A panicky shriek pierced the monks' calm intonations, and Axell broke into a run.
He didn't have to run far. He skidded to a halt outside the formal dining room. The once formal dining room.
He counted heads first. The apparent source of the shriek was Constance, who must have dropped a jar of paint on the plastic sheeting covering the wall-to-wall carpet. Matty watched her in wide-eyed horror. Even Baby Alexa appeared to be awake and following the action. Calming his pounding heart, Axell dragged his gaze to Maya—his intended wife.
Garbed in loose blue-jean overalls over a bright orange T-shirt, she bent to kiss Constance's head and hug her as she climbed down from her precarious perch on a stool dragged in from the kitchen. The green paint had apparently hit the overalls as much as the sheeting, or Maya had been painting her clothes again.
She was supposed to be resting. Axell's gaze traveled over the rest of the explosion of chaos that had once been his elegant dining room. The heavy formal draperies lay in crumpled heaps across the center of the polished mahogany table. Sunshine flooded the room through the bay windows and the French doors leading onto the deck, reflecting off the crystal of the chandelier and illuminating the cut glass in the display case without need of electricity. His gaze returned to the window. The once neutral ivory wall was now grass green, with what appeared to be a white trellis with purple flowering vines spilling across the green. A lion-like creature crouched in an emerald jungle in the corner.
"This time, it's deliberate, isn't it?" he asked evenly, finally stepping into the room.
Constance shrieked again. From utter silence to shrieks. Maybe he should have been grateful for what he had. As Muldoon purred and wrapped cat hair around his ankles, Axell tried to temper his reaction. He'd promised the house would be hers. Could he live with the result?
Maya tapped his daughter on the head to hush her, then turned her brilliant smile in his direction. Axell felt as if she'd swept his feet out from under him. For a smile like that, he'd live in her damned jungle.
"Well, most of it was deliberate," she admitted. "These are the only colors I could find at the school. I've got goop that will take any paint off the carpet, but most of it's on the plastic. What do you think?" She gestured at the rampant vine encaging the lion.
"I'm thinking the draperies will hide it." What was he supposed to say? He figured she expected something, but he'd be damned if he knew what it was. The room had looked fine the way it was. No one ever used it. He gave dinners at the restaurant, where the staff could prepare them. Angela had hated cooking.
Maya aimed her paintbrush at his nose but didn't close in for the kill. "You're supposed to say it makes the room a hundred percent more cheerful. I'll send the draperies out for cleaning, but I don't see any reason to hang them again. It could be a wonderful room with all this sunlight."
Grateful she hadn't chosen enormous red dragons for ornamentation, Axell eyed the huge windows skeptically. "You won't have any privacy."
Maya dropped her brush in the paint can. Wiping her hands off on her overalls, she crossed the room and looked up at him. He'd known she wasn't large, but without her big belly in front of her, she was almost delicate. Still, her head reached past his shoulders, and she wasn't afraid to tap his jaw with her long fingers. He liked the contact with those long, slender—paint-splattered—fingers.
"You have an acre of lawn and a field of trees out there. How much privacy do you need? Lighten up, Holm. You have kids who will want to play out in that enormous yard. Do you want to watch them play, or eat by candlelight? Or are we changing our minds?" she asked tauntingly.
Her voice shivered up and down his spine as much as her touch. He saw the challenge in her turquoise eyes, and he glared back. "That's what this is all about, isn't it? You're pushing the boundaries, seeing how far you can go before I break."
Axell's composure snapped as Maya's long lashes blinked in disconcertion. The day had been long and frustrating. He deserved a little compensation for his patience. Digging his hands into the wild tangle of curls, Axell cupped her head and prevented her from looking