He’d always admired Meg’s sensibilities, but this went beyond that. She’d somehow melded her usual modern design aesthetic with the warmth demanded of a mountain home, taking her cues from the views outside: organic materials and earth tones, the home’s straight sharp lines softened with curving interior walls and surprising angles. It was both a departure from her earlier work and the culmination of it. Maybe masterpiece was overstating things—it was a private home in the mountains of Colorado after all—but he had a sneaking suspicion that this house would be the one that catapulted her into public attention. Once this hit Architectural Digest—and it would—she would have more work than she could possibly manage.

  “She wants me to revise my proposal to be something more like this,” Declan said slowly, not sure that he’d understood.

  “Yes.”

  “Forgive me saying this, but if this is what she wants, why doesn’t she just hire Meg?”

  Colum chuckled. “That’s not how this works, son.”

  “That is exactly how it works for ninety-nine percent of the world. The person with the best design and the capability of accomplishing it gets the job.”

  “Don’t be so naive. You think you got where you are on talent alone? This Meg was all set to get your job at Klein & Company until I talked to Nina. You’d be languishing in some unknown firm like her if I hadn’t stepped in.”

  The words nearly knocked the breath out of him. He’d known his father had pulled strings, of course he had. It was the reason he’d decided to let Meg take the fall for their joint mistake, knowing it would make no difference to her but all the difference to him. But all this time he’d been thinking it was a contest between evenly matched equals. That it could have gone either way and he’d just slightly tipped the odds in his favor.

  But now? His father was telling him he didn’t deserve his spot, that he’d stolen a job from a more talented colleague. That everything he’d accomplished, he hadn’t actually earned. That he was only here because of his famous name.

  “That makes my decision somewhat easier then.”

  “I thought it might.”

  “You can tell Eleanor Gratz to hire Meg Anderson. I’m officially withdrawing my bid.”

  There was a pregnant pause on the other end of the line. “Declan, don’t be stupid.”

  “I’m not being stupid. For the first time in my life, I’m having some integrity. I know you think you’re just doing what a good father does, but I need to know that I’m here on my own accomplishments. Frankly, Dad, I need you to butt out of my life and my career.”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking.” Colum’s voice was tight with repressed anger. “If it weren’t for me, you’d be nowhere. You’d be building tiny little vacation cottages in the backwoods of Idaho if you didn’t have my help.”

  Declan didn’t give himself time to think over his response. “If anyone deserves your help, it’s Meg Anderson. You know that as well as I do. Just look at her proposal. That’s what Eleanor wants, so that’s who Eleanor needs to hire.”

  “Declan—”

  “Dad, I’ve got to go.” And before his father could say anything else, he hung up the phone. He was surprised to find that his hands were shaking.

  He’d finally stood up to him. He felt stunned, but somehow not surprised. Deep down, he’d always known his father didn’t believe in him and his abilities. Looked down on the fact that he favored local vernacular and historical styles. To Colum, architecture was all about innovation, pushing boundaries, conquering materials and the natural world equally. But that was only because he’d had the childhood that Declan had wanted, growing up on a croft in Ireland, surrounded by warmth and laughter and happiness. What had happened to make him this humorless, ambitious, hard-hearted person, Declan didn’t know...

  But no, he did know. Before his mom, Fiona, left, there had been rides on his dad’s shoulders and summer trips in a caravan and bedtime stories. But after Fiona extricated herself from their lives, Colum had cut himself off from the rest of human emotion. It had been good for his career—that had been the period when he’d switched to the appropriately named Brutalist style, when he’d decided that he would take out his emptiness on society by designing public spaces that looked like prisons. He’d let his career become his whole world, forgetting that he left behind a boy who needed a father far more than he needed an expensive boarding school or the advantage of professional connections.

  In some ways, in Declan’s attempt to prove he wasn’t anything like his father, he’d become exactly like him, letting the ends justify the means, no matter who it hurt, no matter who he stepped on.

  He had no idea how long it would take for word to make it back to Meg, but he figured it wouldn’t be long. Colum McKenzie knew his son well enough to know that he wasn’t going to change his mind, and if he wasn’t going to take the job, Eleanor would have no choice but to hire the architect she really wanted.

  Declan searched for a minute on his computer, then picked up the phone and called the first florist he could find. He ordered the biggest bouquet of flowers she had and dictated a note.

  It looks like the best woman finally won. Sincerest congratulations.

  And because he couldn’t help himself, he had her sign it, Love, Declan

  * * *

  She was fine. Really and truly fine.

  It had been a month since Meg had submitted her proposal to Eleanor Gratz and she hadn’t heard anything, which had to mean bad news. As hard as the client had been pushing for the designs, Meg would have expected a decision by now. Given everything she knew about the circumstances surrounding the bid, it wasn’t too hard to guess which way it had gone.

