Page 7 of Reckless Harmony

Rayna Abrams would eventually sell her property. It was simply a matter of finding the right price or, in her case, the right motivation to make her sell.

He thought again about filing a noise complaint about the barking that almost always emanated from her house before dismissing the idea. Despite how much he personally hated her, discreet inquiries had revealed that Rayna was well-liked in the town, and any attempt on his part to smear her reputation would undoubtedly backfire.

Besides, his earlier threat to put in a noise complaint had been met with scorn from Rayna and not even a hint of fear. She wasn’t easily intimidated, and his usual tactics of getting what he wanted from his enemies would obviously not work. No, he needed to figure out a different way to deal with his annoying next door neighbour, one that wouldn’t have the entire town at his throat for bullying the local animal rescuer.

He muttered a curse when the water pressure noticeably decreased, and he ducked under the spray and rinsed clear of shampoo and soap before shutting off the water and toweling dry.

He wrapped the towel around his waist and headed back to the locker room. A few weeks ago, he and the other employees noticed that the water pressure was decreasing intermittently. His assistant brought in a local plumber who diagnosed the problem as a partially closed shut-off valve and a flow restrictor on the shower head. He’d spent ten minutes in the gym, pronounced the problem fixed, and billed a ridiculously high fee.

Stark dressed quickly and, steeling himself against the cold, walked from the gym to his office building. It was only about twenty feet away, but his fingers were numb by the time he used his keycard to open the back door and stepped into the building.

He’d bought the town’s old firehouse that had sat empty for years for a damn good price and, with some heavy construction and renovations, had converted it into office space for Stark Entertainment. The lower floor housed offices and cubicles, and the upper floor had a freshly remodeled kitchen and a large living area filled with couches, two foosball tables, a pool table, and a large screen television. The kitchen was outfitted with all the latest and best gadgets, including a cappuccino maker, popcorn maker, and panini press. He’d wanted only the best for his employees - happy employees were productive employees - and he’d spared no expense in the new office.

He walked down the long hallway and into the bright and open space of the lower floor, studying the area with a satisfied smile. He had started Stark Entertainment a decade ago, leaving the safety of his father’s company along with his father’s derision and scorn. He’d developed the first six video games for Stark Entertainment himself. While they’d done well and brought in enough profit for him to rent a small office and employ a receptionist and second developer, it was the creation and subsequent explosion in popularity of the Shadow Series video games that had put his company on the map.

Two years after the release of Shadow Dragons, the games his company developed were the hottest commodities in the gaming world. Over the last decade, Stark Entertainment had only increased in value. He became a millionaire by the age of twenty-seven and a multimillionaire by thirty. And not a single dollar of it was because of his father’s wealth. Stark had turned down his mother’s generous offer to help fund the start-up costs for his business. His father had cut Stark off both personally and monetarily the minute he’d decided to start his own company.

The middle of the lower-level office space housed the bullpen, where he could see various employees working at their computers or conversing quietly with one another. The massive bay doors at the front of the converted fire station had been replaced with two giant windows that allowed in plenty of natural light. The reception desk was placed strategically near the front door, and their receptionist, Aditi, chatted with a courier as she signed for a package.

Large offices ran along the far right wall. The office walls were made of frosted glass to help maintain an open and airy feel. One sat empty, but the others housed his head developer, Lucas, the controller, James, his assistant/office manager, Hollis, and lastly, his own office.

He started across the space, stopping when a body came sliding down from the upper level on the metal pole Stark had left in place during renovations. The dark-haired man landed lightly on his feet and smiled cheerfully. “Morning, Boss.”

“Hello, Rupert. How was your weekend?”

“Kick-ass,” Rupert said as he joined him in walking. “Me and Darius went on that two-day wilderness retreat in the Park. We saw a pack of wolves… it was epic. Yours?”

“Good, thanks,” Stark said.

“Nice.” Rupert held out his fist, and Stark bumped it before the junior developer veered off toward the bullpen.

Stark stopped in front of Hollis’s office and knocked lightly on the door.

His assistant glanced up from her laptop and immediately stood. “Good morning, sir.”

“Hollis,” he said. “Seriously with the ‘sir’ shit again?”

She just shrugged and tugged on her suit jacket before straightening her already straight notepad on her freakishly neat desk. “How was your weekend, Mr. Stark?”

Hollis had been his assistant and office manager in the New Cassel office for six years, and she had never once referred to him by anything other than Sir or Mr. Stark. Only a few people in his life called him Isaac, and while Hollis wasn’t on that list, he had mentioned once that she could call him Stark like most people did.

Her withering look of disapproval had made it very clear he’d crossed some invisible line he didn’t know existed, and it had taken nearly two months for her to stop calling him Sir and return to using Mr. Stark again.

When he’d decided to open the second office here in Harmony Falls, there had been two people he was determined to bring with him - one of his best and brightest developers, Lucas Wright and Hollis.

He’d been confident of his ability to convince Lucas to work here in Harmony Falls but less sure of Hollis. He was pleasantly surprised when she’d agreed to move to Harmony Falls and manage the office.

She was a type A personality who ran the office with iron efficiency, and he knew that one of the reasons the New Cassel office was struggling was because Hollis was no longer there to keep things moving smoothly.

He realized she was staring at him with one slightly arched eyebrow as she waited for his answer.

“My weekend was good. Yours?”

“Fine,” she said briskly. Despite how many years they’d worked together, she never engaged in small talk with him, keeping their relationship strictly professional. He knew she was single and didn’t have children, and that was the extent of his knowledge of her personal life.

If he was being honest, it was what he preferred, and her standoffish and sometimes cold personality didn’t bother him in the least. He valued efficiency and discretion, and he and Hollis had worked well together since the moment he’d hired her.

“The gym shower’s water pressure is low again,” he said.

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