“Your—oh.” Sydney looked back at the man with the broad face and beautiful hands. Mikhail’s hands. “How do you do, Mr. Stanislaski.”

“I do well. I am Yuri. I ask my son if you are the Hayward who owns this business. He only says yes and scowls.”

“Yes, well, I am.”

“It’s a good building. Only a little sick. And we are the doctors.” He grinned at his son, then boomed out something else in Ukrainian.

This time an answering smile tugged at Mikhail’s mouth. “No, you haven’t lost a patient yet, Papa. Go home and have your dinner.”

Yuri hauled up his tool chest. “You come and bring the pretty lady. Your mama makes enough.”

“Oh, well, thank you, but—”

“I’m busy tonight, Papa.” Mikhail cut off Sydney’s polite refusal.

Yuri raised a bushy brow. “You’re stupid tonight,” he said in Ukrainian. “Is this the one who makes you sulk all week?”

Annoyed, Mikhail picked up a kitchen towel and wiped his face. “Women don’t make me sulk.”

Yuri only smiled. “This one would.” Then he turned to Sydney. “Now I am rude, too, talking so you don’t understand. He is bad influence.” He lifted her hand and kissed it with considerable charm. “I am glad to meet you.”

“I’m glad to meet you, too.”

“Put on a shirt,” Yuri ordered his son, then left, whistling.

“He’s very nice,” Sydney said.

“Yes.” Mikhail picked up the T-shirt he’d peeled off hours before, but only held it. “So, you want to see the work?”

“Yes, I thought—”

“The windows are done,” he interrupted. “The wiring is almost done. That and the plumbing will take another week. Come.”

He moved out, skirting her by a good two feet, then walked into the apartment next door without knocking.

“Keely’s,” he told her. “She is out.”

The room was a clash of sharp colors and scents. The furniture was old and sagging but covered with vivid pillows and various articles of female attire.

The adjoining kitchen was a mess—not with dishes or pots and pans—but with walls torn down to studs and thick wires snaked through.

“It must be inconvenient for her, for everyone, during the construction.”

“Better than plugging in a cake mixer and shorting out the building. The old wire was tube and knob, forty years old or more, and frayed. This is Romex. More efficient, safer.”

She bent over his arm, studying the wiring. “Well. Hmm.”

He nearly smiled. Perhaps he would have if she hadn’t smelled so good. Instead, he moved a deliberate foot away. “After the inspection, we will put up new walls. Come.”

It was a trial for both of them, but he took her through every stage of the work, moving from floor to floor, showing her elbows of plastic pipe and yards of copper tubing.