Read What's Yours is Mine Online
Authors: Talia Quinn
Tags: #romance, #romance novel, #california, #contemporary romance, #coast
What's Yours is Mine
Book Description
Darcy and Will worked together four years ago. They have reason to hate each other. Problem is, they’ve now accidentally bought the same condo in beautiful Santa Genoveva on the California coast. They’ll have to live together twenty-four hours a day until one of them admits defeat. If only they could keep their hands off each other...
To Dan. Everyone should have a Dan in her life.
Chapter One
Her first true home, and she hadn’t even seen the place yet. Well, unless you counted the virtual tour, which she’d viewed at least two dozen times in the three weeks since she got the escrow paperwork notarized in the American Embassy in Shanghai.
Darcy Jennings paused on the threshold of the cozy real estate office. She took a deep breath of eucalyptus-scented air and pushed the glass door open, the frisson of excitement racing through her massively out of proportion to the actual event. She was here to meet the home inspector, pick up the key, and head over to the brand-new Vista del Mar condo complex. That was all. And yet it felt like the beginning of her real life.
This afternoon, she was finally going to walk through that lovely courtyard, walk up the two steps to her condo, and step foot in her very own living room.
She blinked, her eyes adjusting to the interior light after the bright Southern California sunshine. Janet the Realtor looked up from her computer with a broad smile, waving, but gestured to the phone pressed against her ear. She looked older in person, with care lines around her eyes and smile lines around her mouth.
A broad-shouldered, stout-bellied man dumped a pile of papers on Janet’s desk with a scowl and turned to go, brushing past Darcy. Nobody else was in the room. Ergo, this irritable man was the inspector she was here to meet.
Darcy stopped him with a hand on his sleeve. “Pete Santoro?”
He gave her a look.
“I’m Darcy Jennings. We’re supposed to go over to the Vista del Mar and check out my condo for the inspection report.”
He made a dismissive gesture. “Saw ’em all. They’re fine. Filed reports. Copies on Gillooly’s desk.” And kept going, on out the door.
Darcy darted outside after him. “But you have to go. I’m supposed to check out the condo with you.”
He got into his car, not even looking at her. “No can do. I’ve got five other places to look at today. Your buyer’s remorse isn’t my problem.” With a slam of his car door, the conversation was over.
Darcy watched him drive off in dismay. Without Santoro, she had no way to get into her condo, which wasn’t officially hers until after the closing. But she was supposed to board a plane to Shanghai tomorrow, and she wasn’t due back here until well after the closing. Weeks after.
By then, there would be no backing out. If she was utterly wrong about the place, if it was an awful fit, if she’d be miserable, it would simply be too late.
“He’s like that, don’t worry about it.” Janet Gillooly came outside, holding the glass door open invitingly. “Good side is, he’s a man of his word. If he says he gave the place a thumbs-up, he did.” She put out her hand. “Darcy, right? Janet. I feel like I know you already, we talked so much.” Her smile was huge and warm, and Darcy immediately felt better.
Except… “I guess I’d just hoped to see the place before I head back to China, you know?”
“I still can’t believe you bought it sight unseen. You said you had a hunch about it, didn’t you? I love that. I have hunches too. In fact, I have a hunch you’re going to be very happy there.” She grinned. “You might even regret buying just a one-bedroom.”
Darcy smiled back despite herself. Janet’s enthusiasm was contagious.
“Okay, tell you what. You won’t be back in town till after the closing, right?”
“A couple weeks after, at least. I have to close things out, get my replacement up to speed…”
“Right, okay.” Janet disappeared back inside the office. Through the glass front, Darcy watched as Janet sprinted to the back, passing someone coming the other way. Her long diaphanous scarf trailed on the floor, and oops, there it went. The other real estate agent picked it up and handed it to Janet, who gave him a distracted nod and kept going.
Darcy’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out. Her new assistant, Thora, reminding her about the meeting. As if she would ever forget her first official meeting as an on-site vice president in charge of not one, but two entire product lines, start to finish. She texted back and shoved it into her pocket just as Janet opened the door, beckoning Darcy in.
Darcy followed Janet into the office and into the back room, where the agent stopped by a bank of keys on hooks. “Which was yours, again? Fourteen or seventeen?”
“The showcase unit. Sea View. The one with the virtual tour.” The one she’d dreamed about the last three nights running, waking with images of sunlight and ocean spray and bleached wood floors, a sensation of lightness and hope rising in her chest.
“Right, right. I think that’s…” Janet slid her finger along the outside of the case and stopped at fourteen. It was the only hook with a single key. “Here you go.” She plucked the key off the hook and proffered it.
