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He started punching in a number, then stopped to look at her. “Do you have an apartment to go to?”
“I’ll go out to my mom’s. I just need to get hold of her and tell her. She’s not in the country now. She’s in Scotland on a tour. I’ve been trying to reach her.” Unsuccessfully, as it happened. She hadn’t really planned to move in on her mother so early. A week, she’d thought. Maybe two right before she left. She hadn’t planned on six weeks. “If I can’t get hold of my mom, I can find a suite at the Plaza.” She put all the bravado she could muster into her grin.
“And your stuff?” Lukas tilted his head.
She sucked in a breath. “A storage unit. I’ve called a few places.”
“Are you wedded to the storage unit idea?”
“Why?”
“You could store your stuff at my place.”
She shook her head. “No, I couldn’t. I don’t want to take advantage! I—”
“I suppose you could say no,” Lukas said mildly. “Pay through the nose for some little storage unit where your stuff will bake all summer and freeze all winter.”
“And of course it wouldn’t at your place.” Holly knew when she was being led down the primrose path.
“It wouldn’t. I heat my building in winter, I air-condition in summer.” He smiled.
Feeling virtual rope tightening around her ankles, Holly waited for him to go in for the kill. But he didn’t say another word. He just waited, letting her stew. Letting her realize she was being foolish by saying no to his suggestion.
“I’m paying you,” she said at last, feeling ungracious and guilty at the same time she felt a prickle of relief knowing that she wouldn’t have to just take the first place she found without doing her homework—homework she’d intended to do and now didn’t have time for.
“If you want.” Lukas shrugged, but he didn’t argue with her. “I thought I might pay you,” he added after a moment.
Holly glanced at him sharply. “What on earth for?”
“Being my gallery manager until I can hire a full-time permanent one.”
She stared, astonished. “Your...gallery manager? Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t know anything about managing a gallery.”
“You can manage a classroom of sixth graders,” he said as if that was all it required. “And you always kept a handle on Matt and me. Kept us focused. Kept me focused,” he amended with a twist of his lips. “Matt was always focused.”
“Not always,” Holly murmured. He was perpetually being led astray by Lukas’s next scheme or great idea. But she didn’t say that. “You don’t want me to manage your gallery,” she said firmly. “You’re just being kind.”
Lukas looked genuinely astonished. “When have you ever known me to be kind?”
There was a sudden silence. Holly’s instinct was to say she hadn’t. But that wasn’t entirely true. That night on his dad’s sailboat, to her way of thinking, he had not been kind at all, but the day after, she had expected him to tell Matt what had happened—and he hadn’t.
Instead, he had walked out of their lives.
“You can be,” she allowed.
“Well, I’m not now. I’m looking out for my own interests, believe me. I need a gallery manager. Jenn isn’t coming. And the chances of me finding someone like her are not great. It’s going to take a while. I don’t want to grab someone off the street.”
“Like me,” Holly pointed out.
“I want to take my time and do it right,” Lukas went on just as if she hadn’t said a word. “So I’m asking you to do it until you leave. Six weeks max. Long enough to give me a chance to gather a reasonable pool of candidates and find the right one—and in the meantime you have a place to stay. I showed you the apartment I’d finished for the manager,” he reminded her. “You’re welcome to it. Part of the pay. You can store your stuff there all the time you’re gone. I’ve got a lot of space. And I know you can do the bare essentials that need to be done.”
“What bare essentials?”
“People skills mostly. You’ve got ’em. I’ve seen you with people. You charm them. You calm them. You make them do the right thing. You made me do the right thing.”
“I’ve never made you do anything!”
“Yes, Hol’, you did.”
