Book Excerpt: By Design by Jayne Denker

He pushed open the door and ushered her inside. Emmie, braced for an unpleasant shock along the lines of the kitchen and the bathrooms, gasped. Spread across almost the entire back expanse of the house, the massive bedroom was stunning, even in its present dilapidated state. The first thing that caught her eye was a fireplace, the bricks over the opening blackened, the mantel worn, but . . . a fireplace. In the bedroom. Emmie was ready to move in right then and there. Two walls were made up entirely of windows. The only place available for a bed was to the right of the door, opposite the south-facing windows, so the spot was graced with year-round sunlight. Built-in cupboards wrapped all the way around the spot for the bed, from the closet door on the far side to the bedroom door and all the way to the ceiling. They were worn and in need of refinishing, but their effect, of real wood paneling, was rich and dramatic.

Emmie took a few steps farther into the room and turned her face up to the thin winter sun, imagining how warm and bright it would be only a few months from now, with the strengthening sunlight making it feel like spring in the room, even as winter hung on for dear life outside.

“You like it?” Graham asked.

Emmie closed her eyes and nodded, smiling blissfully, thinking about what it would be like to wake up to the view of the backyard every morning, the sun shining down on the fruit trees that peppered the gentle swell of the acre behind the house . . . being served breakfast in bed by a lady’s maid . . . the master of the house (just for the sake of argument, that role could be played by Graham) beside her . . .

Emmie let herself get lost in her daydream for so long that, when she noticed the silence in the room, she jumped. She shook herself, opened her eyes, and looked over at Graham. He was staring at her. She blushed furiously. No wonder Wilma hardly ever let her out by herself. Graham must think she was a complete loony.

But he just smiled. “The room suits you.”

And then came a little . . . hitch. He was silent, Emmie was silent. His mouth clamped shut in a straight line as he looked at her, then glanced away uncomfortably. Emmie had no idea how it had happened, but something . . . extra . . . was there in the room with them. And it wasn’t the ghost of a lady’s maid.

“So—”

“Right.”

“—that’s pretty much it, unless you want to see the attic,” he said, swinging his arms a bit too jauntily, startling Emmie. Graham was usually so serenely contained that his sudden random, jerky movements were jarring.

“I can skip the attic for now,” she said. The house was completely quiet. Apparently the workers were taking a break. She wondered how long it had been since their sawing and sledgehammering had fallen silent—had they just stopped, or had she been so caught up in spending time with Graham that she hadn’t noticed the house had gone quiet ages ago?

As they descended to the first floor again, Graham said from behind her, “So . . . what’s the Emmie story?”
“The what?”

“The Emmie story. You know—”

At the bottom of the stairs, she turned to him and made a face. “You mean my Very Special Relationship with John?”

Graham laughed, which made her toes tingle. She loved his open, genuine smile. “Not necessarily. But I do wonder how you got there, sure.”

“Uh”—she breathed uneasily—“well, er, I was born here, grew up here.” She skipped over high school so she didn’t have to mention Juliet, and went on, “I got my degree at Westfall College, just up the road—”

“Oh, yeah,” Graham cut in, “I know the place. I’m from Ostey, originally. That’s near there.”

“Right! We used to do some serious drinking in—” Emmie winced. “I probably shouldn’t have told you that.”
He shrugged. “We’ve all got our vices.” Ain’t that the truth, Emmie thought. As he directed her back into the library, he asked, “What about family? Brothers? Sisters?”
“Nope, I’m an only,” she replied. “My dad lives here in town. My mom . . . passed last year.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“That’s about it. Pretty average, really.”

“Oh, I think that’s the last word I’d use to describe—” Then something started pinging across the room. Graham said, “Excuse me a second,” and crossed to the window seat to pick up his phone.

Hey now. What was that? As he read his text message, Emmie, thoroughly discombobulated by his last comment, retreated to the opposite end of the room, pretending to study the cobwebbed crown molding and the empty, dusty shelves. She leaned on the wall; after that kind of comment, she needed some support to remain standing. A bulge of dried-out plaster gave under her weight.

“Sorry,” Graham said, putting his phone in his pocket and joining her on the other side of the room. “So. What do you think of the place?”

Hang on—care to finish that last thought? she wondered. But he’d apparently moved on, so she just said, “I think it’s great.”

“Now, Emmie Brewster, interior designer, there’s one thing I want to make clear,” he said, crossing his arms in front of him and rocking on his heels. “This is a very important project.”

“Of course,” Emmie said in her best career-mode voice, feeling a little defensive at his lecturing tone.

“What I mean is, it’s very important to me.”

“Okay . . .” So he wants to impress the new owners. Who doesn’t? “Er, who are the clients, by the way?”

He cocked an eyebrow and replied with the ghost of a smile, “Me.”
“What?

“This is my house. I bought it.”

“Wow.” After a pause, she added, “Good thing I didn’t make any rude comments about the crazy guy who bought this tumble-down rattrap.”

“Good thing. And you know what this means, don’t you? Now you have to be nice to me.”

She smirked at him, realizing that they were both recalling Saturday night’s conversation in the shadowed back room of Juliet’s new shop. Then, in all seriousness, she said, “It’s a great place, Graham. Really.”

“It is, isn’t it? And . . . I want it to be done right. I want it to be perfect. Not that you won’t do your best—I know you will. But I just want to make sure you understand that I’m doing this for someone who’s very important to me.”

Emmie stiffened. She could fill in the blanks there. Juliet? When the house was ready, was she going to leave her husband and move in here with Graham? That would explain why her McMansion didn’t look lived in, wasn’t decorated: She wasn’t planning on staying all that long. So this was going to be Juliet’s perfect house, with Juliet’s breathtaking sunny bedroom, and even a lady’s maid if Juliet wished it.

But it didn’t matter. This was Emmie’s job. She would just have to forget that she was doing it for Juliet’s benefit. So she took a breath and looked at the handsome man before her—the man she had never had a chance with, because when they met he had already been dreaming of feathering this majestic nest for another woman. “Absolutely,” she said. “You can count on me. I will make this place . . . beautiful. Perfect.” For emphasis, she slapped her hand on the wall next to her.

And suddenly, with a muted whoosh, the entire expanse of plaster detached itself from the lath, and the room was filled with a cloud of blinding, choking plaster dust.