without a full and complete accounting.
The hint of a curve left his mouth, and his eyes went dark and mossy. “I don’t owe you anything.”
“Actually, you owe me for my travel time, and a full day of pay for the cancellation within 24 hours per the policy.” She put her hand on her hip and threw it out a bit. Maybe pretending to be confident would make her actually turn into a confident person. He winced when she laid out her terms, so her façade was quite possibly working.
“I don’t owe you. My grandmother does.” He looked back down at the desk, which was covered with a sheet of blank sketch paper. “I’ll make sure you get paid.”
Getting paid the amount outlined in the cancellation policy she’d just made up would pay for a couple of bills this month, but it wouldn’t solve her real problem. And something more was at play here now. She was used to being dismissed and ignored. Growing up as the overweight and awkward Gonzalez sister had ensured that would happen in her family. Especially now that her sister was on the cover of half the fashion magazines at the grocery store checkout.
That’s why she’d lost her usual good sense when Simon had started paying attention to her, both at work and after. Even though she’d gotten away from her parents’ influence going to school in New York, as soon as she’d taken the job at Art Basel and come back, all of her old insecurities had returned. Simon had preyed on her when she was weak.
And she was still weak. Even weaker now.
But something about Max Delgado wanting to look at a blank sheet of paper with a half-empty glass of whiskey in his hand instead of taking a few minutes of his precious time explaining why and how she’d been scammed into showing up here ignited a long-sleeping rage in her belly.
So yes, she was accustomed to fading into the wallpaper, but she’d been disrespected enough in the past two weeks. Losing her job and having a man she’d cared about—or maybe could have loved—tell her that he’d only stomached having sex with her so she would do his work for him, had used up the last of her fucks.
All the fury at Simon and her so-called friends coalesced in her chest and aimed directly at Max Delgado. “I’m not leaving until you give me an actual explanation.”
“My grandmother is trying to get us all married.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
He shrugged, and she tried mightily not to notice how lovely it was to witness his powerful muscles move underneath the well-worn fabric. But her traitorous girl parts hummed every time he moved. And they quivered when she caught a whiff of whatever soap or beard wax he used. Sea salt and eucalyptus.
“Maybe she thinks no one will marry me if I’m a mess.”
There was something underneath his words that seemed off, but she brushed it away. “You don’t seem like a mess to me. Aside from the day drinking and telling random women to take off their clothes as soon as they walk through the door.”
“It wasn’t random.” He looked at her again, and she would swear that there was heat in his gaze as it dipped over her breasts and to her hips. But the movement, the flick of it, was so brief, she was likely imagining it. Men like Max Delgado didn’t notice women like Letty, much less want them. “But I don’t need you.”
He took a swig of his drink, which had her narrowing her gaze at him.
Of course not. If men like Max, beautiful Max, didn’t want women like Letty, they certainly wouldn’t need them.
He cleared his throat. “I mean, I don’t need your services.”
So, he was saying there was a chance. Letty looked around the studio. Piles of junk lined the walls. She wasn’t one to judge how an artist worked. Once, she and Simon had trudged through the Everglades to find an award-winning artist making a decoupage mural that featured her own toenail clippings. As much as that had squicked her out, she couldn’t deny that the result was impactful—an artist literally putting herself into her work.
And Max’s organizational problems didn’t reach the level of unhygienic. Still, she could help him. She knew she could. After he saw the results from one day, he wouldn’t be able to resist asking her back.
“If I’m going to be paid for the day, at least let me work.”
He looked up from the paper in front of him and stared at her. “You’re not going to interfere with what I’m doing?”
The hint of vulnerability revealed by the question grabbed at something inside Letty. She’d always had a tender heart and liked to take care of people. Broody Max couldn’t scowl away that urge. “No. My goal would be to make it easier for you to get work done.” Unlike that glass of whiskey he’d just downed.
“How?”
Now that he’d opened the door with questions, she was going to walk straight through. “Well, my initial plans were to organize your space by type of materials—labelling everything in a way that won’t harm the material and making it easier for you to access.”
“I know where everything is.”
It was Letty’s turn to arch a brow. There was no way his brain had everything catalogued. Simon had the same kind of ego about his own innate organizational skills. She’d had to be careful about not stepping all over his self-image. He hadn’t believed he’d needed her for her actual job because she’d been so unobtrusive. Even though starting her own business was her first steps out on her own, she could bring the same skills to bear for Max.
Her brain flooded with the other kinds of skills she could bring to bear with Max. Although her aesthetic appeal wasn’t as universal as her sister’s, and she had enough baggage from her mom’s constant harping that she didn’t like being looked at naked, she enjoyed sex when she could get around that component. And she was good at it. At least, she’d thought so before Simon. She shook her head, trying to dislodge self-defeating thoughts and any ideas of getting intimate with Max.
The intrusive lust rolling around with her anxiety didn’t make sense. She’d never had a problem compartmentalizing her professional self with her sensual needs. Even with Simon, it had been all about work at work, and she’d been all about them once they were alone at her apartment. Never his—that should have been her first clue that he’d never been into her.
Because she’d been a means to an end.
“Mr. Delgado—”
“Max.”
“Max.” She stepped closer to him, catching more of his smell—something she wished she could bottle and sell as “Hemingway’s Sexy Essence.” She gathered her defenses again before saying, “I’m not going to interfere with your work.” She gestured at the blank page in front of her. “My goal is to make your life easier so you can get more done.”
He sat back on the old stool he perched on. The metal and screws protested as he inadvertently revealed a small swath of skin between his jeans and shirt. Just enough to show dark hair leading to the body part she’d let herself speculate about while alone, in the dark, in her room. Only after she was done with the job.
Swiping at her dry lips with the tip of her tongue, she forced herself to meet his gaze again. “And I’d planned to make a website.”
She couldn’t be sure whether the amusement dancing in his lush, green eyes was about her staring at his junk or the idea of a website until he said, “Why do you think I need a website?”
Chapter 2
When she’d licked her lips, Max Delgado knew he was a goner. His grandmother did not play around with her plan to seduce him into getting on with his life and find a nice girl already. There wasn’t anything not nice about the girl standing in front of him. From her full lips to her smooth, tawny skin, right down to the tetas he longed to bury his face in and the hips he wanted to mold and fondle as he sank deep. She was gorgeous.
But,