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G inny ignored Monique’s tight-lipped silence as she gave her sister a tour of the house the following Sunday morning.

Even after Monique tutted something about ‘the dangers of lead fumes’ when she spotted a small section of peeling ceiling paint over the shower, Ginny just moved on to the next room.

She’d woken in such a good mood, and from such a solid sleep, she felt like she could withstand just about any passive aggressiveness her older sister might throw at her.

Plus, each time she caught a glance of the front yard through the windows, a memory of the previous evening with Nico gave Ginny a funny little fizzy feeling in her chest.

But as they returned to the kitchen to where Sadie and Grant waited for them to start their brunch, Ginny found it harder to ignore Monique’s griping.

“How much longer are we going to have our Sunday brunches here?” Monique said as she sat down at the kitchen booth. She looked more like she was hovering over the bench seat than deigning to place her perfectly toned derriere on it.

Sadie sipped at the coffee Grant had just handed to her. She smiled contentedly as her gaze darted around the small space. “Oh, I love it here. Reminds me of the booth at Rick’s.”

Monique gave a sniff. “Rick’s didn’t smell like dog,” she said, half under her breath.

Standing at her kitchen sink, Ginny gazed out the window, checking on the dogs.

A foolish mole must have tunneled under their fence, because they were in excavation mode.

She turned and handed Monique the glass of water she’d requested, but she spoke to Sadie.

“What’s she’s really asking is when I’m going to give my most prized possession away to someone who doesn’t need it. ”

Monique plucked the water glass from Ginny’s hand.

“Give? I admit you’ve done a lot of work on the house.

It’s not my style, but it certainly suits you.

All in all, I’m impressed. But, Ginny, he offered you a fortune.

” She appealed to the only other person in the room.

“Grant, wouldn’t you think a million dollars is a fair deal for this house? ”

Grant’s back was to them as he bent before the oven to check on his rewarming quiche.

“I think this is a Heppner sister discussion, and nothing good will come of me having an opinion on it.” He straightened and looked at them all encouragingly.

“But how about you go ahead and do your toast, because this quiche is ready, and I’ll be offended if you let it dry out. ”

“Fine,” Monique said after a short pause.

“Maybe with a decent breakfast in you,” she said to Ginny, “you’ll see things more clearly.

” She raised her glass over the table and waited as Ginny raised her orange juice and Sadie raised her coffee.

As had been their weekly tradition since the loss of their parents, they did a gentle clink.

“To Mom and Dad,” they said together.

Sadie squeezed Ginny’s hand. “They would have loved this place, Gin.”

“Yes, they would have,” Monique said, her voice taking on an uncharacteristically tender tone. “I remember you learning to hang wallpaper with Dad.”

Ginny’s eyes welled. “Thanks. Sometimes I dream I’m giving them a tour.”

There was a short silence as everyone took a sip of their drink. Monique set her glass down. “Alrighty, let’s do the next bit. No dates for me. How about you, Ginny? Any dates? Or are you a committed dog-lady now?”

Ginny opened her mouth, fully intending to state the usual “no dates,” but her mouth hung open like a lazy screen door.

Had her front yard cook-out been a date?

Her mind flashed back to the sight of Nico’s shocked face surrounded by flying veggie dogs, to his deep laugh as they’d searched together for them on their knees, and how he’d made sure that shy Annie got just as many treats as her bullying brothers.

Then there’d been the moment he’d caught her chair, and their faces had ended up inches apart.

Some of that had felt a little…date adjacent.

But the evening certainly hadn’t been proposed as a date.

He’d said it was only for them to get to know each other’s motivations around the house dispute—a business discussion.

He hadn’t brought flowers or even complimented her.

If anything, he’d insulted her life choices. None of that felt like a date.

“No,” she said finally and firmly, “no dates.” But it was too late. Both her sisters and Grant, standing at the stove cutting up the quiche he’d just pulled from the oven, stared at her expectantly.

“What was that hesitation?” Monique said, suspicion deepening her already deep voice.

Ginny tried to cover her tracks. The last thing she wanted was to describe her evening with her nemesis to his real estate lawyer. “I didn’t hesitate. I just…had some juice go down funny in my throat.”

A murmur of discontent filtered through the room.

Grant looked at Ginny with a brotherly, but skeptical, smile as he set the steaming quiche onto a trivet in the middle of the table. “On this one, even I feel confident saying that you hesitated.”

“Definitely,” Sadie said, giggling. “Spill it.”

Three pairs of eyes stared at her, and one of those pairs was lowered into slits as dark as black holes. Ginny reached for the serving spatula and started eyeing which slice of quiche looked the biggest and juiciest. “Let’s just eat. I’m starving.”

Monique hovered both hands protectively over the steaming dish. “Tell us about your non-date and then we’ll eat.”

Ginny looked at Sadie for back up, but though her perky little sister was smiling, she was also nodding in agreement with Monique. Ginny let out a giant sigh as she let go of the spatula and sat back against the booth, defeated.

“It was nothing,” she said. “That dude who thinks he owns this house said we should get to know each other.”

Monique’s eyes were wide. “Nico?”

Ginny nodded. “I think his exact words were ‘doing business means understanding where the other person is coming from.’ We’re not doing business, because there’s no business to be done. But he agreed not to take the dogs away from me in trade for one dinner, so I did it.”

Questions exploded like popcorn from her nosy family members. ‘Where had he taken her? What had they eaten? How late were they out? Was he a gentleman? Had she had fun?’

Ginny couldn’t tell who was asking what until a question of Monique’s cut through the noise like a machete through butter. “ You left the property ?”

