He gave her a long look. “No, I haven’t forgotten anything about you.”
What did that mean? She wasn’t sure but it made her gulp. “You can’t think that sticking a modern design on a building that has always attempted to be a pretentious English manor is a good idea. If Carson hears it from both you and Olivia, he’ll listen. You’re going to tell him modernization is the wrong choice, aren’t you?”
Lucas lifted his hands as though trying to show her something. “Most people like modern-looking buildings. Go to any big city and look at the hotels there. You won’t see much new construction in the pretentious English manor style.”
How could he be so wrong? “People build boring square buildings because they’re cheaper, not because they look better. They don’t. They look like tightly packed boxes of misery and despair. It’s probably why crime floods inner cities. People get a little whacked out when they have to stare at those buildings every day. I’d want to mug someone too.”
Lucas nodded, unmoved by her speech. “Fine,” he said dryly. “When I tell Carson the assistant manager’s opinion, I’ll be sureto use the words ‘boxes of misery and despair’. I’ll leave out the part about you wanting to commit random acts of violence.”
She shouldn’t have been so upset by all of this. It wasn’t her inn. She was still considering buying land and building an inn to compete with this one. The best thing to do was say, “Great plans. While you’re at it, you should get carpet throughout the inn that makes a bold, modern statement. Try something with an orange and chartreuse design.”
But she cared about the building too much. She didn’t want to see its beauty destroyed. “If Carson sticks with that architect, the end project will look like The Riverside Inn had an affair with a Walmart and is giving birth to a long, squat office building.”
Lucas tucked the binder under his arm. “Um, okay. Thank you for that visual. Also, I’ve changed my mind about you talking to Olivia. You should tell her all of this instead of telling it to me. Why don’t you call her again? Maybe she’ll pick up this time.”
He was moving away from the front desk and heading to his office. She followed after him. “Wait, I have to convince you what a bad idea those designs are so you can help change Carson’s mind. Right now, I don’t think you get the whole aesthetics angle, which granted, I should’ve expected because your last apartment had no decorations, and the furniture looked like you found it on the side of the road.”
He stopped to face her and drew in a patient breath. “My roommates and I didn’t have to find that furniture anywhere. It was left in the apartment by a string of previous tenants who were either too generous or too lazy to move the stuff out. I left a potted Ficus tree and a philodendron for the same reason.”
He’d left them? “I gave you those plants.”
“Oh, well, maybe that was the reason then.” He turned to walk to his office again.
She took hold of his arm to stop him. “We can negotiate about this.” She hadn’t expected that touching him would sendany feelings through her. She wasn’t touching him in a romantic way, and yet she didn’t seem to be able to move her hand from his arm. It wanted to stay there, her feet wanted to be this close to Lucas. Muscle memory, she supposed.
He surveyed her, looking into her eyes, not at the hand that still rested on his arm. She tried to think of something she could use as a bargaining tool. “If you convince Carson that the new renovations should match the original style, I’ll…” She really had nothing to bargain with. “I’ll be a model employee for you.”
His eyebrow cocked up. “Wouldn’t you do that anyway?”
She dropped her hand away. “Um, no. Olivia assured me that you couldn’t fire me, so you know, I was planning to…” she made a rolling gesture, “slack off whenever you aren’t around. Come in late. Defy your every order. That sort of thing.”
“Just because I can’t fire you doesn’t mean Carson can’t.”
“As I’m gathering names on my petition to protect the inn’s historical value, I’ll mention that you insinuated Carson would fire me over this. The Lark Springs Gazette would probably find that newsworthy.”
Lucas pinched the bridge of his nose, shut his eyes, and sighed. When he opened his eyes, his gaze bore into her. “No petition. No Gazette, and I’ll tell Carson I think he should get a second opinion about the design. That’s all I can promise, and you better not ever come in late.”
“What if Carson doesn’t listen to you?”
“Then the two of you will finally have something in common. Now stop slacking off and get back to work. We have a deal. You’ve got to be a model employee now.” He stalked off toward his office.
He ought to have known that her threats about slacking off were meaningless. She took too much pride in her work for that.
“Thanks!” she called after him.
“And no more trying to startle me with the ghosts of marsupials past,” he called back.
“Look who wants the moon,” she said, but he’d already shut the office door. She found herself smiling anyway. Working with Lucas did make her job more interesting.
Olivia didn’t call back until later that night. She’d been at a seamstress for wedding dress alterations and then at a bridal shower some of the Broncos’ wives threw for her.
This was another reminder that Olivia’s life had changed since she’d moved to Denver. Now she had a whole group of friends that Riley knew nothing about. Probably the trophy wife type of women. Cool. Beautiful. Sophisticated.
“You wanted to talk to me about the architectural plans?” Olivia asked although it wasn’t really a question. “Lucas already told Carson all the metaphors you used to describe the proposed addition.”
“I have more,” Riley said. “Modern architecture is like modern art. Carson is going to Picasso a Rembrandt. Picasso, by the way, sucks.”
“You realize you’re talking to a past art teacher, right? Picasso broke conventions and…never mind. That’s not the point. You’re right that the architect’s plans don’t match the existing structure. The problem is the budget. It’s cheaper to build in a modern style than to come up with something that looks like it was Darcy and Elizabeth’s summer retreat. Carson has sunk so much money into the inn that he doesn’t want to spend a ton extra on the renovations.”