Men at Work: Through the Roof / Taking His Measure / Watching It Go Up

Logic tried to tell Ben that Marina Reston didn’t have to worry about finding anyone to provide for her. She could stuff mattresses with hundred-dollar bills, use them as wallpaper. For God’s sake, the woman headed up a foundation that funded thirty different charities.

But, for some reason, logic wasn’t getting through. The fact that Marina had her own money just made the loss of his even worse. The playing field, and therefore the power, was too uneven between them….

“Tremaine speaking.”

“Hi, Mathew. It’s Ben.”

“Benny! Good to hear from you. Thought you’d fallen off the face of the earth—I never heard back from you after I’d sent you the latest round of blueprints.”

Ben cleared his throat. “Yeah. About that—Hurricane Ernestine has wiped me out, buddy. We’re, ah, not going to be able to build our dream house after all. In fact—” he paused and chuckled weakly “—in fact, I can’t even afford to build a doghouse anymore.”

“You’re kidding,” Tremaine said.

“No, I’m not.”

“Your whole business?”

“The offices, the greenhouses, the barn—everything.”

Ben set his jaw and tried to block his mental panoramic view of the devastation. The sight of it in person had just about killed him, and he’d never forget it.

He’d had ten neat, productive greenhouses full of healthy, beautiful, tropical plants. He’d had a barn full of backhoes, tractors and other equipment.

He’d been proud of his neat offices on the property, with the paved patio, koi pond, fountain and atrium, where dozens of kindso fSouth American orchidsand bromeliads had flourished.

He’d built it all with his bare hands and the help of a few staffers, and now it was gone or destroyed. The walls of the barn had collapsed in on all the equipment. The winds had torn the greenhouses apart and scattered the contents everywhere. The roof over the offices had peeled back like the lid of a sardine can.

Floodwaters surged in and swept furniture and fixtures and business equipment away. To top it all off, mold and mildew had flourished over anything that was left.

Impotent fury gnawed at him all day, every day, because of it. The fact that others had shared the same fate didn’t help him deal with it at all—it just seemed so damned unfair. What had he done to piss off God? Was he cursed?

“It’s all gone or destroyed,” Ben said to Mathew. “Flattened. Splintered.”

The builder whistled. “I’m real sorry to hear that. We had some damage, but nothing like that. I don’t know what to say… Is it a total loss? What about the insurance? And—” He paused.

Ben heard clearly the words Mathew didn’t say. And isn’t Marina loaded? Couldn’t she build a palace in Monaco if she wanted to?

“Yes. It’s a total loss. My insurance company is claiming that most of the damage was done by water, and I didn’t have a separate flood policy. My lawyer isn’t getting anywhere with them. They won’t budge. I’m screwed.”

“I’m real sorry to hear that,” Tremaine said again. “Anything I can do?”

Ben swallowed. Oh, hell. This was ten times worse than he’d thought it would be. He tried to swallow his pride, but it burned an unholy path down his throat and scorched his intestines. He could feel it flaming in his stomach, smoldering, blackening a hole right through him. Just say it, Delgado. Say it.

“Yes, Mathew. As a matter of fact, there is something you can do. Do you have any openings with your construction crew?”

“Why, sure. You’ve got a good heart, looking out for your employees like this. Send them on over—I can always use a few more men.”

Ben squirmed. “You’ve got a good heart for taking them on. Thanks. But…it’s not just for the workers. It’s for me.”

A shocked silence ensued. “Christ, Delgado. You? You’ve got education, you’ve got managerial experience, you’ve had your own business. Why the hell do you want to work for me? There’s loads of opportunities for you to repair storm damage to vegetation and landscaping. You could make a killing right now—”

“I can’t do it, Mathew,” Ben said flatly. “I get too angry. My equipment is trashed, I can’t pay my suppliers or my guys, my insurance company is useless—it all puts me in a rage. I’ve got to calm down and do something else for a while. Get my bearings back.”

Again, he could hear exactly what Tremaine wasn’t saying. Couldn’t your rich fiancée pay your guys for five years over? Buy heavy equipment outright? Send her high-powered attorneys to sue the pants off your insurance company?

In quiet but concrete-firm tones, Ben said it. “I will not go to Marina for help. I can’t. It’s demeaning. Please, Mathew. Give me a job. You know my work ethic. I won’t let you down.”

“Of course you won’t let me down, you crazy bastard. I’ve seen the projects you’ve done around Marina’s… I just think you need your head examined. But I know better than to argue with you.” Tremaine sighed. “Well, c’mon, then. Get yourself over here and fill out an application. If you want, you can start work today.”

“Thank you. This means everything—I hope you know that. And one day, even if it’s years from now, you and I will build that house. It’s a promise.”

Mathew hesitated for a split second. “Glad to hear it.” Once again, Ben had no trouble reading his thoughts. You and I? What about Marina? What’s going on?

The truth was, Ben couldn’t have told him, since he wasn’t sure himself. All he knew was that he couldn’t go forward with the relationship or the wedding. He felt…worthless.

And though he loved Marina, she was hands-down the most expensive woman he’d ever dated. Her idea of saving money was to go stay at the Paris Ritz for only three weeks, instead of a full month.

She economized by getting a ten percent discount on an entire case of Cristal, instead of buying eleven bottles at full cost. Or buying couture off the rack and having it tailored to her body, instead of commissioning a gown from scratch.

She didn’t deliberately rub her money into his face—never. It was simply that she’d never lived any other way, so she didn’t have a clue how other people managed.

Marina had a huge heart, and she gave away twenty times what she spent, but still…

He thought about Miami’s Reston Humane Society, the RestonChildren’s Hospital in Palm Beach, the Reston Alzheimer’sResearch Facility in Boca Raton. The countrywide Frameworksfor the Future, an organization that built homes for the needy,which was Reston Foundation-funded.

Speaking of Frameworks for the Future, when was that calendar shoot Marina had talked him in to doing? He’d have to call the foundation and talk to Liz Olmos, the administrator. Because he sure as hell wasn’t calling Marina—even though he’d felt guilty at her distraught messages. She needed to forget him.

Ben knew that a man was more than the money he made, but he felt like a failure in the face of Marina’s wealth. And he couldn’t be her husband—or anyone else’s—when he was a failure.

MARINA HAD no problem combining business with pleasure. Why not run numbers while naked and slathered with rosemary-peppermint oil?

She shrewdly eyed the column of figures a foot beneath her face and, once again, examined the total. It was off. She knew it in her bones. And she knew who was responsible.

“Ms. Reston,” Manuel said as he kneaded her lower back and the tops of her glutes, “you shouldn’t be going over accounts right now. The point of a massage is to relax.”

“I know, sweetie, but I need to figure out what’s wrong here. I don’t mind giving money away to worthy causes, but I get very bent out of shape when someone’s skimming funds for their own personal use.”

“Someone’s stealing from you?”

“I’m getting that feeling. Unfortunately, it happens every couple of years. Somebody I employ makes the mistake of thinking that I won’t notice, that I’m stupid or careless simply because I like to shop and have my hair done. Can you imagine?”

Manuel coughed. “No, ma’am.”

She eyed him a bit suspiciously and then drummed her polished fingernails on the Excel printout, which lay on top of a rolling stool under her nose. It was a little difficult to see with her face mashed into the padded, doughnutlike head support of the massage table, but the hole in the middle did enable her to do some work even under Manuel’s expert ministrations.

He worked magic on her muscles, but she couldn’t relax. The person skimming funds was a single mom. A hard worker. Someone struggling to make ends meet.

She’d had no problem having the cokehead intern arrested when he’d raided the petty cash to fund his habit. But this?