AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You seem to be pretty good with it,” Caroline commented.
Tessa nodded. “I was upset last week. I’m over it now. Well, mostly over it. Time to meet someone new.”
Sophie couldn’t imagine bouncing back so quickly from a breakup. Not if she was really in love. Tessa’s feelings for Cody must not have been as strong as she’d thought. Yet she’d wanted to marry him. Maybe she was just putting on a brave face. Sophie still couldn’t read Tessa very well. It was hard to know what she was really thinking.
“What about you Sophie? Any progress yet with our hot neighbor?” Tessa asked.
Sophie felt herself blush. “I’m not after him. I don’t think he’s ready to date yet.”
“Hmmm. Well, if you don’t want to go after him, maybe I will. It doesn’t seem like you’re all that interested?”
Sophie was stunned. Tessa was interested in Max? She couldn’t lay claim to him as there was nothing but friendship between them.
“Max and I are good friends,” she said.
Tessa nodded. “That’s what I thought. Okay, I’m off. Wish me luck. I need a buyer asap!”
She whirled out of the room and Caroline raised her eyebrows at Sophie.
“Why didn’t you tell her to back off? It’s obvious to me that you’re interested in more than friendship with Max.”
“She took me by surprise. And I’m not sure she’s serious. I think Tessa just likes to say things for shock value. I also have no idea how Max feels, so it doesn’t seem fair to say back off if there’s nothing other than friendship there.”
“Hmmm. I don’t know what to think about Tessa sometimes. She’s not the most patient person and she can sometimes seem entitled. Her parents used to be rich. She grew up in a wealthy suburb and is an only child. She got everything she wanted. But her senior year of high school, her father had a few investments go belly up and they lost everything. I think it has been hard for her to go from having it all to struggling for years. She’d doing fine now, of course. But I think she has a hard time when she sees other people doing better than she is—especially if she’s been doing it longer.”
Sophie nodded. “Yeah, I sensed that. She’s made a few comments like how everything seems to be going my way.”
“Real estate is like that. You can do everything right and still have all your deals blow up in your face. Other times everything you touch will happen. There’s no rhyme or reason to it,” Caroline said.
“Rick stressed that, too. How important it is to keep going and have lots of possible deals pending.” Something occurred to her. “Why didn’t you mention to Tessa that Rick and Julia broke up?”
Caroline sighed. “Two reasons. First, he asked us to keep it quiet for now. But also, if she gets the idea that Rick is interested in you, that will drive her crazy. And I’m not ready yet to see her go after him. Can you imagine?”
Sophie could see Tessa strutting around the office if she and Rick became an item. “I don’t think that would last very long, once she realizes that Rick is even more marriage averse than Cody,” she said.
“That’s very true.”
Sophie’s cell phone rang. It was her mother. They’d been talking more often, usually briefly on Sundays.
“So, I just wanted to tell you the plan for Thursday,” her mother began. “Everyone is coming around one. We’ll have our usual cocktails and snacks and then sit down to eat around two. It looks like there will be ten of us.” Sophie’s mother usually hosted and her father’s two sisters, husbands and their kids who were about Sophie’s age always came. Sophie liked her aunts and cousins and always looked forward to it.
“Great, I’m taking the two o’clock train on Wednesday so I should be in Hudson around four.”
“That’s perfect. I’ll have your father pick you up at the station. We’ll get most of our peeling and chopping done Wednesday night, and the pies and stuffing.”
“I’ll bring some wine. We had a pinot noir a few weeks ago that might be good with the turkey.” Sophie usually took peeling and chopping duty while her mother made the stuffing and pie pastry. She couldn’t believe it was already Thanksgiving. The months in New York had gone by so fast.
“All right honey, I’ll see you on Wednesday.”
“Bye mom.” It would be nice to get home for a few days. She’d stay Wednesday and Thursday night and take the train home on Friday.
Tessa was in a fantastic mood that evening as the open house had gone very well.
“I had two buyers come through that seemed pretty interested. And they aren’t working with anyone else. I’m not counting on anything, of course, but maybe one of them might turn into something, even if it’s not a sale on this property.”
They decided to get pizza for dinner and Sophie texted Max to see if he wanted to join them.
“Sure. I had a great writing session and I’m starving now. I’ll be over in ten.”
