Page 103 of The Hero + Vegas = No Regrets

She laughs. “Yeah, but not many people know your story. Your sisters know what you did to get through the tough times. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Her eyes are bright, pride shining in them like she’s lucky to know me. Doesn’t she know it’s the other way around?

I bend and press a kiss to her neck. Her fingers thread through my hair just as we come to a stop. I glance out the window at the boarded-up exterior to the hotel. I sigh. The one time I needed a little New York City traffic.

She laughs like she knows exactly what I was thinking. “I’m excited to see the progress.”

I like to check on things down here at least once a week. It’s not because I don’t trust my sister—I completely do. Truth is, I’m excited. This hotel is one of the first things I’ve ever worked on that feels personal.

We punch the key code into the panel on the doorway and make our way inside. I stalk out in front and Sophia pulls me to the panel of hard hats and high-vis vests on the other side of the entryway.

“Did I ever tell you how hot you look in luminous yellow?” she asks, placing a hard hat on my head.

“Liar.”

Her eyes flash. “I dare you to steal your hat and vest and bring them home, and you can judge for yourself.”

I growl and grab her ass, pressing a kiss to her lips.

“Hey, you guys!” Avril interrupts us.

Sophia bats my hand away from her ass. “Avril! We didn’t know if you’d be here.”

“Yeah, Worth didn’t say he’d be down.”

“I thought you’d be on campus.”

“I don’t have any classes until three today. One of the lecture theaters had a flood. So I thought I’d come down and do a walk-through.”

“That makes three of us,” I say.

Avril grins and it feels like she’s really pleased to have me here. She doesn’t get pissed when I ask her questions about the site and progress—even though part of me is testing her, making sure she’s on top of everything. She seems to relish it. Like she enjoys my involvement in the project and isn’t trying to shoo me away.

“Where should we start?” she asks.

“How’s the top floor coming along?” Sophia asks. Last time we were here, they’d started on the interior walls and electrical on the top floor, and were working their way down.

“It’s actually pretty cool,” Avril says. “They’re working on the top three floors now.”

That seems fast. I was only here a week ago and they were slightly behind schedule.

“It’s going exactly per the project plan,” Avril says. “Pete is doing an incredible job keeping everyone on track. You were right—I couldn’t have project-managed this place.”

Avril had listened to me when I said she wasn’t qualified to manage a build like this. Luckily for me, Pete agreed to step in and guide Avril through the process while he acts as PM. I have the best of both worlds.

“Hello!” someone calls after us as we head to the only working elevator in the place.

“Is that Poppy?” I ask, just as my sister appears.

“Worth?” She pulls Sophia into a hug. “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

She grins like she just won the lottery. “I just handed in my notice.”

Before we had an honest conversation about it, I hadn’t realized Poppy wasn’t enjoying her work at the bank. Or as Avril put it, “Hated the bank with every molecule of her being.”

“You did it,” I say. She’s been threatening to quit for months now.

“I did. It feels great.”

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