The Heartbreaker of Echo Pass - Maisey Yates Page 0,47
imagine him in any other space. And here he was. In town, like a normal human being and not something mythical that was larger-than-life.
He cocked his head to the side. “You going to let me in?” His words were muffled against the glass.
“Oh,” she said, fumbling with the knob and pushing it open. “I’m sorry. Come in.”
“This is a nice place,” he said, looking around. “Good thing I bought it.”
“You haven’t been here before?”
He shook his head. “No.”
She frowned. “What kind of business do you have?”
“Mostly real estate investments.”
“And you buy things you don’t even look at?”
“All the time. I own property around the world. I don’t go visit every single thing that I buy. It wouldn’t make any sense. Wouldn’t be practical either, come to that.”
“But this isn’t across the world. It’s in Gold Valley, and so are you.”
“Yeah. Well. My business manager thought it was a good idea. There’s a reason I hired her.”
“How did you... Get into owning property? I mean if you’re not interested?” She couldn’t quite wrap her head around it. “Financial success doesn’t seem like something you just fall into.”
Then again, he didn’t seem particularly successful. She only knew he was because he had...a business manager and a portfolio.
He was a study in contradictions. On the one hand, he seemed like he would have to be dirt poor, but he owned this building that she could certainly scarcely hope to afford in one lifetime. He seemed to be able to barter the rent money away just fine.
He was building a house. But by himself. At least, that was what it looked like.
He probably came from California. Where there was certainly more money in real estate than there was here.
“I used to be more interested than I am. But there came a point in time when things changed. And I outgrew where I was.”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He walked past her, heading toward the back of the building. “I assume the stairs are this way?”
“Yes,” she said, scampering after him.
He had a toolbox clutched in his hand, the muscles in his forearm shifting as he walked. “Very early on,” he said, “I just had to fix a lot of my own things. I got my first investment property really young, and I became a landlord. Then it turned out I was really good at all this. Got into bigger stuff.”
“I see.”
He paused, turning toward her and arching a dark brow. It was the closest thing to playful she’d ever seen on his face. “Did you want to ask if I’m rich?”
“The thought did cross my mind,” she said, embarrassment heating her cheeks.
“Yes,” he said. “Yeah.” He looked around. “I guess I am.”
For some reason, there was a heaviness in his voice that settled hard and strange in her chest. Like she could feel the weight of it. The cost of whatever it was beneath the surface.
“The sink is this way,” she said.
Her hands felt sweaty again.
Great.
How was she supposed to seduce a man if she had sweaty hands? It seemed like a losing proposition to her. And very much like a humiliation just waiting to happen.
She stood there, her heart hammering in her ears, and she just had so many questions. How did you... How did you do this? This was the first time in her adult life she had been all alone with a man who wasn’t family or surrogate family. She looked at his broad back, his muscular shoulders, lean waist and hips. And she felt. Not just desire, but what was filling up her chest was something else altogether. Something deep and overwhelming. Something that almost hurt. She couldn’t explain it. Not if she wanted to. Fortunately, she didn’t want an explanation. Not for any of this. She felt gloriously not herself, in this apartment that would be hers, about the business she was going to open. With a handsome man right there.
Not Iris, who took care of everyone else and pretended she didn’t even know what she wanted. Iris, who didn’t think about whether or not she was beautiful, or if a man might look her way or not. Iris, who had basically become a housewife at fourteen.
No. She didn’t think she was that person. Not now. She was some new adventurous woman who might do any number of things.
Who could be anything she wanted to be. Who wasn’t afraid to take chances.
Who wasn’t hiding.
Behind responsibilities.
Behind fear.
She let out a long, slow breath. And she could see herself, crossing the distance between