Suddenly, oh yes, she could see the possibilities here. A staggering amount of work, but in the end ...
Sylvie turned away from the window, and there was Nikos, crouching over the floor, unrolling the plans, anchoring each corner with a chunk of chimney brick.
“You see ... here and here ... this is where I knock out the partitions, make big rooms, more sunlight. And look, here, no more tiny kitchen. I put in a big one. On Greene Street this morning, I saw an old butcher’s trestle, enormous, and it could be perfect for right along this wall. But this door, I am not sure about this. I think perhaps it should be here. ...”
Before she quite realized what she was doing, Sylvie was kneeling beside him, caught up in his enthusiasm. Michel would probably throw a fit if he saw what she was doing to the classic eggshell linen suit he had designed for her; and Sylvie saw that there was already a black streak on her pale, biscuit-colored silk blouse. But so what? She was having fun.
Sylvie, inhaling the acrid, fruity smell of the blueprint, followed Nikos’s blunt finger as it moved from room to room with decisive, jabbing strokes.
“No,” she interrupted him, “I don’t think you should put a door there. It looks cluttered. Why not open up this whole south wall, [302] put in French windows? Make this space by the garden into a sun porch. You see, there’s plenty of room for a dining room over here, instead.”
“Yes ... I think maybe you are right.” He screwed up his eyes, as if trying to visualize the effect. “And what about here? I should make a pantry, no? I think perhaps it’s too small for a breakfast room.”
“No, not at all, if you take out this wall of cabinets. You see, you have enough room here to create an island in the center. Much more efficient, I think. A counter you can use on both sides, with cupboard space below. And a place to hang spectacular copper pots overhead.”
Nikos rocked back on his heels, and stared at her. “Amazing! Sylvie, you always surprise me. How did you manage to hide your light under a barrel for so long?”
“A bushel,” she corrected him with a laugh. “And never mind about me. How are you going to accomplish all this? You’ve never renovated an old house. It can be much more difficult than building a new one from the ground up.” She remembered years ago when they’d first bought the house in Deal, a century-old white elephant—but even so, not anywhere near as decrepit as this—and all the weekends she’d spent overseeing plasterers, carpenters, painters.
“With your help,” he answered without hesitation.
“Me? What do I know about it?”
“You’ve just shown me. And—” he held out his hand, palm up, cutting off any further argument, “you have an eye for beauty. This house is female, I can feel it, can’t you? It needs a woman’s touch.”
“Oh, Nikos ...” Sylvie looked into his black eyes and saw that he was completely serious. She was both flattered and dismayed. “You’re the most impossible man I’ve ever known.”
“You find it impossible to say no then?” He grinned.
“I just don’t know. ...”
“Think about it. Please.”
Then he caught her chin in his square calloused hands—she could smell the blueprint ink on his fingers, feel the grit of plaster dust along her jaw, which he was holding—and he kissed her.
Feeling the warm shock of his mouth against hers, Sylvie [303] thought, Dear God, I’m the one who’s gone mad. Thirty years ago he kissed me like this. But now? This can’t be happening. We’re just old friends. We’re way past this kind of nonsense.
But she found herself surrendering to the sensations, which were both wonderful and overwhelming. And she felt warm, much too warm, as if the June sunshine spilling in through the window were focused on her, Burning her the way she used to burn her name into pieces of wood with a magnifying glass when she was a child.
How long since she had felt this way? Years, oh years.
Dear Lord, what made me think I was too old?
Had he waited all this time, until he thought she was ready?
She drew back, thought she saw the answer in his eyes. Yes, he had waited a long time. They were so different now from the reckless fools who had clutched at each other in shame, so long ago. It had taken them time, yes, many years to learn to respect and like each other. To know each other as two people, two friends.
Now with one kiss, he had reminded her she was still a woman, and he a man. His eyes told her, I am here, if you want me, if you’re ready.
Not yet, she answered him silently, but maybe soon. Yes, I think it could be very soon.
Sylvie drew back, feeling slightly chilled. The oblong of sunlight they had been kneeling in had crept all the way to the wall, leaving them in shadow.
