“I was thinking we could rent a tent,” he said and strode slightly ahead of us to lead us to a stairwell at the end of the hall. “Or build a pergola.”
“Building a pergola seems rather excessive,” I commented as he swiped a key card across an electronic panel and pulled open a heavy door. “Let’s have a look at this space. Then we can decide. It might be more prudent to at least try to find a venue that would work if the weather doesn’t play along.”
“No, we’ll use this venue,” he insisted. He gestured for us to precede him into a well-lit stairwell. “You said yourself that finding a venue could be a problem, so this is my solution. The employees love it up here anyway and we’ll do something to make the space feel different and special.”
“We?” I paused my ascent momentarily, catching a whiff of cedar and pine when he drew to an abrupt stop on the stair right below mine. “Bonnie and I will manage the event. There’s no need for you to be directly involved in the planning as the client.”
A smirk appeared on his perfectly pink lips, but his eyes remained cool and hard on mine. The guy certainly had a presence about him, I just couldn’t decide if it was sexy or scary. The expensive cedar and pine smell was divinely masculine, more noticeable the longer we faced off like this but not overwhelming at all.
Everything about him seemed to be perfectly balanced, except for his awful personality of course. “Right. I see there’s been some misunderstanding. I can understand that some of your clients, maybe even most, prefer it that way. It won’t work like that with me. I’m not going to let you do this on your own. This is my party and I want it my way.”
Of course he does. I suppressed a sigh and fought to keep my cool once again. “I’m sure this is a busy time of year for you. Why don’t you let us handle it all for you? There’s really no need for you to be actively involved in the planning. Just tell us what you want and enjoy it on the day.”
His gaze remained locked with mine, but a flash of something broke through the ice for no more than a second. It might have been heat, appreciation, or even fury. I didn’t know the guy well enough to make a call like that. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
“Let’s not waste any more time than you already have, shall we?” He stepped around me and took the rest of the stairs two at a time.
I stared after him with a slack jaw before I continued my own ascent. Had he really dismissed me just like that?
Oh, this is not going to be fun at all. My teeth were still grinding together when Bonnie, Archer, and I stepped through the door leading to their outdoor space. At my first look at it, I forgot some of my annoyance with our new potential client.
It was gorgeous up here. I suddenly understood why he was so insistent on using the garden as the venue. It had an almost unobscured, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the harbour, the city, and the water beyond. At night, with all those lights and several of our own, it would be even more breathtaking than it was now.
Large enough to accommodate at least a hundred people, there was grass and hedges, greenery in pots, and a railing made up of metal bars for safety. Several benches were placed at intervals near the edge for employees to soak up the view on their breaks, but there wasn’t much more in the way of furniture.
“What do you think?” he asked once he’d given me a few minutes to stroll around the roof. “It’s perfect, right?”
“It could work,” I agreed.
With another tight nod, that maybe-sexy, maybe-scary smirk reappeared, but it was definitely a touch on the smug side this time. “That’s what I thought. I’m going to need you to start putting together some plans for me to review by the end of the week. If that’s all, I really should be getting back to my office.”
I raised an eyebrow just before he started to turn away from me. “You do realise that I haven’t accepted this job, right? Or are you conveniently skipping over that part?”
“Are you saying no?” The tilt of his lips told me he knew that I wouldn’t, but I refused to give him any more satisfaction than it appeared I already had.
“I’ll look into this, but I can’t promise anything until I’ve had a chance to look it all over.” I rambled off a list of details I’d need him to send over to me, then grabbed Bonnie’s hand to get her out of her haze. “Thank you for meeting with us. I’ll let you know our decision soon.”
Without waiting for him to answer or giving him another chance to show off more of his inner arsehole, I dragged Bonnie back to the door, down the stairwell, and to the lift. I’d had more than enough of the infamous Mr. Archer Lee for one day, thank you very much.
Chapter 7
Archer
“Mate, you will not believe what I had to deal with yesterday,” I said as I came up beside the ladder Hugo was standing on. He had his head tilted back and his arms up as he fiddled with a light fitting, but he looked down when he heard my voice.
Laughter flickered in his eyes and in the sudden tilt of his lips. “Well, this should be good. What did you have to deal with yesterday?”
I released an exasperated breath, dragging one hand through my hair while the other tightened its grip on my travel mug. “I hired that party planner I told you about for the New Year’s Eve party. Get this. It’s a woman. A fucking high-strung woman who had the balls to show up fifteen minutes late for our meeting and didn’t even tell me why.”
He raised his eyebrows, lowered his hands to the ladder, and climbed down the floor. “Imagine that. I take it your meeting didn’t actually happen then.”
“It did, but I made it clear that being late wasn’t going to cut it in the future. You should have heard the way she talked to me. It was ridiculous.”
And to be honest, kind of hot. It had been a long time since anyone had stood their own against me, never mind a woman I’d never met before.
Hugo’s grin turned knowing. “Ridiculous, huh? Tell me, Archer, how did you treat her?”
