House Tour
LILA
As he walks me through it, I start forming my professional assessment. There’s very little personal assessment to go off of, because Slade keeps nothing personal in this home.
Lucky trails behind us as he walks me through the house, her prosthetic leg clicking softly on the reclaimed wood floors, nose tipped up like she’s taking inventory too.
He stops in the main bedroom. The views of the mountains are astonishing, steel windows revealing a vista of sweeping, pristine wilderness. There’s a hawk floating on a thermal above the tree line. Pine trees swaying in the wind.
“What a gorgeous view to wake up to every morning,” I sigh longingly.
With difficulty I tear my gaze away from the window. Only to find Slade gazing at me.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “It’s something.”
I picture waking up in this bedroom. With the man it belongs to.
That is… not part of the professional assessment.
With some difficulty, I force my focus on the only furniture in the room. Which is a mattress on the floor.
It’s neatly made, at least. One blanket. One pillow.
Does one pillow mean he doesn’t share his bed with a companion?
My gaze finds Slade’s as I try to come up with something diplomatic to say about the mattress on the floor situation.
In the silence, he gives me a rueful look, rubbing the back of his neck. “You see why I need you in here.”
But he’s looking at the bed when he says it, and my stupid ovulating horny brain unhelpfully imagines he’s saying he needs me in his bedroom, specifically.
As in his bed.
“I have lots of ideas for what we could do in this bedroom,” I say.
This time, it’s his gaze that snaps to me, and I realize that what I just said could be read any number of ways.
“Do tell.” There’s something about the glimmer in his eyes that makes me wonder if he’s teasing me. Flirting, even.
“Before we get into all of that,” I say quickly, “let’s talk about your needs and wants in here.”
He tilts his head. “My needs and want in the bedroom?”
My cheeks heat. “I mean, the things you like to do in here.”
Oh God, I’m making it so much worse.
His lips press together, like he’s hiding a smile.
I close my eyes briefly, ignoring my burning face and thanking God Slade is too much of a gentleman to point out I’m probably the color of a lobster.
“Let’s try this again,” I say. “Let’s go over your day-to-day. When did you wake up this morning?”
“About four.”
I give a little shudder.
His eyebrow quirks. “Not a morning person?”
“I like mornings. I just like spending them lazing around in bed.”
“Do you?” he murmurs. The corner of his mouth lifts.
Do not flirt with the client.
“I suppose you’re already hard at work by sunup,” I say. I say that instead of yes, I do like to laze around in bed, shall we practice together?
“Usually I’m an early riser, yes.” Those dark green eyes glimmer as they hold mine. “But I could be persuaded to stay in bed. For the right reasons.”
The words send a flutter of heat through my stomach. I can think of more than a few compelling reasons I could keep him in bed.
My fingers clutch my notebook a little tighter.
“Walk me through your daily routine,” I say, attempting a professional, brisk tone. “I like to know how my clients actually live in their spaces.”
He pushes his hair back. “Four AM, work out. Five, on horseback. Spend the day working the ranch, then back by dinner.” He says it like it’s nothing, like spending twelve hours doing physical labor is just how his life works.
I’m tired just thinking about it.
“And on days off?”
“Don’t really take those. What do you do on your days off?”
“Go to the farmer’s market. I usually try to bring home flowers. You must always keep fresh flowers in the house. It’s a cardinal rule,” I tell him with a smile. “Then I might go down to the bookstore or coffee shop. Catch up on paperwork.”
“Paperwork doesn’t sound like much of a day off,” he says.
I shrug. “Life as a small business owner. Your workday bleeds into every day.”
He nods. “I get it. The ranch doesn’t take days off either.” His gaze moves to the window, where horses graze in the distance. “The work never ends.”
We are, I realize, not so different in this. I appreciate that he understands.
The last man I was with did not appreciate the way my brain never fully clocked out. I tried to explain that my work was also my passion, but he broke things off because he said I wasn’t present, claimed I wasn’t meeting his needs.
I take a sip of the beer Slade handed to me. It’s a strong IPA and I accidentally skipped lunch, so the buzz is winding through my veins. It’s loosening my tongue, too, which is probably why I let slip, “It’s nice when someone gets it, instead of resenting it.”
Slade’s gaze sharpens. “Someone gave you a hard time about your work.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“No.” He turns his beer bottle once. “Just a guess.”
I look at my notebook. “Ex-boyfriend. He felt my work got more of me than he did.” I sigh. “He wasn’t entirely wrong, in all fairness.”
“Sounds like a him problem. If he was worth paying attention to, you would have paid attention to him.”
I laugh, startled by the insight as much as the fact that it’s coming from Slade. “I suppose that’s true.”
