CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The air was finally starting to cool, fading from the roiling simmer of summer that had hugged the pavement to the crispness of fall. New Yorkers embraced the coming of autumn with thigh-high boots and pumpkin spice everything. For Paige, fall had never lost that anticipation, that excitement, of the promise of new beginnings. It stemmed from childhood with the beginning of a new school year, a chance to be someone new, learn something new.
However, her new beginning was refusing to present itself.
It had been a month since her on-camera run-in with Meeghan. She was done being a pawn and had said as much to Eddie. She’d find another network, another show, and produce her ass off for eight months. She didn’t care what it was. Unfortunately, it was becoming painfully evident to Paige that job pickings were not merely slim but anorexic.
While she scoured New York for jobs, she entertained herself by sticking a toe into the very early stages of planning and research for the documentary. She’d gotten an official and enthusiastic commitment from the actress Sarah Holden for the documentary and had begun reaching out to others: actresses, production crew, directors, producers, and then expanding her web into women’s rights advocates, politicians, professors, authors. She’d tapped her mother for her suggestions on who to interview and had been shocked when Leslie emailed her a detailed list of five women in specialized fields with a brief synopsis and contact information for each one.
Of course the resources had come with the caveat that Paige not embarrass the family name.
It gave her a buzz every time Paige found she’d spent an entire afternoon buried in work and loving every second of it. And that buzz evaporated every time she checked her bank balance or got a “sorry, not hiring” email.
She’d just received another one, her eighth, and put her head down on the absolutely stunning coffee table that Gannon had made. The heavy reclaimed pine top served as her desk and—more currently—her pillow of misery. She rested her forehead, inhaling the faint scents of stain and wood. It was thick, beefy, with two supporting pedestals for legs, and Paige loved it. It was exactly her. And, unfortunately, exactly Gannon.
The man had embraced their “friendly” relationship and run with it. She’d turned down all his invitations for coffee, for lunch. The episodes of Kings Construction that aired did plenty to further the rumors of a relationship between them. She had zero interest in being seen in public with him and adding fuel to the fire.
She missed him, which surprised her. So Paige did find herself responding to his texts and occasionally his calls. She was just used to him, she told herself. And now that they’d cleared the air between them, she figured she was allowed to miss pieces of what they’d shared.
The truth behind his “relationship” with Meeghan? It made her hurt for Gannon. She could see it, had seen it. Getting swept up in the glitz and shine of TV was easy. Getting hurt by the darker side of it was even easier. Gannon’s pride had been damaged, his faith in himself tested.
In many ways, Gannon’s situation mirrored that of women in the industry. Women whose stories she would be telling. The overzealous appreciation of looks, being tempted into a bad choice, and then being forced into conforming to a role that had no appeal. She could empathize with that. But it still didn’t change the fact that she couldn’t be in a relationship with him without fear of losing something of herself.
Her phone buzzed at her elbow, and she glanced at the screen. Gannon.
The bump in her pulse, the flutter in her belly, those were good reasons to ignore the call. Just because he had reasons for not being entirely truthful didn’t wipe away his transgressions. And nothing seemed to dull her physical reaction to him. That alone spelled danger.
She should ignore the call, ignore the man. Move on with her life. Decision made.
“Hello.”
“Hey, princess.” That gravelly rasp hit her at the apex of her thighs. Her body clearly wasn’t interested in holding anything against the man… unless it was her body.
“What’s up?” she asked lightly.
“Are you busy tonight?”
No! Yes!
“Gannon, I—”
He cut off her early denial. “Hang on. Listen to my proposal first before you shoot me down.”
She was already regretting picking up the phone. She was having a weak moment, a weak week, and he would know and pick apart her defenses. “Go on.”
“I have a lead on a job for you, one that starts now and should carry through to the end of December.”
“What is it? Where is it?” Who cares? She’d take anything at this point.
“Have dinner with me tonight, and I’ll tell you.”
“You can’t blackmail a friend into having dinner with you,” she reminded him.
“This is worthy of a face-to-face conversation. I have details, numbers, even a timeline. I’m not doing that over the phone. Besides, we’ll be chaperoned.”
She laughed. “By who—and don’t say Cat.”
“Nonni. She’s cooking, and she’s wanted to meet you since I started telling her about this stubborn woman who wouldn’t let me have my way last season.”
The infamous Nonni. Paige had been dying to meet the woman even before Gannon confessed her role in his decision to be on television.
“I can hear you biting your lip,” Gannon said, his voice getting huskier.
She stopped gnawing on her lower lip. “I come to dinner with you and your grandmother, and you tell me about a job?” She wanted clarification. Gannon King was nothing if not sneaky.
“Dinner at my grandmother’s. You can listen to Nonni berate me in the kitchen. I’ll tell you about the job, we’ll eat something amazing and carb-laden, and then you can send me home to my sad, empty bed.”
“Gannon.” It was a warning to them both. Paige didn’t fully trust herself around the man. He made her feel too impulsive, and one too many glasses of wine or a particularly low day and she didn’t trust herself not to crawl into his lap.
“Just one friend confiding in another. I miss you. I want to see you, and I hate that I had to go out and find a job just so I can see you.”
She missed him, too. And she desperately needed gainful employment. And, damn it, she was an adult. She didn’t need to touch the stove a second time to know she’d get burned. She was a St. James. St. James women learned fast and preferred independence.
