Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
RENLEY
“Good morning,” Aunt Kitty says in a cheerful tone as she turns on the blender, a spray of juice and fruit lifting to the lid that she has a firm hold on. “Making you a smoothie with protein this morning. We need you fresh and ready.”
I take a seat at the kitchen table and start putting my walking shoes on.
“Why do you need me fresh and ready?”
“So that you can go turn that dilapidated candy store into a thriving metropolis,” she shouts over the blender. “You haven’t even been in the store since you got the keys.”
“Because why go in there and get my hopes up when we don’t have the money for it?
” I shake my head. I’m not normally a negative person.
In fact, I’m most often positive and turn challenges into opportunities.
But this? We can’t borrow money, I can’t possibly earn that much through local work, so I just can’t see past the obvious.
“It’s pointless. I’m going on my walk so I can figure out how to tell Mayor Sheffield that I can’t take care of the store. ”
I take off out the front door and down the porch steps, my heart heavy as I make my way toward the sidewalk.
Opting out of headphones today because I want to just muster up a clear head, I make my way down the street toward the hiking path just as a body pushes off a tree and stands directly in my path.
“Jesus,” I say, hand to heart. My eyes meet up with Theo’s and for a moment, I’m stupidly captured by the thick stubble lining his jaw that he grew overnight.
“Good morning,” he says as he lifts a mug to his lips. “How did you sleep?”
“We’re not doing this,” I say as I move past him.
“Doing what?” he asks, matching my stride.
“This whole repartee of you asking me to marry you and me saying no.”
“I wasn’t going to ask you to marry me,” he says, taking a sip of what I can only assume is tea.
“Then what are you doing out here?”
“I was waiting for you to go on your walk so I could join you.”
How can he keep up with me while holding a mug of tea and drinking it at the same time without spilling? Someone like that can’t be trusted.
“I don’t want company.”
“I can see that, but you haven’t experienced my company. You see, I can be a very—”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” I say, turning to him and holding up my hand.
“Whatever you’re about to say, I don’t want to hear it, okay?
I’m stressed beyond belief with this whole candy store thing.
I need the money for it and I’m not able to get it.
I have to hand the keys to the store back, because as they predicted, I failed.
I’m having a hard time stomaching that. So the last thing I need is some British manhole who thinks he’s charming and can win me over, when all I really want to do is pull your shorts off and dump your tea right on your dick. ”
He doesn’t reply right away. Instead, he slowly takes a sip of his tea and then holds his mug out to the side, dumping the rest in the sewer drain. Smiling hesitantly, he says, “Just in case.”
“Ughhhh.” I move past him once again.
And just like last time, he catches up to me, but this time he stands in front of me, blocking my path.
When I shoot a very murderous glare at him, he holds his hands up. “I understand you have other ways you can torture me that don’t involve tea, so I’m being cautious here. What’s with this ‘candy store’ thing? You never really explained that. Why does everyone think you’re going to fail?”
“I’m not talking to you about this.”
“Why not?”
“Uh, because you’re a stranger. Why would I tell a stranger about my life?”
“If I were a psychologist, you’d tell me, and psychologists are strangers at first. Lucky for you, I took a few psychology classes while attending university.”
“I’m not talking to you.”
I attempt to move past him, but he moves with me. “So you need money, that’s the problem?”
“Why won’t you let this go? I said I am not—”
“I have money, lots of it. Why don’t you take some of mine? How much do you need?”
I pause, my brain short-circuiting for a second.
He has money?
Could I do that?
Could I actually take money from him?
Wait…does he even have money, or is he just saying that? After all, he pretended to be concussed yesterday. And pretended to be a lord of something.
“I can see that you’re having a hard time processing what I just said. That’s okay. It’s not every day you come across a future lord—”
“For the love of God,” I grumble and then move past him. I can’t believe I even thought for a second that he—
“I’m not lying,” he says, his voice growing serious, just serious enough to stop me. I slowly turn to look at him. “I’m not lying,” he repeats softly. “How much do you need?”
I’m going to pretend for a second that him offering me money is not insulting, because after all, pride means nothing when you’re desperate. But from the looks of it, he’s serious.
I nibble on the side of my cheek, trying to figure out whether I should tell him or not.
He already knows my full name, where I live, and the main problem in my life. For a stranger, that’s way too much information. I don’t think I should tell him any more.
