Home Matters (A Ripple Effect Romance Novella, Book 1) (16 page)

Maybe what she needed was to stop thinking and just breathe.

She was still taking in deliberate breaths when she pulled to a stop along the curb of a rural neighborhood. Cutting the car’s engine, she glanced through the windshield and across the street.

Dressed in faded jeans, plaid flannel shirt, and a red baseball cap turned backward on his head, Pete was in the process of positioning a sheet of plywood across two sawhorses. Just the sight of him sent her heart racing and the little hairs on her arms and the back of her neck standing at attention. As she continued to watch him work, her finger found the fringe of her hair, anxious to twine a strand around its tip. Her next impulse was to stop herself, to save her hair from unsightly frizz. But then she remembered she no longer felt the need to tame her curly locks by means of a hot straightening tool. Or for that matter, to submit any other body part into becoming something it was not.

After stalling a few minutes more, she urged herself from the car. Overhead, clouds stretched thin like gauze strips lain against a ceiling of blue, the vivid sun chasing a chill from the fifty-degree day. Her stomach cartwheeling below her ribs, she set out across the street, eyes firmly trained on her goal. She would not allow uncertainty to creep in, to warn against making a complete fool of herself.

Nail in hand and positioned to secure a two-by-four to the plywood plank, Pete lifted his hammer and hesitated. Then, as if she’d called his name, he looked up, his puzzled gaze blazing a trail across the yard and on to where Olivia was crossing the street.

After giving the nail a few whacks, he stood to face her. “Well, look what the wind blew in,” he said, his voice light while his eyes remained guarded.

Olivia hopped the curb and walked the better part of the lawn between them. “Surprise,” she said with forced enthusiasm.

Pete looked her over, one eye cocked against the bright winter sun. “Nice hair.”

She tucked a loose coil behind her ear. “Naturally curly.”

“And your eyes…” he observed without elaboration.

Since she wasn’t wearing her glasses, she didn’t feel the need to explain how she’d swapped her “ridiculous” green contacts for clear ones. Pete was a smart guy. Surely, he’d figured as much.

Pete smiled. “Are you lost or something?” he asked. “I thought you’d be somewhere in the middle of nowhere Nebraska, wrapping up another installment of
Home Matters
right about now.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Then why aren’t you?”

Evidently, he didn’t read the tabloids or watch much TV. If he did, he’d know why. She tried to smile, but instead her lips twisted into more of a grimace. “Because it turned out, you were right.”

Pete removed his hat and raked his fingers through his hair. “Well, that goes without saying,” he said in that half-mocking, half-serious way of his.

She’d come here to apologize, to thank him, and to grovel if necessary. But as usual, he was giving her a hard time. What she’d come to say was going to be difficult enough without his glibness. “Please, for once,” she said, the words coming out much more whiny than she’d intended, “could you just
not
make something harder than it has to be?”

Pete replaced his hat. “My bad,” he said, the corners of his lips fighting against a smile he held back. “Please proceed.”

Flustered, but still determined to voice what she’d driven all this way to ask, she primed her thoughts to start again. Whatever the outcome, if there was any chance of forging a new future for herself, she had to get this out. “Where was I?”

She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “Oh, right,” she said when the kink in her chain of thought released. “I was telling you how you were correct… I
was
selling myself short.”

The smile he’d been suppressing broke free. “I know. I saw that your design was dubbed a fan favorite,” he said, more pleased this time than mocking. “Congratulations.”

A shy smile brought a blush to Olivia’s cheeks. “Thanks,” she said but knew she couldn’t take full credit for her victory. “I couldn’t have done it without Tristi and the guys. It was crazy. Most of the fabric I’d chosen was special order, so we had to match my choices to what the shops had on hand. Tom even helped select a few. He has good taste, by the way. Tristi was sewing up a storm while the guys and I ran all over town, throwing furniture into the van,” she rambled on, feeling a renewed excitement for all they’d accomplished. The day and a half it had taken them to complete the design was, for the most part, a frantic blur, but also the most fun she’d had in… well, ever. “Due to time and availability, we ended up having to incorporate some of Eleanor’s pieces. But in the end, I think the meshing of our differing styles was what brought the design together and made it pop.”

