She lowered her eyes, feeling awkward. She was still getting used to the knowledge he loved her, and it made butterflies do laps in her stomach every time he said it.
Just then a waiter appeared beside their table. “Excuse me, sir. Would you like to order now?”
Jake turned to her. “Are you ready, Kelly?”
“Sure,” she replied, mentally kicking herself for not having chosen something when she had the chance. “Ah, I’ll have the chicken.”
The waiter didn’t bat an eyelid. “I do apologise, madam. We don’t currently have a chicken option on our menu. Would you like a few more minutes to choose something else?”
Clearing her throat, she said, “No, it’s fine. In that case, I’ll have the fish.”
“An excellent choice,” the waiter confirmed.
“Make that two,” Jake added, his eyes still on her.
As the waiter walked away, Jake raised an eyebrow at her. “The chicken or the fish?”
“Well, one of them had to be on there and I can’t seem to concentrate long enough to actually read the menu. What kind of restaurant doesn’t serve chicken?”
“The kind that currently has duck on offer instead,” he said. “Kelly, relax, it’s only me.”
She pulled a face at him. “Do you have any idea what ‘only you’ does to me?”
A grin broke out on his face as he took her hand in his, kissing her knuckles. “Good answer.”
Returning his smile, she realised her trembling had finally subsided.
“All right then. Let’s get to know each other better.” He picked up a piece of bread and dunked it in a small bowl of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. “Kelly Rawlins, what do you love about being an interior designer?”
She wondered how they’d managed to skip the basics in all the time they’d spent together. Then she remembered the reason, they’d generally been too busy removing their clothes to do much talking.
“I guess it’s the link between our environment and our mood,” she said, tilting her head to the side as she thought about it. “When we’re in a room that’s drab or messy or full of too much stuff and clutter, it can end up being another source of stress in our lives rather than a source of inspiration and relaxation. But a room that reflects the personality of the person living there, and that has a place for everything, can be like a balm to a troubled soul. At least that’s the case with people’s homes. Unfortunately I don’t get to do much residential work, it’s mostly commercial.”
“You don’t find commercial work as satisfying?”
She shrugged as she took a sip of her water. “I still enjoy it, but it’s more like designing a snapshot of a person’s day. Mostly it’s foyers and waiting rooms, that sort of thing. You have to take care of the people working behind the desks, for them it’s like a home away from home, but the rest of the space… people are only there for such a short time. They’re generally more interested in the out-of-date magazines than the prints on the wall.”
“Who can blame them? The pictures in waiting rooms are always so bland and boring.”
“I know,” she agreed with enthusiasm. “Sometimes I try to put in something more interesting but most times the client prefers to go with neutrals.” She giggled then. “Once I brought the wrong frame in from my car and ended up trying to put a painting of a nude woman in a doctor’s surgery. He wasn’t impressed.”
Jake laughed. “I guess that wouldn’t have gone over too well with the patients.”
“The painting was lovely, but no. When you have the flu, I suppose the last thing you want to stare at is a naked lady.”
“Depends on the lady,” he replied with a wink and she found herself smiling.
Their dinner arrived then and she was saved from having to give a response. “I guess it’s your turn now. Why did you become an architect? I don’t think you ever told me.”
“I liked the idea of building giant phallic symbols and forcing people to live in them.”
“I always knew there was something strange about a man who wanted to build skyscrapers. You realise buying a shiny sports car would have been easier?”
“Yes, but the shiny sports car wouldn’t have helped me pay the bills.”
“Come on,” she urged. “What’s the real reason?”
He looked at her for a long moment before he cleared his throat and began to speak. “When I was a kid we lived in a pretty cramped house. My mum and three rowdy boys in a two bedroom house with one bathroom. It wasn’t a dump or anything, just small. We were always in each other’s faces. I used to dream of living in a big house, and I’d picture what it looked like and what we had. We all had our own bedrooms and one of those big rumpus rooms.” He shrugged. “I guess that’s where it started. Now I like designing places which put small areas to good use. I suppose that’s why I’ve ended up doing mainly apartment buildings until now. Anything where I could take a small space and maximise the use of it? I would always be the first to put my hand up.”
“And what about the work you’re doing with Scott and Derek? Are you still able to do that sort of work now you’re designing houses?”
“Thankfully, yes,” he said with a nod. “People are starting to realise bigger isn’t always better, and smaller houses mean a smaller mortgage. A lot of people want a more compact house, but with a better and more efficient design. It’s an exciting time to be in.” He grinned, obviously proud of his accomplishments. “When I became successful, I bought my mum a brand new townhouse and hired a housekeeper to clean it for her once a week.”
Kelly smiled. “What a great thing to do for your mum.”
He shrugged, but she could see how important it had been to him to take care of his mother. “She worked hard all her life to provide for us. Now it’s time for her to sit back and enjoy living, you know?”
“Yeah.” She’d believed she knew so much about Jake but, hearing him talk, she realised she’d barely scratched the surface. “I don’t think you’ve ever told me anything about your childhood before the party last week.”
