Mr. Right, Next Door! Page 10

  At last, he stopped his fiddling. “If you must know,” he said, “you remind me of someone.”

  “Who?” She held up her hand. “Let me guess—your father.”

  He laughed. “Why on earth would you suggest him?”

  “You already told me I don’t remind you of your mother. Figured I’d try the other side of the family tree.”

  “You don’t remind me of either of my parents,” he told her.

  “Good to know. Though I’m certainly old enough to be one of them,” she added over the edge of her straw.

  “Why do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Keep referring to how you’re older than me.”

  “How about because I am.” One of them had to remember.

  “So what? I happen to like old, remember?”

  Old and beautiful. She remembered. “I thought that only applied to building materials.”

  “It applies to a lot of things.”

  “Oh.” She took a long sip of her tea to quell the jumble in her stomach. Unlike a lot of his answers, this one hadn’t come with any suggestive tone or innuendo, though you’d think from her sudden bout of shy uncertainty that it had. Feeling the unsettledness from before rising upward, she scrambled to regain control of herself and the conversation. “If I don’t remind you of your parents, who do I remind you of?”

  His face crinkled in thought. “That’s just it. I’m not entirely sure. But you definitely remind me of someone.

  “Besides myself, that is,” he added in a lower voice. He’d raised the menu as he spoke so she couldn’t see his features to know if the comment was meant to be flirtatious. His tone suggested otherwise.

  “I remind you of you? How?” They couldn’t be more different.

  For the first time, the tables were truly turned and color tinged his cheeks. “Did I say that aloud?”

  “Very much so. And now I’m dying to know how we’re alike.”

  “Let’s say I used to have a cell phone glued to my hands, too.”

  An incomplete answer and an intriguing one for when he spoke, the sadness returned to his eyes. He tried to hide the expression behind his menu, but Sophie caught it nonetheless.

  “And you consider that habit a bad one.”

  “In my experience, tunnel vision of any kind is a bad habit.”

  Moving her drink and menu aside, Sophie leaned forward and prodded. “What experience?”

  “Are you ready to order?”

  Damn the waitstaff in the place. Efficient and invisible. Their waitress reappeared like a specter, her notepad in hand. Sophie could feel Grant’s relief. Whatever experience, she could tell it hadn’t been pleasant. She didn’t like how the memory distressed him. She much preferred his smile. His warm, sexy smile.

  The waitress took their orders and disappeared as quickly and efficiently as she arrived. Without a menu to fiddle with, Grant quickly turned to his silverware for distraction, making a large production out of aligning his salad and dinner forks.

  “Did you know our building has a secret passage?” he asked suddenly.

  His attempt to dodge the subject at hand worked. Sophie was distracted. “Like a tunnel? Are you sure?”

  “I know the building inside and out. Of course I’m sure. And we’re talking a stairway, not tunnel.”

  Still fascinating. “Why build a secret anything? Were they bootleggers or part of the Underground Railroad?” The house was old enough to have seen both Prohibition and the Civil War.

  “Nothing so romantic,” he replied. The waitress materialized and wordlessly set down their salads. “A lot of houses built during the era had back staircases so the servants could travel between floors without being seen.”

  “Shoot. Here I thought I’d bought into a historic landmark. Where are these stairs? I never noticed any place that would hide them.”

  “Behind your pantry wall. The original kitchen is now our basement. There was a set of steps running from the ground floor to the roof. The top flights came down during renovation, but since the two flights from garden level to the second floor were already boarded up, we left them. Another one of Etta’s insistences.”

  Good for her. Sophie picked up her fork and dug into her salad. “Are they usable? That is, if you knocked the wall down?” She thought of all the times as a kid she could have used a hidden passage. A place to disappear when real life got too crazy.

  “Why? You interested in making a midnight visit to my bedroom?”

  Cheeks hotter than Hades—because the notion put some way too appealing images in her head—Sophie stabbed at her salad. Figures the waitress couldn’t materialize now when an interruption would be useful.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” she warned.

  “Too late,” he replied, spearing his own tomato. “The idea has already been firmly planted in my brain. First thing tomorrow I’m getting out the sledgehammer and knocking down the walls. And you won’t be able to complain about the banging because you suggested the idea.”

  “Then I’ll install an alarm in the pantry.”

  “You mean those surplus boxes and cans stored in there won’t be alarm enough?”

  She tossed him a smirk. “They’re to toss at unwanted visitors.”

  “Well, since you only throw them at unwanted visitors, I’m safe. What do you say, should I clear a path so I can come down and tuck you in?”

  Sophie didn’t think it was possible to flush more. “Must you turn every conversation sexual?”

  “Can’t help myself. You make me think sexual thoughts.”

  “Hardly.” She rolled her eyes.

  “I’m serious. Why do you find it so hard to believe that I’m attracted to you? You are a stunningly beautiful woman.”

