He nodded. “I understand.” He paused a few seconds and then added, “When I first met you, I’m afraid I was guilty of exactly that, thinking of you only in conjunction with Gemma, since having a living model to work from was convenient for me. But I don’t think that way anymore, Sera.” He was quiet for a long moment, looking at her, and something in his scrutiny this time made her fully and uncomfortably aware that he was an attractive man and they were alone together.
Flustered, she searched for a neutral topic. “You said you’ve lived here a year. Where were you before that?”
‘‘Oh, in Vancouver. This city’s my home. I doubt I’ll ever leave. A friend and I had bought a beachfront house as an investment as well as a place to live, but then he got married. So I sold him my share of it and moved into a furnished suite for a while. This area was just starting to develop. I happened to know one of the owners of this building, and I got first choice in apartments. Wanna see upstairs?”
“Yes, please.”
He and Grendel led the way up the spiral stair- case to the loft. There was a king size bed, neatly covered in a brown and green striped duvet. Beside it was a packing case that served as a bedside table. Grendel made his way over to a plump brown doggy mattress next to the bed and flopped onto it. Here, as downstairs, no rugs covered the plank flooring, and there were no closets, either.
Ben had suspended two long rods from the ceiling and hung his clothing on it. He used a stack of pullout baskets in a steel frame as drawers. The only real furniture was an elaborate sound system on an oak stand, a matching CD holder, filled with disks, and a makeshift brick and board bookshelf.
“You like music.”
“Can’t live without it.”
“Me, either.”
She examined the books he’d left strewn on the bedside table. “You like mysteries?”
“English ones, yeah. What do you read for fun?”
“Stephen King.”
“Hey, me, too,” he admitted. “And poetry. I read a lot of poetry. It’s relaxing.”
“We took it in school, but I haven’t ever thought of reading poetry to relax.” He’d surprised her again.
“You play a lot of sports, Ben?” She remembered file pile of equipment downstairs.
“My work’s pretty sedentary. I need to get out and do physical stuff in my off time.”
“What sports do you most enjoy?” She was very aware of being alone with him in his bedroom.
“Oh, biking, swimming, skiing. Soccer. I’d like to coach a kid’s soccer team if I could ever find the time. And fishing. I love to fly fish. Again, I don’t get much time to do it.”
Sera moved to the area of the loft that had been partitioned off to form a large and lovely bathroom. It had an enclosed shower and an immense oval tub, elevated and facing the window that formed one wall of the room. He’d stapled a blue striped sheet to a pole to serve as a window covering.
“Practical,” she remarked, not trying to hide her amusement.
“Well, I didn’t want the entire waterfront watching me have a bath.”
“Of course not.” She fantasized for a guilty delicious moment about him in a bathtub.
Get a grip, Sera. She glanced at him. He was eyeing her, and again she felt a prickly sort of awareness between them.
“Shall we go back downstairs? I think I’ve seen enough up here to have a feeling for what needs to be done.”
He stood aside so she could lead the way. Grendel also politely waited for her to go ahead. “This staircase is really effective. I can see it being used on a set. Staircases are great props. Actors love them because they can make grand entrances and exits.”
She was babbling. She stopped herself and took a deep breath as she reached the bottom of the stairs. “How the heck did you end up without any furniture if you shared a house?”
“The house was furnished by a decorator. Several decorators. I never liked the stuff very much. Lots of flowered couches and tiny tables and beds with tops on them. It suited the house, so I gave my share of it to Greg and Lily as part of their wedding gift. They’re the parents of Stanley, the kid in the drawing you admired at the office.” He got up and went over to the worktable. “I’m doing him in clay now. Then I’m going to cast the piece in bronze and give it to them for Christmas. Come and see what you think.”
