Page 6 of Wreck Me

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Ginny shut her eyes tight as she leaned back against the porch railing. She felt a teensy bit bad about the man’s ruined suit, but she hadn’t asked him to grab the ladder. She’d gotten ahold of the gutter and was using it to pull herself safely back against the house when he’d muscled it forward (typical man!), knocking a gallon of paint down onto himself. And none of that would have happened if he hadn’t squealed up to the place like a formula one racer, startling her nearly to death.

She felt worse about first ignoring his plight and then laughing about it. Neither of those behaviors had been very polite, but they were all she could manage in the moment. Even dripping with baby blue paint, the guy looked like a Roman god.

She’d quick invented that stupid line about imagining a man-shaped chip of paint, because what she’dreallybeen imagining was him completely covered in blue paint—and only paint. He would have looked like a Michelangelo carving with his soft curls, deep-set eyes, and strong nose. Even through the fabric of his suit, she could tell he was fit. Plenty of rippling abs and taut calves hidden there for an ancient sculptor to lovingly chiselfrom cold, hard stone. Rather than stare at him as if he were priceless art on a pedestal in a museum, her brain had switched into say-something-childish-or-stupid mode.

Surely, she wasn’t this susceptible to a pretty face? She had no trouble being around Grant with his leading man looks. But where Grant’s looks said ‘let me smile you into submission so that you’ll agree to a white picket fence and 2.5 children with me,’ this guy’s looks were more ‘let me peel off your shirt after an evening of sexy street dancing on a humid moonlit night in Rome, after which you’ll never see me again, but you’ll still be grateful.’

Stopping herself from imagining such things was the main reason she was keeping her eyes closed even now. As long as she wasn’t looking at him, she wanted him to leave.

There was no chance that a guy in a tailored suit and driving a car that expensive also owned—or had any interest in owning—a tiny, run-down old house on a misbegotten street. Whatever was happening here, he was clearly confused. Figuring stuff like that out was Monique’s specialty. Once Monique called her back, Ginny was confident her sister would send him on his gorgeous way back to ancient Rome or wherever.

In the meantime, sexy man had sexy walked his sexy self forward to within feet of where Ginny sat. Even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t help overhearing snippets of the conversation with his attorney. They were both controlled yelling, though the lawyer’s voice sounded tinny and far away.

“What do you mean, ‘Oh, my God’?” he was saying. “That’s not something I ever want to hear my attorney say.”

The lawyer’s reply was rushed and urgent. “What does she look like?”

“I don’t know,” the man said, sounding flustered. “It’s not like I’m gawking at her—freckles. Shoulder length, light brown hair.”

“Oh, my God!” the lawyer said even more loudly. There was a brief pause, then Ginny heard her say, “Ask her how long she’s lived there.”

Ginny opened her eyes to the see the man staring straight at her. Clearly, he knew she was listening, and clearly, he expected her to answer the lawyer’s question directly.

She fake-examined her fingernails, pretending to be distracted by her exquisite manicure job, which was actually blue paint. “About five years, I’d say.”

“Did you hear that?” the man barked.

“I did, and it’s not good. Listen,” the lawyer said. She lowered her tone so that Ginny had to strain to hear the rest of it. “Whatever you do, don’t mention squatter’s rights.”

Ginny immediately looked up, blinking her eyes in doll-like innocence. “What are squatter’s rights?”

“Argh!” she heard the lawyer say.

Something about the tenor of the lawyer’s voice suddenly struck Ginny as familiar, but she was too busy typing “Squatter’s rights” into Google to think about that. Many links popped up, but there was one specific to California. She clicked on that one. “Oh, lookee lookee. It says someone legally owns a property if they’ve lived there for five years.”

“Nico,” the lawyer barked, “I’m on my way there. Don’t doanything. Don’t touch her. Don’t touch the house. Don’t call the police. Don’t doanything. Understand?”

“You’d better sort this out for me. This property is?—”

“On my way,” the lawyer said, cutting him off. “Just sit tight.”

Ginny kept reading. “Huh. It says I have to have used the house in an ‘open and notorious way.’” She gave a self-satisfied giggle. “I’ve never been notorious before.”

The man, who apparently had the unusual name of Nico, stuffed his phone back into his pocket and looked around,tapping his foot—and probably wishing she were a cockroach underneath it.

Ginny kept reading. “And I have to have lived here in a ‘hostile’ way, which means without the original owner knowing.” She tilted her head as she tapped at her chin. “I don't see what’s hostile about that though. Seems responsible to me. Perfectly good houses shouldn't sit empty when there’s people who need a place to live, don’t you think?”

“I think,” the man said, “people shouldn’t try to steal things that other people worked hard for.”

“People shouldn’t abandon useful things, letting them fall to ruin.”

“In business, sometimes temporary ruin is necessary to make way for progress,” he said, sounding suddenly like a haughty college professor. “Something tells me you don’t know much about business though.”

“Thank you. I try very hard not to.” She glanced up from her phone and back down again. “It also says I have to have beautified the place.”

The man made a show of staring up at the house, one eyebrow arched. “If used bubble gum is beautiful.”

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