CHAPTER FIVE
The day after William’s party, I arrived at the courthouse jobsite twenty-five minutes early and somehow Jason still managed to beat me. He was walking around in the flattened dirt and he stopped to watch as I approached.
“I thought you said the meeting was at seven,” I said a little huffily.
“Good morning to you too, Audrey,” he replied, and held out a brown paper bag. “Would you like a buttered muffin?”
“What is that, a sexual innuendo?”
“No. It’s a polite statement. You ought to try it now and then. Politeness.”
“I don’t want your buttered muffin, Jason.”
He crumpled up the bag. “Too bad. It was tasty.”
“How do you know if you didn’t eat it yourself?”
He shrugged. “I took a bite.”
“You took a bite of the breakfast you were planning to offer me?”
“Sure.”
“What if I’d decided I wanted it?”
“But you didn’t.” He hurled the bag into a nearby open dumpster.
I looked around. “Where’s this architect?”
“He’s not here yet. You’re half an hour early.”
“Then why are you here?”
He breathed in deeply as the sounds of Phoenix traffic rattled past. Soon it would be rush hour.
“What can I say? I love the smell of the asphalt in the morning,” Jason said. “What do you love in the morning, Audrey?”
“Jason,” I said a little sharply.
He looked at me. “What’s up?”
I took a breath. “Is this going to be a problem?”
“Of course not. You’re more than welcome to hang out here until the meeting starts.”
“You know what I mean.”
He grinned, obviously enjoying himself. “No, enlighten me.”
I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I might have some explaining to do in the office if I broke Jason Roma’s nose. “Is there going to be a problem with us working closely together on this project?”
Jason appeared to consider the question carefully. He tapped his chin and gazed out at the ten-acre city plot where a derelict hotel had been razed to make room for the courthouse. “I’m not sure. Just how close are we going to get?”
“You’re ridiculous,” I huffed. “I’m going to get a cup of coffee.”
“Does this mean you’re blowing off the meeting?”
I glared. “No. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”
Once I had consumed a few ounces of caffeine, I felt a little less on edge. Maybe I was overreacting when it came to Jason. He liked to get a rise out of people, that’s all. It wasn’t best to contend with that in a colleague, but I could handle him. I could keep things professional. And when Jason realized I could no longer be baited, he’d get bored with trying and just do his job. And the best way to embark on this new era was by marching back to the jobsite, coolly ignoring any mocking remarks, and having a successful meeting with this architect whose name I wished I’d inquired about. I assumed it had to be Mike Destin, the original chief architect at Lollis Architecture Group, the Phoenix firm that had been hired to draw up the plans even before bids were made on the project. I couldn’t really picture old stern-faced Mike yapping over beers at the Diamondbacks game with Jason Roma, but I knew Jason well enough to figure he could probably nudge the pope out of his comfort zone if he set his mind to it.
When I returned to the site, I saw that Jason was no longer alone and I cursed myself for taking off in the first place. Jason and the man who was presumably the architect were walking inside the perimeter of the heavily roped-off jobsite. I squinted at the man. From a distance I could tell he did not have the stoop-shouldered look of Mike Destin, yet there was something familiar about him.
I pasted a smile to my face and hoped it didn’t look too ghastly. An ex-boyfriend once complained that I was terrible about keeping my heart off my sleeve and ought to figure out how to fake it like the rest of the world.
And speak of the devil.
There had to be some kind of cosmic force that rounded up bad liaisons and dumped them on your head. That was the only way to explain how the past week had coughed up an encounter with Dole Closterman’s mother, an involuntary partnership with Jason Roma, and now this.
“Are you having a stroke?” Jason asked from ten yards away, after I’d stopped in my tracks and cupped a hand over my mouth when I realized he was in the company of Lukas Lund, ex-boyfriend, Nordic god, brilliant architect, and currently ranked number two on my Best Sex list.
And to add to the irony of this strange scene, Lukas was unknowingly standing beside number one on that same list.
Both Lukas and Jason were staring at me at this point, so I forced myself to resume walking and pretend there was nothing odd about this.
“Lukas,” I said with forced enthusiasm. “Wow, it’s nice to see you again.”
“Good to see you too, Audrey,” he said. Everything about Lukas was cool, from the sweep of his unblinking glacial blue eyes to the way his large body occupied space with a kind of imperial detachment.
