Love on Lexington Avenue - Lauren Layne Page 0,5
other house on the block, and he supposed that was meant to be the charm of it. In Manhattan, where the sheer number of bodies on a relatively small strip of land forced real estate to go up, literally, high-rise apartment buildings and condominiums were a dime a dozen. It was these stately brownstones in fancy historic neighborhoods that the city’s elite creamed their pants over.
In almost any other part of the country, these unassuming town houses served as starter homes for new couples and families. The training wheels of home ownership until one could afford the actual house, with a proper yard, a garage, room for the kids, etc. Not so on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where skinny structures went for eight figures, easily. Even the outdated ones got seven-figure offers just for the property value and bragging rights.
Scott wasn’t sure which category he was dealing with. Oliver had just said this Claire woman wanted a major reno. For all he knew, that meant replacing last year’s kitchen counters. In his experience, wealthy housewives weren’t known for perspective. Their emergency was someone else’s average weekday.
Scott jogged up the steps, egged on as much by the hope of coffee as he was by the desire to get this damn assessment over with so he could politely turn her down and move on to a project that lit his fire.
As with the early morning, it was his own damn fault that he was in this position in the first place. Scott had told Oliver he’d wanted a break from the corporate stuff, though he’d neglected to mention that changing a snobby widow’s towel rack from silver to copper wasn’t exactly what he had in mind.
He wanted a true fixer-upper, not a glorified decorating gig for a rich woman who would probably want to replace original hardwood with some bamboo nonsense. But Oliver was on the short list of people that Scott would do just about anything for, and so he’d agreed to at least see Claire Hayes’s project before turning her down.
Even as he had no intention of agreeing to the project, Scott’s trained eye took in the details of the front porch as he knocked. Dilapidated would be a nice word for it. And he didn’t even bother with the fussy brass knocker that looked like a good door slam would send it to its death.
Instead, he rapped his knuckles against the wood, as much to test its solidity as to actually knock. Old, he realized. Really old. In fact, the front door was in the same condition as the knocker. Tired. Fading paint, warped wood, ugly, outdated frosted glass panes. Even the doorknobs were bad.
“Jesus,” he muttered, running a finger over some fugly shape carved into the wood at waist level. “Are these supposed to be leaves?”
The door opened, leaving his hand extended awkwardly, finger now pointing at . . . well, the woman’s crotch. Unembarrassed, Scott’s hand dropped back to his side as his eyes traveled back up the woman’s body. Boring gray slacks, boring blue blouse . . .
His eyes slammed into hers, and he was abruptly jolted out of his boredom. Not because her face was particularly interesting. All her features were right where they were supposed to be. Small nose, full mouth, angular jaw.
The eyes though. They were worth a second look.
He supposed hazel was the official label, but they were a hell of a lot more interesting than that. Green at the centers, gold at the outer edges. Scott had always been fascinated by things that changed the more you looked at them. Prisms. Sunsets. Clouds. The night sky.
He mentally added Claire Hayes’s eyes to the list.
Too bad the rest of her was so Stepford Wife.
“You must be Scott,” she said with a smile that did nothing to light those magnificent eyes, her hand extending to his.
“Must be.” He shook her hand, pleasantly surprised by the strong handshake, even as he looked beyond her to the inside of the brownstone, wanting to move this along.
Claire seemed to sense it, because she forwent any more small talk, moving aside to let him in. Scott stepped into the foyer and immediately felt it. The rush. That feeling he got when he’d stepped into a space that was so far from reaching its potential, it was almost physically painful.
He whistled as he did a cursory scan of his immediate area. He took in the dark foyer, the cramped sitting area just off the front door,