She just needed to buy time.
…
It was like a warehouse. One large, endless warehouse that—she inhaled deeply—smelled funny.
It was also packed. Who knew so many people would have the urgent need to purchase rakes and paint and God knew what else on a brisk Saturday morning when they could be at home enjoying coffee and a good book—or, in her case, a brief?
“You’ll definitely want to have this socket wrench set in your tool box,” Dominic said and dropped the item next to the hammer, drill, picture hanging kit, and a bunch of other items of which she’d already forgotten the names. She liked to think it was just the overwhelming amount of stuff she’d never heard of before that had her mind drawing a blank.
But that was only half of it.
As Dominic bent down on his haunches to stare at an array of something or other, her gaze wandered helplessly down. She carefully checked the side of her mouth for drool.
It had been fourteen months. No wonder she was acting like a hormone-driven lunatic.
Kate hoped her own attire looked similarly casual and thrown together—even if she had spent most of the morning agonizing over this “effortless” look of faded curvy-fit Levi’s and a simple white T-shirt. She’d topped it off with her new brown leather jacket that accentuated her narrow waist. Probably the only thing about her that was narrow.
Kate might have decided that things had to remain professional between them—but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy the thrill of having an attractive man look at her with appreciation.
Dominic turned his head to her, and she barely had time to pull her gaze away from his derriere. She pretended to be staring at the cart instead. “Why do I need all this stuff again? I thought you’ve done this before. Shouldn’t you already own it?”
“Do you want to rely on a contractor to come and help you whenever you need to hang up a few measly pictures? Or fix a leaky faucet? You’d be broke within the year.” He straightened and tossed another packet onto the pile. “Of course I have the necessary equipment to do the renovations, but with the proper tools and common sense, you could be prepared to handle some basic home maintenance on your own. That’s what all this stuff is for. You. You’re a home owner now. It’s time you started to own it.”
She shrugged and took the last swallow of her venti latte that they’d picked up from Starbucks first thing. They moved to the next aisle.
Half an hour later they were looking at several paint samples. A fun project initially—until Dominic began explaining the difference between matte, flat, eggshell, satin, gloss, and semigloss finishes as her own eyes glossed over. Until she heard a familiar voice.
“Kate?”
Instinctively, she turned her head before she could process why it was familiar.
Oh, Lord.
Michael. And he wasn’t alone. Her nemesis was glued to his side, looking chic and slight in dark, skinny jeans that Kate doubted she could get an arm through, let alone a leg. For an early Saturday morning, Nicole’s hair still looked exceptionally silky and luxurious. How could Kate not hate her for that reason alone?
“Hi, guys!” Kate asked a little too brightly, “What brings you two here?”
Stupid question now that she was collected enough to see the paint samples in Michael’s hand. Michael actually looked a little uncomfortable before he responded, “Nicole and I were thinking of doing some…um, repainting.”
This still begged the question of what Michael was doing here, since as far as she knew from their three years together, he’d never done any house maintenance on his own, leaving it to his very expensive decorator.
Nicole continued, “The master bedroom is this hideous shade of blue that begs me to slash my wrists every time I wake up.”
Ah. Now she could see why he was uneasy. Kate and Michael had chosen that particular shade of blue together. Michael had the courtesy of avoiding her eyes.
The silence drew out and Kate finally noticed the couple’s attention had turned toward the tall, strangely quiet figure behind her. From the strange look that entered Michael’s eyes as he looked back and forth between her and Dominic, she had a pretty good idea where his thoughts were leaning.
That this was the guy. Her guy.
Her pulse seemed to double as she tried to figure out how to handle this without everything blowing up in her face. Let’s go for simple first.
“Michael, Nicole,” she said, inclining her head to them, “this is Dominic.”
Both men shook hands, each studying the other, Michael with a look of suspicion, Dominic with only mild interest. Nicole already had her cell phone in her hands and was busy scrolling through, dismissing all of them.
Kind of like the first time Kate tried to interact with her. In Nicole’s first weeks at Strauss, Kate had reached out to find some common interests. Frankly, there hadn’t been too many female attorneys in the ranks at the law firm, and she’d thought they could both use an extra friend. But Nicole had dismissed her requests and barely drawn her gaze from her phone screen to say hello. Not much later Kate heard the rumors linking Nicole and Michael together as a couple, and she’d given up the effort all together.
“Dominic. Good to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you,” Michael said.