The Proviso

by Moriah Jovan

  She’d learned a lot about people like Sebastian since he’d come into her life and what she’d always seen as deficiencies were not deficiencies at all. The employees who had scored close to what Sebastian had done had been slotted according to their interests and given more work than any human could possibly handle. They had done exactly what Sebastian said they would do. They chugged through their projects at a frightening pace yet managed to spend a lot of time staring at nothing, playing with executive toys, surfing the web, and shooting the breeze over their cubicle walls.

  It had taken her a great deal of control not to crack down on that, but Sebastian had noticed and said, “Are they getting the work done?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are they doing it well?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then leave them alone. All you should care about as CEO is the result. The only thing about the process you need to worry about is if they meet their deadlines with quality work. Don’t micromanage.”

  She didn’t understand it, but she couldn’t argue with it because it worked. If Sebastian Taight couldn’t pass her test, if he spent time gazing at nothing and working on his own timetable, then she’d been doing something wrong all along, because he was one of the most successful people she knew personally.

  The one time she’d worked up the courage to try to break through Sebastian’s shell, she’d asked, “You said most of your family wouldn’t pass my test. Do they work like you do?”

  Sebastian had stopped reading the reports, stopped writing. He stared off into the distance a little while, then said, “Everybody has their tricks, their coping mechanisms; just because they wouldn’t pass the test doesn’t mean you would be able to tell they’re like me.”

  “And Knox and Fen?”

  “They’re both schemers. They plot every scenario and plan every detail out to the nth degree the same way you do and they don’t leave anything to chance. The more elaborate the scheme, the better; for them, it’s like working puzzles. Knox only understands how I work because he’s watched me do it for years. Fen’s never been able to figure out what I do, not that he hasn’t tried, but he doesn’t have the temperament for it. Knox’s father was a planner too, so I’m thinking it’s a Hilliard trait.”

  Eilis’s stomach turned over.

  “Problem was, Oliver didn’t have a managerial bone in his body and OKH almost went under before Fen got complete control of it. Fen’s a born manager.”

  “So they don’t need the little tricks and toys.”

  “Sure they do. Fen plays a lot of golf. Alone. I’m sure he’s done deals that way, but he doesn’t like to. He uses golfing to think. In fact, OKH has a nine-hole course on the property. I don’t know what Oliver did.”

  “And Knox?”

  “Knox has a photographic memory. He remembers every word he reads. If he’s paying attention—which he doesn’t do very much because he’d go nuts—he’ll remember everything he sees and every sound he hears. When he’s stuck or needs to work something out, he starts reading. Anything. Everything. He doesn’t care. It just has to be something he hasn’t read before because he needs a bigger fund of knowledge to draw from than what he already has, and he needs to lay new paths to make different associations.”

  “What’s your trick?”

  “If it’s business, I stare at walls. If it’s personal, I paint.”

  He would say no more after that, and Eilis felt both enriched and bereft, especially when he went back to being barely civil.

  From the day Sebastian had left after making all the changes he’d made in two weeks flat, her company’s growth had boomed. She wasn’t out of the red yet, but they were making steady progress on getting all the bills paid and paid on time.

  Karen was a marketing genius.

  Sheila was a rainmaker.

  Conrad knew where to spend money and where not to.

  Michael delivered product.

  Sebastian had known this about them, had exploited them for it, and, also as he’d predicted, they thanked him for exploiting their talents and rewarding them well for it.

  She had exactly four executives, which was twenty-one fewer than she’d had before Sebastian came. The salary savings alone had allowed them to get out of the most pressing of her debt.

  Eilis cleared her throat, uneasy in the silence. “I found a psychologist who’s developed a categorization method for the tests. Michael’s coding the scoring software himself.”

  “Good,” he said without looking up.

  The speed at which Sebastian processed information was astounding to her. She’d had to fight for every grade, every inch of square feet in this building, every calculation, every data analysis. Math, analyzation, data, statistics: Not her strong suit. She’d chosen the hardest path possible in order to make something of herself in spite of her past, to escape from the reality that was her life.

  “Are— Are you a genius? A real one?” she asked, hesitant, and hating that she betrayed any emotion at all.

  “Yes,” he said shortly.

  Oh, she was tired of this. The silent treatment was not fair. “Sebastian.”

  He stopped what he was doing and was still. Then he raised his head and his cold blue gaze bored into hers. “Yes, Eilis?”

  “Why are you angry with me?”

  “I’m not.”

  “I see.”

  He sighed and put his elbow on the table, then put his forehead in his hand. “It’s my problem, Eilis. I’m sorry.”

  “What did I do?”

  “Nothing. I’m sorry if I’ve been a little cool toward you.”

  “And I apologize for whatever I did.”

  * * * * *

  Sebastian didn’t know how he had let this get so completely out of hand. He remembered the Eilis he’d met at the Ford exhibit, and not only was she still wearing that hideous costume, but she was determined to find Ford. There was only so much a man could take. So he decided to go for broke and looked up at her. “Would you have lunch with me tomorrow?”

