Page 35 of The Mistakes I've Made
“This says you’re some sort of town liaison to me. That we’re supposed to—”
“Work together,” he said, finishing my sentence.
“No,” I said.
“I’m afraid so.” He simply shrugged.
My eyes narrowed as I watched him take an appraising look around the lobby. “Did they blackmail you or something?”
“What?” He turned to me, looking incredulous. “Why would you say that?”
“Well, in case you haven’t noticed, we don’t exactly get along, and this letter is all about making peace and crap.”
“Peace and crap?” His lip twitched.
“You know what I mean!”
“I don’t think I do.” He grinned. “Can you explain? ’Cause I want to make sure I get this down correctly for my official report.”
I groaned. “See? This! This is what I’m talking about. You infuriate me. I infuriate you. This is not how working relationships are formed. And I only have—”
“You only have what?”
I stopped short, unwilling to show my hand to the enemy. Because, no matter what they said, no matter how peaceful this town said they wanted to be, they would always be the enemy. I was the daughter of the devil after all.
“I don’t have time for this.”
“Well”—he raised his shoulder—“seems like you’re going to have to make time. You wouldn’t want the town officials thinking you’re not being agreeable, would you? I mean, that could be seen as an act of war…and that could definitely slow you down if we were to do something to cause a roadblock in your plans.”
Our eyes met with that struggle for power again, and finally, I gave in. “Fine,” I agreed. “But try to keep up.”
His brow rose, as if a challenge had been issued. “You first.”
I realized very quickly that Taylor was going to be a hands-on type of partner.
After several days, he’d managed to make his presence both known and heard, all while running his own business quite successfully. I knew the latter because I had a rather good view of it from pretty much every window in the hotel. And, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to stop myself from looking out each and every one of them whenever I got close, just to see if I could spot him.
I’d already memorized his weekly schedule, which basically consisted of office work, tours, and a lot of manual labor. Of course, he’d also squeezed in plenty of time for chatting it up with a few beautiful, young tourists.
Not that I cared.
On one particularly long day, I’d even snapped a photo of him and sent it to Piper just to prove that men in North Carolina were just as hot as the guys back home.
My eyes ventured to the window one more time.
Hotter even.
Thankfully, today, Taylor seemed to have a busy afternoon of eager tourists to entertain, which meant I was free to work. I had a pile of fabrics and tile samples that had just arrived, plus a few DIY projects I wanted to accomplish in one of the suites, and having someone looking over my shoulder would seriously delay my progress. My town go-between had been so involved and full of questions that I was seriously starting to wonder if I’d get anything done with him around.
That, of course, had me wondering.
What were Taylor Sutherland’s motives?
I might be new to this town and fresh out of the office, but even I knew, that no one did a one-eighty on their feelings that quickly. He’d hated me and my reasons for being here when I arrived. Why the sudden interest now?
Was he trying to impress someone—either the town committee or perhaps that older relative I had seen—or was he here to sabotage me?
Either way, I knew one thing was for certain.
