FULL NOVELXO In Your Dreams, Holden Rhodes: Chapter 6
THE NEXT MORNING, I sat in my office at work, thinking about the inn. The question had bothered me all night.
Why the hell did Katherine leave it to me?
I didn’t need the money, and she knew that.
She wanted me to take care of the place, I realized. Even after she passed, she wanted someone looking out for the place.
That made sense. Parents left their homes to their kids all the time, and Sadie was the closest thing Katherine had to a daughter.
I wished she had warned me about this, though.
Sadie’s shocked expression from the will reading appeared in my head and I crossed my arms. The weird, yearning twist behind my ribcage was back.
Fuck. Why couldn’t she grow up to have onion breath or tiny, beady eyes like a troll. I pictured her with those stupid wheelie sneakers that got on everyone’s nerves.
There. That was better.
A new image flashed into my head, of her smiling at me yesterday from across the conference room, her gaze roaming over my chest with appreciation.
I shook myself. She wasn’t looking at me like that. She couldn’t stand me.
After the meeting ended, I returned to my office, slid the glass door closed, and took a deep breath. I had made a promise to Katherine, and daydreaming about her niece wouldn’t help.
I pulled out my phone, downloaded a dating app, and began to fill out my profile.
Name: Holden
Age: 34
Searching for: long-term commitment.
Kids? No, but open.
What do you do on weekends? Work, gym, art gallery, family time.
I swiped on a few profiles and within a minute, I had a match. I tapped out a message.
Hi.
Hey, baby, she responded.
Uh. Okay. How are you?
I’m sitting in the bath, thinking about you. If you want to know more about me, check out my website:
I pictured a woman in the bath, but it was Sadie in the tub, giving me that hot, appraising look. My cock stirred.
Why would anyone go for Holden when they could have one of his brothers?
I blew a long breath out, shoved her words out of my head, and deleted the app.
I could throw money at this problem. I could hire someone to set me up, like a matchmaker. I leaned back to see down the hall outside my office. Emmett still dropped by sometimes. If my brothers found out I was doing this, I’d never hear the end of it.
I typed Vancouver Island + matchmaker into Google before clicking the first link.
A video played on the site. A woman with short, bright red hair and a suit in the same color stared into the camera. A harp began playing through my speakers.
“Are you lonely, lack confidence, and terrible at dating?” she asked in a seductive tone.
A strangled noise scraped out of my throat, and I rushed to hit mute before sending another nervous glance out the door. Her mouth kept moving in the video and words appeared beside her.
Matchmaker and Life Coach. Speed dating events every Friday!
Speed dating? Fuck, no. Cold dread trickled down my spine. The idea of speed dating made my skin crawl. I wasn’t like Emmett, who could strike up a conversation with anyone. It would be a disaster. I could already tell I’d go home frustrated with myself.
I returned to Google and stared at the blinking cursor. Self-hate rose in my gut.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I muttered to myself.
How to find a wife.
Zara stood at the glass door of my office. I hit lock screen as fast as I could.
“The candidate for the senior architect position is here,” she told me.
“Right.” I stood and gathered my things.
AFTER THE INTERVIEW, I returned to my office and froze in the doorway.
Sadie Waters lounged in one of the chairs across from my desk, a sketchbook balanced on her lap. She wore a cheerful yellow sweater. Lost in concentration, she erased something on the page in front of her before grabbing one of my pencils off my desk to fix whatever she had erased.
The familiarity of her grabbing the pencil made my heart shoot into my throat.
Be normal, I told myself.
At a loss for words, I cleared my throat.
She glanced up and gave me a bright smile. Not a sincere smile, but one of those fake ones she did when she was trying to annoy me.
“Good morning, Holden.”
I scowled at her, gaze traveling over her perky ponytail and bright eyes. “I thought you were leaving.”
She shrugged and smiled wider. “I guess I didn’t.” She put her hands up like, whatcha gonna do? before she adjusted in her seat. “On account of us inheriting an inn together and everything.”
