He stared thoughtfully at the samples in my hands, then looked out at the rest of the room, then returned to the swatches.
“Maybe you’d like to take these?” I asked, my arms beginning to ache at holding them up.
“No,” he replied with a slight grin. “I want to see them from a distance. It helps with the visualization.”
Of course it does.
I continued holding the swatches, feeling like an absolute idiot. There was just no way to do this and look professional. Surely part of my job wasn’t to stand there and look like a tree? Did other designers have to do this?
“Mr. Bentley,” I said, after another moment. “How’s that visualizing going?”
He blinked and looked up at me as if emerging from a trance. “I think it would be better if you held the samples against the other wall.”
“Fair enough.”
Stepping over, I pressed the swatches against the new surface. “Can you envision how this would open up the room?” I asked, needing to fill the empty air with something. The library’s quiet was so oppressive that I almost wanted to start bickering with him to break it.
“Hmm.” He cocked his head to the side. “I can’t see it. Maybe try going over to the window.”
“The window?” I raised a suspicious brow.
“The window.”
I trudged back across the room. “And what do you want me to do here?” I lifted them to chest height. Holding up the samples in front of me seemed pointless, but did he expect me to press them against the glass? What purpose would that serve?
“I want to see what they look like next to the drapes,” he said, as if it were obvious. The only thing obvious to me at that point was that he was trying to make me look like an idiot.
And he continued doing that for the next fifteen minutes, ordering me around the room so that he could see the colors in “different lighting and from different angles”. He even had me climb up to the mezzanine and hold them for him to look at from the floor. Afterward I had to climb down and hold them so he could look at them from the mezzanine.
Then he couldn’t decide on a wall color without seeing different kinds of flooring next to it—and all that in different light too.
It was exhausting. It was infuriating. Worst of all, it was time consuming.
“Mr. Bentley,” I said sourly, after presenting my flooring options to him for the third time. “If I don’t get to the hardware store before they close, I won’t be able swap out the cabinet hardware until tomorrow.”
“I don’t see how that’s a problem,” he said, arms folded over his chest imperiously. “Just go tomorrow.”
I frowned and crossed my own arms.
I could go tomorrow, or even make a stop before coming here in the morning. Sure, I’d told Oliver the kitchen would be done today, but missing that deadline was his own fault and he clearly didn’t care.
But I won’t see Harry if I go tomorrow.
Harry and I had flirted in the past, and I was a little starved for positive attention lately. The thought of getting to see him tonight was a pleasant light at the end of this dark library.
“I want to go tonight so I can cross the kitchen off my list and be done with it,” I argued. It wasn’t totally a lie. “It’s just an organizational thing. I told myself it would be done today and I’ll be frustrated if it isn’t.”
“Sounds like you need to let loose a little,” he replied.
The glare I shot him wasn’t nearly as intense as he deserved. We weren’t accomplishing anything here anyway, this was a waste of my time, so I just repeated myself. “I need to get to the hardware store before it closes.”
The light from the fire, which was the last light source Oliver had made me compare swatches against, dappled Oliver’s face with warm bursts of orange and flickers of shadow. The corner of his lip twitched into a smile, which looked positively sinful in the dim glow.
“I’m thinking a bearskin rug here,” he murmured, glancing down at the carpet.
“I’m thinking that’s disgusting.”
His eyes returned to mine, shimmering. “You misunderstand me, Ms. Paulson.” Oliver took a couple steps toward me. The gap between us was no more than a few feet now, but I’d be damned before I retreated.
His voice was like silk as he continued. “Not a real bear, of course. That would be barbaric.” He chuckled, eyes drawing me in. “But a fake fur rug that looks like a bearskin. One you could sink naked into next to the fire, big enough for two. One that is soft enough to lie against, or to move around on, that keeps you comfortable and warm so that you don’t have to rise again until the flames had simmered down to embers.”
My breath caught in my throat. The intensity of his gaze and the images flashing through my mind were too much. I was practically lava inside.
How is he still able to infuriate me one minute, and leave me melting with desire in the next? “I was thinking of axing the gas fireplace, actually,” I managed to choke out. “Seems kind of pointless to have more than one in the room once the other one is fixed.”
He shrugged. “That just makes it better. Fake bearskin rug, real fire.”
Dammit.
I was hoping he’d fight me on the fireplace removal so we could end this conversation. Oliver was too close. His voice was too husky. He was trying to get a rise out of me, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep it together.
