Page 36 of Forty and Fighting Dirty
“She’s not kicking us out,” Piper said. “Our lease is ending. You don’t have to worry, Alec. It’s all going to work out justfine.”
The dark-haired boy didn’t seem convinced. His gaze slid from his mother to me, and his eyes narrowed and hardened.
Something like guilt tried to take root inside me.
Was I really going to stop a single mother with two young boys from securing a stable place to live?
Then Piper turned, caught my eye again, and sneered. She marched into the office and closed the door. With her jaw set, she clamped her hand on the back of the only available chair, pulled it as far away from me as possible, and sat down on the end of it with her back as straight as a rod. Her chin lifted, and she met my gaze with cold, hard eyes.
The challenge in her stare made me forget all about vulnerable little boys and the desire to be a better person than I was.
Here was a woman who thought she could walk all over me. She used her looks and her bearing to twist men into knots just because she knew she could. Like Sarah. She was ready to take everything she could get, even when it didn’t belong to her. She’d call me an ass and make me feel bad, because she knew how to manipulate. They all did.
But it was my name they’d called in that raffle. It was my name on that ticket stub. It was my house on Lovers Lane, waiting to be claimed. I wouldn’t let anyone walk all over me, no matter what sob story she was prepared to tell. I’d had my fill of emotional manipulation and unstable women. I wasn’t going to let myself get dragged down that path again.
I turned away from Piper and looked at David, who’d taken a seat behind the old laminate wood-look desk. It was chipped around the edges and covered in plastic bins filled with paperwork and odds and ends. He had hishands folded on top of a stack of paperwork, and a flat, pinched smile stretched across his lips.
“All right, folks, let’s get this figured out.”
FOURTEEN
PIPER
“There’s been a little mix-up,”the emcee, who had introduced himself as David on the walk over, said with insincere levity. He forced a smile as he met my gaze. “We’ll get to the bottom of it. Maya?”
Maya nodded briefly. Her dark brown hair was tied back in a simple ponytail, and she was dressed in blue jeans and a volunteer tee similar to the one Rhett wore. I was the only one dressed in regular clothing. The odd one out.
“Maya Luis,” she introduced herself, extending a hand to shake first to me, then to Rhett. Her face softened into a smile when they shook; they evidently already knew each other.
I was the trespasser who insisted on making waves when I should’ve been staying quiet and out of the way. That was what I would’ve done before—but that Piper was long gone. She’d been worn down to nothing somewhere between negotiating adivorce settlement, fighting for custody of her kids, and entering the gauntlet of job hunting after a decade-long absence from the workforce.
Those experiences had changed me.
Now I fought for what I wanted. I took up space. I didn’t let rich men push me around, even when they used all their little minions to do it for them so they could come out the other side with their hands clean.
“I’m the legal counsel for the Lovers Peak Charity Home Raffle,” she explained for my benefit, dark brown eyes meeting mine. “It looks like there’ve been inconsistencies with the tickets.”
David cleared his throat and produced the ticket I’d kept in my purse along with the ticket stub that Violet from the coffee shop had had us fill out after ripping the ticket off.
“Ms. Darling,” Maya continued, “it seems like you were given the ticket corresponding to Mr. Baldwin’s stub. Unfortunately, that means your claim on the prize isn’t valid, since we draw the stubs, andhisdetails?—”
“Now hold on a minute,” I interrupted, not liking the way this was going. “Don’t you mean that Mr. Baldwin’s information ended up erroneously on the stub frommyticket?”
Maya blinked. David shifted in his seat, thick fingers smoothing over his white mustache. Rhett watched me with burning eyes. I met each of their gazes in turn, not backing down.
They thought they could intimidate me?
The woman who’d stood in court and fought for her kidswhen her ex and his expensive lawyer tried to slander her name? The woman who’d been devalued, ignored, and made to feel small for most of her adult life? The woman who’d had to start over while taking care of her two young boys?
They had no idea who they were dealing with. I wasn’t going to lie down and invite them to walk all over me. I’d learned my lesson trying to please my husband and his family and his bosses and all the people who didn’t think I’d be able to make it without him.
Would they like me when this was over?
No.
Would I care?
Well—a little. But not enough for me to turn my back on a chance to gain stability. They might run me out of town. They might lock me out of the community here if they didn’t like my attitude, but I’d have a house. I could sell it. I could live in it. I could rent it out.
