Page 129 of Beautiful Revenge

She rolls her eyes. “Hardly.”

I plant my hands on either side of her hips and lean to kiss the tip of her nose. “For what it’s worth, you’re the first woman I’ve remotely thought about sharing a life with. Shit’s been a little busy to think past that, but it’s definitely a conversation that needs to happen. I figure we have time. But at least we know we both don’t hate kids.”

Her smile swells. “When I first met you, I would have guessed that there was a decent chance you hated kids. You were grumpy and broody. I’m glad that’s not true.”

“When I met you, I thought you’d be a high maintenance, drama princess. That actually ended up being true.”

She swats my arm playfully. “Stop it.”

I shrug. “It’s a good thing I get off on action and crime, right?”

She stuffs her hat back on her head and slides on her shades. “I’m going to forget you said that and call Chrissie. There’s still the unsolved mystery of Janie. I thought for sure she’d show up by now demanding access to money or a plane or at least a vacation house. I have no clue where she is.”

“She’ll surface eventually. I don’t know who would help her after your dad made a public statement about the divorce. The public might not know what she actually did to him, but he made sure to point out this won’t be an amicable split.”

“Right? Oh my gosh, I forgot to tell you. Dad called this morning. He and Chrissie found some other things Allen was hiding from Dad. I’m so glad he’s gone.”

“That’s good. Now you just need to tell your dad he has a son. He woke up from a coma to a whole new world.” I give the side of her thigh a squeeze before leaning in for one more kiss. “I’ve got to go. I have interviews lined up all afternoon for a general manager. I need someone to run things so I can keep up with your shit.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’ll see you at dinner if you’re lucky.”

“Oh, I plan on getting lucky, baby. Just you wait.”

She nudges me with her bare foot. “I don’t know whether you’re playful or cocky.”

I stand and slide my shades back on. “Since I’m already planning on what I’m going to do to you tonight, you should definitely go with cocky.”

She waves me off, but she does it biting her lip.

Yeah, she’s looking forward to it as much as I am.

Devon

Istare at the CV that belongs to the woman sitting across the table in the conference room. She’s poised and articulate, but I catch her nervous tic. Most people wouldn’t notice, but I was trained by SIS. Reading body language was a huge part of my job. I can’t turn that off.

She won’t stop tapping the tip of her pinky to her thumb. It’s been going on since she sat down across from me.

The pool of applicants to choose from is complete and utter shit.

Blake’s grandma even applied, and she’s not the least qualified of the bunch. She led with her strongest skills, and that was organizing the family Christmas dinner every year and trying to figure out where the out-of-town cousins would sleep in her house.

And since Blake is a talker, I know this is a legit skill because he’s got a big-ass family.

Does it make Grandma qualified to manage my resort on a daily basis?

Fuck no.

But I still granted her an interview. Blake asked me to do it as a personal favor. He said she’d never been interviewed before, and it was on her bucket list. And since I aim to please the good people of Winslet, I interviewed Grandma.

She did not lack energy. She told me she walks two miles a day so she can drink wine with dinner and have dessert every third day.

She then told me that working here would help her get her steps in since the place is so big, and if she got her steps in, she’d live longer. She said it was true because the internet said so.

I couldn’t argue.

But that doesn’t mean I was about to put Grandma in charge of my business that required managing a multi-million-dollar budget and five-star resort. Though, she did bring me cookies, which I ate because she insisted.

Of the other three candidates, two were only slightly more qualified than Blake’s grandma, and Grandma put the other one to shame.