She smiled and nodded her chin toward my cereal bowl. I’d been holding it crooked and milk was dripping onto my shoes.
“Shit.” I righted the bowl.
Lily laughed. God, this girl was beautiful. Long, black hair, naturally tanned skin in the dead of winter, and the biggest brown eyes I’d ever seen. And she was tall—only a few inches shorter than me. Ever since the summer of eighth grade, when I grew four inches in just a few months, most of the girls didn’t come up to my shoulders. But Lily did. And it felt right that she was tall—like she was meant to stand out over all the other girls.
I shook my head and snapped myself out of it. “Does my mother know you’re in here painting? The bus comes in, like, fifteen minutes.”
Her button nose wrinkled. “Bus?”
“Yeah, you know…school. It’s seven o’clock.”
“In the morning?”
Now I was as confused as her. “Yes, the morning. You thought it was still nighttime?”
“Yeah. I guess I painted all night. I must’ve lost track of time.” She shrugged. “That happens sometimes.”
I walked over and looked at the canvas. “You painted that?”
“Yeah. It’s not that good.”
My brows rose. The painting, which was some sort of abstract of a bunch of intertwined flowers, looked like it belonged in a museum, if you asked me. “Umm... If that’s not good, I hope you don’t see the crap I make in art class.”
She smiled. And again, my chest tightened.
“My mom took me to Hawaii once. The flowers there were so beautiful. It’s the only thing I like to paint.” She shrugged. “I’m sort of obsessed with doing it. I name them all. This one is called Leilani—it means heavenly flower and child of God in Hawaiian. It’s a popular name there. My grandmother was Willow. My mom is Rose, and I’m Lily. So we’re all named after flowers and plants. Maybe when I have my own little girl someday, I’ll name her Leilani.”
Wow. That’s screwed up. I’d had the same thought about naming kids after flowers. Except my thought hadn’t been about Lily’s kids, it had been about our kids.
“Leilani,” I said. “It’s a beautiful name.”
Lily closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. “Lay-lah-nee. It is, isn’t it?”
“You’re beautiful, too.” I wasn’t sure where that even came from. Well, obviously, I knew where it came from—it was the truth. But I hadn’t expected it to come out of my mouth.
Lily set the brush down on her easel and wiped her hands on her T-shirt. She walked over and stood directly in front of me—right in my personal space. Every hair on my body rose, and my palms immediately started to sweat. What the hell is wrong with me? I’d made out with girls before, and yet this girl made me nervous to even be around her.
Pushing up on her toes, Lily kissed my cheek gently. “I think this might be the first foster home I like living in.”
Yeah, I think I’m going to like you living here, too.
Chapter 8
* * *
Ireland
“Oh good. It didn’t start yet.” A woman in a gray suit took the seat next to me at the conference table. She seemed flustered. “I heard he’s a stickler for being on time.”
“Grant?” I asked.
Her brows drew together. “Mr. Lexington, yes.”
Oh, right. Mr. Lexington. I guess he was Grant when he was a guy I was going to go out with, but now he’s back to Mr. Lexington. “His secretary came in a few minutes ago,” I said. “He’s running a few minutes late.”
The woman smiled. “Great. My daughters called, and I had to referee an argument over a hairbrush.” She extended her hand. “I’m Ellen Passman, by the way. I’m the accounting manager over in Finance.”
I shook. “Ireland Saint James or Richardson. I’m in the News division of Broadcast Media. Richardson is my on-air name.”
“Oh, I know who you are. I love your show.”
I smiled. “Thank you.”
“I’m really excited about this new committee. But I wish we had a little more notice. It’s the end of the month and crunch time for my department.”
I’d been curious about how this committee came about ever since Grant had called. I couldn’t shake the crazy thought that he’d made up the entire thing while on the phone with me. Of course that was ludicrous—not to mention egotistical and self-absorbed—yet the idea kept nagging at me.
“When did you get invited?” I asked.
“Just this morning. You?”
“A few days ago. Did you receive an agenda for the meeting or anything?”
“Nope. Nothing.”
The air in the room changed, and I knew who’d walked in before I turned my head. Grant Lexington stood just inside the door with the VP of the News division, Kate Benton, my boss’s boss, who was also his sister. He scanned the room, and his eyes stopped upon finding me—as if he’d found what he was looking for, which was crazy.
His gaze was so intense that it made me want to fidget in my seat.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Thank you all for coming.” He turned to his sister. “I’m sure you all know Kate. She’s the Vice President of Broadcast Media.”
People thanked him for inviting them, but I stayed quiet, observing.
There were a few open seats: the head of the table, one down at the far end of my side, one directly across from me, and one to my left. Without discussion, his sister moved to the open seat a few spots over—I got the feeling this man took the power seat in every room he walked into.
But then he surprised me. He pulled the chair from the head of the table and held it out. “Kate.”
His sister seemed just as surprised, but she turned back and took the seat anyway. Grant unbuttoned his jacket and pulled out the chair next to me. He leaned close as he settled in and whispered quietly, “Good to see you, Ireland.”
I nodded. No one at the table seemed to notice anything strange—certainly not that he’d taken the seat next to me and moved it a little closer than it had been before, and luckily not that my mind was reeling from the way he smelled: clean, but with a masculine, woodsy edge.
For the next half hour, I tried to ignore the man sitting next to me and tried not to fidget. But I had to look at Kate while she spoke, which meant Grant’s profile was directly in my line of sight. It also meant I noticed how tanned his skin looked, and that he had a slight white line on the sides of his head from sunglasses. I wouldn’t have taken him for the outdoorsy type. But it looked like he spent a lot of time in the sun. His skin was bronzed, his hair slicked back, and it could use a trim at the edges where it reached his collar. He had the start of a five o’clock shadow, even though it was only ten in the morning. I wondered if he shaved at night or if he just had so much testosterone that a beard started sprouting just a couple of hours after he put down the razor.
My gut said it was the latter.
Possibly feeling eyes on him, Grant turned and looked at me. His eyes immediately dropped to my lips, and I lost the battle I’d waged not to fidget. I forced my attention back to Kate, but I didn’t miss the slight lip twitch from the man next to me before he refocused on his sister.