Guilt clenches my insides, along with worry and fear and a terrible grief that she’s slipping through my fingers. I can’t catch her. It’s like reaching for smoke. “She’s doing okay. How do you know she’s in town?”
He lifts his shoulder in a vague shrug, which I assume means I wouldn’t like his methods. A worker appears at his side to show him a paper. He scans it quickly, his blue eyes sharp, before nodding. The man hurries away to the next room where the books are kept.
“So what did you have to offer them?” I ask.
He steers me by my elbow away from the workers, his touch a delicate burn. “It occurred to me how strange it was for no one to take the job. Tanglewood isn’t exactly in a construction boom right now, which is partly why we wanted to revitalize the west side.”
“Christopher,” I say grimly.
Blue eyes turn speculative. “How did you know that?”
I don’t really want to tell him that Christopher was here last night—or that I was here, alone. “An educated guess. He’s always been the meddling type.”
“Meddling. That’s one word for it. He hinted that they would get a big contract with his high-rise condos if they refused a renovation. It was rebuild or nothing, he told them.”
“That bastard,” I say faintly, hurt anew to hear it spelled out.
“Unfortunately he hinted that to every construction company. Once I convinced them of that, I had three bids on the table and more on the way if I waited for them to get their shit together.”
“And you picked the lowest one?”
“Nope, I didn’t go with any of those bids. Instead I brought in a company from Louisiana. Cost a pretty penny to transport the equipment and house the workers temporarily, but it’s the principle of the thing. I’m sure you understand.”
“That sounds like something Christopher would do.”
A faint smile. “There’s a reason we went into business together. If I’d let one of them take the job, they’d think they could get away with that next time. We deal honestly or not at all.”
“Maybe Christopher was worried about our safety. About the safety of restoring the building now that the foundation has been compromised.” The words ring false even as I say them, but admitting that Christopher screwed me over that completely still hurts.
Sutton gives me a droll look. “He’s only worried about himself. It bothers him when the puppets don’t dance on his strings.”
There’s a fist around my throat, making it hard to breathe. “You’re probably right.”
“Speaking of safety, I couldn’t help but notice some loose carvings near the back. The wood is almost the same color, but they didn’t come from the wall.”
My cheeks heat. “Oh, I did a little work.”
He takes off his hard hat with a knowing look and places it gently on my head. “You shouldn’t be here without me. You shouldn’t be here at all until the building is stabilized.”
The yellow hard hat looked like a normal size on him, but it feels like an umbrella on my head, like I’m a little girl playing dress up. I peer up at him from beneath the brim. “This thing is heavy. How do you work with this on?”
“Only have to get hit with a falling chunk of concrete once before the hard hat looks appealing.”
“There weren’t any falling chunks of concrete last night, I promise.”
He frowns. “But if there had been, if you had been injured, there would have been no one to help.”
“That’s not quite true.” As soon as the words are out, I wish I could take them back. From the suspicion in Sutton’s blue eyes he already knows what I have to say next. “Christopher came by.”
He curses softly. “Of course he did. One of the construction companies probably gave him hell when I turned down their bid, which serves him right. Goddamn him.”
Something warm and mysterious moves inside me, responding to the anger Sutton feels for Christopher. It’s almost intimate, this fury. More like betrayal than a dissolved business partnership. It makes me wonder if they ever shared another woman. “Was it only me between you two?” I ask, hesitant. “Am I the only reason you resigned?”
A raised eyebrow. “Are you feeling guilty?”
“You’re both big boys. I’m sure you can make your own decisions. I’m just curious.”
He sighs, rubbing his hand at the back of his neck. “There was always some competition between us, but I’m pretty sure you could guess that. We’re both ambitious.”
“It’s what helped you work well together,” I guessed.
“It’s what broke us apart in the end. You were part of it. Most of it, maybe. The physical side of it, but Bardot and Mayfair wouldn’t have lasted even if you never came to town.”
I have the sense of something beneath the surface, of watching a shadow move beneath a seemingly placid lake. “Why wouldn’t the company have lasted?”
“Because it wasn’t about the money,” he says, his frustration almost tangible.
I hold my breath because I’ve wanted to hear those words forever. Wanted them to be real. Wanted something that wasn’t about the money—but Sutton isn’t talking about me right now. He’s talking about Christopher Bardot while his deep inner turmoil vibrates through the air around us.
“What was it about?” I whisper, knowing he won’t answer me.
The closed look on his face reminds me of Christopher. He can be just as cold and ruthless, even with his handsome golden-boy features, even with his easy charm. “It doesn’t matter,” he says finally. “The company is over. Dissolved after the library was purchased and the assets distributed.”
I take a step closer, needing to know the answer. Feeling it at the tips of my fingers. Reaching for it. “Come to dinner with me, Sutton. We can go to L’Etoile again.”
And we can fall on each other in a hallway. He can lift my couture skirt and make me see stars. It doesn’t matter what restaurant we go to. That’s how the night would end.
His blue eyes turn dark. I don’t mistake the desire. “We’re business partners. That’s it.”
“The way you and Christopher were business partners?”
Something flashes across his face. “Yes,” he says. “Like that.”
“Then we can meet where you met him. At the Den, for cognac or whiskey or whatever the hell rich men like to drink these days. We work together now. You don’t have an excuse.”
There’s every chance tonight will end the same way.
He stares me down, willing me to look away first. Except I want this too much. I want him too much, in all his conflicted glory, even if he is some kind of consolation prize. Even if that’s what I am for him. He courted me once, and he was damn charming then. But now he’s resisting me, trying to be reserved, and he’s damn near devastating.
I might be the one falling to my knees in front of him tonight.
“Beer,” he says, his voice rough. “At the Den. Nine o’clock.”
I take off the yellow hard hat and hold it out to him. “You need this more than me. I don’t want any wayward pieces of concrete knocking you out. I’m pretty sure they don’t serve beer in the ER.”