chapter
Eleven
Isaac hadn’t spoken to me or so much as acknowledged my existence for the remainder of the day yesterday. And after the unexpected predawn return of my guilt-induced nightmare piled atop my personal responsibility for the Anderson debacle, I was a stressed-out ball of anxiety when I slunk by his open door, wishing myself invisible, and entered my cubbyhole office. I hoped my boss would continue to ignore me for one more day so I could make it to the weekend when I would maybe, finally, call Jacqueline and dump everything on her, so I was apprehensive when he rang my antique desk phone Friday morning and asked me to clear my schedule for the morning.
“Oh?” My heart squeezed painfully. I was being fired. I deserve to be fired! I thought, realizing with simultaneous shock that I didn’t want to leave this job. Not this way, as a failure. Not now, when it was all I had that was mine.
But no—Daddy wouldn’t let that happen, bestowing both the best and worst kind of job security.
“I want you to join me on an errand related to the issue with the Anderson home,” he said. He paused on either side of the word issue, as though separating out both the word and what it referenced, in case I needed a reminder of it.
“Errand?”
“I’ll meet you downstairs in fifteen minutes,” he answered. His authoritative tone told me in no uncertain terms that this request was more order than invitation.
A rather strident click rattled my eardrum, and I reached an immediate comprehension of those “In my day hanging up on people was more satisfying” memes older people passed around on social media. I glared at the receiver—opposite hand over the offended ear—before banging it down in its cradle, but with no one on the other end, my satisfaction was short-lived.
I rearranged my a.m. calendar, postponing two on-site client visits, grabbed my bag, and was gratified to see his office door was already shut when I strode into the silent hallway. I’d never been the sort of girl who arrived first, even when I was eager to meet up with someone. Especially then.
I was not eager. I was not.
I sauntered to the elevator, pressed the button, and waited for the ponderous response of the single car, which always took a good fifteen seconds to register the command and begin to move, another fifteen to arrive, and five to open. I knew because I’d counted once out of impatient curiosity. On most occasions, I took the stairs because standing and waiting made me want to scream. But I still had three minutes to be downstairs; there was no need to hurry to obey Isaac Maat’s summons. I checked my lip gloss in the reflection of the shiny gold-toned door and fluffed my hair around my face, hoping he was pacing irritably, checking his phone or a watch. My brassy likeness gave me a conspiratorial smirk at the thought.
I regretted my decision not to take the stairs when Isaac appeared from the opposite end of the hall, where the bathrooms were, rolling the sleeves of his crisply pressed, sky-blue shirt to just under the elbow. As he came closer, his attention on fashioning a perfectly squared cuff, tiny white pinstripes became visible in the smooth poplin. No tie today, and his collar was unbuttoned. I yanked my eyes from that visible, contrasting triangle of skin before he caught me ogling it.
His steps faltered slightly—when he looked up to see me standing there, I assumed—but he reached my side and the elevator was still struggling to ascend one measly freaking floor.
I detected a trace of spicy aftershave behind the blended lavender and rosemary from the bathroom soap dispensers as he took his place next to me. The piquant blend made him smell like a gingery dessert, or the mulled wine and chipotle pepper garnish my mother sent around on trays at our annual holiday party. Swallowing, I tried not to breathe through my nose and concentrated on the double doors, behind which a motorized drone promised the arrival of the elevator. Any day now.
“I feel like I left my office half an hour ago,” I said, attempting levity in the guise of shared frustration. “Guess I should have taken the stairs.”
“I usually do.” His tone was neutral, but I caught his reflection’s eye-roll before he spoke.
“Why stop now?” I snapped at his gilded image.
His brows arched as he met my indignant, mirrored stare, realizing that I’d probably seen his not-so-stealthy eye-roll. “I thought it more courteous to wait with you since you were already standing here, than separate and beat you downstairs.”
I didn’t want his courtesy if it came with a side of disdain. “Courteous? Hmm.”
“What?” He frowned, turning just enough to look down at me. “You think I lack courtesy?”
Yes, but just to me, so please discontinue smelling so good if you’re dead set on treating me like I’m a joke. I couldn’t say any of that. The elevator emitted a sound between a ding and a honk. As the doors slid open, I stepped forward, but Isaac’s hand shot out, cupped my left elbow, and pulled me to a stop, preventing me from slamming into Joshua, who was darting through the slowly widening gap, eyes on his phone’s screen.
