Adonis
“Is that what you’re really called?”
Gemma Hart’s accented voice shook Adonis Andreis from his thoughts. His grip loosened. He watched the rubber, wood, and hardened steel just miss his steel-reinforced toes. The hammer he’d been holding plunked loudly to the floor. The dent the steel head made in the floor was not insignificant. He closed his eyes in defeat.
Using his now empty hand to massage away the pain that was surely going to gather in his head, he added the depression in the wood to his mental punch list of things he’d have to fix before this job was done. That day couldn’t come soon enough.
Before he could get down from the middle rung of his ladder, Gemma reached down, picked up the tool, and handed it to him. The face that looked up to him was all wide eyes and innocence. It was the kind of face that could win awards. It was the face that had won two Academy Awards. He’d watched her carefully move the gold statuettes before he’d demolished the sagging particleboard shelving in her den.
Adonis closed his own eyes again, blocking out the clear blue eyes staring up at him guilelessly. Blocking out the slim ankles, one adorned with the little bandage tattoo that had intrigued him from day one. Swatting from his mind the fine silk of her russet hair, the same color as fall leaves in Chicago’s autumn.
Employers were off-limits.
Gemma Hart was not only off-limits, but from another planet altogether, and their two species were not meant to interact. Didn’t mean he hadn’t noticed that she was attractive; cute really, in a spritely leprechaun sort of way. Scratch that, a sexy leprechaun sort of way. But strictly, one hundred percent off limits.
Settling the hammer into a leather loop on his tool belt, he opened his eyes and turned to look at his employer more closely, then regretted it. Leprechaun was not exactly the right comparison. Sexy red-haired siren would have been far more accurate. And more dangerous. He’d never been able to turn down a damsel in need. It had always been his downfall.
“Can I help you?” he asked, looking the curvy redheaded woman up and down to assess the nature of her question, not to satisfy any curiosity about how she looked in a never-before-seen short skirt and tight-fitting tank top.
“Is Adonis your real name?” she asked, jogging his short-term memory.
Right, she’d interrupted him while he was framing out a termite-ridden wall that needed replacing to ask him, not about timelines, or materials, or cost, but to ask about his name. Because that wasn’t the first time he’d heard the question. Carefully, he swallowed his sarcastic response, remembering he was finishing out this job as a favor to his dad.
“Yeah, sure. Greek dad,” he said by way of explanation. “You met him. Proud man with definite ideas on how the way things should be.” He slipped his right hand down to his side, ready to lift the hammer from the leather loop, when she spoke again.
“Is it a hard name to live with?” Her “hard” was posh British accent all the way. Worlds away from his flat Chicago-style A’s.
“No harder than any other, I expect,” he said. He pulled his gaze from her and turned back toward the exterior wall. “You never noticed this was like cottage cheese?” he asked as he pointed to what used to be two-by-four wall studs. Once he’d removed the plaster, Adonis had wondered what had held up the wall for the last handful of years. The wood, thanks to western subterranean termites, looked like a slice of Swiss cheese, but with a lot more holes.
Gemma looked from him to the wall and back, but didn’t answer. For an awkward minute or two, they stood in uncomfortable silence. Then she backed away, eventually turning around and scurrying to wherever she holed up during the day.
This was the most contact they’d had in the three months he’d worked at her house, and there hadn’t been one time it was anything less than awkward.
Gemma Hart had to be the weirdest person he’d ever worked for, and in Southern California, where hippies and actors outnumbered the wildlife, that was saying a lot.
Lifting his hammer, he went back to work. If this wall was the last huge change order, he could get this job done in eight, maybe ten weeks tops. He’d finish framing this back wall today. Tomorrow, he’d scheduled the electrician to rough out outlets for this area and the kitchen. While they were doing that, he could take care of the plumbing himself.
Punching in a final nail, he looked at the plans tacked to an adjoining wall. He had to admit, his dad had done a great job on this one.
