He didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud. “I was thinking about what a generous deal you’re offering. When I was a student I was insatiable for knowledge.” In between carousing, he thought. Away from home, all those long-legged college girls … Half of his designs had been done three hours before he had to present them.
He smiled at her. What he had to do now was to get Alix to show him her model so he could act surprised at the sight of it. He didn’t want her to think he’d been snooping—or that someone who didn’t exist had shown him her plan.
Their breakfast orders were put before them, scrambled eggs with spinach, bacon, and cheese, a toasted cranberry muffin on the side for him. Alix had pancakes rich with blueberries and a couple of chocolate-covered doughnuts.
As Jared started to eat, he thought that he needed to get her away from her thoughts of leaving. She needed a reason to stay on the island. “Did you know that weddings are a big business on Nantucket? Multimillion. I don’t know much about it, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be too difficult to make a wedding for your friend here.”
“And your girlfriend Toby could help?”
Jared smiled so broadly that the hairs on the back of Alix’s neck stood up. That lip of his! She looked away.
“Toby’s not my girlfriend. She’s out of my league. I’m much too …” He ran his hand over his beard as he searched for the right word. Earthy? Salty? Too male?
“Too old?” Alix asked.
Jared looked at her. “Old?”
“You said she was a kid. Twenty, wasn’t it?”
“She just turned twenty-two. Her father gave her a refrigerator for her birthday.”
“Oh!” Alix said. “Did he wrap it?”
This time Jared realized she was joking. “Knowing her dad, he probably filled it with hundred dollar bills—all of which Toby returned. She’s determined to support herself.”
“By raising fl
owers?”
“That and working in a florist shop. She can advise you about wedding flowers.”
Alix wasn’t sure if she greatly admired this young woman or hated her for making people fall in love with her.
“And of course, there’s always Valentina. You can find out about her.”
“What does she do for weddings? Cakes? Photography?” Alix wondered how many girlfriends he had on the island.
He was looking at her so intensely she felt like she’d been put under a microscope. “You weren’t told about Valentina?”
“It seems that I wasn’t told about a lot of things. My mother visits Nantucket and from the quantity of supplies in the cabinet in the green bedroom she’s been here many times. And then there’s you. It’s hard for me to believe that it’s an accident that I, a student of architecture, was put into a house owned by an American Living Legend.”
“A what?” He looked horrified.
“An American—”
“I heard you, but that’s absurd.”
She took her time chewing as she looked at him. “Is it my imagination that every time I ask you a direct question, such as about my mother or ghosts or even why I’m here, you change the subject?”
Jared almost choked as he held his laughter in. If no one had told him she was Victoria’s daughter, in that instant, he would have known. “Isn’t your mother that famous writer?”
“If you grew up on Nantucket and later ran home every chance you got, and my mother stayed here often enough to turn a room in your house into the Emerald City, then you must have met her.”
Jared picked up his coffee cup to hide his smile.
It was Alix’s turn to look at him with the intensity of a kestrel falcon homing in on its prey. “I know my mother arranged this year in Kingsley House, so what’s she after?”
“Mind if I have one of your doughnuts?”