houseboat.
The porch light was on, and when he opened the door, he was immediately treated to wonderful cooking smells, light classical music and Harm bounding to meet him. He dropped his suitcase, rubbed his fingers over the dog’s ears and headed straight down the hall toward the open living area.
Neely was in the kitchen. She turned when he appeared, a bright smile on her face. “You’re back.”
“I’m back,” Seb agreed flatly. He didn’t smile in return.
Her own smile faltered a little. “Didn’t it go well?”
“You tell me,” he said.
“No, I mean Reno. You seem upset.”
“Damned right I’m upset! You screwed me over. You went into that meeting and you didn’t hold the fort at all.”
Neely stiffened. “Who told you that?”
“Carmody! Who else?”
“You talked to him? What did he say?”
“He called while I was flying home. Left me a voice mail—all cheery and ‘everything’s swell.’ So he got what he wanted apparently.” Seb very nearly spat the words.
“Yes,” Neely said slowly. “He got what he wanted.” She picked up a towel and began slowly drying her hands.
Seb slammed one fist into the other palm. “I should have known better than to send you. I should have told them they had to wait and talk to me. I should have—Damn it!” He couldn’t even speak he was so furious. He wanted to slam something, hit something, kick something. The kittens took one look at him and skittered for cover.
“What is it you imagine I’ve done?” Neely asked, her voice very even, very calm.
“I can’t imagine, can I?” Seb flared at her. “I don’t know what the hell you would do! You and I don’t see eye to eye—”
“You and I are working on the same project. I was representing the whole project. Not just mine. Which, as you pointed out yesterday, has already been approved.” She set the towel down and came around the bar to stand by the dining room table, facing him.
It was set for two. With candles already lit. Wineglasses. There was a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice. He stared at it, then back at her.
“What did you do?” he asked her bluntly.
“You’d sent them the designs already. I met with them and asked if they had questions. Roger had a lot of them—especially about the public space, the atrium, the vastness of it.”
“It sets a tone—” Seb began.
“It sets a tone,” Neely said, cutting him off. “Of openness and space, but it doesn’t dwarf the people because it leads them where they need to go. It provides a greenhouse sort of feel with warmth and foliage and curving lines not straight ones. It draws people in, and at the same time it gives them a break between the hustle and bustle of urban Seattle and the office they are seeking. It provides openness and the sense of shelter at the same time. It’s people friendly. It’s comfortable. It makes people feel welcome.”
Seb stared at her.
Neely stared back. A powerful engine thrummed as the boat cut across the lake. Seb heard his own breathing more loudly.
She looked beyond him out the window. “It’s all there in your plans,” she went on. “We went through the drawings one by one. He asked questions because apparently he didn’t have a feel for things. He needed more explanation. So I explained what your intentions were.”
Seb digested that. “My intentions?”
Neely shrugged indifferently. “You’re the one who drew up the plans.”
“Max—”
“They were your plans. Max always said they were yours.”
“You don’t like my designs.”
“I didn’t like the design we tangled over. And some of your stuff is a little too austere for me. That’s true. But this—” another shrug “—I could see where you were going with this. But Roger needed it spelled out, needed convincing. So…I convinced him.”
She turned away abruptly then, didn’t look at him at all.
“I—” She hadn’t sabotaged him after all? “You actually convinced Carmody that my designs were what the project needed?”
“That’s what I went to the meeting to do.” Her voice was flat, hard. “It’s my job.”
He didn’t know what to say. It came out as a hopelessly inadequate “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” The words were carved in ice. She was angry, and who could blame her? He’d been an idiot.
“I mean it,” he fumbled. “I thought—”
“It’s quite clear what you thought. Someday, Sebastian, you’re going to have to figure out that there are people you can trust.”
He’d hurt her as well. Damn, damn, damn.
She still didn’t look at him. Instead she reached over to snuff out the candles.
He watched as her fingers snapped out the flames. Belatedly he realized that she’d planned something special. The table was all decorated. Flowers. Wine. Candles, now lightly smoking, the acrid scent cutting across the rich smell of food.
“What are you doing?” he said, his voice hoarse. “Don’t you want to eat?”
“Not anymore.”
“But what about—” He gestured to the festive table.
“That? I’d thought we’d celebrate. I thought we actually had something to celebrate.” Her voice was tight and she flicked a quick glance his way before taking off her apron and tossing it on the counter. She headed down the hall where she took Harm’s leash and clipped it on his collar.
Only as she opened the door did she look back his way. “Obviously, I was wrong.”
SHE wouldn’t cry.
She wouldn’t!
There was no way she would shed a tear over Sebastian Bloody Savas and his accusatory bullheaded idiocy!
But it didn’t stop Neely’s vision blurring as she hurried up the dock away from the houseboat, Harm bounding alongside, delighted at the sudden unexpected treat. She didn’t know where they were going. It was very nearly dark. She was hungry and tired and she felt as if she’d been punched in the gut.
She’d been tired when she got home, but exhilarated, too. Absolutely thrilled that Roger Carmody had come around to understanding what Sebastian had intended in his designs. He certainly hadn’t bothered to spell it out.
It was there in the soaring interior space and the gently meandering curves of the walks. It was there in the few rough trees he’d sketched in. But to a man like Roger, who liked every leaf drawn on every plant, it was too hazy a concept. And there wasn’t enough focus on the people.
“I don’t want ’em lost,” he’d said to Neely over and over. “They can’t be dwarfed by the damn place or they won’t want to come back.”
And Neely, who thought more like Roger did, but who understood Sebastian better now, had been able to take what he’d drawn and explain. “It’s not going to dwarf them,” she’d said. “It’s going to give them a sense of spaciousness but with plan and direction. It’s going to empower them.”
It had taken a while, but with patience and word pictures, she’d made