AllFreeNovel
Share Us
On the ground floor the smaller two bedroom properties were open plan, with long galley kitchens that could be shut off from the main living area by a folding wall, while the larger properties had separate family-sized kitchens.
Each property had a small office space, and good access onto its courtyard, which was designed to serve as an extra outdoor living space. The concept was both practical and modern, whilst the look of the buildings was traditional, with the houses grouped around what would be an open ‘market square’. There was also what looked like a traditional bazaar, but in fact, Jay explained to Keira, it would be a set of buildings housing modern coffee shops and restaurants, as well as shops selling food and other necessary staples.
The houses were to have traditional hard floors, either in marble or mosaic tiles or, for a more modern feel, slate. The look Jay wanted for the interiors, as he had made plain to Keira, was one of simple elegance, in keeping with the whole concept, with a mixture of traditional and modern styles and furnishings to suit the tastes of the eventual purchasers of the properties.
‘I want a style for these properties which is unique, conveying a certain status and meeting the aspirations of the people who will live here. It must be individual with regard to each property, and yet at the same time create an overall harmony.’
That would mean using strong key colours that would both harmonise and contrast to produce individuality, whilst keeping to an underlying theme—perhaps with plain off-white walls throughout the interiors, but with very different fabrics and furnishings textures and styles, in a palette of colours. Sharp limes and cool blues, hot pinks and reds, bright yellows and rich golds. Indian colours, but used in ways that transcended the traditional whilst still respecting it.
‘I shall need to know if you want each house within a group to share the same style, with each group styled differently, or if you want a mix of styles within each grouping, repeated over several groups,’ Keira told Jay.
‘You’ll be able to see the overall plan more clearly when you see the scale model,’ Jay answered her. ‘Ultimately we intend to give people both the opportunity to work and live here, or to use it as a leisure facility. We plan to create a lake within walking distance of the development for leisure purposes, which together with the existing lake and hotel—as well, of course, as the attraction of the ancient city—will make this somewhere people want to come and visit, as well as live in. The hotel will be extended to include a facility for corporate entertaining, and we hope with irrigation to be able to source much of the food that will be needed for the new town and the visitors locally.’
Keira was stunned by the breadth of his vision. ‘It’s a very ambitious project,’ was all she could find to say.
‘I’m a very ambitious man,’ he told her.
And a very sexy man. An unnervingly charismatic and sensually disturbing man. Surely it wasn’t possible for the space inside the vehicle to have become smaller, so that she was forced to be more aware of his physical presence as a man? It was the fault of the bright sunlight that she had to turn her head to avoid its glare, and was thus obliged to look at the way his hands held the steering wheel—as knowledgeably and masterfully as he had held her last night.
How had her thoughts managed to slip sideways into that forbidden place she knew they must not go? Keira wondered angrily. It was almost as though her own body was working against her in some way, trying to undermine her.
So what if he was sexy and charismatic and…and sensually disturbing? He was also cruel and unkind and arrogant, incapable of judging her fairly, and she would be a complete fool to let herself be caught in any kind of sexual attraction to him. But wasn’t the truth that she was already acutely aware of him as a man?
Keira could feel her heart thumping. She must not give in to this unfamiliar and unwanted vulnerability.
‘There’s a fabric designer whose fabrics might work well here,’ she told Jay, putting aside her personal concerns to focus on her work. ‘He might be prepared to design and produce some fabrics specifically to order for us. What I’m thinking of is using the hot colours India is famous for, but in a more modern way—stripes and checks, perhaps, in thick hessian and slubbed linen, coarse cottons rather than sheer silks. Fabrics that have a modern appeal to them but still an Indian feel. We could have light fittings in coloured mosaic glass, but in modern shapes.’