Sera went over to the table as he carefully removed the coverings on the clay sculpture, revealing the image of a boy so real and vibrant it made her smile and exclaim softly in admiration. “It’s alive, Ben. Oh, it’s marvelous. You’re very talented.” She reached out a tentative hand and stroked the boy’s hair, which stood up in wild clumps.
“Did you ever think of becoming a sculptor instead of a doctor?’ ’
“For one insane moment when I was sixteen, yeah. But my mother very wisely arranged for me to meet a well known artist, a carver, and he told me how long it took him to begin to eke out a bare living. He didn’t try to discourage me, just told me the facts, and I decided it would make a great hobby. I knew even then that I didn’t have the dedication to spend years doing something that might or might not earn me a decent living.” He shot her a deprecating grin. “There’s this greedy side of me. I like good transportation and nice restaurants. So I sold out.”
He was looking at her again with that focus that was becoming familiar. Maybe it was just the way he looked at everyone. Maybe it was because he was an artist. Maybe it had nothing to do with attraction. She hoped she was wrong.
“I’m impressed all to hell that you’ve made a career out of your ability as an artist, Sera. I know it’s not an easy thing to do.”
“If it hadn’t been for my father, I’d probably have given up and gotten a job as a receptionist or something after I left university. But Papa always made certain I had money and a credit card and a decent place to live, so I was able to volunteer for theater projects, and that gave me valuable experience that came in handy when I applied for paying jobs. I was lucky, too. In L.A. a set designer for one of the major television studios took me on as an apprentice. Her name’s Maisie Jones. I’m now her assistant designer. It’s a big thrill to get paid good money for what I was happy to do free.”
She’d also gained a friend in Maisie, which seemed an incredible bonus.
She was talking an awful lot.
“You’re talented. They’re lucky to get you.” He had such honest admiration in his voice that she flushed and shrugged. “I tell myself that to keep my confidence up. The truth is, I have some ability, but there are lots of people around with far more talent who never succeed. A lot of it’s being in the right place at the right time.”
And meeting someone like Maisie Jones.
“Luck.” He sounded thoughtful now. “I guess plain old luck has a lot to do with success, all right.” He smiled at her again, and the seriousness was gone. “I figure meeting you was lucky, Sera. I might otherwise have gone on living without furniture for the rest of my life. That is, if you think you can steer me toward what this place needs.”
“I’m sure I can make suggestions. You just have to decide whether it’s what you want.” Something puzzled her. “How come you didn’t just hire a decorator, the way you and your friend did with the house?”
He shook his head. “Oh, we didn’t hire Belinda. She was an, um, sort of a close personal friend.”
A lover. Sera speculated about how many women there were in Ben’s past. A long line of them, she’d guess.
“Anyhow, she offered to do the house for us. Greg was the same as me, not a clue when it came to decorating. But she nearly drove us both to suicide. Fabric samples, carpet samples, paint colors, this kind of look, that kind of look.” He actually shuddered. “By the time she was half done, she and I weren’t speaking and Greg wouldn’t come home if she was there. She finally quit on us, with everything in such a mess we had to do something. So we hired this other decorator. Really tall, middle aged, very solid, a big lady, maybe 350 pounds.” He shook
his head, and the horrified expression on his face made Sera laugh outright.
“She was far worse. She changed the color of the living room three times, she had a carpenter knock out walls, she turned us out of our bedrooms for weeks. We fired her eventually. Drew straws to see which of us had to do it—we were both scared as hell of her—and I lost. Anyhow, we were in an even worse mess than the first time. The next per- son we got was better, but the process was still like having surgery without anesthetic, in my opinion. I wouldn’t ever get myself into that situation again.”
Sera was still giggling. “What makes you think I won’t be the same?”
“You won’t be, will you—because you’re not an interior decorator?” There was a hopeful, insanely plaintive note in his voice.
Sera loved it. Ben was a genuinely nice guy. And sexy as hell with those jeans and big bare feet. Don’t go thinking this is something it isn’t, she cautioned herself sternly. This guy is a mover when it comes to women, way out of your league, more Gemma’s type.
