Loving Lucian ✅

Chapter Seventeen

I decided to be a daredevil and not wear anything to hide my identity. My FBI bodyguards went with us and followed us their in their big creepy black van. Once we got there, we had to park on the curb because we couldn't drive through the closed street. We walked up to my cleared out apartment where George was waiting along with four other men.

One man looked to be my age, one was in their forties, one in their thirties and another in their mid thirties. The youngest one shook my hand first. "Hey, I'm Eric Rylan."

I smiled. "Hi, I'm Peyton."

He grinned and turned his attention to Lucian, shaking his hand. "Nice to see you again, sir. We've already scanned the building, we just need your approval on the estimates. Follow us, please." Eric eyed me again shrugged his eyebrows with a cheekier grin.

Lucian nodded and held my hand as we all went in. "Eric's nice."

"Sure." He said with a hint of bitterness.

"Oh stop it. He's not competition." I said so only he could hear, chuckling a bit.

I still felt weird when the place I've lived in for four years was cold and empty. "Okay, so according to your blueprints, you wanted to take out the hallway that leads to the elevators. With that, you're looking at nearly 8-9 grand more or less depending on the structure of these walls." Eric explained.

We went upstairs to the first floor. "You wanted a wider hallway for every floor and replace all doors, windows, and make every room bigger. There are ten rooms on each floor and to do the whole building in that way would be up to 40 grand, if not less, depending on how smoothly this goes."

Lucian had a budget of $80,000 maximum for every building he worked on. The most expensive he's ever paid was a quarter million for a large coliseum and museum in Greece.

We went through the basics of every reconstruction and its estimate cost, and Lucian showed off his smarts by correcting every number he felt could have an approximate instead of an estimate number. We talked to George about the building's history and any problems he's encountered. By the time we were done, they had told Lucian that the first week of construction was going to be flawless because all they had to do was knock down and put up walls, which meant Lucian could get his 'sleep week' going after all.

As soon as he heard the news, he sighed loud with relief before having us leave as quick as we could at 2:00 in the afternoon.

"Lucian...." I called in my cutest baby voice.

"Oh no." He muttered. "Yes, princess?" I was starting to love when he called me princess.

"Can we go to the mall? I need to get something."

"Nope. What is it?"

"Victoria's Secret's new collection has arrived and it's on sale for the first week of summer. Which is this week." I kept my voice cute.

"How about I just take you on a spree Saturday. Just get whatever you want, okay?" He smiled and before I could refuse to spend his money. "Peyton. You use my money all the time because I give it to you in return for your PA services. Just let me pay for everything that we do this week. I want to." He took my hand and kissed it.

"If you want to." I shrugged. After a few minutes, something popped into my mind. "Lucian..." I called again.

"What is it now?" He shook his head with a chuckle.