Falling For Mr. December. Kate Hardy
be lovely.’
‘Crispy duck?’
‘Love it. Thank you.’
She set up her laptop while he was ordering their meal.
‘They’ll be here in forty minutes,’ he said. ‘OK. I promised you a guided tour.’
Sammy didn’t quite dare ask if she could bring her camera. ‘Lay on, Macduff,’ she said with a smile.
‘Living room,’ he said, showing her through the first door.
Like the hallway, it had a stripped pale wooden floor. There were two huge sash windows dressed with floor-length dark green curtains; the walls were painted dark red and there was an antique-looking glass chandelier hanging from the high ceiling. It looked more like the effort of a designer than personal choice, Sammy thought.
The sofas were all low, upholstered in dark green leather and looked comfortable, and there was a light-coloured wooden coffee table in the middle of the room, set on a green silk patterned rug. There was a black marble fireplace with a huge mirror above it, reflecting the chandelier and the state-of-the-art television and audio-visual centre. Between the two sash windows, there was an enormous clock with a white face and dark roman numerals. There were plenty of silver-framed photographs on the mantelpiece, which she assumed were of his family.
But what really grabbed her attention was the painting on the wall. It wasn’t exactly out of place, but she would’ve expected the designer to choose a couple of period portraits or maybe some kind of still life, to go with the rest of the decor. This painting was a modern landscape of a bay at dusk where the sea, cliffs and sky blurred together in the mist. It was all tones of blue and grey and silver—really striking. ‘That’s beautiful,’ she said.
‘Yes. I liked it the moment I set eyes on it,’ he said.
So this was his taste rather than his designer’s? She liked it. A lot.
Just as she had a rather nasty feeling that she could like Nick Kennedy rather a lot, if she got the chance. He was more than easy on the eye, and she liked what she’d learned about him in the short time she’d known him.
He ushered her in to the next room. ‘My office.’
It was another room with dark red walls and stripped wood floors, but this time the curtains framing the two huge sash windows were cream voile and the patterned silk rug in the centre was dark red. The chandelier was wrought iron, and one wall was completely filled with books, most of which she guessed would be legal tomes. There was a desk against the opposite wall, teamed with what she recognised as a very expensive office chair—the kind she’d dreamed about owning but couldn’t justify the price tag—and a state-of-the-art computer sat on his desk.
She could imagine him working here, with a bunch of papers spread out on the desk, his elbow resting on the table and his hand thrust through his hair while he made notes with a fountain pen. Because Nicholas Kennedy was definitely the kind of man who would use a posh pen rather than a disposable ballpoint.
‘Dining room,’ Nick said, showing her the next room.
Like the other rooms, the dining room had stripped floors; but it was much lighter because the walls were painted cream rather than dark red. There was a huge mirror above the white marble fireplace, reflecting the light from the sash windows and the antique glass chandelier. A light-coloured wooden table that seated eight sat in the centre of the room, teamed with matching chairs upholstered in cream-and-beige striped silk, which in turn matched the floor-length curtains. The silk rug here was in tones of cream and beige. She loved the room; she could just imagine sitting on the window-seat with a book, sunning herself while she read.
And there was another striking piece of art on the wall—a close-up of a peacock with its tail spread, and it looked as if it was painted in acrylics. ‘The colours are glorious,’ she said softly, enjoying the splash of orange among the turquoise, blues and greens. And it was so very different from the other picture; clearly Nick’s taste was diverse.
But the artwork that really made her gasp was in his bedroom. The room was large, but for a change not painted dark red; it had blue and cream Regency striped wallpaper, floor-length navy curtains, stripped floors and a dark blue silk patterned rug to reflect the curtains.
She couldn’t take her eyes off the black and white photograph that had been sliced vertically into three and framed in narrow black wood: a shot of the steel and glass roof of the Great Court at the British Museum. ‘That’s one of my favourite places in London.’ And she had quite a few shots of that roof in her own collection. ‘I adore that roof.’
‘Me, too,’ he said. ‘It’s the pattern and the light.’
‘Did you know that no two panes of glass in the roof are the same?’ she asked.
‘No, but now you’ve said it, I’m going to have to look.’
‘There are more than three thousand of them,’ she pointed out. ‘And the differences are tiny. It’s only because of the undulations.’ But the sudden light in his eyes now they were talking about art made her wonder. ‘Did you ever think about being an artist or an architect rather than a barrister?’
He smiled. ‘Absolutely not. I can barely draw a straight line with a pencil.’ And then he changed the subject, making her wonder even more. ‘Given that I already know you’re starving, can I make you a coffee and offer you some chocolate biscuits to tide you over until the takeaway arrives?’
‘That would be lovely. Thank you,’ she said. ‘Your flat’s beautiful. Though I wouldn’t have put you down as someone who’d choose dark red walls.’
‘An interior designer organised most of the place for me just before I moved in,’ he admitted. ‘Maybe my living room and office are a little dark.’
Just a tad, but she wasn’t going to be rude about it. ‘“Strikingly masculine” is probably the official phrase,’ she said with a smile.
He ushered her back to the kitchen. She sat at the table and opened the file of photographs on her laptop while he made the coffee; and then he brought over two mugs of coffee and a plate of really good chocolate biscuits.
‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘And don’t be polite. You said you’d missed lunch.’
‘Thank you,’ she said gratefully, and devoured two. ‘These are scrumptious.’
‘They’re my sister’s favourites,’ he said. ‘I keep a stock in for her.’
Nick was the kind of man who paid attention to details and quietly acted on them, she thought. She’d just bet he had a stock of his nephews’ favourite treats, too. And the coffee was better than that served in most upmarket cafés; though, given that posh coffee machine sitting on his kitchen worktop, it wasn’t so surprising. If you had an expensive machine, it stood to reason that you’d use good coffee in it. ‘Would you like to see the photographs now?’ she asked.
‘Sure.’ He viewed them in silence, then nodded with what she was pretty sure was relief. ‘You were very discreet. Thank you.’
‘The point is to raise money, not to embarrass people,’ she said softly. ‘And it’s meant to be fun, so I think we should discount this one, this one and this one—’ she pointed to them on the screen ‘—as you look very slightly uptight in them.’
‘Agreed,’ he said. ‘I have to admit, picking out your own photographs is a bit...’ He grimaced.
‘It makes everyone squirm. It’s much, much easier to look at someone else’s photographs and choose the best ones in a set than it is to choose your own,’ she said.
‘Which ones would you choose?’ he asked.
‘Honestly? This, this and this.’ She pointed them out. ‘Mainly because of the expression on your face. You look more relaxed here.’ And really, really sexy, which was the whole point of the calendar.