by Kait Nolan
“That is definitely a lot.”
“Neither of us can afford for anything to go wrong.”
“That may be, but I think you’re also afraid for everything to go right. Because what would that mean for you?”
Deanna bought time by sipping at the truly excellent coffee. “Opening my heart to truly trust again. Letting him close enough that he could break me.”
“Scary stuff.”
The mild words made her bristle. “I feel like I have the right to be scared. I was burned pretty damned badly.”
“Nobody’s disputing that. You have a right to whatever fear and pain you’re still toting around over that asshole. But I’d also point out that Wyatt is a patient guy. That’s obvious in the kind of work that he does. He doesn’t rush. He takes his time and does things the right way. I’d expect he’d deal with people much the same way.”
“You’re not wrong.” He’d pushed her in pursuing the design thing, but never regarding their relationship. Case in point, last night’s one-sided orgasm. She’d been more than ready to go to bed with him, but he’d been noble, damn it. How could she fault him for that?
“I feel like there’s a ‘but’ hanging around in there somehow.”
“He’s letting me set the pace with our relationship.”
“And what pace is that exactly?”
Glacial. “We’ve been taking things slow. There are a bunch of very practical reasons for that. I rushed into things with Blake, and it was a titanic mistake.”
“Buuuuut.”
Deanna glanced around, making sure neither Wyatt nor any of his myriad of foster siblings were within earshot. “There’s a part of me that wants to leap in feet first, because holy hell, the man is hot, and it’s been a loooong time.” And if he could give her an orgasm like that with her clothes on, what could he do with all of them off?
Ivy laughed. “Hey, I dragged Harrison to bed within about twenty-four hours, so I’m the last person to criticize. If you want him, make that clear.”
“I think I will.” She sipped more coffee. “And how is your adoring and very sexy husband?”
Her friend grinned that smug, happily married grin that used to feel like a slap. “He’s very good. Scared to death about this baby, so he’s devoured about seventeen different baby and parenting books trying to prepare.”
“The fact that the former Army Ranger is scared of this continues to amuse me.”
As they continued to chat about the upcoming baby, Deanna found she no longer felt the prick of envy at her friend’s happiness. And that said as much as anything because she felt like maybe she’d finally gotten it right in her own life. With Wyatt. With the house. And that was a scary and wonderful place to be.
But maybe, just maybe, she could put all that aside and let herself enjoy the ride.
Chapter 12
“Okay, easy. Easy. A little to the left. Watch your fingers.” Wyatt’s muscles bunched as he, Levi, and Simon wrestled with the last of the kitchen countertops.
Simon and Levi released their hold, and Wyatt shoved the counter into place on the newly installed cabinets.
“Perfect fit, as always.” Simon held his knuckles up.
Wyatt gave him a fist bump and stepped back to take in the full effect. This was his very favorite part of the process. When a room truly began to take shape, and he could see the way to the finish line, but they weren’t quite there yet.
“I think I’m going to cry.” Deanna pressed a hand to her mouth, and those gorgeous hazel eyes did look a little glassy.
Wyatt tugged her back against him, resting his chin on her shoulder. “There’s no crying in renovation. At least not when nothing’s a disaster.”
“Ooo, man.” Simon whistled. “Don’t you say that. It’s tempting the gods.”
“Happy tears. Ecstatic tears. Wyatt, the cabinets are exquisite. And these custom butcher block countertops from all the reclaimed wood are so special.” She reached out to run a hand lovingly over the surface.
Wyatt wondered what it would take to get her to do that to him again. They’d been business as usual, wrapped up in the renovation since they got back from Eden’s Ridge. Still, seeing her obvious pleasure in his work was its own reward. “It’ll be awhile before we get to staining the floors, and we still need to pick out appliances, but it’s coming together. To actually look like a kitchen.”
“Maybe we should rethink that. I know there are a lot of practical reasons to wait on refinishing the floors until we can do everything at once, but for the purposes of the show, it might make more sense to go ahead and finish them out, so we can give them the payoff of a finished room.”
“Is that because you actually think that would please viewers more or because you’re desperate for a real, functioning kitchen?”
“I mean… it can be both. The only thing I want as much as a kitchen is a finished master bath with a massive soaker tub and a steam shower, and we haven’t even started on that beyond the rough-in of the plumbing.”
Wyatt laughed. “We’ll talk about it.”
“The woman has a point,” Levi conceded. “Disaster to big reveal is the more typical pattern on home improvement shows.”
“We aren’t typical. We do a lot more of the actual how to, and viewers like that. Take that tutorial Deanna did on stripping and refinishing the pressed tin ceiling tiles in here. People loved that.”
“True. Stats on that post and episode are looking great.” She tipped her head back against his shoulder to take in the finished ceiling. “They came out so well.”
Wyatt couldn’t resist pressing a kiss to her brow. “We do good work, Miss James.”
“Yes, we most certainly do.”
