If the Shoe Fits (28 page)

“This bed is just like you, Dev: all the outward appearance of bare-bones utility but warm and delicious and luxurious on the inside,” she said.

“That mattress took months to make, just so you know, Miss-I-Want-My-Shoddy-Half-Wall-Right-Now.”

“Mmmm.” She hummed her pleasure and snuggled deeper under the covers. “I bet it was despicably expensive.”

“It was. And seeing you in it makes it worth every penny.”

She was starting to fade. “I’m sure you’ve seen lots of girls in it,” she taunted.

“No…” He folded his arms and she rolled onto her back and looked up at him. “I’ve never had anyone else in this bed.”

Sarah’s smile was broad and grateful. “Really?” she squeaked. “I have to confess I’m glad to hear it.” Then she made a mock frown. “I won’t ask about your hotel bills.”

He laughed and tucked her in. “I’m going to do a little work before I turn in, sleepyhead.” He kissed her on the forehead. “You good?”

“Sooooo good.” Sarah shut her eyes and was slowly overtaken by the exhaustion that always followed her infrequent bouts of raw emotion. Eyes still closed and half-asleep, she whispered to no one in particular, declared really, “I love Devon Heyworth.” And then a small smile stole across her face and she was asleep.

***

Devon took a step back from the bed, afraid for a second that he might actually stumble, then righted himself and stopped. He stood there staring at her for what might have been hours. So much had passed between them in the past few days, he didn’t even feel like the same person who’d stood on the Millennium Bridge, contemplating the worth (or worthlessness) that life on earth might provide.

He finally wandered back out to the living room and looked around as if for the first time, seeing his spare existence through Sarah’s eyes. She was a woman who embraced color and texture and light and variety and took it all in, bent it, transformed it, created. How barren he must seem. He shook his head and refused to let his love of spartan simplicity represent more than a design aesthetic. He was delicious on the inside, after all.

He smiled at that, then turned toward his office. He spent a couple of hours running the final numbers on the structural capacity of the Chilean bridge project. He tried to resist the temptation to check on Sarah’s server activity in the United States, but was unable to suppress the urge. He ran a new battery of tests based on some of the information that he had gathered that night (
at
Sarah’s invitation
, he reminded himself, trying to rationalize). He decided to set up a series of equations that could run for several hours through the night and that might turn up a pattern or clue of some sort by morning, now that he had access to the actual numbers that were being manipulated. He set the program running, turned off the light in the office, and crossed the length of his flat. He brushed his teeth, stripped off his clothes, and crawled into bed alongside Sarah.

She didn’t wake, but her hungry body sensed his warmth and rolled closer to his, her backside nestling into his front, and she sighed and exhaled with a sleepy breath of satisfaction.

I
better
not
screw
this
up
, was the last fleeting thought that skittered across his mind before he fell asleep.

***

The next morning, Sarah woke up to the smell of coffee.

“Here you go, lovely.”

She opened her eyes and Devon was standing there naked with two mugs.

“I’ve died and gone to heaven,” she whispered.

“So have I,” he replied, handing her the mug after she’d shifted into a sitting position. “So, what do you want to do today?” Devon asked.

Sarah took a sip and stared at him. “Um. I’m going to work. That’s what grown-ups do.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Is that right? Do grown-ups get to fool around before they go into their grown-up offices and sit at their grown-up desks?” He put his mug down on the steel bedside table and crawled onto the bed.

“You’re going to spill the coffee!” Sarah squealed.

“Then you’d better put your mug down… I’ve got to get busy before you run off to be all grown-up…” Devon continued to prowl over her, kissing her bare shoulder and working his way down the length of her arm. She laughed and put the mug down next to his on the side table.

“Hurry then!” she said, and kissed him hard on the lips.

An hour later, they were in Devon’s car heading toward Mayfair, Sarah scrolling through her emails on her cell phone while he drove.

“Maybe being a grown-up is not so bad after all,” Devon said. “Sort of like playing house. I get to make coffee and pull a bird. Make toast and drive you to work.” His face pinched. “Wait. That’s not right. Makes me sound like a valet.”

