“No, why are you protesting?” Now that I’d seen her up close and personal, the clothing matched the same woman who’d been using the megaphone when I first peeked out the window. It was obvious Katy was here with the protesters.
She stormed out of the laundry room into the kitchen, opening Pierce’s fridge and grabbing a bottle of water. “He can’t buy the bed-and-breakfast. I understand what he’s going to do to this town if he owned another piece of the historic city. It should belong to the city. To the auxiliary.”
I propped myself up against the counter as Katy unscrewed her water bottle and took a sip. “Pierce promised he won’t change anything.”
Finally, I had a chance to earn my two million dollars. If I changed Katy to his side and she stopped protesting him then, the money would be well spent for him, right?
Pierce had done nothing to get rid of Katy on his own, but he definitely made it known she was someone he considered a nuisance. I used to be a wonderful sales woman. I once talk a board room of men into buying stock in a lip-gloss company. It increased our dividends for the fourth quarter of my last term as company executive. One of my finer moments.
If I convinced seventy-five-year-old Dr. Benson to invest in lip gloss, I could certainly get Katy to like Pierce. Or at least stop breaking and entering into his home and picketing in his front lawn. My goals needed to remain realistic.
I used the opportunity of having Katy stuck in Pierce’s kitchen sipping on her water as a chance to babble about his finer points. I would’ve preferred a little time to prep, but I always worked well under pressure. Katy rolled her eyes each time I listed out a positive Pierce fact. Admittedly, a few times I may have gone overboard. The mention of his love for kittens put her over the line.
She was halfway through the bottle of water when she put her hand in the air to silence me. “I bet you Melissa doesn’t agree. She’s telling the whole town what Pierce did to her.”
There was my chance! My face lit up as a new understanding dawned. “Pierce said if I can find proof of what she said, he would consider rehiring her.” How did she argue against that? Few men would give their fake fiancée a chance to prove them wrong.
Still, somehow Katy looked unconvinced. “Really? Pierce told you that?”
“Yes,” my face fell as I remembered the roadblock with him earlier this morning. “But I have had little luck. His office is locked and I haven’t figured out an alternative way to get in yet.”
Katy had to be lighter than me. Maybe she didn’t have an issue with heights and could scale the side of the home. The gutter would probably hold her.
“How are you at climbing?” I asked, doing my best to guess her weight without letting my movements give me away.
Katy’s eyes narrowed and her forehead furled together with my question. “A great climber, but I can get you into his office from the hallway.”
She placed the bottle water on the edge of the counter and stormed up the stairs as if she knew the way through Pierce’s house already. I found her hunched over in front of his office door. She twisted the handle once to confirm it locked as Oliver and I had an hour earlier.
Except rather than frowning and giving up as we did, she pulled out a small black case from her back pocket, flipped it open, and selected two thin metal tools.
With a quick glance back in my direction, she pinched her lips together and then repositioned herself to hide what she was doing to the door handle. “It’s better if you don’t see this part,” she said.
“Why not?” I asked, leaning closer.
“Plausible deniability,” she said right as I heard a loud click and the door to the office slowly opened.
She didn’t waste a second walking into Pierce’s private space, her gaze scanning each of the corners. Time would be short if Pierce received my message about the protesters and came home, so I followed her lead and stuck myself in front of the side of his desk where we caught Melissa digging. Stacks of papers lay haphazardly, none of them organized, even though different groups were set in separate directions signifying they had different purposes. I couldn’t make any of them out. Pierce desperately needed an assistant with organizational skills.
Katy opened the drawer on the other side of the desk and rummaged through files. Her side showed at least a semblance of organization as they were each in their own green hanging file folder despite none of the tabs being labeled.
I continued looking for anything that said Roses and Retirement on the title or used Melissa’s last name.
Halfway through the stack I still came up empty-handed when Katy slammed a single sheet of paper in the middle of Pierce’s desk. “Bastard!”
I jerked back, letting my papers fall and losing my spot. “You found proof he didn’t pay the retirement home bill?” I asked leaning over the side of the desk and trying to read the piece of paper that had Katy so upset.
“No, nothing for the nursing home, but this is the contract for the Pelican Bay bed-and-breakfast. He’s paying them three million for it. That asshole. He knew there was no way we’d raise that much money. He’s overpaying by two fucking million dollars! Why does he want it so badly?”
“Three million for the B-and-B?” I asked. It didn’t appear to be a good time to let Katy know the cost of the place was actually five million when you considered the fact he’d give another two to me at the end of our six-month term. If she thought he was overpaying already, she’d have a conniption on the true cost. Pierce really wanted that historic property.
“The woman’s auxiliary didn’t stand a chance. Our biggest fundraiser was closed after the gunfire.”
“What!”
“Nothing,” she said, waving a hand in my direction as if it was no big deal. “It doesn’t matter. There’s no way we can outbid Pierce. He’s going to buy the bed-and-breakfast right out from under us and there’s nothing I can do.”
I slipped the paper from her fingers and read over the contract. It wasn’t the full purchase agreement, just a simple briefing of what to expect. “It looks standard. Do you have anyone else who would be interested in paying more?”
