The problem was, ever since they’d met that first day, there was just something about her neighbor that rubbed Solie the wrong way. They hadn’t hit it off when his moving truck had blocked her in when she was trying to rush out to work, and things had gone downhill ever since. Mind you, she could have been agreeable and simply asked him nicely to have his men move the truck. But no, in frustration heightened by her haste she’d blasted him on the spot, and the fact that he’d paid her back by taking his own sweet time in getting them to move hadn’t endeared him to her one bit.
But the worst thing about the whole situation – honestly, the most annoying thing – was that from the very first day she’d laid eyes on him, even as she was cursing him out her body was tingling with an awareness she hadn’t felt in the longest. It was the first time anything like that had happened to her since she’d gotten rid of her slimy, cheating boyfriend over a year before.
And the second worst thing – if you could have two worst things - was that this man who’d moved in next door kind of looked like her ex. And everybody knew that men as good-looking as that were dogs. Painfully aware of her weakness for tall men with raven-black hair, piercing dark eyes and chiseled jaw line, she really didn’t want one of those living beside her.
She had absolutely no intention of slipping and falling in attraction or anything else with him. And that was why he shouldn’t have moved in beside her.
Damn the man!
***
Of all the places in Fort Lauderdale he could have moved to, he had to choose the house next to the craziest, most cantankerous woman he’d ever met. Talk about bad luck.
Ransom shook his head. He didn’t even know the girl’s name but already she’d needled her way under his skin in more ways than one. Was there nothing she didn’t complain about? If it wasn’t the hedge it was his dog and now this. So he couldn’t make noise either? And how else was he going to get his construction done?
Well, if she was complaining about that then she would soon have a whole lot more complaining to do because he’d already planned on having the guys over next Tuesday to celebrate the start of the NBA season. As far as he was concerned, October twenty-nine could not come fast enough.
And if a certain dark-haired beauty with flashing ebony eyes and pouty lips had a problem with him and the guys hanging out in his new gazebo, then too bad. His crew was not a quiet bunch and he was not about to apologize for it.
As he thought about the girl he was actually smiling as he grabbed his bright yellow hard hat and went out the door, pulling it closed behind him. At least she couldn’t be accused of being boring. When it came to neighbors she was one of the most interesting he’d ever had, even if not the most friendly.
Ransom had never been one to glory in his wealth and when he’d decided to move out of his penthouse suite in Miami Beach to settle in Fort Lauderdale he’d had no regrets. He’d grown up in a humble home in Iowa and it was only through drive, perseverance and sheer luck that he’d made it to where he’d now reached, one of fewer than five hundred billionaires in the entire United States. He’d always loved the construction industry and had started his business twelve years earlier, building low income homes in rural communities. Despite the economic recession, or perhaps because of it, his business boomed throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century until he was constructing homes in forty states as well as Canada and Mexico.
His massive break came in 2009 when he landed a huge government contract that doubled his business in the first year and by year three he’d secured a place in the nation’s exclusive list of billionaires. The business had him travelling all over North America and he soon ended up with homes in Toronto, Dallas, Washington D. C. and Miami, all of them luxurious, but for this project in Fort Lauderdale he wanted a change. This time he was ditching the image of the grand CEO of Kent Industries and going back to his roots. In Fort Lauderdale his plan was to be ‘hands-on’ and he wanted to live like it, too. No exclusive dwellings for him. He’d be mingling with the regular crowd.
Pity he hadn’t realized that this mingling would include a wicked witch on his west side, a pretty little one at that. Too bad she had a mean streak that he would do best to avoid.
And he would avoid her, all right, at least until the end of the day. He would leave his men at their task while he headed for his latest construction site in the heart of Fort Lauderdale’s business district, a fifty-storey building that would house the corporate headquarters of one of the largest clothing retailers in the United States. At that height it would become the tallest building in the city’s skyline, beating Las Olas River House by eight floors.
This was a big move for Ransom, stepping out of the construction of residential homes and into commercial buildings, but as far as he was concerned it was a timely move. He’d never been one to remain stagnant and was always challenging himself to try new things and that was part of the reason his business had grown at warp speed. With his venture into commercial construction he could only imagine how much farther he could go in the next ten years.
As he drove he reached over and pressed the speed dial on his cell phone.
“Yeah, boss?”
The voice of his second-in-command for the project boomed loud and clear, drawing a small smile from Ransom. If there was one person he knew he could count on it was Trevor Jones, his chief construction and project manager. In over seven years of working with him he’d been nothing less than one hundred percent dependable.
“How’s the home project going?” Trevor asked.
“Pretty good. It will be ready long before my NBA launch party. You’re coming, right?”
“When you say party do I ever turn you down?” He gave a deep, rumbling chuckle into the phone. “I’ll be there and I’ll bring the beer.”
“You know I’ve got that covered. Just bring yourself. But a word of warning.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m having the usual crowd, probably close to a dozen of us, and you’re by far the loudest. This time you’ve got to tone it down.”
“Why’s that?”
“I’ve got a pit bull living next door and she doesn’t like noise. She’s likely to fly over the hedge and rip your face off if you get her riled up.”