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  Sandra lifted her face and stared at him. “She has paint under her cuticles. I would say she did.”

  “I can’t hide anything from you, I see.” Marigold grinned. “While I have your attention, Hagen, may I ask what the budget is for the apartment block reception area?”

  “Show me your design and the cost estimates. If the two correlate, we’ll see.” He backed into his office, wondering how he would keep separate working with Marigold and playing with her. The temptation to romance her in the office was great, but a man who dabbled with his employee, be she a friend of the family or not, was asking for workplace insurrection.

  After he had spent some time plotting the agenda of the next board meeting, he phoned one of his contractors about the school block’s progress, only to be sidetracked onto the engineering report for the newer part of the build.

  He picked up his phone, and called Sandra. “Would you mind bringing me a cup of coffee? I’m snowed under.”

  “I wouldn’t mind, normally, but I’m snowed under, too. I have to get your agenda sent off to everyone right away so that I can have the amendments back within the next hour. Also, the electrical contractor for the school job wants the plans for the new builds. I have to follow up—I’ll see if Marigold will get your coffee. She is about to leave for her own.”

  “No—” But she had hung up. He swung out of his chair and moved to open the door. Marigold didn’t see him. She gave Sandra a nod, and she disappeared. Although he had wanted coffee at his desk so that he could finish his current job, if Marigold brought back his drink, he would be distracted. Now placed in the position of waiting for her to distract him, he twiddled his thumbs until she returned.

  She practically slithered into his office, two cups of coffee in one hand. “May I have a word? I want to run my ideas by you.”

  “Plans, Marigold. Not ideas. I’m not artistic like you and Tiggy. I need plans.” He rubbed his forehead. At this stage, he had her in his head instead of the worries of the electrical contractor. He sighed. “You may as well bring them to me now. Leave your coffee here.”

  She plunked both cups on his desk and scooted over to her office, arriving back with a ream of paper. “I’ve mocked up the area and noted the costs and the colors, but I want to do something extra, which will, of course, cost more.”

  Shifting the coffees to one side, he placed her pages in front of him, indicating she should continue.

  She did. “New carpet, naturally, and that will be measured up after the walls are painted. The painter gave me these quotes and the carpet cost is in this range.” She pointed to a line of figures. “I’m having seating made instead of buying it off the showroom floor because this is a classy apartment block, and I think we should be using the place as an advertisement for all your other apartment blocks.”

  “Of course.” He leaned back, examining her earnest expression.

  “The seating is along large clean lines, oversized and tailored. I’m using turquoise for the furniture and blush pink accents with tan walls and carpet. See these shapes?” She pointed at a pencil drawing she had done as neatly as her drawing of his house, which she’d had printed onto the place cards for the dinner.

  The design looked art deco, which he liked. Until recently, his office had contained an art deco style couch and two chairs in burgundy. Tiggy had changed this to a more modern backless seating arrangement in black to discourage people from taking up too much of his time. “The price?”

  “This is the quote.” She flipped through a couple of pages. Her perfume suited her, floral and light. He wondered if she wore the perfume he bought for her.

  He nodded. “Fair enough. And you’re not planning anything outrageously expensive?”

  “Well. You haven’t used artwork in the area, and I understand why. You clearly couldn’t use the staging prints in a place this exclusive, and good artwork is expensive. If it was a public space, we could get artists to exhibit their work, but the apartments are privately owned and only the owners would see them, so that’s not a great incentive to get any artist to exhibit.”

  “What’s your idea?”

  “That we pay money for good artwork.” She smiled.

  He twisted his mouth wryly. “That sounds economical to you?”

  “You’re advertising your company, remember? What if you offered an art prize and the winner would have his or her art displayed in the foyer until the next winner the next year?”

  “I’ll think about it. Your bed is arriving today. Call me if you want a hand setting it up.”

