Her insults to Hart’s Inn, to the hard work Bailey put in there, rankled. “It may have been a while since you lived here, Miss Hartwell, but I’m sure you’ll remember that your sister is very well liked by the people of this town.”

“Oh, I remember,” she sneered. “Everyone’s favorite. Quite the popular little brat.”

His eyes narrowed. “If you try to cause any problems for her, you’ll find yourself out of here so fast you won’t know what happened.”

“Excuse me? Was that a threat?”

“As I said, Bailey has a lot of friends, a lot of people who care about her well-being. She’s been through enough this year without you causing any more trouble.”

“Wow. Nothing has changed. She still has everyone under her spell. God”—she rolled her eyes—“you’re all just like her. Boring and uptight.”

“You’re probably right. You should leave.”

Vanessa opened her mouth to argue, but Vaughn wasn’t interested in a confrontation with her. Funny how he couldn’t resist one with her sister. In fact he reveled in it. On that thought he walked away before Vanessa could say anything else.

He cursed himself for warning her against causing problems for Bailey. “God damn it,” he bit out as he strode into his office and slumped in his chair. There he went again, expending energy on worrying about a woman that wasn’t even his woman.

Cooper was right.

He was either in or he was out.

Burying his head in his hands, he groaned, “Make a choice, Tremaine.”

SEVENTEEN

Bailey

“You really don’t have to do this.” I felt guilty as hell as Rex moved around my small kitchen preparing dinner for us. He’d turned up at the inn, out of the blue, with shopping bags full of food and insisted on cooking for me.

Aydan, who thought I was crazy for not giving the guy a chance, insisted I have dinner with him while she took care of the inn.

So that’s what I did. Now my stomach was churning with butterflies.

“I feel like this is a date,” I blurted out. “And we talked about that, right?”

Rex looked over his shoulder at me and grinned. “Yeah. We did. Don’t worry. I know we’re not dating.”

Relieved, I exhaled. “Okay. So this is just you cooking me dinner?”

“This is just me cooking you dinner.” He strolled toward where I was standing and held a freshly cut pepper to my mouth.

Instead of taking it into my mouth from his fingers—way too intimate—I plucked it with my own and then bit into it.

He shook his head in amusement and wandered back to where he was chopping up vegetables for his stir-fry. “So anything new in your life?” He gestured over his shoulder to the pile of suitcases in my small sitting room.

I made a face. “Oh. That. That would be my sister. Vanessa.”

“You don’t sound happy about that. She’s the one who travels around at lot, right?”

“Yeah. But now she’s come home. To run the inn.”

Rex frowned. “She giving you shit?”

“In the only way Vanessa knows how.” I smiled at his concern. “I’ll be fine. I know how to handle my sister. Now that my parents are out of the way I can actually do something about it. They didn’t raise her to be a brat, but they didn’t curb it, either. I have no such qualms about squashing that crap.”

“I bet you don’t.” He smiled as he threw the veggies into the wok with diced beef. “I’ve never met a woman who speaks her mind the way you do.”

“Do you find it horrifying?”

“Would I be here if I did?”

Part of me wished he wasn’t hanging out with me. Not because I didn’t like hanging out with him. I did. He was funny and kind. And hot. He treated me much better than Vaughn.

But to my everlasting agony, Rex didn’t set my blood on fire like Vaughn. I wanted to be there for him, I wanted to be a good friend to him, but I didn’t long for his secrets and his tenderness the way I longed for Vaughn Tremaine’s.

Why was I such a moron?

No. I didn’t blame this on me. My head knew exactly what the landscape with Tremaine looked like. It was my freaking hormones that were the problem.

Stupid moronic hormones.

“Earth to Bailey.”

“Huh?” I blinked and looked over at Rex.

“You went somewhere else for a minute.”

“Oh. Just thinking about Vanessa and how to deal with her.”

“If you need help . . .”

“I know, thanks. But I’ll be fine.”

A little while later we had just sat down at my dining table when the door blew open and Vanessa stormed in on a thick cloud of Chanel perfume wearing an irritated expression.

“How many men do you have?” she sniped as she set about unstrapping her stilettos from her feet.

“What?”

She nodded to Rex, who was staring at her in mild shock. I don’t think he’d been expecting quite all that she was. “Another one.”

“What do you mean another one?” I was already annoyed that she’d interrupted our dinner. I didn’t want to argue with her.

“Well, him, whoever he is, and what is he, twelve?” She threw a hand in Rex’s direction. “And then that other guy. That would-be-sexy-if-he-didn’t-have-a-giant-stick-up-his-ass Vaughn guy.”

My heart started to thud a little faster in my chest. Of course my vapid little sister had made sure to meet the wealthiest man in town on her first day back. The thought of her anywhere near Vaughn made me want to rip that pretty hair out and then hide all her damn shoes so she’d never find them ever again. “What are you talking about?” I said through gritted teeth.