The Penny Pinchers Club (21 page)

Had it been a Mercedes I’d purchased, I guarantee Chloe would not have had that reaction.

“Oh, by the way,” she said, twirling up a tube of Dior lipstick, “I’m sure Griff will be pleased to learn your ex is completely over you, Kat. This Novak character left a message on my cell yesterday extending his deepest apologies for not signing with me. Apparently, another designer got to him first.” Finished coloring in her thin lips, she dropped the Dior in her bag and said,“It’s a political thing. A wife of a PharMax board of trustees member who has an interior design hobby, no doubt.”

That wasn’t Liam’s style to lie, unless he’d changed. “Did he come right out and say that?”

“Of course not. But when you’ve owned a business in this town as long as I have, you know how things work. Now don’t forget to call the Ishings while I’m out. And check on the black marble I ordered for the ITF project. I’ll be at lunch until two.”

“Bye,” I said.

She took a few steps, turned, and wrinkled her nose at Elaine’s latte. “There are nearly five hundred calories in one of those. Coffee straight has zero.” She raised an eyebrow. “FYI.”

Chloe was no sooner gone than I had to pick up Elaine from the floor where she’d ended after a fit of hysterical laughing.

“No,” she mimicked, “but when you’ve owned a business in this town as
long
as I have, you know how things work. Oh, lord.” She snatched a tissue to wipe her eyes. “Part of me hopes you never do leave this job. Not a day goes by when that woman doesn’t crack me up.”

 

Macalester House was one of the oldest homes in Princeton, a huge mansion built around 1770, which had served as headquarters for the Continental Congress, as a public inn and, eventually, as a private inn for visiting alumni at Princeton. But the downturn in the economy and the cost of maintenance had been too much for the university, which sold it to Liam, who, according to Elaine, had professed to being a sucker for Revolutionary War history.

I vaguely remembered that.

Because it was only a few blocks from Chloe’s office, I risked letting my Corolla remain in one of Chloe’s precious spaces and hiked through the February snow to Liam’s new digs with the dim hope that a little exercise might drain off the adrenaline that had caused my palms to sweat like a nervous teenager.

No biggie,
I told myself.
Treat him like any other client. Be respectful and attentive. Pretend that you have no idea what it’s like to sleep with him naked in the crook of his body.

Unfortunately, the walk didn’t help. I was barely able to cobble together a cogent sentence when Liam answered the old oak door in a black turtleneck and twill pants, the Saturday morning newspaper tucked under his arm.

“Hi there.” I waved. Then, realizing waving was stupid and unprofessional, I tapped my portfolio and said,“I’ve been doing research and I have tons of ideas. You won’t be disappointed.”

It was going all wrong. I sounded like a Girl Scout hocking Thin Mints instead of a smart and secure designer, or an old friend.

Liam grinned and led me into a slate foyer, graciously offering to take my coat. “You’re way ahead of me, Kat. I’m still at ‘nice to meet you.’” As he hung up my coat in the closet, I noticed he managed to sneak in a quick take of how the rest of me had fared over the years.

My outfit was simple: slimming black pants, tan scoop-necked sweater, and seed pearls at my throat. Pearls at my ears, too. The ones he’d returned.

“Thank you so much for not tossing these in a moment of pique. You’re right. They were my grandmother’s.”

“Oh, do you have them on? Let me see. Lovely.”

I froze in place as he slid his hand under my hair, his thumb grazing my neck. “I always did like it this way the best. Shows more of your face.”

“These days,” I said, trying to make it light,“it shows more of my neck, a sight that often scares small children.” My mother always said it was an unwise woman who pointed out her own flaws. But since when did I follow my mother’s advice?

Liam—who
was
wise—let that drop. “Come on. I’ll give you a tour and you can see what we’re up against.”

I followed him through a narrow doorway with low headroom, taking note as I went of the details that were authentic, and those that had been added by well-intentioned but tired—and maybe cash-strapped—generations.

Since it had been an inn for so long, the house carried the air of a temporary way stop instead of a home. There was a small, built-in front desk, for instance, and the living rooms, while functional, were clearly meant to accommodate small groups of strangers instead of family gatherings. Plus, there was a lot of Princeton black and orange that would definitely have to go.

