Page 4

For a moment, all he could manage was a stunned, furious silence.

Releasing the ladder, he stepped out from under it and leaned over, encouraging the paint to drip onto the grass rather than continue to course down his face.

Any moment now, the woman would start apologizing profusely while thanking him for saving her life.

If he hadn’t acted so quickly, she would’ve ended up bent backwards over the neighboring chain link fence like a limp rag.

But…no apology came. Perhaps she was stunned into silence as well?

When the dripping eased enough that he could raise his head with his eyes open, he realized she not only wasn’t apologizing, she wasn’t bothering to look at him. She hadn’t even stopped painting!

“Please don’t let me interrupt,” he growled.

After giving the gutter one more swipe from her brush, she deigned to peer down at him.

Even through sticky blue lashes, he could see she was pretty.

Her eyes, wide-set and large, were an unusual shade of golden green, and her high-set cheeks were freckled.

Her medium-blonde hair, which just reached her shoulders, swung like spun gold as she cocked her head in his direction.

“There’s a junky towel there to your right if you want,” she said, before turning back around and, of all things, continuing her brushing.

Her slim shoulders rose and fell in a rapid rhythm. Was she laughing?

He grabbed up the ratty, stained towel and ran it over his face, hair, and shoulders. “This is hardly funny.”

“I’m sorry. It’s not,” she said without doing him the courtesy of facing him again. “It’s just my brain does this thing where I wonder about stuff.”

“What?”

“Like, if you had let it dry, could we have peeled a man-shaped paint chip off of you?” She sounded half embarrassed to be saying this out loud, but only half embarrassed.

“Oh, yes. That’s some brilliant brainwork,” he said with full sarcasm, as the suit he’d bought specifically for this trip and his long-awaited business deal began to stiffen.

No dry cleaner would be able to get the paint off.

The suit was a total loss. “My brain wonders about stuff too,” he said, still scrubbing despite knowing it was useless.

“Like how am I going to get back into my car all covered in paint, and who the heck told you to paint this house anyway?”

She stopped what she was doing and swiveled around to gaze down at him.

Nico thought perhaps he’d finally gotten through to her, but instead of beginning a tardy apology, the fire in her green eyes sharpened to laser beams. “You’re lucky that paint only cost me twenty bucks.

It was in the return pile at the hardware store.

But you can still Venmo me for it. I won't charge you for the towel.”

His voice became low and gravelly. “These clothes cost me over a thousand dollars. You can Venmo me .”

Something—his tone or the mention of that much money—finally got her moving.

She climbed partway down the ladder, stopping on the third rung from the bottom.

It didn’t escape Nico’s notice that she was keeping her face just above his, maintaining whatever upper hand she might mistakenly think she had in the conversation.

She gesticulated toward the street in a sweeping motion with one arm.

“Look around, buddy. There’s plenty of places you could have squealed your brakes other than right in front this house.

I lost my balance. I was nearly impaled on the chain link fence!

” She used her brush like a pointer. “ You can Venmo me .”

“What? I was in shock. No one should be painting this place.”

She stared him up and down, her full upper lip half-curled as if he was giving off a smell much worse than paint. “I’d appreciate it if you’d leave. I’m trying to get a few house projects done and I’m pretty sure no one made you King of Placard.”

“A few house projects?” he said, his voice ratcheting up several notches. “ On whose house ?”

She hopped straight off the ladder, landing with surprising grace, and started marching toward the front porch. “Mine, obviously.”

He followed after her. “I’ve owned this house for years, and you need to leave.”

Reaching the porch steps, she spun round, hands on her hips.

“Look, I’m sorry about your suit, but you showed up here unannounced and in the middle of my week off.

It’s the only time I’ve got to finish a few things up, and now you expect me to deal with your nonsense?

I don’t want to do this to you, but I’m calling my sister.

” She picked up her phone, which had been sitting on the porch railing, and started punching in a number.

“Your sister? Ooooh, scary.” He wiped his hand thoroughly against the towel before reaching into his pocket for his own phone. “I’m calling my attorney.”

If anyone could handle this situation, it was Monique. Over the last ten years of buying up these properties on the sly, he’d put her through every real estate legal issue imaginable, and she always found the solution. She’d have this little intruder out on her cute butt in sixty seconds.

The little intruder gave an impatient huff as she hung up her phone. “She has another call, and she’ll call me right back.”

One second later, Monique answered. “Mr. Vitale! Nice to hear from you. How can I be helpful?”

“Hey, yeah, I’m out at the house on Placard, and there’s a woman here who says she owns it. What’s going on?”

“Placard? I…don’t know. Our firm doesn’t actually have legal oversight to maintain that property. But she’s probably just a vagrant. I’m sure a little money tossed her way will get her moving. Offer her fifty bucks.”

He looked up, scanning the house. Not only was it painted, but it also appeared to have a new roof.

The porch floorboards looked brand new too.

There were attractive plantings all around, and the kitchen window, which used to be plate glass, was now the bay window his mother had always dreamed of having.

Aside from the kindergarten palette, the house looked in better shape than it had in years.

“Something tells me fifty isn’t going to do it. ”

“Then offer more,” Monique said. “You can call the police, but it’s just going to create headaches and maybe even headlines. We really don’t want that right now.”

The woman sat down on the porch stairs, stretching out her legs as if to say, ‘this is mine,’ as she looked him defiantly in the eyes. “No amount of money is going to do it .”

Nico held the phone away from his ear. “What, you don’t like money? Everyone has a price.”

She squinted her big green eyes at him as she said, loudly. “Nine out of ten historians say money is the leading cause of war and climate destruction.”

Though the phone, he heard Monique gasp.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Monique’s voice was uncharacteristically clipped and nervous. “What did she just say?”

“Some hippy crap about how historians think money causes war and is destroying the planet.”

Monique’s silence was so long he started to wonder if the line had gone dead.

“Are you there? Monique?”

A soft, “Oh, my God,” was the only reply.