Page 51 of Forty and Fighting Dirty
Rhett watched me from under heavy brows, eyes lingering on my mouth. Then he grunted and tore his gaze away, clicking his tongue again. “This is going to be a nightmare,” he grumbled. “Worst idea I’ve ever had.”
“We could see about knocking out this wall,” I said, ignoring him. “I bet the light in the kitchen is amazing in the mornings, and it could flood this whole space.” I spread my arms for emphasis.
“We could see about setting a budget,” Rhett replied, but he was eyeing the wall like he was considering my idea. I smiled at him, and as if he could sense it, he turned toward me to look. The house was empty and echoing, and it still had that musty smell, but in that moment, the air inside felt alive. Tension stretched between us, and I wondered exactly what kind of man Rhett Baldwin really was.
Was he the benevolent king, like he pretended to be around town?
The ruthless businessman intent on making money?
Or someone else? Someone I’d actually like to know?
NINETEEN
RHETT
This was a win-win situation.Or at least that was what I’d told myself on the drive over. I could’ve bought Piper out, straight up, flipped the house myself, and kept all the profits. But I knew the optics of that, and they weren’t good. I didn’t want to give anyone in this town reason to start chipping away at my hard-won reputation.
So, I’d figured we’d fix it up together. She’d have access to my know-how and resources and get a share of a much bigger profit, and I’d get some good PR out of it. It was basically a charitable donation. I was lending a helping hand to a single mom without giving her outright charity, which her hefty pride wouldn’t allow.
But now that I was here, following Piper around the house like some sort of lost puppy—or lost kitten, as it were—it began to dawn on me that I hadn’t really thought this through.
“We’ll lean into the existing architectural features. Theviews out of every single window are like a picture, especially with these thick architraves,” she said, framing a tiny window in the third bedroom with her hands. All I could see was the reflection of her smile in the dark pane.
“You must take different pictures than I do,” I said, bending down so I could look out at the darkness beyond.
Piper shot me a sideways glance, clearly unimpressed, then paced the room in both directions. “A double bed will fit here. We could do built-ins along the angled ceiling.” She considered the roofline, running her hand along the ceiling as it dove down toward the floor. “I bet the light in here is fabulous as well. We’ll have to do viewings before noon. Fresh flowers, pops of color.” She grinned to herself. “This place will look great.”
She smiled at the bare walls, but I couldn’t quite see her vision. The wall next to me, which was shared with the tiny main bathroom where we’d stood nearly chest-to-chest earlier today, was showing signs of water damage. All that fresh paint that the owners had slapped on the walls before putting the house up for donation was beginning to bubble, and the wooden baseboards looked like I could put my finger right through them. I kneeled for a closer look.
“I’m thinking we target young families, so that—what are you doing?”
Piper’s screech made me turn around, glancing over my shoulder while my fist remained rammed through the drywall. I turned back to my work, ripping a piece of drywall off, glancing at the back of it, and tossing it aside. Just as I’d suspected.
“Water damage,” I said, pointing to the stud I’d just exposed. “The waterproofing in the bathroom has failed.”
“You can’t just go around punching holes in walls!”
“The whole wall needs to be replaced, Piper,” I said, trying and failing to find my patience. I ripped another piece off and turned it around so she could see the evidence of water ingress painting odd shapes on the back of the drywall.
Her lips turned down. She moved close enough that I could get a hint of her perfume as she bent over for a closer look. “Warn me next time” was all she said, voice clipped.
I tossed the drywall onto the bare floorboards and shrugged. “Fine. But it’s better we know what we’re dealing with before we go making plans about pops of color and paint swatches.”
When I looked up, Piper’s jaw was tight.
“What?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Don’t do that. What’s wrong?” There was nothing that sent my blood pressure skyrocketing more than a woman not telling me what the hell I’d done to upset her. Sarah used to pull that all the time. I’d walk on eggshells for days, only to discover I’d hurt her feelings when I hadn’t let her have any of my fries at the restaurant at dinner days before. She’d hold little things over my head and make me feel like I needed to prove myself to her over and over and over again.
I had no patience for it. If someone was upset, I expected them to have the guts to tell me about it.
As if she could read my mind, Piper took a deep breath, then said, “If we’re going to work together on this, you’re going to have to stop talking down to me. You might be my boss at the office, but in here, we’re partners.” She pointed at the floor, her eyes neverleaving mine.
And that was a little rich, wasn’t it? She was just like Sarah, twisting a situation to put me in the worst possible light. “I haven’t talked down to you once!”
“You’re condescending. You don’t think my ideas matter.”
