Chapter Nine #2
“Floor two is our marketing and design teams; third floor is finance; and four is executives. We divide the remaining plants between those three floors.”
“Can we do the fourth floor first?” Lily asked.
“Sure, Rob and I will do that floor. You take two,” Garrett said.
Lily blew out a sigh of relief. “Thanks.”
They separated the plant material by floors and then loaded carts.
Lily arrived on the second floor and pushed her cage cart out into a small, deserted reception area.
To the right extended a long hall leading to a series of doored offices and windowed anterooms, and to the left extended a long aisle armored on both sides with a sea of metal cubicles.
She headed toward the cubicle aisle first.
Garrett had merely said to use her judgment in placing the stock and specified only that two-thirds of the floor’s allotment should go to the cubicles and the remainder to the other offices, which suited Lily just fine.
Swiftly delivering the appropriate amount of stock to delighted cubicle occupants, she moved on to the right hallway, casting surreptitious glances through doors and windows as she passed.
She dropped off and unsleeved a variety of palms, peace lilies, and aralias as she moved down the hall, leaving most of the plants in the anterooms for the secretaries to enjoy. All recipients conveyed their thanks.
A larger reception area guarded the executive offices at the far end of the hall, and she aimed her cart and its sole remaining occupant in that direction. As she eased the cart forward, she noticed the gentleman conversing with the seated receptionist, and she froze.
Chester Armstead blinked back at her through the thickened lenses of his glasses. His eyes suddenly narrowed. Lily wanted to back her cart all the way to the elevator, but she couldn’t seem to make her feet move.
“Well, my goodness,” he said, looking her up and down. “Lily Foster, right?”
“Yes, that’s right.” She attempted a smile and failed miserably. Since Armstead didn’t look surprised to see Lily pushing a plant cart, Delia had no doubt filled him in on her ill-fated nursery delivery at Rhett’s home.
Stepping forward, he extended a hand. “Chester Armstead. We met at my daughter Delia’s cocktail party. You were with—”
“I remember,” Lily said, cutting him off and giving his hand one hard shake. She resisted the urge to wipe her hand on her shorts.
“So Rhett’s decided to dress up the interior as well as the exterior of his building, I see.”
“No, Garrett is,” she told him. “I mean, Mr. Tucker ordered this stock.”
“Oh well, same thing. Garrett is as much BDC as Rhett is.” Armstead gave her another condescending once-over, much to the delight of the receptionist who leaned around him to get a better look at Lily.
“Spending time with Rhett has sure kick-started your business, hasn’t it, Ms. Foster?” An evil glint flashed in his eyes. “I wonder, was that a fortuitous venture or was that planned?”
Lily hated the man’s ugly insinuation, but she couldn’t win here. There was no good answer to his question, so she opted for evasion.
“I have work to do, Mr. Armstead. If you’ll excuse me?”
He stepped in front of her cart. “On another floor?”
She lifted her chin and met his contemptuous gaze. “That’s right. The third floor is next, so if you’ll let me pass, I’ll be on my way.”
“Of course.” He made a production of stepping aside, as though brushing up against her would get him dirty.
Lily clenched her teeth, unsleeved the sole Spathiphyllum she had remaining, and hustled her cart back to the elevator.
Armstead watched her go and turned to the receptionist. “I’m finished here, Kathy.
Be a dear and call Mr. Buchanan’s secretary and have her tell Rhett to meet me on the third floor instead of up in his office as we had planned, then have her call Aiden Cross and tell him the same thing.
I’ll be on three with Lucas Van Dorn. We can have our meeting in his private conference room. ”
~ ~ ~ ~
Lily had tortured herself every night since the charity gala with visions of Rhett and Delia in bed together.
He had marched out of the gala, his arm tight around Delia, without a backward glance in Lily’s direction.
Their fledgling relationship had ended at his mansion, but that flagrant gala exit put an exclamation point on the finale.
Now, standing in the lobby of BDC and reloading her cart for the third floor, she had to fight back images of Rhett. Though she’d never been here before, this building was his headquarters, and she could almost see him everywhere she looked, coming and going for his regular workdays.
She told her herself over and over that Rhett had destroyed any feelings she’d had for him the minute he had tossed her out of his house, but her mind and her memories teamed up with other ideas.
Memories of their romantic week in New York stealthily evaded her best defenses and slipped into focus at off times throughout the day.