“I take it you’ve met before?” Jason said, and I noticed that he seemed honestly surprised. Surprised and not altogether pleased.
“We’ve run into each other a few times around town,” Lukas said evasively, and looked away in the direction of Chase Field as if the subject already bored him. We weren’t together that long, only for about four months, more than two years ago. Lukas was gorgeous, intelligent, and fantastic in bed, but I never felt quite comfortable around him. Particularly because I’d seen how quickly that cool, calm veneer could vanish if something really pissed him off.
“I take it you’re not at Stern and Foster anymore?” I asked Lukas, referring to the architecture firm he’d been working for when I met him.
“No, I’m not. I’ve been at Lollis for nearly a year.” He gestured to the expanse of open dirt. “I just took over this project from the original architect.”
“What happened to Mike Destin?”
“He’s dead. Massive heart attack three weeks ago.”
“That’s sad,” I said, knowing it sounded lame. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Yup.”
I swallowed. “So how have you been?”
“Can’t complain. And you?”
“I’m good.”
Lukas zeroed in on me with his intense stare. He held it for a long time before he said, “You certainly look good.”
It was an inappropriate thing to say. And Lukas had already demonstrated to me just how terribly unpredictable his moods were. Yet I found myself unable to do more than mutter “Thanks,” and look away.
Jason cleared his throat, maybe to remind us that he was still around. “It might be easier to conduct this meeting at the diner across the street. Anyone up for breakfast?”
“I thought you already had a buttered muffin this morning,” I said with sarcasm.
“Only a single bite,” Jason replied, blinking at me. “And it wasn’t nearly enough. Let’s get something more substantial. Come on, my treat.”
“You mean the company’s treat,” I countered.
“I wouldn’t mind some breakfast,” Lukas said in his silky baritone.
On the walk over to the diner, Jason started chatting with Lukas about baseball. Lukas was a huge baseball fan. It made sense that he would have run into Jason at a Diamondbacks game, especially after I gleaned from their conversation that during yesterday’s game they happened to be guests of a valley land developer.
After the recent shock of finding Lukas Lund at my jobsite this morning, I wasn’t particularly hungry, but I ordered a cheese omelet to be cooperative. Jason and Lukas had ended their discussion of pitching rotations and moved on to the groundbreaking ceremony in a few weeks. I should have been contributing to the conversation and, in fact, Jason tossed me curious glances a few times, but I was too busy consuming copious amounts of coffee and reflecting on how disconcerting it was to be sitting at the same table with two men whose dicks had been in my mouth.
“What do you think, Audrey?” Jason asked me suddenly.
I set down the coffee cup. I had no idea what I was being asked to think about. This was not the scenario I envisioned when I woke up this morning.
“I think the courthouse project represents an opportunity for us to showcase our best work and make an enduring contribution to the city,” I told the men.
There. A very benign, if slightly cloying, bullshit answer to whatever question had been asked.
Jason and Lukas glanced at each other.
“That’s great,” Jason said with his telltale smirk, “but I was really asking for some input on Lukas’s idea of expanding the lobby. He thinks the original design will prove inadequate once the courthouse is in use.”
“We can find the space if we cut out some of those useless decorative pillars and move one of the jury-duty rooms,” Lukas said, eyeing me. “I was playing around with it last night and can get the proposed revision over to your team by tomorrow.”
“And then we can present it to the county.” Jason nodded. “I think they’ll like the idea.”
“That sounds great,” I said with a little too much enthusiasm.
Jason and Lukas didn’t appear to notice, however. They returned to discussing the project and assorted progress benchmarks. I paid attention and made the appropriate comments, but all along I couldn’t shake the surreal sense that this was a dream.
“Wait, you have one of those condos in the high-rise next to the ballpark?” Jason asked Lukas.
“Moved in last year,” Lukas confirmed. “It’s nice to be able to see the games going on even when I’m not inside the stadium. Plus, the commute to work is pretty sweet.”
“Man, color me jealous. I bought a house in Chandler a few months ago and I miss the easy commute. That I-10 is the devil.”
“You bought a house?” I asked Jason with surprise. When he first started working for Lester & Brown, he was living in some mancave close to the chaos that was Arizona State University. Since then I’d heard he moved up to a nice downtown place, and I had just assumed he was still there.
Jason nodded. “Yes, I bought a house.”
