by Becca Barnes
She went perfectly still, but I detected the muscles from the side of her cheeks tighten into a grin.
“I like you, too,” she said quietly.
“If you can’t tell, I really like you.” I spun her around and lifted her onto the edge of the sink so we were eye level. I held her hips firmly so she wouldn’t worry about falling.
“I really like you, too.” Ellie pulled me between her legs and hooked her ankles behind my back. She leaned forward as if to whisper something in my ear, but at the last second, dipped her lips lower and planted the most delicate of kisses on the tender skin underneath my earlobe. A jolt of desire shot through me.
Shit. This woman had absolutely no clue how sexy she was. No clue what she did to me. It took all my effort not to lift her off the counter and ravage her then and there.
I was about to propose as such—business ramifications be damned, I’d sort them out later—when I thought better of it.
It was like something within me, something that had iced over, suddenly cracked. I didn’t want a frantic, frenzied spree on the floor of this place. (Well, technically, yes I did. Very much so.) But first I wanted more. That thawed spot called out for something more, something deeper.
Something real.
I wanted to take my time, sweet time when I made love to her. I wanted to undress her slowly, piece by unbearable piece of clothing. I wanted to make her moan and scream my name and make noises she didn’t even know she was capable of making.
But not yet.
Because more than anything, I wanted things to be open and cleared of any stray entanglements in the background. Which they would be, I reminded myself. Soon.
Monday, I’d submit the formal offer to Kat. Get the contract signed by Wednesday. No problem. I could wait.
Ellie scooted agonizingly close to me, until she was pressed hard against the body part that was currently giving the most convincing argument for not waiting.
Gulp.
“So,” I said, as nonchalantly as I could muster, “what was that about teaching me the fine art of bathing a dog?”
“Mmmm, what dog?” murmured Ellie, taking a nip at my earlobe.
My body responded accordingly, and I pulled back with a groan. And just like the area below my belt, this was going to be so much harder than I thought.
But I would do this right.
Ellie giggled, then sighed.
“Fine,” she said. “You’re no fun. Come here, Lulu.”
Ellie made a little clicking noise with her mouth and Lulu immediately jumped to attention. I’d have to remember that one.
Ellie then proceeded to give me a quick tutorial on how to give a dog a bath. It wasn’t too complicated, although it was hard to keep my hands off Ellie when she was elbow deep in warm suds.
I added bubble bath to my to-do list with her.
She also managed to sell me on five different bottles of flowery-smelling goop and sprays in the process of washing and drying Lulu. She was a natural salesperson. I was impressed.
And dang it. Turned on again.
“How much do I owe you?” I asked when she was finishing.
“Complimentary,” she said.
“Let’s say I was going to repay you in-kind later on?” I drew her into the protective circle of my arms and was again struck by how right it felt. She belonged there.
“If I were going to charge you?” Her eyebrow quirked up. “Let’s see. For the bath, the fur and nail trim, the aromatherapy spray, the last-minute warning, the--ahem--extra customer attention, it would be around three-fifty.”
I let out a low whistle.
“You’re selling yourself awfully short on the extra attention.”
“A thousand?”
“Still about a million or two off.” I planted a peck on the tip of her nose, and she sighed again. Thankfully, without the underlying note of frustration from earlier. I didn’t know if I could handle hearing that sound come out of her again.
I had much more fulfilling sounds in mind.
Seventeen
Ellie
It wasn’t hard to find tasks to keep myself busy the rest of the weekend. Never had to look far to notice something that needed to be done around the store or spa. But then again, I’d never wanted to be somewhere else, or rather, with someone else before.
Mac had apologized as he’d left that he had a big work project due later in the week, and he wouldn’t be around until after he’d finished it. He promised to make it up to me--not that he had anything to make up for--with some special surprise later in the week. He refused to tell me what it was, only that I should expect a visitor one morning, and that I should just go along with whatever they asked me to do without asking questions.
My mind spun with possibilities, each more outrageous than the last.
At least whatever this work project was, it hadn’t stopped him from calling me each night and talking until two a.m. or texting me every twenty minutes like a hormone-ravaged teenager.
We talked about everything and nothing.
We were both only children. Mac had extended family out the wazoo, though.
I told him about my favorite Christmas Eve tradition growing up. Dad and I would go down to the beach and make a sand snowman and collect seashells. We’d use them as the eyes and mouth, the buttons. I’d make a scarf of seaweed and arms of driftwood. Then we’d build a bonfire at dusk and a bunch of locals would join us as we roasted marshmallows and drank root beer floats. My dad had always said that the flames would help guide Santa’s sleigh to our house. Finally, we’d come home and hang the extra shells on their tree.
In the morning, there would always be a trail of sand from the chimney to the tree.
Even long after I’d stopped believing in jolly old Saint Nick, Dad would sprinkle a little sand on the floor around the chimney.
And then my father married Kat. She got bored with the sand snowman and coughed at smoke from the bonfire. That was the last year of our tradition.
