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He might have thrown his last name out if there was even a chance she’d know who owned this building. At this point, though, he was starting to think she was either Kingston Knight’s daughter or his way-younger girlfriend. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d seen a man his father’s age with someonehisage.
“I’m Fiona,” she said.
That wasn’t helpful at all. He didn’t want to be rude, but he also didn’t want to ask “Is your father around?” and put his foot in his mouth. He decided to play it safe.
“Do you know what’s going on out here?” To illustrate, he stepped back and pointed to the mess along the hallway from her front door to the corner.
She actually stepped out and looked. Like she didn’t know what he meant by “what’s going on out here.” There were only two condos on this end of the building, and none of this was from his condo. Unless one of the other owners had dragged their belongings down here, this had come from the condo behind her.
“Yeah, that,” she said, straightening. “Ben needed everything out of the way so he could get the desk.”
Of course. Made no sense at all. Why didn’t it surprise him that she wasn’t going to make any of this easy?
Taking a deep breath, he turned back to face her and was given an up-close look at her. Out here, in the hallway, the light was above her rather than behind her. There was something exotic about the way her dark hair contrasted with her light gray eyes and creamy skin.
He turned to look at the mess, mostly to keep his heart from softening to the beauty. “Where’s Kingston?”
There. He couldn’t be faulted for calling him that. Whether he was her father, boyfriend, or boss, his first name would cover it.
“You haven’t heard.”
Something in her voice caught his attention. There was a sadness there, but mostly, he heard dread. He swallowed his outrage over the mess. Something bigger was going on here.
He turned to look at her just in time to see her taking a step back. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared down the hallway.
“What?” he asked.
She bit her lip, then looked up at him. There was a glow about her that had nothing to do with the lighting. Even though she was obviously saddened by the news she was about to deliver, he felt at peace just watching her deliver it.
“Do you know my dad well?” she asked.
Do. That was a good sign. Nothing bad could have happened if she was speaking of him in present tense, right?
“He’s my neighbor.” Grayston turned and pointed to his left, in the general direction of his door. “He moved in soon after I did.”
“Four years ago,” she said. “He loved this place.”
Maybe he’d been premature in thinking this wasn’t the worst kind of news. “Loved?”
Her eyes widened as she seemed to realize what she’d said. “My father died a couple of months ago.”
Whoa. That news packed a pretty hard punch. Grayston waited for the breath to return to his lungs so he could speak again.
“I had no idea,” he finally said. “I…didn’t I just see him?”
Fiona shook her head. “He was at his Aruba home. He had a massive heart attack. His girlfriend called me to tell me.”
This was all news to him. That he had a home in Aruba, that he had a girlfriend, and that he’d had a massive heart attack. What kind of neighbor was Grayston not to even know those things?
More importantly, what kind of building owner was he? He didn’t babysit the homeowners on the other floors, but he at least tried to keep up with the ones who lived on the penthouse level. There wasn’t even much turnover on this floor. When someone paid more than a million for a condo, they tended to stick with that commitment for a while.
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Grayston said.
But even as the words were coming out of his mouth, he had a concern that was admittedly one hundred percent selfish. If Kingston Knight was no longer alive, he’d be putting his condo on the market. That meant Grayston would have a new neighbor.
“Don’t worry,” Fiona said. “I’ll have all of this back into the office as soon as the moving guys get the furniture out. I have to box all of this up, so you’ll probably be seeing me around in the next couple of weeks. I have to do things when I can.”
That was… alot. At once. Grayston was still trying to process the fact that Kingston Knight had died. And now he was dealing with yet another vacant high-dollar property, which meant it would be on the market for months, if not years. All that, plus there was this distractingly beautiful woman who had just announced she’d be around frequently. All he wanted to do was find out if she was single.
