If Ever I Fall (Rhode Island Romance #1) (8 page)

“Yes,” Collette
said. “Pauline said that was damaged in the ’38 hurricane.”

“Right,” Tony said.
“So now the kitchen is less than half of its original size.” He clicked to the
next screen. “But we’ll save the kitchen layout for last. Let’s take a look at
the upstairs first.”

Willa watched,
fascinated, as Tony led them on a virtual 3-D tour up an open staircase to the
second floor. “We’ve relocated the stairs to the left interior side of the
house, creating additional floor space on both levels. We’ve also adjusted the
pitch of the stairs so they aren’t as steep. The stairs open up to a common use
area. Here’s a perfect corner for a window seat and bookcase, or maybe an
exercise area. Down this hall we have two bedrooms with a shared bathroom. And
here…”

Tony paused at the
closed door, intentionally building the anticipation. Collette sent him an impatient
glower. “Come on, Tony. Open the door.”

Willa heard Joe laugh
softly, but she kept her eyes on the screen.

Tony clicked
forward. The door opened. Collette oohed. Willa leaned forward in her chair.
“This,” Tony said, “was all Joe’s design. We’ve exposed the beams, extended the
ceiling height and added in skylights. All windows along these two walls.”

“We’ve incorporated
as many energy-efficient products into the design as possible,” Joe said.
“These are triple-paned windows with low-emissivity glass. I suggest using
bamboo floors in here with matching window trim, and keeping the walls a neutral
shade of white.”

“Ooh, I like that!”
Collette nudged Willa. “Isn’t that gorgeous, hon? The room’s so light and airy.
It’ll be like sleeping on a cloud.”

Willa could only
nod her head. Her eyes shifted rapidly from one design detail to another. It
was almost too much to process. She was aware of both brothers watching her,
waiting for her reaction. “I love it,” she whispered.

“Wait until you see
the master bathroom,” Tony said, sounding relieved. “Joe designed this, too.”

A wide, smoked
glass and wood sliding door was pushed aside, opening into an enormous bathroom
with a walk-in shower, Jacuzzi tub, and a spacious counter with his and her
sinks.

“This carries over
the theme of the bedroom,” Joe explained. “Again, keeping it light and bright.
We’ll put tiled flooring in here. Click forward, Tony. This door here opens
into your walk-in closet with another door that takes you back into the
bedroom.”

“Holy Crap!”
Collette slapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry. Can I say that on TV?” She
looked over at Veronica who gave a ‘don’t worry about it’ gesture with her
hands. Curtis was grinning.

Collette nudged
Willa again. “That closet is almost the size of my bedroom. I am so jealous.”

Tony laughed. “If
either of you are anything like our sister, Sylvie, even this is probably still
too small.”

“I don’t have
that
many clothes,” Willa said. “This is more than I need.”

“But you’ll be
sharing it with your husband someday,” Collette said with absolute certainty.

Although she didn’t
look at him, Willa sensed Joe shifting in his chair. There was a strange
tension in his voice as he continued. “I’ve designed the bedroom to accommodate
a king-sized platform bed with built-in storage. And over in this section here
is a sitting area. A place to relax at the end of the day before going to bed.”

With every word he
spoke, his voice became lower, huskier.

Willa felt a
strange clenching deep inside her body.

“Let’s head back
downstairs,” Tony said brusquely.

“This is so cool,”
Collette raved. “You guys must’ve had a blast putting this together.”

Her excitement cut
through the tension that had been gradually edging into the conversation.

“We pretty much
worked on it nonstop since we left Willa’s house on Monday,” Tony confessed.

Willa’s house.

It sounded strange
to Willa’s ears. But as she kept her eyes glued on the screen, following along
with Tony as he led them back down the stairs, she began, for the first time,
to feel a sense of ownership.

“We had to keep a
couple of support columns in place here,” Tony explained as he led them towards
the downstairs entranceway. “But, as you see, we’ve gone with an open concept
here. Essentially, one large space combining living room, dining room and
kitchen. The guest bathroom is tucked under the stairs here. And we’ve kept the
utility and laundry rooms enclosed in this section here. Again, we’ve detailed
in as many windows as possible. A half-wall here breaks up some of the space
between the living room and dining room.”

“Show Willa the
entry to the porch,” Joe directed.

“Oh, right. We both
really liked the Dutch door that’s original to the house. How do you feel about
keeping that in, Willa?”

Collette spoke up
for her. “Her aunt Pauline loved that door.”

Willa gave a brief
nod.

Tony opened the
door and took them onto the front porch. “We’ve extended the porch to wrap
around three-quarters of the house, so you have access from the kitchen as
well. This is such a great feature for our humid New England summers.”

There was a pause.

They were still on
the porch.

Willa turned her
head to find Tony watching her with an uneasy expression. He cleared his throat,
sounding slightly nervous. “Before I show you the kitchen, Willa, keep in mind
that the design you choose is your decision. Joe and I did our best to keep
your needs front and center as we drew out these plans.”

“Okay,” Willa said,
a slight question in her voice. She was aware of the cameramen moving closer,
the heightened anticipation in the room.

Tony redirected her
attention to the screen. “As I said earlier, more than half the kitchen space
was lost after the 1938 hurricane. We wanted to give that space back to you.
You said you wanted as much counter space as possible.”

She watched as he
led her into a spacious kitchen with white cabinetry and granite countertops in
a complementing neutral shade. There was a large center island, bar stools on
one side. She noticed a stainless steel double oven and a gas range.

“Where’s the
refrigerator?” she asked.

“It’s a sub-zero
with a cabinet front,” Joe answered.

“Get outta here,”
Collette practically shouted. “That’s included with the prize?”

“Yes,” Tony said.
“It’s a sponsored item.”

