Page 4 of Alien's Heart
Geral had wide shoulders and a strong build that was honed from farm work but had gone soft in his middle years. Not that Ruth could judge. Her entire physique was soft from sitting on her butt and thinking all day.
His tail flicked against the side of the vehicle, knocking away flakes of rust. He sipped a drink from a travel cup, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. Gold rings caught the sunlight, one for each finger.
The worst thing about Geral was that he wasn’t bad-looking. His face looked honest. Or maybe Ruth was biased because he looked like her professor, but young. Too bad he was rotten on the inside.
“Got a big project?” Geral asked, nodding toward the jugs of cleaning solution at her feet.
Ugh. He might as well be twirling his villain mustache.
“Don’t you have a job or something better to do?” Ruth asked, not bothering to hide her annoyance.
“Kava break.” He took another painfully slow sip.
Ruth wanted to knock the cup out of his hands, but she had no doubt that Geral would file an assault charge. He had friends all over town and Ruth was just a newcomer. He had enough money and influence to make her life difficult, so she kept her hands to herself. She wasn’t about to give Geral the ammunition to file an assault charge. Instead, she loaded her purchases into the back of the vehicle. No drama.
That was her: Dr. Ruth “No Drama” Washington.
Fuck. She didn’t want drama; it just sort of found her and leaned against her car, drinking kava with a smirk on his face.
Unable to ignore him, she snapped, “Can I help you with something, Geral?”
He pushed off the side of the vehicle. “I wanted to encourage you to take my very generous offer to buy my father’s property.”
“Unbelievable. Yousuedme over the will and now you offer to buy, which means you must understand that the farm is legally mine.” The lawsuit hadn’t done anything more than be a pain in her butt, and the purchase offer wasn’t that generous. Not that it mattered. Ruth wouldn’t sell. Not yet.
“It’s a fair price. I know funds are tight.”
Thanks to him, having tied up the estate with a frivolous lawsuit that cost her a pretty penny to resolve. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how badly her bank account wept.
“You could have the credits deposited in your account tonight,” he said as if he could sense her thoughts. “Be reasonable and accept. You’re not planning on staying. That land has been in my family for generations. We both know I’ll win.”
He almost had a compelling argument. Ruth didn’t plan on staying. Not for the long term, at least. She had a project to finish. At the moment, the results were fantastic. She could be finished by the fall. If not, she’d spend the winter analyzing the failure and try again. Just like she and the professor did last year and the year before.
She could give Geral a time frame and do a handshake deal to sell him the land, but there was something about the guy that she didn’t like. It could be the sneer on his face when he spoke to her like she stepped in manure, or just that he kept pestering her.
Learn to take no for an answer, bub. Honestly.
“The professor was of sound mind when he changed the will,” Ruth said.
“And why exactly did he do that, hmm? How exactly did you persuade him?”
Ah, there it was. The reason Ruth wouldn’t sell to Geral. The not-so-subtle hints that she seduced the professor to steal his vast, vast fortune. So vast that she was stuck driving a rusted-out hunk of junk.
“No one did any persuading. He made his decision all on his own,” she said.
“It wasn’t his to give away,” Geral growled. “That farm was my mother’s. It was always meant for me.”
“I don’t know how inheritance works on Corra, but on Earth, any property goes to the surviving spouse.” Ruth knew some of the professor’s family history. He only had one child and had outlived his other mates.
Geral snorted. “He had some nerve bringing in a humanassistantand flaunting her,” he spat the word like it was code for something worse.
Right. Why waste her time being reasonable when Geral went straight to the personal attacks? If he thought he’d shame her into selling, he wasn’t just barking up the wrong tree. He was in the wrong damn forest.
“I won’t sell. Not for any price. Stop asking. Desperate is not a good look on you,” Ruth said.
His face flushed red, probably from anger but it could also be from the heat. He might have grown up a farm boy, but nowadays he worked in a climate-controlled office. “The next time I ask, the offer won’t be so generous.”
“It’s not generous now. I might not be a farmer, but I know what you are offering is an insult.”