His father, Dominic Andreis, had originally taken on the task of renovating Gemma Hart’s first floor. But a DVT diagnosis and the prescription of rest had Adonis subbing in to finish the job. If it had been up to him, he’d never taken this job in the first place. The last few times he’d worked for folks in the entertainment industry, it had been a debacle.
Each time, he vowed it would be the last. Then the next one would offer him the equivalent of the gross domestic product of a small country, and he’d been sucked in. Then disaster would ensue. They’d change their mind a thousand times, call him at all times of day and night, but expect the job to be done quickly and perfectly. He delivered then said to himself never again. Too bad he didn’t stick to his promises.
When someone’s net worth was greater than that of a country like Zimbabwe, he’d discovered that same person had expectations of being treated like royalty. He loved the work, but hated the clients.
Except this one. Gemma Hart never said a damned thing, didn’t make a single demand, and when she wasn’t hiding, was otherwise very, very weird.
Like now.
Between strikes of the hammer on nails, he heard her come back into the room. Her Irish setter, Granger, was trailing behind her, tracking dust along the floors.
This time he was prepared, and turned around careful to keep his boots firmly on the ladder and the tool in his hand.
“Your dad doing okay?” she asked after a very long pause.
After months on this job, he couldn’t hold back from asking the question that had been bothering him, instead of answering hers.
“Do you have a business manager or assistant?”
“Has my management not been paying on time?” she asked, her voice raising an octave with anxiety.
“No, it’s not that. Look, most celebrity clients I‘ve worked with have never been around when I’m on the job. I haven’t met ninety-nine percent of them. I usually go through a business manager, a personal assistant, or the like. I’m thinking that kind of relationship would make you more comfortable.”
Because this woman was a whole new definition of uneasy.
Gemma Hart blushed. Small beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. He couldn’t see her hands from his position on the ladder, but he would guess her palms were damp as well, if the unconscious brushing against her butt was any indication.
“I’m not uncomfortable or out of sorts,” she said, pulling herself up to full height, which wasn’t much. Her accent was full of English-school-headmistress authority.
Adonis batted that thought away as quickly as it had come before it morphed into a most inappropriate fantasy.
“Then you might want to see a doctor,” he advised in grave tones.
“Why? I’m perfectly sound.”
“Not if you’re sweating and stuttering when you talk to the contractor.”
“It’s your fault if I’m nervous. You’re a very intimidating builder.”
“I’m here hammering. Minding my own business. In fact, I’ll be done with my business all the quicker if you can make yourself scarce.”
“Scarce? That’s not nice, this is my home,” she said as if he’d stormed the moat and breached the gates of her castle.
“Ms. Hart. I’ve got that. But for a few weeks longer, I’m working on your house. You’ve hired me to redo much of the first floor, and I plan to finish that. The sooner I do, the quicker we’ll both be out of each other’s hair.”
He turned, again ready to get back to work, but hesitated when he didn’t hear the sounds of her shiny leather slippers clip-clopping away or the click of dog nails on wood. Gemma Hart hadn’t moved a muscle. He’d already made one mistake while she stood and watched; he wasn’t in the mood to make or fix another.
“What?” he asked over his shoulder.
“You were saying you’d be done in a few weeks? What’s left to be done?”
Adonis gestured to the wall. No more than a few wood studs held it up. He was starting to seriously wonder if she was touched in the head.
“Going to need a wall here, the kind with drywall and paint, for starters.”
“Okay, what else?”
“Your business manager has a punch list. Maybe you can call him and get the latest. Let me know if you’ve any questions tomorrow.”
“Why tomorrow?” she asked, stubbornly immovable. The dog plopped its butt on the floor in solidarity.
“Because,” he started with an exaggerated look at his smart watch, “I’m going to be done in about fifteen minutes.”
“Why do you leave in the middle of the day?” she asked, her tone accusing, as though he was a teenager cutting high school math, not an honest man doing an honest day’s labor.
