Page 11 of Guarding My Love

She laughed. “Have you been in the house before?”

“Twice,” he said. “I should have bought it and then I’d have no neighbors.”

“Geez,” she said. “Thanks for that. Just set the ladder down here and I’ve got it so you can get on with your day.”

He seemed shocked by her sarcasm and then flushed. “Sorry,” he said. “Just got done having a big Easter dinner with my family. I’ve had a lot of family interaction in the past few days so I might be a little raw.”

She started to laugh. “Okay. I’ll give you a pass because if I had to spend time with anyone other than my sister today, I’d be feeling the same way.”

Charlotte wasn’t even bothered she was alone today. It gave her time to paint her office. She thought she did a pretty darn good job too until she realized she couldn’t reach the ceiling even standing on a chair.

Guess she should have figured that out before she started.

He snorted and followed her up the deck. The minute she opened the door, Marco was ready to bolt and she grabbed him.

“Where do you want this?”

“My office in the front,” she said. “Well, it’s supposed to be a third bedroom, but it barely fits my desk and doesn’t have anything remotely close to what I’d call a closet.”

The three drawers built into the wall didn’t count in her eyes. Nor the cabinet above it that might hold ten shirts on hangers.

He followed her through the house moving the ladder much more efficiently than she could have done.

She stepped aside and let him go into her new office.

He set the ladder down against the wall after he reached out to see if the paint was dry. “It’s a nice color,” he said.

“I wanted something soothing,” she said. “I’m normally more on the girly side, but pink wasn’t the way to go. This reminds me of a tropical ocean.”

It was a light bluish green. Not aqua or teal. She wasn’t sure what color it was or could be. It just called to her and she went with it rather than overthinking things to death as she was famous for.

“You might want to put painter’s tape around your windows if you’re going to paint more rooms,” he said.

She looked up to see all the paint on the white molding that had been new in the house.

Crap. She hadn’t noticed that before.

“I suppose now might be a good time to say it’s the first I’ve painted a room.”

He looked as if he didn’t believe her. “Really?”

She shrugged. “I’ve always lived in apartments and they did it or asked us not to.” No reason to say if she wasn’t in apartments alone, she was with men that owned the place and they did the work or hired someone.

She was doing things for herself now.

“True,” he said.

“I should go get some of the tape. They carry it in Home Depot, right?”

“Sure,” he said. “But I bet they are closed today.”

“I forgot it’s a holiday. I wanted to get this done so I could get the rest of my space set up to get to work tomorrow.”

“You’re working remotely?” he asked.

“Yes. I’ll go to New York City a few times a month, but otherwise, I’m here. Going to be a big change for me, but I’m looking forward to it.”

If she said that to herself enough, she’d start to believe it.

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