“Erin! Shit!” Joshua took hold of my right arm to stop from running me over, or to keep himself upright. “Man, I didn’t even see you. I’m in a hurry to grab some numbers from my desk for this cheap-ass, time-sucking prospective I’ve got waiting downstairs.”
And then he noticed Isaac, whose big, warm palm was still supporting my elbow. I could feel the connection to the soles of my feet and everything in between.
“I would’ve run up the stairs, like always, but the elevator was just sitting there open, so I took advantage.”
Isaac made a low humph that I pretended not to hear, and for one brief, uncomfortable moment, I was a bone between two adversarial dogs. I did not appreciate the sensation and shook both of their hands loose.
“I’m fine,” I said. “No harm, no foul.”
I knew better than to wait for an actual apology from Joshua, who’d neglected to stuff a single, clear-cut I’m sorry into his litany of excuses for almost knocking me down. Like my eldest brother, he was all justifications, all the time, and I suspected he’d express the same sort of belligerence when backed into a corner. That similarity to Leo had rubbed me the wrong way the day I met him, and no amount of hallway chats or coffee runs had changed my mind. He was adept at sniffing out company gossip and enjoyed disclosing it to me—along with his unsolicited running commentary on what each tidbit signified—but that was the extent of his usefulness. I was interested in gossip concerning my boss, but most of his supposedly privileged intel on Isaac seemed like a bunch of resentful, unwarranted BS.
I preceded Isaac into the elevator and pressed the button for the first floor and then jabbed the Close Doors button several times while the two men stared at each other. The elevator sat there like all we’d wanted to do was board a cramped, stationary box for no reason. Finally, the doors jerked as if rudely awoken and then shut as slowly as possible, leaving Joshua on the second floor. I poked the first-floor button again for good measure. Twice. Go, dammit.
Standing a foot apart, Isaac and I faced the burnished doors instead of each other. I expected a tense, silent ride to the first floor, but he cleared his throat and I readied myself for a comment about Joshua or some sort of personal rebuke.
“I, uh, apologize for the eye-roll,” he said. “That was discourteous and juvenile.”
Whoa. I risked a glance at his reflection.
Staring at his shoes, he slid his hands into his pockets. “I made an assumption that you’d rather have walked down—or had me do so—than share the elevator for five seconds.”
His candor was a solid gut-punch. Every time I tried to peg what he was thinking or feeling, I was mistaken. My quirky insight into other people’s motivations wasn’t functioning with Isaac, and I couldn’t figure out why.
“Apology accepted.” I watched mirror-Isaac as I spoke. “But c’mon now. Five seconds? It’s more like five minutes.”
He laughed softly. “True. True.” His relaxed gaze rose to connect with mirror-Erin’s.
I tried not to tip over, staring at the pleasant shape of his mouth, upturned at the corners, a little higher on one side than the other, while the warmth of his masculine laughter flowed over me. I wasn’t sure whether it was the habitual sluggishness of the elevator or my visceral reaction to his atypical smile that made time slow. The sound of his laugh—maybe, I thought frantically, it was the close quarters that unleashed such whimsy—made my heart twist and fumble toward him as though he was everything familiar, everything safe, when he was nothing of the kind.
DONK. The spell was broken when the elevator sounded its dejected, obligatory warning and the doors slid apart, separating our images. His laughter faded, and the smile with it, his mouth returning to its characteristic taut line. He extended a hand toward the lobby, inviting me to exit first. “After you, Ms. McIntyre,” he said, but that unanticipated laugh had overlaid my perception of him, and instead of the stark, professional tone he meant to project, I heard something else—the real Isaac Maat. He pushed through the lobby door and held it open for me, and we stepped out of the building’s cool mid-seventies temperature into the soggy warmth of July in North Texas.
His BMW sedan was immaculate. There wasn’t so much as a balled-up napkin in a cupholder or a leaf on a floor mat. This surprised me not at all.
“Nice car,” I said. “Nice, really clean car. Remind me not to ever let you see the interior of mine.” Mine wasn’t that bad—I could still turn up my nose at Joshua’s big SUV that looked like a staged version of his life: I shop here. I eat here. I have nice clothes. I work out.
Isaac’s car gave no such clues.
“Now I wanna see it,” Isaac said, pressing the ignition.