  “I’m the queen of the bed-screwers. Bad phrasing. I screwed three together in the schoolhouse staging. I did the third in about ten minutes.” She groaned. “I’m making it sound worse, but you know what I mean.” Her aristocratic nose tilted, and she flicked a speck of imaginary dust from her shoulder.

  He kept his amused smile. “So you won’t need me?” He tried to sound relieved rather than disappointed, which he was, because he didn’t want thoughts of her screwing three men in a schoolhouse to occupy his thoughts. That was more the sort of activity Mercia’s friends got up to.

  She shook her head. “Not for making up a bed,” she said, sounding cryptic. She collected her diagrams and left.

  He sat wondering if she had meant to be cryptic or if he merely wanted her to be cryptic. Holding an optimistic thread in his mind, he shifted himself back into work mode and made sense of the engineering report.

  The click of his door opening brought his head up. “Scarlett. I didn’t hear you knock.” He frowned, rising to his feet, hoping to usher the beautiful blonde out before she wasted too much of his time.

  “That’s because I didn’t knock, darling. There’s no one out there guarding you, so I thought I would slip in unnoticed.”

  He suppressed a groan. “A problem with the furniture delivery?”

  She shook her head, and half hooded her eyes. He knew why she was here again. She’d thought that after Mercia’s death, and the subsequent divorce of her husband, that Hagen and she ought to console each other. “I came to thank you for letting the theater company borrow your furniture. I thought as a reward, I would cook dinner for you tonight at my place.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Scarlett, but it was our pleasure to make a small contribution.”

  “And making dinner for you tonight will be my pleasure.” Scarlett was a discreet woman and his dead wife’s best friend. He knew her seductive smiles as well as he knew Mercia’s but while she glided toward him, he stood like a rabbit caught in a car’s headlights, because he could only think of Marigold. Before he could blink, Scarlett had a one cool hand on the back of his neck and the other heading toward his zipper.

  “Not here, Scarlett.” Evading her lipstick, he took her seeking hand in his. She settled her body right into him, teasing the lobe of his ear between her teeth. Stuck between her teeth and her thigh across his buttocks, he managed to step sideways. Her foot landed on the floor and his earlobe escaped amputation by a millisecond before Marigold walked past the open door. His palm still rested on Scarlett’s waist but he managed to turn her to face the exit.

  “Scarlett is just leaving,” he said to Marigold. His voice sounded gruff.

  “I hope you didn’t have a problem with the furniture delivery,” Marigold said blinking at Scarlett. Her demeanor said polite patience.

  “No problem.” Scarlett’s expression showed no sign of awkwardness. “I’ll speak to you later, Hagen. Don’t forget my invitation.”

  “I won’t.” After she had gone, he scrubbed his ear with his handkerchief.

  * * * *

  The week flew by, and then Friday suddenly gave Marigold the jitters. She awoke in the morning dithering about clothes. By this time tomorrow, she would have participated in the first man-date she’d had in a long while. She wished she hadn’t worn the gray-and-black dress at Hagen�
�s dinner, for now Morgan had seen her only new outfit.

  Then again, because the dress was so neutral, he might not remember she had worn it before. After she arrived home from work, she wriggled into the dress. Knowing blue softened the pink tones of her skin, she added a flowing pale blue scarf. She looked okay, not especially good or bad. Sighing, she twisted her hair into a loose knot at the nape of her neck. Then she pulled out a few curls around her face. She now looked a little less businesslike.

  Morgan arrived on time, dressed in beige cotton pants, a white shirt with a brown-striped tie, and a brown suit jacket. With his mild brown eyes and medium brown hair, he looked rather nice. “I have a table booked at that new place on Unley Road,” he said, escorting her to his comfortable car.

  The place he ushered her into was smart and warm, packed with people about her age who looked very fashionable, the women not wearing as much as she would have expected, given the chilly weather. However, she understood the need to look sexy even if you had goose bumps. She couldn’t do that herself but she knew she was fuddy-duddy. A bare midriff in early spring weather wasn’t her idea of wise.

