Home Matters (A Ripple Effect Romance Novella, Book 1) (11 page)

Water from the night’s rain pooled between the cobblestones beneath her feet. Boulders of storm clouds littered the sky. From the east, the sun broke free of the horizon, casting a sheen across the narrow street, creating the illusion of a glass-marbled path. Tristi’s call had awakened Olivia before dawn with a message from Marty. He’d called an emergency meeting first thing in the morning, which meant that Olivia was already late.

As she approached the Calhouns’ mansion, she glanced between storage containers of furnishings, large dumpsters, and moving vans half loaded with power tools, trying to catch a glimpse of Pete. He’d been working his crew eighteen-hour days over the weekend in order to finish the renovation, and she hadn’t seen him since Friday, the night they’d painted. Setting aside the fact he had groveling of his own to do, and though she had no idea how to apologize for acting like the twit he’d accused her of being, she desperately wanted to see him. But her angst over Pete, along with the billows of gunmetal hanging low in the sky, weren’t the only storm clouds looming over her this morning. Since picking up that call earlier regarding an “emergency,” and with only a day before the live finale taping, she’d had an indefinable feeling that something was horribly wrong.

Leaning against the iron railing, one leg bent, foot resting behind the knee of the other, Tristi had her nose buried between the V of a local newspaper.

Her heart drumming an unsteady beat against her chest, Olivia called out to her assistant. “Hey, Tristi. What’s going on? Did you figure out why they called us all in so early?” she asked, her voice strained with unease. “I was under the impression Marty would turn to dust if his skin saw the sun this early in the morning,” she joked, trying to lighten her heavy mood.

Tristi pushed away from the railing and tucked the paper under her arm. “He arrived a minute ago, safely concealed underneath a floor-length trench and Tom Ford sunglasses,” she said, a strained folly in her voice as well. She handed Olivia a paper cup of hot coffee. Steam swirled from a sipping hole in the top. “Before you go in there, I think there’s something you should see.” She opened the paper, folding it in half to expose an inner page.

Olivia glanced at the paper, but she had no desire to see what the press had written about her today. She still couldn’t put her finger on why, but speculation and innuendo seemed the least of her worries at the moment. “Not now, Tristi.” She swiped the paper aside and started up the steps. “I’m late as it is.”

“But I think you—”

Gus met Olivia at the door, a sour look dragging down his pudgy face. “Go on back to the kitchen. They’re waiting for you,” he said, his voice groggy.

Olivia’s heartbeat shifted to her head, booming like a brass band against her eardrums. She felt the vibrations all the way to her shaking hands as she moved through the house toward a group of her colleagues circled around the kitchen’s center island. “Hey, y’all. Sorry I’m late,” she attempted a cheery greeting.

Eleanor spun to face her, fire in her rat-like eyes. “How dare you,” she croaked.

She wasn’t due back on the set until tomorrow for the final reveal and taping, so whatever emergency had brought them together this morning had to be dire enough to drag Eleanor from her sick bed against doctor’s orders.

Olivia’s throat went dry, all the moisture rushing to her armpits and palms. “Excuse me, but I don’t know what—” she began, sure she was innocent of whatever offense Eleanor seemed hell-bent on accusing her of, until the gleaming porcelain of a farmhouse sink, centered on the kitchen island, caught her peripheral vision. When had Eleanor ordered the design alteration?

“What is that doing there?” she asked, pushing past Eleanor for a closer look. “I thought the sink was going under the window.” She pointed across the room where the stove had been installed in the sink’s place. A copper pot filler, folded against the tumbled marble backsplash, gleamed in the early morning light. Where the stove was supposed to have been, a set of French doors led out to the patio, more than making up for the missing natural light. It all bore an uncanny resemblance to… “My design,” she muttered.

Eleanor flipped open a book on the counter, stabbed a finger to the page. “Look familiar?” she barked.

Olivia tore her eyes from the French doors, redirecting her gaze to Eleanor’s white-knuckled finger and one of the renderings from Olivia’s missing sketchpad—the kitchen, to be exact.