  As usual, Eilis betrayed no emotion, but he could feel the sudden tension in her body. He felt just as tense; asking her out on a date had been the furthest thing from his mind when he’d walked into this building. “Lunch? Why?”

  Sebastian’s mouth thinned. Why. “People have to eat, Eilis,” he returned gruffly. “Maybe some people would like to not do that alone.”

  He watched her inscrutable face in case he could tell anything of her thoughts, but she never once dropped her façade.

  “All right,” she finally agreed, “but I choose the restaurant. You may pick me up at twelve-thirty.”

  Sebastian felt both elated and dismayed. He wasn’t sure why either, all things considered. “Uh—dress?”

  “Very casual,” she murmured and turned away.

  He had all the access in the world to her files, so he didn’t bother asking her where she lived. It didn’t surprise him that she lived in nearby Chouteau Woods, just ten minutes south of the airport, only two miles away from Knox as the crow flies (and of course Knox would have neglected to mention this to him). HR Prerogatives stood in an office park halfway between her home and the airport.

  When he drove through the massive wooden gates of her driveway the next day, flanked by two equally massive four-foot square stone pillars and up the drive to her door, he wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but he had to admit the place suited her.

  A big brown-charcoal-tan brick boxy Tudor revival with a multicolored blue-green slate roof and two chimneys, it couldn’t be seen from the secluded and relatively dark side street that itself didn’t invite traffic. An eight-foot-high iron fence hidden by an immaculately trimmed hedgerow surrounded the entire property, which was almost twice as big as Knox’s acre plot, the difference being that this was rolling terrain. The lawn was a few shades of the richest greens and nearly perfect. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see a few head of sheep trimming it.

  There were old, old oaks, maples, and white
birch trees dotting the property, which would give the whole expanse shade in the summer, and had not yet started to turn. It had been a long, hot summer and October thus far had been unseasonably warm. This should be a lovely flaming display in two weeks and in four, a nasty mess to clean up when they all dropped and the November rains began.

  There was a roundabout in front of her door with a shoulder-high black granite obelisk fountain in the middle of it embedded in chunks of tumbled black glass. Between the roundabout and the front door was a small brick courtyard bordered by a low brick wall and fronted by layers and layers of flowers, which, suiting the house, was a perfect reproduction of an English country garden that was starting to wind down for the late autumn. The chrysanthemums were on full display and brilliantly arranged by color. There were a couple of ornamental apple trees, pear trees, and dogwoods around the perimeter closer to the house that were still green, though they should have been turning and dropping.

  “Wow,” he whispered to himself as he got out of his truck to walk around and inspect them more closely. Her garden had surprised all the irritation out of him. He wondered if she had done this herself or if she paid someone.

  If she had done this, he was in awe of her talent as a master gardener. He couldn’t help the smile that grew when he imagined her digging in the dirt, planting, weeding, and fertilizing. He touched the last-gasp cosmos of magenta and tangerine. He noted a stubbled bed of what he thought would be irises and wondered if he would find a Georgia O’Keeffe on one of her walls.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t have a chance. She opened the heavy, rich mahogany plank door with a curved top and three long black strap hinges across its face. Once outside and locking it behind her, she said lightly, “I figured that if I didn’t come out, you’d stand me up for these ladies,” and swept her hand over her garden.

  Sebastian started. “Was I that long?”

  She laughed, and he loved that. “Yes. I was starting to get jealous of my own flowers.” Then she came across the courtyard and he caught his breath again at her beauty. The first time she had ever looked completely comfortable to him, she had on jeans and a navy rugby shirt, most likely because she thought she should have to hide that magnificent bosom. And her hips! Sebastian groaned when she turned away to smell a tea rose topiary in a large urn. Her waistband didn’t touch her waist. She bought her jeans for her hips and he appreciated every millimeter of difference between them. Her ass was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen.

  Then she turned back to him, smiling, and she took his breath away. A simple dime store headband held her hair back from her face, which didn’t have a lick of makeup. She had no jewelry on. She wore old beat-up penny loafers.

  She pointed to his truck. “Are you a millionaire or a billionaire?”

  He looked over his shoulder at the old beat-up Ford pickup truck he loved. “I’ve had that since I turned sixteen. I find myself having to haul stuff around often enough that I keep it. Otherwise, you said casual, so I took you at your word. Warning, though: Air conditioner doesn’t work.”

  That made her laugh and he did so love it when she laughed.

  “Did you do this, Eilis?” Sebastian asked. “This garden?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m— This is— Breathtaking,” he whispered and while he wasn’t looking for a reaction, he happened to catch the look of amazement that glanced across her face.

  “Would you like a tour?” she asked, hesitant, as if she didn’t trust his sincerity.

  “Do we have reservations somewhere?”

  “No.”

  “Then yes, I would love one.”

  She didn’t seem inclined to talk and neither did he. He took in every bit of color and he knew she watched him for a reaction. At this point, he didn’t know if he wanted more to stare at Eilis or Eilis’s garden.

