Page 23 of Best Man Speaking

I scoff. “I’m completely uninterested in having a relationship with anyone,” I reply steadily, well aware that while a relationship might not be in the cards, having my hands on her body probably is.

Since the moment Hallie’s eyes had narrowed in my direction and her sharp tongue had given me a lashing, I’d been caught.

Spellbound.

It hadn’t been an issue thinking our contact would’ve been a few necessary calls, but now she’s here, on my home turf, and while I might not be playing for keeps, I’m more than happy to play for right now.

Hallie is the one I’d pushed away—and who’d gotten away—but that doesn’t mean I still wouldn’t like a taste to get her out of my system once and for all.

And that’s the kicker. Mr.fuckingCairns is offering to double his donation to my charity if I get his daughter to talk to him—a suicide mission if there ever was one. But since he’s threatened to pull his funding altogether if he doesn’t get his conversation, it’s quite literally double or nothing. What’s worse? As a regular funder, it’s money I’d already banked on until he’d added these new terms and conditions to it. Now, each young person who I’ve helped place as an apprentice is at risk, as well as those we’ve accepted as new starts. The education and employment of these young people are up in the air unless I can find a solution.

If I decide to take Johnathan Cairns up on his offer, I’ll have to get close to her.

Luckily, having to be nice won’t have much to do with winning Hallie over. She wouldn’t trust it coming from me, anyway.

“What about the house?” Julian asks, veering us off course and back into the past once more.

“What house?” I move away from my window, well aware of which home he’s referring to.

Two months ago, Hallie had finally eased up and put her grandmother’s house up for sale, a sure sign she had no plans to return in any permanent capacity.

“Are you going to try and tell me you’re not even a little tempted by it?”

He isn’t wrong. I’m tempted. Have been tempted.

Last year, I’d made another offer, a large one. And Hallie had refused. Her property manager had sent me the usual email stating the owner was not considering offers on the property. But apparently, she’d changed her mind.

The place is officially on the market.

It’s beautiful, if in slight disrepair after being used as a rental for a little too long, but the bones are there.

“I’m not going totryand tell you anything, Jules. I’d be a liar if I said the property is anything other than a dream for someone like me; it has endless potential. However, who Hallie sells to is completely up to her.”

“You know she’s just about to buy an apartment in Edinburgh?” he asks, knowing it’ll be news to my ears.

“No. I don’t know, Jules. She isn’t my friend.” My response is nothing other than a bland statement of fact. “But at least the money from the sale of her gran’s place won’t go astray.”

If Hallie doesn’t want to call her gran’s place home, that’s fine, but the least she could do is sell the house to someone who wants it or who’s going to make some money from it. It’s the considerate thing to do. And at least I know she has no plans to return.

Jules lets out a sound of exasperation, and I can picture him rubbing his temples. “She’ll hate it if you buy it.”

He isn’t wrong. “You think she doesn’t hate me already?”

“Well, as unconcerned as you are, you’ve still not said what you’re going to do with it if you do buy it,” he replies, ignoring my question; it was rhetorical, anyway.

“Because it’s none of your business, and also, you didn’t ask.” I keep my tone nonconfrontational.

“Because being in the middle of you two hasn’t always been a part of my business?”

It’s unfortunately a fair assessment.

“Hallie’s always had it in her heart to separate the two of us. I don’t see why it would change now.” My statement’s also true—she’s never held my actions against Jules.

I find my way back to the window. Hallie’s still working, lights now shining from each room in the pool house.

“True, but you’re a different person now.”

“Worse?”

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