Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75323 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75323 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
He was right.
I wasn’t starting from scratch.
I had a plan.
I just needed to set it in motion again.
“Or…”
“Or?” I asked.
“Or you don’t do the work.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you don’t have to be a real estate developer, right? You could be a land developer. You have all the approvals and permits. You can sell the buildable plots instead of doing all the work yourself.”
“But I ordered materials.”
“Yeah. Use ‘em for your house. You have twenty acres, right?”
“Right.”
“Even if you subdivided with one-acre lots, that’s twenty plots you can sell. It’s not your concern if or when someone builds on them. But you get, what, a hundred grand each plot? Maybe a little more, seeing as the developers are sniffing around here. That’s more than enough to build your house.”
“That’s an idea…”
“I know it’s not the grand original plan to build a developer empire. But you could lean into your other strengths if you want that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean there are a lot of people in this town who need to wash their money, right? You’ve got the skills to do that. And the potential business plan that will let you easily layer in millions of dollars.”
“You want me to ask the Murphys if they want to get into a development business with me?”
“The Murphys, the Novikoffs, Czar, Erion, Slash… you’ve got a lot of options. Just something to consider before you make any moves. They have the liquid cash to allow you to build that empire you want.”
He wasn’t wrong. It was actually one of the easiest ways to wash money. There were so many different expenses in building. It was easy to hide hundreds of thousands, if not millions if the project was big enough, so that it could never be found even in a forensic audit.
“I know it takes on more financial work for you. But it opens you up to a major empire. Millions in your retirement fund.”
He wasn’t wrong. It might mean a few years of a lot of work for me, but it would lead to an easy life for the next fifty: to private schools for my kids, trust funds, Ivy League universities. Amazing vacations. Money enough to invest back in my community, in charities I cared about.
It was a lofty dream.
But now that it was presented to me, I couldn’t help but start building it, brick by brick.
“That would require proposals and financial models, and—”
“And I’m sure you’re more than capable of getting that done if that’s how you want to go about it.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “I’ll have to think about it.” But with how strongly my mind latched onto it, I knew it was something I was going to seriously look into. “Thanks for the idea.”
To that, he nodded.
“How’s it feel being home?” he asked.
“Well, the motel isn’t really home.”
“But you can start looking into getting that fixed now.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
I was surprised, though, how I wasn’t already looking at apartment listings.
“You don’t seem eager.”
“I think I’m just… processing.”
Raff nodded as he pushed off the door and moved toward the desk, placing his hands flat on my new desk.
“Processing the business possibilities again?” he asked. “Or more personal things?”
I couldn’t help but have my gaze sweep away, pretending to look at something on my laptop. Because I wasn’t sure I could lie to his face.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Raff pressed my laptop lid closed, making my gaze shoot up automatically.
“Yeah, Lula, you do.”
I swallowed hard and tried to force some indifference into my voice even as my pulse sped.
“Really?” I asked. “You, of all people, are going to read into a casual hookup?”
He was silent for a second, the only sign that he was affected by my words at all being the muscle that ticked in his jaw.
“A casual hookup,” he repeated. “You’re right; I’ve known more than my fair share of those. Which is why I’m as close as you can get to an expert on what those are. This,” he said, waving between us, “is not that.”
“This… isn’t anything,” I clarified. “It was just… a road trip fling.”
“Yeah? That why your eyes look swollen, like you’ve been crying?” he asked. His hand reached out, tracing the line of my bracelet. “Or why you’re wearing this?”
“It’s just a bracelet.”
“And you have dozens of others you could have worn. But you wore this one.”
“It doesn’t mean—” I started, but the lie died on my tongue.
“You can’t lie to me, huh?” he asked as he moved around my desk. “But are you lying to yourself?”
He grabbed the arms of my chair and turned me to face him.
“Admit it, you haven’t been able to get me off your mind since you walked away from me at that airstrip.”
“I…”
I couldn’t think of anything to say. I couldn’t think of anything at all except how close he was to me, how much I missed that coconut-lime-rum scent of him, how much I missed him.