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Hurricane Ginny seemed unaffected by his self-revelations.

Even worse, she headed straight for the movie projector he’d set up on a small side table not far from the truck.

An image of her smashing the delicate machine as eagerly as she’d smashed a twenty-dollar chair played through his mind, and he hurried to intercept her.

The machine was heavy enough that he doubted she could lift it on her own, let alone throw it into the truck.

Still, she could damage it just by tipping over the table and knocking it to the ground.

“That’s a rental. It’s worth several thousand dollars! ”

They each got their hands on the sides of the sleek, medium-sized, white and black box. With only the projector separating them, their faces were inches apart.

“I have a brother,” she said, imitating his deep, slightly nasal lilt with targeted and humiliating accuracy as she pulled on her half of the machine. “Here’s some meaningless information about me to placate you.”

Given his height and obvious other physical advantages, Nico figured a good tug would win him the projector, but his muscles were no longer accepting instructions.

For the second time, being this near to Ginny caused his brain to grind to a pathetic, screeching halt.

This time, though, it wasn’t just her natural beauty flummoxing him, but the intensity emanating off every inch of her.

She was force of will in human form, a ball of sparking, chaotic energy.

She was confidence, and abandon, and unpredictability.

It felt dangerous. It felt exciting. It short-circuited him.

He forced himself to pull it together. “Well, what do you want to know then,” he asked, regretting the openness of the offer the moment it escaped his lips. There were certain things he couldn’t let her know.

Without a millisecond’s pause, she doffed her head toward the structure behind him. “Why do you want my house?”

A hard ball formed in his stomach. Of course, she homed in on the one thing he could not tell her—neither his business plans for it nor his personal connection to it.

Either piece of information would give her way too much leverage in whatever negotiations would follow.

He should already have a fake answer at the ready, because this question was bound to come up, but being a stupid idiot convinced he could outsmart a high school educated squatter, he had none. “I…just want it.”

Her sneer was epic, and he felt her grip the machine harder. “Mr. Magnate ‘just wants’ a seven-hundred square foot tear-down with no central air on the most run-down street in all of LA?”

His hands on the projector tightened in equal measure, but his back began to complain.

Years of being a state-level high school champion in the butterfly stroke now meant that bending over like this was something he could not sustain for long.

An all-to-familiar knot was gathering in the muscles of his mid-back.

It had the potential to leave him bed-bound the entire next day. He needed to calm her, and quickly.

He thought of her sisters and of the dogs—what she cared about most seemed to be other people and creatures, and the needier the better.

He could work with that…he was setting up a homeless shelter?

A dog refuge? No. He needed a reply that was at some level true, or she was going to see straight through the lie.

“I need it for a family member. A house like this will mean a lot to their future,” he said, wincing at a brief but ominous back spasm.

His statement was basically true. The money they’d make would mean a lot to his brother and his little growing family.

She didn’t need to know that flattening the house was the first step in his brother’s financial happiness.

The conflagration in her eyes dimmed. He even thought her grip on the projector might have eased ever so slightly. “Really,” she said, her tone softening. “It’s for a family member?”

Relief seeped warily into his veins, and he allowed himself to loosen his grip slightly too.

His instincts were right. She was a sucker for generosity and selfless good deeds.

Time to amp it up. “Yes. It’s perfect for them.

I promised it to them years ago, but they weren’t in a good place to accept it.

Now they are. This could really change their life for the better. ”

Her face relaxed into a sweet smile. She let go of the projector completely, resting her hands instead on the edge of the little table.

The tension that had packed the space around them like a taught balloon evaporated.

“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?

The house just wants to be loved and needed. ”

Nico mentally leapt for joy. This was working! He was doing it! “Does that mean you’re willing to negotiate? I fully acknowledge that you have put money and effort into the house. I will treat you fairly.” He winced as a second, stronger muscle twinge struck.

Her forehead wrinkled in concern. “Are you in pain?”

“It’s my back. It doesn’t like all this bending over.”

“Sometimes it pays to be small like me,” she said, but her tone was kind, sisterly. She stood up straight and arched her back slightly. “Maybe stretching it would help.”

As if his back muscles understood English, the mention of the word “stretch” sent them into their biggest spasm yet. He had no choice but to loosen his grip on the projector a little more, but just enough so that he could yaw his torso a smidge to the left, easing the knot.

And that was his mistake.

In a flash, she bent back down and wrapped her thin arms fully round the machine, knocking his hands off in the process.

He reached for it again, but with her arms in the way, he could no longer get a solid grip.

She pulled the whole thing toward her like a gloating poker player scooping up her winnings and heaved it into her arms. Eyes glinting like green steel, she tossed him a triumphant look before turning and heading toward the truck.

“No!” He attempted to go after her, but his right leg tangled into the legs of the little table, and he stumbled onto one knee.

There was nothing more he could do but watch from the ground in helpless defeat and horror as, with the strength of an Olympic weightlifter, she heaved the substantial machine straight over her head and ally-ooped it hard into the bed of the pick-up.

He groaned as he heard a mighty crunch. A mushroom cloud of plastic and metal debris rose above the truck bed’s sides and then collapsed back down again with the tinkle and clatter of expensive rain.

Nico pushed himself back to his feet, but his arms hung loose at his sides and his head drooped on his neck. Her display of energy seemed to have absorbed his. He allowed himself a deep breath before saying in an exhausted voice, “You really didn’t have to do that.”

“Oh, but I did. I really did,” she said, smiling like Shakespeare’s trickster, Puck.

In the near dark sky, her teeth and eyes seemed to glow as if powered internally.

“ That was our final negotiation. If you have anything else to say to me, you will say it through a lawyer. And if you show up on my property again—not just at my house, but my lawn too, I’m calling the police. ”