Darcy hesitated. Was this legitimate?
Janet grinned at her. “Enjoy. After the closing, naturally.” She winked at Darcy.
Darcy closed her hand over the key. It felt like a precious gift.
~*~
The man on the roof was quite possibly the most beautiful example of the human form Darcy had ever seen. Even at this distance. Even facing away from her. Strangely, there was something familiar about his stance, as if she’d seen him before.
As she watched, transfixed, his muscles flexed and he worked with another man to lift a heavy frame into place. His sun-streaked blond hair was cut close at the nape of his neck, his arms looked powerful, his back was supple, and—
“Darcy? You still there?” Her assistant Thora’s voice sounded tinny in her ear.
Oh. Right. Cell phone. Darcy, get back to work. Stop staring.
“Yeah, just thinking. Can you slot a one-on-one with Stan for after the meeting? I want to run a few details past him in person before I head back to China.”
“Sure thing.”
Thora continued talking, but Darcy had trouble focusing on her words. Who was he? Why did he look so familiar? How could someone even
look
familiar from the back?
With an effort, she tore her gaze away. She’d come here to take a peek at her new condo, forgetting that workers might still be putting the finishing touches on the complex. She should just come back tonight.
But it was hard to make herself move. She was finally here. And it was all real. Tangible. Even better than she’d hoped while sitting in her generic desk chair in her generic short-term furnished apartment in Pujiang, the most generic suburb in all of Shanghai, viewing the virtual tour on repeat.
Here, now, the gentle ocean breeze kissed her skin. Tall fronds of birds of paradise stirred in the breeze, their white-and-orange flowers like beaks. The courtyard was rich with lush plantings: a stand of pencil-thin elegant bamboo, not to mention succulents and desert flowers galore, splashes of bright color. Beyond the foliage, the low-slung whitewashed stucco of the condo complex. Beyond that, a glint of blue-green ocean. She could hear the sound of the surf as an undercurrent beneath the rat-tat-tat of workers hammering on the roof.
Speaking of which, the beautiful man was now shimmying down a ladder. Darcy watched him as she dictated a carefully worded note for Thora to give Boss Man Stan in preparation for their meeting.
The man moved with a panther-like grace, sure in his body. He’d probably never sat in a desk chair in his life. Never had a five-hour meeting. Never taken a conference call. Never—
He turned around, walking toward the front of the complex, heading for a beat-up red pickup truck parked by the sidewalk.
She saw his face. The phone slipped out of her grasp, bouncing on the cement path. She knew him.
Will Dougherty. The man she’d thought she was falling in love with four years ago, even though they’d only met in person one single time.
The reason she’d been exiled to Shanghai for four long years.
Her nemesis.
His steps slowed as he approached. She saw his confused frown, the way it wrinkled his forehead, then the moment of recognition.
“Darcy?” His voice was tight, incredulous.
At the same moment, Thora’s voice rose from her phone’s tinny speaker. “Darcy? What happened, lady? You there?”
Darcy scooped up the phone, avoiding Will’s sharp gaze. “Sorry, Thora, dropped my cell.”
“You left off with ‘Lucy in the Sky with Soap Bubbles is coming along nicely, but—’ and then the phone went clunk, and I heard you gasp.”
She should continue. She should ignore this man and keep dictating. At the very least, she should walk away.
But Will was talking. “What are you doing here? Don’t tell me you bought a unit.” His voice twisted the words so they were sharp and pointy, stinging her.
“Darcy?” Thora sounded querulous. “What’s going on?”
Darcy cradled the phone in her hand, muffling it.
“Yes. I bought a unit.” She flicked her gaze over Will. Roof, ladder, wrench in his hand, pickup truck by the curb. “I don’t have to ask what you’re doing here. Changed careers, huh? Good plan.”
His mouth twisted. She braced herself for a sarcastic comment, a blast of white-hot anger.
But no. He turned on his heel and walked away, not looking back.
Darcy stared at his back as he headed to his truck. That tanned, toned, muscular back. His new job was good for his body, that was for sure.
Oh, hell.
Will Dougherty, of all the people in Santa Genoveva, was working on her new home. How ironic was that? The floors she’d walk on, the windows she’d gaze out, even the electric outlets she’d use to plug in her computer—they all might have been installed by him.
At least his job would be over before she moved in. It wasn’t like they’d be neighbors or anything.
~*~
Darcy used the key that night. She waited late enough to make sure the crew was gone, then brought her bags of takeout food and a sleeping bag into the empty space of her very first home. The living room smelled ever so faintly of wet paint, and when she accidentally touched a wall, her fingers came away stained pale sage green.