And a broken heart wasn’t exactly high on her list of priorities. Not that she’d had one since high school; she’d never ventured that far again.
But he wasn’t breaking her heart at the moment; he was making her laugh, instead. He was doing everything he could to amuse her, to take her mind off Gemma, and she appreciated it. There hadn’t been a whole lot to laugh about since the accident.
Ben loved the way her smile lit up her whole face. There’d been that amazing electricity upstairs when they’d mutually recognized each other’s sensuality. He’d savored the moment, but he sensed that afterward she was a little on edge, and he wanted her to unwind, to enjoy the evening as much as he was. He’d been so right about her; she was enchanting.
“Okay, Ms. Cardano, tell me what you think needs doing here. Don’t hold back. I’m a big strong guy. I can handle it. But first—” he reached for her wineglass and refilled it along with his own “—a little anesthetic to dull the pain.” He took a hearty slug, grimacing as if it were medicine. “Better, much better. Now I’m ready.”
She was grinning at him, her brown eyes twinkling.
“First of all, paint. The size of this place, gallons and gallons of paint.”
“Oh, curses, I knew you’d say that.” He clutched his heart and feigned cardiac arrest, “Paint, my worst nightmare.”
She pretended to ignore his antics. "A deep, sultry taupe is what it needs, I think. There’s all this light pouring in. We need to soften it a little. And the ceiling gets done, as well, two shades darker than the walls. Unless you have an aversion to taupe?”
He frowned at her, still playing it up. “What is taupe exactly? I’ve been at cocktail parties with taupe, but I swear we’ve never been introduced.”
He wondered if she had a man in her life and concluded there had to be one around somewhere. When she relaxed like this and laughed and waved those expressive hands around, she was irresistible.
“You know what taupe is. Stop teasing. This is serious business. Your entire reputation is at stake. A man is judged by his environment, and it has to be the right color. Now, on this window you need roman blinds, which roll up and down, again to control the light. In an abstract print, brown and white and green. And some industrial wall sconces along here, ” she gestured, “just at eye level. On this wall, closest to the kitchen, a huge mirror, to reflect and make the best use of the softer light you’ll get with the walls painted. It’ll also reflect the mountains.”
She might have been speaking a foreign language. And anyway, he was watching the way her mouth looked instead of listening.
“That’s it? That’s all? Well, hey, that’s not as bad as I anticipated. No worse than a root canal.” He heaved a gigantic sigh of mock relief and took another drink of his wine. “Come sit down in my living room and take a break now that the painful part is over. I’ll put some music on and we can rest. What kind of music do you like?”
“Almost anything except jazz.”
“Country-and-western okay? Grendel prefers it.” Ben chose a Willy Nelson CD and turned the volume to low. He flopped into a lawn chair beside her.
“Brace yourself. We’re not quite done yet,” she said firmly once they were settled.
He groaned and tipped his head back.
“I’d paint everything but the bathrooms the same color, then use a blue-gray on them for contrast.”
She was enjoying this. It showed in her voice.
“Oh, and in the upstairs bathroom you need some of those vertical blinds, the kind that allow you to see out without anyone being able to see in.”
“Now, there’s a unique concept. I could use some of those in the OR when the gallery’s full and things aren’t going as planned.”
She shook her head at his nonsense. “In your bedroom, two big armoires would work well as closets, and a couple of antique trunks could store linen and towels. And a big old dresser would be nice. Oh, and rugs. This place is screaming for huge, colorful dhurrie rugs on these rough wood floors.”
“I must be going deaf. I’ve never heard even a murmur.”
“You just don’t speak the language.” She grinned at him, that impish grin that he wanted to see again.