He pushes off the wall he’s leaning on and walks toward me, unhurried, and reaches out. “I’ll take that for you,” he says.
Our fingers brush as he slips the empty bottle from my hand.
His proximity, the casual accidental touch, flusters me more than it should. I feel like a schoolgirl with a crush.
“Thank you,” I manage.
“Want another?” he asks, nodding toward the beer.
I do. I could happily spend the entire rest of the day with Slade. “I shouldn’t,” I say reluctantly. “I’ve got monthly accounts to balance after this.”
When we head back to the kitchen, he tosses the bottles in the recycling and leans against the counter. “So what’s your professional opinion of this place? What’s next?”
Professional. Right.
“It’s a beautiful home,” I say, “And it certainly needs to be furnished, and perhaps some earthier finishings to warm it up, but… can I be honest with you?”
He goes still, like he’s bracing himself for something. “Go ahead.”
“Okay. Is it safe to say you’re a minimalist?”
“I don’t know. I guess. I don’t care about stuff.”
I smile gently at him. “‘Stuff’ is kind of what I do. You’re a minimalist. I’m a maximalist. This place is all clean lines and neutral colors, and, well.
You’ve seen my boutique. It’s all about color and texture and pattern and quirky details.
” Regretfully, I say, “Maybe we’re not the right fit for each other. ”
There’s a pause.
“But Lila. This?” He gestures around himself. “This is what I want to change. I grew up in a house like the one you’re describing. Something colorful and warm and lived-in and… I’d like this place to feel like that too. I just don’t know how. That’s where I need you.”
I consider everything he’s shown or told me so far. The house with nothing in it. The rental apartments in one city after another. The couch he’d toss in a fire without a second thought. The dog he’ll take in temporarily, but not claim as his own.
Nothing permanent. Nothing that couldn’t be walked away from easily.
As I hesitate, he says into the silence, “I want this house to feel like you.”
Something warm blooms in my chest at those words. Slade’s expression remains neutral, but color climbs his cheekbones. Just the slightest hint of it, but it’s deeply satisfying to witness on a man this contained.
“What I mean is,” he says, looking away, “you have carte-blanche here. Do whatever you want to do.”
That’s pretty much the best thing a designer can ever hear from a client, and so vanishingly rare to experience that I feel the need to test it.
“I’ll want to wallpaper that powder room,” I warn him. “I’m thinking hand-painted florals.”
I wait for the wince. Every male client winces at hand-painted florals.
He doesn’t even blink. “Sounds good to me.”
“And there will be pillows everywhere. I started my career slinging pillows and I can’t quit them. They’ll be all over every sofa. Piled three rows deep on your bed. You’ll have to throw them off every time you get in it. You’ll be cursing my name.”
His gaze slips down my body and then away as he focuses on something in the distance. “I won’t be cursing your name when I take those pillows off my bed, I promise you that.”
The drawl lands somewhere low in my belly.
No, not cursing my name, an inner voice taunts. Murmuring it softly. Growling it directly in my ear as he—
“There will be art all over the walls,” I blurt. “Plants to water. Antiques and knick-knacks as far as the eye can see.”
I keep waiting for the flinch, and it’s still not coming.
“Perfect,” he says.
A smile comes to my lips. “Even that peacock lamp?”
Finally, there’s a pause. He exhales, sounding hilariously resigned as he says, “If you think it belongs here, it belongs here.”
Wow. I think he actually meant it when he said carte-blanche. I mean, I love that objectively ridiculous lamp, but it’s man-repeller in the form of home decor.
I can’t help but grin. “You’re putting a lot of faith in a girl you met wearing a sexy bunny suit on the side of the road.”
“If hockey’s taught me anything, it’s that you need to push past your limits sometimes. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.”
“Is that so?” I bite my lip. “And how do you get comfortable being uncomfortable?”
He says, “Practice.”
Unhelpfully, my brain serves up all the videos of him on ice that I watched. The pregame stretching, rolling his hips forward with a slow patience that made me put my phone face-down and stare at my ceiling.
Fifteen years of that body learning how much it can take. How hard it can go. How long it can keep going. Lots and lots of practice.
I lick my lips. His eyes have been holding steady on mine, but they dip to my mouth now.
Do not objectify the client.
“Okay then.” I stick out my hand for a handshake. “Welcome to Lila Interiors.”
Slade takes it. But instead of shaking it he just holds it, his thumb resting on my knuckles, and the warmth of his palm against mine makes it hard to remember what I was about to say next.
“You’ve got your work cut out for you here,” he says.
“It’s good work.” I lean in slightly. “And I promise I won’t make you commit to the peacock lamp.”
His gaze roams over me, softening slightly as he keeps my hand in his. “I’ll commit to anything you want me to.”