Pete nodded his approval. “That’s great,” he said, but nothing more.

It was Olivia’s turn to speak. Only her brain had disintegrated into nothing but question marks. She’d been rehearsing her speech for days, and then again on the long drive over, but now that she was standing here, under the beam of his watchful gaze, she couldn’t seem to hit her mark. The seconds ticked by. His smile slowly faded. The patch of air they co-occupied fell into an awkward silence. They stood there another moment or two, listening as a passing breeze touched leafless branches, the quiet punctuated by the distant bark of a social dog.

Pete was the one to breach the impasse. “What are you doing here, Olivia?”

Still at a loss for coherent thought, she took a breath and jumped. “I quit the show,” she blurted. Pete’s eyes rounded. His lips parted, but nothing came out. “I know. Insane, right?” She snorted out an incredulous laugh.

Pete gave Olivia a curious look. “What happened?” he asked, seeming both confused and interested. “I mean, you finally had everything you wanted—the adoring fans, the promise of wealth and movie deals, America’s Heartthrob on your arm,” he said, the words puckering his mouth. “And now you’re a designer to boot. I never would have pegged you as self-destructive, though,” he continued, then in the next breath added, “Self-absorbed, self-consumed, self—”

Olivia rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I get it.”

“So?” he questioned.

Rejection pricked Olivia’s pride all over again. “Marty decided my brilliance was nothing more than a fluke,” she explained. “‘Beginner’s luck,’ I believe were his exact words,” she added, tears sneaking into the corners of her eyes. Even though Marty’s decision had ultimately been for the best, his dismissal of her talent had devastated her. A wound that had yet to heal under the bandage of her new resolve. “So, that was it. Eleanor was back to designing, and I was expected to go back to pretending… to be the designer. And I couldn’t do it. After all I’d accomplished, I refused to go backward.”

Pete sent her a conspiratorial look. “Creativity.” He winked. “The most addictive drug of all.”

The warmth of camaraderie chased the tears from Olivia’s eyes. “Don’t I know it,” she agreed with a chuckle. “Plus, I’d only been famous for about thirty days and it turned out to be the worst, most confusing month of my life.” Her smile fell, a frown taking its place as she thought about William and how her vain ambitions had had her eating out of his traitorous hands.

Once she’d decided not to board the plane bound for the show’s next location, she’d confronted the network’s executives regarding all that William had revealed that day in his hotel room. Turned out, none of them had a clue regarding his plan—not the pictures and not Nicole’s dramatic return. He’d lied. Under threat of dismissal from the show, he’d turned all the evidence of Olivia kissing Pete over to the network for immediate destruction. Even still, rumors suggesting that Olivia’s unexpected departure from the show was motivated by her love for another man had been leaked to the tabloids. “Poor, heartbroken William Blaine,” his fans cried. “How could Olivia be so cruel?” And just like that, William had wormed his way back into the hearts of American women. Shortly after, Nicole Henshaw had resumed her role as his cohost/pretend designer. With Sean sliding into Pete’s place as lead contractor, all had returned to normal on the set of
Home Matters
—more or less.

Conversely, Olivia had been fined for breaking her contract and docked the cost of the furnishings purchased for Eleanor’s design she hadn’t chosen to incorporate. In other words, Olivia was broke—again. Plus, due to an immeasurable array of colorfully threatening posts and messages, she’d had to cancel all of her social media accounts. She’d become infamous after all. And then in less than a blink, she’d been forgotten, back to being a nobody again. Good thing she no longer cared about fame. Her family and her close friends knew the truth, which was all that mattered to her now. That is, now that she’d taken her revenge. No, she hadn’t released the video she’d recorded that day in William’s suite to the media. But had Ethan Henshaw’s attorney found an email from an anonymous sender waiting in his inbox this very morning? You betcha!

Olivia sighed. “But at the same time, being famous was the best and most enlightening time in my life,” she went on. “Turns out my momma was wrong. I wasn’t born for stardom after all.”

A pleased look darted across Pete’s face. He took up his hammer again. “Join the club,” he said and added another nail to the board. “What are you going to do now?” he asked when the hammering stopped.

