At the sight of him, my pulse jumped, and my spine grew twitchy. I could hardly breathe, butnotbecause he was so stupidly gorgeous.
It was because –son-of-a bitch– I knew him.
Now, it wasmyturn to say it, even if only in my own head.Fuck.
Chapter 5
Arden
To my infinite horror, I was staring into the hard gaze of Broderick Blastoviak – aka Brody Blast, a guy I'd known back in high school.
We had a history, and it wasn't terrific.
In school, he'd been a total trouble-maker through-and-through.Cocky. Obnoxiously brilliant. And too dangerous by half.
Unlike me, he never, ever followed the rules – and yet, he never seemed to pay for it.
That dickweed had cost me a full-ride scholarship.Hewas the reason I'd been working two jobs to pay for college, even while taking on far too many student loans.
In a roundabout way, thisalsomeant that he was the reason I hadn't been able to purchase this house on my own, back when I'd had the chance three years ago.
I freaking hated him.
And boy, did he hate me, too.
Even if I hadn't known this already, the look in his eyes would've been proof enough.
I sputtered, "What are you doing here?"
He gave me a look. "You mean in my house?"
"Oh come on!" I said. "It can't be your house. There's no furniture. And besides, why would you want to livehere? Don't you have houses all over the place already?"
This wasn't as far-fetched as you'd think. Brilliant or not, Brody hadn't gone to college. Instead, he'd founded a tool-and-die company with his two older brothers and then proceeded to take the market by storm.
These days, Blast Tools – that was the name of their company – was famously successful, just like the company's three founders.
And I meant "famous" quite literally.
A few years ago, by some miracle, the brothers had gotten themselves a weekly cable show on the Home Network, where they used their own tools to remodel older homes or sometimes build new ones.
And just for the record, they lookedverygood doing it.
By now, they were total celebrities, not just here in Michigan, but all over the world. Of course, it didn't hurt that all three of them were obnoxiously hot.
Damn it.
I was still pondering the unfairness of it all when Brody said, "Yeah? So what if I do?"
It took me a moment to realize that he was responding to my question – the one about him having plenty of homes already.
As usual, he was missing the point.
I tried again. "I'm just saying, if you have houses all over the place, why do you need another?"
My heart clenched.And why, oh why, do you need this one?
His only reply was a tight shrug, which – adding to my frustration – made his wet T-shirt slide enticingly over his abs.
