The Thing About My Rival (The Boston Commoners #1)

NEAK PEEK OF THE THING ABOUT MY SECRET BILLIONAIRE

CHAPTER 1

MILLER

The cuteness of this small town is almost stifling. Like you could choke on the aroma of the bakery’s pink doughnuts, the rose-petal air wafting from the florist, and the salty tang of greasy french fries from the diner.

How people can live in these places where everyone knows everyone’s business, I’ll never understand. Guess it takes a certain type of mentality. One I’ll never have. Give me the anonymity of the beautiful city of Boston where I was born and raised, any day.

I do like two things about this place, though—the sweet scent of freshly sawn wood from the hardware store, and the mouthwatering aroma of roasting coffee beans that draws me toward the café. Well, that and a touch of restlessness from the almost four-hour drive from Boston.

I enter the Bearded Bean—the logo on the door features the outline of a man’s face with extravagant facial hair—and am almost run over by a clearly hassled older woman. I’m guessing she’s the grandmother of the two small kids she’s trying to wrangle. One child is in a stroller, banging a toy that sounds like dried beans in a tin can, while the second clings to the woman’s hand, crying. That explains the bucket-sized vessel of something presumably highly caffeinated in the stroller’s cup holder.

“Oh, shit. Sorry,” she says, starting to reverse back into the coffee shop to let me in.

“No, no, not at all.” I flatten my back against the door to simultaneously hold it open and let them by.

“Oh, and there you go.” I stoop to pick up a stuffed donkey toy that’s fallen from the storage tray under the stroller and shove it back in.

Me saving a donkey. How ironic.

The kid in the stroller stops bashing her maraca for just long enough to grin at me, and I find myself waggling my fingers at her in a little wave.

“Thanks,” hassled granny says as she passes. “You’re very kind.”

“Not something I’m often accused of,” I tell her with all honesty. “But you’re welcome.”

The clatter of plastic toy-on-stroller fades as I step out of the chilly November air and into the warmth of the coffee shop.

As the door swings closed behind me, I’m transported from the quaint, sleepy town of Warm Springs, Upstate New York, back home to the most hipsterish of hipster hangouts in my Brookline neighborhood.

This place comes fully kitted out with two bearded guys behind the counter. They’re almost identical except that their coiffed hairstyles are parted on opposite sides, which makes them look like a mirror image of each other. Matching black T-shirts and brown waxed canvas barista aprons complete the effect.

The patrons, on the other hand, look like they’re extras in a folksy small-town tourism ad.

Anyway, I’m not here to admire the scenery or become acquainted with the locals. I’m here to get an old man to sell his land to me. Land that I know that Wade Skinner wants to snag even more than he wants to take his next scheming cutthroat breath. It would be the dickbag’s first venture outside the Boston area, the first time he’s extended his tendrils into New York state.

But I intend to beat him to it and make it the first time I’ve ever bested him on a deal.

He hates losing out to anyone. But losing out to me—well, that would fill him with a rage akin to a volcano right before it erupts.

And I cannot wait to see him pop his lid.

It’s taken me seventeen years to find the opportunity to get him back for what he did to us. And today, sweet, sweet revenge shall finally be mine.

But first, coffee.

“What can I get y—” The bearded guy on the left, whose name tag reads Aramis, stops mid-word when his eyes dart to something behind me.

I turn to see what’s distracted him and, frankly, don’t blame him.

The woman is thirtyish, fresh-faced, the tip of her nose pink from the cold, her brown hair pulled back into a low ponytail that hangs forward over one shoulder of a boxy gray, mud-stained jacket. A jacket that’s doing a good job of hiding the fine female form I’d bet my next hundred-million-dollar condo development is under there.

I turn back to Aramis. “Americano, please. Bla?—”

Now it’s my turn to stop mid-word as he ignores me and walks away, rounding the end of the counter with his arms wide.

“Frankie!” he says, like he’s just seen a long-lost relative, before grabbing the hot muddy chick in the type of hug that suggests they’ve known each other since they were about five.

Frankie stands on the tiptoes of her rubber boots to hug him back.

I turn to the counter to try to engage the other bearded bean, whose name is apparently Atticus—dear God, what were their parents thinking?—but he’s engrossed in demonstrating to a customer how to draw a flower with milk foam.

This would never happen in Boston. You get in, you get out. Maybe someone shouts at someone else about something, probably with a couple of profanities thrown in, and we all get on with our coffee-drinking business. There’s no hugging or latte art lessons while a customer is waiting.

“Well, look who’s blown in from the Windy City,” Aramis says to Frankie.

“Only been here two days,” she says. “I’m here for a couple of months, though. Covering things at the sanctuary while Grandpa recovers.”