Shortcuts had been made to cut costs. The shoe molding was inferior and nicked. The plaster walls that should have been bare to display their artistic glory were papered. The wide pine floors were badly in need of refinishing and were, in the kitchen—painted! But the worst sin by far was that it was decorated in a Victorian style, not in its original mid-Georgian.

He stopped at the foot of the stairs leading to the bedrooms, cleared his throat, and said, “Might as well save the upstairs for later. I’m sure you’ve seen enough to give you an approximate idea of what’s needed.” We moved into a small sitting room with a fireplace and two lead-glass windows.

Relieved from not having to see where he slept, either alone or with some other woman, I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “You’re right. This
is
a big job. I’m assuming that being a history buff you want to restore it to its original finishes.”

“That’s why I bought the place even though it screamed money pit. When I die, I can return it to the town as an authentic example of Georgian architecture.” He leaned against the fireplace and looked around. “I don’t know what they were thinking with this cheap bead board.”

“They were thinking protection and preservation.” I tapped the oak hearth. “Rip that off and there’s eighteenth-century brick under there. That’s what they did to the inn where we used to stay in Lumberville, remember?”

It was a bold reference to not only our past, but to one of our more romantic evenings at the Black Stallion overlooking the Delaware, the site where we’d made love for the first time, prompting an earnest young Liam to declare his love for me afterward, kissing each one of my fingers and toes.

What had my subconscious been thinking, bringing that up?

He studied me for a second as if trying to judge my intentions and said, “Exactly. Funny, I’ve been thinking of that place, too. If you’re free some weekend, we should drive down there and get a few ideas.”

“Sure.” I shrugged like it was no big deal we’d be revisiting the place where we’d fallen in love. Getting back on track, I said, “There’s a lot of structural stuff I’m assuming you’ll want to tackle right away.”

“You said it.” He gestured to a brown stain indicating a burst pipe. “New roof. New flashing. Redo the outside to expose the original brick. Electrical touchups. Plumbing issues. After that, I’ll let you take over. I know it might be impossible, but I’d be over the moon if we could stick to period pieces.”

“Are you kidding? Absolutely!” I gushed, immediately imagining me scouring shops in Brandywine, Pennsylvania, for the perfect hutch. “It’ll require tons of research. Hours at the Historical Society researching paint tints and molding styles. And, of course, antiques.”

Liam smiled at my enthusiasm. “
Of course
. As I remember, you and I were good at finding those. I still have a few at my parents’ house. Paige was never a big antiques person.”

For a second, I lost my mind and, like a dim bulb, said, “Paige?”

“My . . . ” He hesitated. “My
ex
wife.”

“Oh, right.” I was such a Sagittarius, forever talking without thinking. “Sorry about that, by the way.”

“You mean the divorce?” He went over to the window as if preoccupied with a broken sash. “That was years in the making. It wasn’t good from the start, you know.”

I didn’t know, but I could have surmised it since he’d married her a few months after we broke up.

“People keep saying to me isn’t it a blessing we didn’t have children and I suppose on some level they’re right.” He lifted the broken window and checked its underside. “And I think Paige would agree that we never did because we understood this marriage wouldn’t last. That said, I now find myself in my mid-forties, divorced, without kids, and I have to admit it’s raised the question of whether I should remarry sooner rather than later.”

I thought of his bedroom upstairs that he’d stopped short of showing me. How many young things at PharMax would love to be married to a man of his wealth and stability? Would love to give him the houseful of children he’d always craved?

“Well, that’s where men are lucky,” I said. “It doesn’t matter how old you are, you can have kids—like Tony Randall, who fathered a child at eighty-four.”

“So I have some time, is that what you’re saying?”

“At least forty years, if Tony’s any yardstick.” I laughed at the idea of a Tony Randall yardstick. “Anyway, I expect you’ll be remarried and perhaps a new father within a year, my friend. I don’t know if you’ve heard this, Liam, but young women are crazy for successful men who have bulging bank accounts. You guys are all the rage.”

