by Lena Skye
“I’m so sorry about your father. He was one of the best men I’ve ever known.” Naomi spoke gently.
“Thank you. His loss was tough to take. He was the best man I ever knew. I hope to live up to his standard.” Reggie smiled at her.
“Well, shall we have a seat? It seems there is business to discuss.” She invited him over to the sofa at the center of the room, and he followed her and sat down. Keisha and Malaika sat down in chairs beside them.
“This is Keisha; she’s my assistant and receptionist.” Naomi introduced Keisha, who smiled brightly at him and shook his hand. “And this is Malaika, who is a designer here at the firm.”
Malaika reached her hand to him to shake it, and he held her hand a bit longer, smiling genuinely at her. “It’s quite a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he answered, holding her eyes with his. She smiled at him and withdrew her hand from his slowly.
He turned toward Naomi then. “You have a lovely place here.”
“Thank you, Reggie. We’ve worked hard on it. I’m glad you like it.” Naomi smiled at him and told herself to be certain to start off on the right foot with him.
“My father mentioned your business more than a few times when he was alive. He had nothing but good to say about you and the ladies here,” Reggie began, looking at her more seriously as he spoke
. “I understand that he wanted you to be able to stay here, and he kept you here all of this time. I’m glad that he did that, but because he’s gone, things may change. We’ll have to talk about it. I’d first like to know what your plans are, and then I will be glad to fill you in on what changes I have coming up in the future.”
Naomi felt her heart begin to pound, and she tried to keep as calm a face on as she could manage. “Well, we love being here, and as you said, we’ve been here a while. We’re established here. I’d like to keep the business here, if I could. We want to keep it exactly as we have it now.” She kept her tone friendly while making her intent very clear.
He nodded. “I thought that might be the case.” He pursed his lips a moment and his smile faded somewhat. “I’m sorry if this causes you any kind of trouble, but for myself, I can’t keep this building. It’s more work than I have time to handle, and I’ll be frank with you; it’s the smallest property that I own. It’s not worth my while to keep it; to be honest.”
Naomi’s heart pounded its way straight into her throat.
“There are two people who are interested in buying the property. They have each made a considerable offer, and I am probably going to choose the higher of their two bids. Because my father thought so highly of you, I want to honor that and make you an offer. If you can at least match the highest bid, I will sell the building to you. The sale date is the end of this month.” He stopped speaking then, and watched Naomi, waiting to hear what she would say.
Naomi could barely breathe, let alone answer for a moment. She forced herself to breathe. Malaika saw her struggling, and jumped in to her rescue.
“I’m curious, Reggie, would you need all of the money at once, or would you be able to take any kind of payments over a period of time if Naomi was to purchase the building from you? Is there any other kind of option?” She gave him a smile, and he returned one to her, his face softening quite a bit.
He looked truly sorry as he shook his head. “No, I’m sorry, that actually wouldn’t be possible. It would need to be a complete sale for the full price at the end of the month. Fortunately, it’s the beginning of the month, so you have a full thirty days to make your decision.”
Malaika nodded at him, and he looked away from her reluctantly to return his gaze to Naomi. “What do you think you’ll want to do?” he asked.
Naomi had taken the few moments that Malaika had given her, and she gathered herself. “I would like the opportunity to buy the building, but I’ll be honest with you, Reggie, we just don’t have that kind of money, and it’s unlikely that we would have it in so short a time.”
He pressed his lips together in a tight line and nodded. “I understand. Well, that’s the best that I can offer you right now. I do hope that something turns up for you, and that if you want the building, you are somehow able to secure it. I will promise you this; I won’t make the sale final until the end of the month, so you have until then, and I will check with you first before I accept an offer from anyone else.”
She tried to give him a smile, but it wasn’t in her. She nodded in understanding, and he rose up from the sofa and offered his hand to her as she stood up beside him.
“Thank you for seeing me,” he said politely.
