“I don’t know what that means, babe,” he said, panting, now hovering over my body. He rested his full weight on one hand, letting the other dip down below to begin drawing those perfect circles, exactly where he knew would send me flying.

“It’s a kind of marble that—mmm. . . .” I moaned, my head falling back onto the pillow as he slid inside me entirely.

“Anything. You can have anything you want. Don’t you know that?” He groaned, scooping under my back and pulling me closer into him, tilting my h*ps so that each thrust hit me right smack dab on the Carrara. “I just need you.” His eyes burned into mine, stormy and full of want. “You—I need you,” he repeated, thrusting deeply, stringing me out right on the edge.

It was those eyes that pushed me over that edge. And when he followed, it was epic. We lay together, tangled and out of breath. Holding him closely, I whispered in his ear how much I loved him, and how great this house, this home, would be.

I only hoped I could make it what he needed.

chapter seventeen

The next morning, I got an e-mail from Jillian. They were coming home in three weeks.

And in those weeks, my entire world turned upside down. I’d been running things for months now, and I’d pretty much gotten the swing of things. But not these last two weeks. No, sir. It was like the design gods all gathered, rubbed their hands together, and said, “Let’s see how we can f**k up Caroline Reynolds.”

And in case you’re wondering, there are in fact design gods. And in case you’re wondering, yes, they’re fabulous.

The new job I’d agreed to take on in Sausalito was initially supposed to be a kitchen remodel. Which turned into a living room remodel. Which turned into “Couldn’t we maybe add French doors out to the patio?” and “I think we could use a new patio, don’t you?” and “I saw something called a pergola on HGTV the other night; could we put one of those over the patio?” This was all very good for the pocketbook, but it was way more work than I had planned on. We revised the timeline, revised the hell out of the budget, and I began work on the almost total renovation that this project now required.

We had a sprinkler malfunction at the office, resulting in the entire third floor being flooded. The sprinkler just went bananas one afternoon and sprayed for fifteen minutes until we could get it shut off. Offices had to be aired out, a team brought in to dry out the carpets, and some of the year-end tax forms now were blurred beyond comprehension. Luckily I had backup copies, but the panic I felt when I saw those forms? Might have caused my first gray hair ever.

The damned art installation was finally installed in the lobby of the Claremont. Max Camden took one look at it, pronounced it all wrong, and demanded we find something else. Which we did. All parties agreed that the new art was better for the space, but now everything else needed to be reconfigured to accommodate it. Which made me question the lighting placement. And the lighting in general. It was like pulling one loose thread on a sweater, and suddenly, poof, no sweater! And you’re standing na**d in a new hotel with terrible lighting.

I don’t have time for na**d.

Because the next blow to fall was that our building was indeed going condo. After Jillian forwarded an e-mail from her landlord, I learned they’d be going on the market in thirty days. Thirty days—is that even legal? During which the building owner would be coming in to make repairs and updates to all the units.

Simon took it all in stride, saying that it was a sign reaffirming that we were supposed to move to Sausalito. Sign or no sign, I was now faced with a new home that we were going to renovate top to bottom, and we’d lost the apartments we were going to live in while it happened. And with Jillian due home, I was losing my house-sitting gig.

So now on top of everything else, we had to pack up both our apartments in the city and move everything into a storage container until we were ready to move into the new house. Seriously. I hired help, of course, but I still needed to sort through things, purge things, and pack a few things on my own. There are certain things in a woman’s apartment that she wants to pack herself. You know what I’m saying.

Nobody was getting their hands on my KitchenAid.

So, to recap. My already hectic work life was ramping up instead of slowing down. My boss was returning in a few days, and there were box fans all over the third floor of her office space in a historic Russian Hill mansion. And I was stealing a few hours I really didn’t have to pack up my glorious apartment, to move into a nonglorious home going through a gut rehab.

I was going to be living on-site during a gut rehab.

Laugh all you want, design gods. I could handle it.

Right?

Brain laughed. Backbone curled up like it had scoliosis. Heart was still drawing her own image all over the imaginary mirror in her new master bath.

And Simon? Simon was . . . a pickle. A pickle who was packing up his apartment next door as we speak, and making a helluva lot of noise while doing it. I was in my bedroom, purging my sock drawer, when I heard a very distinct thumping coming through the wall. A banging, if you will. I smiled, remembering the first few times I heard that banging.

Clive jumped up on the bed, looking curiously at the wall.

Pretty sure that sometimes he still listened to see if Purina was going to come meowing through that wall again. Fat chance.

I crossed to the shared wall, placing my hand on the spot I imagined was right above his bed, and sure enough, I felt another thumpity thump. What the hell was he doing over there?

I grabbed my phone and sent him a text:

What the hell are you doing over there?

Taking apart my headboard.

Ah! No wonder. I was having flashbacks.

His response was to bang on his wall again. I banged back.

Bang ba ba bang bang.

Bang bang.

I giggled, then listened. Would he . . . ? Sure enough, a moment later, Glen Miller came through the walls. Smooth.

I went back to packing, and he went back to taking apart his headboard. Clive attacked a roll of bubble wrap and made it his bitch. A few hours later, we met back in my apartment and looked around at the tiny dent I’d made in getting things ready to be moved.

“When is the storage container coming again?”

“Two days.” I looked in my calendar to verify the date. “So you need to make sure anything you don’t want in the container is already moved out before the crew gets here. They’re taking care of everything else.” It was still weird to think about the new house. I almost couldn’t, with everything going on. One step at a time.

“We still staying here tonight?” he asked, peering over my shoulder at the calendar.

“I’d like to, if that’s still cool with you. One more night, where it all began? Besides, I went to the trouble of bringing my pussy,” I joked.