“Oooh. I love that idea!” Sarah cried, looking up from her phone. “The world’s sexiest valet. Every woman’s dream come true. You have to take a very keen interest in clothes!”

He shook his head. “I’ll take a very keen interest in taking
off
your clothes, but that’s about the best I can offer.”

Sarah sighed theatrically. “Oh well. I guess I can’t have everything.” She happened to say it right as they pulled up in front of the construction site of her shop, where the builders were lazing about. They scurried into action when they saw her arrive.

Devon shifted the car into park but kept his hand on the gearshift. The engine rumbled aggressively in the narrow mews.

“What am I going to do? This is never going to get done.”

Devon dipped his head to get a better look at the full height of the building through the windscreen. “Sarah…”

“What?” She was collecting her computer bag and her purse and looking around her seat in the car to make sure she hadn’t dropped anything.

“Look. Do you want me to help? It’s sort of ridiculous that I work for an architectural firm and I’m decent at maths and you just happen to be having issues with both…”

She stopped fussing with her stuff and looked at him. “Can I think about it?”

Devon looked down at her short skirt and the sheer stocking covering her thigh. He reached out his pinkie from where he was holding the gearshift and touched her there. “I just want to help.” He looked up from her thigh and into her eyes. “I promise. I won’t be all controlling and weird.”

She looked back out at the swarm of workmen and thought about how much still had to be done if the shop was going to open for business on September 1 in time for London Fashion Week.

“Just let me think about it, okay, Dev?”

He nodded. Devon marveled, as always, at the swinging pendulum of Sarah’s maturity. Sometimes she seemed so afraid and vulnerable. Other times, like this, she was wise and cautious. “Of course,” he said. “Whatever you decide. Can I give you a lift home from work?”

She shut her eyes for a few seconds, then opened them. “Home?”

He looked humbled. “I knew I shouldn’t have said it like that. Will you come over to my place for another sleepover date tonight? Is that better?”

She exhaled a long breath.

“That doesn’t sound good at all,” he said.

“Oh stop. Of course I want to sleep at your place. I just feel all discombobulated. All of my things are at the Connaught, except for what I left at your place… and I just am not the type of girl who can live out of a suitcase in the corner. I guess we should have talked about this last night over tikka masala instead of here in the idling car when I’m all stressed about getting into work.”

“No worries. I’ll clear out the closet in my office at home and you can put all your stuff in there. There’s a small loo off that room too—”

She smiled widely. “You would clear out a closet for me?”

He shook his head. “You have no idea what I would do for you, Sarah James.”

“I’m beginning to get an idea.” She leaned in and kissed him. “I don’t know how late I have to work tonight. I’ll just stay in touch and grab a taxi.”

“Just call me. I’m happy to come and get you.”

“I bet you are,” she teased. “Have a good day… now go to work!”

“Okay, okay.”

Sarah got out of the car and watched as the Aston Martin rumbled down the narrow street then turned onto Berkeley Square.

She spent most of the day back and forth with her forensic accountant and took his recommendation that she hire a seasoned investigator to look into any possible malfeasance. After she’d had the chance to sleep on it, Sarah was actually grateful to Devon for voicing the hard truth she’d been avoiding for the past six months: that someone either inside or very close to her company was stealing from her. She decided to set aside all of her creative obligations and deal with the ugly facts until she got to the bottom of it. Despite Devon’s sweet offer to help with that part of the business, she wanted to deal with it herself. It was just too personal, and she needed to figure it out.

As for the layabout construction team, she was going to put Devon on retainer and let him have the run of the place. If he was half as good at charming the workers as he was at charming the ladies, the shop would be finished by the middle of July.

When Sarah heard her stomach growl, she looked up at the wall clock to see it was nearly eight o’clock at night. Her phone trilled.

“Sarah James, sexual adventuress. Who’s calling please?” she said, seeing that it was Devon.

“Your boyfriend!” He laughed.

Her stomach flipped at the matter-of-fact way he said it… like, duh, she had a boyfriend.

“So, what are you up to?” Devon continued. “Working hard or hardly working?”

She started to gather her papers together while she spoke to him. “I was working hard, but I’m ready to wrap it up for the day. Where are you?”

“Around the corner.”

“You are such a stalker!”