A huge cat leaped out of nowhere, and stood frozen inside the doorway, glaring at them, dirty white fur on end, tail twitching. Sylvie, startled, let out a small cry.
“It’s all right,” Nikos soothed, “he is hungry, that is all. He is wondering if we have food for him.”
“He looks as if he’d like to eat us.”
Then the cat was gone, melting into the shadows.
Nikos rose, extending a hand to help her up. “Come, my dear Sylvie. I shall take you home where no wild cats will eat you. Then I will say good-bye. I will be in Boston on business until next Monday. Perhaps when I return we will have dinner?”
“Yes, I think that can be arranged. At any rate,” she said as she rescued the blueprints, rolling them and tucking them under her arm, “it’ll give me a chance to go over these.”
[304] He grinned, a flash of white teeth against the seamed leather of his face. She felt her heart turn liquid once again, and the old longing grow warm and heavy as an unborn child in her belly.
Sylvie, her hand tucked firmly in Nikos’s warm, solid grasp, thought, Oh dear, what in heaven’s name am I getting into?
Chapter 19
Max Griffin sipped his coffee, and looked out at the Thames, gleaming like blackened, tarnished silver in the morning sun. A real bonus, this sunshine. Usually it drizzled nonstop here in London. He was having his favorite breakfast at the Savoy, enjoying his favorite view. So why did he feel so damned rotten? Hung over, as if he’d put away too much claret last night. Only he hadn’t tasted more than a drop.
It had to be Rose. What else? Yesterday, they’d been hip to hip for hours in the airplane, then arriving in London, they’d ducked into that jammed Chelsea restaurant for dinner, taking the only table that was left, a tiny corner booth where they were practically on top of each other. All evening, smelling her perfume, feeling the warm breath of her laughter, seeing the sparkle in her eyes.
Last night, he’d wanted to reach across and take her hand, so badly. How close she’d been, her thigh pushed up against his in the narrow booth, her arm brushing him as she gestured. And yet they might as well have been back in the office. Which was exactly where he should have left her. Strictly business? Hell, who was he kidding?
Well, too late now. He’d just have to make the best of it. It’d be only three days. Less, if the uptight Brit lawyer would only accept the absurdly overgenerous settlement he’d been authorized to offer.
Max gazed down on Victoria Park, a strip of green lawn pocketed with flowerbeds, and seamed with neat stone paths. Below it, the Embankment was clogged with rush-hour traffic, while on the sidewalk secretaries and clerks walked briskly without appearing to rush, tightly furled umbrellas swinging at their sides, clocking their pace like pendulums.
God bless the Brits, he thought. The sun shining. Sky as clear as a newborn baby’s conscience. And not one without his brolly. [306] Many wore hats, too, and carried raincoats folded neatly over one arm.
Playing it safe, he thought. But then, aren’t we all?
Max saw that door in his mind. The door that connected his suite to the room next door. Painted a pastel blue, inset panels, forged brass hardware, and no lock or key. Just a huge brass bolt, which he or anyone easily could slide back. And yet last
night for a full hour he had stood there, hands sweating, pulse pounding, unable even to knock, much less unlatch the bolt. Wanting so to walk through that door, take Rose in his arms, and tell her what he’d been feeling for so long: that he was obsessed by her, that he wanted her desperately, that he loved her dearly.
And if he had dared? How would she have reacted? Shocked at first probably. Then overflowing with sympathy. Poor old Max. She was fond of him. She’d let him down real easy. Like an old dog who has to be kindly put out of its misery by a caring owner.
Yeah, she might even invite him into bed, out of gratitude, feeling she owed it to him. Christ, to have her that way ... it would be a hundred times worse than not having her at all.
“Ready to order, sir?” A brisk voice broke into his thoughts.
Max blinked up at a waiter in a spotless white jacket and black bow tie, crisp damask towel folded over his arm. His face utterly impassive, brown hair pasted to his skull, flat and shiny as an otter’s pelt.
“Not just yet,” he answered. “I’m waiting for someone. She should be down any minute.”
“Very good, sir.” The waiter vanished as if into thin air.