But then again, part of me was curious to see where this conversation was headed. What would happen if I said screw Harry, and screw the hardware store? What was Oliver’s game plan? What kind of point was he hoping to prove to me here, against the glow of the flames?
I noticed he was watching me, waiting for my response. His sudden switch from antagonistic to seductive had me confused, so I just said the first thing that popped into my head.
“Sounds like a fire hazard.”
He raised an eyebrow, as if to ask if that was really all I had to say in response.
I shrugged at the unanswered question. “Have you seen the carpet by the hearth? There are so many singe marks that it looks like a connect the dots.”
Oliver stared at me for a moment longer and then laughed. I was grateful for the sound, as it seemed to break the complicated stillness that had gathered around us.
“Go to the hardware store, Ms. Paulson,” he said, and then he turned and disappeared into the shadows.
“I doubt I’ll even make it now,” I muttered, more to myself than him. I was suddenly feeling sullen, more disappointed that the moment was over than I wanted to admit.
Shrugging it off, I pulled out my phone and checked the time. With a little luck and some good traffic, I might still make it to Big Al’s after all.
Chapter 11
Oliver
The phone rang three times before Damien picked up. It was a new record.
“Are you dying?” I asked, tossing a charcoal tie from my closet to the bed. The tie unrolled partway and slumped to the carpet a few feet from its intended destination. I frowned and continued picking through outfits.
“Why would you say that?” Damien asked.
“You’ve never taken so long to pick up.” I rubbed at the sleeve of one of my shirts absentmindedly. “At one point I thought you’d actually gotten your phone implanted.”
“Ha-ha.” Through the phone, I heard a horn beep. “Shit.”
“Am I distracting you?” I asked sweetly.
“Just traffic.” He groaned. “Gets worse every goddamn year.”
I grabbed a shirt from the rack and strolled back over to my bed, laying it on the covers while I retrieved the errant tie from the floor.
“That’s why you should live outside of the city,” I replied. “Like me. It has its benefits.”
“If I wanted to wait out a zombie apocalypse, maybe. If I want to be a productive business owner, maybe not.”
I frowned. He didn’t intend to do it, but then again Damien never intended to offend half of the people he did. It
came with the territory of being self-absorbed. It wasn’t the first time he’d forgotten that my status of unproductive non-business owner was a sore spot. I was used to it, though.
“Well you can show me all the wonderful things the city has to offer tonight,” I continued. “There’s a club opening near Chinatown that I’ve been invited to.”
“I can’t tonight. I’ve got to prepare a speech for my conference call tomorrow with the investors.” Damien’s voice sounded stressed, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of his presentation or the traffic.
“Fuck the investors.” I strode back to my closet to pick out a pair of pants and shoes. “Your stock keeps increasing. That’s all they need to know.”
“And then when they start pulling their shares because the CEO looks like a complete asshat, the stocks will start decreasing,” Damien said. “Brilliant plan, Ollie.”
Shoes in hand, I returned to the bed and sank onto it. “Jesus, Damien. Just help me get out of this goddamn house for a few hours. I’m going crazy here.”
“I always knew this day would come,” he replied. “I still can’t decide whether I’ll call the documentary ‘Mansion Fever’ or ‘The Shining and Cufflinks’.”
“Both horrible ideas.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s marketable as shit.”
I closed my eyes in frustration. “Hire a speechwriter.”
“You hire somebody for everything,” he laughed.
“If I hired somebody for everything then I wouldn’t have spent so much time personally scouring through everything my grandfather left.”
“And doesn’t that make you feel accomplished?”
“It makes me feel irritated and like I need to get out of this place before I rip my interior designer’s clothes off.”
I glanced toward the door. She wasn’t back from the hardware store yet, and anyway if she was she wouldn’t have any reason to come up here. Work on my room was being left until last so there would be another bedroom ready for me to stay in during the interim.
“I still can’t believe she’s the girl from Repeat,” Damien mused. “The only way that could be more serendipitous is if her friend showed up as my new secretary.”
“What, so she could reject you again?”
“I’m not saying it would be ideal,” he growled. “Just coincidental. Don’t be a dick.”
I chuckled. He deserved it after all the flack he gave me when he found out Elizabeth was my new interior designer.
“She’s been in your house for what? A month now?” he asked. “Why are you about to rip her clothes off all of the sudden?”
I hadn’t mentioned to Damien how I’d been struggling. It wasn’t a lie so much as an omission. For a guy who had such a keen business head on him, he really didn’t seem to get affairs of the heart.
“We had… I don’t know. I spent some time with her that didn’t end in a fight.”