  “Who is…”

  “A decade older,” he supplied. “As you’ve mentioned a decade worth of times. And since you feel the need to constantly put that out, it’s only fair that I constantly remind you how desirable you are.”

  If it were only that simple, thought Sophie. But he was trying too hard, and she was beginning to see a pattern.

  “Know what I think?” she asked, setting her fork down.

  His reply was delayed by the well-timed arrival of their entrées. Sophie swore the restaurant was timing their efficiency for exactly those moments when she didn’t want an interruption. She waited impatiently for the young woman to set each plate down.

  “What I think,” she continued when finally alone, “is that you’re trying to distract me.”

  Grant swallowed the sweet potato fry he was chewing. “Distract you from what?”

  Nice try. Repeating the question was a classic avoidance tactic. “My asking questions.” Discussing the topic he so obviously wanted to avoid.

  “You make it sound like I’m keeping secrets.” His chuckle was low and nervous. She’d touched on a nerve.

  “Are you?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t have any secrets to keep. What you see is what you get.”

  What Sophie saw was a man avoiding a painful memory. “All right then,” she said, “if you don’t have secrets, answer me this. Why did you quit architecture? Does it have something to do with Etta, the woman who used to own our building?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead he fiddled with his tableware, becoming inordinately interested in the clanking noise his knife made against the tiny pot of ketchup on his plate.

  “Grant?”

>   “Not really,” he replied, only to shrug and add, “Peripherally. I’m not proud of what happened with Etta, but it was only a symptom of a far bigger problem.”

  This time it was Sophie’s hand reaching across and covering his. Her need to know had moved beyond curiosity. The reproach she heard him struggling to keep from his voice called out for comfort.

  “What happened?” she asked him.

  For a moment, from the way he stared mutely at their hands, she wondered if he’d dodge the topic again. When he did speak, the words are soft and laced with sorrow.

  “I nearly killed my best friend.”

  * * *

  Sophie’s soft gasp told Grant he’d succeeded in shocking her.

  “You’re being dramatic, right?”

  Maybe, a little. Mike would certainly say so. The hole in his gut argued differently. Of course, now that he’d made the admission, he would have to explain what happened. Why’d he say anything? He bit back a groan. Flirting was so much easier.

  Pulling his hand free, he kept his fingers busy by plucking sesame seeds from the top of his burger bun. Where to start?

  With the damn award. “Every year the Architect Association honors the city’s top young architect. Winning can cement your career. Coming out of Columbia, my goal was to win. I had it all planned out. I’d score a job with a top firm, win the award, be proclaimed the city’s next star-architect and become a millionaire before I turned thirty.”

  He offered her a wan smile. “My family believes in setting big goals.”

  “Nothing wrong with aiming high,” Sophie replied.

  Naturally the woman with a master plan would agree.

  “Anyway,” he continued with a sigh, “everything was falling into line. I had the job. I was making great money. All I needed was to blow the socks off the partners and the Architect Association.”

  “So far this all sounds quite admirable,” Sophie remarked. “What does it have to do with your best friend?”

  “I’m getting to that.” Man, was he getting to it. His mouth had run dry so Grant reached for his iced tea. Why was telling this story so hard? He’d been telling himself he wanted Sophie to loosen up. To open her eyes to the dangers of closing yourself off to everything but work. This was his chance.

  “Nate and I went to college together. We were roommates. More than roommates. Best friends. Competitive ones at that, not that there was much competition. He beat me at everything. Awards, grades. We spent four years with him being number one, and me being right behind at number two. He even scored his job first. With Kimeout, Hannah and Miller, the city’s top firm.”

  Memories of Nate doing his job offer dance popped into his head, making him smile. They want me; they want me.

  “Sounds like he was born under a lucky star,” Sophie said.

  “Like you wouldn’t believe. Too bad the luck faded after graduation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “Design in theory and design in practice are two different things. Maybe he simply had bad chemistry with the partners, but Nate just couldn’t seem to catch a break. Meanwhile I was determined to best him at something. I had to be number one.”

  “You mean winning the award.”

  The damn award. His holy grail. Grabbing his iced tea again, he drank down the knot in his throat. Guilt never tasted good. “I put everything I had into becoming the best, fastest rising architect this city had ever seen. I worked round the clock, did whatever it took. Even if that meant convincing an old woman her building would go co-op.”

  “Our building.”

  “Bingo. Our senior partner wanted the developer’s business. I knew if I could score Etta’s building, I’d earn major points.” It was the beginning of his downward slide.

  “That’s why you’re renovating? To make amends.”

  He nodded. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

  “And what about Nate? What happened there?”

  “I told you, he was competitive and used to being the star. The more I pushed, the more he pushed, too. Except…”

  “Except what?” Her hand was back, soft and comforting on his wrist.