Olivia set her coffee aside and blinked down at the page, seeing but not accepting what justifiably had Eleanor all in a huff. Not only did her drawings resemble the current state of the Calhouns’ kitchen, but also included the marble Olivia had chosen for her design as a substitute for the tin backsplash Eleanor had planned. In addition, the current wall color matched the paint chip she’d added somewhere along the way. And, to make matters worse, fabric samples had been adhered to this page, along with the remaining sketches as well.

Plunking her purse down on the counter, Olivia unlatched the top and pulled it open. “My fabric swatches and camera?” she said, rummaging through her things. “They’re gone. How?” She couldn’t imagine. Over the weekend, she’d been so busy shooting interviews and last-minute promo segments with William, plus rehearsals for the final reveal, she hadn’t noticed anything had gone missing.

“How indeed?” Eleanor croaked. “And don’t even try denying these are your designs. Your monogram is on the front cover of the sketchpad.”

Olivia’s lungs twisted in on themselves, stealing her breath, her voice. “Yes, this is mine,” she gasped, turning back the pages. “I misplaced it almost a week ago,” she said, completely at a loss for an explanation as to how all of her designs were now accompanied by fabric samples, not to mention how they’d come to life right in front of her eyes.

Pressing a hand to her moist forehead, Olivia looked around.
This is not happening
, she told herself over and over, doing her best to breathe as she inspected the room for evidence to the contrary. But much to her dismay, the fireplace Eleanor’s design had called to be removed sat firmly in its place and now sported a set of tastefully distressed, wraparound shelves. The butler’s pantry was still there too and had been freshened up with a new sink and cabinets. Turning back to the front of the house, she saw that half-walls and pillars defined the dining room from the formal living area and that Great Aunt Iona’s portrait hung over the fireplace—all in defiance of Eleanor’s design. The walls of both spaces had been painted a warm ochre yellow.

“It wasn’t me,” Olivia continued to deny.

“Seriously?” Eleanor squawked, her fingers leafing aggressively through the pages of Olivia’s sketchpad. “These are very detailed drawings.” She stopped, turned the book to Olivia, and pointed again. “Look, you even added photos of fixtures and furnishings.” She stabbed her finger against the pad with a few hard thuds. “Does this chandelier look familiar?”

Olivia honestly didn’t know what to say. The only explanation she could fathom at the moment was that the chandelier had somehow beamed itself from her missing camera to the dining room. “I know how this looks, but I really don’t know how it happened,” she was in the process of restating when…
Pete!
crossed her mind. He’d seen her pictures and swatches, knew they both were in her purse, which he’d had access to the night they painted.

He’d indicated that he’d found her sketchpad.

Why was she not surprised? As usual, all roads to chaos led back to him.

“You’re such a liar,” Eleanor rushed to fill Olivia’s pause. “You’ve been trying to impose your ideas on my design from day one. You took advantage of my illness to go behind my back and sabotage my design. And it wouldn’t be so bad if what you’d changed bore even the slightest of semblance to a decent design. But, this?” She motioned angrily around the room, her face growing redder by the moment. “This is an atrocity!”

“All right, Eleanor,” Marty stepped in. “Calm down before you bust a vocal cord or give yourself a stroke.” He teed his hands like a referee calling a timeout. Then he turned to Olivia. “Just so I understand you correctly, you’re claiming that, even though we have this sketch book with your name on it containing quite detailed drawings of the design we are now surrounded by, you have no idea, whatsoever, how this happened? That you didn’t substitute your design for Eleanor’s and give it to Pete? Nor did you collude with him?”

Now Olivia was angry. They assumed she’d sabotaged Eleanor when, unbeknownst to them, she was the one who’d been blindsided. And she was not about to take the fall for Pete’s crimes. “Yes,” she insisted. “As hard as it is to believe, that’s what I’m saying. I drew these renderings, collected samples, took a few snapshots, but I never…”

“Oh, my stars,” a breathy voice called out from across the room. “This is absolutely breathtaking.”

