by Ivy Layne
"Your brother kicked you out?" I asked in surprise.
I hadn't bothered with deep research into Charlotte. As a Winters, most of what I wanted to know was right there in the archives of the paper. But everything I'd seen showed me a family that stuck together.
"He didn't kick me out of the house. He fired me." Her voice went hard as she said the last words, and her eyes narrowed. "That fucking, ungrateful, betraying bastard fired me. Do you have any idea how hard I've worked for that goddamned company? I got a degree in Economics. I hate Economics. I went to business school at night, while I worked during the day, did all those stupid projects and presentations.
"And I rocked that job. If you look at the reports after I took over, profits were up and we expanded. I was fucking awesome. Since I turned eighteen, I've given it everything I have.”
Her eyes flooded with tears, the vivid, watery blue reminding me of the ocean. My gut clenched, instinctively rejecting the idea of this woman crying.
Her even white teeth sank into her bottom lip so hard the flesh turned white. She tilted her head up and blinked away the tears.
As soon as she had herself under control, she raised the glass to her bruised lips and drank every drop of the whiskey. This time, I didn't comment on how much she was drinking.
I got the feeling Charlotte Winters would rather pass out drunk than cry in front of anyone, much less a virtual stranger.
Oddly, I knew exactly how she felt. I'd go through miles of hell before letting anyone see my pain.
Who was I to deny her the same right? Giving her another minute to get herself together, I picked up the decanter and refilled her glass.
"So what happened?" I asked when she looked ready to talk again.
"He said that leaving the company was what was best for me. That I was wasting my life on a job I hated and he wasn't going to let me do it anymore."
I knew better than to say what I was thinking. Firing her was a dick move, but never once when she'd described the job had she said she liked it, much less loved it. But that wasn't my business. That was between Charlotte and her brother.
None of this was my business. If I were smart I would hand her the decanter of whiskey, offer my apologies, and get the hell out of there.
I didn't do any of that. Instead, I took the glass from her, helped myself to another sip of the absurdly expensive alcohol, and said, "So, are you going to get another job?"
She let out another hard, bitter laugh. "I can't. Not unless I want to leave town. And even that might not work. Aiden fucking blackballed me."
"Shit, that's harsh."
"Yeah, right?" She took back the glass, brought it to her mouth, and swallowed twice. "He wants me to, I don't know, find myself. I'm twenty-four years old. If I'm not found now . . ."
"What are you going to do?" I asked, hoping I wasn't stepping on another landmine, but I wanted to get her thinking about action rather than dwelling on what had happened.
I didn't know her brother, but it didn't sound like he was going to change his mind.
No one got to his position in life, successfully running a multinational corporation—not just maintaining, but expanding—if he was indecisive and emotional. Whatever reasons Aiden Winters had for firing his sister, I'd bet he had no plans to hire her back.
One way or another, she was going to have to deal with that.
Charlotte let out a sigh, her eyes scanning the back porch of her house. I'd looked at it before I'd bought my own. It had been on the market for a few years, gradually falling apart while the owners ignored it and hoped it would sell.
Twice the size of my own bungalow, it was a rambling craftsman style structure that had great bones but was a total disaster. I'd considered it for myself—the front rooms had detailed woodwork that was hard to turn down, but it was way too big for me and too much of a project.
I'd had my hands full with my own mess next door, but that was nothing compared to this place. "You're not going to live here, are you?"
"Of course I'm going to live here," she said.
"You're insane." I'd revised my assessment of her from crazy to just having a bad day, but now the pendulum was swinging back to totally fucking nuts. "You can't live here. This place is about to fall down on your head."
"Only parts of it," she protested. "Look, the foundation is solid and I had a new roof put on right after I took possession. A lot of the electrical has been shut off, and what's on is safe. Not entirely reliable, but safe. Same for the plumbing. There's no kitchen. That was gutted a few weeks ago. And the upstairs is basically a bunch of studs since the contractor re-did the layout of the rooms.
