[The Sons of Lily Moreau 01] - Remodeling the Bachelor

by Marie Ferrarella

  Janice forgot about being uncomfortable and invading the man’s space, andthought about being made to play hide and seek with her ever-growing stack ofbills.

  “I’m here to find out why you’re welching,”she said without preamble.

  He stared at her, dumbfounded.“Welching?”

  Okay, maybe that was a tad too harsh. She rephrased.“We had a deal, remember?” “Yes, of course I remember. Frankly, I was wondering why you hadn’t gottenstarted.”He’d been too bogged down with a glitch in the program to noticeduring the day, but at night it would hit him that she hadn’t called or shownup. By the time it registered, it was always too late for him to call andinvestigate.

  She stared at him incredulously. He was serious. Either that or playing her fora fool. For the moment, she ignored the latter and began to talk to him as if hewere mentally challenged.“I can’t get started until you tell me what you pickedout.”

  His response told her that she’d guessed correctly. The man had no clue.“Pickedout?”

  “The tile,”she prompted.“Picked out the tile.”She didn’t see a light dawningin his eyes. How could he be that obtuse? Again, Philippe shrugged. The mundane had little hold on him.“I don’t know. Ithought you were supposed to handle all that. I was okay with the drawings,”hereminded her.

  That was for the redesign of the kitchen and the bathrooms. That didn’t take anyof the materials into account. “Yes, you were,”she enunciated each word slowly,“but I don’t know what coloryou want. What kind of cabinets you’d like to put in or even what kind of tileyou want me to use.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, as if the words were slipping into his brainone at a time and he was processing them.“Tile comes in kinds?” Having dealt with this world all of her life, it was impossible for Janice toimagine that anyone was ignorant of this sort of thing. Especially anyone whoappeared to be intelligent.“Have you even been to a tile store?”

  “No.” “Okay, baby steps,”she murmured, more to herself. She made a spur of the momentdecision.“All right, I’ll take you.”She just needed to call home and make surethat Gordon wasn’t about to run off somewhere and forget that he had a niece towatch over.

  Zabelle still didn’t seem to be following her.“Take me where?”

  “To a tile store.” Or two or three, she added silently, keeping that to herself. She guessed thatif the man were told that this was a process that took most people severalafternoons, he would balk and make excuses why he couldn’t go.

  His eyes narrowed. It didn’t look encouraging.“When?”

  “Now.”It was half a query, half a direct order. He shook his head.“I can’t go now. I’m in the middle of something.”

  “How long before you’re not in the middle of something?”she asked. Philippe thought for a second. The deadline had been moved just yesterday. He’dnever been comfortable about rushing through a project. That was his name on thecover and his reputation meant a great deal to him.“End of November.”

  Janice looked at him, stunned. November was three months away. She couldn’tstretch things out until then.“Look, if you’re trying to break the contracts— ”

  “Go with the lady,”Georges said, picking that moment to walk in.“A few hoursaway from the drawing board might recharge your batteries.”

  Philippe began to protest that Georges didn’t know what he was talking about. Georges was a doctor, not a designer. He had no idea what was involved in theprocess. But then he shrugged. The sooner he agreed and got this over with, thesooner the woman would be busy working and out of his hair.

  He looked at J.D.“How fast can you get me there?”he wanted to know. He’d done a one-eighty so fast, she felt as if she’d just sustained a severecase of whiplash.“Fast,”she volunteered. Then, because she sensed he’dappreciate it, added,“But I’ll try not to break any speed limits.”As shespoke, she reached for her car keys and headed toward the front door. Turning,she nodded at Georges, silently thanking him.

  He winked at her in reply. Definitely less family resemblance than more, she decided.

  Chapter 6

  Janice drove him to an area inAnaheim known among contractors as tile row. Asfar as the eye could see was store after endless store offering every kind oftile. She had just assumed the lead since this encompassed her territory. But theshort journey across the freeway, for once not hopelessly congested, had herrethinking her decision. Zabelle sat beside her now, wrapped in silence sinceshe’d announced,“I’ll drive,”and gestured him into the passenger seat of hertruck.