“Thank you for coming by and talking to us, and for holding the sale for us. We’re certainly going to do everything that we can to keep this building.” Naomi shook his hand.
He looked at Keisha. “It was nice to meet you both.” He shifted his gaze to Malaika, “I’ll be in touch very soon. What an absolute pleasure.” He reached for Malaika’s hand, and shook it, holding it a long moment as his eyes locked on hers, before letting her go.
Reggie left them, and the moment the door of the office closed, Naomi nearly collapsed on the sofa, burying her face in her hands as sobs came up in her full force. “I can’t believe this! We’ve worked so hard to get this business going and keep it busy, and we’ve been here all of this time. There’s no way that we can buy this place in a month! It’s just not possible!”
Her shoulders shook and Malaika came to her and sat beside her, wrapping her arm around Naomi’s shoulders and squeezing her gently to comfort her. “We’re going to figure it out. I don’t know how, but we will. We have a month. We have to make it work.”
Naomi stayed there on the sofa with Malaika a little while, but then she wiped her hands over her wet cheeks and dried her eyes as much as she could. “We have to get to work. We have to find a way to make that money. I’ve worked far too hard making this design firm what it is to lose it like that. I’m not moving the business, either. Ladies, we have to put our heads together and see what we can come up with.”
She stood up and walked back to her desk, determined to find a way to make it work. She sat there for two hours, going over every possibility that she could think of. Both Malaika and Keisha were working on it as well, and later that afternoon, Keisha hung up the phone on her desk and rushed over to Naomi’s desk.
“Naomi!” she gushed excitedly, her eyes brighter than usual. “Maybe this will help!”
“What is it?” Naomi asked, looking at the paper that Keisha thrust into her hand.
“It’s a new design job. This lady saw your work up in someone else’s house and just loved it! She wants you to go over to her home right away and talk with her about redoing her entire house and her guest house!” Keisha was bubbling with delight.
“Her house and her guest house? Wow! That’s not going to be enough to-” Naomi started, but Keisha stopped her.
“It could be! It’s in Beverly Hills! The square footage and all of the information is down on that paper. This is twice the size of Scott Thompson’s place, and that’s just the main house! The guest house is bigger than most of our usual jobs! This could do it!” Keisha grinned happily.
Naomi looked at the paper in her hand and did some quick mental math. “Oh my god…” she said quietly, “this could do it… both of these homes? That would be… that would be enough! Even if it wasn’t enough, it would certainly be nearly the full amount of the price of the building, and we could get a loan for the rest of it, if there was even anything leftover that we might owe!”
Relief and happiness washed through her like a tidal wave. It was the happiest she had been since the moment she was making love with Scott, right before her whole world had begun to crumble. “When does she want me to go talk with her?”
“She said that you could go this afternoon, if you aren’t busy.” Keisha bubbled.
“Good! Call her and tell her that I’m on my way please!” Naomi grabbed her purse and keys and headed toward the door. She stopped just
as she was about to walk out of it. “Oh! What’s her name?”
“Jen!” Keisha answered with an excited wave of her hand. Malaika smiled broadly, and they both wished Naomi good luck as she went out of the door with hope in her hands.
Chapter3
Naomi was practically giddy as she drove up the steep winding roads toward the address she had been given. The house was the biggest that she had ever done, and the knowledge that doing just that one job could save her business, was enough to bolster her low spirits and make her feel as if there was some true good in her life, coming to her in such dark times.
She stopped at the gate and a man in a guard house walked out to her and checked her name and ID, and she wondered just who the woman might be to need a guard at her gate, rather than just an electric security gate.
She was granted access, and she drove through the grounds and up a hill toward the house. The main house itself was a massive mansion; much bigger than she had anticipated, and she wondered for a moment if Keisha had gotten the square footage right when she pulled her car up to the front of the structure.
