Naughty Before Christmas (Decadent Delight Series #3) (6 page)

So wasn’t that what he was doing?

With a sigh, he walked back to their room and found his wife standing in front of the sink in the en-suite, brushing her teeth.

“
Boo, listen. You’re right. I shoulda consulted you before making a decision about our money. My bad. I was wrong.” An uncomfortable silence stretched between them while he waited for what felt like was forever for her to finish brushing her teeth and give him the evil eye.

“
So now what? What’s the plan?”

“
So now we start the renovations on Friday. Since business is usually slow for me in the winter. Me and my crew will spend the rest of the year working on this house. That’s until we start on the strip mall after the holiday.”

“
If
you get the contract,” she spat, then paused and took a deep breath. “Can we still afford to spend money for the holiday? I mean since you did deplete most of our savings?”

Reggie
moved in closer then took her hand and tugged Berlin to him. “Yeah, boo, we’ll be fine. My homeboys and I will be there getting things done. I need to get a few permits to make some structural changes but I think we got a pretty solid investment.”

Berlin
stepped back and gave him a long hard look. “You better. Otherwise, I don’t know what we’re going to do. If you haven’t noticed, I’m having your baby in four months.”

“
I know, boo. And nothing means more to me than the two of you.”

Without another word,
Berlin turned and sauntered away without a backwards glance.

Everything is going to be just fine.
They had a lot riding on this house and failure wasn’t an option.

“I can’t believe he would do something like that without consulting me!”

Arianna
Philips, her co-worker and closest friend, tossed a jeweled hand in the air. “Berlin, Carlton makes decisions all the time without telling me.”

Her eyes narrowed.
“Yes, but are they worth seventy thousand?”

She gasped.
“Seventy? Is that how much they each invested?”

As B
erlin nodded, she felt tears burn the back of her throat. It upset her just thinking about it. They had spent three years sacrificing and saving that money. And she was proud of their nest egg and just like that it was gone. Invested in a project that didn’t guarantee any return.

The petite beauty
shook her head. “Wow! I would kill my husband if he did something like that.”

“
Exactly! So now you know how I feel.”

She shrugged a slender shoulder.
“But my husband is a cop. Reggie’s a general contractor and a damn good one at that.”

Arianna
was right. Her husband was good at what he did.

“
If anyone is going to make that house look like something out of a magazine, it’s Reggie.”

Rolling her eyes toward the ceiling,
Berlin spat, “As far as you’re concerned my husband can do no wrong.”

“
I won’t say all that but I have to say flipping homes and renovations, that’s his area of expertise. So you need to trust him and stay in your lane.”

Berlin
leaned back on the chair pouting like a spoiled brat. She had barely spoken two words to her husband the rest of the weekend and had planned to stay mad until there was an offer on that damn house, but deep down she knew that would never happen. Besides, her behavior although warranted, was starting to seem childish and ridiculous.

Her eyes traveled across at Arianna
with her hip propped on the end of her large oak desk. The five-foot-one-inch beauty was rocking the hell out of a stylish red and black wrap dress that made her breasts look larger and her tiny waist even smaller. With a body like that it was hard to believe she had an eight-month-old son, Storm.

Finally Berlin blew out a long breath and said,
“I’m the first to admit my husband is fabulous when it comes to remodeling homes.”

Arianna nodded in agreement.
“Then what’s the problem?”

“
I guess I’m just pissed off because he made a major decision without consulting me first,” she replied and swatted a strand of hair from in front of her eye.

“
I agree. Reggie was wrong but there’s nothing you can do about it now except support his decision, especially since that man has been dealing with your high maintenance ass for the last five years.”

“
Excuse me?”

Arianna gave her a hard look.
“You heard me. You were a piece of work when he met you and since then that man has created a monster. What Berlin wants Berlin gets.”

“
That’s not true!”

“
You forget who you’re talking to. I’ve been your friend long enough to know how you are. Bougie as hell!” Berlin opened her mouth to protest. “Uh-uh, let me finish. You had that stupid ten-step plan of marrying a doctor and instead you ended up marrying a contractor. Then you wanted to wait at least three years before you had a baby even though Reggie’s been ready since the honeymoon. You wanted your entire house remodeled from top to bottom and he and his boys spent every weekend working on your house until it looked like something out of a magazine.”

“
You really think so?” Berlin asked with a silly grin.

Arianna simply rolled her eyes at her for interrupting
then continued, “You insisted on a Mediterranean cruise for your honeymoon and you got it. You wanted to go to Paris last Christmas because your sister had gone their first and you got it. Now for once this man wants something and you want to pout like a spoiled brat.”

“
Because he made the decision without me!” she cried defensively.

She shrugged.
“Okay, so he screwed up. You’re going to hold it against him forever?” Arianna was her best friend and she didn’t believe in holding any punches, which was one of the reasons why she loved her so much.

“
No, not forever. Just for a little while.”

“
Whatever
. You need to make things right with your husband.” Her girlfriend was determined to work her nerve.

Berlin’s
eyes locked with hers. “I guess I’m just afraid. We worked so hard to get where we are and what if things don’t work out? We have a baby on the way.”

