Meet Me in Paris. Simona Taylor
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into tour guide mode. “The house is about fifteen years old, but in good repair. I’ve had some work done, but more to suit my taste and my needs than to fix any problems.” He led her into the living room, gesturing as he went. There were traces of workmen’s mess, bits of wood and rubble in the corners—and guess who was going to have to clean it. “I’ve knocked out a wall here to make things more airy, see?” There was a hint of pride in his voice, a homeowner’s excitement at the freshness and promise around him.
She didn’t begrudge him his satisfaction. He’d made this castle his own, and was proud of it. “I see. It’s very nice.”
“My den’s back there.” He pointed. “Bedrooms are upstairs, one master, one guest, and one’s for a…” He trailed off, and then started over. “One’s a child’s bedroom. I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do with that one yet.”
“I saw a seesaw and some other kid’s stuff in the backyard. I guess a kid used to live here, huh?”
“I guess.”
She should have known better, by the look on his face and his noncommittal answer, but before she could stop it, she was cheerily saying, “It’d be a lovely house for children. Lots of space, places to play. Did you ever want children?”
He looked as though she’d whacked him in the gut with a four iron. He took an age to answer, and when he did, his eyes were steady on her face, as if he was afraid to blink. “My wife and I never had the chance.”
Oh God. The late wife. She hastened to apologize for her clumsiness. “Oh, I’m so…”
He shook his head, and the uncomfortable moment was past. “Forget it.” He started moving again. Motion. Good. He continued with his tour, as though she’d created no ripples on the surface of his pond. “Kitchen, of course.” He gestured through the open back door. “There’s a deck out there. The wood needs stripping, but I’ll have to get to that later, when the interior’s in order.” He laughed lightly. “If I ever make any friends here in Santa Amata, maybe I’ll hold a barbecue. I’ve been here only a few weeks and it’s been all work.”
Kendra peeped out politely, but her mind was still on her faux pas. “It’s…lovely.”
His spiel returned to the kitchen. “They delivered the appliances yesterday, but the gas isn’t hooked up yet. We’ll be ordering take-out for lunch. Gas people are supposed to swing by this afternoon, so maybe soon you can taste my hand, as my grandma used to say. Fridge works, though.” He opened it, partly to demonstrate, partly to offer her something. “Had breakfast?”
Last thing she needed right now was to see food. Being on the brink of a self-imposed sentence of community service was nerve wracking enough. “I’m okay.”
“Doesn’t exactly answer the question, but all right. How ’bout some juice?”
“Thank you.”
He reached into a cardboard box, rummaged through packing peanuts and retrieved a glass, which he washed and filled with pink grapefruit juice. “Ice maker needs about twenty-four hours to kick in,” he apologized, “but the juice is sorta cold.”
She sipped it. “It’s fine.” They were standing next to the marble-topped island in the kitchen, with him a little closer than she would have liked, given that she’d suddenly discovered that he had quite a body on him, and that as much as she didn’t cotton to him, her body wasn’t immune to the ripples she could see as he folded his arms across his chest. He looked at her, assessing, until she couldn’t stand it anymore. “What?”
“I half wondered if you were going to show.”
Smart aleck. “I said I would, and I’m here.” She couldn’t resist adding, “Just because I’ve got sticky fingers doesn’t mean that my word isn’t my bond.”
He nodded to indicate that her barb had landed well, but didn’t volley back.
She tried not to sound too disgruntled when she added, “You have to admit you have me over a barrel, Mr. Hammond. I don’t have many options open to me right now.”
“Trey.”
She frowned, puzzled, so he clarified. “Call me Trey. Please.”
In a bug’s eye. “At the office we called you Mr. Hammond.”
“We’re not at the office. In my home people call me Trey.”
She wasn’t in the mood for an argument, so she said, “Okay,” but she wasn’t going to call him a damn thing, if she could get away with it.
“Can I call you Kendra?”
“You’ve called me worse.”
He stepped maybe two inches closer, but two inches was enough for her to catch the slightest whiff of his scent. Sawdust and aftershave. And something else, something manly and warm, but she had to be imagining that. “If we’re going to work together, can we at least make peace?”
The swirly patterns the grapefruit pulp made on the sides of her glass suddenly held her attention to such an extent that she was unable to meet his gaze. Peace. He didn’t know what he was asking. He’d questioned her morals and mocked her values. He’d thrown her out in front of people who’d once respected her. He’d reduced her from a woman in a prestigious position to a scullery maid. Now he wanted peace.
He was waiting for an answer, but not in silence. “I’m not the enemy, Kendra. We’re just two people helping each other.”
She wasn’t so sure about that. “I don’t…”
“Try, at least,” his voice was low, encouraging.
She caved in like a house of straw. “Okay.” The concession took less effort than she’d expected.
“Okay.” His smile lit up his eyes. He held out his hand.
She took it, idly noticing how, although she didn’t have the most delicate hands in the world, his was still capable of engulfing it. She noticed, too, that his skin was as warm as his voice. This was probably the first time she’d touched him, and, considering what that brief contact was doing to her, she was going to do her darnedest to make sure it didn’t become a habit. She pulled her hand away and rubbed it surreptitiously on her jeans. “We should get started.” It was hard to get the suggestion past the little frog in her throat.
He conceded without any argument, easing the glass from her fingers and putting it next to the sink. “We’ll start with my den.” She followed close behind, and came to stand near a pile of cardboard boxes in a corner. He was a careful mover. On the sides of each box he’d clearly written the word “Den” with a fat, black marker. She didn’t need much of an imagination to visualize other piles of boxes elsewhere labeled “kitchen, bathroom, bedroom.” Just one more way in which this man kept his world under strict control. Just one more way in which they were different.
“I thought we’d fix this one up first,” he was telling her, “because I like to have a nice quiet place to work in at night.”
Odd reason, Kendra thought. When you live alone, isn’t the whole house a nice quiet place? Setting up a den in order to have a “quiet place to work” was like building an igloo on a tundra just to have a place to cool down. He was oblivious to the irony. She didn’t draw his attention to it.
“Back in a sec.” He disappeared, then returned with an armload of cleaning supplies—buckets, mops, brooms, cleaning fluids of all kinds—and set them down. She reached for a broom, but he beat her to it, and began to tackle the rubble left behind by the painters and repairmen. He caught her look of surprise. “Did you think I was planning on sitting back with a bourbon and watching you work?”
That was exactly what she was thinking, but she’d rather drink cleaning fluid than admit it. “No, not exactly,” she fluffed.
He stopped sweeping long enough to tell her, “I’m