He closed the window gently and, in a much brighter tone, said, “You know, I do think I read that someplace.”

“It’s women who get the short end of the stick when it comes to finding men at our age. I am not looking forward to that at all.”

Whoops!

It just slipped out, like the line about Lumberville or the question about Paige. My subconscious, as often happens, was out to sabotage me. Probably seeking retribution for suppressing it for so long.

“
Not
,” I added quickly,“that I have any plans to be single anytime soon.”

“Right.” He checked his watch. “Hey, it’s almost one. Wanna grab some lunch? I mean, not here. I never cook. I was talking about going down to Marc’s Deli.”

Okay, until that question, I’d been doing fine. Except for the reference to our first sexual encounter and the slip about becoming divorced myself. Other than that, I’d settled down and become perfectly comfortable—as long as we were discussing authentic moldings and the best way to refinish old pine floors and steering away from more touchy issues, like how I’d dumped him on that beach.

But going out to lunch on Saturday when I should have been home with Griff crossed an invisible line, even if we managed to sneak in shop talk.

“Unfortunately . . . ,” I began, searching for an excuse, “I’m running late as it is, and . . .”

He held up his hand. “I’m sure. Though I would like to catch up sometime. Seems weird for us to be working like this together and me not even know if you, if you have a dog, for instance.”

“Jasper,” I said. “He’s on death’s door.”

“Or whether you really will be single in the near future.” His lips twitched. “Not, as you said, that you have plans to be so soon.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“S
o what do you think he meant by that?” Sherise asked as we waited for the fog to lift outside the Shop-N-Buy.

“I don’t know.” I cranked the heater, sinfully letting the car run. A few more minutes and the store would be open and we could be warm at last.

Velma, Sherise, Opal, and I huddled in my cramped Corolla near dawn on a cold March morning in preparation of our big monthly grocery shop. It had been weeks since my meeting with Liam and not a day had gone by when I hadn’t analyzed his sentence down to its punctuation and use of the word
soon
.

“My worst-case scenario is that somehow my mother has found out, either fromViv or Chloe, that Griff is planning to divorce me and she passed the word to him. On the other hand, I did make that crack about not looking forward to being single in my forties. . . .”

“Yeah, but that could be taken either way.” Opal, next to me, checked her clipboard holding her extensive grocery list organized by aisle and discount. “What I think is that you’re projecting. You want him to know you’re going to be single. You want him to care.”

Yeah, she was right, and I had to admit it was somewhat pathetic that I wanted—no,
craved
—Liam’s attention. Perhaps I was as needy as any other overworked mother and wife who missed the secret thrill of flirting. Or maybe I was going through a midlife crisis of my own, one exacerbated by a husband whose commitment was uncertain at best.

All I knew was, having Liam back in my life had added a spark I hadn’t felt since before Laura. I felt younger and brighter. I tinted my roots (at home, natch) and did my own nails nightly in a feminine shade of light pink, in case Liam called me over for an impromptu consultation. I even went back to working out and lifting weights—at home, not the gym—so that once sleeveless season arrived, my upper arms would be toned when I held up paint chips for his approval.

“What’s Griff think about all this?” Velma asked.

From what I’d been able to tell, he was amused, at least by the nails, since I’d never been “that type.” As for me working for Liam?

“He doesn’t know.”

The car was silent. Opal put down her clipboard and said, “You mean he doesn’t know that Liam asked if you’ll be single in the near future?”

“
Nooo.
He doesn’t know I’m working for Liam.”

Opal clucked her tongue, and Sherise threw herself between the two front seats. “Are you nuts? You know he’s going to find out sooner or later.”

“When?” That was rich, the idea of Griff having the audacity to throw a fit over my professional relationship with another man.

At that very moment, he was in Washington, D.C., with Bree, supposedly spending the weekend conducting final interviews and checking facts for his book. But, since I now made a habit of going online to check our credit card accounts, I could tell he hadn’t reserved the hotel rooms (or was that
room
) on our Visa or Discover. Which meant he must have used his secret MasterCard because he didn’t want me to see what he and Bree were up to.