“What time?” she asked.
“Seven. Six,” he corrected. “Then you can watch Nonni in action in the kitchen. I’ll send a car for you.”
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The car Gannon sent for her was actually a truck. And he was behind the wheel.
Paige drummed her fingers where they rested on her hips. She’d gone with a short sleeve sweater the color of ripe plums, jeans, and, in homage to the fall, a pair of soft suede boots that ended above the knee. “You didn’t say you’d be picking me up,” she accused.
Gannon flashed her that badass grin from behind the wheel. “You didn’t ask. Had to make sure you were actually coming.”
She glared at him, an effect that was ruined by her sunglasses, and climbed in. It was a work truck, she noted, with the Kings insignia on the doors and one of those shiny metal toolboxes mounted in the bed of the truck. It was tall, manly, and completely impractical for city living. But it was far more comfortable than any production van or compact car rental she’d experienced.
Gannon smoothly pulled away from the curb, heading toward Brooklyn. He looked at home behind the wheel, relaxed in worn jeans and a faded t-shirt dressed up by the army green cotton blazer he wore. He steered with his left hand, a Band-Aid riding low on the knuckle of his index finger. His right arm rested on the seat back behind her.
He looked good, really good. Paige felt that familiar flutter in her belly and immediately quelled it. They’d had their chance. It hadn’t worked out.
“So tell me about this job.”
He shook his head, grinned. “Nope. Not ‘til we get to Nonni’s.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What kind of job is this? Is it something that you think would make me jump from a moving vehicle?”
“You have such a trusting nature, Paige.”
“I work in reality TV. What do you expect?”
“I expect you to be nice and make small talk with me until you meet my grandmother and then we get down to business.”
It was a small request, easily granted, and worse still, it was the polite thing to do. She grimaced. “Sorry. My desperation is showing. What have you been doing since we’re not shooting?”
“That’s my girl,” he said cheerily. “I’ve been clearing my head with a few pieces, a dining set, and I’m getting back up to speed at Kings. Got our hands on this four-story in Cobble Hill, two retail shops on the bottom and six units above.”
“A lot of work?”
“Gut job. Some asshole slumlord owned it, and the bank foreclosed. Good bones, but everything else has to go.”
She nodded, bit her lip. “Can I see the furniture?” Paige asked. No matter what transpired between them, nothing would ruin her appreciation for Gannon King’s artistic abilities.
“Not satisfied with your coffee table?” he teased.
“About that,” she said, shooting him an accusatory look. “It’s not exactly a standard size. Seems weird to me that you were able to build something that fit so perfectly in our space. It’s almost like you took measurements.”
He made a humming sound, and she knew she wasn’t getting anything out of him.
“Have you seen Cat lately?” he asked.
Paige nodded. “We had drinks last week. She told me about the Duluth deal.”
Gannon shook his head. “My sister the model for women’s work clothes.”
“The collection is going to be huge,” Paige predicted. “She showed me a couple pictures of the samples.”
“Of the two of us, she’s cut out for this crap,” Gannon said.
“And you’d rather be on a job site or in your shop,” Paige said, understanding.
“And you’d rather be telling stories that matter.”
She bit back a sigh, and they rode in silence for several minutes. When Gannon turned down an alley.
“This isn’t your place,” she said, peering at the squat brick building before them.
He pressed a button, and one of the three industrial sized garage doors rolled up, groaning in protest.
“I thought you wanted to see what I was working on?”
“This is your shop? Your secret lair?” Paige was delighted. It felt like she’d just received an invitation to tour Batman’s cave.
“This is the back of our offices. Used to be storage. Now it’s my shop.” He pulled into the bay, closed the door behind them, and shut off the engine.
They climbed down, and Gannon unlocked the door on the back of the garage wall. She smelled sawdust and stain, scents that always reminded her of him. Paige stepped inside while he flipped a row of dusty light switches, flooding the space with illumination.
“Holy crap,” she breathed. The perimeter of the room was ringed with shelves and tables stacked high with every kind of wood imaginable. A metal shelving system looked to almost buckle under the weight of polyurethanes, stains, paints, and bins of hardware.
He had several work tables and benches, most of which bore projects in varying stages of doneness. The dining table was front and center.
“Wow, Gannon.” Paige wandered up to the table, all eight feet of it, her heels muffled by neat piles of sawdust. It reminded her of the coffee table. He’d used the same reclaimed wood, distressed by decades of use, and the same design. Two fat pedestals on either end of the table acted as thick legs joined by a long board down the center.
“Like it?” He stood with his thumbs hooked into the front pockets of his jeans.
“Like is not the word,” she said, running a hand lovingly over the satin-smooth wood.
“That’s the buffet,” he said, jerking his chin toward the next table over.
It matched the length of the table and the style of wood. A combination of yet-to-be-finished drawers and cabinets made up the base of the buffet. Its top was a long expanse of that aged and battered wood.
“Thinking about doing open shelves above it,” Gannon said.
Yes. She could see it. Rustic wood shelves with the metal piping for brackets.
“Are these for you?” she asked, eyeing him.
He shrugged.
“Because I’ve seen your apartment. You add an eight-foot table, and you’d have to get rid of your couch.”
He glanced at his watch. “We’d better go before Nonni gets antsy.”
“Oh, God. There really is a nonni, isn’t there? This isn’t just some ploy to get me to your place?”