“Hmmm,” she said on a long breath. “So basically you’re telling me you want a castle with a tower.”
“What? I didn’t say—”
“Okay, I know that’s not what you said, but a stone building with a wall and a lighthouse tower says castle to me.”
A flash of anger hit him like a rogue wave. “Are you laughing at me?” he snarled.
“Not at all. I’m trying to understand what you want.”
“Well, clearly I want something substantial, maybe built of stone, with a wall to protect it. And it needs to withstand the most ferocious storm, with a big enough freezer to lay in food for months at a time. I don’t plan to make a lot of trips back and forth to the grocery store.”
* * *
Finally. She had something to work with, and it wasn’t far from what Aunt Donna had talked about last Saturday. He wanted a hideaway.
It made sense, seeing the way he would turn away from her, exposing only his unscarred side. It almost irked her that she could feel empathy for him. It was probably hard for him. People probably stared at him.
So she got the picture. He wanted a place to haunt like some brooding, injured hero in a Gothic novel. She’d never designed anything like that, and she’d hate living in a place like that. But it wasn’t her vision or her house.
That was the point. And she took pride in the fact that she was good at her job because she could translate her clients’ visions into reality.
So she gave him a businesslike smile. “I can design something like that,” she said, standing up to make herself taller and maybe a bit more serious-looking. But the swaying motion of the boat almost knocked her sideways. She had to grab the back of the bench to keep from falling over. How humiliating.
She found him watching her out of his cobalt-blue eye, studying her as if he could see right through to her insecurities. She needed a moment to regroup.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to use the head.”
“Sure. It’s down the ship’s ladder and to the left.”
She headed forward and took the ladder down into the yacht’s main salon, which had been decorated in a style that fit the boat’s name.
And really, who names their boat Bachelor’s Delight? But then, she already knew that Topher Martin had an ego the size of Alaska. Clearly, the whole #MeToo thing had completely escaped his attention.
As she snooped around his yacht, she got a real good sense of his design style, which could be summed up as early–American Playboy Mansion. She wanted to barf all over the gold trim in the yacht’s head. The whole thing was beyond tacky.
When she returned above deck, desperately in need of fresh air, Delight was nearing the iconic lighthouse. It stood on its lonely island at the mouth of the inlet, its red and white stripes faded to brown and gray. A cast-iron gallery and catwalk topped the tower and had left rust streaks down the faded paint of the brickwork.
The tower was solid and utterly isolated. A perfect place for an off-the-grid hideaway for a brooding bachelor.
Topher guided the yacht alongside a floating aluminum dock that appeared to be brand-new. She hopped out and secured the mooring lines as Topher cut the engines.
She had expected him to take care of the aft lines, but when he stood up from the captain’s chair, she realized the truth. Aunt Donna had said something about his injured leg, and now she realized that it was, by far, the most significant of his challenges.
A few misgivings settled uncomfortably into her mind. Maybe it was cruel to do this—to make it possible for him to retire from the world.
She stomped on the thought. Who was she to tell him what he should and shouldn’t do? The man was willing to pay her well. So she wasn’t going to get all softhearted or worried. The man had money, he wanted a house, and she was an architect.
She headed down the dock and caught the mooring line when he tossed it to her. When she’d secured it to the cleat, she stood and turned, gazing up at the lighthouse.
“Tell me about the light?” she asked.
“It was built in 1870,” he said as they made their way up a flagstone walk. Topher had produced one of those folding aluminum canes with a rubber tip, which he leaned heavily on as they climbed the hill where