  Morgan was shown to a good table in a sheltered part of the room and treated to prompt service. He had a placid, confident manner, a healthy smile, and he treated her like a fragile flower. As a responsible woman, she didn’t like being treated like a fragile flower. Hagen treated her like a responsible woman.

  Although the meal was beautifully presented, she felt as awkward as a thistle in a bed of violets. Morgan ate like a food judge, tasting everything either with smacking appreciation or long consideration as if he was giving a mental score to each morsel he ate. He had a tendency to gesture with his knife while he spoke.

  You couldn’t take him anywhere, her mother would have said if she had seen that, but Marigold didn’t go anywhere so that wouldn’t matter.

  When she made what she thought were leading comments, which would have baited Hagen into laughing or retaliating, Morgan looked puzzled. He didn’t get her sense of humor. Hagen had understood her from the start, and he never fell into her linguistic traps. He gave as much as he took. Morgan didn’t fall into them either because he thought she was serious, and he judged her accordingly as a humorless and silly woman. She could see him mentally wishing himself with anyone but her.

  “The meal has been wonderful,” she said after she finished off every last morsel of her dessert, a collection of tiny tastes of gelato, decorated with almond bread, sugared violets, and micro-strawberries. “That tasted as delicious as it looked. I’ll have to recommend this place to everyone I know.”

  Morgan looked relieved. “The owner is married to my cousin. Your recommendation will help a lot.”

  “Even without, he is sure to be a success.” She folded her hands in front of her, certain she looked ready to leave, and equally certain he didn’t mind her having an early night.

  He aimed his gaze at the service counter, lifted a finger, and the bill arrived. After producing his credit card, his payment was taken. On the trip back home, the silence begged to be filled, and she did, commenting on food, the weather, the success of the dinner party the week before and anything she could think of to say to this man with whom she had nothing in common.

  He walked her to the front door, which was nice of him when his face said he had wasted his time and money. Then all she could say was, “Thank you. The night out was much appreciated.”

  He nodded and disappeared into the night, and she had the idea she had let herself down. Getting into the dating scene was difficult for a woman her age. At least she had completing her bedroom décor to amuse her tomorrow, before her movie date with Hagen.

  He had said he would collect her at four in the afternoon, having decided on the early showing of the movie. She had plenty of time until then to finish off the details in her bedroom. During the week, she had made the linen side curtains which, pulled across the window, gave an amount of privacy inside and fortunately left her with a hazed-over view of the soft pittosporum that grew in front of the side fence.

  The next morning, she awoke with a smile. The day had begun, the day she hadn’t ever thought would come, the day she had a real date with handsome, hunky, ultra-desirable Hagen.

  First, shopping, a small amount of cleaning, fresh sheets—she loved crisp new clean sheets—and then she puttered into the sewing room. Amazingly, she finished her sewing before lunch and then she spent some time later in the afternoon hanging the blind she had made. After that, she sat on the windowsill and stared into the room contemplating the bed.

  The décor revolved around her lovely patchwork quilt, made by her dying mother out of memories: a few squares from one of Marigold’s baby dresses, pieces of her old school uniform, a repeating pattern made from the curtains she’d had as a child, an old tablecloth, her grandmother’s ball gown, long forgotten cushion covers, all cobbled together with borders of dark blue. The pale orange lining was the only part of the quilt that was brand new.

  Marigold had used white sheets and pillowcases as a contrast, and the carpet from the AA warehouse looked perfect. A few plain cushions would hold the design together, and she had an old chair she planned to cover to match the lining of the quilt. All she really needed were framed pictures on the walls. She would think about those and meanwhile make the cushion covers.

