“I was wondering if we could get together soon.”
“Why?” Deliberately, Kelly didn’t offer anything else. She knew Perry liked his clients to talk. Often they had an idea for a campaign they were interested in and he said he didn’t want to get in the way. Kelly knew better. He didn’t really have a good sense of design, so he waited for them to tell him what they wanted. Then he could turn it around and act as if it was his idea.
“We haven’t seen each other in a long while.”
“Wasn’t that what you wanted? If I remember correctly, you said we were done, over, needed to go our separate ways and find our own direction.” She quoted him word for word.
“I’m sure we’ve grown wiser since then. It’s been a couple of years.”
“I’ve grown,” Kelly said, leaving the unspoken sentence to imply that he had not.
“I have, too. I was thinking of taking a day off. I could come see you. We could have lunch, get back to where we were before.”
The nerve of him, Kelly thought.
“You know to me you were always special, the one who was different, who knew me better than anyone else.”
Kelly couldn’t vouch for that, but she could say she knew his type.
“What do you have in mind?” she asked, keeping the sarcasm out of her voice.
“I thought we could make a day of it.”
“You mean you want to see the Kendall? Are you thinking of planning an event here for a client?”
“No, I’m thinking of you and I spending time together.”
Again her mouth dropped open. Spending time in his presence was the last thing she would want.
“Perry, I’m very busy. I have an opening coming up and I can’t afford to take any time away from preparations for that.”
“Kelly, we know you have time to take a rest and get back to work the next day. The place won’t fall apart if you take one day off.”
“Sorry, Perry, but enjoy your day off.”
She didn’t wait for him to say goodbye or to try to make arrangements for another day or time. Kelly was not interested.
Back in New York, they seemed the perfect couple—young, upwardly mobile with plenty of disposable income. But he found someone else and suddenly Kelly was no longer the woman he wanted to be with.
And now, after two years, he calls and wants to pick up where they left off. Did he think she’d put her life on hold, waiting for him to see reason and return to her? Kelly was the one who saw reason. Not long after that, she’s lost her first big client and was ostracized within the firm. It wasn’t too hard to figure out that being let go would likely be the next step.
Disillusioned with everything about her life, she’d started to think of how to make some much-needed changes.
When Mira called to tell her the Kendall was going to be sold for taxes, it was the final puzzle piece Kelly needed to change her life. No way would she go backward and start seeing Perry again. There was no need anyway. Returning to Perry would be like stepping down, going back in time and reliving a life she had no possibility of enjoying.
“What was that all about?” Jace asked from the door.
Kelly instantly felt a glow inside her. She turned and faced him. “Past history,” she told him.
“Are you all right with it?”
She nodded. “Over and done with.”
“Is that what brought you back here?” he asked.
Kelly looked surprised.
“I have ears, too. I hear things,” Jace said.
“Like what?”
“Like you bought the Kendall because of a breakup with some guy in New York.”
That was it in a nutshell, Kelly thought. Jace had been kind. He didn’t say because some guy in New York dumped her. “That’s not the entire story.”
“Was that him?”
“It was. He wants to come down and spend the day with me.”
For a moment, Kelly thought she saw Jace frown.
“Are you going to let him?”
She watched him closely. His body language didn’t change, but he let his breath out slowly. Kelly couldn’t say she didn’t know why. Jace was attracted to her. Any woman knew when a man wanted to move to the next level. Only she couldn’t. Not yet.
She shook her head. “Old news. No longer relevant.”
CHAPTER NINE
“I CAME BY your office for a reason,” Jace said. It wasn’t to overhear Kelly’s conversation. But when she began to talk, he had listened.
“What did you want?” Kelly asked.
“The back garden is unfinished. I wondered if you’d mind if I worked on it?”
“What are you planning to do?”
Jace knew Kelly was seeing dollar signs. Even the garden required plants, sand and dirt, bricks and cording. Some landscaping jobs cost thousands of dollars, but this one wouldn’t.