Page 3 of Sleeping with the Frenemy

“I don’t think you’ve forgotten him,” she said.

“Of course I have. I only knew him for three months.” His father had rented one of the handful of historic homes in town while the hotel was under construction. When Mark Valenti went to the job site every morning, Chase roamed the streets of Virginville. And since there weren’t that many streets to roam, he eventually ended up wandering around the motor lodge.

Then Nana tried to run him off the grounds with a shotgun. Fortunately, I intervened.

Kat gave me a look. “Yeah, but it was an intense three months.” She hesitated.

Uh oh.

“Especially near the end,” she added.

Okay, I was not discussing sex with my twenty-one-year-old sister.

I made my voice stern. “It was a long time ago. Maybe it was intense, but everything is intense when you’re eighteen. And Chase was the closest I ever got to a bad boy. It’s no wonder I fell for him.”

Kat’s expression turned thoughtful. “You think he was a bad boy?”

“Well, he swore like a sailor.” I let out a huff of laughter. “In Virginville, that automatically makes you the head of a motorcycle gang.”

She smiled, but then she quickly sobered. “He was constantly getting into fights, too. He always had bruises or cuts on his knuckles, remember?”

I did. And even now, it didn’t make sense. Because the Chase I spent three months with was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a hothead. He was cocky and a bit of a smartass, sure, but not violent. With his model good looks, expensive clothes, and cultured background, he’d been exotic to eighteen-year-old me. But he never made me feel inferior, despite my country bumpkin status. Instead, he followed me around town, asking question after question about the historical district and its rows of Victorian buildings. He followed me to the Dairy Barn and the local swimming hole, where he sat on the dock and watched my friends and me swim, the look in his green eyes letting me know I had most of his attention.

He even followed me home, where he ate dinner with us while his father worked late. When Nana said he reminded her of a golden retriever with his blond curls and insatiable curiosity, he just laughed.

Then he caught my eye over the dinner table and, when she wasn’t looking, murmured that maybe I should put a collar on him.

It pained me to admit it, but I would have dropped everything for him. My future. My college scholarship. My dreams.

I would have given him anything.

Our last night together, I gave him something I could never take back.

Then he disappeared. No notice. No goodbye. Not even a note.

And the next time I heard from the Valenti family, it was from a process server knocking on one of the cabin doors to tell me the Valentis purchased nearly all of the lodge’s debts.

Kat made a noise, jerking me from my memories.

She stared at my hands.

Which I’d clenched into fists on top of the table.

Oh.

I stuck my hands in my lap and cleared my throat. “Right. He was a bad boy and a spoiled rich kid. Which is why he’s best forgotten.”

She gave a slow nod.

Excellent.Now we could stop talking about the Valentis once and for all.

“Still,” she said, “do you really think it’s smart to work for them?”

Or not.

I drew in a deep breath. “It’s not an issue, Kat. It’s just a job, and it’s just on the weekends.”

At that, guilt crept across her face. “I feel terrible that you’re shouldering all this debt alone. You’re already working forty hours a week, plus coming here every weekend. Trust me, Victoria, housekeeping is back-breaking work.”

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