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Although I had been fairly enthusiastic about the idea in principle, I hadn’t given it much thought since I had left the island and Jack and Juno’s wedding behind. Kit had occupied a lot of my thoughts while I had been there, and I wasn’t sure I wanted much of a reminder that she had been in my life.
I’d also not entirely expected a random business suggestion at a party to be fully serious. But having something differentto get my teeth into with people whom Jack trusted might be exactly what I needed to make my job fun for a while. If Lucy really did have the Grintock project handled, I could spare the time.
I already knew that much. It would make me busy, but I liked being busy. Especially with the schedule that Sarai and Richard wanted.
“I can’t promise anything,” I said, something I always started these discussions with once they got serious. “But I’ll definitely look it over and see what might work and if I’m the best fit for the job.”
“We all know you are, and this is right up your avenue. It’s a quirky build with character and gets you away from those boring office blocks. You know you want to do it.”
“Send me everything. I have a clear morning. I’ll look it over.” I knew there was a chance I didn’t have a clear morning, but it would be the only way I could get Sarai off the phone quickly and keep her off it for a few hours. She was eager, that much was clear.
As soon as she let me, I gave her the details of where to send the information and then hung up on her. I grabbed my now significantly less warm coffee and returned to the window. Fifteen minutes had gone by, but I was going to finish my thoughts and my ritual before my PA came in if I could.
Slowly, I calmed again, but Kit was soon in my thoughts. She had been one of the best parts of the short vacation. No matter how unsuitable it had been for anything long-term, I found myself wondering what she would make of this project with Sarai and whether she would want to be involved.
However, it wasn’t my place to ask her, and I had learned my lesson before. I would never work with someone I had any romantic interest in. Not even for just one project. It led to disaster and heartbreak. For everyone involved.
Ten minutes later, at almost exactly nine-thirty, my PA appeared. Henry was perfectly on time, as always, but that didn’t mean I was ready for him today.
“You okay, boss?” he asked as he came to sit down on the other side of the desk. I wasn’t surprised he was asking. By this point in the morning, I was usually sitting down and putting some thoughts on paper.
I considered telling him about Kit, but again, I didn’t want to mix business and pleasure, and I couldn’t think of anything better than being able to put her behind me by throwing myself into work. Maybe this job with Sarai would help. Something quirky to work on that would fill my time.
“I’m good. Better for the break, even. Made a new contact, and I have a project I’m probably going to want to take on. Can you handle a lot of my workload for today?”
“You want me to do it all?” Henry gulped as if he wasn’t confident, but he had been training with me for some time now.
Although I wanted to push him, I didn’t want to push him beyond what he was capable of. I didn’t want him to fail. It wasn’t good for his self-confidence, on top of being bad for business. “How about this? You do whatever you think you can handle and stretch yourself a little. If you are worried, run things by me, and if you can’t handle it, chuck it back to me, and I’ll take you through how I’d do the task. This is your turn to see what you can do and make your mark.”
Henry nodded as I spoke, and that seemed to settle the matter. “Can we just go through everything that needs to be done today first so I can get an idea of what might be expected of me?”
“Sure,” I replied, grateful he wasn’t so scared that he wouldn’t even try. This, I could work with.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Within thirty minutes, Henry had satisfied himself that he knew what he was doing and what I needed him to do. I suspected he would only get so far down the list of tasks before he struggled with a few and had to kick them back my way, but either way, it cleared enough of my morning so I could keep my promise to Sarai.
She was also quick to get the information files across to me, and they were comprehensive. I was pleased to see a lot of the permission work and surveys had already been done. She was as ready for an architect to step in and do the actual designs as anyone could be.
This was going to be a project I would enjoy working on.
It took several hours to go through all the documents until I was satisfied that I knew what they wanted and how they wanted it done. It was going to be a themed vacation park, and there were a lot of buildings to design and lay out. In a lot of ways, it wasn’t too unlike some of the business complexes I had done in the past, and I knew my team and I were going to be able to bring our expertise to the table and really make it function well.
There were some suggested layouts already, allowing for certain wildlife areas to be preserved, but I made a few tweaks,drawing out a rough sketch of what I would put where, and then scanned in the image and sent it back to Sarai, along with my reiteration that I would be happy to come onto the project.
At the same time, I asked her how much of my team and company she would want to use and gave her some quotes for various parts of the project, depending on how much I was doing for her.
I’d built my company up to be able to handle the whole process from start to finish, but considering Sarai and how organized she was, I doubted she wanted more than the bare bones from me.
Within minutes of me sending the email, another phone call came through. I answered, knowing it would be her. The first thing I heard was a delightedsquee.
“I hoped you would want to be involved when you saw the details. We don’t need everything you can do, but I do want whatever you think we lack. I’m going to send you over the team names and specialties we have involved so far. Let me know all the gaps you can fill in and complete the picture for me. Your quotes look to be in line with what we expected. No problems there.”
Sarai was so straight to business after her initial excitement that I could barely get a word in edgewise, but I didn’t need to right now. Her enthusiasm for the project was infectious, and I soon found myself grinning ear to ear and wanting to get started. As long as Henry could handle everything he had, I would be able to make a dent in the preliminary part of the project.
As much as I wanted to get started on the creative side of things, I needed to see who else was involved, what was still needed, generate an official quote, and get paperwork signed. Even with the speed at which Sarai was responding, I knew that would take several days.
I had to cool off and just do the parts I needed to in order.
