He ached with the need to pull her close again, but the pain hovered just under the surface and he never wanted her to feel the agony he’d endured. “Not like this. This isn’t sex, Belle. This is more. These are feelings, and I can’t do those. I want you so badly, but I can’t have you in any way but sexually. I can’t share more than passion and bodies. So it would be better if I left. You could be happy with them. They really love you, Belle.”
With a long sigh, she let him go and shrank back to her seat, her eyes on the puppy again. He was now in a stare-off with an orange tabby cat dancing on the fence and taunting him. “I don’t know if it will work, Kellan. I think you’re more important to them than you think. From what I can tell, they were drifting before you came to Chicago. I worry they’ll drift again if you leave. I’ve watched you guys for a year now. Your friendship is a delicate balance. You work as a team in every aspect of your lives. I really think it will be the same in a romantic relationship. I think it’s why they’ve been so insistent about sharing.”
He hadn’t thought about it that way. Before they’d met Belle, the three of them hadn’t tried anything beyond a one-night stand because Kellan had refused to try a long-term relationship. But before he’d come along, Tate and Eric had attempted to date women. Nothing had stuck.
What would it be like if Kell dropped out of the picture and his friends made Belle their woman? Tate was too soft around Belle. He just let her walk all over him. Eric didn’t think about things like schedules. Belle would end up managing everything and that might become a burden. Kell recognized that he and Belle worked well together to juggle the details in their daily work lives. He enjoyed sharing that little bond with her. He’d never had a partner either professionally or romantically like Belle. Could he truly leave her and not be gutted?
Through the open door, he heard Tate and Eric start to argue about some case. It had to be getting heated because their voices could be heard over the ugly puppy’s whining. Apparently, furball had lost the staring contest with the cat and now seemed determined to prove he was louder, bigger, and badder. For her part, the cat just stared at some spot beyond the agitated dog. He could practically see the tabby rolling her eyes.
He was the referee, Kellan understood in that moment. He had been since he’d joined the firm. Who would arbitrate Eric and Tate’s often lengthy “debates” if he was gone? They could lose hours of productive time because they’d bicker over tiny interpretations in the language of a contract. Hell, they could waste hours arguing over the latest episode of Game of Thrones.
“Could you at least think about staying for a while?” Belle asked, leaning against him again. “I’m not asking for anything except a little time so we can all figure this thing out. I’m not sure this can work, but I’m willing to think about it.”
And that was all he could really ask. Time. He had a little more of it with her, and that filled him with a disturbing amount of relief. “Yes, I’ll stay. For now.”
He let his arm drift back around her shoulders and promised himself he would get up and deal with his partners.
In just a minute.
Chapter Ten
Three days later, Belle shook her head at Malcolm Gates, completely frustrated by his request. “Didn’t you do an inventory of the house after my grandmother died? Shouldn’t her insurance adjuster have one?”
The lawyer shook his head. He hovered just inside the foyer, but he looked deeply uncomfortable. It was obvious he would prefer to be anywhere else. “No, Miss Wright. The insurance company only had a very basic inventory. Your grandmother scheduled her jewelry and her collection of antiques, but nothing else. I’m afraid for the judge to finalize the will, we’ll need a complete inventory of the house. I’m going to send some workers in to do it for you.”
She saw a truck pull up, searching for a place to park. Her electrician. She definitely wanted to see him. The lights in the house flickered on and off at the oddest times. But other than the man who would ensure her lights worked properly, she didn’t need anyone else tromping through her house.
Updating a place like this would be a painstaking and delicate process. She’d pulled all the furniture to the center of the living room and covered it with a plastic tarp so she could paint the walls the quietly elegant color it deserved. She’d selected a warm, pale gray. She intended to strip the sage-colored paint from the gorgeous original wood trim. Instead, she’d opted for a crisp, clean high-gloss white. She’d also bought a charcoal and white drapery fabric in a damask pattern, as well as a soft white sheer that would peek from beneath the curtains, enabling light to stream in but keeping prying eyes out. A simple plush black area rug would ground the space, and she’d ordered lamps with the same pop of color in their hand-blown glass bases. They’d been a little bit of a splurge, but everything she’d chosen would coordinate perfectly with the attitude of the room. Comfortable but elegant. New Orleans glamour.