I took a seat behind the desk, acting like my pulse wasn’t racing. “I’m busy.”
Zara breezed into my office. “Here we go.” She set a tea on my desk.
Sadie beamed at her. “Thank you so much, Zara.”
I shook my head at both of them. “She’s not staying. I have another meeting,” I lied.
Zara stared at me with confusion. “You don’t have a meeting until three.”
Damn her and her steel-trap memory. I glared at Zara and she rolled her eyes before sliding the door closed.
I stared at Sadie and my lungs felt tight. This office was too small. My teeth ground together and I folded my arms over my chest, dragging a deep breath in and letting it out.
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, stop it. What does your mom always say? Oh, yeah. Stop being so dramatic.”
Her eyes glittered with amusement and I studied her face.
Jesus, she was beautiful. I pictured myself running my fingers through her hair and my hand twitched on my bicep. Her gaze dropped to my arm and she raised an eyebrow.
I cleared my throat again. “What do you want?”
She straightened up. “We have a few things to talk about.”
I gave her a blank look.
“What realtor are we going to go with? What’s our listing price?” She counted off her fingers.
My eyebrows shot up in alarm, but she didn’t notice.
She wanted to sell the place?
“Do we want to change the inside of the house in terms of staging? I guess we can talk to the realtor about that.” She shrugged. “I can help with staging.”
“We’re not selling the inn.”
She frowned and blinked at me. “Holden, what are we going to do with an inn?” She whirled her finger in the air, gesturing at the office around us. “You have a company to run.”
I raked a hand through my hair, frustrated. I knew I had a company to run, and the inn was going to be a fair amount of maintenance. Grounds that needed to be maintained. I’d need to hire a staff. It wasn’t unmanageable, but it was more on my already-full plate.
Selling felt wrong, though.
“No,” I said in a flat tone.
Her face fell with a mix of confusion, disappointment, and panic. “Why not?”
“Katherine wouldn’t have left half of the inn to me if she wanted us to sell it.” I studied the pinch between her eyebrows. “I don’t need the money.”
Her delicate throat worked and she let out a breath, deflating. She bit her bottom lip. “Fuck,” she whispered.
“Besides, we have to wait until the probate period is over.”
She turned back to me. “What?”
“Probate. We have to wait until all Katherine’s will documents are processed and the inn is in our names before we can sell. It’ll take up to a year.”
“A year?” she repeated, eyes wide.
“But I’m not selling.”
She chewed her mouth harder before her eyes lit up and she straightened up. “Buy me out.”
“Huh?”
She leaned forward. “Holden, you just said you don’t need the money. Buy me out of the inn, and I’ll be out of your hair forever. You’ll never have to see me again.”
She wiggled her eyebrows at me and I frowned, considering this.
“Two hundred grand,” she hurried to add. “You can buy my half of the inn for two hundred grand.”
My eyes narrowed. The place was worth many times that number. If I bought her out for that price, I’d make a killing, and she’d be leaving money on the table.
Why would she ever propose that?
She shifted under my gaze, fiddling with the sleeve of her sweater.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Her guilty gaze flicked up to mine. “Nothing.”
“Something.” Sadie wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t walk away from this property unless…
She was in trouble.
“Why do you need money?”
Her throat worked and panic flashed behind her eyes. “None of your business.” She pushed the panic aside and shot me a charismatic grin that made my chest flip. “Take the deal, Holden. You won’t regret it.”
Her throat worked again and she glanced down her hands, clutching the closed sketchbook on her lap. Her brow wrinkled.
This felt wrong. I didn’t agree with Katherine leaving Sadie half the inn but it felt worse if I interfered like this. I turned back to my computer and tapped the spacebar to wake it up.
“No.”
My monitors lit up. My previous search appeared on the screen in clear, and my stomach dropped as Sadie’s gaze swung to the screen.
How to find a wife.