Authors: Ellen James
Why did he have to affect her like this? She sank down in the chair across from his desk, her dress floating about her. Steven's eyes swept over her as he moved around his big, unwieldy chair and settled into it. They had not seen each other since their kiss in the attic, but Kate's heart still felt bruised. He had rejected her that day; perhaps only a glamorous and sophisticated woman like Gloria Nestor could touch his heart. Kate sat up a little straighter, reminding herself fiercely that emotional independence was the most important thing in the world to her. She had to hold on to it.
"What can I do for you?" Steven asked curtly. She struggled to gaze back at him with equanimity.
"You really ought to do something about this place. It has no flair at all."
The barest trace of a smile crossed his mouth. "Did you actually come here to redecorate my office?"
"I wanted to talk to you about your house. It's really coming along well, isn't it?" she asked brightly. He drummed his fingers on the large, featureless desk. He looked powerful and dynamic, his hair springing back from his forehead in the way she found so appealing.
"Every wall half-painted," he said. "Stacks of tiles in my bathtub. Curtains all over the chairs but none on the windows. You haven't finished one single room!"
"I'm glad you brought up that point, Steven. You see, I work with an overall scheme in mind. It's very important to stay in keeping with the entire spirit of the house."
"The place isn't haunted. You don't have to pacify any ghosts."
"Well, the house does have a history. We can't ignore that."
"Of course not," he muttered. "We wouldn't want to just paint the damn thing and be done with it."
She smiled at him but he didn't smile back.
"Kate, I assume there's a point to all this."
She sighed. Steven wasn't making things easy for her. It wasn't as though she'd
wanted
to come here today. She didn't have any other choice, that was all. Poking through her briefcase, she extracted a slightly wrinkled sheet of paper. She pushed it across the desk toward him.
"There. I wanted you to see exactly what I've spent so far. I wanted you to have the whole picture."
He scowled down at the sheet of paper.
"Are you serious? It takes that many cans of paint to come up with 'persimmon pink'? I hate pink."
"I'm using it very judiciously—as an accent color."
"Why the hell did you buy me a wok? And I don't need a chandelier."
"Yes, you do. It's going to look wonderful in the dining room, all those prisms of glass capturing the light! I can hardly wait until it's up."
Steven did not seem to share her enthusiasm. "What's this about more carpentry work?" he demanded. "You told me you were only going to have a few repairs done."
"I know you'll be happy with all the extra shelf space that's being put in. And I think one of the carpenters has a crush on Paula. His name is Jerry and he's very enterprising." Kate saw from the expression on Steven's face that this information wasn't going over too well. In fact, the entire discussion wasn't proceeding as planned. She had wanted to prove to Steven that she knew exactly where his money had gone, and that each expenditure was completely justified. But somehow she didn't seem to be getting this across to him. She decided to plunge right ahead.
"You see, Steven, the house has required a greater initial outlay than I anticipated. I'll therefore have to request… an additional amount of money from you." She pushed another sheet of paper toward him, this one smudged from a great deal of figuring, erasing and more figuring. "You can see it all right here. I'll need to purchase more furnishings, of course, and settle up with the carpenters. By the way, I'm sure you'll agree that I'm being very reasonable about the fee for all my extra time." She felt triumphant now that the words were out, but Steven's expression still wasn't encouraging.
"You signed an agreement with me, Kate. I'm not obligated to hand over one more cent to you until the job is finished."
"Things have evolved since then!" she protested.
"Is this how you usually operate your business?" he asked in a quiet but steely tone. "You renege on agreements and buy woks for people who don't want them?"
"Your house is a special case," she returned. "I've never encountered such neglect before. Besides, you have to see the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of it—"
"Spirits again! Let's stick with facts here," he interrupted. "For one thing, who does your books?"
"I handle my own accounting," she said. "With Paula's help, of course. She's very good with numbers."
Steven rubbed his jaw. "What was your net profit last year?"
"Well, um—" Kate shifted in her chair "—it wasn't bad."
"You're not really sure, are you? You probably took a loss."