Willa looked around
the room. Her heart plummeted. “Where’s my aunt’s built-in cabinet?”

Again came the long
pause. Curtis seemed to loom closer with his camera. Willa swiveled her chair
towards Tony. He hesitated for a moment, enough for Willa to wonder if he’d
been directed to do so. “We know you wanted to keep that wall unit, Willa. I
want you to take a look at the design with the cabinet kept in. I’ll put these
side by side for comparison.”

He directed her
attention back to the screen.

“As you can see, if
we keep the cabinet in, you’ll lose more than half of your counter space. We
can pick up some extra counter space by moving the main sink to the center
island. Some of our clients like that option. But with the open concept plan,
not everyone likes having dirty dishes on the island since that tends to be a
social hub.”

Willa folded her
arms across her chest. Her vision blurred a little as she studied an overhead
view of the two different designs side by side. Tony was right. She lost a ton
of counter space by keeping the cabinet in. But she couldn’t imagine the room
having the same warm and happy feeling without the memories that cabinet held
for her.

Collette gave her a
commiserating look. “You’ll have more room for your baking with the first
design, hon.”

“I can see that.”
Her voice sounded testy to her own ears.

“And Tony’s right.
I wouldn’t want my dirty dishes out in the middle of the room like that.”

“Please, Collette.
Let me think.”

Willa felt the
beginnings of a headache. Part of her was angry. It seemed pretty clear that
Veronica and Sam had orchestrated the “story” to go in this direction—a little
bit of drama and tension to keep the viewers’ interest. But another part of her
demanded that she use her logic. It wasn’t as if they’d made anything up. The
situation was real. An alternative solution had been presented. She just had to
decide which was best for her.

But this wasn’t
some complex mathematical problem to solve.
That
she could do in her
sleep. This was a problem tangled in a web of emotions. One of the first
lessons her father had taught her was not to bring emotion into the equation,
to keep things strictly black and white. What might seem like a simple decision
to anyone else was clouded with gray inside her head.

“Willa.”

Joe’s voice
penetrated her anxious thoughts. She turned towards him and lifted her troubled
eyes to his.

“Willa, do you
trust me?”

“I’ve only just met
you,” she said with crisp logic. “I don’t know you well enough yet to give you
an informed response.”

He nodded his head.
“I understand. That makes sense. But know that what I’m saying to you now is
the truth.”

Although the table
between them was too wide for him to reach across and touch her, there was
something almost physical in the way he looked at her that made her feel as though
he had his arm curved around her shoulders.

“I promise you that
I will keep those happy memories of your Aunt Pauline in your kitchen,” he
said, his voice pitched low as if they were the only two people in the room.
“I’ll come up with some way to keep parts of that wall unit intact and
incorporate it into the design. I don’t know how yet, but I will. You’ll still
have that drawer. I understand what it means to you. Will you let me do that? I
really feel that you’ll be happier with the larger kitchen in the long run.” He
smiled. “Think of all the cookies you can set out on those counters.”

She found it
impossible to look away from the warmth and reason in his gaze. The empathy.
And something else she couldn’t decipher. Something that sent a fluttery, burning
heat through her veins. No man had ever looked at her like that before. It was
as if he could see inside of her, map his way through the twisted web of her
emotions, untangling each strand as he went along, clearing a path for her to
follow. Relief flooded her senses. The muddled mess in her head cleared. Her
body relaxed.

“All right,” she
said.

“And
then he says, ‘do you trust me, Willa?’ and she says—”

“Actually, he said,
‘Willa, do you trust me.’”

“Do you have to be
so literal, Willa? The point is, it was like there wasn’t anyone else in the
room. His eyes were like…laser beams or something. Focused only on her. I swear
I stopped breathing.”

“Clearly you
didn’t,” Audrey teased. “Or you wouldn’t be here now.” She refilled their
coffee cups. “So, which design did you choose, Willa?”

Collette had
decided to take Willa on a detour to Audrey’s eponymous jewelry store on Thayer
Street before heading back to Conimicut. The busy street was in the heart of
the Brown University area. The girls had taken Willa there once before, the
same day they’d gone to the home show. The street was lined with an eclectic
array of shops, restaurants, salons and bars—mostly catering to the college
crowd and young professionals. Audrey’s jewelry designs were considered hip and
fresh; her store was a perfect fit for that environment.

Audrey had left the
front of the store in her assistant’s care and taken them to her back room. A
loveseat and two overstuffed armchairs surrounding an antique coffee table made
up a cozy sitting area complete with vibrantly colored pillows and throws.

Willa relaxed into
her chair. The sense of peacefulness she’d felt since leaving the Rossetti
brothers’ office still lingered. “I decided on the first plan, the one with the
most counter space.”

Audrey clapped her
hands. “Excellent. You won’t regret it.”

“I wonder how Joe
is going to keep that cabinet in the room?” Collette mused.

“He’s not keeping
the entire cabinet,” Willa explained. “Just parts of it. Whatever he does will
be a surprise.”

“He likes you,”
Audrey decided.

Willa squirmed.

“I think it’s more
than that,” Collette said. “And his brother likes her, too. You should have
seen the look he gave Joe when…”

Willa let their
voices drift away as her thoughts went back to that afternoon’s shoot. As soon
as she’d made her decision, Tony—at the prodding of Veronica’s rolling
hands—had quickly wrapped up their meeting. He told Willa that their crew would
be over on Monday to remove the furniture. He and Joe would be working on the
North Providence project through Tuesday, but they’d show up first thing
Wednesday morning to begin the demolition.

Cameras still hovering,
Willa agreed to the schedule, thanked them for their time and said her
goodbyes. Both brothers shook her hand again. “We’re keeping the cookies,” Tony
said with a laugh. “I’ll bring the empty tin back on Wednesday.”