Mary McBride - The Magnate's Takeover - The Magnate's Takeover

“It’s stunning,” she said. “You did a truly spectacular job. And I confess I love taking pictures of it. It’s a completely different building from one day to another, even from one minute to another. Today it’s like a lovely perpendicular piece of sky.”

“Thanks. Just a few more weeks until the grand opening. Would you like an invitation?” He chuckled rather demonically. “I’m sure the liquor will be freely flowing, if that’s any incentive.”

Libby rolled her eyes. “I’ve sworn off. Trust me. But I’d love an invitation. Thank you.”

“You’ve got it.” He plucked a cell phone from his pocket and mere seconds later he was directing someone to put her on the guest list. “No, that’s all right. Don’t worry about the spelling right now. No address necessary,” he said. “I’ll deliver it personally.”

For some odd reason his use of the word personally and the way he locked his gaze on her when he said it suddenly caused a tiny shower of sparks to cascade down Libby’s spine. She took a quick gulp of coffee, hoping to extinguish them.

This guy was good, she thought. He was good not only with buildings, but with women, too. At least his technique seemed to be working fairly well with her at the moment. She swallowed the rest of the coffee.

She was so conscious of her sparkling, sizzling innards that she didn’t even realize the painting contractor had walked up behind her until he cleared his throat rather loudly and said, “Here’s your estimate, Ms. Jost. I guess you know it’s a pretty big job, considering the age of the place and all. My numbers are there at the top,.” He pointed with a paint-crusted fingernail. “You just give me a call whenever you decide.”

“All right. Thank you so very much for coming. I’ll definitely be in touch.” She was thrilled—amazed actually—that he was willing to take on the work.

The man had turned and walked away as Libby flipped a few pages to glance at the all important bottom line. Reading it, she could almost feel her eyes bulge out like a cartoon character’s. She didn’t know whether to scream or to faint dead away or to throw up—again—right there in the driveway. She might just do all three, she thought bleakly. This was terrible.

He wanted thirty-seven thousand dollars for all the painting and patching that needed to be done, which would leave her the not-quite-staggering sum of thirteen thousand dollars for additional, equally necessary repairs and renovations like plumbing fixtures, tile, carpeting, new beds and bedding and lighting, not to mention a bit of advertising and a new damn sign over the office door. She’d had no idea, none whatsoever, that her dreams were so damned expensive and so dreadfully, impossibly out of reach.

Libby was so stunned, so completely stupefied that she was only vaguely aware that David had taken the paper from her, and then the next thing she heard was a gruff and bear-like curse followed by the sound of tearing. Her painter’s estimate, she observed, was now falling to the ground in little pieces, like an early, quite unexpected snow. It was a good thing she didn’t want to hang on to it, she supposed.

“This is absolute bull,” David said. “It’s worse than highway robbery. I’m betting the guy doesn’t even want the job, Libby, and that’s why he jacked the price up so high. He probably just wanted to scare you off.”

“Well, it sure worked,” she said, trying to accompany her words with a little laugh. A very little laugh. “Gee, now I can hardly wait to see if the plumbing guy and the electrician try to scare me, too. I can imagine it already. It’ll be just like Halloween here every day of the week. Trick or treat!” There was a small but distinct tremor in her voice that her sarcasm couldn’t even begin to disguise. At the moment, quite frankly, Libby didn’t care.

“Look,” David said. “I can get my guys over here for two or three days or however long it takes. They can do the painting for you for a tenth of that amount. Even less than that, I’d be willing to bet.”

“ Your guys?” Libby’s headache took the opportunity to make a curtain call just then. She closed her eyes a moment, hoping to banish the unwelcomed pain. “I don’t understand this at all.”

David was already opening his phone as he responded to her. “Painters. From the Marquis.”

“But you’re the architect.” She blinked. “How can you…”

“Architect or not, I just happen to be the guy in charge over there right now,” he said, sounding most definitely like a guy in charge.

“But…”

He snapped the phone closed and gave her a look that seemed to question not only her ability to make a decision, but her basic intelligence as well. “Look,” he said. “It’s really pretty simple. Do you want the painting job done, done well at a reasonable price, or not? Yes or no.”

This was obviously a man who made lightning-quick decisions, Libby thought, while she tended to procrastinate and then a bit more just to be absolutely sure or, as in most cases, semi-sure. Procrastinating had its benefits, but maybe lightning quick was the right way to go at the moment.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do want the job done at a reasonable price. Actually, what I want is an utterly fantastic job at a bargain basement price.”

“You’ll have it,” he said. He stabbed in a number, barked some commands that were punctuated here and there with curses, flipped his cell phone closed and then told her, “A crew will be here in twenty minutes. Write a list of everything you want them to do. And be specific.”

Libby nodded. She could come up with a list for them in less than five seconds, she thought. Number One was paint everything. There was no Number Two.

While Libby worked on her list in the office, David walked around the shabby motel grounds once again, scowling, muttering under his breath, telling himself he must really be losing his grip. He’d just done one of the most stupid things in his life when he’d offered to help fix up the damnable place he had every intention of tearing down.

What was the old expression? Putting lipstick on a pig? He shook his head. There wasn’t enough lipstick in the world for this dilapidated pigsty.

On the other hand, his crew of painters were on the clock anyway in case of last-minute problems before the Marquis’ opening so this little detour across the highway wasn’t going to cost him all that much. It wasn’t about the money, though. It was more and more about the woman, the luscious little strawberry blond.

She’d already gotten under his skin just enough for him to fashion a lie about who he actually was. He’d introduced himself to her as the architect of the Marquis—an architect, for God’s sake—a mere hired hand instead of the Big Deal Boss. That alone was enough to make him question his sanity.

He hadn’t actually planned to do that or rehearsed any sort of deception, it had simply sprung forth somehow when she’d offered her soft, warm hand and then inquired, And you are? For a split second, while he held her hand in his, he hadn’t been quite sure who he was, where he was or what he was doing.

He wasn’t a liar, although he’d probably stretched or bent the truth a few times during business negotiations. But in his personal life, what little there was of it, particularly with women, he never lied and he never promised anything he didn’t follow through with from the moment he said hello to a woman to the moment he said goodbye. And he’d said a lot of goodbyes in his time.

He’d spent year after year watching female faces and their accompanying body language abruptly change when they heard the name David Halstrom. It was like going from Zorba the Greek to Aristotle Onassis in the blink of an eye, again and again, year after year, woman after woman. Women looked at Zorba with curiosity and pleasure and genuine affection. They looked at Onassis as if they were seeing their own reflections in the window of a bank.