This mechanic obviously does, too. I can’t blame him. I walked in here with the deed to this garage, waving it in his face and demanding to see my brother.
Maybe my father and I aren’t so different, after all.
But I’m here for a reason, and I’m not going to let some disgruntled employee get in the way of me helping my family.
Still, when my eyes move to take in Benji’s, my stomach clenches. There’s something about him that reaches deep into my body and shakes me awake. Makes me feel like I’ve been missing something in all the years I’ve been on this earth.
Maybe it’s the messy hair. The chiseled jaw. The grease rag hanging out of his pocket. Maybe it’s the rough, broad hands that drum on his big biceps when he crosses his arms. He’s all man. Nothing at all like the sniveling, trust-fund suitors my parents try to parade in front of me.
Benji is real.
And he hates me.
Can I blame him?
The mechanic arches an eyebrow, keeping his eyes on mine as I move to open the door. When he steps back, my eyes drift down to his broad chest, where a little sprout of blond chest hair pokes out above his work uniform.
No, he’s not like the guys I usually see.
He’s rough and dirty—in a good way. As I open the door and step out of the car, I allow myself to stare. Benji’s coveralls are tight across his chest, the little badge with his name bright white against the dirty, navy fabric. He’s got shaggy, dark blond hair, and a smudge of grease across his cheek. I catch myself thinking I like it.
I usually date the clean-cut kind of guys. The ones my parents pick for me, in their plush, corporate offices or high-society garden parties. The ones who crawl up my father’s ass and die there. The ones who bring luxury cars to be fixed—not the ones who actually fix them.
If I’d had a choice, I would’ve run away with Sawyer. I would’ve gone through with our plan to get away from the family business. I never in a million years would have accepted my father’s job offer. I would have done it the hard way with Sawyer. Started our own landscape architecture business, just like we talked about.
Away from the money, from the overbearing parents, from the reputation.
But what Sawyer doesn’t get is I didn’t have a choice. He’s never understood that. Never even tried. He thought I was a flake, a backstabber, a fleck of dirty pond scum.
I. Had. No. Choice.
Sawyer left in a huff with silly, unrealistic ideas about what life should be like, and he didn’t stop to think about what life really is.
Me?
My feet are firmly planted in the real world. I know that my sister needs me. My nephew needs me. I’m the only one who can make sure she and her son, Roman, have what they need.
When Lucy got pregnant at seventeen, I knew my parents wouldn’t approve. I knew they’d kick her out. The only way I could keep food on her table was by staying in the soul-sucking, money-hungry world my parents built. With their job offer and way-above-average salary, I could make money and take care of Lucy.
It was a choice, and I still think I made the right one.
She needs money. Her kid needs money. And that means I need to earn it.
I, unlike my brother, have realistic values. Once Lucy got pregnant, I couldn’t leave. Call me a flake, a lying, weak Machiavelli, but I stand by what I did. The end justifies the means.
The end, in my case, is a sister with a roof over her head and a nephew with a decent shot at a good life.
Coming to Woodvale and buying up this garage is an olive branch. A way for me to provide for Sawyer, too. A way to stitch this broken family back together again, because even if Sawyer abandoned us, I’ll never abandon him.
He might hate me, but I still believe that once he knows the truth about what happened, he’ll forgive me.
He has to.
But judging on Benji’s reception, that olive branch is currently being doused in gasoline, lit on fire, and thrown back in my face.
I square off in front of the mechanic, jutting my chin out and forcing myself to meet his gaze. Baby blue, with little specks of green. His eyes are deep as the ocean and just as captivating.
Benji is the opposite of what my parents would like. He works with his hands, and he’s proud of it. He doesn’t like the fact that I’m a rich girl from the big city entering his domain.
But the twisted, dark part of me likes the heat of his gaze right now. It snakes through my body, brushing against the base of my spine and lighting my nerve endings on fire.
Be mad, I want to scream. Hate me.
Hatred is so much better than the false flattery I have to endure back home. At least it’s honest.
He huffs a breath out, glancing at the luxury vehicle behind me. The contempt is written all over his face.
I wish this wasn’t the way things were, either, I want to tell him. I only bought this place because my duty to my sister forced me to change my life plans. I’m here because I refuse to give up on her, on my nephew, and on Sawyer. I refuse to let my family disintegrate.
I have to be here, in this dirty garage, with a mechanic who hates me, because I care more about Lucy and Sawyer than I do about myself.
So, I’m stuck in this small town with nothing to do but have angry
