“I’ll go check it out,” Pierce said sliding back from the table and standing before either of us argued with him.
He left me alone in the room with Morgan and she didn’t even pretend to try make conversation with me. The woman leered from her side and I stared back. Now that I regained what made me a bad-ass woman, I wouldn’t let a skanky real estate agent make me feel bad about my place. I was the fake future Mrs. Kensington for all she knew.
We sat in uncomfortable silence and glared at one another until my mind wandered and I realized Pierce hadn’t returned nor had the man with the copies. If I had to spend another second with the vapid woman, I would start twirling the pieces of my long red hair, and that would annoy the crap out of me because I hadn’t resorted to such fidgety techniques since grade school.
Not asking her permission, I rolled my chair back and stood. “I will find Pierce. See if he can hurry this long,” I said in my best stuck-up, rich-woman voice. I had years of practice, and even though I hadn’t used it in a while, it came out sparkling.
Apparently being high on yourself was just like riding a bike. Once you got back on it took little muscle memory to keep going.
Outside the main hallway of our room was another short hallway that jutted off the first. It didn’t take me long to spot the two bodies who stood halfway down it. A blonde was caged up against the wall as Pierce loomed over her. His hair as always was perfectly gelled back over his eyes and he had one hand against the wall keeping her in place while the other hung to his side set in a fist.
I hesitated at the end and stopped to see what would happen, but Katy held her ground against him.
Her face contorted into anger as she stared into Pierce’s eyes. “So you’re going to do it?”
Pierce smirked, and the shadows fell across his face, making him look deadly. “I already did. You’re too late.”
Katy’s shoulders fell. “How could you, Pierce? Not everything belongs to you.”
Just as her body went pliable, his grew as he loomed over her becoming a second wall. “No, that’s where you’re wrong, but soon everything will be mine.” His words were ice, and they slithered down my back. Right then Pierce wasn’t the man I’d seen during my time in Pelican Bay.
Katy stiffened and a new determination straightened her back. She met him and held strong. “Not me.” Her words were short and final. “You can buy this whole town, but you can’t buy me, Pierce Kensington.”
He slammed his fist against the wall by her head at the same time his lips connected with hers. I expected Katy to yell or scream, to push him away, but instead her arms wrapped around Pierce’s neck and she pulled him closer, deepening their kiss.
My mouth fell open in shock as a small gasp fell from my lips. I backed up and ran into the side of a wall letting out a strangled umpf. The sound of air being knocked from my lungs grabbed everyone’s attention.
Pierce pulled back and turned in my direction, shielding Katy from my sight. “Mari?” he asked and quickly wiped away the lipstick from around the edges of his mouth.
I shook my head, my eyes wide, matching my smile. Without another word I raised my eyebrows, nodding my head toward Katy, and giving Pierce permission to finish what he started. Then I left them alone in the hallway, making my way to the front of the building and then outside to the sidewalk. Those two had issues they needed to work out.
It seemed I may have been wrong in reading the reasons for Melissa, but I’d guessed at Pierce correctly. He wasn’t only interested in buying the bed-and-breakfast. So much more was at stake in Pelican Bay for him.
27
Oliver
Ifound Pierce pacing in the kitchen an hour after he returned from closing on the bed-and-breakfast. The plan had been to come over earlier, but I wanted to give him and Mari appropriate time to discuss their final agreement. We needed to decide when it was good for us to skip town. Mari hadn’t given me many details, but she sent a cryptic text about what she saw in a certain hallway of the title company.
“Is Mari here?” I asked as he finished up a circle around the kitchen table. It was weird to ask my cousin where his fake fiancée—the woman I loved—currently was located.
He barely lifted his head, caught up in his own thoughts. “She’s changing upstairs.”
He looked perplexed, but I couldn’t help but dig for more information. “Mari told me she caught you locking lips after you closed on the bed-and-breakfast.”
“Fuck.” Pierce rarely swore. He did his best to maintain his official East Coast society image. When he laid down F bombs, it wasn’t a good sign.
“Do you want talk about?” I had no desire to learn the particulars of my cousin’s sex life, but Pierce didn’t have many people to confide in, and Iwasstealing his fiancée. I owed him.
He shook his head. “No, I can handle Katy.”
Well, that deserved a “fuck.” I’d hoped Pierce had gotten over Katy years ago. It seemed my cousin was keeping secrets. “What are you going to do?”
He stopped in his tracks, his head jerking up to meet mine. “About Katy?”
“Yes, Katy.” Who else could we be talking about?
Pierce scoffed. “I said I will handle Katy.”