“What do you mean?” I frowned. “I treated her the same way I do everyone else.”
“I’m sure.” He bent over the toolbox waiting beside the ladder and rummaged around, tossing me a look over his shoulder. “I’ve known you for a long time, so I have a pretty good idea of how you might have treated her, and I don’t think you did yourself any favours if you really want to work with her.”
“I’m starting to think I should just organise this party on my own. I’m not sure her skills are going to be worth the trouble she’s going to cause.”
Hugo laughed as he straightened up with some kind of tool in his hand. “No offence, but you couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery. You have many talents, but somehow, I don’t think party planning is one of them. All your vendors would end up ditching you.”
I cocked my head, glaring at my best friend. “How so? I’m an excellent negotiator.”
“Maybe so.” He shrugged and gripped the ladder, putting one foot on the bottom rung. “There’s a lot more to it than that, though. I dated an events manager once, and I can tell you that dealing with certain vendors takes a much more delicate approach to get what one wants than I think you could manage.”
“They would work for me. Why would that need a delicate approach?”
He sighed, one corner of his lips moving up. “Because they wouldn’t work for you. They’re independent contractors who know a lot more about the industry than you do. If you try to bulldoze your way through, you’d end up with a disaster on your hands. Best to leave these kinds of things to the professionals.”
“That party planner yesterday told me that I wouldn’t have to be actively involved in the planning. I think that might have been her way of hinting at what you’re saying now, but there’s no way I could just leave her to do whatever the hell she wanted.”
“There’s a perfect example of that delicate approach I just mentioned. She didn’t tell you outright to fuck off, even though that’s clearly the message she was trying to send. What did you do, Archer?”
“Nothi
ng.” I put my hands out to my sides. “I just told her what I wanted done and how I wanted it done.”
He laughed, his shoulders bouncing up and down before he climbed up the ladder again. “That’s why she told you to fuck off, mate. Even if she didn’t say it in so many words. From what you’ve told me, she’s one of the best in what she does.”
“Yeah, so?” I tipped my head back to look at him, then shielded my eyes when the light right above us suddenly came back on. “Fuck. You could have warned me.”
“Sorry.” He chuckled. “But you should have been able to tell that was going to happen. I wasn’t tinkering around with the light for no good reason. Anyway, maybe you should try to reach some kind of compromise with this woman. Consider letting her do her job and just keep you in the loop.”
“I couldn’t do that,” I argued. “I want this to be the best New Year’s Eve party our people have ever been to. If they’re going to give up whatever other plans they had for the night, the least I can do is to make sure my party tops any other.”
“If this woman is as good as you think she is, she’ll be able to achieve that goal without you barking commands at her.” He reached the floor and folded up the ladder, then placed the tool back in the box before closing it. “Just think about it, okay? Call the woman, grab onto your balls if you’re afraid an apology is going to make them shrivel up, and get on with it.”
“An apology?” My chin dropped in disbelief. “She’s the one who should be apologising to me.”
“No, she’s not.” He folded his thick arms and gave me a look, for once not a lick of amusement showing in his gaze. “She came to the meeting. So what if she was late? Obviously, you still had enough time to let her know what you wanted from her. Instead of letting her get on with her job from there, I’m willing to bet you acted like a total dickhead and made her wonder if she even wanted this job. Did you even ask her if she would take it, or did you just tell her?”
Fuck. He knew me better than I’d given him credit for. “I couldn’t risk her turning me down. Besides, if you knew what she had quoted me, you wouldn’t be taking her side. It’s not costing me nothing.”
“As if you care what it’s costing.” He lifted his big shoulders on another shrug, then picked up his equipment. “Trust me on this one, okay. If you really want her involved with this party at all, you’re going to have to change your attitude.”
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. “I wasn’t in the wrong, but thanks for the advice. I need to go pick Millie up from school, but I’ll see you later.”
He gave a wave before he hoisted the ladder. “See you later.”
On my way to my daughter’s school, I did as Hugo had asked and thought about my meeting with the party planner, Heidi. There were a couple of things he’d hit the nail on the head with.
I hadn’t exactly put my best foot forward, but who the fuck cared? I wasn’t asking this girl to marry me, for fuck’s sake. I would be paying her to throw a party, which was her job. As far as I knew, there wasn’t any specific etiquette on having to court a party planner to get them to take the job.
Millie’s lips spread into a wide smile when I pulled up outside of her school. The sight of it made me force Heidi out of my mind and pay attention to my little girl.
I picked her up as often as I could, but it wasn’t often enough. After parking the SUV, I climbed out and went to fetch her from the school’s premises. She didn’t stop smiling as I approached, running to me when I got close to the gate.
“Daddy, you came!” she exclaimed and launched herself into my arms when I opened them. “I’m so happy you’re here.”
“So am I, baby.” I pulled her into a tight hug, then took her backpack from her when I released her. “Did you have a good day?”
“Yes,” she said excitedly. “We got a new book to read for tonight’s homework and we have to do maths too.”
