Having Connor nice to her for any reason was unsettling so while he settled back on the couch next to her, she cast another look around the room, looking for hidden dangers. Maybe he was going to get rid of her once and for all so that he could have Strawberry Manor to himself, she thought.

"There's no poisonous spiders or snakes ready to leap out at you," Connor said, sounding amused as he handed her a bottle of aspirin. When she remembered a certain incident at summer camp when they were twelve and he laced her chocolate chip pancakes with laxatives she hesitated in taking the bottle from him.

With a sigh and a few muttered words about her being a big baby, he opened the bottle, popped two pills in his mouth and swallowed them dry as he handed her the bottle. Reluctantly, she took the bottle. When he handed her a bottle of water she glared at him and swallowed her pills dry as well.

"No trust," he said, shaking his head in disgust as he took the bottle from her and handed her a file.

"What's this?" she asked, opening the file and nearly groaned when she realized he'd handed her a spreadsheet. Since looking at numbers aggravated her eyes she shoved the file back at him and settled for bringing her knees up to her chest and hugging them while she laid her head against her arm.

She couldn't believe how badly her head hurt. It seemed with each passing moment that it became progressively worse. Between that, her arm and ribs, she really wasn't in the mood to deal with Connor's bullshit today. She suddenly felt tired, so tired. Hadn't she just slept all night and most of the day away, she wondered as she felt herself drift off, but she fought it with everything she had.

There was too much to do today. If she gave in and fell asleep then she'd have to deal with a ton of paperwork on top of all her other duties tomorrow and she simply didn't have the time or patience for that. She needed to stay awake, throw Connor out on his ass and get some work done.

"Shhh, go to sleep, Rory," Connor said soothingly as he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her closer, but she resisted until she was too tired to fight. Then with a soft sigh, she allowed him to pull her close. Once her head rested on his chest she found that she didn't want to fight it any longer. He felt too good to push away and oddly enough she felt safe in his arms. That should have frightened her, but she was too tired to do anything more than curl up against him.

"I always knew that you wanted me," Connor said, sounding smug so of course she called up her last reserve of energy and did what any woman in her position would do.

"Ow! Leave my ni**les alone, woman!" he snapped and she fully expected him to push her away. Instead, he pulled her closer, mumbling something about rules and ni**les as she fell asleep.

Chapter 12

"No," Rory said as she snatched the slice of mushroom and meatball pizza right out of his hand.

"What the hell do you mean by 'no'?" he demanded, snatching back his slice of pizza. He took a huge bite out of it, making his claim on the slice, but of course the damn woman snatched it right back and took a bite out of his pizza. If that wasn't bad enough, she washed it down with his Coke.

"I don't think that's going to work," Rory said, gesturing to his laptop's computer screen with his slice of pizza.

Glaring, he snatched it out of her hand and took a huge bite out of it as he pointed at the design he came up with while she’d slept. He still didn't know what he'd been thinking. He should have just sent it to McGill without showing it to her, but he needed her co-operation. If he was going to keep her under his thumb then he had to play nice, or at the very least pretend.

"What about the generator?" she asked, stealing the pizza crust out of his hand and nibbled on it as she gestured to the blueprint he designed earlier while she'd slept. Well, he did that and of course he had a look around.

He just couldn't resist. Not that he tried to resist all that hard. For years he'd been dying to know what her house looked like and when she conked out and he really had to use the bathroom after a few hours of holding her in his arms he may have taken a detour and explored her house.

The master bathroom had been a bit of a shock. It was a rather pleasant surprise after all these years to discover that there was a secret side to Rory, a very feminine side. Instead of having a straightforward bathroom that met minimal needs like his bathroom, a guy's bathroom, Rory's was without question a woman's dream bathroom.

The tiled wall was comprised of every shade of pink imaginable while the floor was a combination of light pink, dark pink and white tiles. Her shower could easily fit ten people, had four shower heads and a built in marble bench that lined the wall. She also had a two person light pink Jacuzzi bathtub. What really surprised him were her built-in shelves that held dozens of body sprays, lotions and a whole shitload of girly products.

He didn't check out her medicine cabinet or drawers since he wasn't a snoop or some weird pervert. There were some lines that he wouldn't cross even with Rory and snooping through her personal things was definitely one of them

The style was very close to what he'd chosen for his own house, which surprised him. He really thought she would have gone for a more contemporary look. Instead, it appeared as though she restored the house to its glory days with a few modern touches. He loved her den. It had a nineteenth century feel to it with an eighty inch flat screen built into the wall that surprisingly didn't wreck the effect. Somehow she managed to blend the television in with the rest of the decor. Now, the stack of chick flicks he found surprised him since he couldn’t picture her watching them, but he decided to ignore those.

Not that he would ever tell her, but he loved her house, maybe not as much as he loved his own, but hers was a close second. There were a few things he would have done differently, but overall the house was truly beautiful. She'd probably raised the value of the house by a hundred grand with all the work she'd put into it. He couldn't help but wonder how much of it her brothers were responsible for. Probably most of it, which was just another reminder that he had to get his ass moving and convince the James brothers that it would be in their best interest to come work for him.

"You know they want the 458, but you have the schematics set up for the 310," Rory said, pointing to the small computer monitor as she stole the last slice of pizza. Grudgingly, he allowed her to have it since she'd slept through lunch. Plus, he was a little distracted at the moment to really care.

"What the hell do you mean they want the 458?" he demanded, trying not to get pissed, but it was pretty damn difficult at the moment. He'd spent all day redesigning the wine room and the rest of the basement and now she was telling him that they wanted a refrigerating unit that not only would need a stronger feed, but it also wouldn't be able to fit in the space he'd designed for it. It also meant that he'd just wasted ten hours of his time for bullshit and that he'd be spending the rest of the night and early morning redesigning the basement to meet the rest of their specifications.

"It was in the fax," she said with a shrug as she took a big bite of pizza.

"What fax?" he asked as he considered snatching her slice of pizza away just on principal now. If there was a fax then he should have been told about it, especially before he wasted his day.

"They sent it yesterday morning," she said, taking another bite of her pizza before she continued. "There's about a dozen changes they want made," she said with a somewhat apologetic smile that did nothing to calm him down.

"Why the hell didn't you give me the fax?" he asked, giving up on glaring at her and stole the rest of the pizza out of her hand.

She rolled her eyes as she snatched it back. "Because you weren't there for one thing," she said, taking a huge bite and quickly finishing it off. "And I planned on having the new plans for the basement done last night so there really was no point in telling you."

"It's my project too, Rory," he bit out slowly.

Another shrug as she finished off the pizza and his glare returned. It was one thing for him to keep her in the dark, but it was a different story when she pulled that bullshit on him. This was his project and he should have been told about the fax. Hell, she should have delivered the damn thing to him while wearing a smile and something skimpy, he decided. He forced himself to turn around in his seat and stare at his computer screen as he wondered how he was going to adjust the space for the refrigerating unit and not f**k up the rest of the plans.