Finn (Blue-Collar Billionaires #2) (9 page)

“Night. Get home to that gorgeous baby.”

At the mention of her six-month-old son Caleb, her face lights up. “Yes ma’am. My mom has already put him to sleep but since I’m getting off a little early, it means I can take a nap before his middle of the night feeding.”

“Well, good. Give him a kiss for me.”

I watch as she skips out the door and to her car parked directly in front of the store. This late there’s no cars here except for ours and a dark sedan parked in the middle of the lot. I can’t see what type it is from this far away. I wonder if the owner of the store perhaps got a ride home and left his car here?

I put away the buffer and do my final walk through. Everything looks perfect. This is my favorite part of the day, when the work is done and I can look at what I’ve accomplished with pride. There are a lot of people who look down on janitorial staff but I have pride in what I do. I make things shine.
 

I punch in the special security code I was assigned to the panel and then lock the front doors behind me with my key. As I’m walking across the parking lot, the door to the sedan opens. A man steps out. My heart speeds up a bit and I start walking faster. Usually Carrie or whomever I’m working with is walking to their vehicles at the same time so I’ve never felt unsafe here.
 

“Marissa!”

I halt with my hand on the door handle of my car. As the man walks closer, I notice the slight limp right before his face comes into view.
 

“Finn? What are you doing here? You scared me!”

The parking lot is uneven and there are a lot of potholes. He’s walking slowly, stepping carefully, as he makes his way to where I am. Part of me wants to make it easier for him and just walk his way, close the distance. But the rest of me still remembers his heartless questioning this afternoon. He wants to hurt me by his own admission. So why do I still feel sympathy for him?
 

“I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to let you know that I got your message.”

“What message?”

He holds up the catalogue I’d brought back to his place that afternoon. After I’d left, I was so angry. Usually between morning and evening jobs, I go home and rest in between. But I was so stirred up after Finn's interrogation this morning that I drove back to the office to tackle the paperwork on my desk. There were a few invoices that needed to be paid and I was definitely behind on filing. With all that anger energy, I figured if nothing else I'd have a clean desk at the end of the day.
 

I'd ordered a pair of fur-lined handcuffs from this particular catalogue as a gag gift for a friend's bachelorette party. They still occasionally send me catalogues so when I saw it in my mail, I knew I had to use it. It was too good not to.

"I was just doing what you said you wanted. Being helpful. Wifely and all that."

Finn bursts into laughter and the rumbling sound startles me. It feels like it's been a very long time since I've heard him laugh. Light glints off the head of his cane. This one has a polished silver handle. Considering all that he's been through since he was discharged, I'm guessing it's been a while since he had anything to laugh about.
 

"A wife that sends me dildo catalogues. Damn, I've hit the jackpot."

Our eyes meet and then we both start laughing.
 

Finn moves a little closer and then leans against the side of my car next to me. "I want to apologize to you. My behavior earlier today was out of line."

I shrug but his words actually mean a lot. "I was lashing out too. We seem to bring that out in each other."

He leans closer. "It's called passion. We always had more than enough of that."

"We did. Everything between us was so good. Until it wasn't."
 

Going back and forth isn't getting us anywhere. And as more time passes, the more I wonder why he's insisting on this ridiculous working arrangement. If he wants to rub my face in his wealth, he's already done that. If he wants to show me that I made the wrong choice, that was already accomplished long before he showed up.
 

"I'm so tired of thinking about what an idiot I was. I've spent the last few years just trying to move on."

"I can't move past this without knowing whether it was even worth it. Why weren't you happy with him, angel?"

I don't talk about this. With anyone. But something in my face must change because he narrows his eyes. "Rissa?"

"So does that mean you liked the chair?"

His brow furrows then he looks down at the catalogue again. "I don't know. I can see how it would come in handy."

Probably with whatever size zero supermodel would fit into the tiny thong I'd rescued from his couch. "I'm sure your many girlfriends will love it."

"There are no girlfriends, Rissa. There haven't been for a long time. Although I'm sure there's a woman somewhere who won't mind looking at this mangled leg, I haven't found her yet."

I will not feel sorry for him. I will not feel sorry for him.
 

"The women you date sound like bitches. You got hurt protecting the rest of us. So every scar you have just reminds me that I should be grateful just to be here."

His eyes seem to burn in his face as he stares at me. “Maybe I have found the right woman."

I ignore that, knowing he’s just trying to rile me up. “So, did that underwear and all those condom wrappers just materialize out of thin air? Or have they just been there a long time?" I make a face at the thought. "You really
did
need cleaning services then, huh?"

Finn doesn't even bother to disguise his laughter. He turns to me, his smile warm. "I was being an asshole. Trying to mess with you. Those underwear probably still had the tags on from when I bought them."

"I think you also accidentally bought them in the children's section. The cashier probably thought you were a perv."

He looks horrified. "They have underwear like that for kids?"

"Disturbingly, yes they do."

He shakes his head. Then stands back. "Anyway, I wanted to come by and apologize. And make sure you got to your car safely. You know I've never liked you walking places alone."

I unlock the car and throw my bags on the seat. "I know. But you can't show up everywhere just to make sure I'm safe."

He looks amused. "Can't I?"

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“Anna, I need you to go to the Greenberg’s this morning. And Tracy, you’ll have to come with me to Mercers tonight, okay?”

I stand in my office staring at my list of employees hoping that I'm just missing something. I woke up to a voicemail from Carrie that her son was sick so I'd come in a little early to see what I could do. One of my best girls is already on vacation this week and looking at this list, there's no way around it. Without Carrie, we are supremely screwed today.

"So, Julie is going to handle the Fulton job by herself then?" Tracy asks.