He tried not to get his back up with her questioning his work ethic. He worked hard, if not harder, than most of the contractors he knew. He actually stayed on every job, making sure everything was right, true, plumb. Most guys at this stage in their careers tossed all the work to subs and only stepped in to do client face time and collect the checks.
“Because I don’t like to drive in rush hour traffic,” he explained, trying to stay patient with someone who he’d never seen leave the house. The last time she’d probably driven down the PCH and left Malibu, the population of California had been half of what it was today, if her reputation was to be believed.
“Could you get more done if you stayed later?”
“I could. But I’ve been here since before seven. That’s a good eight-hour day and I can pretty much avoid traffic on both ends.”
“So, the schedule?” she asked again.
The last word Gemma said sounded like “shed-yule.” Took him a full second to translate her English to his English.
“Fine. Let’s meet in the kitchen in a minute. I’ll bring the binder and we can review the remainder of the work.”
He tried to keep his complaining under his breath, but Gemma Hart had gone from recluse to frustrating. All he wanted to do was work and get the job done. The next however long he’d have to spend explaining everything to her would set him back. He’d been planning to get the wall completely framed out today. That left him the choice of staying late and being tired as shit tomorrow morning, or pushing the electrician, Fernando, and his crew out a day or ten, depending on the other contractor’s schedule.
Looked like staying late was the best way to go. He unpacked the few tools he’d put in his case and walked through to the half-completed kitchen. She was standing there fiddling with her hair. Red-orange hair she’d always had tied up in a rubber band. Now, it was down in loose waves that framed her face, the rich color standing in stark contrast to her unblemished pale skin. Granger trotted in next.
“Why a redhead would get a red dog…” he muttered.
“Did you say something?”
“No.”
Adonis carefully set down his dusty, paint-flecked notebook on the roughened plywood that would underlay the stone countertops. Gemma stepped close to him. She smelled like some kind of flower, not sweet like a rose, but more like vanilla. It went straight from his brain to somewhere low. It made him want to touch her, lift her hair to see if the tender skin at her neck was just as sweet. He cleared his throat to try to empty his head of the improper thoughts.
“Here’s the construction notebook,” he said at full volume, wiping debris from the surface. “It’s the new one I printed when I took over.”
“Yes, that’s obvious. Says AA Construction on the cover.”
Letting the snarky comment pass him by, he thumbed through the pages until he got to the tab labeled schedule.
“Today’s September seventh. The scheduled completion date is November nineteenth. That’s the week before Thanksgiving. Want to be out of your hair then, so you can have your new kitchen and open-plan area ready for celebrating with your friends and family.”
“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”
Adonis studiously avoided the inappropriate question. This woman needed boundaries with a capital B.
“So we’re in the second week of September here.” He ran his finger along the calendar his scheduling software had generated. “We’ll get this wall framed and drywall up by the end of this week. Next week, we’ll tar the shower pan in time for the end-of-week tile delivery. The tile will go in the powder room, and up for the backsplash in the kitchen. The week after, we’ll get your bathtub, sink, and toilet in, and the custom Vermont soapstone sink you want down here. Next, I’ll get the stone. Marble will go in the bathroom, the granite down here.” He tapped at the wood underlay with his right hand.
“And then?” she interjected when he paused for breath.
“The weeks after that will be cabinets and shelves, here in the kitchen, the bathrooms, and your office. Floors, appliances, and paint are after that. We’ll go through the punch list one more time, then I’ll be out of your hair and you can eat turkey.”
“I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. We don’t have that holiday in the UK.”
“Oh, okay. Well, either way, I’ll be done on the nineteenth. How you celebrate or not is up to you.” He made his tone diplomatic. How people chose to spend their holidays or not wasn’t his business. He didn’t celebrate much either. But even if he’d been thinking it was finally time to go to one of Holly’s dinners, he’d skip it. This year, with his sister, Zoe, in town, it was going to be more touch and go than usual.
He’d give his sister a chance to be with the family. They were probably more comfortable with her anyway. He made people uncomfortable. The client standing beside him was a case in point.
