If You Could See Me Now (20 page)

Poppy thought for a while, then nodded her head slowly up and down, still looking rather confused.

Benjamin chuckled and looked away. “I knew it. Clever woman,” he thought aloud, watching Elizabeth engrossed in conversation with Vincent.

They both tuned in to the conversation.

“I like you, Elizabeth, I really do,” Vincent was saying genuinely. “I like your eccentricity.”

Elizabeth frowned.

“You know, your quirkiness. That’s when you know someone’s a genius, and I like geniuses on my team.”

Elizabeth nodded slowly, utterly bewildered at what he was going on about.

“But,” Vincent continued, “I’m not too convinced on your ideas, in fact I’m not convinced at all. I don’t like ’em.”

There was silence.

Elizabeth moved uncomfortably in her seat. “OK.” She tried to remain businesslike. “What is it exactly that you have in mind?”

“Love.”

“Love,” Elizabeth repeated dully.

“Yes. Love.” He leaned back in the chair,
fingers interlocked across his stomach.

“You have love in mind,” Elizabeth said stonily, looking at Benjamin for assurance.

Benjamin rolled his eyes and shrugged.

“Hey,
I
don’t give a shit about love,” Vincent said as a way of explanation. “I’ve been married twenty-five
years. It’s the Irish public that wants it. Where is that thing?” He looked around the table, then slid the folder of newspaper articles toward Elizabeth.

After a moment of
flicking through the pages, Elizabeth spoke. In her voice Benjamin sensed disappointment. “Ah, I see. You want a
themed
hotel.”

“You make it sound tacky when you say that.” He waved his hand dismissively.

“I believe themed hotels
are
tacky,” Elizabeth said
firmly. She couldn’t forsake her principles, even for a plum job like this.

Benjamin and Poppy looked to Vincent for his response. It was like watching a tennis match.

“Elizabeth,” Vincent said with a smile twitching at the corners of his lips. “You’re a beautiful young woman, surely you should know this. Love is not a theme. It’s an atmosphere, a mood.”

“I see,” Elizabeth said, sounding and looking as though she didn’t see at all. “You want to create a feeling of love in a hotel.”

“Exactly!” Vincent said, looking pleased. “But it’s not what I want, it’s what
they
want.” He stabbed the newspaper with his
finger.

Elizabeth cleared her throat and spoke as if addressing a child. “Mr. Taylor, it’s June, what people here refer to as silly season, when there’s nothing else to write about. The media simply represents a distorted image of the public’s opinion—it’s not accurate, you know, it doesn’t represent the hopes and wishes of the Irish people. To strive for something to meet the needs of the media would be to make a huge mistake.”

Vincent looked unimpressed.

Elizabeth continued, “Look, the hotel is in a wonderful location with stunning views, bordering a beautiful town with an endless amount of outdoor amenities available. My designs are about bringing the outside in, making the landscapes part of the interior. With the use of natural earthy tones like dark greens and browns and with the use of stone we can—”

“I’ve heard all this before,” Vincent puffed. “I don’t want the hotel to blend in with the mountains, I want it to stand out. I don’t want the guests to feel like damn hobbits sleeping in a mound of grass and mud.” He stabbed his cigar out angrily in the ashtray.

She’d lost him, Benjamin thought.
Too bad, this one really tried
. He watched her face melt as the job slipped away from her.

“Mr. Taylor,” she said quickly, “you haven’t heard
all
my ideas yet.”

She was grasping at straws.

Vincent grunted and looked at his diamond-studded Rolex. “You’ve got thirty seconds.”

She froze for twenty of them and eventually her face fell and she looked to be in a great deal of pain as she spoke her next few words. “Poppy.” She sighed. “Tell him your ideas.”

“Yes!” Poppy jumped up in excitement and danced around the other side of the table to Vincent. “OK, so I’m thinking water beds in the shape of a heart, hot tubs, champagne
flutes that rise from the bedside lockers. I’m thinking the
Romantic era
meets
Art Deco
. An
explosion
”—she made explosion signs with her hands—“of rich reds, burgundy, and wine that make you feel like you’re being embraced in a velvet-lined
womb
. Candles
everywhere
. French boudoir meets—”

As Poppy rambled on and Vincent nodded his head animatedly while hanging on her every word, Benjamin turned to look at Elizabeth, who in turn had her head in her hand, wincing at every one of Poppy’s ideas. Their eyes met and they both shared an exasperated look over their respective colleagues.

Then they shared a smile.

Chapter Seventeen

“Oh, my goodness,
oh, my goodness,” Poppy squealed with delight, dancing toward Elizabeth’s car. “I’d like to thank Damien Hirst for inspiring me, Egon Schiele”—she wiped an imaginary tear from her eye—“Bansky and Robert Rauschenberg for providing me with such incredible art that helped my creative mind develop, opening delicately like a bud and for—”

“Stop it,” Elizabeth hissed through gritted teeth. “They’re still watching us.” “Oh, they are not, don’t be so paranoid.” Poppy’s tune changed from elation to frustration. She turned around to face the cabin on the site.

“Don’t turn around, Poppy!” Elizabeth spoke as if giving out to a child.

“Oh, why not, they’re not watchi— Oh, they are, BYEEE! THAANKSSS.” She waved her hands wildly.

“Do you
want
to lose your job?” Elizabeth threatened, refusing to turn around. Her words had the same effect as they would on Luke when she threatened to take away his PlayStation. Poppy stopped skipping immediately and they both walked in silence back to the car, Elizabeth feeling two pairs of eyes burning into her back.