  It wasn’t the kind of comfortable silence of two old friends who momentarily hadrun out of things to say. This was the kind of silence bound up by tension. Atleast, for her it was.

  As she got off the freeway and turned down the first of the streets leading totheir destination, Janice felt she couldn’t take the oppressive silence anylonger. “Anything wrong?”she asked. When Zabelle didn’t answer, she repeated thequestion, her voice more forceful. This time, she managed to penetrate the haze.

  “Hmm? Oh, no.”And then Philippe looked at her for a moment before changing hisreply.“Well, yes.”

  The light was red.“All right, what is it?” Since she’d asked, he gave her an honest answer.“I’m not used to sitting in thepassenger seat.”

  Janice wasn’t sure she followed him.“Excuse me?”

  “I’m usually the one driving.” Funny, if asked, she wouldn’t have said he had an ego thing going. Apparentlyshe was getting to be a worse judge of character than she thought.“But youdon’t know where we’re going,”she pointed out.

  “I understand that,”Philippe answered.“It’s just that I guess I’m notcomfortable having anyone else behind the wheel.” Well, that was pretty honest, she thought. Most men would have said somethingabout being natural pathfinders and being the better driver right out of thebox.“I’m a safe driver,”she told him.

  He shook his head.“It’s not that.”

  Making a left turn, she kept her eyes on the road.“You like being in control,”

  she guessed.

  That sounded obsessive, Philippe thought and he’d never pictured himself thatway. His mother had elements of obsessive-compulsive in her makeup, not him. “No.”The denial didn’t taste quite right on his lips. And if he were beingcompletely honest, if only with himself, maybe there was this one small streakthat leaned toward control.“Well, maybe,”he allowed, adding,“to some degree.”

  Janice had a feeling it was more than just that, but she wasn’t about to push.

  Besides, they’d arrived at the first shop. She’d never come here herself, butsome of the other contractors told her that the store had some very decentinventory.

  “Lucky for you, we’re here.”With a smooth turn of her wrist, she pulled intowhat she believed would be the first of many parking lots that afternoon. Instead of bolting out of the truck the way she’d expected him to, Zabelle saton his side, eyeing the front of the store. The sign advertising the place wasmade completely out of black onyx. There were no windows in front.“This is theplace?”

  She got out, closing the door with finality, hoping that he’d take the hint.

  “This is one of them.”

  “One of them,”he repeated. Slowly, without taking his eyes off the store, hegot out of the truck.“How many are you planning on going to?”

  She could almost hear him saying dragging me to in place of the words he’d used. “As many as it takes for you to find something you like.”She gestured towardthe other stores that lined both sides of the street.“I’ve never actuallycounted, but there are probably at least thirty or so stores along here.”

  “Thirty,”he repeated incredulously.

  “Or so,”she added as a reminder. Philippe slowly let out a long breath, as if bracing himself for an ordeal. Hethen squared his shoulders like a man going into battle and opened the frontdoor. Stepping to the side, he held it for her, then glanced at her with asilent query.

  For once, she could read him.“
Don’t worry, I’m not going to bite your head offfor holding the door for me. I actually like that kind of thing.” Philippe responded to the warm smile on her lips. Given the line of work she wasin, he wasn’t sure if holding a door for her would somehow offend her sense ofindependence. Life in his mother’s world had taught him to take nothing forgranted about women’s reactions to things.

  “Good to know,”he murmured. The store looked deceptively small on the outside. Inside it was divided intofifteen or so sections, each showcasing a different kind of tile intended forevery single foot of the house. Tile for the fireplace, for the pool area, forbathrooms, the kitchen and so on. There was so much to see that it wasoverwhelming.

  Standing to the side, Janice could see that this was definitely a great dealmore than Philippe had expected. Time for her to step in and be the tour guide,she thought.

