Home Matters (A Ripple Effect Romance Novella, Book 1)

by Julie N. Ford

“Compliments of the house,” she said, her eyes dancing toward William with obvious delight at having the opportunity to serve such a popular celebrity. “Try adding a helping of syrup. And don’t be shy, there’s plenty more where these came from.” She tilted her brimming basket for Olivia and William to see. “I’ll be coming around from time to time.” She sent William one last look of elation before moving on to the next table.

  Olivia hadn’t tasted “real” fried food since the last time she’d been home. She dropped a quarter-sized circle of syrup onto her plate. The prongs of her fork had only begun advancing toward the biscuit when William’s fingers closed around hers.

  “Here, let me,” he said.

  Olivia looked from her biscuit to her date. He sent her a come-hither smile that shot a ripple of excitement all the way to her empty stomach. In anticipation of this evening, and wanting to look her best in her crimson, fitted sheath dress, she hadn’t eaten all day, which wasn’t unusual. What was unusual, however, was her insanely ravenous appetite.

  “Oh, okay,” she said, relenting her fork into his waiting hand.

  His fingers lingered on hers before pulling away. “I appreciate a girl with a healthy appetite,” he said as he cut a small triangle from the pancake and lifted the bite to her waiting lips.

  As far as she could remember, she’d never been fed by a man, and certainly never in public. Weird and thrilling at the same time. “Why, thank you, kind sir,” she demurred as he slipped the bite into her mouth. A drip of syrup fell from the fork and landed on her bottom lip. “Oops.” She reached for her napkin. But before she could bring the cloth to her lips, William reached out, swiped the drop from her mouth with the tip of his finger, and slipped it between his parted lips.

  Olivia all but melted in her chair.

  Timothy reappeared at the table. “Two iced teas. Half sweet, half non, with a splash of lemonade.” He set a glass, filled to the brim and garnished with a sprig of mint in front of Olivia, then one next to William. “Do you two need another minute to consult the menu?”

  William flicked the waiter a look. “We’ll have two specials—the snapper—and a salad with vinaigrette on the side,” he rattled off as if he couldn’t be bothered with such a trivial matter. “And could you leave off the lime butter sauce, please?”

  “Excellent choice, Mr. Blaine,” Timothy enthused. “Your appetizers should be out in a jiff,” he added and rushed off.

  Olivia’s stomach moaned in protest. She didn’t want the snapper. She’d wanted the crab cakes. And even if she had wanted the fish, she’d have also wanted it swimming in lime butter. The fact that she wouldn’t have allowed herself to eat the whole of either dish wasn’t enough to soothe the disappointment streaming from her taste buds to her cavernous belly. Normally, she would speak up, correct his misguided assumption, but it was sweet, the way William was being all gentlemanly and ordering for them both. Lifting her glass, she took a long, consoling swallow. The tea, in the very least, was the best she’d ever tasted. And really, what right did she have to complain, inwardly or otherwise, when she was having such a lovely time?

  William cut himself a healthy bite of Olivia’s cheese biscuit, dipped it into the syrup and took a bite. “Yumm,” he hummed, closing his eyes for effect as he chewed. “Best biscuit ever. How many calories, do you think?” he asked, bringing his tea to his mouth for a sip. Olivia wasn’t sure how to respond. First, she didn’t have the foggiest idea about the caloric content beyond the obvious—astronomical. Second, she had yet to become accustomed to Hollywood men and their obsession with physical appearance. Prior to heading out west, she’d never known a man to be concerned about calories, much less make an open inquiry into the matter.

  “I can’t say,” she said, eyeing her fork still resting in William’s hand. “But who cares when they are so absolutely heavenly? What could it hurt to indulge just this once?” she added, leaning forward, her lips parted in anticipation of another wondrous bite.

  William set his glass back to the table, his lips pursed in disapproval. “Our waistlines, for starters.” He set Olivia’s fork down—just out of her reach—and slid his hand into the inside pocket of his blazer. Retrieving a silver flask, he popped the top and dumped a stream of golden liquid into his tea. With a dip of the flask to Olivia, he offered to do the same to hers.

  “Oh, no thank you.” Olivia waved his offer off. “Mine’s perfect the way it is.”

