Chapter 18 An Unbeatable Plan
AN UNBEATABLE PLAN
SKYLAR
I hold my breath as Ford’s mother settles her sixty-three-year-old ass—her words—into the secondhand-but-looks-like-new chair.
She shifts around a little. Pats the arms. Leans her head back against the pillow. Takes an assessing breath.
Meanwhile, I am holding mine, praying Maggie Devon likes the chair. Sure, I’ll roll with it if she doesn’t, but I really want her to like it. If she doesn’t like this chair, I’m not sure her rear, back, elbow, or any other part of her will like the other pieces I’ve sourced.
After a long, silent moment—or fifty million of them, who knows—she pushes up and issues a command: “Show me around. I’ve got a five p.m. flight to catch.”
I blink. Okay, she keeps surprising me. “You’re not staying overnight?”
She chuckles and shakes her head. “I have a gala here in San Francisco to prepare for in a few more weeks.” That must be the one Ford mentioned—the last one she’s throwing before retiring. “And I have a brunch meeting with the board tomorrow morning back in Seattle.”
She doesn’t say chop-chop, but I hear it in her tone. She hasn’t issued a verdict on the chair. But now’s not the time to ask. Now’s the time to show her I read her right last week when I gave her the video tour at Twice Loved.
So, with Ford following quietly along, I usher his mom through the home.
I show her the couch, the kitchen table, some nightstands for the bedroom, a fantastic vintage roll-top desk for the study, and a peach-orange sofa for that room too.
We get to the chairs for the deck, which are made out of—yep—bamboo.
“Bamboo is the new black,” I say, bright and upbeat.
Then a fresh worry hits. What if she listens to my podcast?
I did ask to feature her home on it. Worse, what if she knows her son is Sexy Reno Guy?
Ugh. I should keep my ogling to myself, even though it’s not the worst thing to say about someone’s adult son.
For now, I keep my chin up and show her what I want to do with the lighting, flicking through the options on my tablet.
She whips a pair of reading glasses from her purse and sets them on the bridge of her nose to peer at my tablet. Meanwhile, I sweat.
Sometimes she feels like my best friend. Sometimes she’s like the next Judge Judy, ready to sustain all the objections to my design choices.
When she takes off her glasses, she sweeps out an arm toward the kitchen. “The kitchen is a make-or-break,” she says, mincing zero words.
“It is,” I say. It’s the one room I’ve had little to do with. “But I’ve been eager to hear what you’d like to do there, if anything.”
I’ve kept the kitchen a blank slate. It’s clean and minimalist already, which can offer a lovely simplicity. But the second she steps into it, she shudders at the sight of the white cabinets. “I despise them,” she says, shielding her eyes as if they’re giving off rays.
I start to worry that she despises everything and is just waiting to tell me so, one item at a time. “In that case,” I say, keeping my tone light, “I have paint options in muted earth tones.”
“No. I hate everything about them.”
Okay, that’s fair. But she also wanted eco-friendly design, so ripping them out isn’t ideal. Somehow, I need to deal with her hatred of these cabinets without throwing them into a landfill.
And I need to do it in about two seconds or I will lose this gig.
The day Ford showed me around the house, he said his mother hated the painter. That she wants everything done yesterday. That she’s a woman who’s not afraid to pull the plug on a project. I need to impress her.
Think fast.
Ford, who’s been silent, clears his throat and says, “Tell us what your dream cabinets look like.”
She turns to her son, beaming. “Excellent question.”
And I could kiss him for the save. Just kiss him.
Instead, I focus on his mother. She rattles off details, and in a bolt of brilliance, I know what to do.
“I’ve got an idea,” I say, then usher her down to the garage where I show her a bare wall, perfect for a workbench and cabinets for storage.
“We could take those kitchen cabinets and move them down here so we’re not just ripping them out and sending them to the landfill.
I know a carpenter, and she’s fantastic.
Then we can get some reclaimed wood cabinets for the kitchen. ”
For the first time since she arrived, Maggie beams. “Yes. Do that.”
Then she breezes out. But first, she stops in the doorway, looks back at me, and says, “By the way—the chair is fantastic. I needed to see how my ass felt twenty minutes later, and I approve.”
I want to punch the sky. As his mother heads upstairs, I turn to Ford, grinning in relief.
He squeezes my shoulder. Warm. Affectionate. And…lingering. “You’re doing great.”
“Thank you,” I say, relieved. “I appreciate the save.”
“You saved me, too, in your own way.”
Did I, though? Guilt wedges into my heart. “I was kind of sassing you when she arrived,” I admit.
“You were. But it saved me. My mom likes it when you knock me down a peg.”
“You do too,” I say, feeling a little like hummingbirds are flapping their wings in my chest as he strokes my shoulder.