Snippets of memories to make her breath catch in her throat or trip her up as she moved through the greenhouses.
Rhett holding her hand in the horse-drawn carriage in the moonlight.
Rhett buying an orchid from a street vendor and tucking it behind her ear as they boarded the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty.
Rhett sharing a chaise lounge with her on their balcony at the Waldorf Astoria, and the two of them kissing and talking until three in the morning.
One by one, the memories would all parade past to taunt her with their soul-deep joy and tantalize with their promise of a real-life fairy tale. Yet the memory of Rhett that made her ache the worst for what might have been didn’t involve any physical interaction with her.
On the last day of their trip, Rhett had taken her to New York’s most famous cathedral—St. Patty’s he had called it—and introduced her to an elderly priest who came rushing over to greet them as soon as they stepped into the cathedral’s darkened interior.
After shaking Father Tom’s hand, Lily had proceeded down the center aisle to see the sanctuary and was immediately taken aback by the magnificent architecture of the edifice and the incredible stained glass windows but even more so by the bodies lying prostrate in the pews.
She stared for a moment before she realized they were all homeless people, sleeping where they could be cool and dry.
Lily turned to ask Rhett about this and noticed he was still back in the narthex with Father Tom. As she watched, Rhett covertly placed something in the older man’s hand before moving ahead to join her in the aisle.
Later when they were leaving the sanctuary, Rhett had been pulled aside to greet another younger priest, and Father Tom had approached Lily to say good-bye.
“You have a fine man there, Lily,” Father Tom assured her, intimating their relationship to be more permanent than it actually was, and she couldn’t find the will or desire to correct him. She liked the priest thinking of her and Rhett as permanent.
“He always stops in to see us when he’s in New York, and he never forgets them,” Father Tom was saying and angled his head toward the pews that held the sleeping homeless.
“Never forgets them?” she parroted.
The priest leaned back to study her face. “Didn’t you know?”
Clueless as to what he was talking about, she shook her head.
Father Tom smiled gently. “Well, I don’t suppose he’d mind me telling you since he said you were special.”
Rhett had said she was special? She nodded as though granting permission, though she really wanted to keep him talking, and the priest smiled.
“When Rhett stops by to visit on his trips to New York City, he always asks ‘How many?’ Then he leaves enough for each of them to have a hundred.”
Bewildered, she asked, “A hundred what?”
Father Tom chuckled. “Dollars.”
“He handed you money?”
Father Tom nodded. “Always does. Says he remembers all too well what it’s like to be poor and hungry.” The elderly priest grinned, and his cheeks folded into numerous wrinkles. “Never matters how many are present. He never misses one. Sometimes we have three dozen or so in here.”
“Thank you for sharing that with me,” Lily said past the lump in her throat and turned to look for Rhett, feeling the sting of tears behind her eyelids.
Out in the narthex near the door, Rhett stood straight and handsome and tall, and nothing had ever looked so wonderful in all her life. He caught her eye and motioned for them to go, and she knew that was the moment she fell head over heels in love with Rhett Buchanan.
She sighed deeply and glanced around the tastefully decorated lobby of the BDC headquarters.
Did Rhett come through the front door of his office building and ride the elevators each morning, or did the brilliant CEO have a private back entrance?
Was his secretary drop-dead gorgeous? Probably.
Yet Rhett didn’t seem the type to dabble with his direct reports.
At the thought of dabbling, Lily’s mind swung back to cursed Delia. Did the witch visit here like her father upstairs? And how often? Lily crushed her eyes shut to force out the painful images flitting across her brain.
Concentrate on your work.
The elevator dinged, and the doors parted to let Garrett and Rob exit with their cart. Garrett checked his watch and followed Rob and the cart to the remaining staged plants.
“We’re through on the fourth floor,” Garrett said.
“Was he up there?” Lily couldn’t help asking, and her stomach did a little flip-flop.
“No, I told you he wasn’t expected back for a couple hours.”
For some inexplicable reason, Lily felt a splash of disappointment, which was ludicrous. If Rhett showed up during this delivery, he would no doubt explode like he had that day at his mansion. Why would she want to live through that again?
“What’s so funny?” Garrett asked when she suddenly smiled.
“I was just wondering where Rhett would throw my plants if he walked in. There’s no pool.”