“Well, there’s a lot of stuff I don’t generally tell people.” He actually seemed uncomfortable—vulnerable even—and she was amazed to see a side of him not drenched in confidence. “But I want you to know all of me.”
Moved by his confession, she reached for his hand, holding it with her own. “Thank you.”
He entwined their fingers. “Hey, it’s no big deal.” But she knew it was.
“I guess this is the part where I’m supposed to say goodnight,” Jake murmured between kisses.
“I guess so.” Kelly ran her tongue along his bottom lip, smiling when he groaned and cupped her face, tilting his head to deepen the kiss. Teasing him this way, when she had no intention of satisfying his lust, was almost as much fun as teasing him when she couldn’t wait to take his clothes off—almost.
“Of course, in order to say goodnight you have to stop kissing me.”
“Don’t want to stop,” he complained. The distinct whine in his voice made her laugh.
She looked heavenward for a moment, pretending to ponder the problem. “Well, I suppose you could come in for coffee. But you’d have to promise to keep your hands to yourself.”
“Oh no,” he said, holding his hands up. “That’s more temptation than I can handle with you looking at me like that. If I step one foot through that door I won’t be coming out till morning—and maybe not even then.”
“Why, Jake,” she said with feigned shock. “Whatever happened to the fount of control you’ve been using lately?”
His laugh had a strained edge to it. “That well is drying up fast.” He lowered his mouth to her neck, biting her just hard enough to make her moan. “Very, very fast.”
“Well, I’m afraid it’s too late to back out now. You made your bed, now you have to lie in it.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to actually like the fact I’m lying in it alone,” he pointed out.
“Oh, poor baby,” she crooned. �
��He’s got no one to snuggle.”
“Hmm, snuggling sounds good.” Jake backed her against the door, nuzzling her ear.
“Jake,” she said with a snicker. “I didn’t mean you could snuggle with me on the doorstep.”
Dropping his head to her shoulder, he breathed a deep sigh. “Okay. I’m going.” He smiled at her. “Thanks for being a wonderful date.”
“You’re welcome. I had a lovely time.” She kissed him one last time. A light, but lingering, kiss that left a giddy feeling in her stomach. “Good night, Jake.”
After she closed the front door, she leaned back against it with a blissful sigh. She touched the tips of her fingers to her lips, still feeling the tingle left by his kisses. It had been so long since she’d felt this kind of excitement. Not since… well, the first time with Jake. A shiver of unease settled in her stomach as she remembered how it had ended, but she pushed it away. They weren’t kids anymore. They were adults now and they were ready for a real commitment if that’s where this relationship led.
It would be different this time. It had to be.
Chapter 22
Kelly stood in the middle of a homewares showroom and tried her best not to scream at Jake in unadulterated frustration. They’d spent the past two hours walking around various stores and Jake had yet to voice a real opinion about any of the extra bits and pieces she’d suggested for his home.
He stared at the lamp she’d pointed out, hands stuffed into his pockets, and shrugged. “Do you like it?”
“Argh!” She threw up her hands, having come to the last of her patience. “Jake, you have to express an opinion. This is your home, you have to live in it every day.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw an older couple smiling at them in amusement and realised her voice had been rising with each word. Great, she thought as she rubbed her forehead with one hand, now she had people thinking she and her client were having a lover’s tiff. Although, technically he was her ex-client, since the job had officially finished. And he was still her ex-lover at this stage too, since they had yet to consummate the new iteration of their relationship. All the clarifications were enough to make her head spin.
She took a deep breath and tried again. “Jake, I’ve already done all the hard work. Your home is gorgeous. And you like it, right?”
“Of course I do,” he confirmed, reaching out to take her in his arms. “You did a great job. It’s perfect.”
She placed a hand on the centre of his chest, holding him off. “Good. I’m glad you think so,” she said, wrestling a smile onto her lips. “But you haven’t added a single extra thing since I finished the official work. It’s been well over a month and the place still looks like it’s ready for a photo shoot. It’s time for you to add some pieces that are all you, to make it your own and give it a lived-in feeling.” She poked his chest with her finger. “Which means you have to actively help pick them.”
“Can’t you pick stuff and I’ll tell you if I like it?”
“I could, but that’s not the way it works.”
Jake sighed, dropping his arms back to his sides as he turned back to the object in question. “What exactly is a wooden lamp supposed to say about me?” He tilted his head to one side. “Maybe it’s saying, you light up my life? Or, come on baby light my living room?”
Kelly’s shoulders slumped. “I give up.”
Walking away, she wondered if she’d make it through the day without killing him. For a man who designed buildings for a living, he seemed to have absolutely no interest in what went inside them. If he had his way she’d end up picking each and every item to go through the front door, from the style of bed all the way down to the pattern on the crockery.
Glancing to her left, she spied a wine rack in a corner of the store that made her head turn in that direction. Unlike the traditional wooden racks, this one had been made from stainless steel. Each shelf was a single sheet of steel, curved into a waving shape, with a bottle intended to lie in each depression. The sheets were held together with thin rods of vertical steel. The design had an uncomplicated kind of strength, and the way the overhead lights reflected off its surface reminded her of the glint of sunlight on corrugated iron.