His thumb slides slowly off the fabric of my shirt. Then, as if he’s realized what he’s doing, he pulls away quickly.
I glance at my shoulder. It feels radioactive, in the best of ways.
I want to stay here. Ask him to do it again.
But his mother's unexpected entrance rattled him earlier. The least I can do is handle the rest of her visit with aplomb, like we’re a team.
His blue eyes look darker. Hungrier. My breath catches and the world blurs for a moment.
“I should…” I point upstairs.
“Yes. You should,” he says, clearing his throat.
I tear myself away, my skin hot, my pulse rocketing, and meet his mom in the kitchen, where she gives me a list of things she wants—the must-haves, from doorknobs to drawer pulls.
I can manage this. I so can.
When her list is finished, Maggie looks at her watch and says, “Well, that’s done. Why don’t we have lunch?”
At Gigi’s Café, Maggie holds court, entertaining us with tales of drinks spilled on dresses at galas, of wrong names blurted out at fundraisers, and of veggie hot dogs that spurted mustard on shirts at picnics.
I laugh as I take the last bite of my arugula, mushroom, and sun-dried tomato salad.
She smiles, sipping her iced tea as a late October breeze drifts through the open windows and seagulls circle nearby.
“But one thing drives me batty,” she says, setting down her glass. Her smile disappears. She huffs out a breath and shakes her head. “It’s so annoying that my son is single again.”
I perk up. I mean, I’ve been paying attention, of course, but now I really perk up.
“What do you mean?” Ford asks warily, arching a brow.
“Well, you’re going to the gala,” she says to him.
“It’s my last one, and you’re not playing that weekend.
It’ll be here in town at The Resort.” That’s a hotel owned by the city’s well-known billionaire Wilder Blaine, who built an empire with sports teams, hotels, and clean energy.
Now his hotels are known for their sustainable efforts—a perfect synergy.
“San Francisco has truly embraced our recycling initiatives throughout the city in office buildings and public spaces.”
“Right,” he says, crossing his arms.
Maggie heaves an aggrieved sigh and turns to me. “The thing is, everyone wants to set their daughters up with him.”
Oh. Well, this got good. I lean in. “Tell me more.”
Ford rolls his eyes. “Skylar, what did I tell you at Twice Loved?”
“That your mom loves you deeply and had the highway patrol check on you when you were eighteen and driving to college?” I ask innocently.
He drags a hand down his face. “What did I really tell you?”
“It was a reasonable thing to do,” Maggie says with zero sarcasm.
“Of course it was,” I assure her.
“So what did he tell you about me?” Maggie asks. No—she insists.
“Not to give you my number. Oops. Did it anyway,” I say to his mom with a defiant bob of my shoulder.
Well, he did say his mom likes it when I tease him in front of her. Works for me. Teasing is my love language, and I can’t help it.
He groans. “I said, don’t feed steak to the tiger.”
“I’m the tiger?” Mom asks sharply. “Ford, that’s not nice.”
“So tell me all about these dates,” I cut in. I’m secretly hoping he turns them all down.
Unfair? Yes.
Irrational? Also yes.
But it’s how I feel.
I’m dying for the details and praying he is not interested in these other women. As my neighbor and my client, he’s a double-whammy of off-limits. I can’t have him, but that means no one else can. Obviously.
“Cordelia Harrington wants him to take her daughter,” Maggie begins with an even heartier sigh. “Kahlia Mayami wants to set him up with her daughter. Sunil Bakshi says his daughter is a huge hockey fan and would love to go with him. Honestly, it’s endless. And, frankly, exhausting.”
“Well, he gets proposals at games too,” I point out, since I read that online.
“I’m right here,” Ford mutters, pointing at himself.
Maggie waves a dismissive hand his way.
“But the thing is, I want to get them off my back. I can’t have everyone hounding me about my single son.
I have fundraising to handle. A gala to plan.
A house to prep. I need a shield from all these date requests,” Maggie says.
Then she pauses, narrowing her eyes, studying me. Then Ford. Then me again.
Her smile turns Mona Lisa serene. “But I devised a plan this morning. An unbeatable plan.”
“Do tell,” Ford says dryly.
I’m on the edge of my seat.
Maggie’s grin is her entire personality as she takes an even longer pause to drink more iced tea. She sets down the glass with a plink.
“Skylar will attend as your fake girlfriend,” she announces. “I’ve watched you two this morning, and you look good together. It will be perfect. Say yes.”
I freeze.
But Ford doesn’t.
He turns to me, a slow, sexy smile forming on those lips. “Works for me.”
I thought I was against dating. After I tried online dating and it failed, I figured I was content devoting all my attention to building my business. Happy to be hustling like no eco-designer has hustled before.
But from the way my stomach flips at his words, it’s clear I’m not against fake dating Ford Devon.
“Yes,” I say.
I was never saying no.