Page 10 of Just Trouble

“More than I want to,” she says with heat. I watch her eyes as she gets up from her desk. If Daph had any idea how clear her thoughts are when she’s agitated, how the truth is in her eyes, she’d shut that down in a hurry. For the moment, I feel like I have an unofficial window into her soul, and I love it.

She paces back and forth, and I get to watch.

“Both men claim they own it, and the titles are a mess. Nobody wanted it until a year ago, because it’s sloped and has bad drainage. It’s an irregular shape, too. Cavendish Enterprises can’t build a greenhouse on it or even use it for a pond. But it’s south-facing and last year, Mackenzie Rhodes discovered that the soil is exactly the right acidity for her to plant more grapes for ice wine.”

She raises a hand. “We won’t talk about the argument over her taking a soil sample for that test. Then thebattle royalebegan. It’s been Hatfields and McCoys up there, both Patrick and Augustine calling the cops all the time, not to mention lawyers. I suggested a survey, but the stakes keep moving in the night, though no one knows anything about it. And we still can’t prove which ancient title includes that chunk of land that no onecared about until now.” She sits down hard, her lips tight. “It’s a hot mess.”

“And Mike wants it solved. The plan is that I buy the parcel from Patrick and give it to Augustine.”

“Good luck with that. Augustine thinks he already owns it and your father will never sell it.”

“I was hoping you’d be more persuasive than that, as my representative.”

She gives me a simmering look that makes my mouth go dry and taps a finger on the last property listed. “This is the little place at the other end of Queen Street, the one that used to have Albert Foreman’s accounting business downstairs and an apartment upstairs.”

“Maybe I want a place in town of my own.”

She purses her lips. “You should know that no one rents apartments in downtown Empire, at least not anyone who pays their rent.”

“I kind of assumed that.”

“Are you staying then?”

“No. Not unless hell freezes over while this is getting done.”

Our gazes lock for a hot moment and I know she’s not going to give it up easily.

“I added it in so he’d have something to edit out,” I say, which is plausible if not all of the truth. I do have a plan for the place, but Daph isn’t ready to hear it yet.

I need her to take the job before I can talk about her compensation.

She has to want to hang out her own shingle. There’s a pile of folders on her desk, stuffed with paperwork. Having her do all the forms and filing for agricultural workers at Cavendish Enterprises is a serious waste of her abilities, and I don’t think she believed the party line any more than I did. Truth be told, it annoys me that someone as clever as Daph is pushing formsaround her desk. She must want more. She must have had more in Toronto.

I can’t figure out why she’s even back in Empire.

It’s got to have something to do with that regret.

In the meantime, she’s going through the signed proposals while she decides. I know better than to make another appeal, because I don’t want to seem pushy or desperate—even though I’m pretty much both.

That leaves me with nothing to do but wait and study here, which does zero for any resolutions I might have at this time.

Who would have believed Daph would have become this woman in sixteen years? She could be a robot for all the emotion she shows, though—which just makes me want to unpin her hair, peel her out of that suit and give her an orgasm that makes her scream loud enough to wake the neighbours.

Get someone to call the police. Ha.

I love a challenge, and she might be the toughest one ever.

The fact is that I’m wired to want the one thing I can’t have, whatever it is. Right now, that’s Daphne Bradshaw, wrapped around me, digging her nails into my back and begging for more. I want her teeth marks on my shoulder, I want the slick heat of her on my fingers and my tongue. I want to lose myself in everything she is. I want her incoherent with pleasure, quivering around me.

Ohyes.

It’s a distracting vision, as well as a very good one.

I’m both shaken and stirred.

And Daph couldn’t care less.

That has to be the sound of Taylor laughing. (Too bad I’m the only one who can hear him.) He always said that one day, I’d meet a woman who would turn me inside out and enjoy doing it, one who would walk away and leave me with dreams thatcouldn’t be fulfilled. I never believed it would happen. I never expected it to happen in Empire.

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