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“Backyard needs an overhaul,” I say, breaking the silence.
“Need a recommendation?”
I turn to her. “You have one?”
Her cup pauses halfway to her mouth. “Yeah. There’s a crew out here my dad has used for years. I’ll get you the number.”
I should focus on the interior, but suddenly, I’m eager to hear from her. To forge any sort of connection.
Given the state of the house, I’m going to be much more involved moving forward. But if Katherine Montgomery says someone’s good, I believe her.
“Two years on the Winter-Farmington board, and you’ve never let us down. I appreciate the rec.”
She stares up at me, her jaw slack. As if realizing she looks a bit like a fish, she snaps her lips closed, but I watch the war in her eyes. She doesn’t know what to make of me.
We’ve battled it out in the boardroom every quarter. I prefer putting our resources toward rural kids, and she supports girls in STEM. Both are laudable goals.
“Even though we don’t always see eye to eye, it’s always been obvious that you’ve had the kids’ best interest at heart,” I feel the need to tell her. Because I see how hard she works for the children, and I have such a soft spot for kids.
“Who are you, and what have you done with Gabriel Rothburn?” She glances around as if she actually expects someone else to pop out of the shadows.
I chuckle and feel lighter than I have in months. Years.
It’s addictive.
She’s addictive.
“Would you rather me make a biting comment?” I murmur, my blood humming with challenge. Then my lips pull up in a smirk. “Nice shirt.”
“You’re just jealous,” she shoots back with a flirtatious wiggle of her eyebrows.
“Jealous?”
“That it’s not yours.”
“I am, actually.”
“See, you had to go and ruin a perfectly nice—” She stops. Freezes, mouth open. And then, as her brain catches up, there’s a tiny little gasp. “You are?”
Now it’s my turn to freeze because I didn’t mean to admit the truth.
She looks confused but not disgusted. So that’s something.
Heat scorches over my skin. I swear, my body’s decided it’s fifteen again.
“What if I am?” I ask because the perverse part of me needs to know. The little boy who dreamed big dreams and never could have imagined such a beautiful, classy woman looking twice at him. That little guy is giddy.
I’m sick of burying these feelings. This desire for her. And it’s been that way since the moment we met. That moment when I didn’t know who the gorgeous redhead was. And it didn’t matter because, short of being married or into women, I was going to find a way to have her. And she looked down her nose at me.
“Gabriel Rothburn. Your reputation precedes you,” she’d said, shattering all the illusions forming in my head.
No doubt her family poisoned her against me from the time she was young.
Then she’d held out her hand. “Katherine Montgomery.” I fully expected some sort of electric shock when our hands touched. Like the kind that would put me six feet under. Not the exquisite tingle of awareness that almost brought me to my knees.
We’ve been at odds for years. Yes, I love teasing her. I fucking live to make her eyes flash with challenge. But this is different. It’s. . . more.
“Alex kissed me,” she blurts, pulling me back to the present.