The landscaping around her made it seem as if she was in a park. She smiled to herself in excitement and went to the door. It was answered by a housekeeper, who showed her through the elegant foyer into a sitting room. The housekeeper offered her a beverage, and she asked for water.
The housekeeper came back in with the water, and a couple of minutes after that, a tall beautiful blonde woman walked into the room with a big smile on her face, and came straight toward Naomi.
“Hi! I’m Jen.” She held her hand out.
Naomi almost dropped her glass of water. She stood up and everything inside her twisted in chaos. “Jennifer… Jennifer Jones,” she said quietly. She wished that she had gotten the full name of the client from Keisha. Vertigo hit her hard and she reached her hand out to the sofa to steady herself at the same time that Jen reached her hand out to hold Naomi’s shoulders.
“Are you all right? Do you want to sit back down? I’m like that too, when I stand up too fast I get a little light headed.” She smiled at Naomi, and Naomi felt certain that she was going to vomit. Not being able to do much else, she sat back down and Jen sat in a chair across from her, smiling widely and shining like the morning sun.
“Thank you for coming by so fast. I didn’t think I could get you here this quickly, but I’m really glad that you came so soon. I was at a friend’s house last night and he told me that you did his place. Scott Thompson. Oh! His place is gorgeous! I love it! I asked him who he had do the interior design and he told me it was you. I just loved every single room.
You do such good work. I just have to have you redesign this place. I haven’t had it done since I moved in. I’ve been far too busy. I went on a world tour doing concerts all over the place, and I’ll be honest: I haven’t even really spent much time here at all. So, now that I have some free time coming up, I’m really intent on changing everything here, and getting it all redone, and you are the perfect person to do that for me! We have such similar tastes in everything! Almost exactly the same taste!” Jen was as excited about the job as Keisha was.
Naomi stared at her. They did have exactly the same taste. Especially in men, she thought to herself. She wished with everything in her that Jen was somebody else. Anybody else. She wanted to scream and run out of the door; she wanted to tell Jen off, and then tell Scott off again. She wanted to never have to look at that beautiful blonde woman in front of her again for the rest of her whole life. She couldn’t do any of those things. She sat there, staring at Jennifer Jones, and she realized with a sickening twist of her stomach, that Jen had no idea that Scott was Naomi’s lover. What was more, neither she nor Scott knew that his baby was growing in her belly.
Naomi knew that there was no way that she could take the job. There was no way that she could be in Jennifer Jones’ house, redecorating it and being around her, knowing that she was Scott’s girlfriend. She just couldn’t do it, and even the thought of it made her shudder with nausea.
At the same time, she also knew that taking the job was probably the only way that she was going to save her business and have the opportunity to buy the building. There would be no other job, or even collection of jobs in the coming month, that would pay her even half of the money that Jennifer Jones’ job would pay her. There was no alternative; not if she wanted to save her business and keep the location that she had had for so long.
“Are you feeling any better?” Jen asked her with concern. “I thought we could walk through the house so that I can show you the rooms and we’ll talk about what I’d like to do with each one. What do you think? Would that work?” She stood up, and waited with a smile for Naomi.
Naomi didn’t want to stand up. She didn’t want to do anything but bolt from the house like lightning, and get away from Jennifer Jones as fast as she could, but her feet felt like they were held to the floor below her like they were sealed in cement.
She couldn’t go anywhere. She was going to have to make the sacrifice of her life and stay in Jennifer’s house and follow Jennifer around to all of the rooms, and talk about designing the entire place, so that she could make the money that she had to have to save her business.
She stood up slowly. “I’m fine,” she lied. She knew that she should try to smile and be polite and friendly with Jennifer, but she just couldn’t manage it. She felt as nauseated as she had when Jennifer walked into the room.
“Wonderful! Well, it’s a big house, so we have a lot to see. Do you want to make notes as we go, or something?” Jen asked, looking over her shoulder at Naomi.
