“Ah, but bella, Kaiser said you’d show me your sketches.” Carvel’s eyes crinkled in the corners when he smiled and then winked at her.
Heidi almost laughed at the cliché but just turned and put her key in the door instead. She seriously doubted the veracity of the statement, of course—Kaiser hadn’t even asked to see her sketches himself. “Well you’ll have to forgive my modest little apartment, then,” she apologized, leading him to the elevator.
“Most of the people in this business started humbly,” Carvel noted as the elevator took them up.
“You?” Heidi asked, raising her eyebrows in mock surprise. She knew better.
Carvel grinned and winked at her. “Well…not me.”
“Not Andrea Paxton, either,” Heidi muttered, fumbling with her keys again as she approached her apartment door. She’d been diligent about cleaning before she left, anticipating, although dreading, Carvel’s visit as a possibility.
“Ah, Andrea, yes.” He followed her in and Heidi winced as he looked around, taking in the little L-shaped space that constituted kitchen and living room. There were just two other rooms, a bedroom that barely fit a twin bed and a bathroom that had a shower so small it was hard even for her to turn around in. Carvel didn’t seem fazed by her simple and rather sparse furniture choices, taking a seat on the futon and spreading his arms comfortably across the back. “Andrea will make quite a name for herself.”
“Kaiser thinks so,” Heidi agreed, making a face he couldn’t see as she turned to put her purse and wrap on a chair.#p#分页标题#e#
“Kaiser has good judgment,” he remarked, his face then spreading with a smile. “But he doesn’t know everything about Andrea Paxton.”
“You can say that again,” she mumbled, trying to decide if she should sit on the futon beside him—dangerous territory—or pull a kitchen chair over.
“Look at the books!” he exclaimed, nodding toward the floor to ceiling bookshelves. There was no television, but the shelves were stuffed to overflowing with books.
“I’ve always been a reader,” she admitted, flushing. “Little worlds, every one.”
Carvel smiled, patting the futon beside him, giving her little choice in the matter. “You are a special one, bella.”
Heidi hesitated, going to her book shelves and pulling down an oversized portfolio, deciding to keep up the pretense, if nothing else. “My sketches are in here…if you really wanted to see them.”
“Of course!” He smiled, sitting up as she set the book on the coffee table. “How about a cognac? Brandy?”
She smiled. It would be his umpteenth of the night, but of course, she had nothing like it. “I have wine. It’s not Dom Perignon, but it’s not Thunderbird, either.”
He chuckled. “Whatever you have is fine.”
Heidi found a brandy snifter sitting on her kitchen counter filled with what she was sure was a very expensive, very aged cognac. Kaiser must have known he would want it. She didn’t bother to wonder how he had gotten into her apartment—she was sure he had sent someone, perhaps even paid the super. Somehow, he’d managed to get done what he wanted done—he always did.
“Make yourself one,” Carvel called as Heidi poured the cognac into a glass, which had also been provided.
“Oh, I don’t drink much…” She’d already been too gluttonous with the champagne over dinner, at Carvel’s insistence, and her head was more than a little fuzzy.
“Make yourself one,” he insisted and Heidi sighed, pouring herself a glass and taking them both over to the futon.
“These are good,” Carvel remarked as she set the glass down, holding hers, and sitting beside him. “These are very good.”
“You’re kind.” She smiled, shaking her head, sipping the fiery amber-colored liquid in her hand for courage. She couldn’t believe that Roberto Carvel was sitting in her apartment looking at her designs. A month ago she would have thought it impossible.
“No,” he assured her. “Far from it. I am a mercenary old bastard…and these could make me money. In fact, they remind me…” He frowned, tapping his finger on one of her designs, and Heidi just knew he was going to mention Andrea again and didn’t want to have to go there.
“I seem to have a better selection of spirits than I previously thought,” she said, lifting her glass so he could see. His eyebrows went up and he found his own glass on the table, breathing in the alcohol’s scent.
“Oh that’s fine!” he remarked, lifting his glass in salute before taking a drink. “Ahhh, that does the trick. Drink up!”