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.
“Then, I guess you’ll just have to find out for yourself,” Connor said with a careless shrug as he watched the asshole reluctantly move to make his way up Rory’s driveway, only to rethink that decision when Bunny decided to block his path.
“Easy,” the man murmured nervously as he slowly backed away from the dog. Even though it probably should have been enough that the dog made the man piss his pants, Connor felt that he needed a little extra incentive to get the hell out of here and never come back.
“What the hell!” the asshole yelled as Rory’s sprinklers came on full blast. Connor waited until he ran back to his car, stumbling along the way before diving into his car and threw his car in reverse, peeling out of the driveway before he turned the sprinklers off.
Best damn thing he’d ever built, Connor decided as he gave his partner in crime a mock salute and headed for his front door. It really was too bad that he couldn’t stand the little bastard since he came in handy from time to time.
“Why are you covered in mud, sweetie?” Rory asked as she bent down and cupped Bunny’s mud-splattered face in her hands. When she caught a whiff of peanut butter and hot dog, she knew exactly how her poor baby ended up covered in mud.
“Connor,” she bit out, momentarily forgetting that she couldn’t kill him for at least five months.
“You called?” the annoying bastard said, sounding amused.
She looked up and wasn’t surprised to find Connor standing on his second-floor balcony, shirtless and holding a bottle of beer.
Sometimes, she really wished that he hadn’t cut down those damn trees.
At least with the trees, she could have pretended that he didn’t live next door.
Then again, he would have just found another way to annoy the hell out of her.
“You want to tell me why you felt the need to douse Bunny in mud?” Rory asked, resigning herself to waiting a few more hours before she ventured out onto her porch.
Not that it would make much of a difference since he’d just come back out again to annoy her, but after three years, she was used to the jerk wrecking what should have been the best part of her day.
“I will if you tell me why you named that poor dog Bunny,” he offered, taking a sip of his beer.
Because the dog was her little honey bunny, but she would never tell him that. “Forget it,” Rory said, sighing heavily as she headed for her front door.
“Come up here and join me,” he called after her.
“I’ll pass,” Rory said, wanting nothing more than to enjoy a hot cup of cocoa as she went over the new plans McGill had given her earlier and figure out a way to work them into the plans that she came up with before calling it a night.
She also needed to figure out a way to speed up this renovation to meet that deadline.
Even with Connor’s men and equipment, they were looking at long hours and she needed to figure out how to get it all done without destroying their profit margin with overtime.
“Don’t you think that the two of us should sit down and go over the plans for Strawberry Manor?
” Conor asked casually, but she wasn’t stupid.
She knew that the only reason he wanted to talk to her was so that he could find out what resources she had at her disposal.
It’s exactly what she would have done if she hadn’t already managed to corner one of his men an hour earlier and sweet talk him into spilling his guts about Highland Construction’s equipment, men, and their skills.
Now, she just had to work all of that newfound knowledge into her plans.
“Not really,” Rory said as she unlocked her front door and sent up a silent prayer, asking for a Connor-free night. Of course, her prayer was ignored. They usually were where Connor was concerned.
“That’s too bad. I guess I’ll have to tell McGill that you’re not willing to fulfill your end of the contract,” Connor mused loudly with a satisfied sigh.
Rory didn’t say anything as she slammed the door shut behind her because there was nothing to say.
He knew that he had her exactly where he wanted her and had no problem doing whatever it took to screw her over.
If she didn’t play nice, he would cost her the contract and more importantly, her reputation.