The man was insufferable. I didn’t know how the hell I was going to last much longer here with him and not end up killing him. He was a prick. I hated him. I stomped back down the garden and into the cottage. It was damn cold, and the frosty dew had leaked through my slippers, and my feet were already soaked. I kicked them off and pulled on some fluffy socks instead, heading back to the kitchen to get myself some breakfast and tea. With the noise outside it was highly unlikely that I would be getting any more sleep, so I figured that I may as well have made the most of it and got back to my writing.

The lack of city noise wasn’t the only reason that I hadn’t been able to sleep. The thought of him lying there in a room on the other side of the driveway really hadn’t helped either. It was like being a teenager and thinking about him lying in his room while I had a sleepover in Daphne’s room. Eventually, I had grabbed my laptop and started working instead. I reread what I had written during the night. There was a hint of sexual tension in it, and I couldn’t help but wonder if that was because of what was happening between Finn and me.

I lifted my laptop and began to write...

The man couldn’t get any more fucking annoying if he tried. I had a job to do. I was here to make sure that the penthouse apartment looked terrific when the Billy Dean, the CEO of the biggest hotel chain in the States got back to what was to be his Manhattan hideaway. Yet here Nick was being a complete asshole.

“You’re not the only damn contractor that I can hire you know,” I grumbled at him.

He just gave me that infuriating smirk of his that was sexy and frustrating all at the same damn time. “Well, darlin’ you’re not the only interior designer yourself. I happen to know Billy Dean and one word from me, and you’ll be fired.” His Texan drawl really didn’t help matters. He was threatening to get me sacked from the best job I had landed in the six years that I had been an interior designer, and all I could think about was how the sound of his voice was making my body hum. Bastard.

I decided to call his bluff. “Nick, you can tell Mr. Dean anything that you like. I’m damn good at what I do, and he’d find it very hard to replace me.”

Nick leaned in, trapping me against a new wall that they were putting in. “Why don’t you show me what it is that you do, and I’ll let you know if I think that you’re any good at it or not.” His mouth was inches from mine, his smell, manly cedarwood, and musk, filled my nostrils, and the hint of something sexual in the way that he spoke to me had every inch of me responding to him.

My nipples hardened, my clit throbbed, and my panties were soaked. I stared at him defiantly, challenging him to do more. His stare got more intense, and I watched as his eyes darkened, his pupils dilated. For a split second, he was going to make his move, until his foreman called him.

“Hey Nick, the delivery truck is here with the drywall and the cement for the flooring in the master bathroom. He’s got those Italian marble tiles that we ordered too.”

“It’s about time they showed up.” He mumbled against me, not moving. “I’m coming now.” He shouted back over to the Lester the foreman before pushing himself off the wall and away from me.

I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even think straight. Something had been going to happen with Nick. And now I was just standing there, frozen, a wanton mess, turned on and frustrated as fuck.

This was going to be a long project...