Unauthorized Obsession (Unauthorized Series Book 3) by Lisa Ladew Page A
Authors: Lisa Ladew
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the lines that it was going to take a while for him to get approval from the city and the state to put his beloved building up, so I decided right then that I was going to get his attention and be the one to put it up for him. He had a contractor all picked out but I thought if I could get close to him I could change his mind. I did some basic research on him and found out where he keeps his yacht. That and his office building seemed like the best places to be in his face but not stalking him, if you know what I mean.”
Kara jumped at the word stalking but raised a hand to her hair and patted it, trying to cover up the movement. She hadn’t thought about the mess she was going through for at least an hour or two now, and that was good. She turned her full attention back to Zane.
“I decided to try the Marina. I contacted the general manager and asked him if he needed any work done on the Marina itself. I volunteered to do anything for free, all he needed to do was buy the materials. He was suspicious and he didn’t seem to want any part of it at first, so I had to come clean and tell him I was trying to impress someone. He seemed to understand that so he went along with it.
The first thing I did was hand most of the general operations of my business over to my second-in-command and then I spent every day sprucing up the Marina. I painted the docks, I sanded and replaced loose boards, I hand-tested every slip for buoyancy and things like loose nails. I paid one of the valets twenty bucks a day to keep an eye open for me and call when Mr. McLean dropped his car off. That way I could be near his slip when he came in. Every day I saw him I respectfully said hi, and once he considered me a fixture, I started asking him if there was anything I could do for him. He always said no, but one day he seemed angry about something.
I offered to help him as usual, and he hesitated. I stepped forward and told him anything he needed me to do I would do it, and it turned out he needed someone to drive two states over to retrieve his daughter’s cat from a friend of hers who had taken the cat because she was mad at the daughter. I did it for him and after that he started inviting me on his yacht and asking me to do other jobs for him. When he found out I was a contractor, he looked at me slyly, like he knew exactly what I had done, but he didn’t order me to get away from him. Instead he continued our work relationship, and then one day he asked me what made me think I had the ability to do a project as big as the ones he worked on. I’d been waiting for that moment. I pulled out my plans and showed him everything that was wrong with his current operation and what the contractor he had lined up frequently made mistakes with and how I would fix those issues. He told me he would consider it. On Friday, he called me into his office and said the old contractor was out, and I was in.”
Kara leaned back in her chair, esteem in her eyes. That was as good of an any rags to riches, pull-yourself-up-by-your-own bootstraps story she’d ever heard. This was a man after her own heart.
Chapter 9
Sergeant Aria Gale dropped her face in her hands and rubbed her temples. It had been a long day. She liked to work on Saturdays because it was easy to find people at home. Today had been mostly fruitless though. First she had tried to interview the family of Tiffany Stewart’s boyfriend. His mother, a heavyset woman wearing a greasy shirt and a baseball cap had kept her on the porch, refusing to invite her inside. Yes he was still missing, no she hadn’t heard anything since the last time she had talked to the cops, and no she didn’t know anything else. She’d yelled at Aria for doing nothing but eating donuts all day and not finding her boy eight years ago, then stepped inside, slamming the door behind her.
Aria had wanted to ask several other questions, but it was obvious the mother was a dead end. She hadn’t been able to turn
Kara jumped at the word stalking but raised a hand to her hair and patted it, trying to cover up the movement. She hadn’t thought about the mess she was going through for at least an hour or two now, and that was good. She turned her full attention back to Zane.
“I decided to try the Marina. I contacted the general manager and asked him if he needed any work done on the Marina itself. I volunteered to do anything for free, all he needed to do was buy the materials. He was suspicious and he didn’t seem to want any part of it at first, so I had to come clean and tell him I was trying to impress someone. He seemed to understand that so he went along with it.
The first thing I did was hand most of the general operations of my business over to my second-in-command and then I spent every day sprucing up the Marina. I painted the docks, I sanded and replaced loose boards, I hand-tested every slip for buoyancy and things like loose nails. I paid one of the valets twenty bucks a day to keep an eye open for me and call when Mr. McLean dropped his car off. That way I could be near his slip when he came in. Every day I saw him I respectfully said hi, and once he considered me a fixture, I started asking him if there was anything I could do for him. He always said no, but one day he seemed angry about something.
I offered to help him as usual, and he hesitated. I stepped forward and told him anything he needed me to do I would do it, and it turned out he needed someone to drive two states over to retrieve his daughter’s cat from a friend of hers who had taken the cat because she was mad at the daughter. I did it for him and after that he started inviting me on his yacht and asking me to do other jobs for him. When he found out I was a contractor, he looked at me slyly, like he knew exactly what I had done, but he didn’t order me to get away from him. Instead he continued our work relationship, and then one day he asked me what made me think I had the ability to do a project as big as the ones he worked on. I’d been waiting for that moment. I pulled out my plans and showed him everything that was wrong with his current operation and what the contractor he had lined up frequently made mistakes with and how I would fix those issues. He told me he would consider it. On Friday, he called me into his office and said the old contractor was out, and I was in.”
Kara leaned back in her chair, esteem in her eyes. That was as good of an any rags to riches, pull-yourself-up-by-your-own bootstraps story she’d ever heard. This was a man after her own heart.
Chapter 9
Sergeant Aria Gale dropped her face in her hands and rubbed her temples. It had been a long day. She liked to work on Saturdays because it was easy to find people at home. Today had been mostly fruitless though. First she had tried to interview the family of Tiffany Stewart’s boyfriend. His mother, a heavyset woman wearing a greasy shirt and a baseball cap had kept her on the porch, refusing to invite her inside. Yes he was still missing, no she hadn’t heard anything since the last time she had talked to the cops, and no she didn’t know anything else. She’d yelled at Aria for doing nothing but eating donuts all day and not finding her boy eight years ago, then stepped inside, slamming the door behind her.
Aria had wanted to ask several other questions, but it was obvious the mother was a dead end. She hadn’t been able to turn
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