Page 59 of The Homewreckers
The waiter slid a basket of warm bread onto the table, alongside a dish of olive oil. Hattie helped herself to a slice, tearing off a bit and dipping it into the herb-flecked oil.
She chewed the bread and sipped her wine. He raised one eyebrow. “That’s it? That’s all you got for me?”
“Okay,” she relented. “Maybe you’re growing on me. A little bit.”
“Like mold? Is that supposed to be good?”
“Trae? I think we’ve got a good working relationship, and it seems like Leetha and Mo are pleased. I honestly don’t know what more you want from me.”
He leaned across the table and kissed her gently on the lips. “This,” he murmured in her ear. “This is what I want from you. For starters.”
Hattie’s eyes flew open just in time to catch camera flashes going off at the table of fans. The women were giggling and nudging one another.
She drew back from him, and her face felt like it was in flames. “Shit.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the women, then returned his focus on Hattie. “Ignore them, please. This is about us.”
She took a gulp of wine. “Us? I don’t know what to say.”
“You could start by saying you enjoyed the kiss.”
“Wow,” she said, stumbling to phrase her reaction. “You took me totally off guard. That was sort of a hit-and-run kiss, wouldn’t you say?”
“Not really. You asked me what more I want from you, and I responded with a demonstration. On impulse. You admitted we have good on-screen chemistry. So I wanted you to realize that we could be good together off-screen, too. Very good.” He raised an eyebrow. “Unless that’s repugnant to you? I mean, God forbid you would find my attentions unwelcome, or think I’m sexually harassing you.”
“Sexually harassing? No!” she said quickly. “And you’re not totally repugnant.”
There was that smile again. He’d used it on those fans, of course, but this one, she told herself, was different. It was genuine. And totally disarming. She could feel her defenses melting.
Now their server was at the table with their appetizer, and she offered up a silent prayer of thanks for the welcome distraction.
Trae took a bite. “Hey! This is great.” He dipped the crab into the bright red puddle of sauce on the plate. “What’s this? I like the spice.”
“Hot pepper jelly. It’s a southern thing, mixing the sweet with the heat.”
“The sweet with the heat. If that’s a metaphor for southern girls, I approve.”
She shook her head. “You’re incorrigible.”
“I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me tonight.”
When their entrees arrived, Hattie managed to steer the conversation away from any discussions of chemistry by asking Trae about his favorite projects.
“The big-budget ones are the most fun, of course,” he said. “These Silicon Valley tech bros who have money to burn are up for the most audacious, over-the-top interiors I can come up with. And they all want to outdo each other. I did an actual freestanding multiplex movie theater for one guy, complete with a full-service concession stand with a wood-fired pizza oven.”
“That’s crazy,” Hattie said.
“What about you? What’s your favorite historic restoration?”
“Hmm.” It didn’t take Hattie long to come up with a response.
“Two years ago, a friend of Tug’s sold us his late mother-in-law’s house in Ardsley Park. That’s a very desirable in-town neighborhood that was Savannah’s first streetcar suburb. It was a rundown 1920s Georgian Revival on a gorgeous double lot. The family never listed it with a real estate agent.”
She smiled at the memory. “It had hundred-year-old live oaks and boxwood hedges, set back off the street, and it was big—almost four thousand square feet, with an incredible solarium with a fireplace and original leaded-pane windows and Cuban tile floors.”
“Tell me more,” Trae prompted.
Hattie’s face lit up as she described the transformation. “We completely reworked the kitchen space, took out most of the walls. At the time, we had a really talented cabinetmaker working for us. He copied some glass-fronted cabinets that were in the breakfast nook, and we did all the upper cabinets in that same look. We stripped a dozen layers of old paint off the butler’s pantry, down to the original oak, and dropped a copper bar sink into it. Best of all, our electrician figured out how to remove the guts of a 1920s-era walk-in fridge and install a new working compressor and motor.”
