Page 5 of Beach Bum Billion-Heiress
Anywho, when I finally rounded the corner of the building, I found my voice and shouted after him. "I'm not here to sell you anything! I'm here to bail you out!"
My words stopped him in his tracks, a quick pause next to a silver truck, before he stalked back to me in a matter of seconds, possibly due to wearing the appropriate footwear for a wooden dock. He stopped mere inches from the pointy toes of my heels, the waft of Irish Spring hitting me again, a welcome relief from the slight fishy smell of the harbor.
Those arms were crossed again, trying to intimidate. "I wasn't aware I needed bailing out."
I blinked, wrestling my train of thought back to the conversation at hand. "Well, you're rushing off to work, your shop is rundown, your chi is clearly blocked and stagnant." I huffed, flinging my hands about in the space between us, thinking it was pretty obvious he needed to unload this building. "I'm here to offer you an out."
Instead of getting to the point of how I could help him, he leaned forward, his gorgeous face only a few inches from mine, his eyes warming into something that looked like humor. "My chi is--"
"Blocked. Stagnant." I nodded my head, hands on hips. Any idiot could see he wasn't happy. His aura colors told me everything I needed to know.
"Okay..."
"So. I'm offering to buy this property from you." I gave him my best smile, happy now that we were back on track.
He leaned back and his eyes went cold again, making me wonder where I went wrong. "No."
Then he spun around and stalked to his truck. This time, I was quicker, and less distracted by his butt in my panic, so I followed him. He must have heard my heels clacking after him on the wooden planks because he came to an abrupt halt and I ran straight into his back. I bounced off all that muscle like a little metal ball in one of those old-school pinball machines that were the total shit. A fraction of a second before I went down a second time in this awkward encounter, his hands grabbed hold of my arms and jerked me upright.
The breath was knocked out of me and all I could do was stare at him, my glasses sitting on the tip of my nose. He stared back, his eyes totally unreadable. My heart pounded and my words took a hike. When I got my feet solidly under me, he released one arm and pushed my glasses up before setting me back from him.
"Watch your step." He winked at me, completely straight-faced, which confused the hell out of me. Was he as affected by our close proximity? Or was that face holding back the anger he felt at my proposition? I couldn't tell and that bothered me. His auras weren't talking to me anymore.
I didn't get a chance to ask either because he hopped in his truck and took off, not even bothering to give me a second glance. It was uncertain where that left our negotiations, but I was pretty sure this wasn't going to be as simple as I originally thought.
Picking my way carefully back to the storefront, I looked through the windows and checked out the interior, trying to understand why he was so attached to this place. The inside was slightly better than the outside, showing clean equipment lined up the sides of the walls, along with a short counter than held a register and various paraphernalia for sale. It was simple and fairly straightforward, except for the line of framed photos on the wall behind the counter. I couldn't make out who was in the pictures, but the photographs looked to be black and white, with yellow showing around the edges. The 'closed' sign was in the window, the hours listed showing they'd open in half an hour.
I backed away, knowing I could do nothing more at the moment. Time to regroup and attack this again later on. I picked my way across the concrete lot to my car, rolling down the windows to keep the fresh air coming. Hairdo be damned. My best thinking required fresh air.
I ripped the stupid glasses off my face and opened up my empty portfolio. On the pad of yellow, lined paper I wrote down what I knew so far, planning to go back to the hotel and work on a plan of attack. My father had sent some preliminary research but it just had a bunch of land value numbers and projections, not actual information on the business that was presently on that land. I'd need to do some investigating to find out why Mr. Gorgeous was so attached to the place.
He was going to sell, that was for damn sure. I wasn't losing my inheritance over this pit.