When she didn’t protest or pull away, he counted it a win. They’d both more or less resigned themselves to the fact that Bennet would play up the romance, but Deanna was still reluctant to allow PDA on camera on purpose. The shit-eating grin Simon kept aiming their way probably didn’t help matters.
He pressed a hand to his heart. “Aww. Love in the time of renovations.”
When Deanna slipped away, Wyatt glared at him. “Your commentary is not required.”
“Keep pushing, Simon, and I’ll have Bennet add in a secondary subplot romance,” Deanna warned.
“With who?”
“Absolutely nobody missed you making eyes at Fiona Gaffney.”
Simon sputtered, shooting panicked glances at the camera in the corner. It was time-lapse, so didn’t capture audio at all, but apparently he was too flustered to remember that. “Bennet, you can’t put that in there. I don’t consent. There’s no release.”
“Pretty sure it’s covered under the general release you signed at the start of the season. I’m sure we could arrange another workday.” Smirking at his discomfiture, Deanna grabbed her camera and waved him out of the shot so she could get pictures of the new counters.
Satisfied his little brother had been shut down, Wyatt circled back to their earlier conversation. “Carson said he had a run on tin ceiling tiles after you posted your tutorial.”
“Yeah?” Deanna paused, camera in hand. “Have you ever considered approaching him for sponsorship?”
“Thought about it. Never have. He gave me my start. Asking for anything else feels… weird.”
“That man adores you. You use tons of his materials, and your platform would be a potential boon to his business.”
“We’ll add it to the list for discussion.” It was getting longer by the minute. Might as well continue the trend. “I also was thinking it might be worth doing a limited-run special on the deconstruction and salvage process.”
She brightened, and he could see the wheels turning in her head with some new idea. “Oh, that has possibilities. I wonder if we could negotiate a trade for materials?”
Before Wyatt could reply, Casper shot out of the room, loudly announcing that someone had arrived.
Deanna set the camera aside. “Are we expecting anyone?”
“At seven o’clock on a Thursday night? No.”
“Did somebody order take out?” Levi asked.
Simon’s response to that was a massive growl of his stomach. “No, but we totally should. I’m starved.”
“You’re always starved.”
The doorbell rang.
Wyatt made it to the door first, tugging a barking Casper back by the collar. “Settle down, pal. You have served your duty as alarm system.”
Deanna opened the door. “Patrick!”
Who the hell was Patrick? Wyatt thought about letting Casper loose on the suit standing on their front porch. He looked slick and polished, and the gaze he tracked over Deanna said he knew her better than Wyatt liked and wanted to get to know her better still.
She stepped back. “Please, come in.”
The suit stepped inside, eyes moving to take in the foyer and landing on Wyatt.
“Patrick, this is Wyatt Sullivan, my business partner and the talent behind DIWyatt. Wyatt, this is my friend Patrick McCall. He’s an associate producer with the True Country Network.”
“A producer?” Well, Wyatt figured he could shape up enough to shake the man’s hand.
“I contacted Patrick a couple of months ago to see if there’d be any interest from TCN in your show.” She folded her arms, one brow lifted in censure. “I rather thought you’d blown me off.”
“Sorry about that. You know how things get. But I did finally catch up on what you sent me and what you’ve put out so far. Gotta say, I really liked what I saw.”
“I told you, you would.”
“So you did. I didn’t realize to begin with that you were looking to be a part of the whole thing, Deanna. That changes everything.”
So he’d seen the kiss. Probably. Wyatt felt an unreasonable satisfaction that he’d effectively marked his territory.
“It does?”
“I’ll just get right to the point. You two have something special going. As you know, TCN has been working to expand its market share by branching into slice-of-life reality shows that fit the aesthetic of our network. We think you could be our network’s Home Town or Fixer Upper, and we want to prove that CMT passed up a good thing.”
This was what he wanted. What he’d been working toward. Wyatt resisted the urge to whoop. He’d thought he’d made it before and been ultimately shot down. But an assistant producer had to be higher up the totem pole than Curt Welling, right?
“That’s very flattering, Patrick. What’s the catch? If you were ready to make some kind of offer, you’d have called us up to the network offices rather than showing up out here after work.”
“Well, not everybody at the network is on board yet. We have a big party coming up. All the big wig decision makers will be in attendance. I want to have the party here. It would be your chance to really wow them with the finished product and show your chemistry in person.”
A party. They wanted to host a party. It seemed a weird way to go about things, but he could work with that. “When is the party?”
“Labor Day.”
That was a month away. Blood roared in Wyatt’s ears as the list of all the remaining work to be done scrolled through his brain. They had a timeline. A tight one to start. This was… this was…
“We’ll do it.” Deanna’s confident voice echoed through the foyer.
Wait. What? No.
They needed to discuss this. He was the renovation expert. The one who knew what went into all of this and how long it would take. She’d said she’d bow to his expertise. But Wyatt couldn’t seem to make himself speak, and Patrick was already shaking her hand, then his and walking out the door.
