Tara took a seat at the kitchen island while he pulled out a bottle from the fridge. “White okay?”
“Yes. Red gives me a headache sometimes.”
“We don’t want that.”
“Not tonight, that’s for sure.” She smoothed her hand over the white marble countertops, looking all over the room. “I forgot how incredible your house is. I haven’t been here in so long. Eight years, maybe?”
“Sounds about right. I don’t think you’ve been here since you and Johnathon got divorced.” He offered her a glass. “I’d like to propose a toast. To fixing mistakes.”
She smiled and clinked her glass with his. “It’s really sweet of you to do this.”
“Please don’t start with the nice-guy routine.” He rounded the kitchen island so he could stand next to her.
“Oh, I won’t. The guy who wants to squash the competition like a bug is definitely not a good guy.”
He and Tara sat at the table and got right to work. She went over the site limitations, the city’s requirements and the plan as it was. She and Clay had made quite a lot of changes since Grant had last been in the loop several weeks ago. Even though she was in a trouble spot with the deadline looming, once she started talking her way through it, he could see exactly how capable she was of doing this job. Hell, she could run Sterling if she truly wanted to do that. It made Grant sad to think that might end up being the case, and he would fight for his rightful place at the company, but if he had to lose to someone, Tara would be a hell of a victor.
After an hour or so of discussion of possible changes, Grant took out a large pad of drafting paper and began working on a rough sketch of the new layout. It would ultimately take far more detail than what he was able to create here. For now, he and Tara were concerned with the flow of pedestrians and bicycle traffic, along with ample handicapped accessibility. There were noise issues to think about with the live music venue they were proposing, and then there were the aesthetics—the way it would look from both the water and the city sides of the project. In truth, it was a mountain of work, and Grant was truly burned out by one in the morning.
“I don’t know if I can work anymore tonight,” he said, leaning back in his chair and stretching his arms high above his head.
Tara finished off her glass of wine. “Do you think this is feasible?” She tapped the stack of sketches he’d done so far. They were incredibly rough and would take some explaining to Clay, but they were a solid start.
“I do. I mean, you and I need to figure out the elevations since some of the structures have had to be moved out of the previous order. But we have tomorrow. And Sunday.”
It was Tara’s turn to sit back in her chair and stretch, showing off the lithe lines of her beautiful body. Everything in Grant’s body went tight. Even under the strain of sheer exhaustion, he wanted her.
“You and I make a good team. I’m sorry that this project had to be so adversarial,” she said.
Grant shrugged and sat forward, drawing a circle with his finger on the pad of paper before him. He wanted so badly to touch her. To kiss her. To take her to bed. “I’m the one who should be saying I’m sorry. I knew from the night of the baseball game that you had an incredible vision. And I should’ve stayed fully on board with that. I should’ve backed you up, rather than letting you sink or swim.”
“You were protecting your position within Sterling. As the person carving out her own spot in that company, I have to admire that.”
She was being gracious and Grant was exceptionally tired of the obstacles they’d faced. He really wanted to strip it all away until there was nothing left but the two of them. “It’s not more important than our friendship.”
“Do you mean that? Because there are times when I doubted that.”
“Our friendship? When?”
“The last few weeks. You were so cold to me in the office. I felt like I’d been demoted or something. It was so clear that you’d drawn the battle lines and saw our relationship as combative.”
He shook his head and sat back farther in his chair, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I only felt that way because we went from sharing the most amazing night ever to you being too worried about what Astrid and Miranda might think.”
“You were equally worried about office gossip.”
“And that died back pretty quickly. Which means my attitude toward you at work did its job.”
“I still didn’t like it.”
Grant swallowed back the emotion of the moment. “I didn’t like it either. I hated every minute of it. I don’t like being cool to you, Tara.”
Tara bit down on her lower lip like she was fighting a smile. “Our night together was pretty amazing, wasn’t it?”
“The absolute best.” He answered a little too quickly, but it was exactly the way he felt. “And I’m not exaggerating.”
“But the business is standing between us.”
“Only if we let it.”
She eyed him with suspicion, scanning his face like she was looking for clues. Did she not trust him? Was she truly more loyal to the wives than she was to him? Or would it all come down to being nothing more than business? “You don’t really mean that,” she said.
Grant pushed aside the papers and stood. He easily took the two short strides to Tara’s side, but it felt as though he was crossing a dividing line. He placed his hand on her upper arm and walked behind her, not letting go as he used his other hand to pull her hair back from her shoulder. All the while, ocean breezes streamed in through the open slider door, heightening every sense—touch, smell and
