1Love Redesigned (Lakefront Billionaires, #1)(37)

My hands tighten around her. “You good?”

“Never been better.” Her overly cheery voice grates on my frayed nerves.

When she answered the phone, my mind jumped to the worst conclusion based on Dahlia’s muffled, panicked voice. I couldn’t stop the graphic images from playing in my head after years spent working in construction.

Cracked skull.

Broken spine.

Paralysis.

You’ve seen it all, yet you never reacted like this before.

I shake the thought away, only to have it return with a vengeance as Dahlia hides her face against my shirt, dampening the material with her tears.

You still care about her.

Mierda.

I’m not given more than a second to process the thought before Dahlia speaks up again.

She sniffles. “This is all so stupid.”

I stalk toward the exit. “What is?”

“Breaking my arm like this.”

“How did it happen?” I walk toward the stairwell while doing my best to keep her steady.

“I had a run-in with a spider.”

“A spider?”

“I know what you’re thinking. But that beast was the size of a tarantula and had a set of fangs like a snake.” She trembles against me when I take the first step down the stairs.

You should have been here.

I knew leaving Dahlia behind to finish what we started wasn’t polite, but I had a phone call I needed to take and a meeting I couldn’t miss.

Couldn’t or wouldn’t?

The best part of my day was doing the walk-through with her—an anomaly in itself—and the last thing I wanted to do was head back to the office.

The artery in my neck pulses with each annoying thump of my heart.

I missed a part of Dahlia’s ramblings, but it’s easy to catch on as she continues. “The creature was a thing of nightmares. I’m lucky to be alive right now to tell the tale.”

Dahlia only talks to me like this when she is anxious or in pain. So to keep her occupied, I entertain her with conversation while walking through the mansion.

“Should I contact pest control?’’ I ask.

“Pest control? No way. You need the Department of Natural Resources to come out here and drop fumigation bombs because I have a feeling that creature was one of many.”

“You think there are more?”

“Of course. Perhaps hundreds.” She glances toward the ceiling. “Actually, no. Thousands. Make sure the DNR knows all of this when you give them a call tomorrow. When it comes to the government, you need to exaggerate matters to get anyone’s attention.”

“But by the time they get around to the case, the property will be overrun with spiders the size of people.”

She tucks her face against my chest in a poor attempt to hide her smile, only to pull back after a sniffle. “What happened to your cologne?”

I nearly trip over my own feet. “What?”

“The one you wore on the day of the car accident?”

Of all the questions to ask…

“Oh, yeah. I ran out.” Good job putting that one brain cell to work.

“Hm.” She falls quiet.

“I have an idea.” I speak a little too fast.

“What?”

“What if we burn down the house?”

She clutches the fabric of my shirt with her good hand. “No!”

“But we could be saving the world from super-spiders.”

“And anger the ghosts who live here? Hell no! I’ve seen enough horror movies to know better.”

My brows crinkle. “What ghosts?”

“Didn’t you research the house before you signed the paperwork?”

I’m not sure I was entirely thinking straight when I bought the house, let alone researching the past owners.

She looks around before whispering, “You didn’t think to ask why a treasure of a house like this would be put up for sale?”

“Easy answer. It’s a pain in the ass to fix.” Based on the century-old electrical wiring, ancient drainpipes, and faulty foundation, the repairs would cost anyone hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Her eyes shut, whether out of pain or frustration, I’m not too sure. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear about the ghosts. Everyone in town knows about them.”

“Probably because I don’t believe in ghosts to begin with.”

She shushes me. “You’re going to make them angry.”

“They don’t exist.”

“All right.” Except everything about her tone suggests the complete opposite.

The soft slap of my shoes against the wood floor fills the silence between us. In a stupid move to open the front door, I end up jostling her. “Sorry.”

Her chin trembles, making me feel even shittier. “Anyway, we can’t burn down the house. If you do, I will never forgive you.”

“Should I add it to the list of reasons?”

She cuts into me with a single glare. “Julian.”

An uncustomary fluttering sensation erupts in my stomach. I kick the front door harder than intended, making both Dahlia and the glass windowpane shudder as it closes.

Shit.

She stares up at me with glassy eyes. “Perhaps we can call a truce with the spider. It’s not like it tried to bite me or anything, which it could have. I’m the one who went into its territory.”