Sandcastle Beach (Matchmaker Bay #3) - Jenny Holiday Page 0,126

she said. “You want to be ‘Toronto’s Accountants,’ so why not show it? Not in a hokey, boosterish sort of way, though.” She slid a stack of photographs closer to him. “These are reproductions of some shots by an up-and-coming local photographer. I know you’ve supported the Toronto Arts Foundation. Buying some large prints from this woman would align with that mission, too.”

Damn. He’d been thinking of sprucing up the lobby as a necessary but annoying task. Never in a million years had he imagined it could also advance some of the firm’s corporate responsibility goals. Plus, he was no artist, but these photos were great. They were of some iconic Toronto scenes—a streetcar, the midcentury city hall building—but taken from odd angles so the familiar looked a little strange. Strange in an appealing way. Nothing you’d ever see in a dental office.

“Obviously that’s just the art,” she went on. “I don’t think you want to go crazy with color or anything. You still want to convey the sophistication and seriousness people will expect from someone they’re trusting their finances to, so I’m not suggesting you paint the lobby hot pink.”

He had the sudden, alarming notion that if she told him to paint the lobby hot pink, he would do exactly that.

“But I do think you should abandon beige,” she said.

“Abandon beige?” He chuckled. It was an interesting, amusing turn of phrase.

“Yes. So many corporate spaces are beige. I get it. It’s safe.” She pulled a foam board out of her portfolio. It was covered with squares of color and swatches of fabric. She pointed to one of the squares—a pale, icy blue. “But something like this could be good for the walls. Unassuming enough to allow the art to speak for itself, but it still has a little personality.”

She moved on to some of the fabric swatches. “These are just some initial ideas for upholstery for sofas and chairs.”

“And what about flooring?” He realized with a start that he, who had literally never spent more than thirty seconds thinking about flooring, was on the edge of his chair waiting to hear what she’d say about the carpet in the waiting area. The beige carpet in the waiting area. “The carpet out there is only a year old,” he added, suddenly wanting to push her a little, to see more of the contrarian spirit that had animated her in the lobby earlier.

“I get it. That carpet disguises stains. People track in snow and salt in the winter.” She was trying to be diplomatic. “Design has to be functional.”

He raised an eyebrow. Diplomatic didn’t look good on Elise Maxwell. He liked her better when she was making impassioned speeches that made her cheeks go pink. “I always thought design was about making things look pretty.”

“It is. It can be. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting things to be pretty. But what good is useless beauty?”

“Is beauty ever just useless, though?” For example, he could look at Elise Maxwell forever.

Whoa. Where had that come from?

And not that she was merely beautiful. She was clearly a talented, thoughtful designer, too.

Ogle the designs, not the designer.

The too-young designer.

There was no ring on her finger, but there was no way a woman like Elise Maxwell didn’t already have the names of her future kids picked out. Hell, she probably had their future bedrooms designed, too.

“Is beauty ever just useless?” she echoed thoughtfully, giving his throwaway question serious consideration. Then she smiled—a full-on delighted, high-wattage smile, which wasn’t helping his cause. “An accountant and a philosopher.”

He dipped his head self-deprecatingly.

“My point,” she went on, “is merely that I understand the beige carpet impulse. But whatever function it was serving could be served equally well with a more beautiful solution. Engineered hardwood, for example, can stand up to a lot, and though it would be more expensive to install, it would last a lot longer. You probably have a cleaning service that’s vacuuming that carpet every night, at least in the winter. They could just as easily mop a floor. It would look better, and let’s face it, your design choices send a message to your clients. What kind of message is beige carpet sending?”

“‘Welcome to the dental office’?”

She chuckled. “Exactly. This doesn’t seem like a very beige sort of company. And you—”

She cut herself off. He wanted to know what she’d been going to say, suddenly. Needed to know. So he raised an eyebrow and made a continue gesture. When she still didn’t say anything, he