  Meg nabbed one of the rare street parking spaces outside NCO and climbed out of her Jeep, feeling as if she’d been permanently pressed into a sitting position. Traffic out of Boulder was heinous in the best of times, but add in a Friday night drive and a multi-car accident—a deer dashing into traffic could leave a lot of destruction in its wake, even when it escaped unscathed—and it had turned into a marathon commute. That was okay, though. It meant the office would be mostly empty. Even with their insane hours, most of the architects bailed the minute the clock flipped to five o’clock on Friday night.

  Then again, they all had families or significant others or at least evening plans that involved more than Netflix and takeout Chinese food.

  She pushed away her self-pitying thoughts and swiped her keycard at the front door, then climbed the stairs to the second floor. The expanse of low-walled cubicles was dark with only the occasional spot of brightness coming from task lighting someone had left on.

  “Meg! Come back for your flowers?”

  Meg jumped back reflexively as an older woman appeared from the shadows, her oversized handbag slung over her shoulder—Rita, the office manager. Meg pressed a hand to her galloping heart and tried to process the woman’s words. “I’ve been on a jobsite all day. What flowers?”

  Rita’s eyes went wide. “I thought someone called you! Now I’ve gone and spoiled the surprise!”

  Meg stared, still not sure what they were talking about. All at once, the exhaustion from her long week and horrendous commute tumbled down over her like an avalanche, and she decided it was too much trouble to unravel that statement. “Have a good weekend, Rita. I’ll see you on Monday.”

  “Don’t work too late!” Rita chirped before heading for the door.

  Meg wandered over to her cubicle, slinging her purse off her shoulder, then stopped as if she’d suddenly been poured in concrete. In the center of her desk was an enormous bouquet of sunflowers, roses, and sea lavender in a sculptural glass vase. What in the world?

  She managed to unstick her feet and plucked the card from the plastic pick nestled in the middle of the bouquet.

  It looks like the best woman finally won. Sincerest congratulations. Love, Declan

  Her eyes stuck on the last two words, scrawled in a feminine hand: Love, Declan. Her heart rose into her throat. Declan had sent her flowers.

  Then the rest of the message sank in. She dove for her computer, flicking it on and drumming her fingers impatiently while it booted up. After what felt like an eternity, her desktop flashed onto the screen and she clicked the email icon a dozen times in a vain attempt to get it to open faster. And there it was, among a bunch of junk and spam and interoffice messages—an email from Eleanor Gratz, subject line: Vail Remodel. She held her breath and clicked it . . .

  . . . and let out a scream that, had anyone actually still been in the office, would have had them speed-dialing emergency services.

  She’d done it. Finally. She’d won. She’d beat Declan at his own game, not through connections or underhanded plotting, but through sheer talent and skill.

  But as her gaze drifted to the flowers, she realized that the idea no longer held the savor it once had. The project, of course, excited her as much as ever. But the thought of besting Declan had lost its appeal.

  He wasn’t her enemy, even if she’d once thought of him that way. He was just another professional trying to make his mark on the world, however much he might have stumbled over his own ambition. Now, the anger she’d been holding melted away in the face of her victory.

  That, of course, brought up another big question: what exactly had happened? The messages between Declan and Nina had made it clear Mrs. Gratz had already made her decision and Meg was just a decoy to make the whole procedure feel fairer. So how had they gotten from Declan being a shoo-in to Meg winning the bid? She couldn’t very well ask the client and she didn’t want to probe for information from Nelson. He’d be angry that she hadn’t been straight with him about the situation from the start, when he might have been able to do something. (He wouldn’t have been able to, but that was beside the point. Nelson liked to think he had a lot more influence than he actually did.) So she picked up her phone, found Declan's text message, and pressed the Call icon.

  And then hung up before the call could connect. To line him now would just make it seem like she was gloating. Besides, even if she could forgive him his final betrayal, it was just a symptom of a larger issue. He might like her, he might be attracted to her, but it was clear that he didn’t respect her.

  And despite the fact that she’d never felt that raw, uncontrollable attraction toward anyone else, she could never be with someone who thought it was okay to use her as he had.

  Someday, she would look back on that weekend as a brief interlude in her real life, a funny story she’d tell when friends were sitting around talking about their biggest mistakes. At least, she would say, it hadn’t turned into one of her biggest regrets. It was a story that belonged to the old Meg, the one who had been so insecure that she’d held onto a hopeless infatuation for six long years; the Meg who had almost let herself be taken in by an Irish lilt and practiced charm and beautiful gray eyes. But that Meg was gone now, and it was time to build a new life for herself.

  It was time to prove just how strong and capable she could really be.

  Six months later

  Meg stood on the Gratz job site, wearing a hard hat and bent over a sheaf of drawings. Like all projects of this scope, it had taken twice as long as they’d expected to secure the initial permits and they'd been plagued by all manner of difficulties as they got started. What should have begun in May with the demolition had stretched through the summer, putting them into October for framing. An unseasonably warm October, to be certain, but October all the same. They were going to be racing the weather to get the structure dried in before the first snow so the crews could work inside through the winter.

  It had been months of long days and sleepless nights, and Meg had loved every minute of it.