"But the front of the house—the hall, the stairs, the dining room, and the living room just need cosmetic work. And I did get the bathroom in the back of the house in working shape. I have a portable AC unit if I need it and a sleeping bag. So yeah, I am staying here."
She'd struck me dumb. Whatever I'd expected Charlotte Winters to say, it hadn't been a concise rundown of the rehab on her house. At best, I'd figured she'd hire a contractor, have him get the whole thing into House & Garden condition, and then she'd move in.
Living in a back room with no kitchen and barely a bathroom while she fixed up the house?
I hadn't seen that coming.
"Don't tell me you're going to do the work yourself," I said. She narrowed those blue eyes at me again and scowled.
"Why, because I'm a girl? Because I'm too spoiled to know how to work?"
"Settle down, Princess—" I started to say, but she cut me off.
"Don't call me Princess."
"Fine, Charlotte."
"Charlie. Don't call me Charlotte. Only people at the office and Elizabeth call me Charlotte."
Sidetracked, I asked, "Who's Elizabeth?"
Charlotte shook her head. "Aiden's ex-wife, and we are not talking about Elizabeth. We're talking about why you think I can't work on my own house."
"I'm not trying to be an asshole, but there's a lot of work to do here, and most of it requires some pretty technical experience. Please tell me you don't think you're going to do anything with the electrical or the plumbing."
"I'm not an idiot, Lucas," she said, and the sound of her saying my name in that annoyed voice went straight to my cock. It was the first time she'd said my name.
"I don't think you're an idiot, Charlie," I said gently. "A little crazy. Reckless, maybe, but not an idiot."
"I think you're the first person to call me crazy or reckless since I was a teenager. You're just seeing me on a bad day. Normally, I'm perfect Charlie Winters. I always do the right thing, say the right thing, wear the right thing. Or, at least, I used to. Now, I don't know what the hell I am."
Something inside me rebelled at the sound of defeat in her voice. I'd seen her passionate, pissed off, and definitely reckless, but I couldn't stand the thought of her defeated.
Trying to get her back on track, I asked, "If you're not going to work on the house, what are you going to do?"
"I am going to work on the house. I've got a contractor handling the stuff I can't do like reworking the second floor and coordinating the plumber and electrician. But there is stuff I can do—I've got to pull up these rotten floorboards on the porch, and that just takes a crowbar and some muscle. And all that wood work in the house has three coats of paint on it. There's gorgeous quarter-sawn oak underneath all that paint. I have no idea what they were thinking covering it up.
"I've got crown molding, wainscoting, paneling, and all of those railings on the staircase to strip and stain, not to mention all the hardwood floors have to be refinished. I was going to hire someone to do that, but now that I'm out of a job, it seems like a waste of money."
I was willing to bet my house this girl had never stripped paint before. It wasn't that it was technically difficult, so much as boring, repetitive, and time-consuming. I gave her a week, max, before she got tired of it and hired someone else to take over.
Not that I was going to voice that thou
ght out loud. I did have some sense of self-preservation.
She could figure out on her own that she wasn't cut out for the hard, sweaty work of renovating an old house. I knew exactly what she was getting into. I'd done everything she'd listed next door in my bungalow. I'd loved every second of it, but it hadn't been easy.
"Okay," I said, not wanting to piss her off again. "And what about today? What's your plan for the rest of today?"
Charlie eyed me with suspicion, as if wondering what my angle was. Her probing look wouldn't get her anywhere. I didn't know what my angle was.
Unfortunately, sex was out of the question. She'd had way too much to drink. Charlotte Winters could hold her whiskey, but the slight slur in her words and glaze to her blue eyes told me she was more drunk than she seemed.
That was a damn shame.
Maybe another time. Normally, I'd close the door on any possibility of sex with a neighbor, but that kiss had been something else. If she wanted another shot at me when she was thinking straight, I wasn't going to turn her down. Then again, I'd had a few drinks myself.
Maybe the memory of her mouth on mine wouldn't seem so magnetic by the next day.
