Marriage by Design by Elley Arden

Author:Elley Arden [Arden, Elley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: F+W Media
Published: 2014-07-10T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Stuart wandered around the lobby of the small storefront used as headquarters for the North Side Neighborhood Society. Black-and-white photos, depicting the area’s rich history, hung in precise rows around the gray-colored room that held a desk and a few chairs. Simple, clean lines and masculine colors. He liked the nostalgic feel. But, he didn’t like the way his stomach clenched every time his phone vibrated against his hip.

His father and Ethan were looking for him. He’d missed an afternoon meeting. He never missed meetings … until now. But this was important to him. He just couldn’t figure out exactly why. Was his desire to best Ethan so strong he couldn’t overlook the obvious benefit to the company if absolutely anyone bought and moved the row homes? The project would go off as planned then. Wasn’t that what he wanted? Wasn’t that what he should be caring about?

He heard Angie’s laughter in the other room, and he smiled. He still wanted her, too. Dangerous thinking, buddy. Emotional thinking. He couldn’t risk it if he wanted to stay a step ahead of his brother and Louie.

“Thank you so much for hearing me out.” Angie walked into the room with an enormous smile on her face.

Good sign.

Clarisse Young, the association’s executive director, stood in the doorway of her office. “Thank you for coming to me,” she said. “Best of luck.”

When Angie and Stuart were alone on the sidewalk, he said, “That seems to have gone well.”

“It did. They definitely want me to have the houses over the city demolishing them, but she warned me opposition to the highway is growing, and they’re looking for any legal way to keep the houses on their current land and the highway out.”

This could end up a series of court battles—just like Paris.

Before he could get too panicked about that, she pulled her phone from her front pocket. “It’s Maddy,” she said. “Guess it’s time to find out what the Historic Review Commission has to say about this.”

He didn’t try to keep up when she walked ahead.

His phone buzzed again. A text message this time. From Ethan. Where are you? Thought you were at the Forbes site, but nobody’s seen you there.

“Oh my God.”

He looked up at the sound of her voice to see her coming toward him. What now? But she was smiling.

“Maddy said as far as the HRC is concerned they only want the houses preserved. They don’t care about the property. That’s not their beef.”

“So?” He was afraid to sound too hopeful.

“So, a signed bill of sale would halt the lawsuit on their end.” She threw her arms around his neck and squeezed. “I could really end up with these houses.”

And maybe he could end up with her.

Silly thought. Completely impractical. But with his arms around her waist and his face pressed against her soft, lavender-scented hair, it was a nice thought, too.

“Let me take you to City Hall, where you can drop off the proposal, then later tonight, let me take you to dinner to celebrate,” he said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.