I tilt my head back, letting the heat of Portland’s summer sun warm my cheeks before dropping my gaze back to the asphalt beneath my feet.
“Please,” I beg. “I know we’re late, but I’m doing everything I can. Isn’t there some sort of payment plan we can be on?”
“You’re already behind on your payment plan payments, Miss Parks.”
I know that. We’re behind on everything. I kick a stray pebble and slump against the brick. “When’s the deadline again?” I ask.
I already know. Two weeks ago was the extended deadline after the extended deadline.
Tears burn the backs of my eyes.
“One week,” the woman says in a thickly accented voice. “That’s the best I can do, and then we’ll have to take the car. You’re six months behind on the payments.”
“Three thousand dollars in a week?” I fight the urge to shriek. To kick my foot against the brick wall in frustration. But that anger is there, bubbling. Simmering. Coming to a boil that will soon bubble over.
There’s no way I can pour enough coffees or invoice enough clients to make up the difference.
A shadow around the corner of the building slowly grows and turns into a male figure as he follows it, and I straighten.
Trey Kollins. Ugh. Of course it is. If I didn’t value my life, pounding my head against a brick wall would be the perfect idea at this moment.
“Have a good day, Miss Parks.”
I snort and hang up the phone without a response. Like that’s possible now.
“Can I help you?” I ask Trey, crossing my arms over my chest. I’m still leaning against the wall but I make no effort to move. He followed me out here for a reason, and his inability to respect the word no is grating on my nerves.
“H-h…” He cringes. Shoulders raise and fall slowly. “Hi, Willow. You okay?”
His cocky grin erases the sweetness from his tone, and he props his shoulder against the wall. Why? Why is he here?
“Fine.”
His arm swoops to the side, not touching me but clearly trying to stop me from walking around him. I pull to an abrupt stop before I run into his hand. “My mom always says when a woman says ‘fine,’ it means you better run and hide because things are anything but.”
His mother’s a wise woman. A brief smile cracks through my frustration. “Did you follow me out here?”
“I wanted to apologize for earlier. And to see if I can talk you into giving me a chance at that date.”
Man, this guy is relentless. Beautiful, with dark eyes with a crazy ability to pull me in so much so it almost makes me want to say screw reality and yes to him. Avoiding reality is what helped me fall into this mess, though.
“Trey.” His name falls from my lips on a sigh. “I really don’t have the time to date, and I’m in no position for anything serious.”
Perhaps a dose of honesty will have this guy running.
He shrugs, like he has no care in the world. He probably doesn’t. At least he doesn’t have my problems. “Who said anything about something serious? I’m just looking for a weekend.”
“A weekend?” There’s no way.
“My best friend Caitlin’s getting married in San Diego this weekend. I want you to come with me.” I open my mouth to immediately object, or fall over in shock. A weekend in San Diego? Is this guy crazy? “I’ll take care of all the expenses. Separate rooms if you want, too.”
Maybe a weekend away would be good for you. My mom’s words from earlier filter through my brain and I kick them to the side. I might have the weekend off from Java Joe’s, but I still have to work. I need to get ahead on my freelance editing work so I can try to fit more in.
But the beach…it’s exactly what I imagined earlier.
“Are you joking?” I shouldn’t be entertaining this. I’m not really. But man…a weekend in San Diego? It’s a pretty dream.
“I never joke about spending time with a beautiful woman.”
Trey Kollins is a self-made millionaire. He’s on the cover of local magazines in poses that make all the single women and, my guess, most of the married ones drool over his body and his wealth. He also has a smirk on his face that says not only is he not used to hearing the word no very often, but he’ll have an enticing little one-liner like this one handy to get women to change their minds.
And yeah, it’s tempting.
Unfortunately for him, the stack of unpaid bills on my mom’s kitchen table is louder than his pickup lines. “Listen, Trey, I don’t want to be rude, and a weekend on the beach sounds like a dream, but I honestly don’t have the time. I have to work.”
I step around him. I need to get back inside, and this conversation is over.
“Molly says you have the weekend off.”
“Yeah,” I call out, not bothering to turn back. “At this job.”
Yanking open the door to the building, I keep my head held high and go back to work. This day already seems endless and it’s barely ten in the morning.
Swiping the towel off the bike’s handlebars, I wipe it across my forehead and let the pedals slow. This class has been a killer, mostly because I’m already exhausted. Partly because my head is nowhere near mentally capable of focusing on this spin class. Twice my feet slipped off the bike’s pedals in ways I’m sure will leave nasty bruises on my shins by tomorrow.