Then again, what does it really matter at this point?
“It’s a lot, so don’t even worry about it.”
“What’s a lot?” he asks.
My tongue runs over my teeth as I look to the side.
“Just tell me,” he encourages.
Yeah, just tell him. Show him that it’s not a walk in the park over here, that he can’t cut me a check for five hundred dollars and think he’s saving a candy shop.
Crossing my arms, I say, “Thirty thousand dollars.”
There.
Eat that.
Now leave me alone.
“What are your bank details to transfer the money to?” he asks, without blinking an eye.
Did you see that? My jaw just hit the ground.
“Uh…what?” I ask.
He sticks his hand in his pocket and repeats, “Give me your bank details and I’ll organize a transfer.”
“You’re…you’re not serious.”
“I am.” He nods. “Very serious. Thirty thousand is nothing.”
Nothing?
NOTHING?
Thirty thousand is a lot of money, something that I’d never see in one giant sum in my lifetime. And he thinks it’s nothing?
“That’s…that’s a lot of money. Did you hear me correctly? I said thirty thousand U.S. dollars. As in five digits.”
“Yes, Renley, I heard you. Thirty thousand U.S. dollars is roughly twenty-two thousand pounds. I have the ability to organize a transfer of funds.”
I shake my head in disbelief, because he can’t be serious. This…this isn’t real.
He thumbs toward my house. “Should I ask Kitty? Maybe she’d be less stunned and more able to answer me.”
Okay, the snark knocks me out of my shock.
“Why on earth would I take your money? And how can I trust that you actually have it? Are you part of some sort of drug scheme?” I gasp, hand to heart, and then take a step back.
“When you say you’re a future lord, do you mean drug lord?
Because I’m going to tell you right now, I will not have any part in black market money.
No way. I’m an upstanding lady and I refuse to bend my morals to get some quick cash.
” I brush him away with my hand. “You can take your drug lord money and try to finance someone else.”
He scratches his cheek, silent for a moment before he says, “Who hurt you?”
“What?” I ask, stunned.
“Someone in your life must have hurt you for you to be this distrusting.”
“No one…no one hurt me.”
“Okaaaay,” he drags out. “I don’t believe you, but we don’t have to get into that now.
What I can tell you is that my name is Theodore Williams the Third.
You can look up my family and see that in fact, my father is Lord Dunebary and I’m supposed to assume the title when my father steps down from his duties.
We have the money to help, and you have my word on that.
” The serious tone to his voice makes me actually want to believe him.
“I’ll let you get on with your walk and I won’t bother you this morning.
This afternoon though…I’ll be waiting for you.
” He moves away. “Oh, and while you’re walking, think about my offer.
If you need the money, Gossy, I’ve got it. ”
With that, he winks and then takes off toward his house in his chino shorts, loafers, and collared shirt.
Did he really think he was going to work out in that outfit?
Those aren’t even sensible walking shoes.
And that’s exactly why I can’t trust what he said. You can never trust someone planning to go on a walk in loafers.
Absolutely not.
My fingers drum on the windowsill as I look out toward the front yard where Rupert is sunbathing on a folding lounge chair, using a piece of aluminum foil to reflect the sun onto his face.
His bathing suit shorts ride up to just mid-thigh, offering an expansive view of pasty man-thigh.
Next to his lounge chair is a pitcher of water that you would think is for drinking, but nope, not him, he’s been dripping it over his chest every so often.
And instead of using headphones, he’s listening to his music on a speaker, the faint sounds of Chappell Roan pulsing through the neighborhood.
Is this what the summer is going to be like?
Being stalked on my walks and having to avoid going in my front yard because there’s a nearly naked man sunbathing in the grass?
And no, I didn’t look Theo up, because frankly, I don’t want to know more about him than I already do. I just want him to leave and take his sunbathing friend with him.
“When did you get home?” Aunt Kitty asks as she takes a seat in a chair across from me.
“About ten minutes ago,” I say, turning away from the window and letting my eyes adjust from the light bouncing off Rupert’s pasty man-thigh.
“Mr. Levity had a clogged pipe, but I was able to fix it pretty quickly. Then I stopped by Miss Janet’s house, mowed her yard, plucked her weeds, and came home to take a quick shower. ”