  Once she got started, she had a tendency to talk fast. This time Janicedeliberately curbed her impulse.“I know that this can be a little mindbogglingat first. There are different grades of marble and granite, ceramic and glass—”

  He seemed not to be listening. And then, just as she got warmed up to hersubject, he pointed to a royal blue piece.“That one.”

  Janice blinked, and then looked at it.“That one what?” “I pick that one. For the tile,”he added since she was still staring at him asif he’d lapsed into an unknown dialect of pig Latin.“You can use that one forthe tile.”He glanced toward the door like a prisoner looking longingly at thegates leading to the freedom that was denied to him.“Can we go now?”

  Janice remained speechless for exactly ten seconds before she regainedpossession of her tongue.“No, we can’t go now,”she answered in a tone shemight have used on Kelli if she’d had a willful child instead of the one she’dbeen blessed with.“This is only the first place we’ve been to, Philippe, andjust the first display you’ve seen. You have no idea what’s out there,”sheinsisted.“You might see something you like better.”

  It occurred to him, after the fact, that this was the first time she’d addressedhim by his first name. It made the whole process seem more intimate somehow,like going out with a friend instead of an employee.

  The thought had come shooting out of nowhere. He sent it back to the same place.

  He was here to get this tile thing over with, not challenge himself with mentalpuzzles. “I don’t think so,”he countered. He believed that it was entirely possible tofind something he liked immediately instead of having to wade through a sea ofcandidates.“I don’t have to see every single piece of tile to know what Ilike.”

  She’d bet anything that Zabelle was doing this because he didn’t want to wastetime going from store to store. Another contractor would have gone along withthis, happy to have the ordeal over with. But she didn’t operate that way. Sheliked leaving her clients satisfied with their renovations. That was what it wasall about to her, matching the person to the changes, not just slapping any oldthing together in order to collect her fee.

  “I don’t—”Janice got no further. “If I were my mother,”Philippe continued patiently,“you might have to wait sixmonths for a decision. But I’m not like that.” Something else was going on here, she thought. But as of yet, she didn’t have aclue so she could only tilt with the windmill she saw.“You can’t go with thefirst tile you see.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because there’s so much out there that you haven’t seen, that you don’t knowabout, that you might really fall in love with,”she added with feeling.

  He looked at her for a long moment. So long that she felt something inside hertighten in anticipation, although she hadn’t a clue what it was.

  And then, whatever it was that was going on, lessened and he said,“That soundslike my mother’s philosophy about men.”

  She felt a little like someone who had just stepped in through the lookingglass.“Excuse me?” Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have said that. Of the three of them, he was the mostclosed-mouth of Lily’s sons. But somehow, around this little dynamo, words justseemed to slip out.“She moves from relationship to relationship, never stayinglong even if she falls in love.”Especially when she falls in love, he addedsilently.

  For the moment, Janice forgot about the tile. This was more interesting.“Why?” It seemed ironic that his mother’s reasoning seemed to align itself so readilywith what J.D. had said about tile.“Because she feels that maybe she’ssettling, that maybe there’s something even more spectacular out there and she’smissing out.”He raised his eyes to hers.“This one,”he repeated.“I’ll takethis one.”

  So in some odd way, he was rebelling from behavior he’d witnessed as a child,she thought. Rebelling or not, she didn’t want his bathrooms to suffer. “You’re sure you’re not settling?”she prodded. An odd look came into his eyes,but she pushed forward.“Look, I realize that you’re not marrying the tile, Ijust want you to like the finished product.”

  “I already told you, I like it. You can order however much you need. Can we gohome now?”He repeated the question as if this time around it was rhetorical.

  Philippe was surprised when she gave him an answer that was different from theone he’d assumed he would be receiving.

  “No.”

  “No?”he echoed incredulously. How could the answer be no?“But I just did whatyou wanted,”Philippe pointed out.“I picked a tile.” This was definitely not going to be her easiest assignment, despite the factthat the man claimed to be easy to please. She didn’t want this to be somethingto get over with, she wanted it to leave a lasting impression on him, to catchhis eye and dazzle him every time he walked into one of the bathrooms—or thekitchen for that matter.

