“Oh, I get it,” he said tightly. “Graham is supposed to be a replacement for the son I lost.”
“You’ve certainly made overtures to get close to him.”
His fury was as palpable as the heat. It shimmied through his body and into hers. He gave her a crude once-over, stopping at her breasts and at the tops of her thighs, before lifting his gaze back to her face. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, Jade. Whether or not you had Graham, I’d still want to fuck you.”
He turned and strode toward his parked pickup. Jade, now angry in her own right, charged after him. She caught up as he was climbing into the driver’s seat. “If you persist in saying things like that to me, I’ll have no choice except to dismiss you.”
“Go ahead,” he said with a belligerent jerk of his chin.
He was probably only calling her bluff to scare her, but it worked. The thought of his walking off the project now was sobering. Where would she find a contractor as good? What excuse would she give George Stein, who had nothing but glowing things to say about Dillon?
She tried another tack. “I’m still convinced that you’re the best man for this job, Dillon.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t you see that it wouldn’t be smart for us to become lovers even if… if I could.”
“I never claimed it was smart.”
“It would permanently alter our good working relationship. Neither of us wants that, do we?”
“No.”
“TexTile is too important to both of us. We can’t let personal conflicts interfere with our work.”
“If you say so.”
“Then, you see my point?”
“I see your point.”
“And I have your word that you won’t pursue this any further?”
“No way.”
Until then, he had avoided looking directly at her. When he fixed his eyes on her, she felt their impact like a soft blow to the abdomen. Then he slid on his opaque sunglasses, and she couldn’t see his eyes at all.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Son of a bitch.” Graham kicked the flat tire of his bicycle. “Damnshitfuckscrew.”
He luxuriated in saying all the words he heard from the construction workers—sometimes even from Dillon when Dillon didn’t know he was around. If his mother caught him talking like that, she would ground him for a week at least. However, there was no one around now to hear him, so he let fly with another round of vulgarities.
He had finally won his mother’s consent to ride his bike to and from the site, if he called her before leaving and didn’t make any unscheduled stops along the way. He had made the trip only a few times when a spell of bad weather had set in. It had rained for a week. By the time the weather cleared, he had come down with a stomach virus that had him vomiting for one whole day, then lying listlessly in bed the next.
For several days following his illness, his mother had curtailed any vigorous activity. “If that was the summer flu, you could have a relapse.”
“But, Mom, I feel great now.”
There’d been no swaying her. So, this was the first day in almost two weeks that he’d been granted permission to visit the construction site, and now his tire had gone flat.
Graham looked down at it balefully. If he rode on it, he’d ruin it. He should roll his bike back home, but that would nix getting to visit the site today. If he rolled it to the site, he wouldn’t make it by the expected time, and his mother would have a cow.
Any way he looked at it, he was screwed.
A car sped past him, sending up a cloud of dust. Despite the recent rains, the following days had been so hot that the ground was dry again. Graham waved the dust out of his face, then shot the driver the finger.
Immediately, the brake lights of the car flashed on. “Oh, hell,” Graham whispered fearfully. To his further mortification, the car began backing up. “Oh, shit.” He licked the dust off his dry lips and wiped his perspiring palms on the seat of his shorts.