Page 87 of A Heart So Haunted
“Awesome.” His voice turned husky. “So, marketing wise. With the comps I pulled, what do you think?” Ivan leaned back, his pen playing between his fingers.
I bit my lip. “What do you mean? I think the comps are in the same range, if that’s what you mean.”
“Are you okay with the marketing plan?”
I glanced down at the sheet. They’d list it on the MLS, per standard, have a few open houses and work with other agencies, which all seemed normal for any larger listing.
Slowly, the wall I’d pulled down started to inch back up. “Ivan—it all looks fine. I don’t think I understand what you’re getting at.” Shouldn’t this have been where I was asking him questions? The commission was a standard commission, which changed depending on the sale price. Unless I was missing something.
He gave a breathy chuckle. Then, he looked at me like he had before, his eyebrows slightly arched and a smile teasing his lips.
Like he might be testing me.
“Do you mind me asking who the other company is you’re debating listing with?”
My eyes narrowed. “I don’t see why that matters.”
“I mean—come on, Lan. You know me. I’ll do what needs to be done to get this thing sold in a good time frame for the best possible price.” His mouth tilted up at the corner. He raked his fingers through his artfully messy hair, which I suddenly had a strong urge to hold a lighter against. I bet it’d burst into flames from the amount of hairspray he’d used. “I just want to make sure you’re taken care of. I know—I understand everything that happened may have dampened our relationship a bit, but I want to set things aside. Everything.”
I blinked fast at his words. May have dampened—not it did. As if dampening a relationship didn’t hover in the same realm asendingthe relationship that he then claimed we’d never had. Not to mention that he not only diminished what had happened before, but he cushioned the statement with a good deed.
I just want to make sure you’re taken care of.
As if it were a service to me. An honor.
I stared at him, blank. Was the bar really, truly so low that the bare minimum was supposed to knock my socks off?
I felt a snide, younger part of myself settle back in the corner of my mind with a twisted glare.It worked before, didn’t it?
I guess it had. Still, I paced myself. This was transactional. A business meeting, and nothing more, which didn’t need to involve personal feelings.
Yet.
Upstairs, a floorboard creaked. Ivan didn’t notice.
I sat up straighter. Redirect—that’s all I could do, wanted to do. “When do you think would be a good time to list?”
He took a breath and I readied myself. Normally, spring opened strong for new listings. There was another jump before the holidays, since people loved to move and decorate before Christmas. It didn’t mean that September was a bad idea, but I knew it might sit for a few months, especially with its size and the fact that it was older.
“Landry, please.” Ivan’s voice wasn’t as guttural as Hadrian’s, but it held a weight to it. An authority, finality that made you feel as if his mind was settled, whether you stepped into his circle of agreement or not.
“I really think we should talk about the problem at hand, right now,” I said. “Which is the house.” That was what he was here for. But I was getting the feeling that he was stalling.
“Thisispertinent to right now. I want to work with you. I think we’d make a great team,” he conceded. “I just want to discuss things first. How everything ended.”
I knotted my hands together, anticipation vibrating through me, followed by a sticky, bubbly feeling in my gut.
“What are you talking about.” I didn’t let it sound like a question.
His chest lifted, mouth settled into a sure line. “You understand that things—how they ended, did a number on my parents’ reputation, don’t you? They moved their office because of it. It’s why I commute.”
I sat, dumbfounded.His parents’reputation was injured?
All regard for keeping personal feelings out of this discussion flew out the window.
There was no way he was actually opening this conversation right now. Even the idea made me sit forward, my eyes turning to moons as I tried to keep myself from floating out of my chair.
“You weren’t affected after you left for school, but the things people were speculating in town were absolutely absurd and—”
