She pulled back, suddenly self-conscious, heat bursting across her cheeks. ‘Is that...uh...specific enough?’
‘It’s perfect.’
He kept tap-tapping away, staring at the computer screen rather than at her, and the heat slowly faded from her face. He looked utterly engrossed and she wondered if he’d worn the same expression when he’d set off on his ill-fated ski jump.
He glanced at her and she could feel herself colour again at being caught out staring. Luckily, he didn’t seem to notice. He just started shooting questions at her again. How big was her shop? Was it square or rectangle? Where did she want to locate the point of sale? What colour scheme would she choose? What shelving arrangements and display options did she have in mind?
Her head started to whirl at the sheer number of questions, but she found she could answer them all without dithering or wavering, even when she didn’t have the correct terminology for what she was trying to describe. Finn had a knack for asking her things and then reframing her answers in a way that captured exactly what she meant. She wasn’t sure how he did it.
‘Okay, you need to give me about fifteen minutes.’
‘I’ll get us some drinks.’ She made up a fruit and cheese platter to supplement their lunch of croissants, added some dried fruits and nuts before taking the tray outside.
Finn rose and took the tray from her. ‘Sit. I’ll show you what I’ve done.’
She did as he bid. He turned the computer to face her.
She gasped. She couldn’t help it. She pulled the computer towards her. She couldn’t help that either. If she could’ve she’d have stepped right inside his computer because staring out at her from the screen was the interior of the shop she’d dreamed about ever since she was a little girl—a dream she’d perfected as she’d grown older and her tastes had changed. ‘How...?’ She could barely push the word past the lump in her throat. ‘How did you do this?’
‘Design software.’
He went to press a button, but she batted his hand away. ‘Don’t touch a thing! This is perfect.’ It was amazing. The interior of her fantasy shop lived and breathed there on the screen like a dream come true and it made everything inside her throb and come alive.
‘Not perfect.’ He placed a slice of feta on a cracker and passed it across to her. ‘It’d take me another couple of days to refine it for true perfection. But it gives a pretty good indication of your vision.’
It did. And she wanted this vision. She wanted it so bad it tasted like raspberries on her tongue. Instead of raspberries she bit into feta, which was pretty delicious too.
‘If you push the arrow key there’re another two pictures of your shop’s interior from different angles.’
She popped the rest of the cracker into her mouth and pressed the arrow key...and marvelled anew at the additional two pictures that appeared—one from the back of the shop, and one from behind the sales counter, both of which afforded a glorious view of a harbour. There was a tub of colourful flowers just outside the door and her eyes filled. She reached out and touched them. ‘You remembered.’
‘I did.’
She pored over every single detail in the pictures. She could barely look away from the screen, but she had to. This dream could never be hers. She dragged in a breath, gathered her resources to meet Finn’s gaze and to pretend that this hadn’t been anything more than a game, an interesting exercise, when her gaze caught on the logo in the bottom right corner of the screen. The breath left her lungs in a rush. She knew that logo!
Her gaze speared to his. ‘You’re Aspiration Designs?’
‘Along with my two partners.’
He nodded a confirmation and she couldn’t read the expression in his eyes. ‘How did I not know about this?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s not a secret.’
‘But...your company was called Sullivan Brand Consultants.’
‘Until I merged with my partners.’
She forced her mind back to the family dinners and the few other times in recent years that she’d seen Finn, and tried to recall a conversation—any conversation—about him expanding his company or going into partnership. There’d been some vague rumblings about some changes, but...she’d not paid a whole lot of attention. She wanted to hide her face in her hands. Had she really been so uninterested...so set in her picture of who Finn was?
She moistened her lips. Aspiration Designs was a boutique design business in high demand. ‘You created the foyer designs for the new global business centre in Geneva.’
He lifted a shoulder in a silent shrug.