Page 20 of Meant to Be

“Oh no, I don’t need a seat. I’ll stand, sure,” he commented snidely, eyeing the chair across from the desk I stood behind.

I blinked and chided myself. Exhaling, I lowered my shoulders slightly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. I just got some not so great news from my realtor.”

“So I heard.”

“How long were you standing there?”

“Not long. That building was shit anyway. I could’ve saved you the cost of getting it appraised. That is, if you’d come to me from the beginning,” he responded, before moving in front of the chair, unbuttoning his suit jacket, and taking a seat, then folding one leg over the other. He looked so comfortable that for a moment I’d forgotten this was my office and not his.

He’d been listening long enough to have heard which building I was to have bought into.

“I have a very capable realtor.”

“Who didn’t know that building was a piece of junk to begin with.”

My top lip curled. “Not everyone’s a real estate mogul.”

He shrugged. “Too bad for them.”

Silence drifted between us for a half a minute.

“What was wrong with the building?” Josh finally asked.

I let out the breath I’d been holding and unfolded my arms from my chest, slowly sinking into my leather chair. “Something about the structure of the building. I don’t know. You’d probably understand it more than I would.”

He made a snorting noise and shook his head. “I knew the contractors who’d constructed the building were garbage. The owners are cheap and use subpar contractors.”

I nodded. “Yeah, well, I’ve withdrawn my offer and my realtor’s sending me a list of more places.”

He regarded me for a long while. “Where’re you staying now?”

“Casa de Reyes,” I sing-songed.

“Home sweet home,” he commented.

“It ain’t Townsend Manor, but it’s—”

“Nothing’s Townsend Manor.”

I nodded

“I could make some calls on your behalf?”

I sat up, eyebrows raised. “You’d do that?”

For a heartbeat, I watched as Joshua’s eyes darkened, before returning to their normal emerald color. But the way his eyes narrowed I felt my question angered him. Why that was, I wasn’t sure.

He shook his head. “Yeah, Kay, I would.”

Why did his answer feel like a slap across the face?

I shook my head. “That won’t be necessary. So, uh, what are you doing here? Did you have an appointment with one of the other physicians?” Certainly, he wasn’t there to see me. I was very aware of every patient or potential patient I had on my schedule that day.

“I had some business in the area.” He let his eyes linger on my face for a half a second before standing and moving around my desk.

My breath caught in my throat when I thought he was moving closer to me. Instead, however, he went to the back wall, staring up at the degrees I’d hung there. My hand flew to my abdomen when I watched his full bottom lip curl upwards.

“Be it known to all that, Kayla Reyes, N.D., has hereby fulfilled all of the qualifications …” he read my degree out loud, pride mixed with a tight rigidity in his voice, while I kept my gaze locked on him. When he finished reading, he turned his head slightly, staring down at me; his eyes held a coldness that almost made me shiver. “Congratulations, Kayla. Sorry I missed your graduation.”