“I don’t like the sound of that…”
I had told him about the fighting. He supported me finding her insufferable and forcing her to change her designs.
“Don’t worry, mom, I didn’t fuck her,” I retorted. “I fucked with her. She just didn’t react the way she should have.”
I sighed. How the hell could I explain this without having to put all my cards out? I just wanted to get some fresh fucking city air. I didn’t need the unsolicited advice that was sure to come out of this. I already knew the trouble I was heading for.
“How was she meant to react again?”
“The way she usually does,” I supplied. “Throwing her hands up in the air and storming away from me.”
At least, that’s what I had expected her to do at first, when I was sending her all around the library holding up those stupid paint chips.
I expected a much different reaction when I lost control and started to flirt.
Lucky for me she hadn’t reacted predictably then, either.
“The fact that you’re irritated you didn’t get to play with your new toy worries me,” Damien said. “You know better than this, Ollie. You need to stay away from her.”
I knew he would say that. I also knew he was wrong. Not about staying away from her—I definitely needed to do that—especially since I was clearly losing my ability to control my attraction to her. But Damien had missed the mark as to the source of my frustration. Elizabeth wasn’t a squeaker toy that I hadn’t been able to make squeak anymore.
I was irritated that I felt bad.
I was beginning to feel guilty about the way I was treating her, and it was getting harder and harder to try to make her hate me.
But I wasn’t about to admit that. Not even to my best friend.
“So are you going to go out with me tonight or not?” I demanded, changing the subject back to something I actually wanted to talk about at that moment.
The sounds of traffic still blared in the background and Damien released a heavy sigh. “Fuck. Fine.”
“That’s a good man.”
“But not until after I’ve written my speech,” he warned. “So give me three hours.”
“Three hours to write a goddamn speech?”
“Three hours to write a speech and have some dinner,” he replied. “I have a steak marinating in the fridge.”
I rolled off the side of the bed and rose to my feet. “Whatever. I’ll be at your place in a couple hours.”
Chapter 12
Elizabeth
There was no way in hell I was going to make it. The clock on my dash said 5:25 and I still had at least three minutes of driving left to do. Plus parking. Plus sprinting up to the front doors.
I should have just cut out as soon as Oliver started being ridiculous.
But I wasn’t going to turn the car around just yet. I zoomed into the parking lot and nabbed a spot right in front, hopping out just in time to see Harry walking away toward the back of the store, presumably having just finished locking the door. The OPEN sign was unlit.
I raced forward, banging my hand on the door. “Harry!” I cried.
Harry turned, his face lighting up with a smile when he saw it was me.
“Hey!” he called, his voice muffled behind the glass and metal. “What are you doing here?”
He walked toward me with a jovial grin.
I lifted the bag of hardware in my right hand to show him. “Bentley didn’t like them.”
I must have looked truly pathetic because he unlocked the latch and pushed the door open, gesturing for me to come inside. “I haven’t shut the tills down yet,” he offered.
I looked from the store, to my knobs, and then back to my car. “I shouldn’t, Harry,” I said. “It’s too much.”
Internally, though, I was delighted. Just me and Harry and the hardware store. It could have been a sitcom, it sounded so appealing.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I know what it’s like to have a difficult boss.”
I laughed and stepped forward, brushing past him on my way inside. “Your boss is your dad. How is that difficult?”
Harry paused to lock the door behind us and then started walking me to the kitchen section. Most of the lights had been turned off inside, but the few that remained illuminated the aisles enough to keep me from tripping over my own feet.
“Are you kidding?” he asked. “My old man’s the worst. I called in sick with a hangover last week and he came to my house and dragged me here in my sweatpants.”
I laughed, the sound of it filling the empty store. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a good laugh, so I continued on laughing even though it might have made me look a little crazy. I wouldn’t admit it to Harry, but part of why I was laughing was at the idea of a grown man calling in sick with a hangover.
“I’m glad you think it’s funny,” he said, ribbing me lightly with his elbow. “My mom had to pass messages between us for three days because we wouldn’t talk to each other.”
“What happened?”
We reached the aisle with
the cabinetry. Oliver didn’t like the ceramic hardware I’d special ordered because he thought they were too “modern”. Particularly the knobs, but also the handles. I could have chosen another set from the catalogue, but I knew even Oliver wouldn’t be able to find fault with a standard set of brushed chrome.
Harry leaned against the shelving as I selected my replacements. “Eventually she got tired of it and told us that if we didn’t grow up she was going to broadcast to the entire store that we were a couple of silly children.”
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