All heads turned to see the astonished faces of Mr. and Mrs. Calhoun as they took measured steps over the front threshold, eyes gobsmacked and taking in their new digs.

Marty met them midway to the kitchen, arms outstretched to form a blockade. “I’m sorry, Ms. Calhoun, Mr. Calhoun, but your aren’t allowed to be here until tomorrow for the reveal.”

Mr. Calhoun sidestepped Marty and pulled his wife deeper into the house and through to the kitchen. “We got a message, telling us you wanted us down here,” he said, running a hand over the polished marble of the counter top. “That we should come right away.”

Mrs. Calhoun pointed to the island. “Look, honey. They moved the sink to the center of the kitchen like I’ve always wanted,” she shrieked with excitement.

Eleanor stepped forward, a staid look on her face. “You never said—”

“And the backsplash is perfect,” Mrs. Calhoun gasped, her hands flying to her cheeks. “I was so worried when I saw the original design that I was going to hate that metal tile. It seemed too cold.” She spun around and held her arms out. “And would you just look at the fireplace with those shelves? So perfect! I knew once I found out our new designer was a Southerner I didn’t have a thing to worry about.” She turned to Olivia with a kindred smile. “It’s like you could see right into my thoughts, make them real,” she said, tears pooling in her eyes. But then, as if someone had unexpectedly switch her gears, her mouth rounded into a perfect
O
. “I bet you fixed the master bath too,” she called out as she grabbed her husband’s arm and tore up the kitchen staircase.

Eleanor bit down on her bottom lip and sent Olivia a look menacing enough to turn a person to stone. “If there’s a new master en suite up there, I’ll have your job,” she didn’t threaten as much as promise. “Even with that godforsaken fireplace still here, with fixtures and new furnishings, we didn’t have the budget for a bathroom reno.”

A series of squeals blew down the stairs. “My retreat, I finally have my retreat!” came next.

Noticing that her sketchpad had stopped on the page sporting a relaxing master retreat, Olivia reached over and slammed the book shut.

“All right, I’ve heard enough,” Marty proclaimed. He stepped to the base of the stairs, cupping his hand over his mouth. “Mrs. Calhoun, could you please come back down here?”

A moment later, she reappeared, literally bouncing down the stairs, her husband a few paces behind and holding back a smile. “I can’t wait to see my new home once you get all the furnishings in!” she exclaimed.

Taking one Calhoun by each arm, Marty ushered them to the front door. “So glad you’re pleased with what we’ve done so far. But it’s time for you to get out of the way, let us finish our work.” He made careful eye contact with both Calhouns then eased them through the door. “Oh, and keep your cell phones close. I’m thinking we might need to push the time for the final reveal back a few hours,” he added, along with an genial smile.

“A few hours?” Eleanor questioned once the door had closed behind them. “Try days. Weeks, even.”

Marty crossed his arms over his chest, his face pinched in contemplation. “No.” He shook his head decisively. “The Calhouns are obviously over the moon for this design, so this is what we’re going to do. We’re leaving the design as is.”

“But—” Eleanor protested, her thin bottom lip quivering like a spoiled child.

Marty held up a hand. “Olivia.” He turned to face her, his gaze censuring, cold. “Since the network has already spent a fortune promoting you as the newest face of
Home Matters,
and inadvertently—or overtly—this catastrophe can somehow be traced back to you, I’m pushing the final taping back and giving you until tomorrow at sundown to pull this renovation together. And it’d better be stunning, or else,” he said, neglecting to define what the “or, else” consisted of. What would have been the point? They all knew it began with
f
and ended with
ired.
As in “ruined” and “never to work in the television industry again.”

Olivia swallowed a softball-sized lump of trepidation. How in heaven’s name was she supposed to pull this design together on her own? Other than doodling on paper, she’d never once designed, much less decorated, a single room, which meant doing so for an entire house was far beyond her scope of imagination.