Chapter 10
“I’m curious about something,” Reed said, joining him by the double bay windows that he installed this morning.
“What’s that?” Garrett asked as he reached down and grabbed a beer from the cooler.
“How do you see this thing ending?” Reed asked, accepting the beer as he pulled his tie loose.
“Badly,” Garrett said as he once again found himself drawn to the small house across the street. “Any advice?”
“Don’t fuck this up,” Reed said, making his lips twitch while he stood there, wondering how long it would be before she broke.
Considering just how badly the little addict needed a fix, probably not long if she was anything like she was when they were little.
She couldn’t seem to go more than thirty minutes without writing something before she lost her fucking mind.
She wrote in textbooks, on her desk, on the backs of her homework, quizzes, and tests.
When she couldn’t get her hands on paper, she wrote on her pants, her sleeve, her arm, his arm, and one time, on his back.
He used to watch her struggle to fight it when they were in school.
She’d shift in her chair, narrow her eyes on whatever the teacher was doing in an attempt to force herself to focus, clear her throat, shift, and then, she’d grab onto the edge of her desk while she trembled until finally, she gave in and pulled out the pencil stub she kept hidden in her shoe and started scribbling away before she lost her fucking mind.
When the teacher took her pencil stub away, usually after Kristen tried to make a run for it, he would grab a pen and one of the notebooks he kept in his bag for her and get it to her before the pouting started.
Every chance she got, Kristen was writing, which made him wonder just how close she was to losing her fucking mind now that she couldn’t do the one thing that she loved more than anything.
“Do you really think this is a good idea?” Reed asked, moving to lean back against what was left of the living room wall only to rethink that decision as he took a sip of his beer.
“Not even a little fucking bit,” Garrett said, swallowing hard as he watched Kristen’s front door open only to bite back a curse when her assistant walked outside a few seconds later.
“You could still sell the house before it’s too late,” Reed pointed out as Garrett’s gaze locked on her front door, willing Kristen to walk through it.
“Probably,” Garrett murmured absently as he watched Kristen’s assistant close the door behind her before she made her way to her car.
“Uncle Jared would buy it in a heartbeat and if he didn’t, Rory or Trevor would be more than happy to take it off your hands,” Reed said while Garrett absently nodded, unable to help but wonder if he was fucking this up again.
Then again, maybe it was time to accept the fact that she hated him and move on. He should sell this house that was already costing him a fucking fortune, go beg for his job back and-
“What’s that sound?” Reed asked, frowning as they took in the large living room that he’d gutted yesterday, searching for the source of that soft clicking noise echoing throughout the large room. “Do you have a leak?”
“God, I really fucking hope not,” Garrett said, placing his beer on the windowsill and grabbed a flashlight off the stack of two-by-fours stacked by the wall.
Between the historical designation that took him eight months to have removed, replacing the roof that had been on the verge of collapsing along with the siding, the plumbing, the electricity, the water heater, and the boiler, he really didn’t fucking need another problem.
He was hoping to have the house renovated by spring, but with the way everything was going, he might just demolish the fucking house and be done with it.
“I thought you replaced the plumbing,” Reed said, grabbing the other flashlight and joined him in searching for the source of that tapping noise.
“I did,” Garrett said, quickly running the flashlight over the exposed pipes running along the ceiling.
“It sounds like it’s coming from the dining room,” Reed said, which was the last fucking thing that Garrett wanted to hear after spending the last month renovating that room. He-
Couldn’t help but frown as he came to a stop in front of the closet that he hadn’t had a chance to tear out yet. After glancing up at the ceiling to make sure the pipes didn’t run through the closet, Garrett opened the closet door and-
“What’s another word for conspiracy?” the small woman staring down at her laptop asked.
“Complicity, collusion, connivance, intrigue, scheme, plot,” Garrett said as he stood there, wondering how she’d managed to sneak past him.
“I’m so fucking glad you bought this house,” Reed said with a heartfelt sigh.
“Have you considered my offer?” Garrett asked as he watched her fingertips fly over the keyboard.
“I have,” Kristen mumbled absently as she continued frantically typing while he ran his eyes over her, taking in her black baseball cap, the way she worried her bottom lip between her teeth as she stared intently down at her computer, and-
Was that his sweatshirt?
“And?” Garrett asked as he took in the oversized Bradford Construction sweatshirt that she’d helped herself to and felt his lips twitch.
“Sadly, it’s just not going to work for me,” Kristen said with a sad shake of her head and a helpless shrug.
“I see,” Garrett said, placing the flashlight on the shelf above her head before he leaned over and-
“Wait! We can talk about this!”
-picked up the woman who was honestly too fucking adorable for her own good and tossed her over his shoulder, careful of the laptop that she was currently hugging against her chest and headed for the door.
“Is there any way that we could discuss this?” Kristen asked, sounding really fucking hopeful as they crossed the large foyer.
“Do we have a deal?” Garrett asked, pausing by the front door.
Clearing her throat, Kristen said, “I’d like to explore other options.”
“Then, feel free to do that somewhere else,” Garrett said as he opened the front door and-
“But I just got to the good part!”
-placed her on the front step, gently booped her on the nose, mostly to piss her off, and promptly shut the door and locked it with a satisfied sigh, knowing that it was only a matter of time before the stubborn little pain in the ass admitted defeat.
Thursday
This would do rather nicely, Kristen decided, moving to release a satisfied sigh only to rethink that decision and focused on double-checking the boxes lined up on either side of her instead.
Once she was done, she turned on her flashlight, grabbed her pen and set to work.
She preferred working on her computer, but since that wasn’t an option at the moment, she settled for writing on the legal pad that she’d helped herself to when she broke into Garrett’s office.
