Love Redesigned (Lakefront Billionaires #1) by Lauren Asher

“You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t.” She holds out the key ring for me. “Clippings should be organized in chronological order based on year, and the projector is located in the room beside the bathroom if you need it.”

“Thank you!” I snatch the keys.

“Library closes in an hour,” she adds.

“You got it!” I head toward the filing cabinets at the back.

Julian remains quiet as I sift through the first drawer of Wisteria Weekly newspapers dating back to when the town was founded in the late 1890s. I scan the headlines, searching for any information that might be helpful.

My eyes blur after the first fifty clippings. At this painstakingly slow rate, I’m only going to make it through four years of Wisteria Weeklies before the library closes.

The incessant tapping of Julian’s fingers against the screen of his phone doesn’t help matters, and I find myself scowling at him.

“I know it’s a hard ask, but will you at least try to make yourself useful?”

“You didn’t ask.”

Who is he to talk? I’m pretty sure if Julian were on fire, he would do everything possible to put himself out before asking anyone for help because he is that stubborn.

Doesn’t mean you have to be. “Will you please help me?”

“I love it when you say please.” His deep baritone voice does things to my lower half that should be deemed illegal.

I shut the drawer hard enough to make the cabinet shake. “Asshole.”

“Sweetheart.” He throws the old nickname in my face. Once upon a time, back when I won a beauty pageant after he bet I couldn’t place in the top three, sweetheart was Julian’s favorite nickname for me.

He hasn’t called me that since college, right after he kissed me senseless.

A kiss he regretted instantly.

Screw him.

I tug open the first drawer within grabbing distance and point at the file in front. “Scan the pages for anything related to the house, Gerald Baker, or someone named Francesca.”



“I think I found something.” Julian’s eyes flick over the clipping in his hand.

“What?” After thirty minutes of scanning newspapers, I can’t contain the excitement in my voice.

“Follow me.” Julian leads us toward a nearby table.

He pulls my chair out and waits. I slide in, and the tips of his fingers brush across my shoulder blades as he pushes me closer to the table. Thankfully, my harsh inhale isn’t heard over the scraping of the chair legs against the floor.

Julian’s arm brushes up against mine as he points to the headline. My body leans into his touch before I snap out of whatever spell he has me under.

“Gerald died before the house was fully completed.”

I blink. “No!”

“Look.” He shoves the article toward me before scooting his chair away.

I read the article with a frown. According to the reporter, Gerald died from a bacterial infection and was survived by his two dogs. Town sources close to Gerald mentioned how he refused to go to the hospital because he wanted to die in the comfort of his half-finished home.

My eyes itch. “That’s so freaking sad.”

“Stories like this make me glad I was born after penicillin was invented.”

I check out the grainy image of Gerald holding a shovel in front of a plot of land. “He never lived long enough to see his house get completed.”

“It appears not.”

“Or marry his true love.”

“Not many do.” There is a slight edge to his voice.

“She must have been heartbroken when she got the news about his death.”

“Why?”

I rear back. “What do you mean why? Because they were in love.”

“If she truly loved him, she would have stuck by his side from the beginning.”

“He was the one who told her not to come until the town was finished.”

“Then it was her mistake to listen to him.”

I can’t help feeling defensive over Francesca and her choices, especially when I see a bit of her in myself. “She waited for him, wrote him letters, and held on to a dream that one day they would get married despite the odds stacked against them. That’s what people do when they’re in love.”

“So you say.”

The audacity of this man. “For someone who has never been in love, you sure have a lot of opinions on the matter.”

The vein in his neck pulses with each erratic beat of his heart.

I continue, “What if he was the one who didn’t want to take the risk on her? What if she begged to join him, but he shut her down time and time again? He could have asked her to marry him at any time, and perhaps her father would have agreed because he wanted what was best for his daughter.”

“That’s a lot of assumptions.”

“You’re the one jumping to conclusions here by judging her for not being brave enough to join him, when maybe he was the one too afraid of the risks. Maybe he should have built a life with her rather than erecting a wall to keep her out.”

Shit. Shit. Shit!

His fist clenches and unclenches against the table. “Dahlia—”

My gaze dips back to the newspaper in the worst attempt to hide my flushed face. “Anyway, Gerald is probably the ghost, so the case is solved.”