Page 8 of Wreck Me

This type of mockery was somehow worse than laughter. She stiffened and opened her eyes. “Go away.”

He kept slow clapping. “Yep. Very nice. But you made one little mistake in your romantic fairy tale of domesticity.”

She sent him her coldest glare through slitted eyes. “What was that?”

“You said you’d called your sister when the place was in bad shape, but your sister doesn’t have anything to do with this place, does she? I bet you don’t evenhavea sister. I bet she’s a figment of that ‘stuff’ your brain does. Either that, or you’re a compulsive liar and you’re making her up just like you’re making up all the rest of that sentimental gobbledygook about walls fullof love calling to you.” He moved toward her, and there was menace in his voice that she hadn’t caught there before. “What’s really going to happen is this—you’re going to leave.Today.”

She looked at him full on as she tried to come up with a reply, but all she could think was how hideous he’d suddenly become—his features too angled, his deep eyes emptier and colder than the stone she’d imagined him carved from. How could she have ever thought him attractive? From his swagger to his too big feet, he looked just like the bully he was.

Just then, they both craned their necks at the sound of a car turning onto Placard. A bright red Miata barreled toward them. A bright red Miata owned, Ginny knew, by the one and only Monique Heppner, Esquire. Ginny smiled. This bully was about to meet his match.

“Finally!” they said in unison. “Monique’s here.”

4

Nico strode toward the Miata. The moment the driver’s door opened by a crack, he started to speak, but she waved him away with her hand.

“I know it’s not my MO,” she said as she unfolded her slim, muscular frame from the car’s tight interior, her eyes flitting rapidly between him and the squatter, “but in this situation, we all just need tostay calm.” She pumped downturned palms in the air as if she were pressing gently on an expanding, fragile bubble that would take every living thing with it if it exploded.

She wanted calm, but she didn’t sound calm, and that in itself was raising Nico’s blood pressure by the second. Monique was one of the most in-charge persons he’d ever worked with, but did he detect a quaver in her voice?

There was no reason for her to worry. Her job was simple. He pointed toward the woman still sitting on the porch, a smug smile cutting across the freckled face he’d once thought cute. “I’ll be calm once you inform this individual that this is my house, and she’s got two hours to clear out.”

Nico was pleased to see Monique turn toward the woman, a serious look on her face. “Ginny, what’s going on? Did you paint my client blue?”

Nico’s jaw went slack. “You know her?”

The squatter, whose name was apparently Ginny, had risen to her feet and was down the steps in seconds, coming to a stop mere inches from his attorney. Ginny folded her arms over her chest and faced him with a triumphant grin, making it look as if she and Monique were on Team Squatter. “Of course, she knows my name. She’s my sister. Mybigsister who looks out for me.” She rested her head for a second on Monique’s shoulder as she added, “And he painted himself blue.”

Nico’s insides began to boil as his eyelids launched into a convulsion of involuntary blinking. Was this really happening? Was the person trying to claim squatting rights over a house that sat smack dab in the middle of the largest and most complex financial deal of his life the younger sister of his trusted real estate attorney? If so, this was a bigger nightmare than he could have possibly imagined.

Buthehad family responsibilities too, including a brother counting on him to see this through. He wasn’t giving up without a serious fight. “Well, she’smyattorney,” Nico said, “to whom I pay alotof money to look out for my interests.” His voice dropped an octave. “Tell her, Monique.”

Monique took two, good-sized, backward steps from them both as she recommenced her calming, bubble-pressing hand motions, though with decidedly less overall calmness now. “Ah, which is why, as I said, we all need to stay calm. I’m sure we can find a solution, uh, somehow.”

Nico felt his face turning red, but he was well beyond caring about that. “‘Somehow’ is another one of those words I’m not keen on hearing from my attorney!”

Ginny was shouting now too, complaining about how he’d driven too fast up to the house and nearly sent her flying off her ladder. Their voices climbed precipitously in pitch and intensity as they each tried to dominate Monique’s attention.

“Stoppppppp!” Monique finally yelled, restoring silence to the street. She let out a breath so big she might have been holding it in since she’d arrived. “I am doing the talking now, so please listen.” She turned to Nico. “Because I am her sister, I’m obviously recusing myself from this situation in the legal sense, however?—”

Ginny jumped up and fist-pumped the air. “Yes! Tell him it’s my house cause I’ve got those squatty thingies or whatever.”

Monique glared at her sister. “I said recusing, not abandoning all my ethical principles. At least for now, I am not comfortable giving either of you legal advice or counsel. What I can do is help all three of us go over the basic facts to get an initial sense of where we stand.” She looked at them each in turn. “Is that acceptable?” They both nodded. “I was obviously in a rush to get here, but I did a cursory look at the online files. It does appear that, in accordance with your brother’s written instructions in an email, Ginny was given a key to the place at our office five years and…” Her voice trailed off briefly before returning in a near-whisper, “…four days ago.”

Nico slapped his forehead. “What? I missed the five-year deadline for squatter’s rights by four days?Four days?”

“Ha!” Ginny said. “Whose brain figment is biting them in the butt now?”

Monique rolled her eyes toward the house as she let out a second, heavy breath. “It also appears, as you indicated to me over the phone, Nico, that she’s done some work to both the structure and yard.”

Ginny pursed her lips at her sister. “Some work? That’s all you can say about my beautiful house?”

“But here’s my question,” Monique said, ignoring her sister’s juvenile outbursts—which, Nico figured, she was probably very practiced at. “Who has been paying the property taxes?”

“Oh, good point!” Nico said, a glimmer of hope igniting in his soul. Perhaps he wouldn’t be stuck dealing with this tiny and annoying menace of a woman after all. “I’m sure my brother has been paying them. Yes, yes, he must have been because…” But a glance toward Ginny caused him to trail off. She looked like the cat that had just swallowed a herd of mice.

“Actually,” Ginny said, her voice a teasing, sing-song innocence. “Do you remember a few years back, Monique, when I asked you about property taxes?”

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