Chapter 2
FITZGERALD
It’s not stalking if you’re a wealthy, powerful, attractive man. It’s just a flattering gesture of appreciation.
Winnie wants me to be involved in her life. From the minute I walked into the Brew & Browse and saw those brown eyes widen and her cheeks flush, I knew she wanted to be mine, even if she wouldn’t admit it.
And I knew I had to have her.
My brother calls me as I follow a few car lengths behind her through rush-hour traffic in rainy Seattle. My vehicle is just another black luxury sedan in a sea of them.
Winnie’s chunky border collie sits in the front seat and stares into the abyss as Winnie sings along to the radio.
Her car’s gears grind as she makes a hard right turn.
I need to check the oil in her car tonight after she goes to bed. I’ve been leaving pamphlets for oil changes. I even left a goddamn gift card, but she just chucks all her mail on her coffee table and doesn’t go through it.
And I need to find a replacement dishwasher. Her filter’s shot. Winnie is neglecting her home life. She’s lucky she has me looking out for her.
It’s strange because she runs the Brew & Browse like the Navy.
“You didn’t mean to ban me, did you, Winnie?” I say in the empty car as the sedan purrs down her street.
She’s completely oblivious that I’m watching her as she half carries, half drags that dog toward the front door. She opens the door and makes happy noises when she realizes her house has been cleaned.
I wish she wouldn’t live alone. There are dangerous men out here, after all. Or at least get a real dog, like a German shepherd, or even an actual border collie. That thing that is howling because it’s getting rained on doesn’t count. Fidget wouldn’t last a day at my father’s desert compound.
My phone rings again.
I send my older brother to voicemail. Doesn’t he know this is our special time?
I’m being facetious. No way would I actually fall in love, especially not with Winnie. This is a minor obsession. It’s best to just let this play out. I’ll get bored of her in a couple of weeks, maybe buy another property to develop. Then I’ll move on.
“I am not my father,” I say aloud.
Anyway, this is nothing compared to the time I decided to start a pygmy-goat-farming operation.
“I’m never going to get rid of all of those animals,” I mutter as I hold the spyglass up to my eye, an impulse buy from a Sotheby’s auction when I was in Manhattan last month. Eighteenth century. Belonged to a pirate. No longer useful for stealing gold, but for peering into a woman’s inner sanctum?
Perfect.
While she’s in the shower, the water sluicing down her body with the suds from the fancy shampoo I replaced that drugstore garbage with, I take my favorite spot by the window.
Winnie won’t realize anyone’s been back here. She knows someone’s been in her house, but she’s probably assured herself she’s not being watched.
I wink at the nonfunctional camera attached to the eave. It’s easy to hack those Ring cameras if your brother owns the server farm.
I watch her pad around the cozy little Craftsman cottage, talking to herself as she sees what surprises I left her.
“No, don’t heat that up in the microwave for that long. Seriously, didn’t you read the note I left you? I finally got a chance to use my vintage typewriter, and you don’t even read the note.”
Winnie settles down with the square ceramic container of lobster mac ’n’ cheese with a towel.
No, I didn’t make it. Remember, I don’t like her that much. Had the chef at one of my hotels prepare it.
She looks so cozy as she settles down in the nest of blankets on the oversized sofa. All I want to do is curl up next to her, lay my head in her lap, and let her pet my hair.
She has music softly playing from her laptop, and she idly flips the pages of her book as she eats.
“Oh no, Winnie, a third glass of wine? Drink some water. You’re dehydrated. That’s why you were so cranky today.”
It doesn’t have anything to do with me buying her out. I wasn’t intending to scare her. I bought the building because her shop was in it, and I want to own that little piece of her.
She just makes me so mad. She doesn’t get to speak to me like that after everything I’ve done for her.
I relax my clenched fist.
Winnie sets down the empty dish.
I don’t have to leave her dessert—she makes the best pastries. The strawberry cream drips down her hand as she takes a bite.
“I just want to keep her in a cage made of pastry,” I whisper in the dark.
The dog looks up.
I duck down. Hear Winnie get up off the sofa nest.
Headlights briefly illuminate the front yard as a car pulls up.
Fury floods me. That better not be a man. Winnie will not have a boyfriend. I won’t allow it. I just got rid of her weird neighbor. I definitely caught him checking her out. Now his company’s had him transferred to Toronto.
In my pocket, my phone buzzes. I don’t have to look to know it’s my brother, pissed about something.
I’m focused on Winnie’s unexpected guest. She doesn’t do online dating. I know. I looked for her on all the dating sites. Who else could it be, though? That’s not Carolina’s car.
“It is a man,” I say softly, furious at the betrayal.
He steps out of the car, talking loudly at the top of his lungs to the three women he helps out of the Volvo.
“No, no, no, no, no!” Winnie’s front door slams open.
I force myself not to run after Winnie and drape her with my jacket.
My darling pastry chef is running toward the car in just her T-shirt and PJ shorts. “Such a cute little creampuff.”
“Absolutely not!” Winnie waves her hands.
“Winnie, is that any way to greet your mother? We’re here to visit you.”
“Visit?” The most elderly of the three women snorts. “Your gold-digging sister got thrown out on her ass, and now we’re all here to move in with you.”