As if on cue, Clive ran through the kitchen and back out again like the hounds of hell were on his tail, towing a large piece of bubble wrap that streamed out behind him like a crinkly-sounding cape.

“You know I can’t resist that,” he murmured in my ear, arms sneaking around my waist. “By the way, you can erase that trip.”

“What trip?” I asked, my voice all gooey. His arms did that to me.

“The one to Belize. I canceled it,” he said, pointing to a date I had circled on my calendar.

“You canceled Belize?” I asked. That was three trips in a row.

“Yep, I wanted to be here to help with the house.” He nuzzled my neck. “I’m pretty handy with a hammer, if you’ll recall.” He bumped his h*ps into mine.

I bumped them right back. A little harder than was necessary?

Maybe. A little.

“I’m gonna go make sure I got everything in my room,” I said, shrugging him off and heading back to my bedroom. I knew he didn’t like it much when I questioned his schedule. And if he noticed that my voice was no longer gooey, he didn’t say anything.

Pickle.

• • •

Every single one of my worlds collided on the same day. Friday dawned cold and clear. It was a good thing there was no fog, because the fog in my head by noon was enough for the entire Bay Area. Jillian and Benjamin were due in on a six o’clock plane. We wanted them to be able to enjoy their first night back without us hanging around, so when I left for work Friday morning I made sure everything was spick-and-span, with everything exactly how they’d left it.

Simon was closing on the new house at two thirty. He’d be signing the paperwork and picking up the keys, and I told him I’d meet him at our new address as soon as I could get away from work. Utilities were being turned on, we had a truckload of essential boxes being delivered, and Simon was in charge of buying and setting up our blow-up bed. Yep, a blow-up bed. Since we’d be living on the premises while our new home was renovated, we didn’t want any real furniture there. Didn’t want to have to keep moving it as we worked through the rooms, so we were living basic for a while.

Shit was about to get real. Really real.

Poor Clive didn’t know what was going on. After moving from Jillian’s house, back to the apartment, back to Jillian’s, back to the apartment, he barely knew where his litter box was. Luckily, the Stanford sweatshirt was long gone.

Uncle Euan and Uncle Antonio had chosen to move out of our building when it went condo, so my cat sitters were gone. I didn’t want Clive at the new house until I’d had time to kitty proof it, so off he went to kitty day care.

I felt like the shittiest mommy on the planet. And Simon’s feelings on the matter were not helping.

My veterinarian had recommended this great pet hotel. I say hotel, because this was not your average boarding place. He had his own room, with his own flat-screen TV playing hummingbird p**n 24/7.

“It’s just temporary. I promise, sweetie.” When we went to tour the place I’d brought Clive along, and he and Simon looked around with the same expression.

Are you kidding me?

“We can’t leave him here, this place is ridiculous!” Simon whispered as we walked down the row of kitty rooms.

“This place is great. Don’t you be ridiculous,” I whispered right back as we followed the owner down the hallway.

“And this will be Clyde’s suite!” she sang out, opening the door onto the cutest little room I’d ever seen.

“It’s Clive. Not Clyde; Clive.” Simon sighed, rolling his eyes at me. My eyes told him to shut up. I took Clive from him, setting him down to get the lay of the land. He looked around, scratched at one of the posts, and looked back at me. “Where’s my window ledge?” he wordlessly asked.

These two. Honestly.

Simon and I argued about it on the way home. Clive sat regally on the console between us in the Range Rover, hind legs tucked into the cup holders. The pet hotel was a little cheesy but it was great. And it was a means to an end. It would only be for a few days while we got a feel for the new space. I’d been with Clive much longer than Simon, and I knew if there was one loose floorboard, one cupboard with a wonky door, he’d go exploring and it’d be impossible to find him later. Simon protested that I was being ridiculous and a control freak.

I simply wanted to kitty proof the joint. That’s it. And in order to do so, my cat had to spend a few nights in an overpriced pet hotel with room service. The way Clive and Simon were acting, you’d think I’d suggested he spend a few nights on Alcatraz.

But here we were, moving day, and Simon had finally agreed it was in Clive’s best interests, as well as his own, to take him to the pet hotel before closing on the house. I’d kissed them both that morning, telling Clive to enjoy his adventure. He arranged his paw in a way that one of his little kitty fingers was sticking straight up. Not an accident, I’m quite sure.

I planned on working through lunch that day, trying to get everything pulled together so that when Jillian came back to work on Monday, it would be like she’d never left. No, better than when she left. I really wanted her to know how seriously I’d taken running her business while she was gone, even bringing in a few new clients while taking care of our existing ones. And mentoring a new intern with the same patience and guidance that she’d given me when I walked through those doors for the first time.

And that while, yes, we’d lost the carpet on the third floor, I’d replaced it with something even better.

I’d put together storyboards showing the progress on the Claremont; very striking. I’d streamlined one of the payroll reports so she could see not only total hours worked for her hourly employees but how many hours had been allocated to each project. And I almost had all the invoices for all active accounts and projects categorized and color coded in different colored folders, which were spread out all over my office.

I was checking my math on a particularly long itemized receipt when Simon unexpectedly sailed in with a pizza box at twelve thirty. He plunked it down square in the middle of my desk with a flourish.

“Whoa, whoa, what’s this?” I exclaimed, looking up from my adding machine and realizing that I’d lost count for the third time.

“It’s called lunch, babe,” he said with a proud smile, pulling sodas out of a bag and looking for a place to put them down. “Damn, woman, I’ve never seen your desk this messy.”

“Simon, wait, don’t—”

He’d picked up three of my folders and stacked them together to make room, mixing up everything I was working on. “There we go—much better.”

I took off my glasses and glared at him. “Do you have any idea how much time that took me to organize this morning?”

He looked guiltily at the stack. “Oops?” he offered.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” I took the stack from him and started to separate them all over again.