“Why’d you move out to Chandler?”
He looked down. It was uncharacteristic of Jason to look uncomfortable, but he hesitated for several long seconds before he spoke again. “You get more bang for your buck in real estate out there, plus I’m dealing with some family issues.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. All I’d ever known about Jason’s family was that they’d once been wealthy but their fortunes changed when his father’s business failed. I’d be curious what kind of family issues would motivate a player like Jason to settle down out in the stucco suburbs of the East Valley. But he didn’t look as if he was in the mood to talk about it. Instead of asking for details, I took a bite of my cheese omelet.
Lukas left a few minutes later to deal with some architect emergency, but before he walked away, he handed me his card and fixed those startling blue eyes on my face with hypnotic intensity.
“I’m glad we’ll be working together, Audrey,” he said in a tone that was actually pretty inviting. “Reach out to me anytime if you want to discuss the project. Or anything else.” He nodded to Jason. “See you, Jay.”
“So long,” said Jason, but he was looking at me.
“What?” I snapped when Lukas was out of sight.
He sighed and whipped out his corporate credit card. “That was awkward.”
“For who?”
“For everyone, I think. So, you and the Viking architect . . .”
“Do not finish that sentence.”
Jason leaned forward. “Then finish it for me.”
I cut the remains of my omelet with the side of my fork. “Yes, Lukas and I used to see each other. It was a little over two years ago. He was one of the architects on the Samaritan Hospital project, and when it wrapped up, he asked me to dinner.”
Jason broke into a nasty grin. “And did you, ah, have dinner with him more than once?”
I glared at him. “Don’t venture into perverted territory. I won’t follow you.”
“Then you’ve changed, Audrey,” he said with a nasty grin that reminded me we’d spent a lot of time naked together.
I sat up suddenly and angrily, nearly toppling my chair. “You never stop.”
“Hey, I’m sorry,” Jason said, and he actually did look kind of sorry. His usual smirk had disappeared. “Please sit down and finish your breakfast.”
“I’m done anyway,” I said, but I sat. “It’s really not a big deal. Yeah, Lukas and I dated for a few months, but it was several years ago and we haven’t kept in touch. I had no idea he’d wind up being the chief architect on the courthouse. I can’t say I had a strong desire to run into him again.”
“It doesn’t seem like he feels the same way. Poor boy was practically drooling.”
“Lukas . . .” I started to say but didn’t know how to continue. Jason didn’t need to know the rest. Lukas Lund was a great lover and always paid for dinner, and sometimes that icy calm dissolved without warning.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I had suspected something was off with him even before he seized a drunk bar patron and slammed him into a wall after the guy taunted that I had a nice ass. Yet his temper didn’t flare often, and I began to think my worries were all in my head. Then came a night when he became annoyed that I kept answering work emails at dinner, and out in the parking lot he grabbed my phone out of my hand and hurled it against a brick wall.
That only happened once.
I made up my mind to break things off with Lukas the instant I saw the spider-web cracks on my iPhone. Maybe he only threw a phone, but who does that? And could that escalate to something else? There was no way I was going to stick around for that shit no matter how sexy he was or how profusely he apologized. But Lukas didn’t even try to argue. He accepted the fact that it was over between us and he wished me well. It would have been a very dignified breakup if I weren’t clutching a small can of pepper spray in my sweater pocket just in case he got out of line. Luckily he didn’t.
“Audrey?” Jason’s voice was gentle. “It’s really none of my business. And I don’t care how gifted an architect the guy is. If he broke your heart, then he’s a douchebag.”
It was a silly thing to say, but he was trying to be kind for once. I just didn’t have time to deal with Jason’s abrupt transformation into a caring human being.
“He didn’t break my heart.” I stood up and collected my purse. “I’ve got to head back to the office. Remember, we have that conference call at eleven.”
He nodded. “I remember.”
I left him there to finish paying for breakfast. Before I returned to my car, I paused by the empty space where a stately modern courthouse would someday stand. If I closed my eyes, I could see it as if it had already been built. When I opened my eyes, there was nothing to see but dirt and possibility.
I hadn’t lied to Jason. Lukas never broke my heart. And Jason never broke my heart. My heart hadn’t even been cracked by Dole Closterman or any of the handful of other names that had been important to me for a little while.
No, the only person who’s ever really broken my heart is me.