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“All right already! Jeez.” But she was smiling as she complained, enjoying his pride and pleasure. Quinn was like a boy with his first crush. How amazing it must feel to be so skilled. To create a work of art and know your own worth as you did it.
Her eyes blurred with tears as she stared at the dream Quinn had created for himself. Summer fling or not, he’d been her friend first, and she was proud of what he’d done.
A half an hour later, she pushed the chair back from the desk and sighed. “It’s amazing.”
“Thank you,” Quinn said so quickly that she doubted he’d been working at all.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. Not that I’ve seen a lot of custom-built, multimillion-dollar estates.” She heard him set down a pencil.
“I’m not that rich, you know.”
Arching an eyebrow, Lori spun the chair around to give him her best look of sardonic doubt. “Uh-huh.”
“Seriously.”
“Is this about that argument we had yesterday?”
“Not really. I just don’t want you to think I’m one of those guys. All of my money is tied up in this land. The building is taking so long because I’m trading for labor.”
“You’re what?”
“I’m bartering. Designing houses for the contractors and foremen in exchange for a steep discount. The suppliers are a bit more complicated, but I’m working on them. And some of the work I’ll do myself, of course.”
“Still…you’re not exactly struggling.”
He shrugged, leaning a little farther into his stool. “I was lucky. I interned with an amazing architect. He took me under his wing, and when he retired, he urged a lot of influential people to give me a chance. I wouldn’t be even half as established now if it hadn’t been for Walter McInnis.”
Lori darted a glance at the mess of files on the desk and wondered if she should risk it. But she had nothing else to go on, so there was little choice. “McInnis hooked you up with people like Peter Anton?”
“Exactly. Those kinds of developments were my bread and butter the first couple of years. Now I can be a bit more choosy.”
“But I see you’re working on something for them now.” She inclined her head toward the desk, and Quinn frowned. Her heart rate kicked up to panic mode when he said nothing. “Ah, I saw a drawing of a house.”
“Oh, right. That’s just a proposal. Some hush-hush deal that hasn’t gone through yet. They wanted to get it on my radar because they’re planning a big campaign as soon as it’s official, I guess.”
Lori felt her eyelids flutter. A riverfront deal that hadn’t gone through yet? This could be her land. But it made no sense. It was Tumble Creek. Who the hell would buy a multimillion-dollar home they could access for only a few months a year? Sure, they could get up there during the winter, but all their rich friends would be on the other side of the mountain, so what was the point?
“Did you like the house or something?”
Lori stopped biting her lip and tried to look like someone who wasn’t thinking of stealing her lover’s top secret paperwork. “Sure. It was nice. I’m just trying to think of what river it could be. The Roaring Fork is surrounded by federal land in most places.”
He shrugged. “Must be one of its tributaries. God knows these developers wouldn’t hesitate to call a stream a river if it meant more sales.”
“You don’t know where it is?”
“It’s not official, so I couldn’t very well go and walk it anyway. And neither could they. They only gave me some general ideas to work with.” His mouth twitched down a little. “Why? What’s up?”
“Nothing,” she said too loudly.
“I hope this doesn’t have anything to do with Peter looking at your ass last night. Because I like your ass, too, if that’s what you want to hear.”
She grinned on a rush of relief. “That’s all I needed. Thanks.”
His smile didn’t match hers. He didn’t look relieved at all. “Lori…” he said, a sort of a question in his voice that faded away before he could ask it.
Crap. He must suspect she was up to something. She tried very hard not to look at the file. What kind of a girl planned on stealing something from a man she was sleeping with, anyway?
He met her eyes briefly before his gaze drifted to the ground.