I look at the schedule again and then rub my face with my free hand. "No, you're right. That's a two-person job. You stay with Julie. I'll handle Mercers alone today."

Tracy and Anna exchange glances but they both nod.
 

“Carrie’s okay, right?” Anna chews on her bottom lip, looking worried. She’s not much older than Carrie and I know the two have become friends.

“Caleb is sick again. She left a message this morning that she wasn’t coming in. I’m going to call her back this afternoon to check on her.”

Anna and Tracy file out the door so Tara can squeeze in to my minuscule office.

“When it rains, huh?” Tara runs her hands over her face. “Someone always gets sick unexpectedly when someone else is already on vacation. It’s like an unwritten rule.”

“Yeah I know. But we could always handle it before because we didn’t have this many clients.”
 

Ever since the night when Finn apologized in the parking lot of Mercer's, we've had an unspoken truce between us. For the past week things have been completely civil. There have been no more condom wrappers or random women's underwear in the couch cushions and he's stopped snapping at me like I'm a dog.
 

We've just … talked. A lot.
 

And I've felt a sense of calm for the first time since he’d hired us. Like things were on the right track and I finally had everything under control. Things were going great with the business and Finn and I were actually getting along okay. I should have known that peace wasn’t going to last long.
 

Thoughts of Finn bring my mind to the time. I glance at the digital display on the lower right hand side of my computer. “Oh no! I’m late.”

Tara moves back as I race around the desk and grab my bag sitting on the chair in front of the desk.

“I’m sure he’ll understand. This was an extraordinary circumstance.”

“Maybe but I can't take that chance. It’s in the contract. And I don’t want to give him any reason to screw around with us. We need this too much.”

As I’m jogging down the hall, I hear Tara call out “Don’t let him give you a hard time!"

Things have been better with Finn but I still remember vividly how much he enjoyed taunting me about Andrew. He'd had me on the verge of tears that day but then he did the incredibly sweet thing of sitting in his car for an hour just so I didn’t have to walk alone to my car at night. It was the kind of thing he would have done when we were teenagers.

Part of me thinks he's just trying to screw with my head by being evil one minute and nice the next. But when we talk, he seems so sincere. He was a sweet boy but he's become an incredible man. As if I need any other reason to regret the stupid decisions of my youth. The more time I spend with him, the more I realize that what I gave up with him would have likely been the best thing in my life.
 

By the time I get to Finn's building, it's a quarter past eight. I race through the lobby, waving over my shoulder to John, the morning concierge.
 
The elevator seems to take forever and by the time I burst through the front door, my breath is coming fast and hard.
 

Finn is sitting at the counter in the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal. He looks up when I burst through the door.

"I'm sorry. One of the girls had an emergency. Her baby is sick. I had to rearrange some things."

He doesn't reply just spoons up another bite of cereal.

I wilt a little at that. He doesn't look particularly sympathetic. This is what he does. He appears calm and collected and then he lets loose one of his cutting remarks that can slice you open just as surely as a blade. When he's only messing with me, it's one thing. My ego can take it. But this is about the company's future. All those women who won't have jobs if he decides not to pay us.
 

"You aren't going to void the contract, are you?"

The spoon lowers and he frowns at me. Now he really looks pissed. "
Christ
, Rissa. I’m not heartless. Your employee, is her baby going to be okay?"

Now that I know he's not angry, I relax a little.
 

“Yeah, he just has a cold, I think. But it means I'm in for a really long day. Carrie normally helps me at my evening client and there's no one I can pull in to help out. The other girls already have as much as they can handle.”
 

My heart is still racing from running down the hallway so I rest my arms on the counter. Then I rummage through my bag for my phone. Once I find it, I pull up the last employee schedule Tara emailed me. There's got to be someone that I can move around to make things a little easier.
 

“I’ll help you.”

Now that gets my attention. I put my phone down on the counter and peer at Finn skeptically. “You're going to help? Cleaning?”

He looks amused. “Sure. You used to help me with my chores at home, remember? I figure I owe you one.”

"This is slightly more complicated than mopping a kitchen floor, Finn. We're going to be covering a large area. Are you sure you want to volunteer? Because if you are, I'm not going to say no. I'm that desperate." I walk to the couch and set my bags down on the floor.
 

"If it'll help you out, then yes, I'm serious." His eyes fix on mine and I shiver beneath his gaze.

"Yeah, it'll help me out a lot."

"Then it's done. Just let me know what I need to do."

My phone rings. "Can you check who that is? It might be Tara."

He picks it up and his smile vanishes. When he hands it to me, I see the name Andrew. I quickly hit the button to silence the call.
 

When I look up, Finn is watching me.
 

This is definitely not something I want to talk about, no matter how much better things have gotten between us lately. I clear my throat. "I'll be back to pick you up around nine then. Usually it takes a few hours to clean the whole store and then I'm out of there by midnight."

He stands. "First, I'll pick you up. My driver will take us over and pick us up at the end of the night. You're already exhausted and I don't want you driving when you're this tired. Second, I want you to relax with me this morning. This place is still perfect from yesterday's cleaning. So sit down and take a load off. We'll watch something on television."

What he's offering is so tempting but a shade too close to charity. He started out wanting to rub my nose in his wealth and now that we've cleared the air he's probably feeling guilty. But I don't take a paycheck for nothing.
 

"I'm fine, Finn. Really. I don't need to be chauffeured around and I'm not that tired."

"You are. And you already know that I'm a complete ass when I don't get my way. So sit."

He's not going to give up on this, I can tell. So I drop down on the couch and then glare at him. "You're the boss."

He grumbles under his breath. "If that was true, we wouldn't be wasting time watching TV."

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