“Neither do I have a clue where to begin to get the stuff you’ve just talked about.” He hoped she’d fall into the trap he was setting. “I don’t even know a wall painter—they mustn’t be big on nose jobs.” He gave her a supplicating look. “Do you have time to do this for me? Not the painting, just the supervising and stuff. Making the decisions. I’d pay you, of course. Just decide on a fee. Any fee, within reason, as long as I don’t have to be involved in what’s going on. And I wouldn’t have to move out while it’s happening, would I?”
“Of course not. It would probably help if you could stay out a lot for a day or two while the painters are working, but it’s not essential.”
“So you think maybe you could mastermind this transformation for me?”
She hesitated, and he realized that he really wanted to see more of her. He absolutely didn’t care about the apartment. His mother had offered more than once to do something about it, but he knew she tended toward fragile furniture and pastel colors, so he’d managed to put her off. It truly wasn’t a problem for him to live this way; he liked the starkness and he suspected Grendel did, as well. But if Sera agreed, it meant he’d get to know her better, and that appealed to him.
It was also easier than immediately asking her out on a date, he reasoned. He’d have to give her his dating manifesto if he did that, explain that he was looking for a good time and nothing more, and he had a gut feeling that might not work with her.
“As long as you’re not in any hurry, I guess I could probably do it,” she finally said. “Some days I have to work on the set till late, but on others I’m done early. What sort of budget are we talking about?”
“Certainly not more than this place cost me,” he stipulated, tongue in cheek. “And you’ve guessed I’m not into collecting antiques or making the sort of decorating statement here that would get me interviewed by what’s-her-name...Martha Stewart.”
“I can’t believe you even know who Martha Stewart is.”
“My mother’s a big fan of hers. She has her books and watches her shows on television.”
Sera nodded but didn’t comment. “Well, I’m used to doing sets that appear spectacular without my spending much money. This sitcom is the first thing I’ve worked on that actually has a decent budget.”
“How about if I give you a figure and then whatever you don’t spend is yours? Let’s see. That decorator we had cost us...” He did a silent accounting and then named an amount that he felt was acceptable.
Her face mirrored her astonishment, and she burst out laughing. “Ben, that’s ridiculous. I could redecorate my mother’s entire house for that.”
He shrugged. “This might cost more than you think. Why not go with that figure and we’ll negotiate later?”
; She gave him a look. “Okay, if you insist. This is exciting. You rich guys really think big.”
It was his turn to laugh. “I knew this luxurious loft would give you the wrong impression. I cannot tell a lie, Ms. Cardano. I hate to admit it, but I’m not rich. To make really big money I’d have to move to Beverly Hills and get myself some high profile clients, excuse the pun. And that’s not my idea of a good time.”
“What do you want to do?” She was serious, and he thought about how long it had been since anyone had asked that and hoped for an honest answer.
“Exactly what I’m doing.” But even that wasn’t the whole truth, and he needed to be honest with her. It was suddenly easy to tell her his dreams. “I’d love to head up the new burn unit at St. Joe’s.”
“That’s part of the construction work my dad’s company is doing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. I can’t wait to see it finished and in operation. The treatment of burn wounds has always been of great interest to me.”
“Because of your grandfather.”
“Yeah, and because of the challenge it represents. I worked in India once, treating burn victims. I’d like to do more of it.”
“Well, if you want it that much, you’ll get the job.” There was absolute conviction in her tone. “Obviously, you have the qualifications, and you have a great reputation. Everyone at the hospital’s told us how lucky we are that you’re treating Gemma.”
He was deeply touched by her ingenuous faith in him. The reality was that not everyone thought that way. Ben was all too aware of a powerful enemy who’d do everything to block him from getting the sessional appointment he so wanted. Ben’s former wife, Vera, had an uncle on the hospital’s administrative board. Dr. Roderick Miller made no secret of the fact that he despised Ben Halsey. Ben had no idea how much influence Miller had with the other voting members, but he did know for certain Miller wouldn’t be voting for him to head up the burn unit.
Double Jeopardy Page 6