Max gazed about at the other breakfasters. Seated by the sun-filled windows, immaculately tailored City of London types sawing at their eggs and kippers. A pair of shapeless middle-aged women, wearing tweeds, no makeup, and sensible shoes, probably two titled women, sipping tea and nibbling on brioches. Like a scene from Masterpiece Theatre. He had to look hard for the flaws, the outtakes. A trolley parked haphazardly by a pillar stacked with dirty plates and pulp-flecked juice glasses nested in silver servers full of melting ice. A fly buzzing about the basket of brioches on his table. A large coffee-colored stain on the carpet.
Turning toward the vast room’s interior, he caught sight of a [307] dark-haired woman making her way past the white latticed gazebo in the center, where at high tea a pianist played softly. Tall, leggy, voluptuous, she moved with the unstudied grace of a woman who is unaware of her own beauty. Max, transfixed, felt something flare inside him, as if he’d just drunk his entire cup of coffee in one scalding gulp.
God almighty, six years, and I still get hard like a teenager seeing her walk into a room.
He watched her wind her way toward his table, a Caravaggio in a room full of Sargents, olive-coppery skin aglow, wild black hair tumbled about her shoulders. As if to offset her exotic lushness, she was wearing a straight tweed skirt, a plain white silk blouse, open at the throat, with a single strand of pearls. He remembered giving her those pearls, nestled inside a Mark Cross briefcase, the day she passed her bar exam. Strange, how she wore that earring, though. Just one, like a pirate. For years now, always that single teardrop ruby dangling from her right ear. Her birthstone, she had told him. She said it brought her luck.
Spotting him, she broke into a smile. “Hi!” She gave a little wave from twenty feet away, and Max saw a dozen heads turn and stare. Even the proper Brits, Max noted with amusement, knew a good thing when they saw it.
Rose slid into the chair opposite his. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was breathing hard, as if she’d been in too much of a hurry to wait for the elevator—which in this stately old hotel moved from floor to floor like an aged family retainer—and had run all the way downstairs. Her scent was like a gust of fresh air from a garden window hastily flung open.
“Sorry I’m late. I was dead to the world. Jet lag, I guess. You should have knocked on my door before you came down.”
God, if she’d only known how close he’d come last night to doing a lot more than just knocking.
“I figured you needed the rest,” he told her. “Besides, we have plenty of time. The meeting with Rathbone isn’t until eleven. It seems his client feels it’s essential to sleep in even later than a certain New York lady lawyer I know.”
Rose smiled. “Thanks. But just for the record, I was up half the night getting my notes organized. My God, the amount of papers [308] generated by one half-assed remark! Say, is that coffee still hot? I’d love some. Been waiting long?”
“Just got here, as a matter of fact. I was enjoying the view.” He signaled the waiter. “And never mind the coffee, I’ll order you some tea. You’re obliged to drink tea at least once your first time in London, preferably at the Savoy. It’s the law. They stamp it on your passport.”
“Must be their way of getting back at us for the Boston tea party.” She laughed, but in her eyes he caught the same old shadow, some deep sadness in her eyes. A familiar helplessness swept over him. Six years now, a long time. Would she ever trust him enough to open up to him about it?
He watched her gaze wander past him, as she leaned forward on both elbows, cupping her chin in her palms, taking it all in—the spectacular view, the Cinerama of the Thames. Max, watching the light play across her face, and a slow childlike wonder dawn in her huge dark eyes, wanted to touch her so badly he found himself almost trembling.
Then his mother popped into his head, saying with one of her cynical snorts, No fool like an old fool. And he felt his heart drop, suddenly, as if a trapdoor had swung down in his chest. Dumb, dumb, how could he have ever imagined ... ?
Get involved with a married man, why should she? And one twenty years older to boot.
Fella, you are way off the wall, a weary inner voice mocked. She doesn’t give a shit whether you are married or not. To her, you’re a friend, a kindly boss, a dear old father figure, the kindly aging mentor. A cross between Edmund Gwen and Fredric March.
And one of these days she’ll get married. Even if she never gets over the bastard who put that dark look in her eyes. She’s thirty-one—hell, she’s overdue. She’ll want kids before it’s too late.
He imagined her pregnant, huge with child, carrying their child, his child.
