Her expression goes flat and she crosses her arms over her chest. She loathes being called sweetheart. “I can tell you with one hundred percent certainty that nothing you can offer is going to convince the buyers to sell to you.”

“You can’t know that. I want to talk to them.”

“You are talking to them, and there’s no offer that will have us handing over the property to you.”

“Wait. What?” Lawson’s confusion is priceless. I would be shocked, but I know this is something Rian’s been working toward, so it’s not a huge surprise they finally made it happen.

“We are the owners.” Marley motions between herself and Rian.

Lawson’s jaw snaps shut. I don’t get why he’s so pissed off about this. It’s one property, and it needs a serious facelift. We don’t have the time to take on another project with the Franklin renovations just getting started. As it is, I’m hiring out more than half of the work so we can get in on the vacation rental market by July, and that’s pushing it.

He points an accusatory finger at Marley. “We had a deal.”

Marley shrugs, blithe. “You’re not my only client, and there will be other houses on the beach for sale. There always are.”

“You’re fucking fired.” He turns and stomps off. He’s like a teenage girl with his temper tantrums.

I shake my head. Annoyed. Frustrated. As if the last two days weren’t bad enough. Now this. “I’m sorry. I’ll talk to him.”

Marley gathers up her bag of tools and slings it over her shoulder. “Don’t bother. No offense, but he’s a pain in the ass to work with.”

This, I know. Especially since we bought the most recent property. He’s been obsessive about buying more, checking the listings surrounding the Mission Mansion. While I’m on board with this new plan because it has the potential to give me an out from patent law, provided the income is consistent, his attitude about it is puzzling. I need to find out what’s eating at him.

“Anyway, always a pleasure.” Marley looks from me to Rian and back again, her eyebrow half raised.

A silent conversation takes place between them and Rian glances in my direction.

“Are you busy? Do you have a minute to talk?” Circumstances aren’t ideal, but this would be a great time to apologize in person for the drunk texts from last night.

“No. She’s not busy.” Marley gives Rian a knowing smile. “I’ll meet up with you in a bit.” She waves brightly and practically skips up the path and around the side of the house.

Rian crosses her arms over her chest. “We don’t owe you or your brother anything.”

“Well, you owe me a dinner date since we never made it out of the house last time, but in terms of this,” I nod at the SOLD sign, “I agree. I don’t know why he has such a bug up his ass about this, and honestly I don’t care.”

She seems shocked at the lack of fight on my part.

“What’s your plan for this place?”

“We’re flipping it.” Excitement makes her voice shake.

“You came up with the capital.”

Her fingers flutter to her lips. “We did.”

“That’s fantastic.” She wears her pride with class. “We should celebrate.” I wrap my arms around her, lifting her off the ground.

She shrieks and laughs, her smile melting away my stress. Rian is exactly what I need today, the perfect antidote to my bad mood.

CHAPTER 20

COUNTER OFFERS

RIAN

Pierce runs inside to change and returns a minute later—sadly he’s covered his magnificent chest with a T-shirt and he’s changed into cargo shorts, but he’s still gorgeous, so I’ll take it. Trip follows behind him, tail down between his legs, eyes sad and anxious.

He stays close to Pierce’s legs when they reach the bottom of the stairs. “Is he okay?”

“Just nervous. Lawson’s temper tantrum freaked the poor guy out.” He scratches behind Trip’s ear.

“Does he have tantrums like that often?”

“Not typically. He’s had a bug up his ass the past week. I don’t really know what’s going on there.”

I take off my strappy-heeled sandals and fix them to my purse while Pierce slips his feet into bright-green running shoes, and we hit the beach.

I revel in the soft warmth of the sand between my toes. One day I hope we’ll be able to live on the beach again, not just buy and sell houses here. “So what happened to make yesterday so bad?”

He regards me carefully for a moment. “I’m sorry about the messages last night. I wasn’t in the best headspace. The reason I have time off this summer is because I made a mistake with a patent; it caused a few issues and we’re still sorting them out. I was stuck in a meeting I didn’t want any part of for most of the day, and we made virtually no progress.” We pause as Trip leans to one side and marks a bush, no leg lift necessary. “And then I ran into my ex.” He’s not looking at me as he says this. His gaze is focused off in the distance and the words come slowly, like they’re being dragged out of him.

My chest grows tight; it feels a lot like jealousy. “Is this the three-year relationship you were in?”

His eyes shoot to mine, surprise quirking his brow.

“It was on your questionnaire for the dating site.”

“Right. How could I forget about that? The one that deems us pretty much as incompatible as two people can get?” I’m sure he means it jokingly, but there’s a dark bite to his words. He shakes his head a little. “Sorry. I’m being an asshole. But yeah, it was the three-year relationship.”

“It ended badly, then?” I don’t know if relationships ever end well. Mine never have.

He stuffs his hands into his pockets, seeming suddenly vulnerable. “We were engaged. She broke it off.”

That’s not at all what I expected to hear. I stupidly assumed he was the one who couldn’t commit. Maybe I should know better by now, considering the way he’s relentlessly pursued me. “I’m so sorry.” I want to ask why she broke it off. What happened to make a woman walk away from him, but I don’t, because I like that he’s opening up to me without any prompting. I want this connection with him, even if it makes me uncomfortable.

“It was a long time ago. I’m over it. It’s not like I’m still hung up on her or anything. She proved to be untrustworthy and a ladder climber, so I’m much better off without her in my life.” He licks his lips and shakes his head. “What was the point of me telling you this?”

“Why yesterday was so bad,” I remind him.

“Oh, right.” He runs a hand through his hair, his smile sheepish. “The meeting, some stuff with my family, running into my ex … just a shit day. I was looking for a ray of sunshine to make it better.”

“Ray of sunshine? That’s a first.” I drag my toes through the sand. “I meant to message you this morning, but then we had the meeting with the Paulsons. I didn’t expect it to go so long.”

“I can see why you wouldn’t have, messaged me back, I mean.”

“I wasn’t ignoring you on purpose.”

We pass beach house sixty-nine. The last time I was here we had counter sex. Clearly this attraction isn’t waning, and I’m past caring that we’ve gone about this the opposite of normal. What makes me nervous is that I want to spend more time with him, and more time means I’ll eventually have to reciprocate his sharing with pieces of myself.