“Where the hell is your car?”
“I parked it on the street.”
Jordan lifted a brow. “Sneaky.”
Astrid looked horrified. “I just didn’t want to wake anyone. And Simon gave me a key to the back door.”
“Of course he did.” Jordan took a step closer to her. “So how’s that going?”
Astrid frowned. “How’s what—”
“The work.” Jordan motioned to her iPad. “Planning to paint it all white tomorrow?”
Astrid didn’t say anything, but her eyes finally rested on Jordan’s, something soft and a little vulnerable behind them. A feeling like hope swelled in Jordan’s chest, but she pushed that back down too.
Or, at least she tried. The feeling persisted, burgeoning and pushing her feet closer to this woman she couldn’t stop thinking about.
“Parker?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” Astrid said. “I get why you want to preserve thisplace, Jordan. I really do, and I don’t want to hurt you, but this is my job. And you’re making it really hard for me to do it.”
Jordan nodded. “What if I didn’t make it so hard?”
“You don’t strike me as the kind who surrenders.”
“You’re right, I’m not.”
“Then how do you plan on making this easier?”
Jordan flicked on the overhead light. The blue room exploded into color, the shade even darker now at night and under the glow of the weak, amber lightbulb in the ancient crystal-globed fixture.
“What do you think about the color?” she asked. “Honestly.”
“Honestly?” Astrid looked around, one hand on her hip. “I hate it. It’s too dark, it shrinks the room, and I can’t visualize any sort of end product that would be pleasing to the eye.”
Jordan sent a hand through her hair. “Well, I did ask for honesty.”
“I’m sorry,” Astrid said, taking another step, the gap between them growing smaller and smaller. “It’s just not me.”
“Butyouare not this inn. Your job is to create a space for your client, not yourself.”
“That’s what I’m doing, Jordan,” Astrid said. “My plan is what Simon said he wanted, what Pru wanted.”
Jordan shook her head. “They don’t know design. They don’t know what they want until they see it, and my grandmother loved this color. You know she did.”
Astrid folded her arms, iPad tucked against her chest. “I need this project to go well, Jordan. Natasha Rojas’s opinion could make or break my career, my business is already hanging on by a very thin thread, my mother can barely stand to look at me without sneering, and a person can only redecorate so many dentists’ offices before they start to question their life choices.”
“So go on and question them, Parker.” Jordan tapped her chest. “Ineed this project to go well. This place is my home. Do you get that? Not to mention that I’m barely past thirty and divorced, I’m livingin my grandmother’s house and sleeping in my childhood twin bed, my brother thinks I’m an epic fuckup, and I—”
“You’re not a fuckup.”
Astrid said it so softly, but it felt as though a bomb went off somewhere around Jordan’s heart.
You mean something.
“You don’t know me,” Jordan said back, just as quietly. “You don’t know anything about me, Parker.”
Astrid frowned, her eyes leaving Jordan’s to scan the room. Her throat worked like she was having a hard time swallowing, and Jordan found herself hoping Astrid would come back with a rebuttal, aSure I do, even though it wasn’t remotely true. Besides, what would knowing Jordan really accomplish? Meredith had known her better than anyone, better than even Simon, and she’d still left.