  He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” Subtly, he knocked his head back, taking a long drag from the small, shiny opening. Replacing the cap, he slid the flask back into his blazer pocket and changed the subject. “Who’s your trainer?”

  Olivia didn’t have a trainer per se. What she had was a standing appointment at the gym down the street from her LA apartment three days a week. Since most of the gym’s trainers had “day jobs,” the one she got on any given visit varied.

  “Samantha,” she offered the first trainer’s name that popped into her head.

  William cocked an eyebrow. “A woman,” he mused, his eyes betraying a depraved interest. “I’d like to meet her.”

  A shot of jealousy ripped through Olivia. “Sure,” she agreed, glancing away to hide the wounded look in her eyes. “Next time we’re both in LA, I can—”

  “Wait.” William interrupted, baffled. “She doesn’t travel with you?”

  A lie leapt from Olivia’s mouth before she could stop it. “She’s on… maternity leave,” she said, cursing herself for caring more about what he thought than she did about her own integrity, which didn’t stop her from taking her pretext one step further. “What with getting this role so late and all, I didn’t have the time to interview, much less hire, another,” she added. Why was she pretending, playing a role with William, a man she hoped to start a relationship with?

  “You could share mine,” he said, saluting her with his tea before taking a long sip. “It might be fun… working out together. Then we could hit the spa for a couple’s massage and facial. This humidity has turned my pores into potholes.”

  Olivia considered his flawless complexion and features. Sculpted eyebrows, heavy lidded gaze, straight nose, cleft chin, and small, plump mouth. He looked perfect to her. “That would be—” amazing, she was about to say, but thought it best to dial her enthusiasm down a notch or two to decorous at least. “Great,” she chose instead. “This whole adventure has been such a whirlwind, I’ve hardly had the time to take proper care of myself either.” Another lie. She rarely had the money or time for a day at the spa, but had always wished she could. Did that count?

  William’s eyes softened, turning dark and more mysterious. “It’s a second date then,” he said, leaning in close, his gaze dropping to Olivia’s lips. “I’m having a real hard time not wanting to kiss you right now.”

  Her breath felt heavy in her chest, pressing against her sprinting heart. “Then I don’t see any reason for you to resist,” she accepted, her eyes falling closed.

  Right there in a restaurant crowded with customers, his perfect mouth closed over hers, warm, moist, delicious. The restaurant and its occupants seemed to stretch away, their presence becoming thin, a blurred dream. The kiss started soft, easy, then grew more intense, hungry. William pulled away just shy of passionate. Like someone had sucked out her brain and replaced her intellect with cotton candy, Olivia’s head grew light.

  Leaning closer still, William’s cheek brushed hers. “I have to say, Olivia Pembroke, you are the most uniquely intriguing woman I’ve met in a very long time,” he whispered into her ear. “I’d like to spend more time with you. How ’bout we spend this entire weekend together?”

  A warm feeling consumed her chest, shooting like sparking torrents of electricity to her fingers, her toes. Not like the all-encompassing feeling she’d experienced with Pete earlier, and yet world-rocking all the same. But what was happening between her and William could hardly be compared to whatever she’d felt with Pete. Prior to Pete’s kiss, he’d gotten her fired up with
his toxically maniacal nature. No wonder she’d felt a heightened sense of… something. Misinterpreted emotion, she decided. That’s all it could have been. This, the connection she was feeling for William, was real, appropriate, the beginning of something special.

  “I might be agreeable to that.”

  William threw a glance toward the door. “I need to grab a smoke,” he said, his eyes deepening with desire. “What do you say we skip dinner and head back to the hotel?”

  “Make sure you roll using even, sweeping movements, keeping each swipe going in the same direction,” Olivia instructed, the camera tracking her, inch by inch, from the heel of her designer boots, up a skin-tight pair of white jeans, and on to a form-fitting tunic. Tiny pops of paint jumped from the roller, dotting her hand and forearm. “And try not to roll over the sections you’ve already painted.”

  Following Gus’s directions to, “Make love to the viewers,” she looked at the camera and imagined it was a generous helping of chocolate cheesecake. “You don’t want roller marks once the wall dries,” she finished with a come-hither smirk.