“No, I’m not!” He paused, then laughed. “Oh, okay. I am a little bit of one where you’re concerned, but not on this particular occasion. My mom invited us to join her for supper. You up for it?”

Sarah stared at her makeshift desk. The construction crew had set her up with a pair of sawhorses and a plank to work on while she was here. She often worked out of her room at the Connaught, or at Bronte’s small office in Soho, but she felt like more of the construction work got done when she was physically present at the worksite, basically breathing down their necks.

She tapped a pencil against the bare wood of the tabletop. “I don’t know, Dev.”

“Oh, come on. She’s not that bad. Just because she and Bronte don’t get along.”

“It makes me feel like a traitor.”

“Oh, cut that out. Be down in front in five and we’ll have a great glass of wine and a hunk of steak. She’ll meet us at the Guinea Grill in fifteen minutes.”

She hesitated again. “Oh, fine. I’ll see you there.”

Devon was right. The dowager duchess was not that bad. She was smart and funny, elegant and sharp. But there were a few times that her expression turned stormy, quite like Devon’s actually, when the conversation veered in a direction that was not to her liking. Basically, anytime Bronte’s name came up. After one particularly cruel slight, Sarah spoke up.

Sarah didn’t want to be disrespectful to her boyfriend’s mother (boyfriend! yay!), but she finally had to be disagreeable. “I’m sorry, Duchess, but I must defend Bronte. She is incredibly loyal and wonderfully creative. Maybe you two got off on the wrong foot.”

The duchess widened her eyes and took a sip of her wine. “She’s just so… what’s the expression you all use these days, Devon?”

“I don’t know, Mother.” Devon laughed as he cut into his enormous steak and pushed his thigh closer to Sarah’s. They were sitting along the banquette facing his mother, who always preferred a straight-backed chair.

“Bronte is in my face.”

Sarah laughed at the turn of phrase coming out of the older woman’s pursed lips.

“Well,” Sarah said. “I suppose she is that. But that’s what makes her so lovable.”

Devon’s mother raised one eyebrow. “If you insist.”

“Moving on…” Devon said as he cut another piece of meat and motioned for the waiter to refill their wine glasses.

“Oh, very well.” His mother shrugged her acceptance but looked a bit like her favorite toy had just been grabbed out of her hand.

“I know what we can talk about that we all enjoy,” Sarah said.

“What?” Devon asked.

“Fashion!”

He rolled his eyes.

The duchess’s eyes twinkled. “Well, two out of three of us will enjoy. What did you think of the Milan shows? The colors were vile, but all that satin—”

“I know! What were they thinking? I love the citrusy yellows but that tangerine—” Sarah made a face that looked like she’d swallowed something unexpected and revolting.

“Oh, we must go together next year. Or to Paris? How divine. I would get to meet your grandmother and immerse myself in all of those delectable shows. Does she still go?”

“Occasionally, but usually the designers have her in…”

Devon watched as his mother and—he hesitated in his mind—girlfriend (there was a first time for everything) chatted on about the details and gossip of the fashion world. He looked from Sarah’s long, shimmering blond hair to his mother’s coiffed updo and shook his head. The two of them together would be impossible.

“Why are you shaking your head, dear?” his mother asked.

“No reason.”

“He’s thinking how he regrets bringing us together,” Sarah said.

“Right you are, Sarah,” the duchess agreed. “Well, too late now, I’m afraid. I think you’re fabulous and I will have my share.”

Devon rolled his eyes again, then looked at his mother. “Impossible. She’s already the busiest woman in London and you know how I hate to share… I learned it from you!”

“Naughty boy. I always taught you to share but to choose very, very carefully with whom you do.” She smiled at Sarah to indicate that he had chosen wisely.

Sarah loved the idea of the two of them fighting over every minute of her spare time, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that they weren’t really joking. They were both far too used to getting every little thing their way. She might have been raised in the lap of luxury, as it were, but between her mother’s no-nonsense morality and her father’s Yankee thrift—private jet Yankee thrift, but still—Sarah had always maintained a ferocious work ethic. She smiled at the turn of the conversation and they finished off the meal with a few vague promises to get together the following week for tea or lunch.