Page 78 of Mr. Fixer Upper
He stared down the hallway with its threadbare carpet toward the paint chipped stairwell and hefted his backpack over one shoulder.This was not the last time he’d see Paige St. James’s place,he vowed. She was his, and she was just going to have to get used to it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The walls in Leslie St. James’s dining room were covered in a lovely linen paper in delicate blues and greens that gave dinner guests the impression they were dining underwater. The conversation around the dining table had a similar effect on Paige.
Her mother, cool and beautiful as always in a sleeveless ivory sheath, continued her well-reasoned and methodical dissection of where Paige had gone so wrong as to end up on reality television.
“Honestly, Paige.” Her mother dabbed her napkin delicately at the corner of her mouth. “I don’t see why you won’t take some time off to recover from your mishap and reconsider your path in life.”
Paige, used to the criticism, slid her fork through the pepper tuna steak her mother’s cook had prepared.
“I like what I do,” she reminded her mother. She wasn’t about to tell her mother and her sister that she was desperately trying to find a new job. Something, anything, that meant she didn’t have to go back for another season of Kings. She couldn’t stand the thought of working with Gannon side-by-side again, and the further she distanced herself from the situation, the more clearly she saw the role that the production company had played in her humiliation.
The interviews, the suggestive show teasers? There was no way Meeghan Traxx justhappenedto show up on set that day.
Leslie rolled her eyes in dramatic fashion. “I don’t see what there is to like about it,” she insisted.
Frankly, the only thing Paige liked about her job in this moment was the fact that it irritated her mother.
Her sister Lisa, her long dark hair worn in a sleek French braid over her shoulder, smirked over the rim of her wineglass. “I take it you haven’t gotten a good look at her co-star, Mom.”
Paige shot her sister a warning look, but everyone was a target around the St. James dining table. Pot shots were taken with abandon until someone surrendered.
“I assume you mean that Gannon King.” The disdain in their mother’s voice rang out clearly.
“Rumor has it our Paige is involved with him,” Lisa said, topping off her glass with the very nice Spanish rosé and handing the bottle to Paige.
Paige dumped a generous portion into her own glass before handing the bottle to her mother.
“Involved?” Leslie arched a well-manicured eyebrow at her wayward daughter. “I certainly hope that a rumor is just a rumor in this case.”
Paige stabbed a steamed green bean with more force than necessary. “We were having sex, and now we’re not. Happy?”
Lisa sputtered in her wine glass. Paige had said it for the reaction, but Leslie was too experienced to let anything like surprise show.
“Sex is one thing, but a relationship with someone like that? Ill-advised. At least you’re smart enough to not tie yourself down to someone like that,” Leslie said primly.
“What is it exactly that you have against Gannon, Mom? Besides the fact that he called you out for being rude on the phone?” Lisa asked.
“Heaccusedme of being rude. I wasn’t actually being rude,” Leslie clarified the semantics. Their mother thrived on semantics. “I was having a very natural response to learning that my daughter had been injured.”
Wait for it,Paige counted down.
“The fact that she didn’t see fit to call her own mother to tell her what had happened and that she was all right, well, I feel that’s more of a reflection on Paige’s attitude than my own.”
Paige hid her sigh. Her mother was nothing if not consistent. “So heaccusedyou of being rude, and that’s why you don’t like him?” Paige asked. It shouldn’t matter that her mother didn’t like the man that Paige herself couldn’t stand now, except for the fact that it made him the tiniest bit less horrible in her mind. But that was the rebellion talking. And she should be old enough to know that just because she and her mother agreed onsomethingdidn’t mean she was wrong.
Leslie jabbed her fork in her direction. “That’s not the only reason. In my profession, one must have a sense about people, and my sense about Gannon is he’s a loose cannon. And before you even say it, it’s not that he’s a tradesman and works with his hands. Lots of respectable men work with their hands.”
“Mm-hmm,” Paige intoned. She had accused her mother on a handful of occasions of being an insufferable snob. It was one insult that seemed to have stuck.
“For god’s sake, Paige. Sit up straight when you’re being passive aggressive,” Leslie snapped.
Paige straightened her shoulders, a reaction as rooted as Pavlov’s drooling dog.
“I don’t know, Mom. He comes across as more than just a loose cannon on the show,” Lisa insisted.
“You watch my show?” Paige asked, eyebrows winging up.