She ran her fingers over the cool metal as she heard Jake come up behind her. “Forget what I said about not choosing for you,” she told him. “This you have to buy.”
“Why do you say that?” he asked, his curiosity clear.
“You use a lot of steel in your work. It’s like seeing one of your buildings mid-construction. Plus, it has that something I’m always hunting for in feature pieces. It’s a nebulous quality that says Jake Caine.” She held her hands up as she said it, almost able to see his name written on the rack.
“Um, okay,” he said and she knew he thought she was crazy, but she didn’t care. She had a knack for identifying feature pieces and had been known to email past clients when she spotted something she knew they’d love. It only took a few minutes of her time to take a picture of the item and send it off with the appropriate details. More often than not the clients were extremely grateful. She’d gotten repeat business that way more than once.
“I like it,” Jake added, nodding as he inspected the wine rack. “You like it?”
“I love it.”
“Not so child friendly though, is it? The edges are a bit sharp.”
Kelly’s eyes widened as her thoughts skidded to a halt. “Excuse me?”
Jake shrugged, as if his words were no big deal. “Well, I would like to have kids someday. I might as well take that into account now.”
“You never mentioned this earlier.”
“Nothing else you’ve done has posed a problem.”
“It does make sense to keep it in mind, of course.” Trying to remain as calm as Jake appeared, Kelly noted the details for the wine rack so she could order it when they were done. “The rack won’t be a problem in that regard. It’s small enough to sit on a cabinet if needs be.” She cleared her throat, feeling his steady eyes on her as she stared fixedly at the notes on her clipboard. “You’ll only be using it to hold a few bottles for easy reach anyway. The rest will be stored in the wine fridge I bought for you.”
“What about you? Do you want kids someday?” Jake asked in a way that implied he was making casual conversation. There was nothing casual about the tension in his shoulders or the way he now watched her out of the corner of his eye.
“I suppose so,” she replied, curtly.
“That doesn’t sound very convincing,” he commented as she wandered toward the home office section.
“This isn’t the sort of a conversation I want to have in the middle of a showroom.”
“Why? Don’t you want kids?”
Kelly sighed. “All right, yes, I would like to have children… someday. But I’m not sure I see it happening for me.”
“Why not?” he asked, frowning at her. “You’re only twenty-eight, Kelly, there’s still plenty of time.”
“Yeah, well, I want to concentrate on my career right now.”
“Right, and a woman can’t possibly have a career and children,” he scoffed. “You’ll have to try harder than that.”
“Why are you so insistent on asking me this now?” she asked, losing her patience with him all over again. “Do you really think this is an appropriate place for this conversation?”
“Seems as good a place as any.” He glanced around the empty showroom. Only one other person was currently visible, and she was nowhere near close enough to overhear their conversation. “Kelly,” he murmured, taking her hand in his. “Talk to me.”
Apparently he wasn’t going to let this go until she’d bared her soul or some such nonsense. She decided it would be faster to get it over with so they could go on with their day. “My parents got divorced when I was still a kid myself, okay? I hardly saw my dad after he moved out.” She tried to put her feelings into words, but found it hard when she didn’t fully understand them herself. “If I have children I want to be confid
ent their father will be there for them and for me. I want to be a real family.” She shook her head, as if the notion itself sounded absurd. “I can’t imagine trusting any man enough to take such a huge step—not anymore.”
His eyes narrowed and she saw his jaw clench. A sure sign her words had upset him. “You said you’d forgiven me.”
“And I meant it,” she assured him, giving his fingers a squeeze. “But trust is something different and for me it’s been broken more than once. Not just by you, but by my father and Simon too. Every time I believed I was walking on steady ground, men have stolen the rug out from under me.”
“I won’t hurt you again.” There was such determination in the quiet words, an inherent honesty in the way he said them.
“I believe you here,” she said, pointing to her head before placing her hand over her heart, “but it’s going to take some time to know it here.”
He nodded, then drew her into his arms. “Time I’ve got,” he said before placing a kiss on her forehead. Then he backed up a step, taking her hand as he led her to another part of the store with determined strides. “All right, let’s get back to work. I think it’s time to go find a dust collector that has a certain something I can’t live without.”
Chapter 23
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Kelly vaguely noted the movie she and Jake were supposed to be watching had reached some sort of climax. Her eyes flickered open to see buildings exploding and gun battles in full swing. Dramatic music played in the background. Then Jake bit her neck gently, his thumb gliding over her right nipple, and her thoughts scrambled once again.
They’d enjoyed a quiet evening at Jake’s place, with take-out food and streamed movies. Though, if someone had asked Kelly the storyline of this second movie, she would have had trouble responding. The opening scenes had still been showing when Jake started playing with her hair. She’d turned her head to find him watching her instead of the giant flat screen television she’d had installed in his living room. His expression had been so full of love and longing she’d instinctively moved into his arms, wanting to comfort him and take pleasure in his embrace at the same time.
This Time Forever: Second Chance Romance (Finding Forever Book 3) Page 13