That went better than Reed could have hoped for. He didn’t think she’d agree.
He wasn’t lying either when he said Taylor wasn’t like other women he normally spent his time with. Nor was she anything at all like Whitney.
After he’d found signs of Whitney having an affair in her house, he’d been in shock. He shook his head over that thought too. Not just signs, but clothing. Other men’s clothing. Cards that he didn’t send, a box of mementos that she’d kept from all the men she’d been with in her life. It was a big box. Not to mention the packages of condoms that were all over the place, opened wrappers in the trash. He wasn’t using them; she was on the pill.
The clues were all in front of his face for months, but he just took her word that work was taking up all of her time, that she was tired at night when he wanted to stop over and see her. And he shouldn’t have. He wouldn’t do that ever again. Never take another woman’s word for anything.
He’d never felt such rage when he was going through her things. He’d been a man that was happy. That was always smiling. But knowing he’d been played a fool had just sent him over the edge. And then when they shipped Whitney’s body home...it all built up again those weeks later. He was her fiancé and he had to put up a front and go to the services like everything was fine. Like he was grieving her death when he was actually grieving his stupidity. The last thing he wanted was anyone to know the truth of why she was in Bali. That he was one of those guys that should have seen all the signs of the woman he loved having an affair, but he’d been so blinded by having the girl he’d longed for all through high school.
Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for it to get out. Her place of employment knew she wasn’t there for work and speculation started to fly when two people from the area were listed on the news as dying during the hurricane. Damn local news thinking they had to report everything.
It was too much of a coincidence and people were putting the pieces together. It wasn’t until months later he found out this guy had been in Whitney’s office multiple times.
So he sucked it up and was the grieving fiancé at the services. Yeah, he was devastated—over lost dreams he’d been having for half his life—but the anger really did override everything else. His rage hid his sorrow. It hid how much his heart was breaking.
It’d taken months for the resentment to diminish, and then the depression set in. He’d loved her. He was going to marry her. She was gone. He hated what she did. He hated how it made him feel and he’d never forgive her.
Now she was just gone from his life and there was no sense of closure for him.
From that point on, he hated the world and felt the same about women in general.
When he found a woman to spend the night with, it was exactly as Taylor said. Some bimbo he picked up at a bar just looking to have some fun. Stock in condoms? Yep, he had them in plenty.
After a year or so of that, the boredom set in.
He didn’t want a relationship, but he wasn’t interested in dumb blondes snapping their gum or doing shots with him in a bar.
He wanted someone he could carry on a conversation with. Someone he could spend time with. All those things he had with Whitney when they started dating and he thought they would last forever.
He knew he couldn’t get that and sex from a woman without them wanting more though.
This was a compromise in his eyes. He could be friends with Taylor and hoped to hell he could keep her out of his dreams. Did he want to have sex with her? Holy hell yes.
Was he going to? Not unless they could figure out a way of doing it with no strings attached.
Though it might be easier than he realized since she didn’t seem to want anything to do with men even though she did agree to this date.
Which brought up another question as to why she did that.
“Reed!”
He turned his head when he was walking out of the office building to see Josh pulling into the parking lot. “What’s up? Why aren’t you on site?”
“I was looking for you,” Josh said. “One of the guys said you were coming here for something.”
He wasn’t going to tell Josh the reason he was in the building. Josh loved to gossip and he’d want details that Reed wasn’t in the mood to share with anyone. As much as Josh knew, there were some things Reed couldn’t bring himself to share.
Like his self-loathing every time he let himself back into his house after a night with a woman that only satisfied a physical need.
The party was still two weeks away and there was a good chance Taylor would change her mind or bail on him. Until he knew for sure, he wasn’t letting anyone know about it. Josh was bound to bust his ass one way or another like he always did anyway and Reed wasn’t in the mood.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“One of the homeowners showed up at the development to check on their house and they’re annoyed at the house going up next to them.”
“What?” Reed asked. “Who and what is their problem?”
“The Cotters and they don’t like the house being built on the lot next door,” Josh explained and tried to hide his grin. Josh knew how much Reed hated dealing with these nuisances. That was his father’s thing, but his parents were traveling for a few weeks. His father had been doing less and less work for the business in the past two years and he couldn’t begrudge him that. He’d worked hard for a long time, but Reed didn’t have the tact his father did.
“Sometimes I just want to take a hammer and beat myself silly with it,” he said. “Did they say what is wrong with the house being built next to them? Not that they’ve got any say in it at all.”
“They said it’s too small,” Josh said, smiling now.
Reed rolled his eyes. All new homeowners got to choose from the house plans they wanted. Most were on the larger grand size, but there were a few smaller ones. They were still grand in their own way, but just smaller. “Too damn bad. They could have bought that second lot if they wanted to.”
“No one does that,” Josh said. “Not when you charge so much for the land alone. It’s cheaper to buy the house and the land.”
“Exactly. I’m not in the business to sell land to someone. If they want land that much, they should go out into the country and not live in a development. I’d lose money selling land alone, so I’ve got to make it worth the profit for me.”
“I told them you’d be in touch with them, but they said they’re going to stay on site until you show up.”
“Lovely,” he said. Just what he needed today. “Fine, I’ll head there now and get it over with.”
“What are you going to say to them?” Josh said.
“I’ll figure it out on my way. Don’t worry, I’ll play nice. I don’t need them complaining to my father, but the bottom line is, they’ve got no control over who their neighbors are going to be.”
“Very true. They can fight it out when they all live next door to each other,” Josh said smirking. Probably getting ready for some juicy news to spread to the crew.
“I don’t need that either. I’ve got enough of my father’s smooth-talking skills that I’ll work it out and make sure that the neighbors don’t want to kill each other on top of it. I don’t need any wars in the development over the fact that some retired couple wanted to have a smaller, easier to maintain home. The Cotters knew what all the house plans were and if they chose that plot and the biggest house, that’s their problem. It’s not like they weren’t aware this could be a possibility.”
“There is no accounting for people’s thoughts,” Josh said.
“None at all,” he said, which reminded him of Taylor and their conversation. He still thought she was hiding something from him. He hadn’t missed how quickly she didn’t want him to pick her up at her house. He knew where she lived, so maybe she just was embarrassed?
Since he had access to her personnel file, he’d checked it out before. Just being nosy more than anything, which made him think of it as something Josh would have done. She lived in an older neighborhood. The houses were small and in decent shape, but nothing compared to what his company built.
It didn’t matter and he couldn’t waste his time thinking about that now. Taylor Winston was taking up way too much of his thoughts lately for someone who’d said he didn’t want to get involved with anyone.
Yet here he was trying to find ways to spend time with her.