Page 20 of Bitter Rival

She’s making herself sound like a Girl Scout, but I’m not completely buying her little goody-two-shoes act.

She sets things down where she thinks they belong, and I move them to their rightful home. It becomes a game.

A marble statue of a naked woman takes up residence on my desk, and I move it to the downstairs bathroom.

Silver candlesticks are relegated to the chopping block island, and I move them to the table in front of the window.

She sets a pair of matching terracotta urns on the patio, and I move them to the front of the house, one on either side of the double carved oak door with brass lion’s head door knockers.

I don’t even know why we’ve unpacked these boxes when I plan to auction off every single thing in this house and donate the money to charity, but it’s done now.

After checking all the boxes to ensure they’re empty, Daisy spins to face me. Her skin is lightly tanned from the sun and her cheeks are flushed like a child with a fever. “So was that the whole booty or do you have more treasure hunters to track down?”

Only the one living under my roof. “No. I’m done.”

“How did you know about Georgia?” she asks, sitting on one of the bottom steps of the staircase and leaning back on her elbows while I break down the empty boxes for recycling.

“For one, she was being overpaid for her incompetence, so I was already suspicious. But when Pete mentioned that she had a set of house keys and that I should probably get them back, I did some investigating. I called around to some pawn shops and tracked down a watch that used to be my father’s and went from there.”

“Look at you, Nancy Drew.”

I glance over. Her combat boots are planted on the rustic limestone tiles, legs spread wide open like an invitation. “Of all the detectives you could have chosen, you went with Nancy Drew?”

Daisy shrugs. “It was a toss-up between Nancy and the puppy from Blue’s Clues.”

With a sigh, I grab my keys off the carved wooden sideboard in the entranceway and stride to the door. She’s such a pain in the ass that it almost kills me to say, “Let’s grab some burgers.”

“Fine. But only if they’re wagyu beef and bite-size.”

Funny girl. But this is by no means a friendly invitation. As the old adage goes, keep your friends close, and your enemies closer; and for all intents and purposes, Daisy is the enemy.

She’s also the only person who can give me information about Astrid.

I’ve been with my share of beautiful women but I’ve never seen such an over-the-top reaction before. The men sitting at the bar are practically falling off their fucking stools, heads swiveling to watch Daisy walk past.

Daisy, in her frayed cargo pants and another ridiculous T-shirt from the kids’ department. This one has the name of a high school track team on it. A high school that I’m almost positive she never attended since she went to high school in Santa Monica, not Michigan.

I don’t know if she’s oblivious to the male attention or if she’s just so used to it that it doesn’t faze her, but when I slide into the booth across from her, she’s studying the menu like it holds all the secrets of the universe and she couldn’t care less about the men ogling her.

“God. I’m starving,” she says after she orders a double cheeseburger with all the toppings, fries, and onion rings. I already know she’ll eat every single bite and still have room for dessert.

“Do you like your job?” she asks, taking a big bite of her burger.

“It pays the bills.”

It more than pays the bills, but I’m not about to discuss my net worth with Daisy Larsson.

With any luck, the little fortune hunter hasn’t googled me. Last year, Grayson and I were both featured in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 thanks to our unicorn startup that was valued at $2 billion.

Unfortunately, I was also named one of the Bay Area’s Most Eligible Bachelors, a title I’d neither wanted nor flaunted, yet it still attracted unwanted attention.

“That’s not what I asked.” She shoves a handful of fries into her mouth and licks the salt off her fingers but thankfully refrains from performing fellatio on her index finger tonight. “Is it your passion? Is it something you would choose to spend your time doing even if you didn’t get paid for it?”

“If I wasn’t making money, I wouldn’t be doing it.”

She looks disappointed by my answer. “That’s what I thought.”

In the beginning when Grayson and I were building an innovative platform to connect lenders with small businesses, I loved my job. But now that we’ve scaled up and we’re dealing with the fintech operations side of things, not so much.

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