Naomi nodded mechanically. She pulled her phone out and slid the electric pen from it, ready to take notes as they moved from one room to the next. Jen took her time talking about each room and what she wanted to do with it as far as a design update. She specified different colors and styles, and Naomi tried to offer suggestions, just to keep her mind on designs rather than on the fact that she was in her lover’s girlfriend’s house.
She offered suggestions as she went along, and they both discovered very soon that they did have very similar tastes. It made Naomi sick to her stomach, but Jen was delighted with the fact, and she began to act as if she trusted Naomi even more.
They went through all of the rooms on the first floor, and then made their way to the second floor, going over all of it before heading down to the basement. There was another full house in the basement, as well as a recreation area, and a movie theatre.
By the time they finished with the guest house, which was behind the main house and two swimming pools, a tennis court, a putting green, and a large stunning European garden, Naomi was nearly worn out. Jennifer asked her to stay for lunch to finish talking about the work that Naomi would be doing, and although she didn’t want to share a meal with Jen, she knew she did have an obligation to wrap up the details of the work she was doing on the properties.
They went to the kitchen and sat together in a breakfast alcove. Jen’s personal chef prepared salmon and salads for them, and Jen offered Naomi chilled white wine with lunch, but Naomi turned it down. She had a baby to think of, she reminded herself.
Jen poured herself a glass of wine, and smiled as she took a sip of it and set it down. “You know, you and I are so similar. It’s really uncanny. There’s so much about us that’s alike that it makes me feel like I’ve known you for much longer than just today. I feel like I can trust you. I feel like you’re a real genuine person, and I’ll be honest… for me, that’s hard to come by.”
“I’m sure it must be,” Naomi answered quietly. She was wishing that Scott was as genuine as she and Jen were.
“I’m really glad that you’re going to be working on the house for me. It’s my home… or it’s supposed to be, anyway. I’m gone a lot, but I do want to change that. I’d rather be around here more often. In fact, since I got back from the world tour I started working on a project that’s really close to my heart. I’m doing a special cha
rity project with a couple of other musicians for kids with cancer.
We’re compiling and album and releasing it, and all of the money that it earns will go to cancer research, education, and prevention, and also as financial aid for families with kids who have cancer, but who are economically disadvantaged. That should be out soon.
We all, that is, the other artists and I, decided to do free concerts at the children’s hospitals in their cancer wards, so that the kids can hear the music in person and see us. That’s really important to us, too.” She smiled and touched her hand to her heart.
“It means a lot to me to do this work. My little brother had cancer and this way I feel like I’m giving back to the whole cancer community for taking such good care of him.” She wiped a tear from her eye and gave Naomi a weak smile.
Naomi’s stomach felt as if it had turned to stone. “Did your brother heal from his cancer?” she asked, almost not wanting to know the answer.
Jen shook her head. “No, he didn’t,” she said quietly. “That’s why this work is so important to me.” She took a big gulp of her wine. “Anyway, it’ll keep me around Los Angeles a lot more often, which is something I really want, so that’s good too. And now, with the redesign project on the house, you and I will be busy working together all of the time. That’ll keep me busy, too, which is good. I’ve got to keep myself busy. I want to keep my mind on all of the good things that I can.”
Naomi nodded and looked down at the half-eaten food on her plate. As much as she hated to admit it to herself, she liked Jen. She could see why Scott liked her, too, although she wished more than anything that it was different.
“I know about keeping the mind busy,” she said, thinking that a job as big as Jen’s would normally keep her completely distracted from all of her woes, if it wasn’t Jen’s house she was working on. She knew that because it was Jen’s home, she was going to be constantly reminded of Scott, and she knew that that was going to be a terrible burden on her, but it was one that she was going to have to take and face because she had a business to save, and three jobs there for herself, Malaika, and Keisha, and it all depended on her getting the money to buy the building. Redecorating Jennifer Jones’ house was the only way that it was going to happen.
