Wolf's Fake Bride (Shifter Marriage Service Book 1)

“Well, it’s not my style and not on my listings, but I can get the keys from the realtor,” Holly said a bit distastefully.

Jo felt alarmed. She hadn’t meant for them to look at this house, just one like it, if one existed. For all she knew, the rest of it, the part she hadn’t seen was a disaster, but she was more worried about crossing some line she hadn’t expected with King. Still, she was curious.

By day, it was just as spectacular as it had been at night. It was an incredible piece of architecture. After a few phone calls, Holly seemed to have acquired what she needed and began corralling everyone toward the front door. She punched a code into the lockbox, which hadn’t been there on her last visit and retrieved a key that unlocked the steel roll up door. Rolling it up, they strolled inside to a different portion to where she had been last night.

On first sight, it was daunting. The ground floor was vast and grim and gloomy, with a high, beamed ceiling, and a row of extremely filthy windows, all with those long narrow panes. There was a pit in the floor for tinkering about with motor engines and changing oil. She had hoped there might be a garden at the back, but there was only a kind of glassed-in veranda. The glass roof sloped in and down instead of out and up, and the view was blocked by a brick wall several feet high.

Observing her bewilderment, Trey took charge. He had been here before, and he had worked out some ideas. “You could reverse the roof,” he said, “put in flagstones and turn it into a winter garden.” He led them back across the concrete floor to the impasse. At that end, they would get rid of the steel door, replace the windows, put in double glazing.

Jo could put a couch here, and a table there. There was plenty of room for a fireplace if she wanted one. Built-in bookshelves on each side of the chimney, parquet floors, or tiles if preferred. All of the work could be done over here while she lived in the finished portion of the house, which they had yet to show her, but where she had been before.

Slowly, she began to see it. Her garden full of light and greenery, leading into the living room. White walls to reflect the light. Wood floors, plants. The fragments of the dream fell into place. Jo could see herself cooking in the kitchen that she still had yet to see, and listening to music on a sofa that had yet to be purchased.

Holly gestured toward a rickety wooden staircase and we went upstairs. The first floor was divided into dingy offices furnished with old green metal desks and faded calendars. They wandered from room to room, eyeing the leftover bric-a-brac of a failed blue-collar firm.

"We'll take out all these partitions and remodel the space," said Trey. "You can get a bedroom and bathroom in here, and there's room for a study too. Look out the window here, you can see the park.”

"And these stairs here lead up to the attic," said Holly.

The second flight of stairs was in an even worse state than the first. Parts of some of the steps were missing, and the rest looked as though they might give way at any moment. Jo stood at the top of the stairs and looked around dubiously. Light filtered into the attic from a solitary skylight. It was barely possible to stand upright. The floor was so cluttered with forgotten plumber’s supplies -- pipes, toilet bowls, wash basins, even a couple of bath tubs -- that it was impossible to take more than a step or two into the room.

It was as if there were two completely different houses in here. The lovely part she had been in before, and this unfinished mess that seemed to be more industrial than residential. How was this even on a residential street? Trey was perched halfway down the stairs with a tape measure.

"We can drop the floor. There's room to do it, there's a false ceiling above these first-floor offices. That way, you'll have room to move around. You can put a guest bedroom up here, there'll be plenty of storage under the eaves, we can put in dormer windows to give you some light. With a window here, it would fall right in your sitting room."

Jo went back down the death-trap staircase. The space was vast. The living room sprang into shape, the elements slotted into the kitchen space, and the plants in the winter garden flowered in my mind.

Holly had been following Jo around silently and at a discreet distance, keeping her lovely coat well away from the filthy walls, and letting Trey do the work for her. Jo asked her for a price.