“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this,” she admitted. “It’s like being on a desert island.”
Carmela smiled as the woman bent to test the water with the tips of her fingers. “The privacy fence extends around the entire property and is at the maximum height allowed by the city,” she explained, watching the woman’s exposed back ripple as she sent concentric circles through the water.
The woman straightened as she grinned. “So if we jumped in naked, no one would see us?”
Carmela hesitated. She wasn’t sure what caught her more o guard, the image of them naked in the cool water or the truly devilish look in eyes that were absolutely captivating in the direct sunlight.
Before Carmela could meet the girl’s challenge, a voice called to her from the doorway. “Ms. Realtor,” a new woman she’d never seen called as she waved. “I have a few questions for you when you get a chance.”
“I’ll be right there,” she replied with a toothy smile, her go-to for projecting friendliness.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said before Carmela had a chance to turn back to her. “I didn’t mean to hog all your attention.
I’m sure everyone wants you,” she added with a flirty wink before she pulled her sunglasses back on. “Please, don’t let me tie you up.”
Without warning, the image of her arms bound above her head and this stranger writhing above her intruded on her normal thoughts. “Right,” she said too loudly as if that would scare the image away. “Walk around and I’ll be back to see if you have any questions,” she added in a rush before turning on her heels and bolting toward the house.
Blaming the flush spreading over her pale cheeks on the hot spring day, Carmela didn’t dare look back to see if the woman was watching her jog away. She reached for the phone that had been buzzing in her pocket and answered it before reaching the sliding glass door.
Over an hour later, Carmela swept through the house checking on visitors. There was no sign of the tall brunette.
Stopping in the kitchen to grab a bottle of cold water, she checked the iPad set up near the flyers.
Did you leave me your contact info, she wondered as she scrolled through the fifteen names she’d collected. Why didn’t I ask you your name? she chastised herself.
When she stepped away from her earlier, she’d expected to be back in a few minutes. In the interim, the mystery woman had disappeared before she could talk to her again.
What were you going to do? Ask her out? Yeah, right, she thought bitterly. She was probably just a curious neighbor anyway, she told herself before the pity party turned into a rave.
“Ms. Bravo.” A man pulled her out of her mild self-loathing. “Did you say the windows were new?”
She flipped like a switch, setting the tablet down as she o ered a practiced smile. “Exactly right. Rated for category five hurricanes,” she replied, forgetting the flirty beauty and focusing on her job.
IT WAS near sunset when Carmela shrugged o her blazer and hung it on the back of her clear acrylic o ce chair while on the phone with a mortgage broker for another deal. She hoped the open house had been a success, but there was no way of knowing until the calls came in later.
When the air conditioner had finally cooled her down, she kicked o her heels and sauntered to the little kitchenette barefoot. If anyone else had been in the o ce on a Saturday night, they’d be surprised to find the always composed woman in nothing but a skirt, an untucked silk shell, and her hair in a messy bun held together by two carefully positioned pencils.
As she made her way across the o ce, she noticed that even Liz, the agency broker, wasn’t in. Her light and computer were still on, so she guessed she’d be back soon.
Most agents did the job remotely, but she and Liz were old school.
The kitchenette, recently renovated to all glass and stainless steel, was dark until she crossed the threshold.
Automatic lights kicked on when they sensed her presence, giving her a feeling as cold as the natural stone tile against her bare skin. Carmela hadn’t gotten used to it yet, and a part of her, the part that secretly binged post-apocalyptic fiction and sci-fi stories, worried about the rise of AI overlords.
Pausing in front of the espresso machine, the reason she’d ventured out of her o ce, Carmela abandoned her original plan. She opened the wine fridge and retrieved one of the tiny bottles of bubbly they kept on hand for deal closings and other celebrations.
With her full glass in hand, Carmela returned to her o ce. On her wide computer screen, she pulled up the
research she’d been working on for over a year. Liz thought she’d been kidding when she set her sights on farming Palm Beach. The city a few miles east of West Palm Beach was a rather small island with the highest concentration of billionaires in the world. It was also a nearly impenetrable market, but Carmela was always looking for the next challenge.
As she began calculating an updated absorption rate based on that months’ sales and new listings, the tell-tale ding of a new email forced her attention to the upper right-hand corner of her screen. If the subject line hadn’t started with OFFER, she would have ignored it until later.
“Already?” she muttered to herself in pleasant disbelief.
None of the other agents she met at the open house had indicated that an o er would be forthcoming. She checked her phone. No missed calls. Carmela furrowed her brow as she scrutinized the email before clicking on the attachment.
It wasn’t impossible that she’d get an o er out of the blue, but it was certainly unusual to receive one without a courtesy call.The email itself said nothing but: Please see attached. O er expires in 24 hours. Carmela shook her head as she took a sip of her drink. O ers didn’t usually read like ransom notes.