maybe Wes doesn’t understand, but that’s because he’s living in the dark ages. The man still has a flip phone, for God’s sake. But Sage and Cody get it.”
“Then why aren’t they capitalizing on this? It’s a gold mine, marketing-wise.”
She turns her attention to Cody and Sage, watching them almost absently, although I’m sure she’s watching Cody more than she is Sage. I follow her lead and set my gaze on the Wells siblings too.
Unlike Becca though, I couldn’t care less what Cody’s doing. Especially since Sage is bent over at the waist with her backside pointed my way. She’s giving one of the boys a block of instruction about the go-karts, and when she’s done, he says something that makes her laugh. She ruffles the top of his head, hands him a helmet, and then stands up with a huge grin on her face. Something achy and unsettled washes over me. I don’t like it. It feels far too much like the beginning of one of those crushes I remember from when I was young and stupid. Quickly I shove down that thought and decide to name this for what it is—or at least what I want it to be.
Lust. Primal, provocative lust. Yup. That’s what we’re going with. Every other explanation is more problematic than I’m willing to deal with.
I wrench my focus back to Becca. She tilts her head at me.
“Becca and Cody understand these kids. They get what it’s like to be raised by a single parent, what it’s like to grow up without much money. They remember how cool it was to get to go do something special, so they just want to give other kids the same experience but with racing. That’s all they care about.”
“But this could be so much more,” I protest.
Becca shoots me a patient smile. “But not everybody wants more. People like Sage, Cody, and Wes? They don’t want more. They just want this.”
She waits a beat, letting her words sink in. Then she checks her watch, eyes Haley, and takes a deep breath.
“Your ten minutes are up, woman,” she mutters, standing up to steel herself.
Becca walks away. Her earlier words suddenly make my job feel complicated, not nearly as straightforward as I once hoped. Doing what I was sent out here to do will be impossible to accomplish when all the Wells family wants is to keep their world the way it’s always been.
I grew up in a world where everyone has more than enough, yet they’re always clamoring for something else. But the Wells family doesn’t want anything more than what they already have. If they did, that would make my job a lot easier. Instead, I have to figure out how to get them to want something bigger and better than all this. Either that or bet on the fact that someone who always wants more, like Haley Lacrosse, will eventually make their lives so miserable that they have no choice but to sell.
And even if both those scenarios end with my getting out of Colorado and heading home victorious, I don’t know how I feel about being a part of either one.
8
Alec
Until this afternoon, I had no idea how distracting a tan, shirtless playboy dancing around on a rooftop to a Taylor Swift song could be. And that’s taking into account how my fascination with said playboy isn’t the least bit sexual, nor is it based on his musical talents, which are entirely nonexistent.
But when Declan joins in with Taylor on the final chorus (putting every windowpane in downtown Denver at risk), I’m completely spellbound. He finishes his performance with a drunken frat boy pirouette and then collapses into the cushions on the outdoor couch—exactly where I left him last night.
I couldn’t very well complain about his showing up here at midnight since this is his place, but that doesn’t mean I was thrilled about ending an already long day with a long night of drinking and listening to him recount his latest round of hedonistic exploits in Dubai. Still, I stayed up until the wine bottles were empty and Declan was out of gas. There’s always been something about Declan that’s hard to ignore, no matter how much you might want to. That’s probably why I’m standing here in the living room, my forehead furrowed, watching him pose with a magnum of champagne as he takes a selfie.
What I should be doing is focusing on the task at hand, which is this phone call. Because