  “And cut,” Gus called. “That’s a wrap for today. Time for happy hour.” The set lights faded to black, followed by Gus’s guys scrambling to coil up cables and secure the cameras so they could get on with their evening.

  Tristi appeared at Olivia’s side with an uncapped bottle of water. “Good job, boss. And very sexy,” she used a throaty voice, “like soft-porn for the do-it-yourselfer.” Her tone implied she was joking, but Olivia saw the truth in her eyes. To Olivia’s recollection, capitalizing on her beauty in order to give directors and viewers what they wanted had never bothered her before. Yet here, today, she found she resented being treated like an inanimate object instead of a person with dreams and feelings, wants and needs.

  “Right, as if anyone with half a brain would paint in this get-up.” Olivia circled a hand over her clothes. “And what’s with these jeans? It’s January. No matter how many times the fashion industry tries to say that it isn’t, wearing white in the winter will always be an oxymoron.”

  Tristi adjusted the off-the-shoulder sweater she wore with a pair of distressed jeans and black Converse sneakers. “That oxymoron applies to some of us year ’round.” She turned and made for the exit. When Olivia didn’t follow, she stopped and looked back. “Aren’t you coming?” She consulted the clock on her phone’s display. “You have exactly fifty-five minutes to pretty-up so you can go sweat it all off, working out with William.”

  Olivia knew she should follow her assistant and leave so she could start getting ready for another training date with William, but she couldn’t seem to muster enough interest to move. Why? She didn’t know for sure, but her feet were immovable, like they’d been nailed to the floor.

  “Why don’t you go, take the rest of the day off?”

  Tristi’s eyes worked the room as if considering the possibility. “You sure?” she asked while hustling for the door.

  Alone in the quiet of a house, Olivia pondered what was getting her down. She should be happy. Only one full week on the set and her agent was already fielding multiple calls from movie producers and screening a pile of scripts. She’d spent every free moment of the last four days with the man of her dreams. And Eleanor had been hospitalized with the flu. Bad for Eleanor, good for Olivia to not have the designer’s condescending eyes watching her every move one minute, completely ignoring her the next. So, what’s wrong with me? she asked herself again, though she had a good idea. This discontent was all Pete’s doing. Ever since he’d suggested that her life so far had been lived in pursuit of someone else’s dreams—her mother’s dreams—she’d had this befuddled aura hanging over her.

  He’d been dead wrong, of course.

  But still…

  Picking up her messenger bag, she fingered the sketchpad waiting inside. Knowing that art tended to soothe her, to clear her mind, she considered pulling it out and sketching a while before heading back to the hotel. Only today, drawing alone didn’t seem like enough. She needed more. Then she noticed the empty wall in front of her. Like a precursor to inspiration, to answers sought and issues resolved, the blank expanse beckoned to her.

  She’d only begun moving the roller up, then down, in even, sweeping strokes when one of Pete’s guys—Sean, if she remembered correctly—pulled back the giant piece of plastic that partitioned off the formal living from the dining room, and stuck his cap of red hair through.

  “What-up, Bull’s-eye?” he greeted Olivia.

  Annoyance whipped with embarrassment to form a venomous froth inside her chest. She’d had a few mishaps yesterday while shooting her DIY segments. One in particular involving a hand sander had earned her the title Bull’s-eye.

  She turned to him, roller in hand, and smacked him with a look that said she was sick of all the teasing. “Not funny,” she insisted. “And, it wasn’t my fault. Someone should have warned me that nasty little bugger had a mind of its own.”

  He raised his arms in faux surrender. “Whoa, that roller’s not loaded, is it?”

  Pete stepped around Sean. “Olivia?” He wore a disagreeable look on his face, which lately had become a regular occurrence. If tension and drama was what viewers wanted, they’d sure gotten a healthy dose from the segments she and Pete had filmed together. For the camera, he’d informed her, in no uncertain terms, that due to additional, unforeseen structural issues, more of the Calhouns’ “deal breaker” items had to go. Off camera, he looked right through her. And she was none too happy about either behavior. First, she kept thinking about how if Eleanor hadn’t spent so much money on expensive furnishings—furnishings Olivia doubted the Calhouns were even going to like—they’d have plenty of budget to fix every item on the couple’s “deal breaker” list. Second, every time she tried to unburden herself of the aforementioned concerns, the only person who might actually understand (Pete) had walked away without so much as a word, caustic or otherwise.