  “For the bathroom,”she told him.“I won’t go with the obvious, that there arethree bathrooms to be remodeled—”

  He cut in with a wave of his hand.“Same tile for all of them.” Janice pushed forward, pretending she hadn’t heard that.“You still have tochoose a slab for the kitchen counter, a backsplash, tile for all the floors,cabinets for the kitchen and bathrooms, fixtures, a tub for one, showers for theother two—”

  “Wait,”he cried, raising his hands as if he were physically trying to stuff aprofusion of things back into a box that had exploded before him, a box that wasnot allowing him to repack it.“Wait.”

  Temporarily out of steam, she paused to take a breath.“Yes?”

  “What the hell is a backsplash?”

  She grinned.“It’s the area of the wall that runs along the back of the—”

  His hand was up again, dismissing the explanation before it was completed. Therewas a bigger issue here.“I have to pick all those things out?”

  “Well, yes.”She’d shown him the blueprints. Hadn’t any of this registered?Exactly how did he think this was all going to happen?“Oh, plus appliances forthe kitchen.” Philippe stared at her, trying to process what she was saying and what it wouldcost him, not in the monetary sense but in man-hours. The latter was in shortsupply and he couldn’t really spare what he did have available to him. At theoutset, when he’d agreed to come with her, he’d expected the whole ordeal tolast maybe an hour. Less if he could hurry her along. But what she was proposingwould take days, days he didn’t have.

  This wasn’t going to work out. His first impulse was to tell her he’d changed his mind about having the roomsremodeled and pay her whatever penalty went with terminating the contractbetween them. An alternate plan was to postpone the work indefinitely, or atleast until his own work was finished. Debating between them, he did neither. For the same reason.

  Instinct told him that J. D. Wyatt needed the money this job would bring in. Sohe chose another course, one that made complete sense to him.“You do it.”

  He couldn’t mean what she thought me meant.“Excuse me?”

  “You do it,”he repeated. A couple had come in with two children, the older of whom seemed to be aroundthree and in excellent voice. He was exercising the latter and could be heardemitting a high-pitched scream from the far end of th
e store.

  Unable to hear what Philippe was saying, Janice moved closer to her client.“Dowhat?”

  “Pick for me,”he told her simply.

  “You want me to pick out your appliances.”It wasn’t a question so much as astunned repetition.

  “Yes. And all those other things you mentioned, too,”he added.

  “You have no idea what my taste is like.”

  He shrugged, fingering the tile he’d just selected and nodding at it as if itwas privy to his thoughts.“Match it to my taste.”

  It took everything for her not to throw up her hands. Was he being difficult onpurpose?“I don’t know what your taste is like,”she protested with feeling. “Other than bland.”

  He grinned, the corner of his eyes crinkling.“There you go.” Again, something stirred inside her, responding to the man and the moment. Stopthat, she upbraided herself silently.“The idea is to get away from bland,”shereminded him.

  “I’ve got a contract deadline that I’m not going to make if I’m standing here ina tile store. Now it’s either my way or we postpone this until I have some freetime.” And that wouldn’t be until November, based on what he’d said earlier. Theeasiest thing was to do as he said. But doing what he suggested went against hergrain. Stuck, she thought for a second.

  “How about this. I bring you samples and pictures of the things I picked out.” She’d make sure he had a selection to choose from. She didn’t mind being thegobetween. It took longer, but that was part of her job and came under aheading related to hand-holding.

  The thought of holding his hand created a warm wave inside her and increased herpulse rate.

  Janice pushed it down and moved on.“That way you at least know you don’t hatemy choices.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”He would have agreed to anything that would get him out ofthe store and on his way home again.

  “May I help you?” A salesman materialized behind them. Happy to see someone he assumed would bringthis all to an end, Philippe pointed to the royal blue ceramic tile he’dinitially selected.“We want that tile.”