Flirting with Felicity Read Online Free Page A

her, she would lose her job
and her income. Blake wouldn’t keep her around to oversee the restaurant if he
took ownership. Without that, where would she be? Where would her father be?
She fisted her hands at her side. She would never go back to the poverty of her
past. A siren screamed from the street below as she let herself into her
apartment and shut the door behind her. Her “Pill Hill” location was
affordable, but she did have to put up with the noise of ambulances all hours
of the day and night as they rushed to and from the three hospitals located
nearby. Usually she could tune out the noise, but this afternoon she couldn’t.
    Too strung up from her encounter with Blake Bancroft,
Felicity paced the small confines of her home. She cast an anxious glance about
the sparsely furnished apartment. She’d happily accepted her austere lifestyle,
because of what else it enabled her to do: provide for her father. The memory
of the car accident that killed her mother and left her father permanently
disabled came flooding back. Only Felicity had walked away without any visible
scars, but emotional scars were there, buried deep. Her family had always
struggled to make ends meet before the accident. But afterward, poverty had swallowed
her father and herself in an unending cycle of bills from her mother’s funeral
and her father’s hospital expenses. At sixteen, she’d had to sacrifice
everything normal teenage girls dreamed about in order to give her father
round-the-clock care.
    Another siren blared outside her window. Felicity stiffened,
the muscles of her shoulders going rigid before she forced herself to relax.
The man her father had been would never return, but she had to care for what
was left of him.
    Felicity frowned. She’d never told Vern anything about her
past, not that he had ever asked. Still, some part of her wondered if his act
of kindness went much further than giving a nice girl a restaurant. If he was
as rich as his lawyers claimed, then he could’ve had her investigated. She’d
tried to hide the truth about how poor she’d been in the past, but if someone
were determined enough to uncover her secrets, it wouldn’t be hard.
    Felicity forced her thoughts back to the present. She would
never know what had motivated Vern to do what he did. All she could do was
accept what he’d given her and be grateful. And she was so grateful. At the
thought, the skin on her arms tingled and the giddy elation she’d experienced
earlier returned. She owned a hotel—a hotel that was well furnished, luxurious,
and blissfully quiet.
    As the full impact of her situation washed over her, she
stopped pacing. She
owned a hotel. She could move in there, rent-free, giving herself
an instant raise. The experimental therapy her father needed but could never
afford was now within her reach.
    It all seemed like a dream come true, except that Blake
Bancroft was in town to challenge her for ownership.
    Her joy faded. There had to be a way to stop him, or stall
him, or win the deal he’d set up between them today.
    Felicity pressed her fingers to her forehead, as if doing so
would help her think. What could she possibly show him that might make him back
away from a legal battle? She didn’t have any special skills besides cooking,
and she didn’t know enough about the hotel yet to teach him anything significant.
She could use her cooking skills to her advantage, but what else was there? Was
there a way for her to make him see that he couldn’t make the changes he
suggested?
    What hotel owner didn’t want renovations to a building they
owned completed for free? But those changes wouldn’t be free. Blake wouldn’t do
the restoration work then walk away. The price she would pay would be with her
ownership, and her employees would be out of work. Felicity dropped her hands
to her sides. Could she bargain with Blake to continue to pay her employees
during any furlough that might occur?
    Again, that meant giving up her claim on