I was a curious cat.
I wanted to know how cheap he thought I was.
I slid out the flap and pulled out the piece of paper.
It was so much money they couldn’t even write a cheque.
Cheapskates.
Either way, nine hundred thousand wasn’t even close to what the property was worth. I didn’t know much about property values, but I wasn’t dumb—the building itself was a bit of a mess, if that wasn’t the understatement of the century, but the land was worth a small fortune.
“Mr Tierney—”
“Declan.”
“Mr Tierney,” I repeated, closing the envelope back up. “Are you mocking me?”
His eyebrows shot up.
He was surprised.
Good.
“I’m sorry?”
Damn right he was.
I stood up and handed the envelope back to him. “I should charge you that much for wasting my time. I know what that property is worth, and I know that number is not it.”
He sighed and switched the envelopes.
Christ.
Did he have a stationery aisle in his jacket?
“What about this one?”
“Please don’t waste your time—or mine, for that matter,” I said, pushing it back towards him. “I’m not selling The Ivy, and I’m not selling the land. You couldn’t give me a number that would make me do that. Now, if you weren’t invited, this is a private function, so please leave.”
He tucked the envelopes back into his inner pocket and smirked. “You’ll sell, Miss O’Neil, once you realise how much work it is to get that place back to a usable condition.”
“She said she’s not selling,” Ashley said, joining us and putting the drinks on the table. “If I heard her from the bar, you definitely heard her from there.”
Mr Tierney looked at her like she wasn’t worth his time.
She probably wasn’t.
She didn’t have any land he could try to buy.
“Here.” He held his card out to me. “In case you change your mind.”
I took the card and dropped it into a half-drunk glass of Coke that had been sitting on the table for God knows how long. “I’m. Not. Selling,” I said, raising my voice and drawing attention from others around us. “And even if I was, you and your shoddy, half-arsed construction company wouldn’t even be on my list of considerations, Mr Tierney. The Ivy has been in my family for two hundred years—there’s no monetary amount you could offer me that would make it worth selling, especially not to someone who’ll tear it down to build rows of identical, soulless matchbox houses. Now, again, please leave.”
He stared at me for a moment, ice building in his gaze. I half expected him to start shooting it out of his fingertips like Elsa.
“We’ll see,” he said, his tone as cold as his eyes.
Brandon slammed his bottle on the table and stood next to Mr Tierney. “She asked you to leave.”
The contractor eyed him before turning around with one last murderous glance at me on his way out. The whole pub seemed to be quiet for a moment, but the noise level rapidly rose back to where it was before like nothing had happened.
Brandon looked at me, his blue eyes piercing. “You okay?”
I nodded, sitting back down. “Thank you. I’m fine.”
“Was he trying to buy the B&B? I didn’t hear everything.”
“Yes. He might be the first, but I doubt he’ll be the last. It’s a lot of land in a prime location. I just thought he might have better manners than to ask me at Grandpa’s wake.”
“What did he offer you?” Ash asked, pushing my lemonade towards me. “You looked, right?”
“At the first one,” I said, bobbing my head. “Nine hundred grand.”
Brandon gave a low whistle. “There were two envelopes, right?”
“Yeah. I didn’t look at the second, but I’d imagine it was at least a million.”
Ash blew out a breath, shaking her head. “Is it worth that?”
“No idea, but probably.” I laughed, picking up the glass. “I don’t know a thing about property prices, to be honest, but it’s not always about that, is it? I’m the fifth generation of my family to own this place. You can’t put a price on history.”
Brandon grimaced. “No, but he’s certainly trying to.”
“Well, he can keep trying,” I said firmly. “I’d rather die than sell to someone like him.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“I think you’ve lost your mind,” Jade said, and the phone line crackled as I moved into a weak signal spot.
I quickly moved back to the window and what seemed like the only strong signal spot in the room. “I had a feeling you’d say that,” I replied, adjusting the blind so the vanes untangled and I could easily open it. “But what else am I supposed to do? I can’t just leave it there. It’s so sad.”
“It’s a building, Lottie. Buildings don’t have feelings.”
I mean… they did, but whatever.
“For me, you idiot,” I said. “I have so many good memories there, and it’s heartbreaking to see it in such a state. I feel like I owe it to Grandpa to fix it up.”
“Then sell it, right?”
“I don’t know. It’s going to take a while.”
“And what are you going to do for work?” Jade was asking all the practical questions, apparently. “Renovations require funding, and that money your grandpa left you is going to disappear sooner rather than later. You need to be able to bring in a cash flow.”
I shrugged even though she couldn’t see it and looked out the window as someone passed with two dogs on one of those fancy double leads. “I’ll figure it out. The annexe isn’t too bad. I could always rent that out for some income and just live here. It’s not like I don’t already live with my parents.”
“Charlotte, people don’t want to go on holiday and stay on a building site. I wouldn’t pay you to stay there, no offense.”
“I don’t know, I’ll work it out. I won’t know until a surveyor goes in and I get the report, and it’s either going to be worse than I thought or better than I thought. I can make a final decision then.”
“Yeah, but by all accounts, you just pissed off a guy who offered you at least a million for the place. That’s fucking insane.”
Oh, well. He’d live.
“I wouldn’t sell to him anyway. I couldn’t do it knowing what he’d do to the place. Besides, it’s not like I’m leaving behind some amazing career,” I reasoned, turning away from the window and grabbing my jacket from the back of the chair in the corner. “I think a break will be a good thing for me.”
“I think you’re making a huge mistake,” Jade said, and the line crackled once again as I left the bedroom.
“Duly noted. I’ve gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.” I hung up before she could dampen my mood any further and shoved my phone in my pocket.
Stupid move, really.
Pockets in women’s clothes weren’t nearly large enough for something as trivial and unnecessary as a phone.