My Foolish Husband's Regret Comes Late novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Nothing Until the Decree

Lydia's POV

On Wednesday I called the number on the cream card.

He answered on the second ring and said only, "Colquitt."

"It's Lydia Farrington. I'd like to see the hotel."

"Can you be on Wabash in half an hour?"

"I'll be there in twenty."

The building was a bare steel frame with glass going in on the lower floors, and the lobby smelled of sawdust and wet paint.

Elias came down the stairs in a hard hat and a charcoal coat with plaster on one sleeve.

He handed me another hard hat without a word.

"Nine floors are finished," he said. "The ballroom is a slab. The kitchen is a hole. I open on January fifteenth."

"That's twelve weeks."

"Eleven and a half."

I looked up through the open atrium at the scaffolding.

"You'll need an events team, a vendor list and about forty weddings booked before the ribbon is cut."

"That's why I asked for you."

"I haven't said yes."

"No," he said. "You said no. Twice."

He walked me through the lobby, around the bar that wasn't a bar yet and up to the ninth floor in the freight elevator.

At the end of the hall he opened a door onto a finished suite, with a made bed, a lamp and a window full of the river.

"It's the only room with a lock that works," he said. "Take it until you find a place. It's not a favor. Somebody has to sleep in the building so the contractors don't strip the copper."

"I'm not sleeping in your hotel to guard your copper."

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