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“Hard to move in this town for all the rich dudes.” Mikey shifts a bit, then shoots a furtive glance about. “Tell Zoey I said hi. Laters.”
After he leaves, people come in. Some to buy or browse, but there are a bunch who have lived here for ages, who are moving or getting ready, and they all come in to see Zoey.
And all of them, every single fucking one, have nothing but great things to say about her.
Even Tuesday Harry drops by and the colorful Mrs. O’Reilly who flirts with me in that way happily married older women do—just for fun and no meaning behind it.
They’re not moving on…Harry is a few blocks away, but he worries that other developers will move in, and he’s right. They will. When I build, prices will skyrocket further. It’s the way of the world. I don’t say it. I don’t say a single word of reason to any of them.
It’s not until around four pm that I realize a few things.
One, I actively find myself adoring Zoey the way these people do, and despising their mythical version of Edward Sinclair.
Two, where the hell is Zoey?
Three, I got so hungry I ate a cookie and it was like the entire world switched on. The burst of complex flavors and sugar surge through my blood, which might explain the first thing.
But I don’t think so.
It’s Zoey.
She’s got in deep.
She’s made me sit here and dislike Edward Sinclair as though he’s someone else.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Zoey
Ican’t wipe the smile off my face, even though I feel like I’ve been to hell and back.
And I hate to even dare admit it to myself, but it’s because of Magnus. He’s in the store, and he looks like he belongs.
It’s a fallacy, I know that, but it’s hard to tell your heart something like that when it wants what it wants.
Not that I’m in love with him or anything.
But I could.
I could fall. So very easily for him.
With a breath, I push open the door and walk in and his smile with the flash of dimples is enough to ignite my smile all over again and make my knees want to turn into unset Jell-O.
“Everything go okay?”
I nod. “Here?”
For a moment, he has a darkness that comes to his eyes, but it disappears, almost like it was never there. And perhaps it wasn’t. “Apart from every single person in the world seemed to come in to sing your praises and some of them left you cards, I think, judging by your suddenly swollen little pile of mail.”
And that dark expression is suddenly explained.
People who have to move out came by. No doubt Magnus is angry, which I get. I am, too. Add that to his pride and his unwillingness to discuss the need for money for his gran and the things I know he doesn’t, well… “Sinclair is an ass.”
“You might find you like him. If you met him.”
“I wouldn’t. People like that…well, you know about Bronn, and Edward Sinclair’s a million times worse.”
“Zoey—”
