The man didn’t matter.
The house mattered.
“I want it to be everything prison isn’t,” he said, his tone hard and decisive.
She couldn’t imagine this man, as vast and wild as the deep green trees and ridged blue mountains around them, contained in a cell. Isolated. Cut off.
In darkness.
And suddenly she felt compelled to be the answer to that darkness. To make sure that the walls she built for him didn’t feel like walls at all.
“Windows,” she said. That was the easiest and most obvious thing. A sense of openness and freedom. She began to plot the ways in which she could construct a house so that it didn’t have doors. So that things were concealed by angles and curves. “No doors?”
“I live alone,” he said simply. “There’s no reason for doors.”
“And you don’t plan on living with someone anytime soon?”
“Never,” he responded. “It may surprise you to learn that I have cooled on the idea of marriage.”
“Windows. Lighting.” She turned to the east. “The sun should be up here early, and we can try to capture the light there in the morning when you wake up, and then...” She turned the opposite way. “Make sure that we’re set up for you to see the light as it goes down here. Kitchen. Living room. Office?”
Her fingers twitched and she pulled her sketch pad out of her large leather bag, jotting notes and rough lines as quickly as possible. She felt the skin prickle on her face and she paused, looking up.
He was watching her.
She cleared her throat. “Can I ask you...what was it that inspired you to get in touch with me? Which building of mine?”
“All of them,” he said. “I had nothing but time while I was in jail, and while I did what I could to manage some of my assets from behind bars, there was a lot of time to read. An article about your achievements came to my attention and I was fascinated by your work. I won’t lie to you—even more than that, I am looking forward to owning a piece of you.”
Something about those words hit her square in the solar plexus and radiated outward. She was sweating now. She was not wearing her coat. She should not be sweating.
“Of me?”
“Your brand,” he said. “Having a place designed by you is an exceedingly coveted prize, I believe.”
She felt her cheeks warm, and she couldn’t quite figure out why. She didn’t suffer from false modesty. The last few years of her life had been nothing short of extraordinary. She embraced her success and she didn’t apologize for it. Didn’t duck her head, like she was doing now, or tuck her hair behind her ear and look up bashfully. Which she had just done.
“I suppose so.”
“You know it’s true,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, clearing her throat and rallying. “I do.”
“Whatever the media might say, whatever law enforcement believes now, my wife tried to destroy my life. And I will not allow her to claim that victory. I’m not a phoenix rising from the ashes. I’m just a very angry man ready to set some shit on fire, and stand there watching it burn. I’m going to show her, and the world, that I can’t be destroyed. I’m not slinking into the shadows. I’m going to rebuild it all. Until everything that I have done matters more than what she did to me. I will not allow her name, what she did, to be the thing I am remembered for. I’m sure you can understand that.”
She could. Oddly, she really could.
She wasn’t angry at anyone, nor did she have any right to be, but she knew what it was like to want to break out and have your own achievements. Wasn’t that what she had just been thinking of while coming here?
Of course, he already had so many achievements. She imagined having all her work blotted out the way that he had. It was unacceptable.
“Look,” she said, stashing her notebook, “I meant what I said, about my brothers being unhappy with me for taking this job.”
“What do your brothers have to do with you taking a job?”
“If you read anything about me then you know that I work with them. You know that we’ve merged with the construction company that handles a great deal of our building.”
“Yes, I know. Though, doesn’t the construction arm mostly produce reproductions of your designs, rather than handling your custom projects?”
“It depends,” she responded. “I just mean... My brothers run a significant portion of our business.”
“But you could go off and run it without them. They can’t run it without you.”
He had said the words she had thought more than once while listening to Joshua and Isaiah make proclamations about various things. Joshua was charming, and often managed to make his proclamations seem not quite so prescriptive. Isaiah never bothered. About the only person he was soft with at all was his wife, Poppy, who owned his heart—a heart that a great many of them had doubted he had.
“Well, I just meant... We need to keep this project a secret. Until we’re at least most of the way through. Jonathan Bear will be the one to handle the building. He’s the best. And since you’re right here in Copper Ridge, it would make sense to have him do it.”
“I know Jonathan Bear,” Levi said.
That surprised her. “Do you?”
“I’m a couple years older than him, but we both grew up on the same side of the tracks here in town. You know, the wrong side.”
“Oh,” she said. “I didn’t realize.”
Dimly, she had been aware, on some level, that Levi was from here, but he had left so long ago, and he was so far outside of her own peer group that she would never have known him.
If he was older than Jonathan Bear, then he was possibly a good thirteen years her senior.
That made her feel small and silly for that instant response she’d had to him earlier.
She was basically a child to him.
But then, she was basically a child to most of the men in her life, so why should this be any different?
And she didn’t even know why it was bothering her.
She often designed buildings for old men. And in the beginning, it had been difficult getting them to take her seriously, but the more pieces that had been written about her, the more those men had marveled at the talent she had for her age, and the more she was able to walk into a room with all of those accolades clearly visible behind her as she went.
She was still a little bit bothered that her age was such a big deal, but if it helped...then she would take it. Because she couldn’t do anything about the fact that she looked like she might still be in college.
She tried—tried—to affect a sophisticated appearance, but half the time she felt like she was playing dress-up in a much fancier woman’s clothes.
“Clandestine architecture project?” he asked, the corner of his lips working up into a smile. And until that moment, she realized she had not been fully convinced his mouth could do that.
“Something like that.”
“Let me ask you this,” he said. “Why do you want to take the job?”
“Well, it’s like you said. I—I feel like I’m an important piece of the business. And believe me, I wouldn’t be where I am without Isaiah and Joshua. They’re brilliant. But I want to be able to make my own choices. Maybe I want to take on this project. Especially now that you’ve said...everything about needing it to be the opposite of a prison cell. I’m inspired to do it. I love this location. I want to build this house without Isaiah hovering over me.”
Levi chuckled, low and gravelly. “So he wouldn’t approve of me?”
“Not at all.”
“I am innocent,” he said. His mouth worked upward again. “Or I should say, I’m not guilty. Whether or not I’m an entirely innocent person is another story. But I didn’t do anything to my wife.”
“Your ex-wife?”
“Nearly.
Everything should be finalized in the next couple of days. She’s not contesting anything. Mostly because she doesn’t want to end up in prison. I have impressed upon her how unpleasant that experience was. She has no desire to see for herself.”
“Oh, of course you’re still married to her. Because everybody thought—”
“That she was dead. You don’t have to divorce a dead person.”
“Let me ask you something,” she said, doing her best to meet his gaze, ignoring the quivering sensation she felt in her belly. “Do I have reason to be afraid of you?”
The grin that spread over his face was slow, calculated. “Well, I would say that depends.”
Copyright © 2019 by Maisey Yates
ISBN-13: 9781488046513
Vengeful Vows
Copyright © 2019 by Dolce Vita Trust
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Vengeful Vows (Marriage At First Sight Book 3) Page 18
