A buzzing started in Bethany’s skull. “I’m sorry. Did you say Brick and Morty is starting a flip on Monday across the street from my house?”
“Mom might have mentioned during my final dress fitting,” Georgie said from her lean against the wall, wincing. “Sorry, Beth. I thought Stephen told you.”
“He did not, but it’s fine. I mean”—Bethany let out a casual laugh, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear—“with a construction crew across the street, I guess I’ll have to start wearing pants to the mailbox. A little annoying, but I’ll cope.”
Laughter spilled out around the room and Bethany used the moment to divert focus from herself. Carrying on the rest of the meeting was not easy, however, because her mind kept returning to two very alarming facts.
One: she couldn’t stall any longer. Either she started her own flip or she backed out—and the latter wasn’t an option if she wanted to retain her pride.
Two: Wes Daniels, the man who drove her insane with his Texas twang and eyes that scrutinized her far too closely, would be working across the street for the foreseeable future. She saw him on job sites during the final stages, when measuring for furniture or instructing painters. But across the street from her home, Wes would be impossible to avoid.
A twist in Bethany’s belly told her World War III was on the horizon.
Bring it on.
Chapter Two
Bethany stared down at the paperwork spread across her bed.
Every time she started to gather up the construction permits, she dropped them again and paced instead.
It was now or never. Put up or shut up. Shit or get off the pot.
If she waited any longer to commence her solo flip, people were going to grow suspicious. They might not peg Bethany as a coward, but they were going to keep asking questions. A couple of months ago, she’d announced to the family that she would be striking out on her own, since Stephen refused to let her run a solo flip.
They’d been aghast. And she would be lying if she said that hadn’t shaken her already shaky confidence.
Bethany understood their desire to maintain the status quo. After all, she kept everything, from her thoughts to her sports bras, in neat little categorized compartments. It was a family trait and she’d been given the biggest dose of control freakitude.
So why was flipping a house alone so important to her?
Why had she made such a massive issue of the whole thing?
Why not stick to staging, a practice in which she was actually skilled?
Bethany sat down on the floor and arranged herself in a meditative position. She rested the backs of her hands on her knees and breathed in deeply, desperately trying to exhale the stress of what she needed to do this morning.
Visualize.
See yourself walking across the street where Brick & Morty have already banged the company’s signature sign into the front lawn and started demo.
See it happening and then do it.
Wes Daniels’s smirk appeared in her head and she fell backward onto a cloud of fluffy white carpet with a groan. The younger man always seemed to make it his mission to needle her until her cool, calm, and collected demeanor faltered. His presence was going to make this already-terrifying morning worse.
“Why?” She scratched at the spot on her neck. “Why am I doing this to myself?”
She knew the answer, but her moment of courage had been buried by the passage of time. Making her forget the tingling sensation in her belly, the scary excitement of deciding to test herself. Yes, she was a great stager. Yes, it was still something she enjoyed, but . . . did she have to remain in one lane forever?
Staying low to the ground, Bethany got on her hands and knees and crawled to her bedroom window, peeking over the sill at the house across the street. In the short amount of time since the crew arrived, there were already tools strewn across the lawn, a sawhorse in the driveway, noise. So much noise.
Construction was not neat.
She’d been an idiot to visualize herself with a perfect ponytail and high-waisted jeans, sashaying her way into a fixer-upper and demolishing walls in style. Real life was not HGTV. There was no thirty-second take of the host burying an ax in a wall before the director yelled “Cut!” and the real crew took over again. When she headed her own flip, she would be making all the decisions, doing all the work.
And it might turn out less than perfect.
It might turn out terrible.
Bethany turned away from the window and leaned back against the wall, pressing her fingers tightly to the center of her forehead and breathing, in and out. In and out. Maybe it was time to talk to a therapist. Knowing one’s worst faults didn’t mean one could fix them alone.
Bethany was a prime example of that.
When she was thirteen, she’d bought a pair of uncomfortable Mary Janes with a wedge heel. Her mother had warned her not to wear them to school without breaking them in first. Had she listened? No. But she’d come home with a smile on her face, danced up the stairs, and closed herself inside her bedroom—before falling to the floor with a gasp of pain and prying off the shoes to reveal twin, bleeding blisters. Then she’d bandaged them up and worn the shoes again the following day.
She was one stubborn bitch. And the thing she was most stubborn about was always, without fail, getting everything just right.
If this flip ended up less than amazing, she wouldn’t be able to slap a Band-Aid on it. She’d have to face everyone’s inevitable disappointment. She’d have to watch the dawning realization on their faces that she wasn’t perfect.
It took Bethany a few more bracing breaths to climb to her feet. She stood in the center of her room for a moment, the crisp, white décor and tasteful Tiffany picture frames making her feel slightly more in control.
Well.
If she was going to make a statement this morning, she’d better look good doing it. With a resolve she didn’t necessarily feel, Bethany threw back her shoulders and marched into her walk-in closet, silk robe fluttering in her wake.
Wes paused with the water bottle halfway to his lips, eyebrows lifting at the sight of Bethany crossing the street. With a runway walk like that, the woman was on some kind of mission. He couldn’t help but take a moment to appreciate being in the presence of a living, breathing goddess, because soon enough, she was sure to rain down holy hell on somebody’s head. Probably mine.
To Wes, the nonstop contention between him and Bethany was foreplay. Plain and simple. But the more time that passed, the more he was starting to think that Bethany was on a different wavelength. One that didn’t include them sweating it out between the sheets. Which, Lord, he’d been fantasizing about daily and nightly since jump street.
Based on the information he’d been able to glean via Travis, who took pride in having the gossip through his fiancée, Bethany wasn’t the kind of woman who took part in a fling. Until recently, she’d been interested in the whole relationship thing, but with the inception of the Just Us League, she’d gone on a man hiatus. So even if Wes was in Port Jefferson for the long haul, his chances were slim.
His slim chances might also be due to the addictive vitriol they’d developed, but stopping was easier said than done. At this point, he couldn’t very well show up on her doorstep with a dozen long-stemmed roses and tell her she was the most breathtaking woman he’d ever met.