I unlocked my door and opened it. “I’m sorry, Catherine. I truly am, but I gave him my word.”
“You are a gold-digging fool! I knew I should’ve never trusted you. I raised you! You know what? Go to hell, Stella, just like your mother.”
I knew that last dig was due to her being upset, but it still stung.
After I climbed out of the car and closed the door, Catherine peeled her tires in her ruse to leave.
I stood outside, taking a few deep breaths, shaking off the words that the upset woman delivered about my character and about my mother. I wouldn’t take that energy into my home.
Nothing she said held any truth.
I knew myself.
I wasn’t a gold digger.
I wasn’t a monster.
And my mother wasn’t in hell.
If anything, Heaven had a special section carved out for Mama and her heartbeats. I hoped so deeply that Kevin was right beside her, too.
When I crawled back into bed next to a snoring Jeff, my phone dinged.
Damian: Meet tomorrow at Roe Real Estate office. My lawyer will be present to go over the final details.
It appeared that Catherine wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been sleeping lately.
6
Damian
* * *
My driver pulled up to Kevin’s home on Thursday afternoon. I spoke with Stella, who told me she was moving her things in on Wednesday. Since I didn’t want to cross paths with her move, I waited a day to get my things inside the home. More than a home, it was a mansion. The kinds of homes I sold on the daily to wealthy people who made absurd amounts of money. The kinds of homes I’d mocked my whole life, saying no one needed that much space to live in.
Over twenty thousand square feet of land, right on the coast with a beautiful white sandy beach. There was a massive outdoor swimming pool, a basketball court, a tennis court, and even a sauna house. Also, there was a guesthouse where Kevin’s former housekeeper, Maple Woods, lived in.
If sixteen-year-old Damian would’ve pulled up to the house, he would’ve believed he was in an alternate universe. Grown-up Damian still felt the same way.
It slightly pissed me off, seeing how much some people had when so many others suffered. Life was such bullshit sometimes, and it wasn’t fair how it all worked out. I didn’t deserve to live in a place like that house, and I damn sure knew it was fucked up that a man I never knew was forcing it to be my temporary home.
I wasn’t a stranger to temporary homes. Truthfully, they were all I’d ever known.
Before I entered the house, I shot Stella a message that I’d arrived. I felt it was only right to give her a heads-up that I was in the house. I’d be creeped out knowing a stranger was just walking around the place I was supposed to live.
She texted back right away. With emojis. Almost every single message she sent me had an emoji attached to it. That pretty much summed up the type of person she was. You could tell a lot about a person based on their usage of emojis. For Stella, it seemed as if she was trying too hard with the number of smiley faces she sent after every sentence. I was more of a solid period kind of texter. I used short words and got straight to the point, unlike Stella, who wrote paragraph after paragraph as if she was crafting the next great American novel.
I told her I was heading over. She told me okay, along with what she was unpacking, what she was ordering for dinner—asking if I wanted anything—and then she told me how many rings were around Saturn. Okay, maybe not the latter, but it seemed like it.
I began unloading some boxes from the car. The rest of my crap would be coming in after the wedding, so I only had a few things to take in.
My driver helped with the boxes, then headed out for the night.
I knew Stella was somewhere in the house because her car was parked outside, but it took hours for us to even cross paths. When we did, it was as I sat at the dining room table eating my dinner. Stella’s meal arrived at the front door, and she went to retrieve it. When she came back toward the kitchen, there was no way for her not to cross my path.
She looked at me and paused, seemingly shocked as she took a step back.
This was it. The perfect opportunity to invite her to join me for a meal, so I would seem less like a dick and she’d be more likely to finish the six months of the deal.
Go ahead, Damian. Offer her an invite.
“You just gonna gawk or sit?” I spat out.