“I can’t believe we got the job,” Poppy said breathily once inside, hand on her heart. “Nor can I,” Elizabeth grumbled, securing her seat belt around her body and starting up the engine.

“What’s wrong with you, grumpy? You’d swear we didn’t
get
this job or something,” Poppy said.

Elizabeth thought about that. In fact, she
didn’t
get the job. Poppy did. It was a victory that didn’t feel like a victory at all. And why had Ivan been there? He had told Elizabeth he worked with children, what had the hotel got to do with children? He hadn’t even stuck around long enough for her to
find out, instead leaving the room as soon as the drinks were brought, and without a good-bye to anyone apart from Elizabeth. She pondered this. Perhaps he was involved in business with Vincent and she’d walked in during an important meeting, which would make sense as to why Vincent had seemed so rudely preoccupied. Well, whatever it was, she needed to be informed and she was angry that Ivan hadn’t mentioned it last night. She had plans to make and despised disruptions.

“That Benjamin West is gorgeous, isn’t he?” Poppy said, nudging Elizabeth’s arm as she was driving.

“Poppy,” Elizabeth said in frustration and gripped the wheel to avoid the car veering off. “I didn’t notice,” she
finally answered Poppy, who was gazing at her.

“Sure you didn’t.” She shook her head and looked out the window.

“I could barely see his face under all the dirt,” Elizabeth said, pulling into the space outside her office.

“Oh, you’re unbelievable, there wasn’t any dirt on his face. He works on a
building site
. What do you expect him to wear, a three-piece suit?”

Distracted from the disappointing meeting, Elizabeth phased out of Poppy’s excited chatter and sent her back to work while she headed over to Joe’s for a coffee.

“Good afternoon, Elizabeth,” Joe shouted. The three other customers jumped in their seats at his sudden outburst.

“Coffee, please, Joe.”

“For a change?”

She smiled tightly. She chose a table by the window looking onto the main street, but with her back to the window. She wasn’t a gazer, she needed to think.

“Excuse me, Ms. Egan.” A male American accent startled her.

“Mr. West,” she said, looking up in surprise.

“Please call me Benjamin.” He smiled and indicated the chair beside her. “Mind if I join you?”

Elizabeth moved her papers out of his way. “Would you like a drink?”

“Coffee would be great.”

Elizabeth took her mug and held it out toward Joe. “Joe, two tall slim mango Frappuccinos, please.”

Benjamin’s eyes lit up. “You’re kidding, I didn’t think they had that kind of thing he—” He was cut short by Joe dumping two mugs of milky coffee on the table. It spilled over the sides of the mugs. “Oh,” he
finished, looking disappointed.

She turned her attention to the as-usual disheveled-looking Benjamin. She had seen him around the village over the past year and studied his face to see if Poppy’s description of him was correct. His thick black hair was in wavy curls around his head; he had jet-black stubble starting from the top of his cheekbones and extending down the collar of his shirt. He wore scruffy jeans streaked with muck, an identically soiled denim jacket, turf-clad sandy Caterpillar boots that had left a trail from the front door to the table, under which a small mountain of dry mud was gathering. A line of black dirt collected underneath his
fingernails and as he rested his hands on the table in front of Elizabeth, she felt herself having to look away. Again, she couldn’t see past the dirt.

“Congratulations on today,” Benjamin said, seeming genuinely happy for her. “It was a very successful meeting for you, you really pulled it off. You guys say sláinte, right?” He held up his coffee mug.

“Excuse me?” Elizabeth asked coldly.

“Sláinte? Isn’t that right?” He looked worried.

“No,” she said with frustration, “I mean yes, but I’m not talking about that.” She shook her head. “I didn’t ‘pull it off,’ as you say, Mr. West. Getting this contract was no stroke of luck for me.”

Benjamin’s sun-kissed skin pinked slightly. “I didn’t mean to imply it was a stroke of luck and please call me Benjamin. Mr. West seems so formal.” He moved uncomfortably in his chair. “Your assistant Poppy . . .” He looked away, trying to
find the words. “She’s very talented, has lots of ‘out there’ ideas and Vincent pretty much has the same philosophy, but sometimes he gets carried away and it’s up to us to talk him down from the window ledge. Look, it’s my job as project manager to make sure we get this thing built on time and under budget, so I plan to do what I usually do and just convince Vincent that we haven’t the money to put Poppy’s ideas from paper to practice.”

Elizabeth’s heart quickened. “Mr. West, are you trying to talk me out of this job?” she asked coldly.

“No.” Benjamin sighed. “It’s
Benjamin,
” he stressed. “And no, I’m not trying to talk you out of this job.” He said it in a way that made her feel foolish. “Look, I’m trying to help you out here. I can see that you’re not happy with the whole ‘Love Hotel’ idea and truthfully I don’t think the locals will be too delighted by it either.” He gestured around at the people in the room. Elizabeth tried to picture Joe going for Sunday lunch in a “velvet womb.” No, it definitely wouldn’t work, not in this town.

“I care about the projects I work on,” he continued. “And I think this hotel has a huge amount of potential. I don’t want it to end up looking like a Las Vegas shrine to
Moulin Rouge.
”

Elizabeth had slid down ever so slightly in her seat.

“Now,” he said assertively, “I came here to meet you because I like your ideas. They’re sophisticated yet comfortable, modern without being too modern, and the look will appeal to a broad range of people. Vincent and Poppy’s idea will alienate three-quarters of the country immediately. However, maybe you could punch them with a bit more
color?
I do agree with Vincent that your whole concept needs to look less like the Shire and more like a hotel. We don’t want people feeling like they have to travel barefoot to Macgillycuddy’s Reeks to drop a ring down the center.”