Chained (Roman Holiday 1)

The contractor reached into his back pocket and unearthed two wrinkled, dog-eared twenties and a ten from his wallet. “You won on a technicality.”

“How do you figure? You said she’d give up by morning. I said you were wrong. I was right. I get the fifty.”

Noah handed the money over, and Roman placed it in his wallet, using a receipt to segregate the bills from the rest of the notes. He didn’t like things messy. Disorder had a way of inviting chaos, and he avoided chaos at all costs.

“Yeah, but I didn’t know she was going to be alone out here,” Noah explained. “I thought some friend or relative would lure her off the property, get her to eat some dinner and watch TV. I don’t like the idea she was here by herself all night, chained up. Think what could’ve happened to her.”

The possibility that some harm might have come to the half-dressed, freckle-faced Marcia Brady look-alike chained to Roman’s palm tree obviously distressed Noah.

Everything distressed Noah.

But then, that was one reason Roman kept him around. His PA, too—both of them wore their feelings on their faces, and both of them told Roman exactly what was supposed to distress him.

Handy, that, when you rarely got distressed by anything.

“I sent someone to keep an eye on her,” Roman said.

“What, last night?”

“Yes.”

Close enough to the truth. He’d sent himself.

Noah’s forehead became a map of wrinkles. “You knew she was out here all night alone, and you just let her sit?”

“That was her decision, not mine.”

“But you made sure she was safe.”

He’d parked a quarter mile away and walked up from the dock side of the property, hugging the shadows, making sure his footfalls didn’t signal his approach.

He needn’t have bothered with stealth. The woman had been singing show tunes to the night sky. Safe, whole, completely incapable of carrying a tune—and acquainted, it would seem, with virtually all the lyrics to the musical Rent.

Roman recognized the songs. He’d seen the musical with his sister, Samantha, in Milwaukee once. A million years ago.

“Of course.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

“I was worried about her, too.”

Rather improbably, Noah seemed to believe this. His forehead eased. “I didn’t know you ever worried about anything.”

Roman smiled, because that was what people did. Bared their teeth at one another. “Worry might be too strong a word.”

In fact, he’d visited the site last night because if Ashley Bowman came to any harm, it would be the end of the project. The stink of negative press was nearly impossible to wash off, and Heberto would back out of the Little Torch development if it turned ugly in this first phase.

Without Heberto, there would be no Coral Cay Resort. Forget Phase II and Phase III. Forget the partnership offer Heberto had been dangling over his head for years. And, most likely, forget about marrying Heberto’s daughter, Carmen, too.

The stakes were way too high for Roman to let one rogue woman ruin everything.

Noah rubbed his hands together. “So I figure we can get started on the units that are farthest from her without putting her in any danger. Maybe knock out number eight, then work back toward her side of the pool after she gives up?”

“No. we’re not doing any demo until we get rid of her. Have someone find her a sun umbrella. Stay here with her, but don’t talk to her. She can have water every hour—every half hour from twelve to four, if it gets as hot as it’s supposed to, and if it doesn’t rain. No food.”

“You want me to babysit her?”

“Do you have a problem with that?”