“Guys, guys,” Ginny said. She’d taken advantage of the general commotion to grab a generous slab of quiche, which she dropped onto her plate with a weighty smack.

“It wasn’t like that. And no,” she said to Monique, “I didn’t leave the property.

He knew I wouldn’t do that, so he brought the food here.

He brought a little fireplace too, and we had a cook-out on the front lawn. ”

Monique’s eyes relaxed slightly, but not all the way. “So, he didn’t come inside?”

“He didn’t so much as step on the front porch.”

Sadie nudged Ginny with her shoulder as she gave her a wink. “Still sounds kinda romantic. Did he bring a nice wine? Ah…Ah…Achoo!” Ginny felt the light rain of a sneeze prickle her bare arm. “Oh, excuse me!” Sadie said. “That came out of nowhere!”

“Are you feeling okay?” Grant said, reaching across the small table to lay a hand on his wife’s forearm.

“I’m fine,” Sadie said. “Probably some pepper got in my nose.”

“No worries,” Ginny said, digging into her quiche. “Germs are part of a healthy breakfast. And to answer your question, he brought sodas.”

“Just pop?” Grant said, sounding personally offended. “And what else,” he added with a laugh, “hot dogs?”

“Actually, veggie dogs,” Ginny said to their shocked faces. “I’m telling you, this was not a date. I told him a bit about who I am. You know…that I dropped out of college and used to live in the mansions I cleaned.”

Sadie tutted as she cut a thin slice of quiche and set it delicately onto her own plate. “Oh, dear. Leave it to you to start your first date with a guy by telling him how you dropped out of college.”

But Monique’s face was fully relaxed now. “He must have loved that. The guy’s a Harvard business grad, top of his class.” She gave Ginny a sideways smile. “Oh, but I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that. He managed to shoehorn that factoid into our first conversation in under two minutes.”

Ginny shrugged. “He didn’t get a chance. I was so tired from him blasting music at me for the past two nights that, after I explained my life philosophy a bit, I left and went to bed.”

For a few seconds, Monique went so still she looked like a wax carving of herself. Then, her lips parted into a chuckle, which quickly grew and deepened until she was flat out belly laughing. Her head rolled on her graceful neck and her shoulders quaked as she pounded the table with her fist.

Ginny couldn't help staring at her older sister. Was there something in the water? Had she been taken over by happy spirits? Glancing to her right, she saw Sadie staring saucer-eyed at Monique too, her little bow mouth open in limp surprise.

Grant seemed startled, even nervous. His eyes darted between the sisters warily. “What’s…what’s so funny?”

“No idea,” Sadie said.

Monique took a few deep breaths, trying to squelch the laughter.

Her brown eyes were damp, and a rosy glow softened her high, sharp cheekbones.

The effect transformed her sister’s normally granite exterior completely, and Ginny found herself smiling too.

If only she could make her sister laugh like this more often, the way she used to when they were little.

She didn’t even care if it was at her own expense.

“Sorry,” Monique said, still gasping for air.

“It’s just I’m trying to imagine Mr. I-Own-The-World sitting here on skid row eating food-on-a-stick while listening to Ginny wax poetic about how terrible capitalism is…

and never getting a chance to talk about his favorite subject—himself!

” She let out one final guffaw. “Oh, I just wish I’d been a fly on the… chain link fence.”

Ginny bristled. It hadn’t gone like that at all. First off, she didn’t live on skid row. Second, he had listened to her with some level of interest. She hadn’t once talked over him. Third, he’d been the one to urge her to get some sleep.

Ginny was grateful Monique no longer suspected this had been a date, and she certainly wasn’t going to disabuse any of them of that, but something in her sister’s tone and words was giving Ginny misgivings.

Something was making Ginny’s heart feel as if its contents were being scooped out and dumped onto the kitchen linoleum.

“So, he usually talks about himself a lot?” she asked Monique, trying to keep her voice as nonchalant as possible.

“Are you kidding? In real estate, you deal with a lot of big egos. It just goes with the territory. But Nico is known around the office for his. He’s quiet at first, but once he gets going about his properties and his plans, he could yammer the paint off the Golden Gate Bridge.”

“Maybe he’s just really into his work,” Grant said.

“Yep,” Monique said, “he is. And nothing but his work.” She looked at Ginny.

“I bet he didn’t even know Sadie existed.

I’ve worked with him for almost a decade now, and he’s never once asked about my family.

He certainly didn’t know you existed until you stole his property right out from under him. ”

Ginny was too focused on the rest of what Monique had said to notice being accused, once again, of being a house thief.

Was her sister right about Nico? Did he really love talking about himself and his business?

Because he hadn’t made a single peep about himself or his work the previous night, not even when she’d handed him the chance on a platter.

Monique was right about him not knowing Sadie existed, and Monique had known the guy for years while Ginny had only known him for a couple of hours.

Her sister had to be correct. So why had he held back?

The only logical explanation was that he’d faked the entire evening, putting on a show to get what he wanted.

He’d admitted he faked the threat of taking the dogs from her.

Her mind swirled as this new interpretation twisted everything she’d enjoyed from the evening into something shady, something sinister.

Had he practiced the exploding veggie dogs ahead of time?

Had the laughter they’d shared been play-acting?

And that moment staring into each other’s eyes—had that been a complete ruse too?

Had he been laughing at her on the inside?

The so-recently scooped out contents of Ginny’s heart now felt as if they were being trampled on by stampeding elephants.

But they shouldn’t. That was ridiculous.

She didn’t have feelings for Nico. How could she possibly?

He was everything she hated in the world—greedy, cocky, self-centered.

And now add conniving to the list! She mentally gathered up the bits of her heart from the floor and shoved them back into her chest, where they would stay.