Finally, she answered my question, speaking in the slow, deliberate cadence of someone who knew they'd had too much to drink.
"I'm going to finish that whiskey. Then I'm going to walk—or crawl—into the back room and pass out in my sleeping bag. That's my plan."
"What about food? It's almost dinner time," I said. Charlotte shook her head, the loose strands of shiny auburn hair tangling in her eyelashes. She pushed them back with the heel of her hand.
"Not hungry," she said.
"When was the last time you ate?" I asked.
She peered into the air over my head as if her day's schedule was written in the blue sky. "Breakfast, I think. I had a conference call through lunch. I was going to get something after I met with Aiden. Then I forgot I was hungry."
"Fine, stay there." I stood, grabbing the decanter of whiskey, now considerably lighter than it had been when I'd hopped the fence. "Cold, leftover spaghetti it is. You're going to feel like shit tomorrow no matter what, but a little food will help. I'll be right back."
I was down the steps and headed to the fence when she yelled, "You can't leave with my whiskey."
I didn't look back when I said, "Sit your ass down. I'll be right back."
I heard the thump of that sweet rounded ass hitting the decrepit boards of her porch. I hopped the fence with her whiskey and headed for my fridge.
She'd drained her glass by the time I made my way back, still holding the whiskey, a plastic storage container filled with cold spaghetti, and two forks under my arm.
Typical of anyone at her stage of intoxication, drunk but not so drunk she was sick with it, at the first taste of the spaghetti, Charlotte discovered she was starving. We didn't talk much as we dug in.
Unlike her, I'd eaten lunch, but I'd spent the afternoon hauling brick pavers and wood around my yard and I'd worked up an appetite. Cold spaghetti for dinner was good enough.
She packed away more food than I would've expected. Charlotte wasn't a tiny thing. She was at least 5' 8" with a solid, medium-size frame. Her body, in my opinion, was just about perfect.
A nice, round ass and tits big enough to fill my hands. She looked like a girl who knew how to eat, but I was too used to women pretending they lived on lettuce and diet soda.
When she was sober, Charlotte might do the same, but when she had a little whiskey in her, she had an appetite and wasn't picky enough to turn down my leftover spaghetti.
It only took one more drink after that before Charlotte passed out. One second she was lying on her back on her porch, her eyes fixed on the peeling paint of the overhang and rambling about her plans for her derelict house, and the next, her eyes were closed, soft snores drifting from her half-open mouth.
Feeling like a saint, I carried her in the back door, through her kitchen, down the hall, and into the back of the house to the room where she'd camped out.
I lay her on top of an unrolled sleeping bag. She'd be stiff and uncomfortable when she woke up. And hung over as hell.
Not my problem.
Still, I filled the crystal whiskey glass with water and placed it a few feet away so she'd see it as soon as she opened her eyes. She was on her stomach, curled around her pillow when I left. I found an extra key to the back door on the ring beside her purse and locked up before I went home.
I wasn't leaving her in an unsecured house. And returning her key would give me an excuse to check out my new neighbor when she was sober.
CHAPTER THREE
CHARLIE
There was something dead underneath my tongue. Gross, but there was no other explanation for the fuzzy, sour taste in my mouth. Also, I was pretty sure someone had beaten the hell out of me before I went to sleep.
I cracked one eye to see shiny navy blue fabric and a scarred wooden floor. Those weren't my Egyptian cotton sheets. And this was not my bedroom.
I went to sit up, and the throbbing in my head convinced me to stay where I was.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a distinctive crystal highball glass filled with water. The day before rushed back into my sluggish, hung-over brain.
Aiden.
Lawnmower hottie, a.k.a. Lucas Jackson.
And a very expensive bottle of whiskey.
Oh, my God, Aiden’s going to kill me.
I remembered I didn't care if Aiden was angry and I wanted to weep. Always, when something went wrong, I turned to Aiden. I'd never, ever, imagined my big brother would be the one to stab me in the back.
