Chapter 4
chapter four
Mia
"I don't think I've ever seen you this pissed over a man."
I glowered at my twin sister in the mirror. She was sitting on a plush stool in front of a large golden vanity in her ensuite bathroom. The scissors in my hand paused before I could square off a few strands of her blunt bob.
"I'm not pissed over a man," I scoffed. "That is giving entirely too much credence to the situation. I'm pissed over the circumstances. He's an impossible task."
"He didn't seem so bad in Nevada." Bella shrugged. "You kissed him."
I showed her the scissors in the reflection and snapped the blades together menacingly. "I slapped him."
"But would you have, if there was no one else there watching?"
"Whose side are you on?"
I busied myself with her overgrown strands of hair, clipping more aggressively and avoiding eye contact.
"I'm not on anyone's side. I'm a neutral participant in this." She was scrolling idly through her emails, sliding several directly into the trash folder without even bothering to open them.
Bella and I were similar in nothing but looks.
Even nowadays, I was starting to question that.
Isabella's style had always been more clean-cut and masculine, dark colors and sharp edges.
She was a hell of a lawyer in the same way I was a hell of a realtor, while Camilla was a hell of a pediatric oncologist and Natalia was a hell of a performer.
Still, I kept my hair long and never bothered to hide my piercings.
I'd rather wear jeans than my usual slacks or skirts, and for the most part, whenever I needed to dress up, I found myself right where I was—at Bella's house, sifting through boring courthouse power suits that always made her look incredible but somehow only managed to make me look like more of an uptight bitch.
Which was fine with me. The less I gave Angelo Duran to ogle, the better.
I added some texture spray to Bella's hair and gave her a finite pat on the shoulder, helping myself to her clothing racks in the closet. "I'm so glad you chose this house," I said. "Changing the fourth bedroom into a walk-in closet was a genius move."
"Well, it was that or a nursery."
We both looked at each other knowingly, bright laughs spilling out of us in unison.
Besides being outspoken against procreating given the current state of the world, Isabella had also almost exclusively dated women since law school.
Something about seeing how evil and unforgiving men are in her profession turned her off of them as romantic partners.
"So, are you into him?" Bella joined me in siphoning through her clothes, pulling out a powder-pink jumpsuit with a wrap waist and holding it up for me.
"Into who?" I shook my head at the outfit.
Her eyes rolled. "Angelo."
"Ew," I spat. "Have you not been listening to a word I've said? I loathe Angelo. I hate everything about him. Working with him is giving me gray hairs, do you see them? It's ridiculous." I made a show of pulling my hair at the roots.
"I just think you haven't gotten laid in a while and he's not hard to look at."
"How could you possibly know if I've gotten laid or not?" Though, she wasn't wrong. And I was now extremely concerned that I gave off starved virgin vibes at the ripe age of thirty.
"For starters, you took an Uber to my house to talk about him."
My finger shot up in protest. "I took an Uber to your house because my car is in the shop and I refuse to rent cars."
"Right, your car is in the shop because…"
"I backed into a fire hydrant."
"You were caught up in all that hate and you couldn't take your eyes off him," she deduced.
"Okay, who are you?" I huffed, abandoning her closet, now not at all interested in shopping through it. "My sister or my lawyer?"
"I'm both, dear Mia. I'm playing devil's advocate for your own good."
"I want my money back for the Uber. I came here to be vindicated, not mediated."
"You came here to complain about a construction worker who shouldn't even be on your radar.
He's just a client, right? You've done this job a thousand times, found every person from every walk of life their perfect home, and never once came over to complain about the way someone smokes a cigarette on a public sidewalk. "
"But the way he does it is…annoying."
Bella pushed me out of her bedroom into the warm, Tuscan-inspired kitchen. She slid two wine glasses off a hanging rack and opened a small wine fridge, putting a bottle of red between us. I grabbed it by the neck and uncorked it furiously.
"You're a workaholic," she said.
"So are you," I countered.
"Game recognizes game." Bella shrugged. "I know you better than anyone, and I know you're overworked, overstressed, and underfucked.
Now you're in cahoots with Angelo Duran, dealing with some unfinished business there, and your body is betraying you.
If you actually hate him, your brain is too sexually deprived at the moment to sort it out. "
The wine cork popped and I took a deep swig straight from the bottle before filling our glasses.
She might have been onto something. I couldn't remember the last time I had casual sex.
Not since college, at the very least. Sure, I went on dates, but I wasn't the type to sleep with someone for the sake of it.
The last guy I had been with sexually was my ex, Shane, and that was…
fuck. Two years ago. I took another long gulp of wine.
I bowed my head, whispering, "So you're saying I'm too horny to think straight?"
"I'm saying you might not be so wound up over Angelo Duran if you were getting regular facials."
"I…" I winced. "Oh, gross, Bells."
"Think about it," she said. "He might not bother you so much if you had another guy to keep your mind off of it."
"Somehow, I bet he'd still find a way." A sigh fell from my lips.
I hated admitting that Angelo was getting under my skin.
Almost as much as I hated that Bella might not be totally off in suspecting I needed to get out more and work less.
It was hard for me to let myself have a break when I'd felt like my entire life was spent climbing an invisible ladder.
Every time I thought I reached the top rung, it got higher and more impossible to reach.
Professionally, I would always have to fight for respect, and letting myself have something as normal and personal as a relationship was somehow going to hold me back.
Make me less admirable, less of a go-getter.
It meant I had a weakness that could be exploited.
Not to mention Angelo was a client, and that was so wrong in so many ways.
The last time I'd actually let loose was in Vegas at Natalia's bachelorette party, during that damn scavenger hunt with the groomsmen. Look where that had gotten me.
Facing a harsh reality.
"You're the worst sister ever," I said lightly.
"I love you, too." Bella smiled. "Go on a date, get on an app, walk into a home improvement store and look really out of place in the wood section. I swear it will help."
That was easier said than done. Maybe it wasn't the best place to start, but one man did come to mind almost instantly.
I was also fresh out of ideas for getting under Angelo's skin as payback for the fire hydrant, not to mention I could really skip taking an Uber from place to place if I didn't have to.
It was called working smarter, not harder.
I pulled my cellphone out of my pocket and, with a twinge of excitement for the first time in forever, sent a nefarious text to Scott.