Mac told me about summers in Texas with his grandmother, sucking the dew out of honeysuckles and eating strawberries straight off the runner. It was hard to miss the unbridled love he felt for his grandma and his roots.
And then he told me about Felicia.
I could hear the pain in his voice that he tried to stuff down and mask as he described his ex-fiancee and her betrayal.
How did you learn to trust again after something like that?
But even as I wondered that, I sensed a lightening of some weight that had pressed down on him as he told me about it.
The one thing we didn’t talk much about was work. To be honest, I didn’t want to stop to consider what exactly it meant that Mac would be finished with the project that week. Presumably, he’d be headed out soon after, to whatever his next work assignment was.
Any time I found myself dwelling on it--worrying my lower lip until the skin was raw as I pondered what a long distance relationship could even look like--I reminded myself to chill.
We were only having a bit of short-term fun. A fling. Right?
The only problem was, with every text, with every phone call, it was feeling less and less like a fling.
Thankfully, the time away from Mac also gave me some time to focus on what I’d found on Kat’s laptop. It had been pulled up to an article, “Placing a Monetary Value on Social Media Presence in Preparation for the Sale of Your Small Business.”
Didn’t get much more clear cut than that.
I knew this day could come. S’Paw Box was a highly profitable small business with additional growth potential, practically a unicorn in the world of retail. The only thing I wasn’t sure of was if Kat was just beginning to think about it or if she was courting multiple potential buyers. She might even already have someone in mind.
But one thing I did know...Kat wasn’t going to sell S’Paw Box to anyone without one hell of a fight from me.
I might not have a valid legal claim to the store, but no one could have ha
d a stronger emotional claim.
No, it ran deeper than that.
My soul had a claim over this place.
Lavender Beach was where I lived. I loved it. It was home. But S’Paw Box was my true home. I’d literally grown up within its walls.
The store was nothing to Kat. She’d proved that over and over again with her lack of interest. She treated it more as a burden than as a valuable asset and investment, even though it paid her many bills.
Still, legally, it was hers to do with as she wanted.
But I had one secret, last artillery shell that I could fire.
It was risky. Foolhardy, even.
If it worked, I would walk away the proud new owner of S’Paw Box.
And if it didn’t…
Well, if I couldn’t buy the place, I’d make damn sure no one else would.
Eighteen
Mac
I checked the address for Kat’s place on my GPS as I drove over to meet her on Monday evening. Sitting on my passenger seat was a decent offer for S’Paw Box.
The woman should consider herself damn lucky. She’d inherited the business from her husband--an inheritance that, from my perspective at least, was rightfully Ellie’s. Maybe the law didn’t see it that way, but she was obviously the one who kept the place running smoothly.
Kat should also consider herself lucky that she was dealing with me and not my father. My dad wasn’t happy with the number I’d arrived at. Too generous, he’d said. Find their pinch point and exploit it.
But this was my deal. My father might like to dance on the precipice of shady ethics, but I wasn’t going to bend on this one.
I was already going to have a difficult enough time explaining to Ellie why I hadn’t been upfront with her from the beginning. I didn’t relish the idea of also having to explain why I made a total lowball offer on something that she prized so dearly.
Kat’s condo was in a nice but older section of the town. Before I got out of my car, I checked my puppy-cam app to make sure that Lulu was okay. She was curled up on one of her multiple dog beds, cuddling one of the dozen plush toys I’d bought for her.
“Good girl,” I said to the screen, even though I knew she couldn’t hear me. Then I jotted a note to myself to upgrade to a smart system that would allow me to talk with her and dispense treats while I was away from her. Not that I planned on being away from her for more than a couple hours at a time. She’d already proven herself to be a perfectly-behaved office dog over the last couple of days.
As I walked up the stairs, I realized I wasn’t sure what to expect from Kat that evening. It was an uncomfortable sensation and one I wasn’t familiar with at all.
Normally, by this point in an acquisition, I was solidly in the driver’s seat. But this acquisition hadn’t been normal. At all.
I’d feel better once I completed the negotiation dance with Kat. I’d come in with my offer. She’d respond with a counteroffer. I estimated we’d come to a sweet spot about one-hundred fifty K over my initial proposal.
Easy enough.
But it wasn’t Kat who had me unsettled.
There was the curveball of developing feelings for Ellie. Strong feelings.
There. I’d admitted it.
From the moment we’d met, I’d been attracted to her--highly. But attraction, I could handle. Have a good time and move on. No harm, no foul.
It was more than attraction with Ellie, though. She challenged me. Surprised me. She made me paint pictures of the future in my mind. Pictures with her in them.
I shook my head to clear it as I knocked on Kat’s door. I needed to focus on closing this deal, then I could sort through my feelings for Ellie later.
When Kat opened the door, I blinked. She must have come straight from the spray tan salon. Her skin wasn’t so much orange as the shade of a burnt pumpkin spice donut.
She was dressed super casually. Not a good sign. Sometimes, I employed that tactic in a negotiation. Acting indifferent in order to grab the upper hand.
