Chapter 3

CHAPTER3

“Why are you limping?” Cayley found herself asking as she watched Sean walk, well, mostly limp, into the old city hall that Rerum Highland Construction bought from the city for its main office.

“Because you left me there with that insensitive bastard!” Sean snapped as he pointed a damning finger at the man making his way inside the large building that was currently being renovated, glaring at her every inch of the way as he headed for the cracked marble stairs with rotted railings that really needed to be replaced.

“You knew better,” was all Cayley said, knowing better than to waste her time trying to make sense of all the stupid crap that her best friend did, which, unfortunately for her sanity, was quite a bit.

Nodding slowly, Sean said, “You don’t deserve me,” as his attention shifted to the large desk that she’d been in the process of shoving in here after it became painfully obvious that the temporary office that Connor assigned her wasn’t going to work.

“What’s this?” he asked, gesturing to the large desk that weighed a ton.

“I had to move my desk,” Cayley said as she was forced to reach over and slap his hand when he made a grab for the pumpkin muffin that she’d grabbed from her aunt’s bakery on the way here.

Sean snorted as he grabbed the muffin and made his way around her new desk and dropped down in her chair. “Like that would really stop me,” he said as he took a large bite of the muffin that she’d been looking forward to.

Sighing, Cayley reached over and opened the top drawer and pulled out the bag of donuts that she’d bought as a backup and-

“What was wrong with your office?” Sean asked as he searched through her bag of donuts and helped himself to a glazed donut.

“Besides the fact that it was gutted, didn’t have any walls or electricity, and it was freezing in there?” Cayley asked as she reached over and plucked the donut out of his hand and finished it off.

With a mumbled, “Brat,” Sean settled on a cinnamon donut as he sat there, considering her for a moment. “You could have taken one of the other offices.”

“You’re right. I could have if I wanted to have an office without a floor,” Cayley agreed as she gestured for him to get out of her chair.

“God, you’re high-maintenance,” Sean said, sighing heavily as he did his best to sound put out as he reluctantly got up and made his way to the break area they’d set up in the corner and grabbed a cup of coffee.

“You knew this,” Cayley said as she sat down in the chair that was surprisingly comfortable as she took in the large lobby that she was forced to turn into her temporary office and decided that she was definitely going to need more shelves to make this work.

“It’s going to get pretty loud in here,” Sean pointed out as he added heavy cream to his cup.

“Which is why I brought my noise-canceling headphones,” Cayley said, absently gesturing to the headphones on her desk as she considered moving her desk into one of the corners, only to immediately dismiss the idea since there wouldn’t be enough light.

“You should take my sister up on her offer to lease a trailer,” Sean said, dumping an unhealthy amount of sugar in his coffee before making his way back over to her desk and dropped down on one of the metal folding chairs lining the wall.

“That would bring up the cost of renovations,” she pointed out, refusing to start a new job by putting them over budget.

“True,” Sean murmured, taking a sip of coffee. “But you could probably work from home until the renovations are done.”

“That’s not really an option with this job,” Cayley said, even though she had to admit that she was more than a little tempted to do just that, but the problem was that she wouldn’t be able to do her job from home. Rerum Highland Construction was expanding rapidly and she couldn’t afford to miss anything and risk falling behind.

It was Rerum Highland Construction’s slow season, but that didn’t mean anything for her, not with all the projects they had planned for the spring. So far, they had over a hundred projects booked for next year and that wasn’t including the start of Rerum Highland’s main project and the Dawson Project, which was Bryce’s project. She’d already been informed that he wouldn’t appreciate her help with the project but that she was expected to take a quick look at it and see if she could help figure out a way to convince the current owners to sell.

God, she had so much work to do, Cayley thought with a heartfelt sigh as she reached into the bag and grabbed an apple cinnamon donut and took a bite. She only had four months to make sure that they were ready and-

“You know what I couldn’t help but notice?” came the question that had her biting back a sigh as she prepared herself for whatever deeply disturbing announcement was about to come her way.

“What’s that?” Cayley asked as she found herself looking up at the second floor to find Bryce, who really seemed to enjoy glaring at her, grabbing a sledgehammer, the large muscles in his arm bulging as he made his way to the wall to her right and-

Wow, he looked really pissed, Cayley couldn’t help but notice as she watched him swing that sledgehammer and put a huge hole in the wall. Maybe she should rethink that decision to work from home, Cayley thought as he turned that glare back on her.

This wasn’t going to end well.

Then again, Cayley knew that when she agreed to take this job. Not that she really had a choice, not with the large man reaching over to pluck the donut out of her hand getting her fired, which she still wasn’t sure how that happened. She-

“You still haven’t thanked me for getting you this job and for finding the lovely apartment that you now call home,” Sean said, looking thoughtful as he finished off her donut.

“You know what?” Cayley said, reaching for the broom leaning against the wall behind her. “You’re right. I didn’t thank you, did I?”

“What are you doing with the broom, pookie?” Sean asked, blinking up at her as she stood up with a sigh and decided that it really was rude of her not to thank him for everything that he did for her.

* * *

“God,you’re right. She really can’t seem to stay away from you,” Johnny said, chuckling as they watched Cayley walk into the small diner with the asshole, who hadn’t stopped glaring at her since she beat the shit out of him with that broom, storming past her as he muttered, “You’re buying me lunch.”

“I’m really not, though,” Cayley said with a sad shake of her head as she made her way to the table in the corner.

“We’ll see,” Sean bit out as he dropped down on the chair across from her while Bryce sat there, seriously contemplating going to another restaurant only to realize that he really didn’t have time today.

They were already starting to fall behind on the renovations and-

“Tell me something,” Brian said, drawing his attention to find his brother helping himself to his fries.

“What’s that?” Bryce asked as he pulled his plate away with a look that told his brother exactly what would happen if he touched his fries again.

Shrugging it off, Brian turned his focus back to his own plate as he continued. “If she’s obsessed with you, then why was she engaged to another man?”

“Because at some point, she’d accepted the fact that nothing was ever going to happen between us and she forced herself to move on,” Bryce explained, wishing like hell that asshole hadn’t dumped her because she seemed more determined than ever to be with him.

He still couldn’t fucking believe that she’d moved in across the hallway from him. Christ, she was getting desperate if she hoped to use his family’s curse against him. The problem with the Bradford curse? It was all bullshit. He didn’t fucking care what his cousins, uncles, or even his sister said, but apparently, Cayley bought into that line of bullshit and was hoping to use it in her favor.

When it came to marriage, his family believed that they were destined to fall in love with their neighbors and clearly, Cayley was counting on that being true. The problem was, she seemed to have ignored the rest of the bullshit tale. In order for this to work, Bryce needed to lose his fucking mind over her and be willing to risk everything to have her.

That was never going to happen.

He would never see her as anything more than the pain in the ass that used to follow him everywhere and he sure as hell wasn’t about to lose his fucking head over her. As far as Bryce was concerned, she was just his little brother’s pain in the ass best friend that he was stuck with until she finally gave up and accepted that nothing was ever going to happen between them and moved on.

Until then…

He was going to make sure that he didn’t do anything to encourage the little pain in the ass.