The moment Patrick’s car cranked up, Deanna threw her arms around Wyatt’s shoulders. “This is it! This is our shot. I’ve met a bunch of these producers. These are people who can and will make a legitimate decision.”
“What the hell did you just commit us to? Do you remember our timeline? The one that doesn’t have us finishing with things for two whole months after this party?”
“Hold up. Slow down. We can revise the timeline.”
“Revise the timeline. How?”
“For a party, we only need to get the lower level public areas done. We can shift around all the upstairs work until after that. It’ll still be tight, but we can recruit some more warm bodies to help.” She framed his face in her hands. “We can do this, Wyatt. You can do this. I believe in you.”
Her words settled over him, settled into him, calming the rising panic. No one had believed in him like this since Scott. He hadn’t realized how much he’d needed that from someone else.
Curling his hands around her hips, he dropped his brow to hers. “Okay. Okay, if you think we can do this, we’ll find a way to make it happen.”
“Sounds like we need to make a plan to tackle everything.” Simon’s voice sounded from down the hall. Of course, he’d been eavesdropping on that entire exchange. “If you’re done with this touching moment, can we order food so we can get started on that?”
Deanna laughed softly. “The man has a point.”
“I call Chinese.”
“I’ll call it in.”
I hereby resign from my position, effective immediately.
Deanna stared at her computer screen, pouring over every word of the letter she’d drafted, as if that was going to give her clarity on this situation. She wanted to quit. That was nothing new. But now she felt a pressure to actually do it.
Wyatt was freaking out over the deadline she’d committed them to. If they were going to meet it, they needed all hands on deck. He believed enough in her to make her a part of what he’d built with DIWyatt, so he deserved her full investment.
But the prospect of actually pulling this trigger, leaving the security of a guaranteed paycheck and health insurance, of potentially burning bridges with this precipitous exit, absolutely terrified her. There was no turning back if she did this. No safety net. Her parents would flip their lids. And God knew how Blake would react. She had a month, maybe two at the most, that she could swing alimony at the rate specified in the divorce decree and then…
The whole thing was a gamble. She’d gambled before and lost big. Wyatt was so much of a better man than Blake. If this didn’t pay off, it wouldn’t be because he was lazy or using her. He was all in.
She wanted to be.
And yet.
Her office phone rang.
“Deanna James. How can I help you?”
“Deanna, it’s Lacey. Mr. Neal would like to see you in his office to discuss a new client.”
Another one?
She couldn’t afford to take on another client. Her existing load already took about sixty hours a week, and she hadn’t gotten more than six hours of sleep a night since she’d bought Blackborne Hall.
Closing her eyes, she took a soft breath. “I’m on my way.”
Before she left her office, she printed off the letter and signed it. She wouldn’t give it to her boss right now, but the possibility of it felt like a talisman against allowing herself to be pushed around, so she slid it into the leather folio she took to meetings.
On the elevator ride up, she dreamed of a day when this would be a straightforward decision. When there’d be no one she had to think of but herself. When she’d actually be free to just live her life the way she wanted. She hadn’t dared to even imagine that before Wyatt. Not really. He’d opened up her world and helped her step back out into it. She’d needed that. But it meant that the status quo chafed now in a way she hadn’t acknowledged before.
At the desk outside Mr. Neal’s office, Lacey looked nervous. Great. That suggested a high maintenance client. Like they needed another one of those with Mercy Lee on their roster.
Wanting to put the woman at ease, Deanna flashed her a smile and strode inside.
“And here she is. Our best account executive.”
Damned straight, she was the best. Her superiors acknowledged it seldom enough that she took a moment to ba
sk in the glow of acknowledgment. But that warmth faded as she caught sight of Gavin Waters, her least favorite agent, rising from one of the chairs in front of Mr. Neal’s desk.
“Deanna. Good to see you again.”
A sense of dread lodged in her gut like a chunk of concrete. Without responding, she slowly pivoted to take in the rest of the spacious, top floor office. Standing in front of the window, looking like an ad for some wanna-be-a-country-boy cologne, stood Blake.
Remain calm and professional.
“What’s going on?” She addressed the question to her boss.
Richard Neal beamed. “Gavin’s client just inked a deal with Quicksilver Entertainment. They want to hire our firm, and they want to work with you.”
Gavin’s client. As if Richard wasn’t perfectly well aware that Blake was her ex-husband.
This could not be happening.
Knowing her smile was probably one step above a snarl, she kept her attention on Richard. “I’m flattered by the request, but I already have a full client load. I’m afraid I can’t possibly take on anyone else.”
Richard dropped into the chair behind his desk and steepled his fingers in a way she’d watched him do countless times over the years. It was his king issuing a proclamation position. “I’m not being clear. They want our firm and only you. This is not negotiable.”
She gave up even the pretense of a smile. “You’re aware of the conflict of interest here?”