  In the back of the house was a swimming pool, rare enough here where one could only be used half the year and brought property values down, not up. Cobbled paths wound around the property and served as a simple framework for various beds of autumn flowers that ringed the trees. Stacked stone formed the walls of some of the beds and, on the hills and in the dales, some flower beds had no boundaries whatsoever. One path diverged and meandered through the lawn, then turned and disappeared into a small glade. Sebastian wanted to take the road less traveled by.

  The trees cast an incredible shade, even now at midday. Mourning doves and other birds called. Frogs croaked from somewhere, so there must be a body of water nearby. He drew in a long breath and confirmed that by scent.

  Around the bend of the path, a very wide stone bridge spanned a creek. In the creek, she’d planted rushes and lemon grass to keep mosquitoes away, and had strategically placed rocks so as to get a gurgling sound that she could probably hear on a still night and to clean the water as it went through. Minnows and tadpoles could thrive in the small standing pools.

  “We don’t have to go across the bridge if you don’t want to,” she said softly. “My greenhouse is back there as well as my compost pile.”

  He didn’t answer, but crossed the footbridge eagerly, absently noting that her stride matched his. The back of the property wasn’t quite as tidy as the front. In fact, it was a downright mess. Here, a four-runner with a garden trailer behind it. There, a lawn tractor with an enormous bag and vacuum hose behind it. The greenhouse looked more like a storage shed, and the biggest compost pile he’d ever seen covered a lot of ground. She had a small Bobcat backhoe with its bucket buried in the pile.

  “I have to turn the compost quite a bit. I make a lot of compost tea and my worms have to come up for air occasionally.”

  “Vermiculture? Really?”

  “Yes. It’s difficult for me to find a convenient time to get horse manure. Worm castings are almost as good. You know about gardening?”

  “Not really. What I do know came from spending a week at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh trying my hand at it.”

  Eilis gasped and he looked over at her, not down, which very much pleased him. Her hand was over her mouth. “You’ve been there?”

  “Yes, Eilis,” he said softly. “I’ve been around the world several times. I could go around it another hundred thousand times and not see everything I want to. I always find the gardens.”

  She blushed a little and turned away from him. “My little garden here must not compare.”

  “Eilis,” he said earnestly, his attraction to her only increasing exponentially at this display of artistry and skill, “you’re a master gardener. I might not know much, but I do know that. You’ve done this magnificent work yourself and I—” He stopped and looked around. “I’m awed. I could spend days lost in here.”

  She sniffled and he went around her to find her with her hand to her nose.

  “What? What did I say?” he asked, almost panicking because he thought he’d said the exact wrong thing.

  “My—” She gulped. “David— My ex-husband. He thought it was a waste of time, but it was one of the only things that pulled me through my marriage. Allowed me to stay with him long enough to do what I needed to do.”

  Sebastian decided to talk to Knox about this David Webster person pronto, then gripped her arms in his hands. “Eilis, look at me.” He knew she didn’t want to, but she did anyway.

  “The man embezzled almost a hundred million dollars from you, half of which Knox wasn’t able to recover. Why would you care about his opinion?”

  “I don’t care, exactly,” she said, “but I had to redo my entire garden because it reminded me of what he did to me.”

  “Eilis, this is a work of art,” he murmured. “I’ve been to the best gardens in the world and this—this work you have created with your own two hands—rivals them all.” He could see that she wanted to believe what he said, but didn’t really. “Eilis,” he continued, saying her name every chance he got. “I speculate in art. I know greatness when I see it. This is a great work of art, whether you want to believe it or not.
”

  This time he didn’t ask permission first. He enfolded her in his arms, the back of her head in his palm, and kissed her. Lightly at first, he felt her acquiesce; deepening the kiss, his tongue teasing hers, pleading with her to come play with him, he felt her melt into him. If he thought Knox wouldn’t crack his head open for it, he’d lay her down in a bed of dying wildflowers and make love to her right then and there, amongst the wonder she’d built and nurtured.

  Sebastian drew away slowly and searched her face for some sign of healing. He ran a finger down her scar and murmured, “I’ll do that however many times it takes for you to remember my opinion of your garden and forget his.”

  That made her smile, but the moment was interrupted by the loud rumble in her belly. Embarrassed, she pulled away and tried to laugh, but . . .

  “Time to eat,” Sebastian pronounced, deliberately killing the mood so he could feed her. He hadn’t forgotten how she had reacted to his offer of food at the Ford exhibit, nor had he missed the way she’d eyeballed the remains of the pizza he had shared with Karen. He couldn’t count how many times he’d heard her stomach rumble, but he did know how many times he’d seen her eat: zero. “Where are we going?”

  “On a picnic, apparently, since you’re so hellbent on being a lawn jockey.”

  Sebastian laughed out loud then and caught her staring at him. “What?”

  “You look—you look so different when you smile and laugh. The difference is amazing.”

  He continued to chuckle as they walked up the path to the driveway and led her to the pickup truck that seemed to amuse her. Sebastian helped her in and closed the door behind her. “Now, I wasn’t kidding about air conditioning. I didn’t think I’d have to worry about it until spring. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I grew up without air conditioning.”