Page 14 of In Your Dreams, Holden Rhodes

She chewed her mouth harder before her eyes lit up and she straightened up. “Buy me out.”

“Huh?”

She leaned forward. “Holden, you just said you don’t need the money. Buy me out of the inn, and I’ll be out of your hair forever. You’ll never have to see me again.”

She wiggled her eyebrows at me and I frowned, considering this.

“Two hundred grand,” she hurried to add. “You can buy my half of the inn for two hundred grand.”

My eyes narrowed. The place was worth many times that number. If I bought her out for that price, I’d make a killing, and she’d be leaving money on the table.

Why would she ever propose that?

She shifted under my gaze, fiddling with the sleeve of her sweater.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Her guilty gaze flicked up to mine. “Nothing.”

“Something.” Sadie wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t walk away from this property unless…

She was in trouble.

“Why do you need money?”

Her throat worked and panic flashed behind her eyes. “None of your business.” She pushed the panic aside and shot me a charismatic grin that made my chest flip. “Take the deal, Holden. You won’t regret it.”

Her throat worked again and she glanced down her hands, clutching the closed sketchbook on her lap. Her brow wrinkled.

This felt wrong. I didn’t agree with Katherine leaving Sadie half the inn but it felt worse if I interfered like this. I turned back to my computer and tapped the spacebar to wake it up.

“No.”

My monitors lit up. My previous search appeared on the screen in clear, and my stomach dropped as Sadie’s gaze swung to the screen.

How to find a wife.

7

Holden

“How to find awife?”She let out a laugh and her eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas. “Is that a joke?”

My face heated. “You need to leave.”

She shook with laughter, unaffected by me. “Oh my god, I love this. So the sad, lonely Sasquatch man wants a companion. That’s so cute.” She took a sip of her tea. “Have you tried kidnapping? Sometimes that goes okay. It’s called Stockholm syndrome.”

Shame rolled through my gut. Why did I fucking Google it at work?

“I’m not buying the inn from you,” I told her. “You’re wasting both our time.”

Sadie bit her lip, still grinning. “I know someone you can marry.” She pulled out her phone and typed something. “She’s really pretty and quiet so you won’t even have to worry about making conversation with her, and the best part is she always puts out.”

She flipped the phone around to show me an image of a blow-up sex doll. “She doesn’t have a name so you can pick whatever you like.”

Her eyes sparkled as she beamed at me.

“Hilarious,” I bit out. “Heard you’re not doing too great in that department.” I glanced at her bare finger, remembering the conversation from my parents’ house last night about her failed engagement.

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