Then he felt disgusted with himself. Lord, how long would he go on torturing himself this way?
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he interrupted her rapturous contemplation of the landscape.
Rose turned from the window, dropping her hands into her lap. [309] “Oh, Max, it’s heaven! I’ve never been anywhere like this—” she ducked her head in a sheepish laugh, “well, if you want to know the truth, I’ve never been anywhere at all. Not outside of New York, that is. London is ... oh, it’s like a fairy tale. I half-expect to see Peter Pan fly past.”
“Aptly put.” He smiled, recalling that their opponent in today’s legal matter, Devon Clarke, had played Peter Pan here in London. She was said to be famous for it, like Mary Martin in New York. And famous for a few other things besides.
Like hopping into bed with every male in the company, from the lighting technician to Captain Hook.
How ironic, he thought, that it was Devon Clarke’s infidelities that had brought them here.
If her ex-husband had only come to Max before he’d turned in his manuscript, hanging all the dirty lingerie out to air, Max would have banged some sense into his head and made him cut those tidbits. But Jonathon Booth, it was clear now, had been just as bent on revenging himself on Devon for cuckolding him, and so blatantly, as she was now on punishing him. Quite amazing, she’d refused even to discuss settling out of court. She’d been demanding the whole dog and pony show.
Then last week, that desperate call from Jonathon. Devon, it seemed, was finally willing to talk, but only if Jonathon’s lawyer flew to London to negotiate ... at Jonathon’s expense, of course.
Rose had written all the pleadings on the case, and had done the research, so he had asked her to come along. And he also was playing a hunch. Rose had a peculiar talent for getting at a problem sideways, like a crab. In this case, that talent might make all the difference.
Max observed that a flush had crept into Rose’s cheeks, outlining the high spoon-shaped curve of her cheekbones. Then she laughed. “Peter Pan? Oh God, I just remembered that part in Jon’s book, when he found her in bed with Lady Hemphill’s sixteen-year-old twin sons. God, how weird!”
“Of course we k
now she wasn’t doing it for fun.” Max made himself keep a very straight face. “She’s a method actress. She was just studying her part, trying to ... how did she put it? Oh yes ... ‘transmogrify’ herself into the soul of a teenage boy.”
[310] Rose chuckled, then said, “She sounds interesting, this Devon Clarke. Believe it or not, I’m actually looking forward to this meeting. Are you sure she’ll be there?”
“Yes, and she’ll probably be wearing sequins and bells. I think she’s enjoying all this. Good publicity for her new show. She’s in a revival of Blithe Spirit. At first the Haymarket was half empty, and now I hear she’s selling out every night.”
To the waiter who had materialized at their table, he ordered, “Tea for the lady.”
“Max, I don’t know. Do you think I’ll be able to hold my own with a woman like that?”
“You’re forgetting, you’re the intrepid one. Remember, that little sportscar ride, you nearly breaking both our necks to prove that damn thing wasn’t safe? I promise you, Devon Clarke won’t be half as tricky. Or nearly as dangerous.” He passed her the napkin-covered basket in front of him. “Brioche?”
“Thanks. I’m starved.” She helped herself to a pastry. “Speaking of cyclones, human or otherwise, you were right, you know, what you did. Did I ever tell you? How much I admired you for risking your job that way.”
Max fell silent, remembering. The meeting with Graydon Wilkes, chairman of Pace Auto, two days after that hair-raising ride. Max had bluntly accused him of withholding vital information, and just as bluntly informed him of what the consequences would be if such information should ever become public.
“You’ll have so many lawsuits on your hands you won’t know which way to turn,” he’d told Wilkes. “You’ll spawn a whole new breed of ambulance chasers—lawyers who specialize in suing Pace Auto, like the ones who handle nothing but asbestos or DES suits. They’ll take you to the cleaners. Ream you. You’ll be lucky to be left with the skin of your back.”
Wilkes had turned as gray as his sharkskin suit. Then he had given Max a look of such hatred, Max had been sure he was about to be fired. In fact, he would have quit, walked out the door, if Wilkes hadn’t, after an interminable minute, dropped his eyes and said, “All right. Let’s do a recall.”
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