He chuckled then said, “What’s your number?”

I thought about not giving it to him for all of two-and-a-half seconds, then decided, fuck it.

After giving it to him, he typed the entire number into his phone, then hit go.

I heard it ringing somewhere in my car.

Putting one knee into the seat, I cursed myself for my messiness. If the damn car was clean, and I hadn’t left a weeks’ worth of clothes in the passenger seat, I might very well have found it on my own.

I pulled it out with a muttered oath, then tossed it into my purse.

“Thanks,” I said as I backed out of the car. “That would’ve taken forever to find. It was somehow in between all of my shirts that I’ve been meaning to take to the laundromat.”

“No problem,” he muttered. “But you should probably take all those clothes to the cleaners or you’re not going to have anything to wear.”

I scoffed at him over my shoulder as I shouldered my bag, then locked my car.

“I’ll have plenty to wear,” I assured him. “This is only a small fraction of my closet. I’ve turned into a clothes whore since I’ve grown boobs.”

Banks stayed silent for a moment as he processed that new information.

“I…”

My phone rang before he could answer, and I halted in mid-step and scrambled to find my phone.

I answered just in time.

“Daddy?” I called.

“Hey, baby,” Dad said from the other end of the line. “Everything went okay. But they say I need surgery.”

I wilted. “Surgery? Why?”

“The nerves in my hand are being compressed by…” he droned on and on with medical jargon that I had no idea what it meant. But, by the time he was finished, I knew that he was having surgery next week and almost immediately after surgery he’d have use of his hands again.

“That’s good news,” I said in reply. “I hate that you have to have it, though.”

“Me, too,” he admitted. “Rehab on them is going to be a bitch. And I have the Valentine job coming up… it’s going to be a nightmare if I can’t work.”

I thought about it for a long moment.

“I can sign off on all the paperwork and checks. I can come before we open and after we close,” I paused. “You can have me for about four hours every day. That way if you have any problems arise I can do all the payroll and all that fun stuff, as well as anything else you need. I’m still a signer on your account.”

He grunted out a ‘yeah.’

“What is it?” I asked.

“I just didn’t want you to have to do that now that you’ve got your own business to run,” he admitted. “Having to come back to your old job is no fun.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Dad, it’s not a job. It’s a family business,” I told him. “And I have no problem with it at all. Your office is on the way to the coffee shop. It’s seriously no skin off my nose. And the Valentines live fairly close to us. If anything arises at the job site, I can handle it. You forget that I’m now working with Desi?”

He grumbled something under his breath that sounded like, “Yeah, that ain’t gonna happen.”

I giggled.

My dad had first told me about the Valentine house four or so months ago. Since then, both Ace and Callum Valentine had gotten married, and their plans for the house had changed at least six times now.

They kept adding on amendments left and right.

Needless to say, Dad was not happy.

But, as I told him, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and the Valentines would be great references to have seeing as they were such big parts of the town. Even if they didn’t want to be.

“Anyway, I know you’re out to dinner with your friends. I’ll let you go,” he said. “Love you.”

“Love you, too,” I said, then hung up the phone.

“Surgery?”

I jumped, momentarily stunned to see Banks still standing there with me in the middle of the parking lot.

“Uhh.” I paused, trying to shake some sense into myself. “Sorry. Yeah. Dad has some nerve issues with his hands. They’re going to be doing surgery next week to fix the problem. In the meantime, meet your new contractor.” I pointed to myself with my thumbs.

He grinned. “Nice. Much better looking than the last.”

I rolled my eyes and tried not to act like Banks Valentine’s grin wasn’t the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life.

“We’ll see,” I teased. “You haven’t seen me in my hard hat, though.”

Banks held open the door for me and stayed close to my backside, not touching but definitely not shying away, either.

“If I saw you in your hard hat,” he said. “I…”

He was interrupted in what he was going to say by the chatty hostess who smiled and beamed at him.

Tags: Lani Lynn Vale The Valentine Boys Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net