Page 80 of With Wine Comes War

“Well, just don’t let too much of you rub off on him, we want him showing up to work on time.” I winked. We all started laughing as someone cleared their throat at the door. I turned around to see a faint smile on Roman’s face as he leaned against the door frame with his arms crossed.

Harrison grumbled, “Uh oh. Party’s over folks. Dad’s here.” I shoved him when I saw the look on Darius’s face. Now he looked nervous again. I shook my head at Roman and he laughed. He loosened up his stance, walked over, said hi to Shay and patted her onthe shoulder as he walked around the table and reached his hand out to Darius.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Darius. Alex speaks very highly of you.” It was a little robotic for my taste, but it seemed to do the trick. The nervous look left Darius’ face when he glanced at me and quickly stood up. He held his hand out to shake Roman’s. Now that was more of what I wanted to see.

Darius seemed comfortable and eager to get out there and learn. I was eager to get out of here too, because the tension I could feel from Roman was intense. I wondered what all that was about. I knew he was heading to Texas tomorrow.Is something else happening there that he isn’t telling me?

I guess I’ll get that information when I get home. Home, to Roman’s house, now mine also, that was something exciting to focus on, not to mention weird.

I walked to Amelia’s desk to say bye.

“Hey, can you see Roman before you leave? He’s got something to talk to you about,” Amelia mentioned.

“Sure.” I walked into his office with a smile on my face.

“Hey babe, we were just heading out. Amelia said you wanted to see me.” He smiled and looked a lot better. He embraced me tightly and took a deep breath.

“Yes, I wanted to do that, first of all, and I wanted to tell you I’m not going to Texas tomorrow. I’m sending Amelia with Harrison for a few days. They can handle all of that. I also wanted to ask you if you can work remotely for the next few days, with me, here at the office while they’re away?”

I shot him a baffled look. “I can work remotely, yes, but I may need to leave the office to go look at properties. Can I have Shay here with me?”Why in the world is he being sopossessive?

He said, “Yes, you can set up in the conference room, if that would work.”

“Yeah, that’ll be fine. I’ll bring Darius in too and have him do some studying. Is there anything you’d like me to start teaching him to get prepared for the training program?”

He held me close and said, “Let’s talk about this more tomorrow in the office. What time are you done with work today?”

“Probably around four.”

“Do you have any training or anything tonight?”

I shook my head. “Sunday, Monday and Friday are my days off from exercise classes.”

“Oh, I almost forgot to mention. The Santoro’s invited us to have dinner with them tomorrow night. They wanted us to come early to go over renovation ideas. They want me to do the work on their winery. I told them I didn’t know if you had a class or not, and suggested you might be able to make it for dinner.”

I was a little disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to make the renovation meeting. “I have a class from 4-5:30, but I can make it for dinner. Are we going to meet at their new house?” He nodded then kissed me with a little more force than just a “see you later.” He seemed a little protective of me at the moment. I’m sure something happened that he’s not telling me, or else now that we live together I’m getting a look at the real Roman. Is he really an overprotective control freak? Oh Lord, I hope that’s not the case, I will lose my mind.

Shay and Darius were waiting by the elevator, and I hurried over.

We rolled slowly through the neighborhood. I wondered if this was really it, or if I got the directions wrong. It was a run-down neighborhood with a lot of abandoned houses. Grant and Matt had given me the info for a couple homes to look at that were on the market. I’m going to have to find out who owns the abandoned ones.

We had $520,000 to work with, and I still had no idea what the plan was yet. This neighborhood looked worse than the one the Burrow Township residents were leaving. I was trying to figure out what the point of this was, especially when Darius looked at me like I was crazy.

“Is this the neighborhood y'all want us to move too?” I was deep in thought when I barely heard him say that. All of a sudden, I had what seemed like a miracle idea.

I blurted out excitedly, “Yes, this is exactly where I want you all to move.” Both he and Shay gave me the biggest“YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME”expression. I started laughing and hugged them both out there on the side of the road in front of the ugliest piece of shit house you’ve ever seen.

Chapter 21

ROMAN

Iwas home by four o’clock when my phone started ringing. Alex’s name was scrolling across the screen. My heart almost stopped, and I wondered if something was wrong.

I answered in a panic, “Alex?”Oh crap, why did I answer the phone that way? She calls me all the time, why would I freak her out like that? Get a grip, man.

“Hi, yeah, everything’s fine. Should itnot be?”

“No, just used to strange things happening lately.”

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