My ears prick up at the word sanctuary.

It takes a moment for me to realize the impromptu barista craft seminar is over and Atticus is staring at me.

“Are you waiting?” he asks. Now, that’s more like the Boston snippiness I’m used to.

“Americano. Black. Thanks.”

He rings it up and I tap my credit card while eavesdropping on the conversation behind me.

“Ah, yes,” Aramis says. “I’d wondered how Sam was going to cope with the donkeys with both knees out of action.”

Donkeys.

The chance of there being two Samuels who run donkey sanctuaries in Warm Springs has to be zero.

“Yup,” Frankie says.

The brightness in just that one word makes me turn to look at her again, attracting my attention like a sparkly object.

But then it dawns on me that I’d be at an advantage if she didn’t see me, so I refocus my eyes on my coffee being made and keep my ears on her.

“There’s no way he’d take it easy and get help around the place.” Her words dance in the air, standing out from the general buzz of the café, even though they’re no louder than anything else. “So I got an eight-week sabbatical from work and talked him into taking a temporary spot in a rehab unit at Senior Central by promising to look after the animals and everything for him.”

“There you go,” Atticus says, sliding my coffee across the counter.

“Thanks.” I wander over to the side of the shop and am about to perch on a stool at a high-top table when I spot two large cake crumbs on it. I flick them off, grab a napkin from the holder on the table and wipe down the seat.

Once settled on the crumb-free stool I get out my phone and scroll randomly to make it look like I’m absorbed in something other than the conversation taking place about ten feet away.

“Yeah,” Aramis says, “Sam’s a real I Can Do It All By Myself kinda guy. Can’t imagine where you got it from.”

My head might be bowed over my phone and my thumb might be scrolling, but my gaze is one hundred percent on Frankie.

She rolls her eyes. I think they might be blue. “And I’m sure he’s more stressed than he’s been letting on about the developer guy who wants to buy the land.”

Well, if I had any remaining doubts that she’s who I thought she was, I don’t anymore. That’s definitive.

The phone buzzes in my hand with a call from my assistant, Brooke. For the first time that I can recall, I send her to voicemail and open the browser instead.

“Oh, yeah. I heard about that,” Aramis says. “Sam could cash in and make a fortune. Well. you both could.” He pauses for a second. “You guys do both own it, right?”

She nods while pushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear and tugging on her bottom lip with her teeth.

Fuck.

They both own it? So I’ll need them both to agree to sell it.

Fuck.

I look for her left hand. No ring.

If this woman is the owner’s granddaughter, there’s a fifty-fifty chance her last name is also Channing. I type in “Frankie Channing Chicago.”

Up comes Carol Channing’s wiki, an article about the Chicago Fire TV show, and a video of Channing Tatum dancing without his shirt on.

Then there’s a Linkedin page for a Frankie Channing who’s marketing director for the Crimson Finch home furnishings company. I think my stager has used their stuff to dress the penthouses for sale in some of my buildings.

I rest my elbow on the table to subtly hold up the phone so the profile photo is level with the attractive face in the middle of the shop.

Her hair’s longer in the picture, and she’s wearing a business blouse. She’s turned slightly away from the camera with one hand on her hip and her butt resting against a desk.

It’s definitely her. The smile in the photo is a little one-sided, just like the one on the face in front of me. Except the one in front of me is clearly genuine, whereas the one in the picture doesn’t reach her eyes. I zoom in—yes, they’re blue—and her smile is way less natural, more corporate.

It’s like I’m looking at the two different sides of a coin.

The same person. And yet also not.

The one in reality is a fresh-faced country girl concerned about her grandpa and donkeys.

The one in my hand has changed employers every two years since she graduated from college, to a bigger and better company each time, progressing to director level by the age of—I scroll down to her graduation date—maybe thirty, thirty-one. That’s an ambitious, career-driven individual who probably has the boardroom and an executive salary in her sights.

The coffee shop version is an unexpected obstacle I could do without—one whose wonky smile is hard to tear my eyes away from.

But which one is she?

So much for coming over here to seal a pushover deal with an old man who can be talked into a comfortable retirement in the space of a couple of hours. Now I have to contend with the driven city girl who knows how to negotiate increasingly influential jobs for herself.

Fuck it.

I take a gulp of the hot liquid energy—hmm, better than I expected—and pretend to look at my phone some more.

“The developer sounds like such a slimeball,” Frankie says. “From everything Grandpa’s said, I wouldn’t even sell one of the wheelbarrows to him—and they’re both falling apart.”

Ah, okay, she and grandpa both hate Skinner. That makes this a marginally less bad start.