But then I noticed she wore shorts so short that her butt cheeks hung out and a loose-fitting white sweater. One side of the sweater draped off her shoulder, and the other side was holding on so precariously she could be bare chested in two seconds flat.
Well, then.
Good.
Kat hadn’t so much tipped her cards as laid them all out flat on the table.
She didn’t just want this sale. She was desperate for this sale.
Now this I could work with.
“Hey, there,” I said in a smooth tone, turning up the charisma a notch.
“Hi.” She beckoned me in. “Have a seat.”
“Thanks.”
I noticed takeout bags on the table from Pyre, the trendy restaurant Ellie and I had fled the other night. I hid the shudder that ran through me wondering what tofu nonsense hid in that bag.
“So.” I gestured to the folder I carried as I took a seat on the sofa. “I think you’ll find this to be a generous—”
“Why don’t we slow down a little?” said Kat, leaning so far forward, her sweater could barely contain her breasts. She placed two fingertips on my knee then walked them up my thigh.
Wow. So much for subtlety.
“Umm.” The fact was, I had employed this particular tactic in the past--flirt, feign interest. But even if this woman wasn’t Ellie’s stepmother, the thought of fooling around with anyone but Ellie made my stomach churn.
That fact alone was enough to make me kick myself. I’d failed miserably at keeping my personal feelings out of this deal. But the damage was done.
And what sweet, sweet damage it was.
And yet that didn’t help me in my current predicament.
“Let’s, uhh, let’s stick to business first.” I gingerly picked up her hand and moved it over to her own knee. “We can address the social niceties later.”
Social niceties? What, was I channeling Miss Manners 1959?
“If you insist.” Kat’s lower lip slid into a pout, but she kept to her own personal space.
“As I was saying, I think you’ll find this to be a generous offer.” I handed her the envelope. Standard presentation.
She opened it and kept a perfectly neutral poker face as she read.
Hmm. Maybe I had underestimated her.
“Looks good,” she said when she had finished reading.
And maybe I hadn’t underestimated her.
Any negotiator worth their salt would have declared that a slightly-above-insulting opening bid.
The key word there being opening bid.
“Excellent.” I leaned back into the cushions and sank into the sofa, trying to make my body language as non-threatening as possible.
“Where do I sign?” she asked.
“Oh, umm, I’ll have my lawyers send a final contract over tomorrow afternoon.”
“Okay.”
Perfect. I’d have this all over and behind me within twenty-four hours. A tension that I hadn’t even realized I’d been harboring in my shoulders eased and relaxed.
Kat scooted closer on the sofa so her thigh brushed mine. She rubbed her bare foot along my ankle, up my shin.
I jumped up and whirled around like the spot where I’d been sitting was electrified.
“Do you mind if I use your restroom?” I asked.
She pointed down the hall, and as I closed the bathroom door, I heard her yell, “hurry back!”
Shit.
I clutched the edge of the sink with both hands.
“What are you doing?” I asked my reflection in the mirror. The man before me looked happier, more alive than he had in ages. His skin had a healthy glow thanks to spending his time walking and biking around this beautiful beach town rather than hunched over a laptop and buzzing fluorescent lights in a sterile hotel room somewhere.
I had the world’s best dog waiting for me at home where she would lavish me with affection.
And I had...Ellie.
Did I have Ellie?
/> She’d told me that she liked me. She’d shown me, too, my aching groin reminded me. I wanted to be with Ellie, but—
No buts.
I’d figure it out. We’d figure it out.
Now what to do about the orange menace out in the living room?
I was just about to walk out and feign another stomach bug when my phone dinged. I looked at the notification that had popped up. It was an Instagram post from the S’Paw Box account. In big, bold letters, it said, “HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT COMING SOON.”
“Damn it.” What was Kat trying to pull? We hadn’t even discussed the non-disclosure terms yet. I marched back out to the living room and held up the screen.
“You can’t announce this deal until it’s completed,” I said. “And there are some strict clauses in the contract regarding any changes to your business structure while it’s being finalized.”
“What?” She took the phone from me, and from the confusion written all over her, I could tell she had nothing to do with the post.
So then what was the announcement?
“Is there something you need to tell me?” I asked.
“No, nothing,” she said.
“So you don’t know what this big announcement is?”
“Of course I do.“ She put on a glittery smile. Her brilliant white teeth against the orange of her skin was especially jarring. “It just has nothing to do with this. Don’t worry about it. It’s all good. I’ll sort it out tomorrow with my, umm, social media manager.”
Ellie. Who else could it be?
While curious about what Ellie was up to, I knew that she had no official power to impact this sale.
“Are you ready to eat?” asked Kat.
I looked over at the cooling bags of whatever vegan torture awaited me.
I should stay here. Do my duty. Embrace the niceties.
Screw it.
“Actually, I have to run,” I said.
“Wait. You aren’t going to stay for dinner?”
“I’m sorry. I’m afraid I already made plans I’d forgotten about. I’ll have my lawyers get in touch tomorrow.” I waved as I made my way out the door, before she had a chance to protest.
