Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Josey
Reginald was so put together, the only thing I could think about was the pressing need to take him apart.
Even on a Saturday morning, he wore slacks and a shiny pair of Tom Ford dress shoes, the whole thing paired with a short-sleeved, polka dot button-up…
tucked in with a belt to match the expensive leather on his feet.
He walked ahead of me toward the front door of the first house on our schedule for the day, and the door wasn’t much more than four thin strips of wood and a huge plate of frosted glass, though I hardly paid attention to it because Reg’s ass was the most gorgeous thing on the property by far.
“Reg,” Claire chided her brother, ushering him onto the white marble entryway. “We’ve got a lot to see today. You can’t spend all your time in the driveway. Hi, I’m Claire. You must be…”
“Josey,” I told her.
“Josey.” She smiled at me, and I did want to know if her brother looked the same when he smiled, but happiness didn’t seem like an emotion Reg spent a lot of time with.
“This house is a three bedroom, four bath. There’s no pool on account of it being so close to the beach, but a decent back yard for entertaining—”
Reg cut her off, “I don’t need a back yard for entertaining.”
“You say that now.”
“And I’ll say that a year from now.” He swallowed hard and raised his wrist to the underside of his nose, breathing deep.
That explained it. Reg smelled like a lavender field, and he must have the oil on his wrist, though it was going to take a lot more than essential oils to ease the tension that pricked up across Reg’s shoulders every time Claire spoke to him.
“Can we wander?” I asked Claire, hooking my arm through the bend of Reg’s elbow. “I’ll make sure he asks all the right questions. Don’t worry.”
“There’s a laundry hookup in the garage,” she said.
I nodded and smiled at her. “We’ll take a look.”
Before Claire could offer any more feedback—or anxiety—I pulled Reg to the far corner of the house, which turned out to be the primary bedroom.
Saying the house was close to the beach had been an understatement because the bedroom only had three walls.
The place where the fourth wall would have been wasn’t anything more than a huge window, only interrupted by the seam and frame of a sliding glass door that led out to the back yard in question.
Beyond all of that sat the Pacific Ocean in all of her frothy blue and white glory.
“Wow,” I said, the syllable not much more than an exhale.
Reg looked bored at the view and turned to face me instead.
“Wow?”
“This is gorgeous.”
“My apartment has a view of the ocean too,” he said.
“This close?”
He took a drink of his coffee, giving the cup a shake to redistribute the ice. “No, and I don’t have a yard obviously. Just a balcony.”
“But you don’t spend a lot of time at home.”
Reg sighed, giving the bedroom a reasonable once-over. “The hope, I think, is if I had a nicer home, I would.”
“The hope, I think, is that you won’t settle down if you only have an apartment,” I guessed.
In answer to that, Reg’s throat flushed red, and he glared toward the doorway that led back to the main part of the house. “It would be easier to give her the illusion I was taking her advice.”
“Have you been doing that your whole life?” I walked to the middle of the room and knocked my shoulder into Reg’s arm.
“Of course.”
“Can’t do it forever.”
“Why not?”
But even as he asked the clearly rhetorical question, he let out a sad little laugh on the back end.
I didn’t know a thing about this man besides he clearly didn’t have friends, but he had a terribly overbearing sister and more money to spend on a house than I would probably make for the rest of my life.
“I’ve got an idea,” I said to him, shoving my coffee into his waiting hand. “Don’t move.”
Before he could protest, I ran back toward the front door, finding Claire leaning against a wall scrolling through something on her phone.
“Questions?” she asked.
“I just wanted to see if you could give me the list of the other properties you were going to show us today,” I said, ignoring how natural it felt to say us instead of him.
“You can’t go into them without me.”
“And we won’t,” I promised. “Let me take him on some drive-bys and then we’ll make a short list and connect with you again after lunch?”
If Reg was going to spend his money on a house, there was no way he’d be able to find something he well and truly liked with his sister breathing down the back of his neck at every stop.
“Did he put you up to this?” she asked, eyes narrowed.
“Scout’s honor, he did not. All my idea.”
Claire eyed me warily but finally sighed her consent. “Give me your phone number, and I’ll text you the list.”
“You’re a saint, Claire,” I told her, taking her offered phone and keying my number into her contacts.
She sent me a list of half a dozen houses, then slipped her cell phone back into her bag.
“After lunch?” she confirmed.
“No later than one.”
Claire cleared her throat and glanced over her shoulder, expression softening. I didn’t need to look to know that Reg had ventured out from the bedroom and was standing very close to my back. Even if her look hadn’t given him away, I could feel him there.
Could smell him.
“Alright.” She looked back at me, shoulders slumping in defeat. “You win. Let’s get out of here then. I still have time to make it to Pilates if you both hustle up.”