Page 22 of Bargain With the Boss
She glanced up, her face soft with relief. “Truly.”
I laughed. “Well, you do happen to have access to quite a few places thanks to us. I think we can find you something.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“I have a big house if you want to bunk with me tonight.”
Her eyebrow arched. “I think I’ll manage at the place I have my reservations.”
I grinned. “The Hummingbird?”
Her eyes cooled. “The Sherman.”
So the Hamiltons were definitely a sore spot. Interesting.
“Then, I’ll get you over there if you want.”
She nodded. “That would be ideal.”
I held an arm out for her to go ahead of me. “Okay, then let’s go.”
I followed her out and down the stairs to the main floor. Gavin was downstairs, asleep on one of the couches in our meeting room.
Sydney glanced over at me. “Should we wake him?”
I shook my head and pitched my voice low. “Gavin crashes here a lot. Mostly because he refuses to stop working until his body does it for him.”
“Been there.” She grabbed her bag from one of the chairs on the way to the French doors.
The ride to the Sherman Inn was quiet. I didn’t even turn on music. Instead, we both rolled our windows down and the night song from the trees suited us both.
I pulled into the parking lot, but she shook her head. “Just let me off. I’m already checked in.”
“All right.”
With a murmured thanks, she slipped out and disappeared up the steps and through the dark doors.
I put the top back down to drive out to my house. I’d inherited the lake house from my grandparents. I also had a small apartment in town for when I was too tired to make the big drive. Crescent Lake was deceptively large, but tonight I was glad for the thirty minute drive.
The Hastings and Hamilton lands were close together. I’d secretly bought the ten acres that overlapped between us so Maitland couldn’t get his greedy hands on it. Especially since I didn’t trust my father when it came to this spa idea Arthur had. When my father saw dollar signs, he forgot about things like ethics.
Sometimes it felt like I was one of the last of the founding families who cared about this damn town.
When Arthur Maitland had lost bids because of us, he’d changed tactics to urge the town council to see the big picture. The shitty part was that a lot of them were listening to him.
I pulled up my winding drive and sat in front of my house, staring up at the star strewn sky.
The quiet of the lake was broken only by the tree frogs and summer insects. I shut my eyes and heard owls on the prowl as well as the lapping water at my dock. These were the things that made living on the lake exactly what I needed.
And what I was fighting for.
I had a new ally in this project. Maybe with Sydney’s expertise, we could actually do this.
Chapter 7
Sydney
I pushed my phone away then started getting ready to meet Jude for breakfast.
