Page 1 of In Love with Lewis Prescott
Chapter One
Harper
There’s nothing I love more than slicing a grown man at the knees and watching him fall to pieces—metaphorically speaking.
It was a pleasure I indulged in on a regular basis in my old job as a corporate architect. Those guys never saw it coming, I suspect since I’m a small and unassuming woman who wears thick-rimmed glasses that make me look more like a grad student than the thirty-three-year-old professional I actually am. They didn’t expect me to verbally lay them out when they talked down to me or mistook me for an intern and spewed their coffee order the second I walked into a conference room.
As soon as it registered that I was actually the person in charge of their project—which meant I was technically their boss and they’d have to answer to me for literally everything from that moment on—their eyes would bulge in horror. Sometimes they’d stammer an apology, but it was no use. They knew they were beyond screwed and that I was going to be a monster to work with because of the way they treated me—and I freaking loved that.
Right now I’m aching to hack Vlad the contractor into a million pieces, but there’s zero satisfaction in this endeavor. Just anger and rage. Because this guy is ruining the one thing that means most to me in the world.
Ever since walking into my late grandparents’ house minutes ago, I’ve barely been able to look at the shoddy lighting fixtures, the flooring installed in the wrong direction, and the walls painted puke green without wanting to rage scream.
Instead I bite my tongue. I force myself to take a deep breath. I unclench my jaw. I press my eyes shut for a long second before eyeing the barrel-chested contractor who’s glancing down at me, eyes glazed over with boredom.
“Vlad. What the hell happened? How did you manage to mess this up so much in just two weeks?”
He frowns. “I don’t know what you mean, Harper. Everything looks fine to me.”
I start to point out everything that’s wrong in the open-concept space, but he cuts me off.
“Sorry, but I’m not going to be lectured by someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”
His curt words are like lighter fluid splashed onto the bonfire of frustration inside me, but it’s the “sorry” spoken like an afterthought that steamrolls my insides. That is the least sincere “sorry” I’ve ever heard in my life—and I used to work with self-important ego maniacs on a daily basis.
I hold up a hand. “First of all, do not speak to me like that. I may not be a contractor, but I’m an architect, and I oversaw the first stage of this renovation—the phase you weren’t even part of. I planned the addition of the master bathroom, the half bath, and the veranda. I know what I’m doing. I know what quality workmanship looks like, and this isn’t it—not even close.”
I gesture to the living room of myApongVivian andApongBernie’s bungalow in Half Moon Bay, California, which they left to my parents and me.
“Look at the flooring.” I stab my index finger at the ground. “I wanted the hardwood planks to run parallel to the fireplace. You installed them perpendicularly, which looks awkward as hell. And Jesus—the fireplace.”
I march over to the once beautifully rustic fireplace that is now painted the starkest shade of white. I can barely look at it without wincing. Stunning, earthen-hued Mediterranean tiles covered by that blinding coat of white.
“I left you a voice mailandemail last week telling you that I changed my mind about painting it over,” I say. “But you did it anyway.”
I go off about how all the doors he installed creak and wobble, how the tile in the master bathroom shower was placed in the incorrect pattern, how every new cabinet door he put up in the kitchen feels loose.
Vlad crosses his arms and slow-blinks, unfazed by what I’m saying. He couldn’t give less of a shit abouthisfuckups.
After a few seconds, he finally twists his head to blink at the fireplace. He hacks, not bothering to cover his mouth. “Okay, maybe I messed up on the fireplace. But hey, I’m just doing my best here. You weren’t even around these past few weeks to give me any guidance. That’s on you.”
I grit my teeth and curse the awful timing of this disaster. I was supposed to be here when the interior remodel kicked off last month, but my great-uncle got sick with pneumonia, so I stayed with my parents at their house just outside San Francisco to help take care of him after he got out of the hospital. He’s thankfully recovering, but that meant I couldn’t keep tabs on the renovation. I had to trust that Vlad—whom I had met only once before, when we went over the plans at the house and signed the contract—would do his job competently. Clearly that was a monumental mistake.
Today was the first chance I had to check on the progress in person...and it’s in shambles.
I step forward into Vlad’s space. “Don’t you dare pin this on me. This is your fault and you know it.”
His leathery brow lifts as I straighten up to my full height, which isn’t saying much, given I’m five foot two. But I don’t care. I’ve gone toe-to-toe with guys twice my size and have never once backed down. If this sloppy contractor thinks I’m going to cower in front of him, he’s dead wrong.
“You’ve been half-assing this remodel the entire time,” I bark at him, ignoring how the handful of contractors working around us suddenly stop and peer over at us. They’ve done an impressive job of keeping their heads down and pretending like Vlad and I haven’t been snapping at each other for the past few minutes, but I guess you can only ignore a train wreck for so long.
“You need to fix this.”
“Not unless you’re gonna pay me more money.”
The audacity of his demand turns my blood to lava. Not a chance.
“You’re fired. Get the hell out of my house.”
