“Yeah, he looks damn happy for a man that just lost a million-dollar contract,” Johnny said as his hand slowly made its way towards her burger. With a heavy sigh, Craig slapped his hand away.
Johnny gave her a sheepish smile and a shrug. She knew that he couldn’t help himself. Her brothers had been able to eat their father out of house and home by the time they were six and often had. If it hadn’t been for Craig, she probably would have starved to death. He’d kept the rest of their brothers in line and made sure that she always had enough to eat.
“Yeah, well, he kind of, sort of got the contract, too,” Rory said quickly, unable to help but wince as she waited for their reaction.
When they just sat there, staring at her, Rory found herself clearing her throat and shifting nervously until finally, Bryce spoke. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I wish,” Rory said, taking another sip of cocoa. Again, her brothers looked over their shoulders and this time, the life-ruining bastard had the balls to shoot them a wink.
Rory discreetly flipped him off, watching as Connor’s eyes once again narrowed dangerously on her. Her brothers returned their attention to her as she did her best to appear innocent as she sipped her cocoa.
“I don’t understand,” Sean said. “How could you both get the contract?”
Clearing her throat, Rory quietly mumbled, “We’ll be working with Highland Construction on this job.”
Stunned silence met her announcement. She chanced a glance up at her brothers, who were now looking at her as though she’d grown an extra head.
“We each got the contract with a twenty percent markup and a nice bonus if we finish by the November deadline,” Rory explained, watching as the information sank in.
Each of her brothers cursed as they turned and shot another scowl at the man that was once again smiling smugly in their direction. Slowly, her brothers turned back to face her, glaring.
“Why didn’t you tell them that we could do it without Highland Construction?” Sean demanded. This time when Johnny tried to snag her burger, Craig didn’t stop him.
Great, the big babies were mad at her. Whatever. They’d get over it.
“Does it look like I want to work with him?” Rory asked, making them frown. “I didn’t have a choice. Even if we hire extra men, we won’t be able to train them in time for them to be useful. We wouldn’t make the deadline. If we did this alone, we’d also blow our profit margin on extra equipment. Extra equipment, I might add, that Highland Construction already has. All we have to do is work our asses off just like any other project, meet the deadline, and that’s it. The only downside is that it will be with the bastard, but if I can handle it, then so can you.”
Her brothers looked thoughtful as they considered what she’d said. Finally, with a shrug, Craig said, “As long as he stays out of our way, we won’t kick his ass.”
Chapter 3
“That’s it, boy,” Connor cooed as the hundred-and-fifty-pound pain in the ass cocked his head to the side and studied him. “Come on, big guy, you know you want it,” he said, holding up the hot dog he’d dipped in peanut butter higher as he moved it slowly from side to side, trying to entice the little bastard.
The demon spawn that Rory had the balls to call a dog licked his lips hungrily as his eyes zeroed in on the tasty treat. Grinning, Connor leaned over and reached for the laptop bag that he’d foolishly set down on the ground ten minutes ago so that he could grab his briefcase and the files for Strawberry Manor, only to turn around and find the pain in the ass lying across it.
Connor tossed the tasty treat onto Rory’s property. The dog sent him one last glare before he took off. Connor didn’t waste any time, he reached down and grabbed his bag, knowing damn well that the dog would be back. Sometimes it seemed as though the fucking dog liked screwing him over more than Rory did.
He was just about to head inside his house when a familiar red four-door sedan pulled into Rory’s driveway. Hadn’t he already chased this loser off? It had been what...three or four weeks since he last saw this asshole sniffing around Rory? Then again, most of the men Rory dated, all losers in his opinion, stopped coming by her house shortly after meeting him, which was just the way he liked it.
But clearly, he hadn’t done his job if this one was coming back for more. As he watched the asshole step out of his car, smooth his hair back and straighten his obviously new shirt and slacks, Connor couldn’t help but wonder how dumb the man really was.
When he spotted Connor, he froze on the spot and noticeably swallowed. A loud, menacing growl had him taking a healthy step back. Because that too pleased him, Connor pulled the second peanut butter-dipped hot dog out of the baggy and tossed it to the dog Rory dared to name, “Bunny.” With a grunt, Bunny swallowed the treat whole but never took his eyes away from the asshole who refused to step out from behind his car.
Like that would protect him, Connor thought with a sigh as he walked over to the corner of his large white Victorian home, which happened to be less than twenty feet away from the corner of Rory’s house, which was almost identical to his house. When the houses had been built over two hundred years ago, they’d been identical in every way, except the direction of the layout of the houses were completely different. The Master bedroom suite of each house had its very own open porch that extended past the walls of the house by a good ten feet so that their porches were separated by less than a foot of space.
The houses had been built by identical twins for their wives only to discover that their wives couldn’t stand each other. At least, that’s what his realtor told him when he bought the house. Whether or not it was true didn’t really matter to him. All that mattered was that he could look forward to aggravating the shit out of Rory each and every night when she sat out on her porch to relax.
When he first bought the place, the small strip of land that separated the two properties had a tall wood fence that started at the street and ended at the back of the property. It also had large arboreta trees that were nearly as tall as the house, completely blocking Rory from his sight. Since he’d bought the house for the entertainment value alone, Connor had the fence and trees taken down the very next day.
Rory had been pissed at the time, but she got over it quickly and focused her attention back on renovating her house while he did the same with his. It took him two years to get the house the way that he wanted it, but it had been well worth it. When he’d first bought the place, he’d considered giving it a more modern look, but after his first night, he’d decided to go with what he thought it might have looked when it had been originally built. It took extra time, money, and a lot of guessing, but he was happy with the results.
When he’d originally bought the property, he’d planned on fixing it up and selling it. Having Rory around to torture was just a bonus while he’d worked on flipping the property, but once the renovations were finished, he hadn’t been able to part with the house. He knew that it had been the same for Rory. Although he hadn’t seen what she did with her house, and God, he wanted to see what she came up with, he knew that she’d changed her mind about selling after the renovations were complete because she’d fallen in love with her house.
“Is Rory here?” the asshole asked, shifting nervously near his car.
“Is she expecting you?” Connor asked, leaning back against his house as he discreetly reached behind the rosebush that one of his ex-girlfriends had insisted on planting and flipped the switch on what he liked to call his “Little Box of fun.” He settled his fingers over the three black buttons that made up the small panel and waited.
“That’s none of your business,” the asshole snapped, clearly not happy to see him.
