“Now, all I need is to win the lottery so I can buy this house and invite Brody, the hunk of sex in flannel, to live here. He can stay in the stable and come out whenever I want to take a ride,” I said loudly as I opened the double doors to the study like I was making my grand entrance onRuPaul’s Drag Race.
But Olivia wasn’t there.
Instead, a pair of ice-blue eyes met mine.
“Uhhh…why are you here?”
But I knew why he was here. And I was fucked.
“I’m Matt Frost, the idiot homeowner,” he said in a clipped tone. “And I assume you are the minimum-wage grunt worker who is going to remove the tacky furniture?”
“Shit.”
10
Matt
Why is she always here?
I hadn’t even wanted to come to the Wynter Estate property. The last time I went there was to check it out before purchasing it a year and a half ago. The house was supposed to be a present for Hensley. I was going to surprise her with the freshly renovated and decorated mansion. The design was to be based on all the dream home Pinterest boards she had made. Hensley had been hinting to me that she had wanted a forever home. She had trim color, furniture, and ceiling treatments picked out. Now the remnant of that dream lay broken in the cavernous space.
A space that was feeling way too claustrophobic with Merrie traipsing through.
“I, uh—” she stammered when she saw me. “I wasn’t talking about you,obviously. I was talking about some other person who owned a historic house. Is it cold? Is anyone cold? Because it’s really cold in here. Maybe we should light a fire? Get a little Christmas cheer going?”
“For the record, I do not,” I said icily, “take money from my father, and I certainly am not a whipped little boy.”
“Definitely not little,” Merrie muttered.
I narrowed my eyes.
“To be fair, though,” she added, “you were going to have all this trim painted.”
I hissed out a breath. I had not wanted to paint the trim. Unfortunately, it was one thing Hensley had always been adamant about—how that particular shade of gray was, in her words, the perfect trim color. She painted all her trim that color—her office, her condo, my condo in Manhattan that I had repainted white after I cut her out of my life. Or tried to.
But I didn’t need Merrie throwing that mistake back in my face.
She doesn’t even know me.
“Big words from the person who wants to have the town firewood salesman locked up in her stable.”
She blushed up to the roots of her frizzy red hair.
“You’re just mad because I said your chest was unimpressive,” she snapped, eyes flashing.
“No, I’m mad that you lied about it.”
She pressed her lips together.
I cocked an eyebrow. “Admit it.”
“You’re not as hot as Brody,” she said mulishly.
“Of course not,” I told her, stepping up into her personal space. “Because I’m cold as ice. However, ice will still burn you.”
That wasthe terrible thing about small towns—you couldn’t escape the people.
I headed out to my car. A thin layer of snow lay on the SUV. I let the windshield wipers take care of it as the wheels crunched on the snow up the tree-lined drive.
