Everyone laughed.
Connor remembered standing there cocky as hell, waiting for her to finally react like a girl and cry. Instead, she’d calmly put the pictures back in the box, gagged again, and returned it to her locker. She grabbed the lunch that he and all his friends spit in, it was her birthday after all, and walked over to him.
Instead of crying and screaming at him or even threatening to tell her daddy and her rather large brothers, she’d kneed him in the balls. When he was down on the ground, she forced half her lunch down his throat while his friends fell over themselves, laughing their asses off, but it had been worth it. Even the month of detention that followed couldn’t take away the joy he’d received.
“Mr. O’Neil? Miss James? He’s ready for you.”
Chapter 2
Rory sat in the padded chair, trying to hide her annoyance at being seated next to the bastard. She couldn’t understand why Mr. McGill was handling their bids this way. She’d known a month ago when she’d placed her bid on this job that Connor was also planning to make a bid. It hadn’t been a big deal then because they were in the same business and usually went after the same jobs.
Usually, these things were handled more privately. She couldn’t remember ever being in the room with her competition before when the client announced his decision. The only thing that she could come up with was that the client was hoping to use their well-known animosity towards each other to start a bidding war.
It wasn’t going to happen. As much as she would love to get her hands on Strawberry Fields Manor, she wasn’t about to get into another embarrassing public confrontation with Connor. The one they’d had last month at the Strawberry Festival still made her cringe.
Things probably wouldn’t have gotten out of hand if their dates had just stayed out of it, but once Mary Lee decided to get in her face and Jeff took it as his cue to get into Connor’s, things went downhill quickly. Okay, so she may have started it when she’d dumped the bucket of mashed strawberries over Mary Lee’s head, but in her defense, she could only hear ‘“stupid bitch” so many times before she snapped.
She still didn’t understand why the festival committee banned them for a year, especially after they’d paid for all those strawberries they’d ruined. At least she was still allowed to have a booth at next year’s festival for her business, Shadow Construction. Granted, one of her brothers would have to man the table and that probably wouldn’t end well, but at least her company would be represented during the town’s biggest event.
Connor shifted in his chair next to hers, probably just as nervous as she was. A thought occurred to her, one that pissed her off. If he actually went along with this and tried to outbid her, she was going to pants his ass on the way out.
Her lips twitched at the memory of the last time she’d done that. Granted, it had been a week after he’d done it to her, but at least she hadn’t been wearing pink boxers with hearts all over them at a bar like a certain someone that she wouldn’t mention. It really had brought such joy to her and her brothers’ lives as they’d watched guys hit on Connor and send drinks his way all night. She’d been sixty percent sure that he was going to kill her with his bare hands that night.
“As you both know,” Mr. McGill started, bringing her attention back to him, “we’ve had problems getting permits and the heavy rain season has pushed our plans back by six months.”
They both nodded.
“I know that you’re both probably very confused as to why I’ve asked Shadow Construction and Highland Construction for a joint meeting.” Thankfully, he didn’t leave them in suspense for very long. “My partners and I would like Strawberry Fields Hotel up and running by November.”
“That’s five months,” she blurted out before she could stop herself.
Connor threw her an annoyed look, probably for stating the obvious. Not that she cared if she aggravated the bastard. She could care less about that. What she did care about was the fact that there was no way that her company could get Strawberry Fields Hotel up and running in five months. A year? Yes, and that was only after hiring ten extra men and going overboard with overtime.
Five months was not doable.
“Yes, it is,” Mr. McGill agreed, nodding in agreement. “As I’m sure that you both know, Strawberry Fields Manor needs a bit of work,” he continued and Rory barely managed to stop herself from snorting in disbelief.
Strawberry Fields Manor was going to need a complete overhaul. The manor was going to have to be completely gutted, the long driveway was going to have to be torn up, and the landscape fixed. Those were just a few of the major things that needed to be fixed. She had a fifteen-page list in her office of all the small problems that needed attention and those things were going to be the ones that took the most time.
“I know that this is highly unusual, but we’d like to hire both of your companies to work together and finish the project,” Mr. McGill announced with a nervous smile, shocking them both into absolute silence. She wasn’t even sure that she was breathing or knew how to at that moment.
He really couldn’t expect the two of them to work together. Could he? They’d kill each other! The entire town knew that. Hell, there were several betting pools over when and how they were going to kill each other.
This could not be happening.
As much as she would love to work on Strawberry Fields Manor, she really wasn’t sure-
“If you’re both able to do this and meet our deadline, you will each be paid a bonus of fifty-thousand dollars on top of the twenty percent we’ve already decided to add to your bids,” Mr. McGill announced. “As long as both of you believe that you can work on this project together without any problems,” he stipulated, giving them a pointed look.
Rory looked at Connor only to find him staring at her. They narrowed their eyes on each other, trying to decide if that amount of money would be enough to stop them from killing each other. After several tense moments, they both nodded slowly.
For that kind of money, she was more than willing to do a lot of things that she didn’t want to do, like let the life-ruining bastard live.
Grinning hugely, Connor walked into O’Malley’s tavern. He really couldn’t help but smile. Not only had he landed the most sought-after project of the decade, but he was going to be getting a very nice bonus when he was done. He spotted five very large men sitting to the far right, glaring openly at him and was reminded of the problem that he would have to rectify quickly.
No doubt, the little tomboy thought that they were really going to work on this project together. That was just sad because really, at this stage of the game, she really should know better.
This project was his, and the sooner she figured that out, the better off everyone would be. Sure, he’d keep her around for appearances’ sake. She could fetch his lunch or something to make herself useful, but she would be staying away from his project. The use of her men was certainly a nice bonus.
