Oh, God. This place is disgusting.

Tess was kicking herself for not sending a team of cleaners in here before she’d packed her bags and flown over. What had she been thinking? It certainly hadn’t occurred to her that the apartment would be in this sort of mess. She’d known about the tattoo studio downstairs, but she’d figured the two places had remained independent of each other, with the doors shut between them. She’d thought the apartment might have been dusty and in need of a good airing, but she’d been told it had been left to her furnished, and so she’d assumed she’d have been able to move straight in. She certainly hadn’t thought the guys downstairs would have been using it as some kind of doss house.

She stared around at the mess. Empty beer cans, pizza boxes, and overflowing ashtrays filled every surface. She didn’t even want to think what the bathroom would be like.

This guy, Art, was a dick, too. Her whole ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ thing had been completely wrong. She absolutely could judge this one. He looked like a hard-ass, and he acted like one, too. She was amazed he’d carried her suitcase for her and hadn’t just watched her struggle up the stairs with it while he laughed with his friends.

She hesitated. She had two options—she could turn around and walk out again, and find a hotel until this place was cleaned up, or she could roll up her sleeves and get stuck in. While the hotel option was more appealing, she wasn’t exactly drowning in money. It had cost a lot to fly out here, and even though the property might be worth a fortune, she wasn’t exactly cash rich. A hotel and cleaning crew would set her back several hundred pounds, which was even more in dollars. Plus, she could tell this guy was spoiling for a fight. She bet he’d deliberately left it like this, hoping to frighten her off. Well, it wasn’t going to work.

Instead, she forced herself to smile brightly. “What time do you guys finish?”

He narrowed his blue eyes. “Why? Are you taking us out?”

“No, you’re going to come up here and help me sort this place out.”

He barked laughter. “The guys are never gonna go for that.”

She glanced at the empty boxes and cans. “How about if I throw in free pizza and beer.” She didn’t think she should need to bribe them into doing the chores—after all, they weren’t ten years old and this was their mess, but she figured a few pizzas and some beer was going to be cheaper than a professional cleaning crew and a hotel. “Besides,” she continued, “it looks like a lot of stuff here belongs to you all, and I’m sure as hell not going to be sorting through it. If you can’t be bothered to come up and help, I’ll be throwing everything into black bags and it’ll be going in the trash.”

He scowled at her again, but she knew she’d won this battle at least.

“Fine,” he snapped. “I think the last client is at seven. We’ll be up after that.”

“Great.”

He leaned into her, and for a moment, she had the strange idea that he was going to press the side of his face against hers. Her heart beat hard, the masculine scent of him making her heady and her stomach swirling in a sensation she hadn’t felt for some time. He was totally male, unrefined, coarse, yet somehow her body reacted to him on a purely primitive level.

He snatched something from behind her and moved away, and the moment was gone.

“Sorry.” One side of his mouth lifted in a smirk. “I need this for later.”

He held a folder, which she realised he’d taken from the bookcase behind her, and waved it at her.

With that, he turned around and stalked out of the apartment, leaving her standing there, watching his back as he left.

She exhaled a breath and leaned her shoulder against the wall. Wow. She hoped every meeting with him wasn’t going to be as fraught as that one had been. She’d end up a nervous wreck within a week. He was clearly the sort of man who didn’t like the idea of a woman stepping into his territory. Well, tough. She was here and she wasn’t going to allow herself to be bullied out of a place she owned. It wasn’t in her nature to take people on, but she also wasn’t going to be walked all over by some British meathead.

The exhaustion of all the travel, plus the jetlag, swept over her. She desperately wanted to sleep, but there was no way she could bring herself to lie down on the bed in the small bedroom. She couldn’t imagine when the sheets had last been washed, if they’d ever been washed. She’d go out and buy herself new ones. A new bed would be nice, if she could afford one, though she thought she might have to make do, for a while at least.

Tess sighed again and pushed herself back upright. She wished she wasn’t so tired. She was sure everything would be easier to handle without the fog of exhaustion surrounding her. It might be mid-day here in England, but it was still the middle of the night in the States, and she’d barely slept on the flight over. She’d been so worked up about starting this new life, and wondering if she’d made the wrong choice, she hadn’t been able to get her mind to switch off. She was still questioning if she’d done the right thing.

Tess shook the doubts away.

No, she’d had to leave. There was no question. Staying in the small town where she’d grown up wasn’t going to work. Everyone knew too much about her business and she was sick of all the patronising, twee enquiries into how she was doing, when all people really wanted was a bit of gossip they could pass onto their friends over coffee. When this place had landed in her lap, it had been like her aunt had handed her a lifeline. Tess had only ever met her aunt once—during that trip here she’d taken with her father when she’d been ten—but she’d been her only living relative, so it made sense that she was the one who’d been left the property. Even so, Tess couldn’t help wondering if both her father and aunt were looking down on her, seeing her struggling, and gifted her something from heaven.

Right, now, however, this might turn out to be closer to hell.

Figuring she needed something to do that didn’t involve cleaning up another person’s mess, Tess decided to go grocery shopping in preparation for the clean-up crew later. Besides, if she was going to stay awake until what constituted a reasonable bedtime, she was going to need coffee.

She headed downstairs and sneaked out through the rear exit so she didn’t have to come face to face with the angry, hot tattooist again.

No, not hot. She didn’t think he was hot.

He was an asshole, and she’d do best to remember that.