Lance blinks at me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, technically, you’re my client. It would help to have a sense of what you like. We don’t really have time to order anything, and you can get the best deals on floor samples anyway. But if nothing here floats your boat, you might as well just rent furniture for the rest of the summer. The house is absolutely gorgeous, it won’t look like a—”
He levels me with a wolfish stare. “If money was no object, could we get everything here?”
I look around, feeling a pang of longing at all the incredible pieces displayed under this one roof. “Absolutely.”
“Good. Then money’s no object. Just pick stuff out and let’s get it done.”
A part of me bristles at his cavalier attitude. “What are you going to do with this stuff after the summer?”
“Let me worry about that.”
“I’m not picking out furniture that’s going to wind up in a dumpster in two months.”
He sighs. “Look, the owner of the house is a friend of mine. If you make it look good, he’ll be able to increase the rent. Think of it like an investment.”
A friend. It feels almost too convenient. But the truth is, I don’t know Lance. I certainly don’t know his friends. And he does make sense. The Hamptons is the kind of place where people buy houses they might never live in, renting them out for exorbitant amounts.
I push my doubts and questions to the back of my mind. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Vivienne. You’ve been hired to decorate a Southampton beach house. Stop whining and start working. “Tell your friend that his place is too nice to be a share house.”
Lance meanders over to a large leather chair, slightly favoring his injured foot, and sinks into it. “I will. In the meantime, you have carte blanche. Turn the house into something that can be rented to a Wall Street guy with more money than he knows what to do with.”
A bachelor pad? In my opinion, the house would be perfect for a family. Or at least a couple intending to have a family. “Does this guy have a girlfriend, a fiancée?”
But Lance only takes out his phone, repeating, “Carte blanche,” before taking a call and tuning me out entirely.
The interior designer in me is rubbing her hands together in glee. Carte blanche! They’re magic words. And yet, intimidating too. At Abbott, I was part of a team. I didn’t make decisions in a vacuum. And so I don’t have the confidence that comes with experience.
I don’t move right away. Instead, I observe Lance quietly for a moment. There is a solid steadiness to him that calms at least some of my nerves. Like he has a tattoo somewhere that says, Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff. It wasn’t among the three I noticed earlier but maybe I’ll have to look again . . .
Realizing that I’m staring, I spin around and hunt down a salesperson I’ve worked with before. Together, we spend the next two hours filling the house. Once we’re through, she writes up the order and takes it to Lance for his approval. I fight back a wave of nausea when I catch sight of the total, but he barely glances at it before handing over his credit card. A black AmEx, of course.
I steel myself to defend my purchases in the car on the way back, but Lance spends the entire drive fielding work calls. It’s easy to tune out the alphabet soup of acronyms. CTI, BAS, DAST, IP, APT. It’s like he’s speaking another language.
When we get back to the house, there’s another truck parked in the driveway. No, not a truck. A white van. I read the logo stenciled on the side.
Lance ends his call, and I ask, “How did you get painters here so quickly?”
“Easy. I told the guys at the hardware store what I’d be willing to pay if they found a competent team to do the work today.”
Lance’s entitled arrogance reminds me unpleasantly of Richard. “Of course. Throw money at the problem and—I snap my fingers—“problem solved.”
He turns off the ignition. “If you believe that money solves every problem, either you’re incredibly naive or you’ve lived one hell of a charmed life.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, the brief flare of resentment I felt completely extinguished. Lance is right, on both counts. Maybe I’m the one with the chip on my shoulder.
Inside, the painters have already started taping and priming. There are drop cloths everywhere, and I walk around the house, making sure the paint colors we selected correspond to the cans in each room. It doesn’t take long. All of the main rooms are painted the same color, white with just a hint of gray. The bathrooms are various shades of sand or pale blue. The only exception to the neutral palette is the office, which will be painted an inky, not-quite-navy.
It’s going to be stunning.
An unexpected feeling of sadness washes over me. Once summer ends, I might never set foot in this house again. I’ll probably never get to meet the owner, see their reaction to my work.
So much time, money, and effort to put into a place that doesn’t belong to me. A few months from now, or even a few years from now, some stranger might wake up in the bed I picked out, eat their breakfast at the table I stripped and restained, curl up with their family on the sofa I chose . . . and never even know I exist.
“You’re leaving?” Lance asks sternly, his shadow falling over me as I stuff clothes in my suitcase.
“No.” I’m still not sure how long I’ll stay. I can’t imagine spending the next two months living here with Lance. But I can’t afford to live anywhere else in the Hamptons, and my parents live forty-five minutes away—longer with traffic. Commuting back and forth to my nighttime waitressing shifts will be almost impossible without a car of my own. And so will accepting any last minute jobs that could come up. “I’m just putting my stuff away before the painters need to get in here.”
Lance frowns as he looks around the room. Somehow it feels even smaller now without a bed and dresser. “This is where you’ve been staying?”
“Yes.”
“Did you order a bed for it?”
Nerves flutter inside my stomach. Giving this place a more luxurious feel means not having to shove a bed into every available room. “N-no. There’s no basement and very little storage on this floor. I think the house will show better if we treat this space as an extension of the mud room. I could have a closet company come out and install built-ins. That is, if you think your friend would go for it.”
“Good idea.” He nods thoughtfully. “Once the furniture is delivered, you’ll take one of the bedrooms upstairs.”
The impact of converting my cozy downstairs nook into storage space hits me harder now than when I was at the furniture store. Tonight, Lance and I will be sleeping just a few feet away from each other. “As long as you don’t mind.”
The electric current running between us shifts to a higher voltage. There’s an odd expression on Lance’s face as he looks down at me. I’m on my knees, he’s standing, and if anyone were to walk by, at first glance, they might assume his dick was in my mouth. Or would be, any minute.
I run my tongue over my lips, my body heating. Just thinking about the taste of him in my mouth, the blunt head of his cock sliding down my throat . . .
“Of course not.” Lance’s voice emerges as a strangled-sounding husk of itself, and I can’t help the brief flare of victory that overtakes me, knowing the sexual tension sparking and heaving between us isn’t one-sided.