Or maybe she kept to herself because she was incredibly shy.
Silently, she studied the notebook as if the secret of the Holy Grail were going to emerge, her pale brow furrowed. Even her eyebrows were orange. Odd. They must have darkened them for the movie posters that had been framed in her office, because he would have noticed something like that.
It was the first time he’d been up close and personal with a redhead. She’d won a completely different genetic lottery than he. Studying those contrasts could make for an interesting night or weekend, not that anything like that would ever happen. There would be no up close and personal examination of every mole and freckle on her body. And there would be no thinking about it either.
He tried to focus on the number of insulation rolls he’d need after the framing was done while he waited for her to formulate questions.
“I can’t think of anything to ask you,” she said simply, as if questions were expected.
He pulled his mind out of the gutter to respond to her. “Well, if you do, you can e-mail me and I’ll be sure to write you back.” Computers seemed like an appropriate no-contact method of communication she could appreciate.
“I don’t have e-mail. Well, not one that I share. My assistant once copied all of her friends on a holiday card one Boxing Day, and I was overtaken by millions of messages until I closed the account.”
He nodded in understanding. Privacy was something he understood all too well.
“So ask me when I’m here, but not while I’m hammering, please.” They stood in uncomfortable silence for a long moment. “Well, I need to get this framed out tonight, so I’m going back to work.”
She and her dog disappeared to wherever, and he pulled out the last of the holey boards. Lifting the fresh, cured lumber from the floor, he made quick work of reframing the wall. There were enough remaining boards that he could use the old to scribe against the new and measurement was quicker than starting from scratch.
By the time he looked at his watch again, it was past six. There was no chance he’d make a meeting tonight, but it was okay. He hadn’t had an urge to drink in years. Had never really had an urge after those first couple of years after the accident.
Bingeing had been his problem, and when the worst night of his life hadn’t cured him, hitting rock bottom had.
He packed up his tools for the final time, and was heading toward the door, when he heard the slap of her backless shoes.
This time there was no red-and-white dog wagging its tail wildly. Her skirt seemed shorter than it had been hours ago, and her lips were shiny with gloss. Maybe she did leave the house, or her boyfriend came to her. Looked like she was ready for a hot date in either case.
Surreptitiously, he watched her, wondering whether her date would get to take off the tiny clothes that barely covered her. Whether her lips were as kissable as they seemed.
Getting his straying thoughts back on track, he tipped his head in farewell.
“Goodnight, Ms. Hart. I’ll be here early tomorrow to let in Fernando. The electricity will be off for the first couple of hours, so you might want to get everything charged up tonight.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
He tried to dispense with some of the awkwardness. “Just ask the question. You don’t have to ask to ask me. Okay?”
She nodded, then bit her plump pink lips together, silent as a grave.
He looked at the ceiling, willing God or someone to give him the strength to ignore what couldn’t have been a blatant invitation. She obviously had a date, and he needed to make himself scarce before it became awkward. He hadn’t seen anyone of the male persuasion around, except the dog, Granger, but that didn’t mean the guy wasn’t ten minutes out. Gemma Hart wasn’t a flirt, so he needed to get going before the other guy showed up. He wasn’t the best poker player and didn’t want her boyfriend noticing that her contractor thought his employer was hot.
Speaking of hot, how was it he hadn’t noticed the strong, firm legs the skirt had revealed?
He pulled his mind from the gutter once again.
She skimmed her hand along the front of her tank. Someone needed to tell her that parading around half naked wasn’t wise. With her hand fiddling along the hem of her skirt, she finally stuttered out part of the question.
“So, I was wondering…”
“Yes, Ms. Hart?” He did nothing to hide his impatience. He wanted to get home and get his mind off Gemma Hart. A cool shower, an ice-cold pop, and an action movie were just what the doctor ordered. But to get to that, he had to battle through an hour of traffic ahead of him, all the while trying to keep his mind off what was suddenly on display.
“Would you be willing to have a shag?”