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“What’s happening in that room?” Zach asked, sure he’d heard wrong.
Braxton removed his glasses and pointed to the laptop screen. “The room for the hot-rock massage.”
Zach stared at the screen. Some woman who appeared to be nude, save for the white towel across her backside, had large, black stones going down the length of her spine. What the hell had he gotten into?
“How do you know about this?” Zach asked. “No, wait. I don’t want to know what you do in your off time.”
Braxton flipped him the finger and shut his laptop. “I’ve been researching different spas and resorts. There are certain things that are a must-have for this to work right. Women eat this shit up.”
Zach had to start thinking like that or this business would tank. But how the hell did he think about hot stones on bare skin? How was that relaxing? People paid for the most ridiculous things.
As a young boy, he’d feared if his next meal would come, or if his mom would be alert enough to even care he was still alive. Dirty, smelly apartments, random men filtering in and out, always on the move from one filthy place to another was Zach’s childhood. He hadn’t kept toys because he never knew when they’d have to gather their meager belongings and go somewhere else. Secretly he’d wished she’d just go off on her own and leave him. He figured h
e couldn’t be any worse off on his own than with a mother who paid him no mind except when she needed him to do something for her, like steal a loaf of bread. She claimed nobody would look twice at a kid and think he was stealing. He’d actually gotten pretty good at swiping groceries. While other kids were playing baseball and going to the movies, he was trying to figure out how to stuff a jar of peanut butter in his jacket.
Now he was renovating a mansion to open a women-only resort and spa. Talk about making a complete one-eighty.
“I’m not that far in my thoughts, yet.” Zach came to his feet and headed back to the bathroom they were working on. “I’ve ordered the tile for all of the bathrooms and it should be here by tomorrow. I’m doing heated floors in all of them as well.”
“Don’t go overboard until we have more funding,” Braxton warned, following him down the wide hallway. “When is the house going up for sale?”
Zach stopped at the bathroom doorway. He’d not mentioned anything to Braxton or Liam about Sophie’s plan. When he thought of her idea, his mind instantly went to her office yesterday morning, when he’d exposed too much of his heart. Why had he told her something so intimate? He never wanted her to know how much he wanted her. He couldn’t afford for anyone to have such leverage over him.
“Actually, Sophie is trying to get us some grants.”
Braxton’s brows lifted. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I guess with losing Chelsea, trying to get the taxes paid, and figuring out what the hell we were doing, the obvious just slipped my mind.”
“I think we’ve all had our minds on other things lately.”
Braxton smirked. “Like a certain real estate agent?”
Zach moved into the bathroom and ran his hand over the drywall mud where he’d finished the edge of the partial wall he’d taken out. To this day, too many walls made him antsy. The confining spaces, the enclosed areas once made his anxiety run high. He wasn’t near as bad now, but he still preferred the open spaces.
“Your silence only makes you look guilty,” Braxton commented.
“I’ve been found guilty before.”
Braxton muttered a curse. “You know that’s not how I meant that.”
Zach shrugged. “I’m not offended. But I’m not discussing Sophie.”
Braxton laughed. “You don’t have to. She’s standing right here.”
Jerking around, Zach spotted Sophie, her face tinted pink as if she’d heard a bit of the innocent conversation. They’d said nothing wrong or demeaning about her, not that he ever would, but that she was a topic at all would only make this harder on her. And even though he couldn’t give her what she wanted, he didn’t want her embarrassed.
Damn it. Why couldn’t they just enjoy each other, as both friends and lovers, and not worry about the rest?
Because Sophie was the type of woman who would want a house with a devoted husband without a criminal record, and a yard full of screaming, happy kids. She would want church on Sunday, family vacations to the beach, and hot chocolate by the Christmas tree.
Zach swallowed as he met her beautiful, bright eyes. One day she would fall in love, and Zach would have no right to stand in the way of her happiness. Isn’t that why he kept his distance? Well, other than last night.
“Am I interrupting?” she asked, looking at the two brothers.
“Not at all.” Braxton smiled and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I hear you’re looking into some grants?”
“Actually, that’s why I’m here.” She pulled up her phone and started scrolling through, her eyes squinting slightly at the screen. “There’s a good chance we can get all we need from this one outlet.”
Zach moved closer, wanting to see more, because if he could get what they needed to renovate this house, then he could keep his own. Could life be that simple? Could things be going his way?
