He made a show of looking down around where he sat and then at each chair beside him. "Hmm, look at that so I am," he said in an amused tone.

"Move." She gestured impatiently at him.

Sighing, he took a sip of his cocoa. "I can't."

"You can't or you won't?" she demanded.

"Both."

Rory glared at him, then at each empty chair before looking around desperately for another chair. When she couldn't find any means to distance herself from him, which he knew she was dying to do, she sat down as far as she could in the chair to the right of him.

Sighing loud and long to annoy the shit out of her, he stretched his right arm out and then dropped it along the back of her chair.

"Do you mind?" she asked, looking pointedly at his arm.

He shook his head. "No, not really."

She opened her mouth, probably to tell him off for the millionth time, shut it and shook her head, muttering, "I don't have time for games today."

That was too bad, because he rather enjoyed their little battles. He made a show of sipping his drink. "Mmmm, that's good cocoa."

Rory first glared at him then at his cup.

"You took the last hot cocoa?"

"Uh huh," he answered, taking another sip.

She nodded slowly. "I see."

"I'm sure you do."

Just as he went to take another sip of that rather creamy cup of hot cocoa that tasted better and better with each passing second, she jabbed him in the side with a finger the same time she made a grab for his cup. He tried to pull the cup away, but she just dug that damn finger harder into his side.

Shit! That really hurt!

Deciding that it was better to give up the cocoa than to let her make his eyes tear up, he released the cup. Rory twisted her finger harder into his side, digging deep for good measure before backing off. Glaring at her, he rubbed his side while she happily sipped his cocoa.

Damn, there were a lot of things in life he regretted and right now showing her that little trick in sixth grade when she wouldn't let him cut her in the lunch line was one of them. He winced as he rubbed the sore spot. Well, it looked like she'd perfected that move.

"I spit in that you know," he lied.

She simply shrugged when most women would have probably screeched, gagged, and shoved it back at him. Not Rory James. She made a show of taking a huge sip of the cocoa.

"I think I've been immune to your germs since the ninth grade," she pointed out, making him smile.

Ah, good times. For six months he'd found ways to spit in her food and drinks without her or her little band of geeks, nerds, and dorks finding out about it. His friends did their part by distracting her so that he could break into her locker and they also took pictures of the act.

On her birthday, he placed all those lovely pictures into a small box, gift wrapped it, and placed it inside her locker. Then he leaned against the locker across from hers and waited with all his friends and half the school for her to open it. Everyone watched as she opened her locker, waiting for her reaction. She looked surprised at first to find a present in her locker and of course that look turned to horror as she flipped through the pictures. As hard as she tried she just couldn't hide the little gag sound she made.

Everyone laughed.

He remembered standing there, cocky as hell, waiting for her to finally react like a girl and cry. Instead, she calmly put the pictures back in the box, gagged louder, and returned it to her locker. She grabbed the lunch that he and all his friends spit in, hey it was her birthday after all, and walked over to him.

Instead of crying and screaming at him or even threatening to tell her daddy and her rather large brothers about what he did, she kneed him in the balls. When he was down on the ground she forced half her lunch down his throat while his friends fell over themselves, laughing their asses off, but it had been worth it. Even the month of detention that followed couldn't take away the joy he received from that little prank.

"Mr. O'Neil? Miss James? He's ready for you."

Chapter 2

Rory sat in the padded chair, trying to hide her annoyance at being seated next to the bastard. She didn't understand why Mr. McGill was handling their bids this way. She'd known a month ago when she placed her bid that Connor was going for the same job. It hadn't been a big deal then, because they usually bid for the same job unless one of them was already busy.

Usually these things were handled more privately. She couldn't remember ever being in the room with her competition before when the client announced his decision. The only thing she could come up with was that the client was hoping to use their well known animosity towards each other to start a bidding war right here and now.

It wasn't going to happen. As much as she would love to get her hands on Strawberry Fields Manor, she wasn't about to get into another embarrassing public confrontation with Connor. The one they had last month at the strawberry festival still made her cringe.

Things probably wouldn't have gotten out of hand if their dates had just stayed out of it, but once Mary Lee decided to get in her face and Jeff took it as his cue to get into Connor's face, things kind of went downhill quickly. Okay, so she may have started trouble when she dumped the bucket of juicy mashed strawberries over Mary Lee's head, but in her defense, she could only hear '”stupid bitch” so many times before she snapped.

She still didn't understand why the festival committee banned them for a year, especially after they paid for all those strawberries they'd wrecked. At least she was still allowed to have a booth at next year's festival for her business, Shadow Construction. Granted, one of her brothers would have to man the table and that probably wouldn't go too well, but at least her company would be represented during the town's biggest event.

Connor shifted in his chair next to hers, probably just as nervous as she was. A thought occurred to her, annoying the hell out of her. If he actually went along with this and tried to outbid her, she was going pants his ass on the way out.

Her lips twitched at the memory of the last time she'd done that. Granted, it had been a week after he did it to her, but at least she hadn't been wearing pink boxers with hearts on them at a bar like a certain someone. It really had brought such joy to her and her brothers' lives as they watched guys hit on Connor all night and send drinks his way. She'd been sixty percent sure that he was going to kill her with his bare hands that night.

"As you both know," Mr. McGill started, bringing her attention back to him, "we've had problems getting permits and the heavy rain season pushed our plans back by six months."

They both nodded.

"I know you're both probably very confused as to why I've asked Shadow Construction and Highland Construction for a joint meeting." Thankfully, he didn't leave them in suspense. "My partners and I would like Strawberry Fields Hotel up and running by November."

"That's five months," she blurted out before she could stop herself. Connor threw her an annoyed look, probably for stating the obvious. Not that she cared if she aggravated the bastard. She could care less about that. What she did care about was the fact that there was no way her company could get Strawberry Fields Hotel up and running in five months. A year? Yes, and that was after hiring ten extra men and going overboard with overtime. Five months was not doable.

"Yes, it is," Mr. McGill agreed with a nod of his head. "As you know, Strawberry Fields Manor needs a bit of work." Rory just barely stopped herself from snorting her disbelief out loud.

Strawberry Fields Manor was going to need a complete overhaul. It was going to have to be completely gutted, have an electrical and plumbing overhaul. Those were just a few of the major things that needed to be fixed. She had a fifteen page list in her office of all the small problems that needed attention.

"I know this is highly unusual, but we'd like to hire both your companies to work together and finish the project," he said, shocking them both into utter stillness. She wasn't even sure she was breathing or knew how to at that moment.

He really couldn't expect the two of them to work together? Could he? They'd kill each other! The entire town knew that. Hell, there were several betting pools over who would kill who and how.