He really needed to do something about that window, Kristen thought with a sad shake of her head as she picked up where she left off earlier only to go still when she heard it, the unmistakable sound of the bathroom door opening.
For several minutes, she remained still, listening as Garrett made his way around his bedroom, opening his bureau, his closet, and then finally, he dropped down on the bed above her with a heavy sigh.
Swallowing hard, Kristen slowly began writing again only to go still every time the large man above her shifted, causing the bed to creak softly.
Once he was done, she went back to work, writing faster with each passing second until her hand struggled to keep up, but she refused to stop.
Not now when the book was practically writing itself.
She didn’t stop when he climbed back off the bed to shut the lights off, when he went back into the bathroom to grab something, or when everything suddenly went quiet.
She kept writing, filling the pages as quickly as her cramped hand allowed only to shove the page out of her way as soon as she filled the last line, desperate to get the words on the next page and-
“Do we have a deal?” came the softly drawled question that had her wincing when she felt two large hands wrap around her ankles.
“Any chance that you’d be willing to go back to sleep and pretend that I’m not here?” Kristen asked with a hopeful smile that quickly died as the hands wrapped around her ankles tightened and-
“Not a chance in hell.”
Friday
“Can I get you anything else?” the waitress, who’d been trying to flirt with him since he sat down an hour ago, asked after a slight hesitation, drawing his attention to find her frowning down at the empty booth behind him.
Already having a pretty good idea what that something was, Garrett focused back on the files spread out in front of him as he asked, “Is there an incredibly adorable woman with black hair hiding beneath the table with a laptop, mumbling incoherently to herself?”
“You could say that,” the waitress said as Garrett made a quick note on one of the files. “Do you know her?”
“That depends on whether or not she’s currently trying to signal you to be quiet,” Garrett said as he stacked the files and slid them back into his bag.
“She’s definitely doing that,” the waitress said as Garrett pulled his wallet out of his pocket.
“What else?” he asked, tossing a couple of twenties on the table.
“It looks like she’s wincing, panicking a bit there, and now, it looks like she’s trying to make a run for it only I think her legs are asleep,” the waitress explained as Garrett absently nodded and added another twenty.
“That sounds about right,” Garrett said, grabbing his bag as he stood up and took a look at the small woman currently curled up on her side beneath the table,
“Stupid legs,” Kristen mumbled sadly as she tried to wiggle her way out of the booth.
“So fucking adorable,” Garrett said with a heartfelt sigh as he made his way outside, curious to see what the stubborn little pain in the ass did next.
Saturday
Looks like she didn’t need the bastard after all, Kristen thought with a satisfied sigh as she went to finish her sentence only to drop her pen so that she could adjust the thick sleeping bag that she’d helped herself to when she was searching for a hiding spot yesterday when a gust of cold wind swept over her.
Once she was assured that she wasn’t going to die of hypothermia, Kristen moved to pick up her pen only to spend the next thirty seconds cursing the soft wool gloves that she was forced to wear to hell and back when it kept slipping from her fingertips only to finally give up, tear the glove off and release a satisfied sigh as she picked up where she left off.
She would have preferred to write from the comfort of her couch, but since that didn’t seem to be working for her, this would have to do, Kristen decided as she shifted to get more comfortable against the cold stone foundation behind her.
As long as she was able to write, she could handle anything, Kristen decided with a firm nod only to wince when the rock poking through the frozen ground beneath her forced her to shift a few inches to her right.
That was followed by another satisfied sigh, dropping her pen and wiggling her fingers in an attempt to get feeling back in them before picking up where she left off only to end up sighing heavily and-
Frowning when she suddenly couldn’t figure out what to write next.
Wondering if she’d shifted too far to the right, Kristen made her way back to the left, winced when the rock dug into her bottom again, and-
Still nothing.
Maybe he moved to the couch? Kristen wondered, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth as she tilted her head back and glanced at the office window above her only to sigh heavily, unzip the sleeping bag, get to her knees and turn around so that she could-
Gasp when the first jet of ice-cold water hit her back.
The second had her slowly turning around and the third, well, that one had her scrambling to climb out of the sleeping bag and moving her ass in an attempt to get out of the way before the sprinkler had a chance to turn back and-
“Oh, come on!”
-hit her again just as two more sprinklers suddenly turned on and took aim, soaking her from head to toe as she made a mad dash across Garrett’s lawn only to have ten more sprinklers suddenly come to life.
By the time she reached the road, she was soaked, freezing her ass off, trembling uncontrollably, and more determined than ever to find another way to pull this off because the last thing that she needed was the annoying bastard back in her life.
Sunday
“So fucking adorable,” Garrett murmured, taking a sip of his coffee as he watched Kristen make her way down her walkway only to stop abruptly, shake her head in disgust, turn around and head back the way she came only to stop when she reached the first step just as her shoulders dropped in defeat.
That was followed by reluctantly turning right back around and, after a pause and what looked like a heartfelt sigh, she adjusted the computer bag slung over her shoulder and slowly made her way back down her driveway.
It took longer than he would have liked, but that was fine. He was a patient man and more than willing to give the stubborn little pain in the ass time to realize just how much she needed him.
Garrett watched as Kristen made her way across the street, up his driveway, looking more pissed with every step of the way, until finally, she was walking through his front door and making her way into his office, glaring at him with a look that dared him to say something.
There was no need to say anything, not when they both knew that he had her where he wanted her.
Since he was feeling generous this morning, he simply took another sip of coffee and let her glare.
Besides, they both knew that he won, Garrett thought as he watched Kristen settle back on the couch as she pulled her computer out of her bag and set to work, her expression turning to relief as soon as her fingertips began moving over the keyboard.