  In the days after she’d learned she won the bid, she'd walked around in a combination of shock and glee. Despite the fact she still had projects to finish, the Ballasteros job chief among them, she dove straight into the construction drawings so they could begin pulling permits. It ate at her, then, that a tiny part of her still felt restless, dissatisfied. She’d finally gotten everything she wanted in life. Why should she be anything but over-the-moon thrilled?

  But if she were completely honest, she missed Declan. It didn’t make any sense. She hadn’t had him in the first place, at least for any significant length of time. But those two days with him had shifted something in her. It had caused a crack in her hard shell, her firm conviction that her work was all she needed in her life, and no matter how she tried to patch and cover up that crack, it widened with each passing day. She’d tried going on a few dates, but none of those men had appealed to her enough to see them again. She wanted someone in her life that she could talk with about her work. Who would understand why she whipped out her phone to randomly photograph buildings that triggered some creative impulse in her. Someone who would kiss her like Declan had, sweep her away and drive every thought but him from her mind.

  Meg thought the last item on her list might be the toughest to fulfill.

  She’d like to pretend she’d moved on without another thought, but in truth, it had taken less than twenty-four hours to start stalking him on social media, searching for some barometer of how he felt about losing the bid, how he felt about losing her. But ever since the decision had been made, it was as if he’d dropped off the face of the earth. No new projects on his Instagram, nothing on his company’s online portfolio. Had losing this bid been the thing he needed to send him back to Ireland?

  She realized now that she was daydreaming when she was supposed to be looking at the plans to answer a question for the contractor. What had first seemed like a straightforward renovation had turned out to be an engineering feat, and one that she was both well trained and well prepared for. Because she’d opted to remove many of the interior walls and the ones that hadn’t been removed were curved and often partial height, it had brought a special challenge to normally simple things like electrical, HVAC, and plumbing. Far from being frustrating, she’d found it invigorating. Finally, this was a project that utilized her full breadth of skills and education.

  Connor Williams, the contractor, ambled over to her, zipping up his jacket against the sudden blast of chill wind.

  She didn’t wait for him to speak. “Here’s the problem.” She tapped the drawing. “The framing crew transposed the measurements on this interior wall so it’s cutting into the hallway.”

  “That’s easy enough to fix.”

  Meg arched an eyebrow.

  He gave a wry smile. “Relatively speaking.”

  “Glad to hear it. I don’t think you need me on site for this. Everything else looks good. I’ll be back in two weeks when it’s completely framed.”

  She was rolling up the drawings when the sound of wheels on the gravel driveway caught her attention. She didn’t look up. There were cars and trucks coming in and out of the job site all the time, especially as the general contractor rotated the trades through. So she was completely unprepared when a familiar voice called her name, laced with a hint of uncertainty.

  Meg froze, her muscles suddenly going stiff with shock. Then she forced herself back into deliberate movement and rubber banded the plans together before she turned. “Declan.”

  Her first sight of him in six months almost made her heart stop. Just like the last time she’d seen him, her brain had to recalibrate to the idea that yes, he really was that attractive, it hadn’t just been her imagination. He was wearing jeans and boots and a wool coat, a knit scarf wrapped around his neck, looking far more European than she’d ever seen him. But it was the hopeful, uncertain look on his face that really captured her attention.

  And she realized on that first glimpse what she should have realized long ago: that she’d forgiven him for whatever he did or did not do, and the pain when she thought of him was sheerly from missing what they might have been together.

  “Hi.” It was a thoroughly inadequate greeting for the feelings that were flooding her body at the moment.

  “It’s looking good.” He nodded toward the house. “You’re further along than I thought you’d be.”

  “Come back in two weeks and you’ll get a better idea of what it will look like.” That wasn’t at all what she wanted to be saying to him, but despite having thought about this moment for half a year, she found herself completely at a loss for words.

  He seemed to be having the same problem, because he thrust his hands into his pockets and scanned the job site. After an awkward pause he said, “Meg—” at the same time she began, “Declan—”

  They both laughed. “You first,” she said with a smile.

  “This feels about six months too late,” Declan said, “but I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I know it’s completely inadequate considering everything that’s happened between us over the years but I still need to say it, because it’s true.”

  “It’s okay, Declan,” she said. “I forgive you. I was angry, yes, but when it came down to it, it was because of you that I got this job in the first place. No matter what the intention might have been. And at this point, I think you might have been misguided, but I don’t think you were malicious.”

  He dipped his head. “That’s very gracious of you.”

  “What I don’t understand is how it all came about. She was dead set on giving you this bid. Why did she change her mind?”

  “She wanted your design. I think she was never really interested in my work, just in my name. And what you submitted was better.” He gestured toward the skeleton of the house behind them. “I knew it from the first time I saw your sketches. I’m not surprised. This is going to make your career.”

  Meg nodded slowly. She couldn’t deny that those were the words she’d longed to hear, but she could also sense that he was holding something back. “Why are you really here? I appreciate the apology, but you could have called me at any point in the last six months.”

 

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