More than anyone knows, I want to tell her.
“Not for much longer. You have my word.”
Grace pushes against my arms and, reluctantly, I step back. The traces of her sweat on my tingling fingertips make me want to run the flat of my tongue along her spine. I swallow a groan.
“If I go with you to Brimstage, we have separate rooms and we keep separate,” she says as I stare at her with hooded eyes. “I appreciate your engagement isn’t conventional, but it still means something. It means something to me. I don’t want to hate myself. And I don’t want to hate you.”
I nod. “I get it, and I’ll keep my promise,” I say, as much as it kills me.
“Even if it’s me who weakens,” she insists. “I need you to be strong for both of us.”
My jaw tics. It’s so fucking hard being this close and not being able to do the things I know Grace wants as much as I do. My gaze trails down her body, from her pinked cheeks to her opaque tights and boots.
“Fine, but no more hiding under those goddamn layers. There isn’t a part of you I haven’t already mentallyundressed and it’s driving me to distraction. It would be easier if you were standing there in your underwear.”
She scoffs at that. “Really?”
I shake my head and step further away from temptation. “No, but if you’re willing, we could put the theory to the test.”
“Nice try, but I have work to do,” she says, turning back to the table. She starts gathering up files. “If we’re meeting Maddie on Thursday, I need to get up to speed and fast. Olly’s drawings are only preliminary and I wouldn’t want her to think I don’t have a clear vision.”
“Maddie isn’t the client,” I remind her. “She has a vested interest, sure, but if anything, she needs to sell her ideas to you so you can be sympathetic to the house and its history.”
Grace worries at her lip. “Everyone’s expecting so much of me, but we both know I didn’t get this job based on my talents. I got it because you strong-armed Noah. What if I’m not up to it?”
“I didn’t strong-arm Noah. I mentioned your name, maybe more than once, but he wouldn’t have hired you if he didn’t think you capable. And I wouldn’t have recommended you if I thought for a minute I was setting you up to fail.”
I come alongside Grace and flip open a folder full of sketches. She watches as I line up a series of artist impressions of the interior of the house. They’re no more than ghostly scribbles to fill empty rooms.
“Do you think you can turn these blank pages into something that makes our guests feel connected to the place? Can you make it so they’re not just visiting a clone of every other spa they’ve visited?”
Grace holds her breath and then… nothing. With an exasperated sigh, she scrutinizes each sketch in turn. Just when I think she’s about to panic, she pulls another drawing from the folder. It’s a copy of a watercolor painting of the house as it was when it was first built.
“They’re not empty rooms,” she says, returning to the sketches. “Even if the layout has to be reconfigured, it’s the same floor space, the same land. There’s history there.”
“Then design something that lets our guests see what you see.”
Whatever thoughts fill Grace’s head make her fingers dance across the sketches. “Yes,” she says after a pause. “I can do that.”
Chapter 12
Grace
After a day inspecting every inch of Corbyn House and much of the grounds, my blisters have blisters. I should have worn something with a more practical heel, but as determined as I am to keep Duke at arm’s length, I want him to want me as much as I want him. Because yes, Idostill want him. Katarina be damned. From what I’ve heard so far, she’s taking advantage of Duke’s natural instinct to protect those who need it.
The more I get to know this man, the deeper I’m falling. When we’d been brainstorming yesterday, Duke could have sat there and agreed with all my suggestions, but he’d challenged, he’d pushed and he’d offered ideas of his own. We make a good team, and as I face the shadowy Griffins for the first time, I’m grateful to have him by my side.
“We found an old plan of the original formal gardens,” I tell Maddie as we unpack the Chinese take-out food she and her husband brought with them. She’s tall, blond and stunningly beautiful, but not nearly as intimidating as I was expecting from the former lady of the manor.
Hunter Griffin by contrast is just as scary as Ifeared. He’s handsome, yes, but his muscular frame paired with the tattoos peeking from his open shirt collar suggest he’s not a man to be messed with – even if he is presently doing something as mundane as opening up boxes of egg rolls and fried rice.
I focus on Maddie. “And we were thinking it might be possible to restore the gardens to how they looked when the house was built… If it’s OK with you that we dig up the lawns?”
“Sounds like a great idea,” she says while opening a cupboard to grab a stack of plates. I’ve been surprised at how much of the furniture and contents she didn’t want to take. “I don’t know if you noticed the paintings we left in the drawing room, but there’ll be one there that shows the gardens as they used to be.”
I have to stop myself from rushing off to find it, and catch Duke suppressing a grin because he knows exactly what I’m thinking. I’ve been like an excited puppy all day, flitting from room to room, ditching one concept after another as fresh inspiration strikes.
“We haven’t quite settled on our vision for the interior yet,” I continue, rattling silverware as I quickly set out serving spoons on the marble kitchen island.