Olivia’s heartbeat kicked up a notch with excitement. “I’ve applied to one of the design schools down in Savannah,” she said. “If all goes according to plan, I’ll start next fall.”

Pete pointed the hammer at her. “Good for you,” he said, then bent down for another nail. He positioned it as he spoke. “Maybe I’ll see you around town. I’ve rented some office space for Hearts and Hammers over by Oglethorpe Square, hired your ex-assistant, Tristi, as a matter of fact.” This was something Olivia already knew. How else would she have known where to find him? “Along with a bookkeeper, and recruited some prominent business owners from the community to sit on my board of directors. I still have a way to go, but it’s a start.” He brought the hammer down for a couple of strikes. “I like Savannah. It feels alive somehow, or maybe it’s just the ghostly presence.” He shivered with a fabricated chill. “I don’t know why, but it felt right.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I’m happy for you.” He looked to her then, a pensive smile in his eyes. “I
really
am.”

“Yeah, me too,” Olivia agreed. “And I suppose I have you to thank for that as well. You sacrificed your job in order to help me realize my potential.”

Pete frowned away her acknowledgment. Turning back to his work, he lifted his hammer and brought it down as he spoke. “First,”
thwack
, “I appreciate,”
thwack
, “the sentiment,”
thwack
, “but I feel I’m the one,”
thwack
,
thwack
, “who should be thanking you.” Irony sullied his words as he brought the hammer down one more time. “Watching you chasing all the wrong dreams, pretending to be—to want—all the wrong things, made me question what
I
was doing. Working on a reality show that’s based on nothing but sensationalized half-truths and pretense. Suddenly it felt like sawdust and paint wasn’t the only grime I needed to wash off at the end of the day. So, substituting your design for Eleanor’s provided me with a way out and allowed me to make a statement in the process,” he explained, sounding uncharacteristically sincere. “And second,” he continued, that tricky smile of his returning. “What you said just now almost sounded like an apology—and a thank you—all wrapped into one nasty helping of crow.”

Olivia took courage in his teasing banter, hoping it meant he still held an ounce of affinity for her, and launched into the primary reason she was here. “Well then, I guess it’s a good thing I’ve stopped dieting ’cause I’m about to gulp down another heaping bite of that crow,” she said, garnishing her words with a touch of coyness. “Since I have a good six months ’til school starts, and my agent refuses to take any of my calls, I’m sort of in need of a job.”

Pete cocked his brow in a dubious fashion. “Is that a fact?” he said, like he hadn’t a clue where she was going with this.
As if
…

“I know I don’t have any formal training,” she plowed ahead. “But that also means I have no choice but to work for cheap. I mean, you can pay me minimum wage. Whatever. I’ve clipped coupons before. I can do it again.” She took a much-needed breath. “I just want to help, to do something with my life that matters.”

Pete crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m listening.”

Olivia’s hands balled into fists and found her waist. He had to know how hard it was for her to come here, to beg for a job, and yet he continued to taunt her. “Well, that’s it,” she hissed. She probably shouldn’t provoke the one and only person capable of granting her most desired wish, but evidently her temper disagreed. “Unless I’m mistaken, I seem to remember you offering me this very position as your designer before,” she reminded him, barely tightening the reins on her exasperation. “That night we painted, and well, we, um…” she got all tongue-tied at the image of his lips against hers, her feet lifting from the floor.

Pete looked to the sky in thought. “Yes, I think I remember,” he said drawing out the words like the memory was scarcely worth recalling. “You were wearing a disguise, I bought you supper. We painted and talked. I offered you a job.” He pointed at her accusingly. “Which you promptly turned down. And then, if I’m not mistaken, you kissed me.”

Knotting her hands tighter, Olivia fought the provocation boiling up inside her. “You. Are. The most infuriating—”

Only just as her angry words began to lash over her tongue, Pete tossed his hammer aside, closed the space between them, and took her into his arms.

His lips took hers, the passion of his kiss drawing out her fury along with what was left of her breath. And for a space of time she couldn’t possibly calculate, she lost herself in him all over again. In the feel of his heart beating against hers, the strength of his arms supporting her wilting body. No, she hadn’t misremembered the way he’d made her feel the times they’d kissed before. It was as if the Fourth of July and Chinese New Year combined had erupted inside her.