“Great, I like maths.” I grinned as I opened her door, then made sure she was buckled in safely before climbing into the driver’s seat. “What maths do we have to do?”
As Millie started explaining to me what they had done in school that day, my mind immediately jumped to how I could have done it better. It hit me then that Hugo might have been right. I knew nothing about educating a bunch of primary-school children. Just like I knew nothing about party planning. Somehow, I guessed that buying a couple of kegs and a few bags of chips wasn’t going to cut it for what I had in mind.
When Millie and I finally got home and I had a look at this maths she had been talking about, I realised that I might not have been able to do it better after all. “You’re really good at this. Well done, my angel.”
“Thank you, Daddy.” She beamed at me. “I like maths too, just like you. Ms. George makes it fun.”
Ms. George was doing a pretty good job of it, I had to admit. The evidence was right in front of my eyes. It made me wonder if perhaps I had been too hard on Heidi too. Maybe I had to get a hold of her and try it again.
It couldn’t hurt. Just so long as she realised that I wasn’t prepared to step out of the process entirely, there was no reason why I couldn’t give her a little freedom to do what it was she did.
Chapter 8
Heidi
“Heidi, I have a Mr. Lee on the line for you,” Rachel said as she popped her head into my office.
I released a long sigh and shut my eyes. “Damn. I was really hoping we weren’t going to hear from him again.”
Regardless of the fact that he’d asked me to see a plan before the end of the week, I thought that he might have changed his mind when he didn’t hear from me. The week wasn’t done yet, so I technically still had time, but I had hoped that he would just let it go.
On the upside, this way, I still had a chance of getting a good enough Christmas bonus that I’d be able to go on that holiday. The thought made me perk up a little, but I decided not to make it too easy on the arrogant arse who seemed to believe that I was his beck-and-call girl.
Too bad I’m no one’s call girl, not even his. “Make him wait a couple of minutes and then put him through.”
Rachel shot me a thumbs-up and smiled. “You got it. I like that you don’t get all starry-eyed over the higher-profile clients. It’s refreshing.”
I laughed, feeling some of the tension the news of his call had brought on melt away. “His profile can kiss my backside. Being a quasi-celebrity just because he’s good at his job and handsome doesn’t make him any better than anyone else. He’s not special.”
She lifted her brows, impressed but disbelieving. “I think you might be one of the only single women in the city who has that opinion, but it doesn’t make you wrong.”
“Nothing could make me wrong about this.” I winked. “But you’d better not leave him on hold for too long without letting him know that I will actually take his call.”
“I’ll tell him,” she said and then backed out the door, shutting it once more behind her. A few minutes later, the landline on my desk started ringing. She’d left him hanging a little longer than I’d had in mind, but I liked it.
“This is Heidi speaking,” I said when I picked up the receiver and pressed it to my ear. “What can I do for you, Archer?”
Screw calling him Mr. Lee. He’d already taken me on about being disrespectful, despite not having done anything to earn my respect. He also wasn’t much older than me, so he could shove any expectation of that where the sun didn’t shine.
A throat cleared on his end. “Good morning, Heidi. How are you going?”
My eyes narrowed in suspicion. If it hadn’t been for the same deep voice I’d heard before, the lack of hostility or demand in his tone would have made me think it wasn’t really him. “I’m fine. I haven’t gotten around to your plans yet, if that’s what this is about.”
“That’s okay,” he said, sounding almost easy going. It couldn’t be, though. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who did easy going. “I wasn’t calling about that. I was actually
wondering if we could have another meeting. If you can fit me into your calendar.”
If I can fit him into my calendar? Well, I’d be damned. “I’m booked for the rest of the week. The earliest I can meet with you is next Tuesday.”
He paused for a beat. “What if I take you to lunch sometime? Talking in a more casual setting would probably be best anyway. We can start over.”
“Start over?” Who was this person and what had he done with Archer Lee? “Is everything all right?”
“I realised we might have gotten off on the wrong foot and I wanted to make it up to you.”
If gaping was a thing real people did, I’d have been doing it. “Really?”
“Really.” He chuckled. “You don’t have to sound so suspicious. This isn’t a trick or anything. We need to have another meeting and I’d like to take you to lunch to have it. What do you say?”
“You’re giving me a choice this time?” I asked drily. “That doesn’t seem like a very you thing to do.”
Another low, rumbling laugh met my ears. “It’s been brought to my attention that you’re the expert in this particular area and that if I would like to employ your services, which I very much would, that I should have acted like less of a dictator.”
Drop the “tator” and he’d have described the way he’d acted perfectly. But since he was still a potential client and considering that he was making this call acknowledging his behaviour, I was willing to rise above. Proceed with caution.
I chewed on my lip as I thought it over. “Fine. I’ll meet you for lunch, but it’s going to have to be today. I have another meeting tomorrow.”
“Today is perfect.” He gave the name of a surprisingly modest little bistro not far from either of our offices. “Can you meet me there at noon?”
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