“Is he in the industry, too?”
“Definitely not. He tagged along for the free drinks.”
She laughed. “I can appreciate that. Either way, I’m glad that cocktail party is over.” She rubbed her neck, loosening some of the tension of the day. “Sometimes it seems those things are never going to end.”
“You seemed to fit right in.”
“I can talk, believe me.” She laughed, then leaned in closer and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “But in reality, I hate those kinds of events.”
“You and me both. Everyone trying to pretend to be nice, when really they just want to find out what you’re up to and how they can steal that business away from you,” Finn said. “I think of them as a necessary evil.”
She laughed again. “We definitely have that in common.” She’d never expected to have anything in common with Finn McKenna, whose reputation had painted him as a ruthless competitor, exactly her opposite. Or to find him attractive. But she did.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m much happier behind my desk, sketching out a design. Anything is better than trading the same chatter with the same people in an endless social circle.”
“You and I could be twins. I feel exactly the same way. But…” She let out a sigh and spun her teacup gently left and right.
“But what?”
“But I stepped into my father’s shoes, and that means doing things as he did.” People expected the head of WW to be involved, interactive and most of all, friendly, so Ellie had gone to the event and handled it, she hoped, as her father would have. She had thought taking over her father’s position would be a temporary move, but after the news the doctor gave her yesterday…
Ellie bit back a sigh. There were many, many dinners like that in her future. Henry Winston’s heart attack had been a bad one, leaving him with greatly diminished cardiac capacity. The doctor had warned her that too much stress and worry could be fatal. A return to work was a distant possibility right now. If ever. It all depended on his recovery. Either way, Ellie was determined to keep WW running, and not worry her father with any of the details. He came first.
“Have you ever met my father?” she asked Finn.
He nodded. “I have. Nice guy. Straight shooter.”
“And a talker. I inherited that from him.” Ellie smiled, thinking of the father she’d spent so many hours with in the last few years, chatting about design and business and life. Her father had worked constantly when Ellie was young and been gone too much for them to build any kind of relationship. But ever since Ellie went to college, Henry had made a more concerted effort to connect with his daughter. Although she loved her mother dearly, Ellie wasn’t as close to Marguerite, who had moved to California shortly after divorcing Henry when Ellie was eighteen. “My father likes to say that he never knows where his next opportunity might come from, so he greets the cashier at a fast food place as heartily as he does the owner of a bank.”
“People like that about him. Your father is well respected.”
“Thank you.” The compliment warmed Ellie. “I hope I can live up to his example.”
“I’m sure you will.”
The conversation stalled between them. Finn turned his attention to his coffee, but didn’t drink, just held the mug. Ellie nursed her tea, then added more sugar to the slightly bitter brew.
She watched Finn, wondering why he had invited her out. If he wanted to talk business, he was taking his time getting to it. What other reason could he have? For all the joking between them earlier, she had a feeling he wasn’t here for a date.
Finn McKenna was younger than she’d expected. Surely a man with his reputation had to be ten feet tall, and ten years older than the early thirties she guessed him to be? Heck, he seemed hardly older than her, but his resume stretched a mile longer. What surprised her most was that he had sought her out—her—out of all the other people in that room. Why?
He had opted for coffee, black, but didn’t drink from the cup. He crossed his hands on the table before him, in precise, measured moments. He held himself straight—uptight, she would have called it—and kept his features as unreadable as a blank sheet of paper. He wasn’t cold, exactly, more…
Impassive. Like the concrete used to construct his buildings. The teasing man she’d met in the lobby had been replaced by someone far more serious. Had that Finn been a fluke? Which was the real Finn McKenna?
And more, why did she care so much?
“I heard WW got the contract on the Piedmont hospital project,” he said.
“We haven’t even announced that hospital deal yet,” she replied, halting her tea halfway to her lips. “How did you know about it?”
“It’s my business to know.” He smiled. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” She wanted to tell him the thought of such a big project daunted her, particularly without her father’s valuable advice. She wanted to tell Finn that she worried the hospital design would be too big, too detailed for her to oversee successfully, and most of all, she wanted to ask him how he had done it for so long single-handedly, but she didn’t.
She already knew the answer. She’d read it in the interview in Architect magazine. Finn McKenna wasted little time. He had no hobbies, he told the reporter, and organized his workdays in the most efficient way possible, in order to cram twenty hours of work into twelve.
And, she knew better than to trust him. He hadn’t earned the nickname Hawk by being nice to his competitors. No matter how they sliced this, she was one of his competitors and needed to be on her guard. For all she knew, Finn was working right this second—and working an angle with her that would benefit his business.
At that moment, as if making her thoughts a reality, Finn’s cell phone rang. He let out a sigh, then shot her an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I have to take this. It’s a client who’s in California right now, while we build his new offices here. I think he forgot about the time change. This should only take a second.”
“No problem. I understand.” She watched him deal with the call and realized that Finn McKenna had made himself a success by sacrificing a life. That wasn’t what Ellie had wanted when she had gone into architectural design, but the more time she spent behind her father’s desk, the more it became clear that was where she was heading.
That was the one thing her father didn’t want to see. She thought back to the conversation they’d had this morning. Don’t end up like me, Ellie Girl. Get married. Settle down. Have a life instead of just a business, and don’t neglect your family to protect the bottom line. Do it before…
He hadn’t had to finish the sentence. She knew the unspoken words—before he was gone. The heart attack had set off a ticking clock inside Henry and nearly every visit he encouraged Ellie to stop putting her life on hold.
The trouble was, she had quickly found that running WW Architectural Design and having a life were mutually exclusive. Now things were more complicated, her time more precious. And having it all seemed to be an impossible idea.
She thought of the picture in her purse, the dozens more on her phone, and the paperwork waiting on her desk. Waiting not for her signature, but for a miracle. One that would keep the promise she had made in China last year.
Nearly three years ago, Ellie had been on the fast track at an architectural firm in North Carolina. Then she’d gone to a conference in China, gotten lost on the way to the hotel and ended up meeting a woman who changed her life.
Ellie never made it to the hotel or the conference. She spent five days helping Sun Yuchin dig a well and repair a neighbor’s house in a tiny, cramped town, and fallen in love with the simple village, and bonded with the woman who lived there. Every few months since, Ellie had returned.