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“Mindy will be a hard nut to crack.” Danny shakes his head. He’s acting like we’re doomed. I can flip one mind on this situation.
“Don’t worry about it.” I say it more for Harlow’s benefit, who looks a little shaken. “Thanks for all your help, Danny. Don’t forget about my job offer.”
“What job offer?” Harlow asks me in the elevator.
“Danny seems like a guy my company would like.”
“You have a company?”
That’s right. I’m pretending I’m broke. “It’s on the rocks, but someone like Danny could help put it back on its feet.” Is that a lie? I do have some companies that need more attention. Plus, there’s the new ad agency we’re acquiring, and that place is a shit show, so it’s not really a complete fabrication. “Your money is helping me keep people employed.”
Maybe that was laying it on too thick, but then she gives me a look like I hung a gold star on the moon. “Wow, that’s pretty cool.”
I tell myself it’s okay because I do take care of my employees. Too well, in some cases. Like I couldn’t fire Trident even if I wanted to. He’d chain himself to the office chair. The elevator stops before I can say anything more embarrassing. Harlow leads me down a lushly carpeted hallway lit with lamps that could have been original to the turn of the century building. It really is a gorgeous place.
She stops at No.19 and sticks an old key into the lock. Inside is a profusion of color and fabrics. The walls are papered with a jungle pattern, and the carpet is floral. The furniture is upholstered in striped velvet, which I didn’t even know was a thing.
Harlow laughs. “Minimalism wasn’t in Gram’s vocabulary.”
“It’s something.” I like it though. It’s different.
“It’s a lot, but it’s home.” She strokes her hand across the green and white striped sofa. “When she was alive, I’d sit here and do my math homework while she did needlepoint.” Harlow points to a frame to the right of the entry. A blue and yellow striped tiger jumps from a red tree branch. Below him, a purple monkey tosses what I think is a coconut in the air. It’s orange, though, so maybe it’s some kind of fruit. “She colored outside the lines.”
Her head dips down to hide her sudden sadness. I cup her head and draw her against my chest. She comes willingly, as if she was my real fiancée. As I hold her, what I’d known when I first saw her hardens into immutable fact. Harlow Sinclair belongs to me.
Chapter Seven
HARLOW
Calix’s head is so close to mine. His eyes are so warm I almost believe for a second that he is my real fiancé and not someone I’m paying a grand to play a part. I want to rest my head in his hand for a long time, close my eyes, let my body draw warmth from his. The drama of the past week at work has made my head pound and my eyes smart. His closeness is drawing that away, like sucking that invisible venom from my veins. If I stay here another moment, I may never want to leave, which won’t do. I can’t rely on another person. They will only leave me, even if they don’t intend to.
I push him away. “Thanks. I don’t know what came over me.”
“Grief, I suspect.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and wanders around the room, inspecting the porcelain figurines she collected, the stack of art books she never read, the playing cards that were used only for solitaire. “Tell me about her.”
“My grams?”
“Yes. For the co-op board,” he clarifies. “In case they ask about her.”
“Oh right. Um, she lived here for nearly thirty years. My granddad bought it back in the seventies after he made a good amount of money in the ad business. From her old pictures, they lived a fancy life. Dinners at the Rainbow Room, box seats at Broadway, but after he died, the photo albums had fewer and fewer entries. It seems like she lived most of her life inside, which is why it’s so full.”
“Looks like she had a lot of hobbies.”
“She did.”
“Did you live here with her?”
“No. I visited but I don’t think enough.”
“Enough that she left you this place.”
“I don’t deserve it.” My words sound very pathetic. I change the subject. “It’s really well kept though. I don’t think I’ll need to do any updating.”
“Are you keeping or selling?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. Ariel would say to sell this place and use the money to set up my own ad agency, but the remnants of my grandmother still linger, and she was the one stable thing in my life. I don’t want to give it up. It would feel like cutting off my feet.
“Do you have other family? I didn’t ask before.”
