I thanked Charlie for lunch and made my excuses about needing to get back to work. I stood in the kitchen of the cottage minutes later not really sure what my next move would be. I had overreacted when Finn started to question the storyline of the book, but not because I thought that he was picking at my writing skills. I was worrying that he didn’t believe that it was possible that two people who seem to hate each other would be able to fall in love, or to at least fall in lust. And when Jude started to question it too, I had to admit, that stung. I didn’t know why, but I wanted him to be thinking about me, I wanted him to be thinking that we could make that move from almost enemies to friends at the very least, lovers at the very most. But from his reaction, it really didn’t seem like something like that was at all possible.

I heard the farmhouse door slam, and I watched as Jude disappeared around the corner heading to the barn. I sighed, resigned myself to the mess of the situation and went back to the living room in front of the fire. I lifted my laptop from the coffee table and figured I would try and get some more words done before my deadline...

“What the fuck is this?”

I heard Nick’s complaints even before I got into the room. “You wanted to see me?” I smiled with fake cheer.

“Darlin’ I know that you were put on this project to try me, but would you care to explain what the ever-loving fuck this is?”

I looked at the massive piece of carved granite that he was pointing to. “That would be Mr. Dean’s Zen Fountain,” I replied matter of factly. This had not been my idea in the design process, but it was a feature that he had seen online, specifically asked for, and nothing would persuade him away from.

“A Zen Fountain?” Nick echoed.

“Yes.”

“And where, in God’s name, am I meant to put this thing?” He was waving his hands around in frustration.

I smirked, the temptation to tell him exactly where he could put the giant piece of stone was a little too much for me to bite back. “Is that really something that you want an honest answer to?”

He glared, and I found myself standing a little straighter, I was not backing down over this one. He moved into my personal space again. “Girl, I will take you over my knee and spank your ass red, if you dare open your pretty little mouth and utter the words, I think you’re about to.”

Fuck. That was one hell of a threat, and with the already noticeable heat between us, I bit my lip thinking about just how much I really wanted that to play out. I mean, I hated the man, but the notion of being bent over his lap, his hands heating up my ass in the best way possible. My filthy mind was working overtime on that one.

“I didn’t think so.” He took my silence as surrender. And I just rolled my eyes and answered anyway.

“It’s for the main lobby area, right where you get off the elevators. Mr. Dean thought that it would make a nice focal point. Or at least that’s what he had in mind.” I didn’t like it any more than Nick did, but after that reaction, there was no way in hell that I was going to say anything to him about it. I wasn’t going to agree with him. Not one bit. I liked this game a lot more with us at very opposite sides of the fence from one another.

“Oh, and Nick,” I added as I turned to walk away. “You can look at my ass now, because this red skirt, is the only way you’ll ever see it that colour. Are we clear?” I didn’t wait for his answer, I just walked away without looking back.

I was finally in the zone; my fingers were flying over the keys like a woman possessed. It was fantastic, and then it started.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

“You have got to be kidding me!” I slammed my laptop shut and set it back on the coffee table.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

I grabbed my boots and pulled them on before stropping outside to try and find the source of the noise once again.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

When I rounded the corner of the cottage there Jude was, up a ladder, hammering some facia in place.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

“OI!” I roared at the bottom of the ladders in his general direction. His shoulders flopped forward, and he sighed.

“Sorry Ellie, you’re not the only one with work to do around here.”

“On a deadline, are you?”

“As it happens, I am.”

“Well, I’m on a tighter one, and I need to get this fucking book finished, and every time I’m getting somewhere, you lot start kicking up a racket!” I was so angry with him that he was lucky to find himself at the top of his ladder still. I was about ready to shake him down from it and sit on him to take his hammer away.

He started to come down towards me.

“What are you doing?”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’m coming down the ladder.”

I glared. “Oh, aren’t we witty.”

He stopped and glared back. “Would you like a solution, or are you going to keep standing there and complaining like a bitch? I can go back up and start hammering again if you like?” He said, gesturing with his hammer back towards the roof.

I folded my arms and huffed. I wasn’t about to agree with him, but I wasn’t about to tell him to get on with his work either. I needed to have even a little silence. I watched him as he got off the last rung and looked at me. “Follow me.”

I stood still, not doing what he was suggesting. I was boring holes into the back of his head. This has to be a trick. I would move, he would lock me in the cottage or something and go back to hammering, just to annoy me.

“Are you coming?” He gestured.

Ugh. “Fine!” I stropped after him as he went into the farmhouse. He headed right for his bedroom. “Why are you going in there?”

“This is where the solution is?”

I glowered at him. “Jude, I don’t know what the fuck you think your magic solution is, but I’m not going into your bedroom with you.”

He just laughed at me. “Fine, stand there and huff, this will only take a minute.”

I stood there, my anger simmering below the surface until he reappeared from his room.

“Here.” He said thrusting an iPod and some headphones at me.

I looked at them and then looked at him. “What do I want these for? I have music on my laptop, that’s really not the issue here.”

He sighed. “They’re noise cancelling.”

“Oh.” Well, didn’t I feel like a dickhead. “Thank you.”

He nodded. “You’re welcome, and if you find that the noise is still getting through, just let me know, and I’ll figure something else out.”

I thanked him again feeling just a little ashamed of myself, and Jude headed back to the work that he was doing. I went into the cottage, back into the living room, sat back on the sofa, got my laptop back into my lap and started to scroll through his iPod to see what all he had on here. I found a playlist at the bottom of a long list only named with a heart emoji. I was intrigued. I scrolled to it and selected it. I was presented with a list that surprised me. It reminded me a lot of a lot of the times that I had shared for better or for worse with all three of the brothers.

That track when he collected us all from a nightclub for my eighteenth birthday and Rebecca threw up in the back of his car. The track that I never stopped singing with his sister the summer we were sixteen. Almost every single song reminded me of a time when Jude and his brothers had been close by.

I tried not to over think the list. It is just a coincidence. It doesn’t mean anything. I put the headphones on my head, and the banging that had restarted outside disappeared. Jude had worked his magic after all. I reread what I had been writing and let the trip down memory lane wash over me as I hammered away on the keyboard, driving my characters forward in their lust-fuelled loathing of each other. I didn’t want to think about the possibility of that anything happening between Jude and me.