The AC blew gently, and a talk show came through the speakers. I recognized the NPR host, who was discussing a film built on the fictional premise that humans only use ten percent of their brains at any given time, leaving ninety percent untapped. They played an audio clip of the film, but the guest—a psychologist from Princeton—was not swayed by Morgan Freeman’s authoritative performance. He called bullshit on the ten percent myth, stating the fact that we use one hundred percent of our brains. The host, laughing, said he didn’t feel like that was true. Even though my psychology classes had debunked the fairy tale of that unexploited ninety percent, I could relate. Boy howdy, could I ever relate.
Isaac turned the sound down. “Your office is amazingly tidy, considering it’s got about the same usable space as my car. Tidy and welcoming even. Can’t help but believe your car’s interior is comparably well-ordered.”
I sensed a trap even as I tried not to gloat at his praise. My office was tidy and tastefully decorated—something I had accomplished on the weekends, outside of working hours: smoky gray walls, graphite-toned furniture softened by fabrics in deep amethyst and plum. I’d traded the original too-big desk and bookcase for smaller pieces that complemented the space—what there was of it—instead of overpowering it.
“And not a Beanie Baby in sight.”
That smartassery earned a soft laugh, and I was grateful he was too busy merging onto 114 to watch my response. I felt like I was melting into his buttery leather seat. I’d never had that sort of reaction to a sound before. It was disconcerting and uncomfortable, because all I wanted was to do whatever I had to do to hear it again.
“So, um, where are we going?”
“Art studio.”
“Oh?”
He didn’t rise to the conspicuous desire for further information in my Oh?
“Whose studio? Where?” I left off the And why? because I was beginning to sound like a four-year-old.
“A friend. In Fort Worth.”
Hence the clear your schedule request, I guessed. This was not an enjoyable drive in and of itself. The scenery was ass and the roads were perpetually congested and full of road-ragey people who might or might not have a concealed handgun under the front seat. We were going to be in this car half an hour in either direction, barring traffic on the multiple freeway interchanges—and there was always construction-triggered traffic somewhere if not numerous somewheres.
My burning curiosity over why in hell’s name we were driving into Fort Worth to see some mystery artist was bubbling up like a chemistry experiment gone awry. If he didn’t start talking soon, I was going to rupture something vital trying to hold it in. He’d told me this impromptu excursion had something to do with the Anderson home’s issue, which was just a polite way of alluding to the catastrophe I had caused with the help of my judgment-deficient big brother.
All of that was before I could rationally address the fact of spending an hour trapped in a car, alone, with Isaac Maat, the most intimidating, attractive man I’d ever met. I’d always been partial to gregarious, approachable guys. I had never found an intimidating man attractive, or an attractive man intimidating—until now. I didn’t know what to make of it. He made me uncomfortable, but I couldn’t tell if that discomfort was because he seemed to think so poorly of me as an employee or because he was immune to any reciprocal attraction. Ouch and ouch.
I gave myself a mental shake. I didn’t have time for this nonsense. We had a bigger obstacle to leap than my wounded feelings. A priceless (to Sheila Anderson—but worth fifty thousand to her husband) piece of art had been disfigured, and I couldn’t imagine how adding another artist to the mix would solve that.
“So we’re meeting with an artist friend of yours? You said this little field trip concerned the Andersons’, um, issue.” I started to ask why we needed an artist but answered my own question and went momentarily speechless as my heartbeat became heavy and slow. “Are we hiring an artist to recreate the damaged section?” My voice sounded like it came from outside my body.
Sheila Anderson would never allow such a thing. I’d known women like her all my life, and I would be hollered right out of North Texas for the suggestion. Her sweet-tea-sipping, hobby-gardening, arts-supporting, gracious-society-lady façade would fly right out the window. My ears began buzzing in anticipation of the ass-chewing I was going to get.
“Not exactly,” Isaac said.
“What?” I wasn’t sure I heard him over the panicked hum of blood swishing through my head as if it was trying to convince me to run.
“Recreate—no, I don’t think so. Most artists aren’t about aping someone else’s creation, certainly not right on top of the original. They might draw inspiration or pay homage, but she’ll have her own vision—or not. Let’s see what remedy she suggests, if anything, before we freak out or give up.”
“Too late,” I muttered, staring out the window.
“Hmm?”
“Nothing.” I was dead. I was so dead, and Isaac with me—of his own misguided volition.
Why had he done it? Why had he taken responsibility for a disastrous comedy of errors that he’d tried his best to prevent and that should have rested squarely on my idiot brother and me? He could have remained silent and let us deal with the consequences. But he hadn’t.