  “He couldn’t keep up. I was so caught up in the competition—in winning—I didn’t see the signs.” This is where the story turned its bleakest. “He was edgy all the time. Moody. Unpredictable. His work was erratic. One day he’d be flying all over the office, next he’d zone out during an important meeting.”

  “He was using.”

  “Cocaine. He’d snorted the stupid stuff in college once or twice. Said it boosted his creativity. I had no idea things had gotten so out of hand.” In hindsight, the evidence was so overwhelming. Making him feel even worse.

  “You were focused on your own work. You didn’t know.”

  Grant expected her to say as much. But, his focus had been the problem. “We had this huge blowout one afternoon. Nate accused me of trying to poach his project after he caught me talking to his client. The guy called me because he couldn’t reach Nate.”

  “Reasonable enough.”

  So the lie Grant tried to sell himself said, as well. Only his heart knew he hadn’t exactly discouraged the man from calling, either, and that he would have taken the project, if asked. That’s how low he’d gone.

  “The argument got pretty heated and the partners told him to take the rest of the day off. I should have known then.” But he was too angry and caught up in getting Bob Kimeout’s approval.

  “I’m sorry,” he heard Sophie say. Her thumb rubbed soft circles on the skin between his thumb and forefinger. The touch was soothing. More soothing than he deserved, but he didn’t shake her off. “He called me that night. Nate. I was out for drinks with the partners, discussing my future. I let the phone go to voice mail. Figured we’d hash everything out in the morning.”

  He could see Nate’s name on the call screen clear as day. Just one flick of his thumb and the ringer turned silent. One flick. He pictured the image until it grew blurry in his brain. “He collapsed that night. The coke stopped his heart.”

  Sophie gasped again. “Oh, my.”

  Grant stared at his plate. “I saw his name and I ignored him. My best friend.” Remembering made him sick to his stomach. Now she knew. His eyes stayed on his plate, too afraid to look up and see the judgment in Sophie’s eyes. She’d never look at him the same way again.

  “It’s not your fault,” she said.

  Why did people keep saying that to him? He’d become a man who turned off the phone when his best friend was in trouble. A man who didn’t blink twice regarding anything, so long as it helped him get closer to his prize.

  Might as well share the coup de grâce to his shame. “Want to know the kicker? I won the award. For my ‘brilliantly designed blend of modern and historic.’ Sound familiar? Congratulations to me.” He raised his glass. “I quit the next day.”

  “Wow,” Sophie said finally. “That’s horrible.” Sophie didn’t know what more to say. What terrible regret for anyone to carry around. She was amazed the sadness in his eyes wasn’t deeper, a testimony to how strong spirited he was. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Wasn’t my loss. It was Nate’s.”

  No, it was both of theirs. Her chest ached. Like someone had sucker punched her breastbone. His story hit her in ways she hadn’t expected. Yes, she felt his guilt and regret, yes, she empathized. Underneath the sympathy, however, she recognized a great realization. She felt as if she
was truly seeing Grant for the very first time. The real Grant. Not her sexy younger neighbor, but a man. A flesh and blood man with a heavy soul and ghosts that could rival her own. A man a woman could easily fall for if she let herself.

  A man who, like the flea market coat she put back on the rack, was all wrong for her.

  * * *

  Those thoughts dogged her the entire way home. Or rather they braided themselves with the sensation from the flea market leaving her insides all twisted. Since Grant wasn’t doing a whole lot of talking, she had time to try and unravel them on the walk home. Unfortunately, all she could think of was how wrong the man was for her. There were so many reasons why, too. His age. The way he kept her off balance. His age.

  The biggest issue, though, was the fact he simply did not fit into her plans. She wasn’t looking for a fling; affairs weren’t her style. And face it, what more could she do with Grant beyond a fling?

  Plus, there was David, who was a far better fit for her lifestyle. Grant was simply some hot guy she’d known for a few days. Her feelings toward him were still mostly physical. The increased awareness, or whatever you want to call it, she was currently experiencing, meant nothing.

  Glancing over, she saw that Grant remained lost in his own world. Regretting telling his story? Possibly. The muscle twitching in his jaw suggested as much.

  “Thank you for lunch,” she said, hoping to pull him from his reverie. “Or maybe I should say dinner. It’s certainly late enough.” Between the flea market and the restaurant, they managed to eat away a good portion of the day.

  “Suppose this means you’ll be up half the night working.”

  Sophie thought of the paperwork she left behind. “I did leave a lot unfinished. I hate unfinished business,” she added softly. It reminded her too much of chaos. Of waiting for the next shoe to drop. She’d spent enough time waiting—and getting pegged by falling shoes—as a kid.

  “My boss, Allen Breckinridge, tends to call at odd hours asking for information. Unfinished business means I have to scramble for a reason why I don’t have the information he wants. Trust me, you never want to have to scramble in front of Allen Breckinridge.”