"Not much of one," she said defensively. She was beginning to feel as though she were on the witness stand.
"What kind of advertising campaign do you have?" he went on in that calm, relentless tone.
"We're in the yellow pages," she said proudly. "Melrose Designs. You can look it up right now."
"Do you know what deductions to make on your tax return? Do you depreciate your business equipment? Have you established a good, solid relationship with your banker? Good Lord, do you even
have
a banker?"
Kate felt like a criminal under cross-examination. "I plead the Fifth," she muttered. Steven raised an eyebrow.
"It's worse than I thought," he remarked. "You run your business like a one-woman demolition derby. For your own good I'm not going to give you any more money."
Kate was not defeated. She stood up so that she could give Steven her most forceful glare. For added emphasis she leaned across his desk.
"We're talking about your house, Steven. Your home! It could be a
real
home if you'd just let me do my job. The kind of place that has a stack of firewood by the hearth and wind chimes outside the window." Kate's cheeks were flushed, the blood pumping through her body. She forgot all the arguments she'd rehearsed in front of her mirror, and the words just tumbled out of her. She looked straight into Steven's eyes.
"I know what you want deep down, Steven—a place to remind you of that drafty old house in Vermont where you grew up. But you want a place that's different, too, your own personal idea of what a home should be. The first time you saw the house on McClary Hill, you recognized what you'd been looking for. You didn't even know you'd been looking, but then you saw it, the home that
could
be. I see it, too. That's why you can't turn me down, Steven. It's your vision of the house I'm bringing to life!"
She stopped, out of breath and rather alarmed by what she'd said. She hadn't realized any of this before today, but every instinct told her it was the truth: she and Steven shared the same dream of what a home should be. The dream bound them together with its power, perhaps irrevocably. Kate's arms were trembling as she pressed her hands against Steven's desk. He gazed at her seriously, all mockery gone.
Neither one of them said anything for a long moment. Then Steven brought out a checkbook and started writing in it, his pen scratching over the paper. Kate straightened, drained by the encounter. Steven tore off the check and handed it to her.
"Thank you," she said formally, depositing it in her briefcase.
"None of this changes my mind, Kate. You've still gone too far with my house. Way too far. And you definitely need help managing your business."
"I'm happy with things just the way they are," she declared.
"A manager would help you channel your money and time. You'd be more productive."
"I'm already productive. And right now I don't have to answer to anyone else. I'm going to keep it that way."
"You're making a mistake."
She ignored his warning, glancing around at his bare walls and ugly furniture. "You really should let me do something about your office."
"I'll think about it," he said agreeably. "Maybe we should do the place in persimmon pink."
She frowned at him. He looked far too attractive with his devilish grin.
"Goodbye, Steven. Thank you. I mean—goodbye." She swept out of the room and past the disapproving gaze of Mrs. Adler. She didn't need anyone telling her how to manage her business. Everything was under control: the carpenters would get their money, Paula and Max would have a few weeks' salary, and Kate could pay her electric bill.
Most important of all, she could continue furnishing Steven's house like a real home. Over the next few days she lavished her love on the old place, bringing all sorts of gifts to it—an antique rolltop desk, a china butter dish, two large bath towels decorated with black Scot-ties in red bows. It was like celebrating the home's long-forgotten birthdays.
By the time Saturday came around again, Kate had also purchased the tools she needed to make her advance into the garden. She spent a contented morning raking up ancient leaves and poking into hardened earth with a spade. Then she crawled under the hedge, humming to herself and enjoying the good, clean snap of shears on dead branches.
Kate heard the sound of a car driving up, and a moment later an elegant pair of high-heeled shoes strolled into her line of vision. The shoes were glossy black patent leather, cut in simple lines to display a graceful set of ankles. Kate inched herself out from under the hedge and stood up. Gloria Nestor faced her, looking polished in a mint-green linen suit and a black silk blouse. Kate glanced down at her own T-shirt with its ripped hem and her denim shorts, which had been patched in three different places. Just being around Gloria made her feel inadequate. Gloria's assurance was obviously more than skin-deep; she carried herself like a woman who had believed in herself since babyhood. But she was not dismissive today, and she greeted Kate pleasantly.
