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Saul hustled her across the room, through a connecting bedroom, and into the bathroom.
"Get out of those wet things. I don't want pneumonia on my conscience as well as fraud. I can't offer you any clothes, but there's a bathrobe behind the door until I can get your clothes dried for you. Make yourself at home. I'm going to do the same in the other bathroom, and then we can have a chat."
He left, closing the door behind him. Jo did as she was told. It was a relief to get out of the wet clinging fabric and into the warmth of the plush bathrobe hanging within. She took her time. Her underwear was sodden, so she didn't put them on, but she didn’t want to give them to him for drying. She stuck them in pocket of the robe, instead.
Rubbing her hair dry, she looked around her. The floor tiles were black slate, the cabinets dark wood, and the sink was white. She found herself thinking that some of this would go quite well in the house she had dreamed about and would now not have.
When she emerged into the bedroom, the door to the living room was open. She could hear Saul talking on the phone in the adjoining room. She hesitated for a moment, then sat down on the bed so as not to intrude.
Here in his bedroom, she felt oddly at home. It had the same pale grey walls and dark wood furniture as the rest of the home. The duvet on the bed was white, and so were the curtains. The effect was simple but striking. The rain was still streaming down the windows. She went on sitting there. The monochrome colors were surprisingly peaceful. She felt more relaxed than she had in days, apart from last night with King. The rain cut her off from the outside world, Saul continued to chatter in the next room.
Realizing how tired she felt, she lay down across the bed while she waited for him to end his call. When she woke up, the rain had ended. She felt confused about her whereabouts, her head fuzzy as she sat up and blinked at the room around her.
Then it hit her. She cast an eye on the clock on the bedside table. It said half-past seven. She jerked up in the bed, horrified. It had been just after five when she arrived. She must have been asleep for more than two hours.
Saul appeared in the doorway, apparently having heard her shifting about. He was barefoot, in jeans and a T-shirt. He had a newspaper in his hand.
"Ah, you're awake."
"I'm so sorry. I must have dropped off. You should have woken me up."
"You looked so peaceful, I thought I'd just let you sleep. It's done you good," he added, eyeing her with some concern. "You look much better. Come and have a drink."
In the sitting room, he waved her to a seat on one of the white sofas and gave her a glass of whiskey without asking what she wanted. He sat down opposite her, on the far side of a vast dark-wood coffee table, keeping his distance. She noted that on the table were an orchid, a large bowl of ostrich eggs, an untidy heap of newspapers, and a pile of books.
"Right," said Saul, and stopped. "There's a lot I need to tell you. I'm just wondering where to begin. Well, let's start with the house. I bought the house about eight years ago, as a wedding present for my wife. My father had inherited it from family, but he had lost everything and it ended up in foreclosure. I was like you, I fell for it on sight, though I had never lived in it. He had moved there long after Paul and I were grown. Caroline, unfortunately, didn't care for it. She didn't like the area and wanted to live nearer to her friends and family, so we did.”
"Some years later, we broke up. At that point, I considered moving into the house myself. That was when I put in a request for a building permit. But it's complicated in that area, as you seem to have found out. It's because of the monuments in the nearby park. The whole area is deemed historical in relations. Everything within a certain radius comes under a preservation order. It's impossible to change things."
She nodded, understanding better what had happened to Trey and herself because of this.
"In the end, I let it drop. I didn't really see myself living there on my own. Considering the circumstances in which I had bought it, it was too sad. So, then, I decided to sell. That was when the trouble started with my brother. Paul had always had his eye on it, with a view for redeveloping. He has some idea of raising the roof by a level or two and selling it as studios."