“
Okay… and last I checked, you both had jobs.”

“True,” she mumbled under her breath.

“You’ll be fine. It’s going to all work out, you’ll see,” she emphasized with a dismissive wave.

“
Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Berlin replied.

“That’s what friends are for.”
Arianna rose. “I’ll see you at lunch.” Without another word, she sauntered out of the office clicking Nine West pumps down the hall toward her office.

After she was gone,
Berlin leaned back into her chair and stared out the window. As much as she hated to admit it, her best friend was right. She needed to be supportive even if his decision had been a costly one. If her husband said he was going to make it happen then it was going to happen. That much she had faith in. It was the economy she didn’t trust and like she had argued, who was buying houses during the holiday season?

While looking
out the window she caught snow falling against the glass and found memories push into her mind when the two had first met. Reggie had been working on the new wing of the clinic. As Arianna had mentioned, she’d had a ten-step plan that didn’t include marrying anything less than a doctor.
So much for wishful thinking
. Reggie had pursued her and in the end she had lost her heart to him. The rest was history. And she never regretted her decision.

Even now
.

Arianna
was right. As a wife she needed to have her husband’s back.

By the time Arianna knocked at her door
ready for lunch, she had a plan.

“
You ready to eat?” she asked.

Nodding,
Berlin reached for her purse. “Yes, but first we’re going shopping.”

“
For maternity clothes?”

Berlin
frowned as she rose and retrieved a purple wool coat from the back of her door. “Nope. We’re going shopping for something sexy. I got some making up to do.”

*  *  *

“I fucked up.”

Trey laughed.
“Yep. You did.”

Reggie’s
eyes traveled around to Dereon, Trey and Braxton, all three of them were grinning like fools. He had asked them to meet at his office and quickly told them how Berlin flipped when she noticed the money he had taken out of their joint account.

Dereon shook his head.
“It’s all good. We’ll have that house flipped and the money back in no time.” He’d been flipping homes long before Reggie had started.

“
That’s easy for you to say, you’re not married,” Reggie reminded.

“
He’s not married
yet
,” Braxton interjected. “Believe me, once he is, Christina’s gonna crack that whip.”

Dereon sent him a hard stare while t
he others laughed. “Whatever,” he mumbled then glanced down at his watch. “Look, I gotta get back to work. Whatever y’all decide let me know. Otherwise, I’ll see y’all punks on Saturday morning ready to rock and roll.” Dereon and Reggie did a fist bump then he reached down for his phone that was ringing. Dereon was a decorated federal agent, who was working on another drug smuggling case.

As soon as he left the room, Reggie
looked up at the two left standing over his desk. “What about y’all? You ready to get cracking this weekend?” he asked with a challenging glint in his eyes.

Trey slapped his palms together.
“Always. I wanna get paid!”

He nodded, pleased to hear that.
“Since most of my crew isn’t working this time of the year, I’m gonna payroll them to help us get this project done.”

Braxton
stood beside Trey, hands jammed into his pockets. Nodding, he sent his dreadlocks swinging. “The more the merrier.”

“
Bruh, everything is gonna be a’ight,” Trey reassured him.

“
I hope so.” This was the first time he felt unsure.

After they were gone,
Reggie signed a few checks his assistant Kia had ready for payments then went over the written bid for the daycare center his attorney had sent over for his review.

RDH Rentals & Renovations
was his company. He had renamed and incorporated two years ago when he also started flipping houses and stumbled on a prime piece of property that he wanted to use for income. The fourplex was section-8 approved and brought in a guaranteed check every month from the state. If only he could say the same about the apartment building his wife had complained about on Saturday.

With his wife on his mind, Reggie reached for his phone,
calling Berlin at the office and ended up leaving a message on her voicemail. When he tried her cell phone, she was rushing to a meeting so the conversation was sterile and abrupt.

He hung up the phone and released a heavy sigh. Berlin had ever
y right to be mad at him. They were a team and the decision he had made had been all about him, although in his mind he had been thinking about their future.

Pushing to his feet,
Reggie paced around the room. Her being angry with him was driving him crazy. A tense heavy silence hung between them all weekend that he planned to put a stop to this evening.

In the five years they had been together, l
ife with Berlin had been nothing short of amazing. How in the world he had ended up with a woman who was high maintenance and used to spending money as fast as he could earn it, he wasn’t sure. But over the years, the accounting major had changed her way of thinking and had started saving and taught him how to do the same. When they had managed to save their first thousand it was a proud moment on both their parts. And when that changed from one thousand to ten thousand, he realized they were finally on their way to building a future together.

A boy from the projects, h
e had come a long way.

He had been raised by his mom after his father walked out on
them. Hazel Hodges had busted her ass working two jobs to support her three children and never once complained. It wasn’t until an attorney appeared on their doorstep with a check for a quarter of a million dollars payable to him, both of his siblings, and his mother, he had discovered his father had died from alcoholism. At first Reggie hadn’t wanted anything to do with the money, but his mother insisted that her estranged husband owed it to all them. Reginald took his share of the money and started his own company, painting and remodeling homes. Now he had a large building located in downtown St. Louis.