Chapter 10 - THE ARCHITECT WHO REFUSED TO HELP HIM
Grant Holloway arrived the next morning carrying a cardboard tube and two coffees.
He was fifty.
Tall.
Silver beginning at his temples.
Divorced, according to Evelyn, who apparently believed background checks counted as friendship.
I remembered him from industry events years earlier.
Back then, we competed for the same historic-home clients.
He had once called one of my kitchen designs “aggressively tasteful.”
I had disliked him for six months.
“Still drinking cinnamon in your coffee?” he asked.
I stared.
“You remember that?”
“You beat me out of the Winnetka project. Trauma preserves details.”
For the first time in weeks, I laughed.
Grant spread Vance’s plans across my kitchen island.
“Your husband contacted me eight months ago.”
“Why you?”
“He said you admired my work.”
“I did not.”
“I suspected that.”
The plans transformed my home into a corporate showpiece.
Glass conference room.
Private office.
Executive lounge.
Grant had refused to submit permits because county records showed the property belonged to me separately.
“I asked Vance for your authorization.”
“He didn’t have it.”
“No.”
“What did he say?”
“That you preferred not to deal with paperwork.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Grant continued:
“That made no sense.”
“Why?”
“Because I remembered you.”
I looked at him.
“You read every contract twice.”
I did.
Professionally.
Personally, apparently, I had stopped.
Grant gathered the plans.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For taking the project as far as I did before checking.”
“That isn’t your crime.”
He nodded.
Then looked around my kitchen.
“What are you going to do with the house?”
“Keep it.”
“I meant with all the rooms his things just vacated.”
I hadn’t considered that.
Vance’s office was empty.
The guest suite he used during late work nights was empty.
The formal dining room felt like a museum.
Grant leaned against the island.
“You could reopen your studio.”
My heartbeat changed.
“No.”
Too fast.
Too automatic.
His eyebrows rose.
“Why not?”
“I’ve been out fifteen years.”
“So?”
“The industry changed.”
“So did kitchens.”
“I’m forty-six.”
“Tragic. Practically archaeological.”
I laughed despite myself.
He smiled.
Then became serious.
“You didn’t stop being good because you stopped being paid.”
That sentence followed me all day.
That night, Sophie found me in Vance’s empty office.
“You’re thinking about it.”
“No.”
“You have the face.”
“What face?”
“The one you make before reorganizing somebody’s entire house.”
I looked around.
For fifteen years, this room had belonged to Vance.
What if it didn’t anymore?
What if it became mine?
The next morning, I emailed three former clients.
By afternoon, two responded.
One wanted help renovating a lake house.
The other had a daughter buying her first condo.
I cried at my desk.
Then my phone rang.
Detective from the financial-crimes unit.
Howard Pierce had been found.
Alive.
In Toronto.
He was negotiating surrender through an attorney.
And according to the detective, Howard wanted immunity in exchange for evidence.
“Evidence against who?”
I expected Vance.
Instead, the detective said:
“Someone at Sterling Strategic who was directing the fraud before Mr. Pierce became involved.”
My stomach tightened.
“Who?”
He answered:
May you like
“Khloe Kensington’s father.”
And suddenly the Dubai partnership looked older than Vance’s affair.
