Page 46 of Single Mom's Guide to Love

“There’s a difference between cliché and classic. In this case, black and white fall under the classic category. So please, for the love of God, just pick.”

“Maeve, I really don’t care.”

“You have to care.”

“Says who?”

Can this man be any more infuriating?

Or any more good looking?

I hate that I still can’t get over the second one.

“Me.Isay you have to. And the quicker you answer my questions, the quicker you can go back to your video games that are clearly more important than this.”

He turns his eyes to me, a little softer this time before looking at both samples. “Fine. The black. And I’m not playing a video game, I’m designing one.”

“Apologies, I didn’t know you were working.” And I mean that. Now I feel slightly bad. “And I promise you can get back to it that much faster if you just help me with three more things. Then I’ll be out of your hair and I can order all of these before everything’s shut down for Thanksgiving.”

I know Logan is frustrated, but in my defense, he’s not making it easy on himself. I’ve taken the last few days to narrow down the order of spaces I need to tackle, what I need for these projects, and how many days each of them will take to complete. There’s a small list of things that can wait until after—rooms no one will be going in—but the perfectionist in me would love to have it all done before Christmas. Then I can start the new year without the presence of Logan in my life.

But for that to happen, I needed one day of his attention. Hell, I needed two hours. He was prepared for this. I emailed him that I was stopping in this morning and that today was the day he was spending money.

It’s also the day I’m seeing if I indeed have an unlimited budget.

I’ve had clients in the past tell me to spend what I needed to, but in reality, they didn’t mean it. They’d either put a stop to apurchase or tell me that I could buy the expensive item, but to watch the budget in other areas.

But not Logan. I told him I was buying a hideous twenty-five-thousand-dollar chandelier. I never would’ve done such a thing, but this was the ultimate test of whether he trusted my instincts.

He told me to buy it. Said that I must have a vision and to do what I needed to do.

My jaw was on the floor.

He’ll find out I didn’t buy the chandelier at a later date. But he passed the test, which is good. The favors I’m calling in to distributors, in addition to purchasing on-the-fly, high-end furniture and decor, is costing a pretty penny.

“Only three more items?” Logan asks. “But I’m having so much fun.”

I lift an eyebrow. “Sarcasm doesn’t hit the same with a British accent.”

This makes him laugh. “You’re right. It’s something in the inflection that doesn’t make it as effective. Also, in my defense, I don’t think I learned true sarcasm until I met Kat.”

“Really?” I ask as I show him two tile samples and he points to the one I liked most. “When did you two meet?”

“University. We met at orientation.”

I wasn’t expecting that. “Did she go abroad for college?”

He shakes his head. “The opposite. I came here. Stanford specifically.”

“Wow.” I never would’ve guessed that. “Can I ask why? I mean, people would kill to have Oxford or Cambridge essentially in their backyards.”

His jaw clenches at my question.

“I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Actually, we should move on to carpet samples for the bedrooms.”

“It’s okay,” he says. “Let’s just say I wanted out of my situation and wanted to go the farthest I could. California seemed like a good choice.”

I can tell he’s done with that part of the conversation, but the part of me who wants to know everything in order to fix everything is dying to know the rest at some point. “Well, you picked correctly. You can’t argue with the results of your life after college.”

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