“What’s going on with you?”
I drop the towel and reach for my water bottle. “Nothing,” I tell my friend Cara.
She’s a relatively new friend I’d met at the gym months ago. I’d been coming to the night class for only a few weeks, my new job at Java Joe’s having thrown off my entire schedule, but the gym membership is the one thing I refuse to let lapse. If I don’t get my hour of workout in several times a week, I’ll lose my mind. My spin class is my sanity-saver.
Cara had taken the seat on the bike next to me and turned, and with all the nervousness in her eyes, I’d instantly known it was her first class.
“First time?” I’d asked her.
She’d laughed quietly. “Yeah, that obvious?”
“It’s not so bad.” I’d said back. It was a lie. Spin class was a sweaty bitch, and I didn’t see her for a week after that.
When she returned, she had taken a seat on the bike next to me, smiled, and said, “You’re such a liar. I couldn’t walk right until yesterday, and let me tell you, my husband wasn’t happy.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at her. Her willingness to call me out. The cute way she spoke about her husband.
We’d been friends ever since, slowly growing closer, from spin class to smoothies at the bar in the lobby afterward to the occasional night in at her house. She now has a baby that’s almost a year old, and I learned she joined the gym to help lose the baby weight, although when she mentions this, her sexy-as-hell husband, Braxton, narrows his eyes and growls at her, “You’re perfect any which way you look so shut your trap.”
They live in a high-rise penthouse, where she paints, and she works part-time at an art gallery, and their house is constantly cluttered with plastic and wood baby toys and paintbrushes that, for some reason, get littered all over the place.
“You’re lying,” she says, as I follow her from the quiet room. We’re almost always two of the last participants to leave.
Tonight I wish I’d hurried.
“Stuff on my mind.”
Not a lie. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Trey’s offer all day. A weekend away with him? What girl is crazy enough to say no? And if I work on the plane, it’s possible I can meet my current deadlines….
“Your mom?” Cara asks, and there’s a sadness in her tone. Her parents quit speaking to her well before her little boy, James, was born, and as far as I know, they’ve never even met their grandson.
Which is a shame. He’s the cutest and chubbiest little thing I’ve ever seen.
“It’s just work stuff.” I toss my towel into the hamper outside the spin class room and catch the stench of sweat. “You ready for a smoothie?”
“Sure.” Cara grins and opens her water bottle. “Then I’m making you tell me what’s going on. You have this weird look in your eyes.”
“What weird look?”
“Like you have gas. Or something.” I bark out a laugh and she shrugs. “What? I said it’s weird.”
Leave it to Cara. She’s sweet and fun and a damn good mom. She and Braxton don’t have a huge social circle, but they’re social people, and I love being at their place, either hanging out with Cara when Braxton works late at his tattoo parlor, or babysitting Jimmy when they go out. They can easily afford a sitter, but I like the time with him and insist.
“Let’s just say I was given an offer I’m having a hard time forgetting.”
“Like a job?” Her brown hair sways in her ponytail as she bounces down the stairs.
“More like an indecent proposal,” I mutter.
She looks back at me, frowning, and then recognition forces her brows up her forehead. Leaning in, she grabs my arm. “Someone offered you a million to sleep with them? And you didn’t call me?”
She sounds awed. Weirdly excited. I stammer once or twice, trying to find the words, and unfortunately, my own stammer only reminds me of Trey’s. And darn it. I haven’t been able to stop thinking of him. His offer. His eyes. His body. Some of that’s new. The rest is all stuff I’ve thought of before. What would it be like to be on a date with a man who looks like that? It can just be a date, right?
More than once I’ve kicked myself for not asking more questions.
“No. Like a weekend trip to the beach.”
“What?” she shrieks and grabs my arm. “What are you talking about?”
Cara is one of the few friends I have and I need some advice. Going away for the weekend is irresponsible. Who knows what my mom will do without me here to make sure she eats? And how in the heck can I possibly make up the money we need? Still, the beach…Trey Kollins in swim trunks…
“So, have you ever heard of Trey Kollins?”
“The tech millionaire dude? Single guy? Sexy as sin, second only to Braxton?”
I bark out a laugh. She’s crazy. “So that’s a yes?”
“Uh. Yeah.” She pauses then and her mouth drops. “Are you telling me Trey is the guy who offered you a weekend away? On a beach? And you’re debating this? Oh, girl.” She yanks my arm and drags me down the stairs. “You are telling me everything, every tiny little juicy detail.”