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Fiona was looking at her phone, but suddenly her head whipped up. “Grayston? Is that what you said your name was?”
“Yes.”
Her expression changed. She looked at him as though he was suddenly the enemy. Had she recognized his name?
“You’re a developer.”
Oh. She’d definitely recognized his name. Now her arms were crossed over her chest as she looked up at him. This couldn’t be good.
Grayston wasn’t well-known around town in general. There were quite a few developers hovering over the few properties in the downtown area, which was why Grayston had expanded his focus to other parts of town.
“I own The Book Garden,” she said and waited, her expression making it clear she expected him to immediately recognize the name. He had no clue what she was talking about. She owned a garden? A bookstore? A garden full of books?
He was guessing bookstore was the right answer there.
“You have no idea, do you?” she asked. “Do you even pay attention to the businesses you destroy?”
Oh. Yeah. He should have guessed if she was turning on him, it had to do with his work. He might not be well-known around town, but there were definitely people who had voodoo dolls with his name on them. It was a hazard of the profession.
“The property in East Nashville or the one in Antioch?”
Those were his two best guesses. He had multiple projects going on at any one time, and he paid good people to manage most of it. But everything else around town was in a further stage of development, so he picked the two that would be most likely to put a bookstore out of business.
“East Nashville,” she said. “The Shops at Northbrook. I spoke at the last city council meeting. You were there.”
Why hadn’t Grayston just ignored the hallway mess and gone straight to his condo? He could be stepping out of a hot shower and preparing to veg out for a few hours until dinner.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I could help you relocate if you’d like. I have properties all over town.”
That went over about as well as expected. Her gray eyes narrowed even more, and he waited for her to tell him she was just fine finding a property on her own. If not for him, she wouldn’t have to move in the first place.
But that wasn’t true. East Nashville was an area of town that was booming, thanks to gentrification. Her shop was in a strip mall that had become an eyesore. He planned to demolish it and turn it into a medical center
“I bought the bookstore from an owner who had run it for forty years,” she said. “Some of the customers have been coming in every week for that entire time. You can see how that couldn’t be replicated.”
Grayston could. Definitely. He never wanted to see a historic place close. He did his best to honor the structure of historic buildings when he could. But he’d found that no matter where you built, people were going to fight it. Everyone wanted their neighborhood to stay exactly as it was. That just wasn’t possible.
As he fought to come up with a good response to Fiona’s question, her expression changed. She went from outraged to complete understanding of...something.
“You can’t see that.” She nodded as she stepped away. “Guys like you never will. If you don’t mind, I need to get back to work in there. See you around.”
Without waiting for a response, she turned on one heel and headed into Kingston Knight’s condo, slamming the door behind her.
Grayston just stood there, staring at that closed door and wondering what he could do to keep that woman in his life.