  By three o’clock, she had made three cushion covers, one in aqua blue and two in the pale orange fabric she would use for the chair. The hands of the clock kept moving, and she had no idea what to wear to go to a movie and a meal with Hagen. If she’d had a full wardrobe of clothes, she might have had a choice. As a stay-at-home sewer for many years, she’d had no need to think about dressing for dates. Sighing, she pulled on her black pants and the cream knit top Hagen had given her. She filled the Burberry bag with her purse, clean tissues in case she cried in the movie, a comb, and a lipstick.

  Her hair gave her all sorts of problems. She wanted to look good to Hagen. For work she pinned up her hair in various ways. For the movies, she decided on a figure-eight plait on her nape, neat but not exciting. Hagen was used to being with his glamorous wife who had long dark flowing hair and wore the latest and most expensive clothes. Marigold couldn’t compete. She could only be herself—a plainly dressed, conservative woman with flyaway hair who would never be anyone else, and possibly by choice. Sometimes she despaired of herself. She could at least decide to adopt Nichole Kidman’s precise style.

  Hagen’s car pulled up outside. She shrugged into her Burberry coat, grabbed up the matching bag, and strode to the door, dressed almost exclusively by Hagen.

  “On time,” she said, smiling at the best sight she’d seen all day, Hagen wearing dark brown chinos, a beige knit, and a casual coat in tan. “And we match, though that’s not too surprising, bearing in mind that I’m wearing your clothes.”

  “You look better in them than I would.” His gaze examined her from her eyes to her feet, and he gave a long slow careful smile. “Did you get your room finished?”

  “Pretty well. I have a chair to cover, and it’s done. I’m about to start focusing on your house now.” That, of course, was a lie, but she didn’t want him to know that the minute he’d asked to redo his house that she’d had ideas. She needed him to think that she would spend hours, as many as he’d spent on her house.

  “Don’t tell me. Show me.”

  “I wasn’t about to tell you,” she said, miffed, pulling the door shut behind her. “I’ll be spending quite some time on your diagrams, finding you material swatches, carpet colors—”

  “I’m allowed to have carpet?”

  “I’m not saying. It’ll be a surprise.”

  He ushered her to his car, opening the passenger door. She slid in, worried about the ease with which she had become accustomed to being driven in luxury. He walked around the car and angled in beside her. “Okay, no hints. I love surprises.�
�

  “You never used to.”

  “I do a lot things now I never used to do. You can’t expect someone to stay the same all their life. For instance, I’m a little more set in my ways than I used to be.”

  “That’s a sign of age. I’m rather more flexible.” She turned her head away.

  “Good to hear, Marigold,” he said in an impartial voice. “We could possibly now meet in the middle.”

  Chapter 8

  Four o’clock hadn’t come fast enough for Hagen. The fear that Marigold’s date last night had been successful, that she would continue to see Morgan, set Hagen’s teeth on edge. He had waited so long to be with her again and he wouldn’t let himself be disqualified before he had fronted up to the starting line.

  Unfortunately, although he had been given athletic ability and a certain amount of ambition, he had more idea of how to run a business and organize teams than how to inveigle a woman into his bed. Usually his money did that for him. Begging, of course, was out of the question, except as a last resort. When she had wiped him off her prospective husband list all those years ago, he had not done a single thing about being so summarily dropped, other than to form relationships with the sort of women she expected him to choose. Not that he chose them. He let them choose him.

  Marigold had decided that his first chance with her would be his last. She hadn’t seen him as steadfast enough to remain by her side while she had gone through the untold torture of caring for the mother she loved. She had an ideal, which he had never managed to fathom. He needed the wholeness she provided that he had never found elsewhere. So, there he sat in a small dark intimate theater, a man with money, no charm, and a yearning for the woman beside him who couldn’t be bought.

  He shifted slightly to the side and his shoulder touched hers. The contact warmed him. No more than thirty other patrons had decided to see this film and he understood why while he watched beautifully costumed, experienced actors play their roles. Given a choice, he would rather see an art house movie, something dark and complicated, but he enjoyed the comedy of manners well enough. Most of the males in the audience looked as inattentive as he, but for other reasons, possibly.