“What? How?”
“She’s basically spreading the news that you won’t be working for them again and that she, unfortunately, can’t provide you with a reference.”
I’m turning green. That rubber ball is bouncing up my throat and will soon surface as a spurt of vomit.
19
RAIDEN
It’s past ten o’clock at night when I drive down from the farmhouse towards the lake. With their early mornings, Uncle Bill and Aunt May will have gone to bed by now and once I’m past the farmhouse porch light, it’s pitch black, with the lake a bottle of spilt ink. No lights are on in the boathouse. Georgiana probably made an early night of it.
This day away did nothing to cool my burning longing for her that’s been ramping up quietly in the background. Eight hours in my truck equates to eight hours of thinking—about her. About our kiss and how she tastes. About her breasts pressed against my chest and how she feels under my hands. About my cock pressing against her, begging for more, even though I know it should never happen again.
Chemistry off the fucking charts, Jack. Eat your heart out.
I need this job done professionally. No crossing of boundaries. I can look all I want, but I can’t touch.
When I get to the boathouse, her car isn’t there. It takes a one-minute inspection to know she isn’t at home and my old anxiety flares up full throttle, releasing adrenaline into my veins. Heck no. This is how screwed I am already. This woman has leopard-crawled into my heart, under cover of night, when I wasn’t watching.
There’re only a few places she could be in Ashleigh Lake at this time of night, and I already know she isn’t keen to hang out at Sharky’s. Not on her own. I spoke to Rachel earlier today and she’s working night shift this week. Georgiana won’t be painting the town red with the girls tonight. Maybe Hunter or Derek took her out, but I doubt that, not after I told them to look in another direction last night.
My infatuation was probably so obvious to them. They know me too well.
I hope she isn’t still at the barn. Never mind that it’s late, a big city girl might be freaked out being there alone. My stomach twists as I restart my truck, shove it into reverse and then head back up the hill to the main road.
Within minutes I pull up outside the barn where, at the top windows, moths dance in the faint interior light that shines through. I park next to her little red maggot, get out of the truck and pull at the massive barn door, which is slightly ajar.
“Georgiana?” I rush inside, my heart in my throat.
She’s behind her desk and looks up at me, her eyes rimmed with exhaustion.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, taking wide steps to get to her. We’ve been working hard, but I never asked her to work these crazy hours.
“What am I doing here?” Her tone is edged with blades, poised for cutting. “I am fixing your screw-up, that’s what I’m doing here.”
“What?”
She stands and clenches ring-bound printouts in her hand. “These are the National Tiny House Competition’s building specs. More than a hundred and fifty pages of them. I’ve gone through them in detail today, line by line, word by word, and guess what I found?”
I suppress a groan as dread, cold and sharp, sinks through my body. “W-what d-did you f-find?”
“One fundamental mistake.” She tosses the book down on her desk and rakes her hand through her hair, which she’s loosened from her practical ponytail. Her blonde waves frame her face and rest on her shoulders like an angel’s, but hell’s fury radiates off her. “Did you even bother to read this? Did you even go through this while you built your model?”
I drop my gaze with a sigh and shove my hands in my jeans pockets with a shrug.
“Because if you did, you would know that the tiny house needs to comply with every rule of every state in the USA, since you can’t willy-nilly pull things with any height over state borders. We’re capped at a height of thirteen foot six, and your design is thirteen foot eight high. Can I tell you how many times I’ve measured that structure today? Like a gazillion times.” She bites her bottom lip with an angry moan. “Every single time I get thirteen feet, eight inches and the roof’s rafters are almost complete.”
Georgiana picks up the book again and flicks through the pages, almost tearing them from the binding.
“Here,” she says as she shoves the book towards me. “Check. It’s there, in writing.” She stabs at several paragraphs. “Turn the page, and you’ll see they even gave us the dimensions in a drawing.”
I take the book from her, glance at the page then drop it back on the table.
“Raiden. Read it. See for yourself.”
“Georgiana—” I break off as this isn’t exactly how I envisioned this night going down. I was hoping to be in bed by now. In my fantasies, I’m not alone, but it looks like that’s not to be, because here I am, about to have a massive fight over two inches.
“Read it, Raiden, and tell me I’m seeing right, because at this point—”