short for barista?’
‘Well, Hollywood, you make a pretty good short barista.’
‘Only pretty good? Hmm. Wait ’til you see my acting,’ she said with a waggle of her eyebrows.
He studied her for a few minutes, before saying quietly, ‘I thought I already was.’
Jake
Jake watched wariness and hurt flood Emma’s eyes before she quickly turned and began efficiently setting out tea on a tray.
Damn.
Briefly, he wondered if there were as many words for ‘idiot’ in Eskimo as there were for ‘snow’ because even though she might be some Hollywood actress who was going to take off the minute it got cold proper, that didn’t mean he had to behave like he was counting down the minutes until she did.
He watched as with practised ease, she shoulder-pressed the heavy round tray with one hand and strode confidently over to one of the largest tables.
If he were the fanciful sort he might think she looked like some Nordic warrior, striding across the room with purpose, her pale gold hair flowing down her back.
Thank God he wasn’t.
And right there he was hit with the realisation of exactly why he’d been behaving like an arse.
Being called Eeyore aside, it was actually because she’d accused him of not having a romantic bone in his body.
Why the hell he should care if she was right, he didn’t know.
Life was altogether a lot more bearable if he didn’t go around acting and feeling like some bloody poet in love.
Been there. Done that. Not to mention been given the billowy shirt by his comedian brothers as a joke.
In his family, when they’d all been vying for roles growing-up, the minute he’d expressed more than a passing interest in the gardens on the estate he’d been labelled ‘The Romantic’ of the family. Ironic, really, considering he’d been the only Knightley not to labour under the idyll that the family money would never run out.
As soon as he’d started adding girls into the mix, his brothers and sisters had absolutely no problem referring to him as the Heathcliff-bloody-Rochester of the Knightley clan.
Actually, that wasn’t technically true. Lately he’d been known as the Uhtred of Bebbanburg-Knightleys’, but that was completely his own fault for not getting his hair cut.
Which reminded him…
‘Hey, Juliet,’ he walked over to the table they were obviously going to hold their meeting at, put down everything he’d brought to pitch his design, and shrugged out of his jacket. ‘I don’t suppose you could cut my hair before you open the salon to the rest of the hordes, could you?’
‘Are you sure?’ Juliet tipped her head to the side as she regarded his ‘do’. ‘The man-bun is definitely working for you. If you’re desperate I could see if Mum’s available?’
Aware that Emma was listening as she fussed a cloth over the pristine bar, he said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll figure something out.’ Juliet’s mother, Cheryl Brown, grew exceptional dahlias and roses and she’d been a hairdresser for as long as Jake had known her. And it was precisely for that reason that he thought he had it in him to wait until Juliet was ready.
‘Right then,’ Daniel said, pulling out a chair at the table, sitting down and reaching for his coffee. ‘Jake, are you all set to pitch to us?’
‘What? Oh, yep. Born ready,’ Jake replied, efficiently setting his laptop up, so they could all see what he was going to be describing.
‘Emma,’ Kate called over to the bar, ‘come and grab a seat and a cuppa, you should be in on this meeting too.’
She should?
Jake busied himself opening his notebook to stare at the loose pitch he’d prepared while she settled herself at the table and poured herself a cup of tea. It was weird, he thought. He wasn’t usually nervous before presenting a new garden design, but what with Hollywood watching…
‘So,’ he began, with a subtle clearing of his throat. ‘There are a couple of options for revamping the courtyard, but I want to start with what I feel follows the brief you provided and then pushes the boundaries a little.’ Jake indicated his laptop screen. ‘If you like what I’ve come up with, I have a quote already drawn up. But this should be a collaborative process, so if we need to adjust for budget, or if there’s something we need to add, we can do that as well.
‘Kate, you mentioned wanting to match what you’ve done inside, but I’ve actually taken inspiration from outside. At the moment when you look out of any window onto the courtyard all you see is patio before your gaze is drawn straight to the moon-gate in the far wall.’
The moon-gate had actually been his starting point, because even though he loved that your eye was drawn straight to it and the romance of it had you wanting to know what was on the other side, with The Clock House opening up as a business, he didn’t think Kate would want people from outside the village, who didn’t know the history to what was on the other side of the moon-gate, to go get curious and start disturbing the beehives that were kept in the wild meadow beyond.
‘I’ve zoned the courtyard to provide each window with a unique vista, creating mini gardens to reflect what you do here. Providing relaxing and enchanting views will add to customer experience. It’ll mean building walls to divide the space but we can match the original brickwork. In each wall I’ve created a round aperture to mimic the moon-gate. It would work really well if we could use the same wrought-iron design work. The round gates also subtly mimic the face of a clock. Planting will be soft to counter the architecture but won’t require a lot of maintenance. I know you’ll be using honey in a lot of your treatments and that got me thinking about planting herbs for you to use in the tearoom and bar as well. I can go into specific planting detail once the design is approved, but take a look at the preliminary sketches,’ he said, moving the laptop to rollout some sketches he’d drawn of the courtyard from different angles. ‘And tell me what you all think?’
Kate, Daniel and Juliet all started talking at once and Jake breathed a quiet sigh of relief at the excited tones of their voices. Right up until he noticed Hollywood frowning down into her mug.
What the hell?
He’d honestly only ever had positive reactions to his designs before.
Probably because he spent time getting inside a client’s head so he could produce something he knew they’d like.
‘Is there a problem, Hollywood?’ he asked.
She looked up. ‘Oh, it’s really not my place,’ she said, bringing her cup of tea to her mouth as if it would help stop her from voicing her opinion.
