AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Good strategy. I looked you up too.”
Her heart jumped. “What did you find out?”
“Not much aside from the café website. You don’t have any social media accounts, from what I could tell.”
“Neither do you.”
“I prefer to keep my private life private.”
“So do I.”
“Destiny told me you moved back to Bliss Cove six months ago,” Hunter said. “Was that when you decided to open the café?”
Aria flexed her hands on the wheel. Though she was a bit wary of his motivations for probing into her life, it might be easier to learn more about him—and refine her strategy—if he knew about her.
“I’d had the idea for a while.” She turned the van toward Mariposa. “I spent a few years working at the Rescue House while helping my mother at Sugar Joy. Doing both of those things made me think of opening a cat café, but I didn’t get around to actually doing it until last year.”
She didn’t want to imagine what he’d think of her scattered job history, her constant stops-and-starts, and then losing herself in a bad relationship before she’d even figured out who she was or what she wanted to be.
Despite his vagueness about his family, she suspected Hunter was the kind of man who’d always had a direct, clear path to follow. Who knew what he wanted and how to get it. He hadn’t reached the pinnacle of the Imperial executive team without driven ambition.
Well, good for him. Some people built multi-billion-dollar complexes. Other people took care of stray cats and hosted Saturday game nights. Who could say one was more important than the other? The world needed both. A lot of people would probably rather have hot cocoa and Monopoly than Rolex watches and expensive cars.
She certainly would. And she would much rather have her family than all of Hunter’s wealth and success.
She pulled up behind the café and turned off the engine. “If you want to wait here, I’ll get the cats squared away.”
“I’ll help.”
She unlocked the backdoor while he grabbed two crates from the van and hauled the meowing cats into the lounge. Within a few minutes, they had all the crates inside.
He helped her unlatch the doors and release the cats. Aria started filling the food and water bowls.
Hunter picked up a copy ofThe Bliss Cove Timeslying on one of the tables. “Is your friend Brooke a reporter for the paper?”
“Yes, her grandfather owns it.” She scratched Libby’s ears as the cat twined around her legs. “How did you know?”
“I read the article.” He tapped the headline about Mariposa and Imperial. “It’s good.”
“You don’t mind an article about Imperial’s takeover attempt?”
“Why would I?” He shrugged. “It’s the truth. The article was relatively unbiased, except for the somewhat lengthy list of potential problems.”
“Also the truth.”
He studied her over the top of the paper, his expression giving nothing away. “The Imperial proposal addresses environmental impacts and green initiatives. We don’t intend to wreck everything and leave town. The company will have a presence here, and as such, we want what’s best for the town. I get that it’s easy to think of me as the bad guy wanting to bulldoze everything and build skyscrapers, but that’s not the case.”
Aria filled another bowl, ignoring a prickle of guilt. “Hunter, even if you were building a bunch of yurts on the land, it wouldn’t matter. You’d still want to destroy every building on Mariposa Street with no consideration for the fact that they all mean something.”
She waved a hand to encompass the café. “Thisbuilding was once owned by a woman named Christine Sterling, whom I’m actually related to on my father’s side. She was a writer and a journalist who covered stories about suffrage and immigration. After her husband died, she started a rooming house here to support her three children. Until the Hotel Casa Grande was built, this was the only hotel on Mariposa Street.”
“Aria, I know this neighborhood has a rich and complex history.” Hunter began helping her fill the cats’ water bowls. “But Bliss Cove hasn’t deemed any of these buildings worthy of being saved. Towns and cities are living, evolving entities that need to change. I’m in favor of preserving historic buildings if they’re important, but not just because they’re old.”
“That’s exactly why I’ve started the Mariposa Restoration Fund,” Aria said. “The district can be so many things, but it needs money and people who care about saving it. I’m just sorry it took a threat from Imperial for us to realize that.”
She turned away from him and let out a breath. “I thought our truce meant we’re not supposed to fight about this.”
“We’re not fighting.” He set a bowl in front of Fang, who was crouched by the window. “We’re talking.”