I wished he had another absurdly expensive bottle of whiskey I could steal and waste, not that stealing his whiskey was going to fix anything. And if the pounding in my head was any indication, alcohol was not the way I wanted to solve my problems.
Carefully propping myself up on one elbow, I reached for the glass of water and sipped. It was room temperature and smelled faintly of whiskey, but it was delicious.
I drained every drop before flopping back down and staring at the ceiling. I'd need to replace the drywall up there, I noted absently, taking in the water stains from pipes that had leaked decades ago.
The offending pipes were gone. The second floor was as close as you could get to a blank canvas in a house this age. Everything looked like a mess, but when I was done it would be a home. My home now that I'd moved out of Winters House.
I needed more water and I needed food. Fortunately, while my head was filled with jackhammers, my stomach felt okay—empty, ravenous, but I wasn't going to get sick.
I needed a shower, a change of clothes, and food. I could handle the shower and the clean clothes, but I'd have to leave to get food.
In fact, if I really planned to live here, I was going to have to go on a little shopping trip. I wouldn't go crazy. Now that I was unemployed and had a money pit of a house to make livable, I couldn't go throwing money around left and right.
Not that I did that anyway. But I needed some basics, like a mini-fridge and something to sleep on. My Girl Scout sleeping bag was not going to cut it long-term. Shower first.
I dragged myself to my feet and stumbled into the tiny bathroom next to the room I was sleeping in. I thought the room might have originally been a maid's quarters, based on its proximity to the kitchen and the garage, but I was grateful it not only had a shower, but the plumbing had been an easy fix.
Eventually, I'd gut and redo this bathroom, but for now, I was grateful for hot water and a working toilet.
I showered quickly, my stomach urging me to fill it. I'd forgotten linens, so I had to use my dirty t-shirt as a makeshift towel. Skin still damp, I pulled on a fresh pair of jeans and a fitted T-shirt.
Out of habit, I went to the mirror to pin up my hair. I was halfway through twisting the long, wet mass into a bun when I froze.
Why was I doing this? I wasn't going to work. I didn't need professional
hair. I didn't need professional anything. The only benefit of being unemployed was that I didn't have to do what was appropriate.
I could do whatever I wanted. After all, it wasn't like I could ruin my future chances for gainful employment. Not after Aiden had put out the word that no one should hire me.
I ignored the sting in my heart and reached for the phone in my back pocket. I was tired of perfect Charlotte and I was tired of perfect Charlotte's perfect hair. Before I could think better of it, I dialed the salon where I normally got my hair cut.
Fate must've been on my side because my stylist had a last-minute cancellation. She could take me in an hour and a half, plenty of time for me to get coffee and breakfast before I took one more step in ditching Charlotte for Charlie.
Might as well. I didn't have anything left to lose.
I could've walked to the small café for breakfast, but I didn't want to run late, and to be honest, I was feeling a little shy about running into Lucas.
I bundled my hair into a messy bun and slapped on the bare minimum of makeup. It wasn't so much that I was worried about how I looked as the memory of launching myself at him.
Had I seriously kissed a total stranger? I'd had a little bit of whiskey, but really?
Okay, he was lawnmower hottie. I'd been drooling over him for a while, but kissing random men on a whim was so not me. It wasn't Charlotte and it wasn't Charlie.
It was crazy.
I couldn't avoid him for long. For one thing, he lived next door. For another, I was pretty sure I wanted to kiss him again.
After a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, and a fluffy, steaming biscuit smothered in honey, plus a very large, very strong coffee, I was feeling mostly human again.
Aiden's ridiculously expensive whiskey had been beyond delicious, but I wouldn't be drinking again anytime soon. Even if I had another bottle of Macallan Select Reserve.
I didn't need alcohol, I needed a coffeemaker. A mini-fridge. Towels. And a whole bunch of other stuff. Keeping an eye on the time, I pulled out my phone and started making a list.
Twenty minutes before my hair appointment, I was in the car and my hair was on its way to its new destiny.