Provocation SAMPLE (Book 3 of The Conquest Series)

Chapter Seven

Standing outside the duplex, Nate sighed in resignation. It was after 5 PM. After office hours. Leila should be here at any time.

He had called her office earlier that day, and her friend and PA, Jared, had answered. He'd made this appointment with him and gave his name. Jared had been silent for a moment before asking him exactly what he wanted. His suspicions about Nate were apparent, and he had all his feelers out.

The apartment was Nate's answer. But that wasn't really all he wanted.

Swearing Jared to silence about his true intentions, he told him that he was looking into getting his own place, but admittedly stated it was only one of the reasons he wanted to meet with Leila.

Apologize, asshole.

It had been his mantra since leaving his home forty-five minutes ago. He hadn't started his job at KinTech yet, but for some reason, the wait to see the apartment and make his apologies to Leila felt like he had done his eight hours of work.

Jared had been reluctant to make the appointment for him, but Nate had insisted and must have sounded sincere enough that the PA went ahead and set up an appointment to see the place. He sounded reluctant, but then again, Jared had been there for some of his finer displays of...

Assholishness? Assholocity? Something along those lines...

Nate knew from Violet that Leila didn't live too far from her office, and with traffic being heavy this time of day, it would probably take her somewhere between 5:30 to 5:45 to get home. It was only 5:20 when he'd pulled up to the duplex.

And he had taken one of his father's cars to get here. He really needed to go out and purchase one of his own, perhaps this upcoming weekend. Mass transit getting to KinTech would be a bitch come Monday, though he would probably just hitch a ride with his father for the first couple of weeks until he purchased his own set of wheels.

On the outside, the duplex Leila owned seemed homey. Nothing flashy and nothing intricate, just a two-story single home that had been converted somewhere within the last twenty years to become a duplex. It was something that was quite popular nowadays with real estate being the fickle bitch it was in California. The fickle, greedy bitch.

The outside of the house appeared to have been painted with the surrounding houses in mind. It somehow surprised him with its light blue color scheme and the darker navy blue of the shutters that Leila would want to fit into her neighborhood at all. She had always struck Nate as someone who could—and would—be outrageous just for the sake of being seen as wild, untamed.

If that was the case, if Leila had really wanted to be free and contrary, she would have painted it orange or lime green. But no, it was light blue, Easter egg blue, reminding him of sky and fluffy clouds on a hot summer's day.

The house was almost too domestic.

Though he supposed that could have been a smart idea, painting the house pastel blue. Who would want to rent a house in lime green or orange? A die-hard San Francisco Giants fan? A blind person? Or maybe just a color-blind individual who wore paisley with plaid together. Poor blokes.

Nate was still standing there and staring at the domicile when a voice rang out from the sidewalk.

"Nate? What the fuck—oh, don't tell me!"

He spun around to look over in the direction of the driveway.

Leila. She looked furious as hell. At him. At the world. Probably at Jared too for keeping this a secret. Luckily, she seemed fond of her PA, and his testicles would probably remain firmly attached to his body.