The next morning, Jennifer woke to her alarm, only remembering the wolf fight in her lobby when she noticed a long crack running down one of the wooden doorposts. A very large crystal vase, brimming with oversized red roses—each the size of a teacup—stood nearby.
Wth.
But Jennifer had school, so she didn't have time to stop and literally smell the roses.
School went well, and remarkably, she seemed to have survived the ridiculousness of her recent life. There was a moment at the playground when two boys got into a scuffle, and Jennifer asked, "Do you think you're werewolves?"
The boys thought that was brilliant. No one had ever scolded them like this before. They'd since made up and were now inseparable wolf brothers, tagging in and out to harass the other kids with exaggerated big bad wolf blows.
Ah, not that they hit anyone—they just huffed and puffed and blew into the other kids' faces.
Jennifer suppressed a smile as she reprimanded them for the umpteenth time: they were NOT big bad wolves.
A real big bad wolf would be Drake Darkfall. If you ignored the ridiculously fantasy-inspired name (what was she thinking?), that was a big bad wolf in every sense of the word. Of course, she didn't say that aloud. Instead, she told the boys they looked exactly like the strong heroes she needed to help distribute the reading books.
After school, Jennifer helped another teacher hang fruit-print paintings and admired how a horizontally cut apple made a perfect star in the middle.
"I read a picture book once," the teacher said. "Apples were used to catch stars."
Jennifer thought that was a beautiful idea—an everyday apple somehow holding a magical star inside it.
Back at the building, Jennifer's eyes immediately went to the lobby—and to the enormous crystal vase still brimming with impossibly large red roses. Then she noticed a man standing there, looking mildly perplexed.
Another unrealistically good-looking one, maybe in his fifties, dressed impeccably in a pressed suit, with a distinguished beard and steel-blue eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled—which he did now, at Jennifer's entrance.
"May I help you?" she asked. Mentally, she was already flipping through her webnovels for a wealthy-gentleman template. After all, every unrealistically handsome man who'd appeared in her building so far had a character somewhere in her prolific library.
"I'm looking for my mother."
"The landlady…" they both said at the same time.
Not because Jennifer had ever written about the landlady's son, but because something about the man—his kind smile, gentle manner—suddenly reminded her of the elderly woman.
"Yes," he nodded. "Do you know where she is?"
He was undeniably nice. Just like his mother. Alluring, patient, gentle, and charming—all at the same time. But Jennifer also knew what that implied: he probably had a backbone of steel and a stubbornness that wouldn't take no for an answer.
This was the son of the woman who'd left food boxes at her front door for more than a decade, despite Jennifer insisting it wasn't necessary. The same woman who now insisted she was retired and refused to discuss returning the building deed.
How should she explain this?
"Your mother isn't here," Jennifer said. "She sold me the building and retired."
The man frowned. He actually looked even handsomer with such an expression.
Wait. What was she thinking?
Omg. Did he think she had scammed his gentle old mother out of her property?
"What did my mother do now?" the man sighed deeply.
"She…" Jennifer tried again. "She sold me the building—"
He raised a hand for her to stop. She did. It was obvious this hand was used to being obeyed.
"Please allow me to apologize on her behalf," he said, shaking his head. "I understand my mother can be overbearing and unreasonable…"
Jennifer shook her head. "No… She—"
"Say no more," he interrupted. "She is a merciless shark, I'd admit."
Wait, no. Hang on, were they even talking about the same person here?
"They don't call her the Empress Dowager for nothing," he added, his tone slightly subdued.
"No wait, there must be some misunderstanding…" Jennifer tried again.
The man's frown deepened as he studied her. "She probably tricked you into it. She is indeed a conniving fox."
At that moment, Adrian came downstairs. (Why was he here?)
He paused at the scene: Jennifer facing the tall, frowning gentleman. Then he stepped forward with the resigned air of a man taking out the trash.
"Excuse me, sir. Is there a problem?"
That was how Jennifer found herself sandwiched between two incredibly sexy gentlemen in a face off so intense it made the air around them turn static.