Now she’d have to put off the project—and starting her new design business—if she had Gates’s interns stomping around and getting in her way. God knew what they’d do to all this original hardwood flooring. It needed repair, re-sanding, re-staining, and a quality sealer. Until she could have all that done, she didn’t want strangers walking on them, much less moving the furniture or knickknacks around. She already had three men and an eager puppy who wasn’t housebroken running all over the place and causing chaos. Even more distracting, Tate had taken up working shirtless half the time just to tempt her.
“I’ll get you the inventory.” It might take her months, but she refused to have others pawing through her grandmother’s things and slowing down her renovation.
Since moving in here, Belle had become very protective of the woman she’d never met. She’d made it through half her grandmother’s journal, all the way to her dad’s junior high years. Her grandmother had written about how much “her girls” loved him and gushed that he was the king of her castle. So apparently, Grandma had run a business of psychics out of this house. Hiring only females had been fairly smart. Women tended to be more empathetic and in tune with those around them, so they probably made better psychics. Obviously, she’d run a lucrative business, too.
Belle loved getting glimpses into her father’s childhood. The boy her grandmother had written about had been a happy kid. She’d even found some pictures of her dad tucked into the volume. In one, he’d been in overalls, wearing a goofy grin as he hammed it up for the camera.
She often thought that her mother hadn’t smiled much since the day her father died. So much of her life came back to that one tragic afternoon. Her mother had given her food and a roof over her head after his passing, but Mom had been a ghost flitting through life, allowing no one—not even her own daughter—to touch her.
Maybe if she brought her mom these pictures of her dad she’d smile.
Mr. Gates frowned her way. “I don’t think you understand how much work this entails. How precise you must be. This is a big house, and the job is far too big for one person. It would be so much better if you let me handle this. I’ll have it done quickly, but we must have an accounting of every possession, down to the last piece of paper.”
That seemed a bit extreme, but she wasn’t an expert in Louisiana inheritance laws.
Belle sighed, heartily irritated. “Fine. Send a couple of interns, but I’ll be overseeing everything. Thank you, Mr. Gates. Now excuse me.” She nodded toward the electrician, a big guy who made his way up the walk, toolbox in hand. “Hello, Mike.” She opened the door wider, allowing Gates out so the electrician could enter. “I’m glad to see you.”
Mike winked her way. He was a handsome blue-eyed devil in his early thirties with broad shoulders and a ready smile. He’d given her an estimate the day before, and Tate had been trying to convince her since then that Mike must be a lothario, a serial killer, or an escapee from a mental ward—whatever he thought would convince her to hire someone else. Eric had threatened to run a background check on the man. She sighed.
“Good to see you, Ms. Belle. I’m going to start in the bathroom today. You have a lot of old knob and tube wiring to bring up to code. You’re damn lucky this place hasn’t burned down yet. Don’t be surprised if your homeowner’s insurance won’t renew you until it’s fixed. It’s happened to more than one resident in the Quarter.”
She winced. Naturally, building codes had changed a great deal since the house had been built. Her grandmother had renovated the house since taking possession of it, but the wiring hadn’t been terribly out of date then. Drywall and paint or wallpaper had covered what people now considered an electrical sin. Still, as low as Mike’s estimate had been, it chafed. Satisfying the city and changing things she really couldn’t see was rapidly depleting her design budget. Unfortunately, it was a safety issue, so she merely smiled. “Let me know if you need anything.”
Mike shrugged. “Oh, I’m sure I’ll see one of your…friends before I see you. They seem mighty interested in watching whatever I happen to be doing.”
As he walked into the house with a grin, Belle groaned.
For three days, Eric, Tate, and Kell had been steadfast. They worked. They cooked. And they tried to seduce her. When she went out to buy supplies for the renovation, at least one of them came along. She’d tried sneaking out yesterday, but Eric had been smiling and standing by her car, swearing he needed a break.