Page 3 of Oops I Fell For The Billionaire Next Door

Nobody compliments my terracing and gets a pass on rerouting my water. "Fix my water line, talk to your crew about the six a.m. starts, and we'll be fine."

"Done." He puts his hands in his pockets. Rocks back on his heels slightly. "Can I at least offer you a coffee? I have an espresso machine that probably cost too much, and I feel bad about the water."

"I don't want your espresso."

"It's really good espresso."

"I want my water pressure."

"You'll have it by end of day. The espresso is a peace offering in the meantime."

"I don't need a peace offering. I need you to stop disrupting things that were working fine before you showed up."

That lands. The amusement dims just slightly. Good. He nods once, more to himself than to me.

"Fair enough. Water line by end of day. Crew noise addressed. Anything else?"

"Your helicopter shattered my only coffee mug."

His mouth opens. Closes. "I'll replace it."

"You can't. It was a thrift store cactus mug that said Stuck On You and it was one of a kind."

Beck Rhodes, billionaire, founder, owner of a jawline that should require a warning label, looks at me like he's recalibrating every assumption he walked into this conversation with.

"I'll find you a cactus mug."

I turn around and walk back down his obscenely perfect driveway.

My hands are shaking. Not from anger. Something worse. Something lower and hotter and completely unacceptable.

He's a problem. Six foot two, whiskey eyed, just moved in next door with his architect, his helicopter, and his absurd confidence, and he is a problem I do not need.

I have a business to build. I have terracing to finish. I have a roof that leaks and a stove that clicks and a hot water heater that gives up at eleven minutes. Well, seven now if they don't fix that water reroute.

The last thing I need is a billionaire neighbour who laughs like that and looks at me like I'm the most interesting thing on his entire mountain.

CHAPTER TWO

BECKETT

BECKETT

Three things I've learned since moving to a mountain in British Columbia.

One. Espresso machines need filtered water or they produce something that tastes like battery acid mixed with regret. Two. Cell service doesn't exist past the second switchback on my road, which my board discovered when I missed a shareholder call and my CFO drove forty minutes to physically hand me a phone. Three. My neighbour hates me.

That last one bothers me more than it should.

The water line was fixed by five p.m. the same day she showed up on my property with mud on her boots and fury in her brown eyes. My contractor, Steve, looked genuinely horrified when I told him he'd rerouted a shared access line. Apologized. Fixed it. Took him two hours. Easy.

The six a.m. noise was addressed the following morning. Crew now starts at seven thirty because I pushed it past the legal minimum out of what my therapist would call an outsized desire to be liked by a woman who clearly has no interest in liking me.

The mug was harder. I spent forty minutes on my phone in the one spot behind the build site where I get a single bar of signal, scrolling through thrift store resale sites looking for a cactus mug that says Stuck On You. Found one on an Etsy shop in Kamloops. Paid sixty dollars for a mug that probably cost three. Had it overnighted.

Left it on her porch with a note.

Found it. Not the same one, but close. Sorry about the helicopter. —B