldn’t have about a future client. He
didn’t
doubt her attraction to him, too. He caught her staring in the foyer.

Successful, independent women like Julia Newman often had a thing for men like him, which was the problem. It was only “a thing.”
That’s
why he didn’t date her type anymore. They liked the thrill of dating a
blue collar
man but when it came time for the friends and family introductions, they couldn’t go through with it.

He
wouldn’t
be going down that road again. He had
more important things to worry about, like expanding his business
.

Freddie cranked up the music even louder to drown out his thoughts.

CHAPTER TWO

 
The following morning Julia took advantage of the opportunity to sleep in. She
didn’t
get up until seven o’clock—a full two hours later than her weekday schedule—and entered the gym on the first floor. Almost one hour into her workout, she heard the front door open.

 
“Dad, is that you?”

 
“Yes, it’s me, Sugar Plum,” her father called back. “I brought some breakfast, if you’re hungry.”

 
Julia grimaced, her legs moving swiftly on the treadmill incline. It would be something she
didn’t
want to eat, but to avoid hurting her father’s feelings, she would nibble at the hash browns or whatever he’d picked up at a fast food restaurant along the way. He was looking out for her welfare, and it was hard getting him to understand she had given up fried foods.

After her morning routine, Julia joined her father in the large, sunny kitchen. It was her favorite part of
the house and where she spent a lot of time
. A bay window took up most of one wall, and she loved how plenty of sunlight entered through the two large windows over the sink. A breakfast table that seated three sat in front of the bay window.

Before moving in,
she’d
had the old cabinets replaced with white ones with nickel-colored knobs and placed small blue and green glass tiles on the backsplash to add a punch of color.

Her father sat at the island on one of the four stools with his glasses perched on his nose. The pen in his hand hovered over the newspaper. As she suspected, he had stopped at a fast food restaurant. She saw an Egg McMuffin on the counter next to him.

“Hi, Dad.”
She dropped a kiss on his weathered left cheek.

Randolph Newman had moved from New Jersey to live with Julia a few weeks before she closed on her new house. She and her siblings had been worried about him for some time, ever since their mother passed away several years ago. They had finally convinced him to move to Atlanta after a health scare had him calling them from the hospital.

Fortunately, the transition
hadn’t
been difficult for him. He had a few friends who lived in the area, and Julia had plenty of room in her
four bedroom
house to accommodate him. As the only one of her siblings who
wasn’t
married, she became the default choice for housing their father.

“Morning,” he mumbled, engrossed in the paper. She wondered why he even bothered to wear his glasses since he always looked over them instead of through them.

“What do you have there?
The classifieds?”
Julia reached for the canister of coffee. If only someone would invent a way to administer it intravenously, she
wouldn’t
have to bother with this morning ritual.

“Mhmm.
I’m trying to see if I can find an apartment.”

Julia’s hand halted mid-scoop. “Find an apartment?” She stared at her father’s bent head. His short afro
was peppered
with gray hairs.
“What for?”

“To move into, of course.”
He looked up at her, frowning as if she overlooked the obvious.

“But why would you need an apartment? You live here with me.”

“I know.
But
I can’t live here forever.
You’re
a young woman. You need your privacy.” He lowered his head again and then circled one of the ads.

Julia grew silent. She dropped in the grounds, added water, and then turned on the coffee maker.

She’d
had no idea her father intended to move out. “I don’t know why you would want to leave.
There’s
plenty of space for the two of us. You practically have the second floor to yourself.”

Randolph set the paper aside and took a bite of his sandwich. He chewed slowly and swallowed, watching Julia, who leaned against the edge of the counter.

“You’re thirty-five and unmarried. Do you think having your father living with you will increase your chances of getting a husband? I don’t think so.”

Julia sighed heavily.
Not this conversation again.
“I can’t believe you’re moving out because you think it’s going to prevent me from getting a husband. I told you already,
I’m
busy with work, and I don’t need a husband.
I
can take care of myself. This
isn’t
the 1940’s. Women
don’t
have to get married to have a secure financial future. We get that for ourselves nowadays.”

“You’re busy with work because you don’t have a husband,” Randolph said. “Once you get a man in your life, it’ll change your whole perspective.”

“Why don’t you let me worry about that?”

“You’re obviously not worried about it. Someone needs to, or you’ll end up an old maid.”

Randolph took another bite of his sandwich, oblivious to the shaft of pain slicing through Julia at his carelessly spoken words. Being thirty-five and single in a family of five children
wasn’t
easy—not when everyone else had a spouse and kids.

She turned her back on her father, finding relief in the comforting aroma of the percolating coffee. “Marriage isn’t for everyone,” she said in a flat tone.

“Is that your way of telling me it’s not for you?” her father asked. “Because that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, and you’re a bright girl.”

Her father’s brutal honesty was legendary among the Newman family members. Without his wife around to tame his tongue, his frankness was downright lethal. Julia knew better than to be offended. He spoke his mind,
like
he always did.