CHAPTER 3: Heated Reunions
1394 Words
Ava was touching her phone as she entered the hotel. It has not been opened yet. Jace sent a message. She did not answer. Couldn’t. Not yet. But it was like an unlocked door to her.
Ava had not imagined that the boardroom would be so cold, not temperature-wise, but spiritually. A huge oval table spans the space with polished leather chairs surrounding it and panoramic windows open to present the pulse of the city in front. Outside New York, there was a glittering mock.
Jace was sitting at the longer end of the table. Ava took the other one, maintaining not only feet, but intention, distance.
The Carter designs project coordinator started to examine the renovation schedule, the laying out of dates, permits, and planning obligations. Ava was listening, taking notes, and asking a couple of clarifying questions, but she lost her concentration in those moments. Not that she could not have done it, as she had done so a dozen times, but that the man at the other end of the table was reading her as if it were a puzzle he had not quite solved.
She was able to sense it. The burden of his eye.
He had not moved much regarding the way he watched things. Quietly. Intently. It used to disarm her back when they were younger. It now only made her angry.
The coordinator brought Ava back to reality by saying, “Ms. Monroe, you will have complete freedom to design the interior aesthetics. The executive board will examine your work weekly. Mr. Wellington, too.”
The fingers of Ava clenched her pen. Naturally, he should be the last word. This was not a job, but a power game. Of leverage.
“That is good”, she replied, as smoothly and inexpressibly as possible, adding, "I would like to cooperate.”
The others started leaving when the meeting finally came to an end. Ava took her belongings, and she felt like skipping the talk. But Jace did not go. He lingered.
And as she walked by, he remarked, as he had always said about her, when he meant it as flattery, “You always did know how to hold a room.”
She stopped. Turned. “And you were always in a position to destroy one.”
He sighed. “You haven’t changed much.”
“No? Funny. The last time my family managed to provide me with a future was the last time I saw your family as well.”
“I did not do that. It used to be my father.”
She scoffed. “And thou didst stand there. Silent.”
He said, “I was a kid. And I did not know all that was going on. I—”
“Keep it.” She was speaking with a cold voice. “It is not about being older and wearing a better suit, it is not about writing revisions of history.”
Jace leaned in, and his voice dropped a little. “I did not come here to wage war against you.”
“Then out of my path.”
She was about to go away, and then he said something to her.
“And you suppose that I wanted it any more than you?”
She made no reply.
“I understand what this project means to you, look. And I am not going to destroy that. "But we are going to have to learn to cooperate,” said Jace.
At last, she looked at him, looked at him. And something that was there a while, she saw or had a glimpse of it, the boy she had known. The man who had loitered with her since that ball, who had been speaking of art and architecture up till the sun rose. The person who kissed her that time under the archway in Central Park and told her that he would give her the world.
That was the boy no longer.
“I know better than to expect you to be handy with a can around the place,” she said, a little shyly. “You should work with me, but don't expect anything of the kind.”
He nodded. “That is fair enough.”
They stood without a word another moment longer, and then she turned and went out of the room.
With a sigh that she had not felt in her, Ava released the breath that she had not been aware that she had been holding when the elevator doors closed behind her.
She turned around on him. She was not broken. Something was happening deep inside. Something dangerous.
Old emotions did not disappear. Just buried.
And now they were getting up.
She strutted down the hall to the elevator lobby in her heels that clicked lightly on the shiny floors, but her brain was roaring with questions. Why had he not warned her? Did he not know she was coming in? Or had it been one of the Wellington maneuvers, and leave her to make an entry into their world because of her blindness?
One hand held the railing as Ava stabilized on the way down the elevator and stared at the mirrored panel. Her face was serene, but her eyes told it; they told of a trembling beneath. And it was not discomfort she experienced in that boardroom; it was chemistry. Very real, unwanted, and inconvenient.
So she went out into the main lobby and was instantly arrested by the chaos of contractors and designers. She caught sight of the cool assistant named Marianne of Carter Designs, and she gestured towards Tess with a cheerful expression.
“We have the design wing as your temporary studio," Ms. Monroe. Want to have a rapid walkabout?”
"Yes," said Ava, straightening out her jacket. “Please.”
They were talking of timelines and future walkthroughs as they walked, which Marianne did effectively, and Ava did as well. Each new corridor and stripped ballroom that they went by was a reminder of what this had been—and what it could be with her management of it. It was the project of a lifetime. And the ghosts, be they ever so charming, were not going to interfere with her.
When Ava finally arrived at the temporary studio arrangement, a spacious and very visible suite of rooms fronting the atrium, she was already sketching plans in her mind. Curtains are made of velvet, with cozy ambient light and a retro mood. She has an opportunity to make this hotel more than a renovation. She could turn it into a resurrection.
She was roused by a knock against the glass.
Jace.
Again.
He was holding a coffee and a folder with him. She did not even open the door. Just looked across the glass with an eyebrow up.
He made it sound: “Truce?”
Her reply was a stare of many seconds' duration...then, slowly, she opened the door, but only a very little way.
“A single ceasing of fire,” she replied. “But just to drink the coffee.”
He grinned and walked calmly over to where she was sitting and gave her the cup on her desk.
“Good. And you are going to need the caffeine to be able to do this project.”
She gazed into the cup and then into his face. “I have done more difficult work.”
“Yeah?” he said. “So what?”
“Living through the Wellingtons,” as she put it.
He laughed. “Touché.”
Then silence.
The proverbial pregnant pause.
I did not know he would say so; he said again, speaking as though much was at stake in the matter, and paying less attention to tact. However, I do not regret that you are here.
She did not answer.
She turned instead toward her design table, opened her sketchbook, and said, “When you mean to be serious about this truce, then you lose no time, but will allow me to do what I have come to do.”
“But which is it?”
“Take the garbage that your family threw and make something pretty out of it.”
He did not dispute it. Only once did he nod, and he turned away.
And this time she allowed him to do so.
- Writer
