Page 39 of Confusing Cade
It was an easy cover.
Lois agreed and said she’d have an update on the meeting details when I landed at the airport in the morning. True to her word, she did. Four thirty, my office. Last meeting of the day.
But Bella was almost half an hour late.
“I’m sorry,” Bella said, her voice calm but not quite contrite as Lois ushered her to the open seat across from mine at the polished conference table in my office. “I had a few things come up unexpectedly.”
I tilted my head, my fingers tapping once, then twice, on the edge of the table. “And?”
She held my gaze, unflinching. “It was important,” she said, her words clipped but not defensive, as if she owed me nothing further.
The air between us tightened, her nonchalance clashing with the tension coiling in my shoulders. I exhaled through my nose, forcing myself to let it go, but the irritation lingered. “Was it as important as this meeting?”
“Yes,” she replied, and how she said it made me swallow hard.I’m being an asshole, and I know it.
Bella pulled her seat up against the table and regarded the binder in front of her. “This looks like the same binder you gave me before.”
“It is. Open to page fourteen.”
She followed my instructions, which led her to a page of exterior paint samples. She glanced at them, then looked up at me. “Where are you going with this?”
“Which ones do you like?”
She didn’t look down. “Any of them.”
“For me, it’s between choice one and five. Between those two, which would you choose?”
She flicked her eyes to the pages then back up. “Either one.”
“You have to pick.”
She still glared at me. “One is taupe, and the other is darker taupe. I don’t think visitors to the Promenade will have strong opinions about either one.”
“Oh, really?”
Now, she regarded the samples with some forced interest. “Even with these examples, I can hardly tell the difference.”
“We have to get everything exactly right,” I said. “No mistakes. Everything down to the smallest detail.”
She scoffed, her eyes narrowing with irritation. “Come on, Cade.”
“Come on, what?”
“This can’t be why you asked me here.” Bella slammed the binder shut but didn’t push it away, her fingers gripping the cover tightly. “Lois said it was urgent. She insisted I drop what I was doing to be here. Now you’re telling me you dragged me here to discuss... variations of taupe?”
“What could be more important than the Promenade?”
She shrugged her left shoulder and glanced at the view through the panoramic window. “Like I said, I had some things come up with my sister.”
“What?” I pressed.
“Things.” She returned her attention to me. “Anyway, if you want my opinion on taupe or taupe, then I would go with number five.”
It was a half-hearted statement, and I narrowed my eyes, hearing the disengagement in her voice. It was also disrespectful and more than rude. Didn’t she know the value of other people’s time? Of my time?
“Could you be any more uninterested?” I asked.
“Like I said, I’ve had a rough day.” She pushed the architectural deck away. “And listen, if this is the reason youwanted to invite me here, then I must ask, why didn’t you want to do this over the phone? Would have been easier.”
