Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73174 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73174 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
“Oh! There he is. Emmett!” Nathan said, leaning to look through a clearing in the pine trees. “You’re at the wrong house. It’s this one, over here.”
A man ducked through the pine tree clearing.
…A man dressed like he was about to go to a seven-course dinner at a freaking English royal castle.
Oreo bounded over toward him and jumped up on his leg, begging for attention like she always did.
“Oreo. Hey,” I said in a commanding tone, noticing the dusty pawprints she was leaving on suit pants that were likely thousands of dollars. “Down. Get down. Sorry, haven’t taught her not to jump on people’s nice suits yet.”
“Don’t worry about the pawprints,” he said, reaching down to ruffle a hand through Oreo’s hair and dust off the pawprints. “I’ve got plenty of other custom suits in my closet.”
“Got a custom suit for each day of the week?” I joked.
“More than that.”
I looked back up at him expecting him to laugh or wink or at least crack a smile—but it turned out he was being completely serious.
Fuck. He was strikingly handsome, like a movie star, but he apparently didn’t have a sense of humor to save his life.
Rich guy and no sense of humor?
Not a good combo.
“Storm, this is Emmett,” Shawn said. “We’re going to be working closely with him for marketing the Fixer Brothers brand going forward.”
Emmett gave me a look, his shrewd green eyes scanning over my body. Was he already judging my clothes—my simple athletic shorts and a loose tank top to give my new tattoo room to breathe?
He looked like Leonardo DiCaprio in the Great Gatsby movie, or something. The kind of guy that should have a blonde supermodel on his arm and a martini glass in his hand. Handsome, probably Ivy League educated, and most likely soulless.
Exactly the type of person that had always looked right through me, back in the day.
Like I was nothing.
“Nice to finally meet you, Storm,” Emmett said, holding out a hand to shake mine. “Regardless of whether or not you end up ultimately working with the Fixer Brothers, I’m glad to finally meet my new neighbor.”
Double fuck.
I had an inkling that the guy might be my neighbor, judging by the suit and that he’d walked over rather than driven. And what the hell did he mean by whether or not I ended up working with the Fixer Brothers? I was excited to be their client, and thought it was all but a done deal.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking his hand. “I’ve tried to come over to your house a couple of times this week with a gift of a fancy bottle of tequila, but you don’t seem to be home much.”
“I do keep busy,” he said. “Your little fluffball’s been in my yard almost every day this week, though.”
“Oreo’s been over there, too?” I said. “Shit. I thought she just kept escaping to the front.”
“Something needs to be done about the fence,” Emmett said, glaring over toward the backyard.
“Yes,” I said pointedly glancing over his stupid fancy suit again. “I’m aware of that. That’s why I’m enlisting the help of the Fixer Brothers.”
“I’ll be damned,” Nathan interjected, grinning wide as he stepped up beside us. “You two are neighbors! Well, this will be fun.”
“If you end up taking on Storm’s house as a renovation project,” Emmett clarified.
Nathan threw out his arms, looking back at my house. “I don’t see why we wouldn’t. This place is going to shine up beautifully with some TLC and a few sledgehammers.”
I cut a glance at Emmett, wondering what the hell his deal was.
He was already acting like he was somehow better than me, in that classic rich-prickish way, and I’d barely met the guy.
“Well, should we head in?” Shawn said, clapping his hands together.
“So long as Storm doesn’t push us out through his front door,” Emmett said, smiling slightly as he looked at me.
A flash of anger flared through me.
He was referencing a time when I’d pushed someone out of my front door, and the media had gone wild covering the story.
Okay.
So he did have a sense of humor—just an undeniably prickish one.
And it was clear he had seen some of my less-flattering news headlines from last year.
“Hey, Fancy Pants,” I said to him, “when I pushed that guy out of my house, I wasn’t trying to hurt him. And you don’t have the whole story. Nobody in the media did.”
Emmett’s jade-green eyes landed on me. “I read that he broke a wrist trying to break his fall.”
I set my jaw. “Well, what you didn’t get to read is the whole story. And that the reason he was in my apartment is because he entered uninvited,” I said. “And that he was drunk, belligerent, and was the abusive ex-husband of my friend Sarah. She was at my house looking for a place to escape him, so yeah, I fucking tossed him out the front door.”