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“You’d probably feed him cake.”
“I would not!” Zoey slowly smiles and starts to straighten up on the aisles facing us. I lean back against the counter as she does so. She has hummingbird energy. It fits her, delicate and robust, still and energetic. A certain kind of beauty to those movements as she hovers busily.
“Well,” she says sheepishly, “I might. I offered that oaf a cookie the first time he came. Ate it, too. Kept eyeing them each time. Except today. Probably shocked there was a man there. But! I’d only offer Sinclair stale cake.”
“Not poisoned?”
“I’m not evil,” she says, throwing a slightly evil look at me.
“Why not sell, Zoey? I’ve only been here a day, but you work hard and you said you own the building?”
Spots of color darken her cheeks. I know I’ve stepped a little too far. I need to reel it back in, take it slowly. Clearly, I’d prefer this settled now so I can concentrate on all the other steps, but we’re months from even thinking of bringing a building down. Still, I like to have everything set in advance. I have plans and time schedules set up and the way forward, the only way, is brutal efficiency and making sure things go like clockwork.
So, I may have to make underhanded moves like this to push it along.
Sure, it’s called underhanded for a reason, but I’m not breaking laws, and she’ll get over it.
Zoey will be crushed, but there’s always fallout. And it’s not like it will kill her. I’m setting her free from the shackles of thankless work for nothing, of no doubt scraping the bottom of the barrel to keep the fucking lights on.
Shit, I’d bet myself a million bucks she can’t afford to pay me, but I’m betting she also needs someone to help here. The taxes alone will be astronomical for her since she doesn’t have tenants. And this is classed as a business, so the majority of utilities will cost more, and I’m actually beginning to bore myself.
I shift my mind back to her, and how her ass looks as she bends to fix the books on the bottom shelf. It’s one sweet ass. Not big, but perfect to cup when kissing or fucking her against a wall.
And there I go again. Thinking of sex and Zoey and things that shouldn’t even go together in my mind.
But there’s something about her that creeps under the skin when a man isn’t looking and it’s probably called not being laid in over two weeks. I had to cancel a date because I was so damn busy with all this and I parted ways with the last regular lady with benefits I had on account she got the vice president job she wanted and moved to LA.
Great for Jane, seriously, but sometimes it’s good to have ease of access on tap.
Picking up isn’t an issue, but it takes time to find someone that I want, and Jesus, I’m sounding like my brother, Ry.
“I don’t want to sell,” she says, straightening up. “That’s giving in.”
“Is it? I’m not talking myself out of a job, just playing a little devil’s advocate, but you could buy three stores with what they’re offering.”
She frowns and comes toward me. “How do you know what they’re offering? I never said and Sinclair’s goon didn’t have any paperwork out.”
Fuck. Mr. Nice Guy here has a problem with his mouth, apparently. I don’t usually just talk like this with loads of free time. Because this isn’t a job, it’s fucking about. My days are jam-packed from six a.m. until nine p.m. most days. This… this is unlike anything I’ve ever done. I’m about making, not wasting, money. I don’t shoot shit and I don’t spend time in musty bookstores with pretty little pint-sized females whose hearts are way too big for their health.
I shrug and keep it deliberately casual. “He said it was a good deal or something, so I just assumed.”
She lifts a hand to her forehead and gives a small smile. “I’m just over it. I’m not selling. This place has been in the family for decades and… my heart and soul are soaked into these walls. People have always told me what I can’t do, or what’s better and easier for me, but you know what? I’ve never been happier than having this store. I think I already told you all this, or maybe I didn’t.”
“You can tell me anything.”
The real Magnus prefers slinking out of rooms when people get like this. I don’t enjoy it and I don’t have the time. I almost decide my fictional gran needs me, but it’s still snarling, fighting cats and dogs outside and besides, the fake Magnus would listen. Because the fake Magnus is going to get all the ammunition I need to bring her down.
“It’s hard, I won’t lie, keeping this place going, but it means so much and I’m so proud of it. I love it’s a nice little slice of history and that people can come here. I like that this is one of the last bastions of a dying old school Brooklyn. It’s not much to look at, but it’s mine.”
There’s no dramatic countenance in her words, or even some higher purpose. They’re just full of quiet dignity and love and steel.
“So nothing would ever make you sell.”
“I’d give a kidney if someone asked. And if someone absolutely, desperately needed money and selling this was the only way to save them, then I would. In a heartbeat.”
It’s wrong. I know it is. But as she says those words, it hits me.
Somehow, someway, little Zoey is going to sell.
