CHAPTER TWO

REAGAN

I watched as the sun rose over the Golden Gate Bridge, lighting up the hill sides and chasing away the dawn. I knew I chose this office for a reason. 

The crystal-clear floor to ceiling windows made me feel like I could step out and float on the puffy fog rolling out. I paid a pretty penny for this view and it was worth every cent. 

Beep! 

The intercom on my massive mahogany desk chimed with a message, interrupting my morning tranquility. 

I set my espresso down with a sigh. It was too damn early to answer the demands of the world but I didn't reach this position and status by ignoring problems. 

I hit the button to answer the line to my secretary just outside my office. 

"Yes, Justine?" 

"You have a call from the manager at the Cloverville site," her voice was small, high-pitched and nervous. "He said there's an important issue with one of the locals."

What the fuck, Jose. You're the best in the business. Why are you bothering me with this shit?

"Put him through," I told her. 

"Yes, sir," she squeaked. 

I sighed again as I sat down and pinched the bridge of my nose while I waited for her to transfer the call. 

I know what you're wondering and yes, I've fucked my secretary. I didn't intend to become one of those rich assholes and yet here I am. 

It wasn't her fault. I came onto her after too much Scotch at a company party after a long dry spell. She didn't deserve to lose her job because of my fuck-up.

But ever since then she acts like she's afraid of me, like she's worried I'm going to blackmail her or some shit. I understand her fear but that would never happen. Screwing over employees was a one-way ticket back to the slums of Oakland and I had no intention of trading my view of the bay for one of a piss-stained alley. 

My desk phone rang and I answered it immediately. 

"What's going on, Jose?" 

"Sells, this job site is right next to a goddamn nutcase. She's shooting a fucking gun off into the air and saying we're on her property!" 

"Whoa, what?" 

I sat up abruptly in my seat. It had to be a prank. You never know with construction workers but Jose sounded scared out of his mind.

"Is the crew in danger? Did you call the police?" 

"No one's hurt, she's just waving the thing in the air and yelling at us to leave. We did call but the cop on the phone just laughed and told us not to fuck with the Sage family. What the fuck is this place, Sells? This town is fuckin' weird."

I heard a female voice yelling in the background along with a dog barking. She said something like, "Is that your boss on the phone? Let me talk to him!" 

"She wants to talk to you," Jose confirmed in my ear. 

"Talking on the phone won't get anywhere with someone like this," I said, rising from my seat. "I'll be there in a half hour." 

I hung up the phone and immediately paged Justine. 

“Please tell Kenny to prepare the helicopter. I’m going to the Cloverville work site.” 

“Yes, Mr. Sells,” she said meekly. 

I polished off my espresso and took a deep breath to steel myself before exiting my office. Justine sat just outside my door at her own desk, typing away at her keyboard and not looking up. 

“Hey listen, Justine,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound like a complete asshole. 

The typing stopped and she looked up just slightly over her thick-framed glasses. 

“If working here makes you uncomfortable after what happened, I understand,” I began. “You can move to another department if you’d like with no decrease in pay.” 

“So there’s…” She paused, gulped and looked up at me more steadily. “There’s no chance of it happening again?” 

Ugh, not this again.

“I’m sorry Justine, but no,” I answered, trying to sound sympathetic but firm. “What happened was a mistake. A lapse in judgment. I should have been professional and I wasn’t. But I won’t make that mistake again going forward.” 

“Oh.”

Her eyes dropped to her keyboard again. 

“Okay.” 

Not wanting to drag this out and make it awkward, I turned and started toward the elevator that would bring me up to the helipad. 

“Again, no hard feelings if it makes you uncomfortable,” I called out over my shoulder. 

When I stepped into the elevator and the door finally closed, I exhaled loudly and muttered curses as the sleek metal box carried me upward.

“Fucking shit,” I breathed, tapping my fist on the wall in frustration.

There had to be some women out there who just saw a good fuck for what it was worth, right? None of this only being with each other, falling in love bullshit. It was easy enough before I had any money but now that I owned half of the commercial real estate in California, women wanted to sink their claws into me for as long as they could.

Too bad nothing could hold me down. Not even a diamond-encrusted pussy that tasted like Scotch. 

Life was too short to bind yourself to one person. I learned that before I had a cent to my name.

***

The helicopter ride from San Francisco to Cloverville was short and scenic. I helped myself to another espresso from the onboard machine as the morning sun rays bathed the hills in warm, golden light. 

I was going to need the energy if I kept getting called out to job sites to put out fires like these. Sometimes I wondered why I even hired managers. 

Kenny touched us down right next to the job site, a wide clearing tucked right up against the Solano Hills that would soon be home to Cloverville's newest neighborhood. We had several housing developments planned, retail and grocery stores, a gym, and even more commercial space for local businesses to move into. 