“And then, would you believe it”—she slaps Aramis on the arm—“yesterday we had another offer.”

That would be mine. And I know for sure it’s better than Skinner’s because my assistant knows someone who works for him and found out so that I could outbid him.

“Whoa,” Aramis says. “A bidding war. You and Sam could probably retire right now if you pitted them against each other.”

The coffee guy is a wise man. She could pretty much name her price and I’d write the check right now. I would bankrupt myself to outbid Skinner if I had to.

“Not selling to anyone ever,” Frankie says. “Not even Saint Francis himself.”

What?

My brain stops firing for a second. Like someone just pushed pause on all synapse action.

I peer up to see her head tilted, eyebrows raised. A look of satisfied defiance if ever I saw one.

But why the hell wouldn’t they sell?

“Anyway.” She flaps the bundle of papers she’s been holding the whole time. “Grandpa seems to have let volunteer recruitment slide. By which I mean, we have none.”

Aramis folds his arms. “Winter’s hardly the easiest time to get people to work outside for free.”

“Well, I’m desperate for help,” she says. “Can I put up a flyer?”

“Of course.” Atticus moves toward the cluttered bulletin board by the door.

Frankie follows. Turns out her shapeless jacket is just annoyingly long enough to cover her butt.

Atticus moves posters and business cards around to clear a space in the center, then Frankie pins up her Get Your Ass Down Here! flyer.

I have to put my hand over my mouth to prevent my chuckle being audible. Got to admire someone who can come up with a pun like that.

She reaches up and, ah yes, the jacket rises just enough to reveal that the jeans that are loose around her legs are most definitely not loose around her ass. Wow.

I take a sip of coffee, even though my nervous system does not need another jolt right this second.

Frankie gives Aramis another quick hug with a promise to catch up whenever she gets a minute and heads out the door, waving and smiling—the real sunbeam smile, not the one from the corporate photo.

Well, fuck.

This was supposed to be a quick trip. A one and done. I planned to be driving home tonight with the signed purchase and sale agreement on my back seat.

But I didn’t rise from nothing to become Boston’s Condo King without being resourceful. Without being able to think on my feet, and pivot, and do whatever the hell needs to be done to get the deal.

Christ, if I made myself go on that wilderness camping weekend with a guy I wanted to buy land from, I’ll do anything—those two days are seared in my mind. Everywhere was filthy, I couldn’t keep the bugs off anything, and we had to dig our own toilet. But I did it anyway. And got the land. Which is now home to a thirty-two-floor building with an indoor-outdoor pool. And my bank account is healthy by multimillions because of it.

To get my much more valuable long-awaited revenge on Wade Skinner I’d fashion a flying machine to take me to the sun and back if I had to. So a one-woman donkey-sanctuary-defender is nothing.

It might take longer than the few hours I was expecting to spend here, though. But it’ll be worth it. What Skinner did to my family has been eating me alive, like an infestation of termites in a wood-framed house, for seventeen years. Ripping off my parents and almost leaving us without a roof over our heads is an unforgivable crime. I promised myself if I can get him back once, just once, prevent him from getting what he wants just once, I’ll consider it a job well done and let it go, shed the weight from my shoulders, the gnawing in my gut, and move on with a lighter step.

My phone buzzes again.

brOOKE

The supplier doesn’t have enough toilets for the Pinnacle Residences. Project manager wants to know if he can source others to make up the difference. I told him you’d say no, that you want them all to match. But he insisted I ask. So… woman shrugging

ME

Goddamned right they all have to match. Tell him to shove a rocket up the supplier’s ass to get enough of the original choice made in time.

You feeling ok today, btw?

Brooke is pregnant and threw up in the wastebasket by her desk yesterday.

brOOKE

Much better thanks. Hubby got me half a dozen doughnuts for breakfast and that did the trick. doughnutdoughnutdoughnutdoughnutdoughnutdoughnut

ME

Whatever keeps you working.

brOOKE

My ever-caring boss.

Man, I hope she comes back after maternity leave. Maybe I should offer to pay her childcare bill.

But that’s a problem for when I’m back in Boston. For after I’ve seen Wade Skinner’s face when I rip up his contract for this land he wants oh-so-fucking-badly and tell him it’s mine.

I stride across the café to the noticeboard where a middle-aged woman is perusing its contents while sipping from a thermos mug that has a tea bag string dangling from it.

While she’s scrutinizing a notice about a knitting competition, I snatch the donkey volunteer flyer from its pin.

She jumps a little, startled by the sound, and turns to me.

“Sorry.” I take one step toward the door, then turn back. “Actually, would you happen to know the best place to buy workwear around here?”