"Hello," she said. "I was looking for Steve, but I suppose he isn't home."
"No, he's not," Kate answered.
"That's too bad. I wanted to ask him to pick me up early before the opera tonight."
It hurt to know that Steven was going out with Gloria; it hurt far too much. "I'm sure you can call him later," Kate said mechanically.
"Yes, I'll do that," Gloria said, but she made no move to leave. Instead she perched herself on the edge of the stone fountain, her beautiful ankles crossed casually in front of her. "Steve was telling me how you're transforming his house," she went on. "He says you're quite a talented decorator."
Kate was skeptical about that last comment. The Steven
she
knew was less than flattering about what she'd been doing to his house. She smiled a little to herself.
"I'm sure that it's a very gratifying experience, working with Steve," Gloria said. "Just between us girls, Kate, he's quite an unusual man."
"Yes, well, I suppose he is," Kate answered cautiously. She wasn't sure where this conversation was headed.
"It's not just that he's so attractive, although that certainly counts for a lot," Gloria elaborated. "He's intelligent, sensitive and caring. He's also potentially one of the most successful lawyers in the country."
Kate picked a twig out of her hair. Yes, Steven Reid was all those things, as well as stubborn, impatient and opinionated. He wouldn't be nearly as interesting a person without such traits. Gloria made him sound like a saint. How dull that would be!
Gloria was observing her too carefully, Kate thought, annoyed by the undercurrents she sensed.
"How much of your message do you actually want me to relay to Steven?" she asked without ceremony.
"Oh, Steve already knows what a high regard I have for him," Gloria said easily. "I was just wondering how you felt about him, Kate, and it's clear that you share my opinion."
Kate said nothing to this, sure that Gloria would use any information she gleaned today to suit her own purposes. At last Gloria stood up, shaking back her lustrous mane of hair. Her eyes were oddly opaque, so dark they were almost black, and they were impossible to read.
"I've enjoyed chatting with you, Kate," she said, sounding companionable and completely sincere. "I'd like to talk to you again sometime. I might be able to throw some decorating business your way."
"I have more than I can handle right now," Kate said.
"You should always cultivate your contacts," Gloria answered coolly. "I could be of invaluable assistance to you in your career. Goodbye now. Please do tell Steve that I stopped by to see him."
Kate nodded grudgingly, still feeling at a disadvantage. She watched as the dark green Jaguar purred out the drive and down McClary Hill.
Gloria Nestor was an enigma. She had seemed genuinely pleased to talk to Kate and hadn't sounded patronizing even when she gave the advice about cultivating contacts. And yet something rang false; Gloria seemed to have an ulterior motive in coming here today. She probably hadn't even intended to see Steven at all. More than likely she'd come to check out the competition—Kate.
Kate poked her fingers into her new pair of flowered gardening gloves. Competing with Gloria for Steven's affections seemed so foolish, so hazardous. Already she was too bound to Steven, wondering if she would ever be able to break completely free of him. Already she felt too much pain just knowing that Steven and Gloria would spend another evening together.
Kate pulled off her gloves and tossed them down like gauntlets, in a challenge to herself. She wouldn't succumb to the hurt inside her, but would battle it with wholesome physical labor. She strode over to the new lawn mower she'd purchased, pushing it around to the back of the house where the lawn sloped down before her in a wild tangle of grass. She yanked on the starter and the machine leapt into life, traveling forward with a momentum all its own. Kate pulled on the handle, but it was already too late. The lawn mower had gained speed and was racing down the steep hill. All she could do was hang on and fly along after it.
They both landed in a clump of quack grass, and the engine cut off abruptly. Kate struggled to her feet, brushing off her shorts and craning her neck to stare up at the house. The steepness of the lawn was more than she'd bargained for, but she wasn't defeated yet. She grasped the handle of the mower and started pulling it back up the hill. Every muscle straining against the force of gravity, she advanced a little—then a little more.