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keep guessing.”
    He hesitated for a second or two. “My mother used to call me Michael.”
    “Mike—I was right the first time,” she said triumphantly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “Because most folks around here call me by my given name.” He paused. “Pres Seaholm. The first.”
    Molly Cassidy’s big blue eyes got even bigger and bluer, and Pres knew that—for the first time since they’d come down off the roof—she was about to be silent.
    But her silence didn’t last for long. “You’re kidding, right? Please say you’re only kidding.”
    He shook his head no, and she covered her face with her hands. “Oh, Lord.”
    “I wish I could tell you that I stopped by to make my fifth crass offer on the house in three days, but the truth is I was painting on the beach, taking advantage of the weird light before the storm struck.”
    Molly started to laugh. “Oh, Lord, I’m sorry. …” She had to sit down on the stairs, she was laughing so hard. “I called you … And I said … Oh, God! You must think I’m awful.”
    Zander came out of his room and peered down at them over the upstairs railing. He stomped his foot, making a sharp, loud sound, and Molly glanced up. As Pres watched, the boy made some movements with his hands. It had to be sign language.
    “No, I’m all right,” Molly called up to her son, still laughing as she made similar motions with her hands. “I’m just …” She shook her head, turning to look at Pres. Her cheeks were flushed from embarrassment and her eyes were still brimming with laughter, making her look even younger. The effect was charming. “You’re notwhat I expected,” she said accusingly, almost as if this were all his fault.
    “You mean, pompous and overbearing?” He smiled to soften his words, to make sure she knew he didn’t take any of it too seriously.
    She cringed, briefly closing her eyes, but didn’t crumble. “You did come on way too strong,” she insisted. “Making all those offers on the house like that …”
    “That’s not coming on too strong,” he countered. “That’s getting the job done. See, I want this house.”
    Molly stood up, and the stairs put her at eye level with him. She wasn’t laughing anymore. “But it’s not for sale, Mr. Seaholm. It’s not even on the market.”
    He fished in his pocket for his cigarettes, but she stopped him before he even pulled them out.
    “Yes, I mind if you smoke, so don’t even ask,” she told him sternly. “When I picked up the keys, I told the realtor I wasn’t interested in selling. But despite that, you made an offer on the place. And I assume you talked to her—what’s her name? Fox?—since she was the one who called me with your offer.”
    “Yeah, I talked to Maia Fox. And yeah, she told me about your conversation.”
    “And you made the offer anyway. Not once but
four
times. Don’t you think that’s maybe a little teeny tiny bit pushy?”
    Pres shrugged, trying not to be daunted by the disapproval in her eyes. For some reason, it was important that she didn’t dislike him. For
some
reason …? Not true. For one very
specific
reason—that he always took care to keep carefully zipped inside his pants during business deals. He had to smile at that—and at himself. It wasn’t like him to think with a part of his anatomy other than his brain.
    “I thought after you had a chance to see the place, to see how much work needs to be done, you’d change your mind,” he told her. “And if you were going to change your mind, I didn’t want to risk someone else jumping in with an offer and stealing the place out from underneath me.”
    She didn’t look totally convinced, but his explanation at least took some of the edge off of her disapproval.
    “After all,” he added, “you don’t get to be apompous, overbearing, egocentric billionaire by waiting for opportunities to find
you
.”
    The pink in her cheeks darkened, despite the fact that he was only teasing. “You’re never