The Diaper Diaries. Abby Gaines

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СКАЧАТЬ things stayed Olivia’s hand. First, his name seemed familiar. Second, the words were uttered in a voice that was slow to the point of sleepiness, gravelly…and unquestionably educated.

      As she puzzled over that riddle, he walked toward her with a silent, purposeful tread at odds with his sleepy voice. That lithe, almost graceful gait would have worried her if she’d been walking down a darkened street, but here she couldn’t believe he posed any threat. Other than to her discriminating taste in fashion. His brown corduroy trousers were pale and worn at the knees, and over them he wore a heavy shirt in brown and green plaid, buttoned to the neck, but untucked. But while they may have been more suited to gardening, the clothes did appear clean. Unlike the overcoat.

      “I’m here to see Tyler Warrington,” he said.

      Now that he was up close, Olivia saw he had gray eyes, but they weren’t at all cold. They held the deep, dormant heat of ashes, beneath which lurked the potential, if stirred by just a hint of breeze, for fire.

      “Do you have an appointment, Mr. Grant?” She knew he didn’t—neither she nor Tyler believed in Friday-afternoon appointments. Tyler invariably had a hot date to prepare for, and, often enough, so did Olivia. Today she planned to be gone by four; she’d promised Gigi Cato she would come by to approve the floral arrangements for this evening’s soiree. It was inconvenient—she’d have to drive home from Gigi’s to change, then turn around and go straight back to the Catos’ again—but what were friends for?

      Silas Grant frowned. “How could I have an appointment,” he asked gently, “when Tyler Warrington can’t see a conservation crisis when it’s right in front of him?”

      Conservation crisis? Olivia remembered where she’d read those words.

      “You’re the man with the red-spotted tree frog,” she said, pleased with herself. She couldn’t quite remember if the spots were red or yellow.

      “Hyla punctatus,” he said sternly.

      It took Olivia a moment to realize he wasn’t uttering some dreadful curse over her, but rather was giving her the Latin—or was it Greek?—name of the frog.

      “It’s on the verge of extinction,” he said. “And Tyler Warrington just signed its death warrant.”

      He spoke slowly, even for a Georgian. The pace lent an unlikely authority to his words, went some way toward countering his oddball appearance. But not far enough.

      “I’m Olivia Payne, Mr. Warrington’s secretary. I’m afraid he’s unavailable,” she told him with the dismissive, wellbred Atlanta-belle tone that had served her through her years as a debutante, then as a single woman. Olivia was an expert at giving men their marching orders. Over the years, she’d broken off no fewer than six engagements. Possibly seven, if you counted Teddy Benson, who’d popped the question three years ago. She’d seen the light faster than normal, and broken it off even before the engagement announcement hit the newspapers.

      “Thank you so much for stopping by,” she added pleasantly to Silas. Because one should always be polite in one’s dismissal.

      He planted both hands on her desk, which might have intimidated her if he’d done it any faster than a hedgehog crossing the road. The movement put his eyes level with hers, close enough to break through the professional distance she’d set with her voice.

      She dropped her gaze, and observed that his hands were clean, his fingernails cut so neatly they might be manicured. She recalled that the tree-frog funding application had come from an address in Buckhead—could this man really live in the most expensive area of Atlanta?

      “I won’t take no for an answer,” he said, and there was a hint of steel behind the soft drawl.

      While his announcement might be tiresome—at this rate she’d be late to Gigi’s house—it was nothing Olivia couldn’t handle.

      “Mr. Grant, as you were told in the letter you received, the foundation does not enter into correspondence about its endowment decisions.” The same clean-break policy worked well with fiancés, she’d found. “I understand you’re disappointed, but I can assure you, Mr. Warrington will not see you.”

      He straightened, but only so he could reach one long arm to pull up a chair. “I’ll wait,” he said, and sank into it, legs stretched out in front of him.

      This had happened before, so she said, “As you wish,” and returned to her typing.

      Most people started to fidget within two minutes. After five minutes, they’d bluster some more. But when they saw she wouldn’t be moved, they’d leave. The longest anyone had stayed was fifteen minutes. Something about silence unnerved them.

      Today, it was Olivia who was unnerved. Silas didn’t fidget, not once, for fifteen minutes. He sat with his arms folded, quite still.

      She kept her gaze fixed on her screen and wished the phone would ring with a summons to collect something from another part of the building, so she’d have a reason to move. But for once, no one called.

      “Who else have you refused money to lately?” Silas’s abrupt question startled her, so that she mistyped a word and looked at him before she remembered not to.

      “It’s not my money to give,” she said politely. She added, “Nor is it Mr. Warrington’s.”

      “What are your views on conservation and the environment?” he asked.

      He really did have an attractive voice, one that almost made her want to say those things mattered to her. But, in this respect at least, she was always honest. Better to admit an unnatural lack of sentiment than to pretend to care.

      “I don’t have any.” She was concerned, of course, that the planet shouldn’t be flooded or burned up as a result of global warming. But that wasn’t going to happen in her lifetime, so she didn’t lose any sleep over it.

      “Hyla punctatus is a Georgia native, not found anywhere else in America.”

      “I’m aware of that. From your funding application.”

      He ran a considering gaze over Olivia. She half wished she’d had her roots done this week. She wasn’t out to impress him, she scolded herself. And if she was, her hair, worn loose today in its sculpted bob, her artfully applied makeup and the emerald-green cashmere polo-neck that made her neck look longer and slimmer would surely withstand his scrutiny.

      “You know what this world lacks?” he said.

      She pressed a hand to her mouth and gave a ladylike yawn.

      “People who care.” Sharpness tinged his words.

      Of course she knew that! She said lightly, “If you can’t beat them, join them.”

      Fire sparked into life in his eyes, and his jaw jutted beneath the mouth that she now noticed was firm and well shaped behind all those whiskers.

      Olivia had the same keen appreciation for good-looking men that she did for silk lingerie and French champagne. Each of her seven fiancés had been gorgeous by anyone’s standards. So she could only look at Silas Grant and rue the waste of such a fine specimen.

      She wondered why his СКАЧАТЬ