She looks at me, narrows her eyes, and when it sinks in that I’m not joking, her jaw slackens. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Nope.”
“You built this on what?”
“Feeling.” I wave my tongs in the air as if they’re a magic wand. That should put her off.
“Be serious for once.”
“Well done? Medium rare? Blood dripping?” I wait for her to chirp that she’s vegan and won’t be touching my offered dinner, but she just comes and stands next to me and scowls.
“Medium rare.” She takes a sip of wine. “Please.”
Good. Medium rare and manners. At least we have two things in common.
For a few minutes, we stand side by side sipping our drinks while the steaks do their thing. I wish we could pause this episode right here and skip to the next season without knowing who is going to kill whom here, but Georgiana takes a deep breath and turns towards me.
“How are we going to build this”—she points in the direction of the miniature house—“to scale, without drawings, in six weeks’ time?”
“Not your problem, princess.” I tong the steaks from the fire, medium rare to perfection. I hand her a plate with her steak on it, and she fumbles for it before I let go. “Eat. The food on the flight I’m booking you on sucks, and you’ll be leaving before breakfast.”
6
GEORGIANA
It gets light so darn early here. In Miami, it’s always pitch black at ten to five. I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. I’m exhausted, but with my mind picking up speed there’s no way I’ll fall asleep again.
Raiden Bloody Logan. Grills a mean steak. Tosses together a fine salad. Knows to serve a pissed-off, desperate woman a chilled pinot grigio in a glass filled to the brim.
Is also ready to chuck said pissed-off woman onto an airplane back to Miami.
I sit up straight and stare out at the lake, where the inky water is turning a gunmetal grey. Not much became of his threat of having me gone before breakfast after we ate our meal in stony silence. He didn’t pull a laptop closer to book a seat on Expedia that I know of. There’s that.
I’ve come all this way thinking that I’ve got this, that I’m not going to have to prove myself again and again. That there’s someone who wants me because of what he’s seen of me on paper. That he’ll trust me to do the work that I’m capable of, and yet, it’s like I’m starting from scratch. As much as I rattled off the legal lingo yesterday with signed contracts that are binding, I don’t know if that’s a fight even worth picking.
I’m going to have to prove to Raiden that I’m capable of this job if he allows me to stay. As for that, I’m not going to work with the man, I’m going to work around him. If he wants me on a plane, he can drag me there himself and make sure that my seatbelt is fastened and my seat is in the upright position for take-off.
I swing my legs off the bed and touch my toes to the floor. The boards creak here and there, but I took a shower last night and can slip on my clothes and sneak off to the construction site without him knowing. If nothing else, I’ll start on those drawings—they might be in his head, but I can’t build anything without decent plans. I have the model and can draw them up from there and hopefully make sense of the lot.
I quietly dress in the dawn light, wash my face with the towel and glass of water by my bedside and quietly brush my teeth. When I’m decent, I take my laptop bag and creep out of my room. For a moment I pause to listen. Raiden slept in his room as I heard every last clang and bang of his bedtime routine last night. There’s no snoring but nothing stirs, so I tiptoe to the front door and find it unlocked. It opens quietly and I sneak out to my car and curse at the beeping sound of the alarm. At least the birds are up and about, and if nothing else the sound could be mistaken for a goose.
I make one turn back to the boathouse to fetch the model in the living room and carefully place it on the back seat. When everything is ready, I get into the driver’s seat.
Adrenaline rushes through my veins. I’m a thief with nowhere to go. I have no idea where the workshop is.
I recall something about a new barn that we’ll use as the construction site, but I can’t remember where I picked up that detail. I do a one-eighty scan of the surroundings, but there’s no barn in sight. I have no address and no directions. Further up the hill there’s the farmhouse, which has a few outbuildings. None of them are high or big enough to be a barn that could contain a tiny house. As I stare up the hill, lights go on in the farmhouse and someone appears on the porch.
I start my car and slowly reverse and drive off, hoping to make as little noise as possible on the gravel and for heaven’s sake, not wake up the growly bear. As I close in on the farmhouse, I spot a woman with a cup of coffee on a porch swing.
My mouth goes dry as if on cue. Coffee.
As this is the farmhouse on the lake with the boathouse, this woman might know Raiden Logan and might be able to direct me to the elusive barn.
I pull up and kill the engine. As I clamber out, a man comes out of the house with his own cup of coffee in his hands. They both take me in and for a moment I feel stripped naked. They’re an older couple, the man’s dark brown hair is streaked with white strands, and the woman has a thick plait of greying hair drooping over her shoulder. These are clearly good people, and here I am, a young woman sneaking out of their yard at first light.
A blush of mammoth proportions invades my cheeks and sweat gathers on my lower back. Coming from the boathouse, they think I’m doing the walk of shame here. It’s going to be a hell of a day if it starts like this.
The man’s brow clears, and he chuckles. “You’re not George by any chance?”