She knew he was right, but no way did she want to say so.
"I'll think about it. And I'll look at that-" She reached for the papers he handed her, and set them in her briefcase, "-over the weekend if you'll stop fighting with your Dad."
"Well, if he'd quit refusing to do things my way..."
"I'm sure he feels the same, but it's distracting. As someone just told me, the employees need reassurance. If you need to make him yell, do it away from the factory."
"Like at the LFBA mixer?"
"You're having fun again?"
"Why do you think I come up here?" He rose to his feet and reached for the door knob, but halted, his grin fading into a serious expression. "Well, here's your problem right here."
She followed his gaze to the top of the filing cabinet that was usually hidden by the open door. A cigarette, cold and dangling an inch of ash, balanced on the edge.
"That wasn't Dad's. It wasn't even there yesterday," she said. "Who left it?"
"I don't know, but they could have burned down the building." He walked out, shouting for Quinn.
Chapter Thirteen
Sterling was in the habit of going straight to his kitchen window when he walked into his grandmother's house. It looked toward the back of Grady's house and he liked to check that all was well over there. He had to be discreet about it this evening though. His mother was at the sink, washing dishes.
"There's a casserole in the oven," she told him. "Take it out in twenty minutes, let it sit for ten and remember to turn the oven off."
"Thanks, Mom." He kissed her cheek while glancing across the yards. The sun was glinting off the windows and the curtains were closed. Paige usually opened them when she got home, but she had still been working when he'd left. He'd slipped away early to stop at the hardware store.
He'd spent the week letting his mother dust and vacuum while he had shopped his parents' basement for furniture that his father's father had made. His mother had stored it there because it didn't suit her décor. It suited him, though. One piece, a cedar wardrobe from Roy Furnishings' earliest days, had only needed a minor retrofit to convert it into a television cabinet. He was on his way to check the early news when his mother's voice stopped him.
"Your mattress arrived. They tried delivering it to Grady's. I had to run over and tell them to come around the block."
"That's weird." He went to the bedroom to check it.
The king-size bed was the only new furniture in the house and overkill for this tiny room, but he'd brought the frame home from the factory anyway. He would have been cramped in his grandmother's Original Heritage Double and he liked the headboard drawers and modern design of Roy's Future Generations line.
The bed looked good. His mother had made it up with dark blue sheets and a duvet in rippling shades of blue.
He tried the mattress, thought it felt softer than when he'd tested it at Fildew's. When he sat up, he bounced a couple of times, checking to see what kind of noise the frame made. A faint creak. Just enough to add some atmosphere if he got lucky.
Was Paige home yet?
He really ought to stop thinking about her that way, but it was getting harder every day. Literally.
She'd been so cute here that day, so young looking, confessing that she had liked him. He'd been so obsessed with her in high school, he'd nearly lost it in his jeans that long ago night, just from kissing her. How could she not have known that?
He wasn't much better now, thinking about her all the time. Not just fantasies, either. He liked her. She was funny. Self-deprecating and smart.
Single.
So what did he think? That they could finish what they'd started? Yes please, his dick cried, but with the buy-back and everything else, he couldn't afford more complications.
No more teenaged antics.
He went back to the kitchen where his mother was drying the dishes, staring out the window.
"She's coming over here, bold as you please. Honestly, the least she could do is walk along the fence-line, beneath the trees, where no one would see her."
Paige cast a long shadow when she cut around the broken section of fence between their properties, still limping, but no longer using crutches.
She wore the thigh-hugging skirt she'd had on at the office this afternoon, but had abandoned the jacket in the heat of the Indian summer afternoon.
Who'd have guessed that the lace decorating her cleavage beneath the non-descript jacket had actually been a translucent tank? He could practically see the bow between the cups of her bra.
"Is this a regular occurrence, Sterling? Because your father does not need gossip at this stage of his campaign."
What campaign? He hadn't even formally declared.
"The last time she came over, someone had broken into her house." Sterling stepped onto the porch. It was only two feet off the ground, but when Paige halted below him, it was high enough to give him a nice view down her top. He leaned on the rail, enjoying the vantage. "I thought you were busy with dried flowers tonight. What happened? Another break-in?"
"Brazen theft. My mattress was stolen by a Mrs. Evelyn Roy."
"I beg your pardon?" His mother came out the door behind him, and looked down her nose at Paige. "That's libel, young lady."
"Actually it's slander, Mom. Libel is if you do it in print. Mom's here," Sterling said to Paige.
"I see that." Paige showed her teeth in a forced smile. "Nice to see you again, Mrs. Roy."
Sterling thought that tank would look really good without the bra. Really good. He cleared his throat. "Mom took delivery of my mattress for me this afternoon. Now she's making me dinner."
"Aren't you lucky? I think you took my mattress by mistake, Mrs. Roy. I was expecting one today, but when I called Fildew's, they said you had signed for it."
"I signed for Sterling's mattress." She slung her tea towel over her shoulder. "Your bed is Not. Here."
Gosh, Mom. Say it with more emphasis. We might have missed the subtext.
He offered to make a call.
"No, I'll do it tomorrow." Paige checked her watch. "I have to pick up my mom right now. See you at work. I imagine I'll see you at the LFBA mixer tomorrow night, Mrs. Roy? Sterling said it was important I make an appearance, being your husband's partner, but you'd know better. Perhaps I'm not needed?"
"I-" His mother couldn't immediately decide whether she should continue being snotty, or succumb to the flattering remark about her superior knowledge. Yes, Paige knew how to play his mother, all right.
Inside the house, a buzzer went off.
"Your supper is ready, Sterling. Eat before it gets cold." She marched in.
He tried sharing a smile with Paige over the way his mother was trying to regress him, but she didn't see the humor.
"Let her talk you out of my going, ‘kay?"
"I'm not suffering alone."
Curling her lip at him, she turned to go.
He almost called her back with a remark about sharing his mattress, but he stifled it. There was fantasy and there was reality. Hot as his memories were, making a move in real life probably wouldn't turn out any less disastrous than it had the first time.
"Sterling. Your supper."
And he should really get rid of his mother before inviting a woman home.
~ * ~
Friday turned into the kind of work day Paige would normally recover from in the bathtub while reading about a Regency virgin reforming one of London's most notorious rakes. Unfortunately, she had the LFBA thing.
This after spending half the day caught between Sterling and Walter. Sterling had pressured her to come up with the numbers to make all his upgrades happen while Walter resisted, then took issue with the procedural changes she wanted Olinda to make.
Between today, and yesterday's mattress debacle with Sterling's mother, she was feeling peevish. She was considering not showing at the LFBA thing.
But she was a partner. Amazing how one little word had the power to provoke both terror of profound responsibility, along with a reassuring sense of belonging. She checked. Yes, that's how she felt. Like she had a right to be at Roy Furnishings. Which was strange, but she kind of liked it.
Even if being a partner forced her to view her wardrobe in a whole new light.
In this moment, Paige was actually sorry that Rosie had left for Palm Springs and wasn't home to confer over her dress. She didn't even know why she had brought this one from Seattle, only that when she went on the road for any reason, this dress went into the bag. It packed well and dressed up and down easily.
So why was she hesitating to wear it?
Because it was a little too sexy and inviting to wear around a man she found sexy and secretly dreamed of inviting.
Someone knocked.
Paige zipped the back of her dress and ran down to answer.
Sterling waited on the stoop, his navy suit flawless, his hair damp and tousled, his jaw shiny from a fresh shave.