He was planning to hire her to furnish a room in the new San Francisco hilltop home he’d designed for a very wealthy couple. What the heck. He figured he could donate the furniture to charity later if he needed to. Nonetheless, he’d already wasted most of Monday in his office putting off this visit, wondering if he was just being a fool. Of course Lily had been satisfied by him. Of course he had made her come.
Multiple times.
But that voice in his head, the one that kept saying Are you absolutely sure? just wouldn’t shut up.
An elderly women opened the door for him. “Are you going to come in or stand outside scowling at our potential customers all day?”
Travis turned his lips up at the woman, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“No need to bare your teeth at me, young man,” she said, and Travis couldn’t help but feel like a bad-tempered idiot. “Now that we’ve got you inside the store, is there anything I can help you with?”
“I’m looking for Lily Ellis.”
The gray-haired woman eyed him up and down, stripping him naked with her gaze, so he added, “I’ve got a business proposal for her.”
The woman cackled like the Wicked Witch of the West. “I’ll bet you do, sonny. What I wouldn’t have done for a business proposal from you in my day,” she said, using her bony fingers to make quotation marks around the words “business proposal.”
Inwardly, Travis recoiled from the sexual implications in the woman’s words as he waited for her to tell him where Lily was. “She’s in the back of the store by the dining tables. And good luck,” the woman said, before walking off toward the storeroom, snickering all the way.
“Crazy old lady,” Travis muttered as he weaved through the couches, lounge chairs, and coffee tables. A few seconds later he caught sight of Lily bending over a long pinewood table, dusting it in smooth strokes.
For a moment the only thing he could see was the two of them naked and writhing on the table.
Travis shook the image out of his head, forcing himself to look at Lily objectively. From his vantage point hidden behind a large armoire he studied her in the light of day. Her hair was redder and shinier than he remembered it ever being before. Although the truth was that he had never really hated her hair. Sure, he preferred straight blond or brown locks to such a bright red, but all in all, her red curls weren’t the worst thing about her.
She was wearing a well-tailored red suit and he’d have to be blind not to notice the way the fabric tapered in at the waist before flaring out to cup the curve of her ass.
He couldn’t remember Lily ever wearing such a vibrant color before, and even though he hated to admit it, the crimson fabric nicely offset her creamy skin. He could only imagine how blue her eyes would look today.
Travis caught himself seconds before he started quoting a Shakespeare soliloquy to her beauty. For God’s sake, he told himself, This is Lily.
Big, boring Lily.
His perspective firmly back in place, he stepped out from behind the armoire and called her name.
Lily jumped, dropping her dusting rag on the floor. She turned to him, shock painted across her face.
“Travis, what are you doing here?”
As if he were approaching a skittish, hungry dog that needed reassuring, he held up his hands and moved toward her. “Don’t look so worried, Lily. I’ve come to you with a business proposition.”
With each step that he took, Lily took a step back, until she was pressed tightly up against the table. Her voice shaky, she licked her plump red lips, and asked, “A business proposition?”
Travis nodded absently, busy doing a thorough perusal of Lily’s figure. How was it that practically overnight she seemed to have blossomed? Surely she hadn’t been this ripe, this sexy before.
Or had she?
Crossing his arms across his chest, Travis got down to business. “I want you to work with me on a new house that I designed.”
Lily’s hand went to her throat. Travis wondered how her skin would taste at the pulse point that was beating so rapidly in her neck.
“You want me to work with you?”
“I need an interior designer. That is what you do, isn’t it?”
Lily nodded.
Travis shrugged. “If you don’t think you’re up to it, I’ll understand.”