  “What are you doing?” he wanted to know.

  A guilty look took hold of Olivia’s face. Technically, this was Pete’s job site, which made him in charge of who did what and when. “Nothing.” She shook her head and offered him a sheepish smile. “I mean, would you believe that I’m done shooting for the day and thought I might help out around here?”

  His eyes tracked to the roller then back to her face. “Yeah, well, just so long as you stay away from my power tools,” he said, his voice scolding, indifferent.

  She’d convinced herself that his shift in attitude was nothing more than a side effect of his aversive nature, and thus had mostly written off his surly mood as par for the course. But his lack of emotion, coupled with the sharp edge to his words, suddenly had her considering that he might be genuinely miffed with her over matters unrelated to his temperament. Nevertheless, his sour disposition was grating on her last nerve.

  “Trust me, I don’t want anything to do with your tools.”

  Sean’s saucered gaze alternated between Olivia’s and Pete’s piqued expressions before landing on Pete. “Dude, you two need to just get on with it and make out or something.” He smirked as he disappeared behind the plastic.

  Pete watched Sean move away before stepping through the barrier. “Yes, you made that perfectly clear the other night after I kissed you,” he said in a harsh whisper. “You practically trampled me getting to William.”

  So this was about the other night. She’d thought he was just messing with her, but evidently that kiss had meant something more—to Pete at least. But what was she supposed to have done differently? She and William had a date. And it wasn’t like she’d been flirting with Pete, nor had she given him any indication she wanted him to kiss her. Had she? What did it matter? She was with William now.

  Nevertheless, a tiny voice in her heart whispered for her to beg his forgiveness. Another advised that maybe it was better Pete stayed mad at her. That way they could both avoid any future unwarranted kissing incidents.

  “I neve
r asked you to kiss me,” she defiantly asserted.

  Pete’s nostrils flared. “Well, you didn’t exactly pull away either,” he spat out the words. “Falling for that shallow party-boy. I really thought you, of all people, were more original than that.”

  Now he’d flat out insulted her character, not to mention, intelligence. A string of colorfully offensive nouns lined up, poised to leap from her lips when another thought occurred and told her insult arsenal to stand down. In all honesty, William wasn’t the deepest of thinkers, and he enjoyed his scotch, but he was also kind and attentive. So what did it matter if he didn’t have much of interest to say when he was unbelievably easy on the eyes, and… Olivia heaved an inward groan. Could Pete be right? Was her attraction to William purely superficial, an affection born out of a media frenzy, driven by a society obsessed with physical attraction?

  More confused now than ever before, she felt the fight draining out of her, a sieve missing its plug. How could she justify her feelings for William with all this doubt clouding her mind? Was it fair to stay mad at Pete when, after reliving their kiss through his eyes, it appeared she was the one who needed to apologize? And how did one apologize for stomping all over one man’s affection while in the process of racing into the arms of another?

  For lack of any semblance of an appropriate response, she looked back to the wall she’d been painting and opted for a change in topic. “This color is all wrong.” Her eyes fell to the floor where her messenger bag and sketchpad lay. “I mean, gray’s a pretty color and all, it’s just not right for this…”—she slid Pete an ironic look—“‘space.’”

  Amusement twined around hurt to produce a smile he mostly held back. Instead, he studied the room an extended moment. “Yeah, well, if you ask me, with the way these walls catch the late afternoon’s ‘natural light’,”—he looked to her with a sly eye—“a warm ochre would be best for this… ‘living space.’”

  A smile forced its way onto her lips. She couldn’t help herself. In the dying afternoon light, his rugged features, mess of tousled hair, and playful gaze had her feeling all gooey inside. “Hmm, that’s exactly what I was thinking.” She turned back to the wall to hide the pleasure tickling her insides and shifted topics again. “It breaks my heart, what Eleanor’s doing with this design.”