LITMIR.BIZ

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didn’t care enough about her one way or the other to let it sway him.

      “It’s business,” she told herself firmly. “Remember that,” she muttered under her breath as he strode back up the driveway with a leather and canvas duffel in one hand and a battered laptop case in the other.

      “What’s that?” he asked, obviously having heard her saying something.

      Edie shook her head. “Just talking to myself. I need to remember something.”

      “You should write it down.”

      Yes, Edie thought. I should. I should emblazon it on the insides of my eyelids.

      “I’ll do that,” she told him briskly, then took a deep breath and turned to lead him back into the house. “Right this way.”

      “Amazing place,” Nick said appreciatively as he followed her.

      The living room, with its high ceilings, thick cream colored rough plastered walls and terrazzo floors, opened through a series of French doors onto a broad patio with a trellised canopy sheltering it from the sun. The doors at this time of year were open, and the light afternoon breeze drifted in, stirring a set of shell wind chimes as they passed.

      “It’s hardly authentic,” Edie said over her shoulder, glad that he was looking around rather than at her. “It’s what my brother calls ‘Movie star Spanish.’”

      Nick laughed. “I recognize it.” Then he shrugged. “But it pays homage to the real thing in an impressive way. The purists hate it, but it celebrated the heritage and the history in its own way. It’s made it popular and accessible.”

      “You’re more forgiving than my brother.” Edie was surprised at his attitude. She would have thought an architect, especially one who dealt with authentic historic preservation and restoration, would be more judgmental, not less.

      “It is what it is,” Nick said, running his hand up the smooth dark bannister as she led him up the broad staircase, then looked back at the room below them. “A romantic idealization. It’s not pretending to be authentic. Maybe your brother is responding not to the house but to what it means to him.”

      Which was probably truer than he could know, Edie thought. And Ronan wouldn’t like being called on it, either.

      “You could be right,” she said as they reached the open hallway on the upper floor.

      “You can pretty much have any of these that you want.” She gestured at the several open doors. She showed him all the ones that were available, at the same time pointing out her mother’s suite at the far end of the hall, then her youngest sister, Grace’s, room and the twins’ room overlooking the pool. “They’re in Thailand with Mona right now,” she said. “For the summer holidays.”

      She used to do that herself when she was young, trail after her mother and watch the filming from the sidelines. Those experiences had made her certain she never wanted to do what her mother did, at the same time it had made Rhiannon long to get in front of the cameras.

      “How about this one?” Nick said, looking into a spare masculine looking room. It was almost Spartan in its lack of decor.

      “Ronan, my older brother, uses this one when he’s here. But he won’t be here for months, so you’re welcome to it. Or,” she added with a grin, “you can have the tower room.”

      “Tower?”

      “Surely you noticed our pseudo-Moorish tower when you drove up.” It was the most romantic of all the romantic elements in the house.

      He grinned. “I’d forgotten that. There’s a bedroom up there?”

      “A small suite. Rhiannon loves it.” She pointed at the narrow staircase that curved upward.

      “Why am I not surprised? Does she use it when she’s here?”

      “Yes. But she’s gone right now. You’re welcome to it.”

      “I’d have thought you’d have first dibs on it.”

      “Never wanted it.”

      He raised a brow. “Not a romantic?”

      “No.” Not about rooms, anyway. And she tried to be realistic. At least most of the time. “That was my room.” She tilted her head toward one that looked up toward the woods.

      “Was? Which one is yours now?”

      “I have an apartment over the carriage house.”

      It was a small, cozy one-bedroom flat that had been the caretaker’s place when Edie was growing up. But then the caretaker left, and Ronan had taken over the carriage house during college. He’d kept it even after he got his first job as a journalist. But eventually he was out of the country so much he decided he didn’t need it.

      Edie had moved in there when she came back after Ben had died. She would work for her mother willingly, but she wasn’t going to live with her, too. She’d been a married woman, Now she was a widow. She wanted her independence.

      For all the good it was obviously doing her!

      “So who’s sleeping in your bed?” Nick asked.

      Edie opened her mouth and promptly shut it again, face burning. Then she realized he meant the bed in the room that had been hers. “No one,” she said hastily, which was in fact the answer to who was sleeping with her in the carriage house, too. Not that he would care.

      “Then I will,” he said and walked in and dumped his duffel bag and laptop on the bed.

      She wouldn’t let herself read anything into his choice. It was a fine room, and there was nothing of hers left in it. At least she hoped there wasn’t. Not that Nick Savas would care if there was. To him it was a place to sleep.

      “Great,” she said with all the brisk indifference she could muster. “Well, I’ll just leave you to get settled in.”

      “Who else is here?” he asked.

      “Just you. But don’t worry. Clara—she works for Mona, cleaning and sometimes cooking—will come in and cook for you. She lives in Santa Barbara, but she comes up every day and cooks for the family when Mona and the kids are home. She regularly does it for guests, too.”

      Nick shook his head. “Not necessary. I can cook for myself. Besides,” he reminded her, “I might not be staying. Gotta see if it’s worth it.”

      “Of course.”

      He might be gone before nightfall. Life would go back to normal. Edie crossed her fingers.

      “Do you want to take a look at the old house today, then? Or are you tired from traveling?”

      “I’m fine. Just flew up from L.A. I was visiting my cousin.”

      “Demetrios?” She knew he and Anny kept a place there for when his work took him to Hollywood.

      But Nick shook his head. “Yiannis.”

      If Edie remembered right from the wedding, he was Demetrios’s youngest brother. Another lean, dark, handsome Savas male. “Is he an actor, too?”

      Nick laughed. “You wouldn’t catch him dead acting. He works with wood. Makes furniture. Imports and exports everything from raw lumber to finished pieces. He’s done some pieces for restorations I’ve worked on. Talented guy.”

      “Apparently.” Edie smiled and began to back toward the door. “Come down when you’re ready and I’ll take you to see the adobe. I’ll be in my office. It’s in the back of the house, beyond the kitchen. If you get lost, follow the sound of the phone.”

      It was ringing now. And so she had the excuse to dart off to answer it. She gave him a quick smile and a little waggle of her fingers, then hurried back down the stairs.

      It was the first time in weeks she was glad to hear Rhiannon’s

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