The site bordered on the apple orchard of a scenic produce farm, the owner of which I assumed was the one causing trouble. 

My people stood around watching as the helicopter landed, machinery untouched and unmoving. 

Tell me again what I pay you people for. 

Jose made a beeline toward the helicopter as I stepped out of the cabin. Following right on his heels was a snarling dog and an angry-looking woman. 

"This is the person I called you about," Jose said through gritted teeth. 

I straightened the lapels on my suit jacket and offered my hand and a smile to the woman who looked like she wanted to send her dog straight for my throat. 

"Reagan Sells at your service," I offered. 

"A helicopter, really?" she sneered in a bitchy tone. "Who are you, James Bond?"

"I just told you who I was," I answered, keeping the charm in my voice. "It's only good manners that you do the same." 

"Look, it doesn't matter," she carried on, ignoring my hand and introduction. "You need to tell your people to leave. This property is mine. You're all trespassing. How many times do I have to say it?"

I didn't respond right away but took a moment to really look at the riled up woman standing before me. 

Not many women, or people for that matter, looked attractive when they were truly as angry as this. I could practically see the smoke coming from her ears and nostrils. 

But my dick was also rising to express its approval, which rarely happened around angry women. 

She was tall on shapely, muscular legs that looked like they belonged on a soccer player, though she still stood comfortably under my six feet and four inches. 

Chestnut brown hair swept around the dark, warm eyes that dared to challenge me. She had a young, petite face despite her bronzed skin darkened from years in the sun. A big, curvaceous ass and tits that strained heavily against the jacket that held them back completed the ensemble.

She wasn't dolled up in the slightest, rather she looked like she just tumbled out of bed. I wondered if this farm girl ever wore a full face of makeup in her life. 

And that made her all the more pleasing to look at. 

"Let's try this again like adults," I offered, stepping in closer to her. "I'm Reagan. What's your name, sweetheart?" 

"Pepper Sage," she spat out like a curse. "I own this farm and the property it stands on, which includes the ground you're standing on so if you don't mind--"

"The mayor gave us his explicit, written permission, Miss Sage," I said with a raised hand as if placating a child. "We've been talking to the city for nearly a year. Have you read the papers? Seen the local news?" 

"I've been a little busy," she shot back through gritted teeth. "Running this damn place and making a living."

I raised an eyebrow in curiosity. From the aerial view in the helicopter, the farm looked to be at least fifty acres. As strong as she looked, there was no way she worked this all by herself. 

"In any case, Mayor Stevens made it very clear that the edge of your property is marked by the dirt road going around the farm." I gestured around us with my index finger. "Which means your property line ends just beyond the apple trees." 

"That's not true," she hissed. "We've had crops all the way up to the base of the hill before. We just haven't recently because we needed to downsize."

"How about this." I rubbed my hands together, probably enjoying arguing with this woman a lot more than I should. "If you can prove to me the land is yours, I'll buy it from you." 

"No." 

"No, you won't prove it or no, you won't sell it?"

"Both."

I chuckled and crossed my arms. Stubborn women have always been my favorite.

"Miss Sage, you haven't even heard an offer yet. I'm no appraiser but I'm confident a parcel this size can fetch you-" 

"It's not for fucking sale." 

Pepper swung her right arm that had been resting at her side up to her chest, where she cocked her shotgun with a sharp click-clack.

My eyes widened as I stepped away from her with my hands raised. Fuck, Jose wasn’t kidding. 

“Alright, alright,” I said softly. Thankfully she pointed the thing in the air and not at us. “We’ll leave now and revisit this later. Okay, Pepper?” 

“Hmph,” she huffed skeptically. “Try leaving and never coming back.” 

“This is a multi-million dollar development project,” I said as I backed away slowly. “It’s not just going to go away.” 

I shot her a wink and a smirk. “But maybe we can compromise over dinner.”

She huffed again and turned on the heel of her boot, her dog following behind. 

“By the time I’m back in the orchard today, all of you better be gone,” she called over her shoulder and raised her gun in the air to punctuate her point. 

Kenny and I had room in the helicopter for one more, so we brought Jose aboard while the rest of their crew piled into their trucks. 

“I’ll pay everyone for a full day’s work today,” I told Jose as we situated our headsets. “And every day until we’re actually able to begin construction, whenever that is.” 

Jose nodded then promptly shook his head in disbelief as the helicopter lifted into the air. 

“The people in this town are fuckin’ crazy, man. I told you.” 

“Yeah,” I said absently in agreement, those wild dark eyes cutting sharply through my mind. 

But does crazy in the head also mean crazy in bed? 

Only one way to find out.