“Mission accomplished. It’s beautiful. It’s fantastic. It is so you.” I believe I handed my things to Elliott as I continued looking around. I had a case of astonishment. I loved everything about it. I wondered if I could push my own vision to these limits. I also secretly wondered if I could do this to Griffin’s condo on the modest budget he had given me.

In truth, I was a little jealous. Jealous that someone else’s talent had these nuances. Feelings of inadequacy flooded my being. Jealousy and inadequacy are not exactly the kind of feelings you want to have before having sex with the man you love for the first time.

The walls had been freshly painted in soothing warm beiges and grays. I walked over to his bedroom door. The artwork caught my attention first. It was a lovely painting of robust greens and blues. Nothing faint or bashful about these colors. The painting was hypnotic. The walls were obviously painted to complement the blue-green in the painting. Gone were the frayed Oriental rugs and the English chintz. The stitching and monogram of his white bedding coordinated perfectly with the colors in the room. Nothing in the apartment was coincidental. Every item was picked with purpose, with a grand plan. I liked that attention to detail. Elliott joined me in the doorway.

“I told her the bedroom must have shades of green for the woman I love.”

I blushed. I had never had a man decorate his bedroom to please me.

In his bathroom hung monogrammed towels complementary to his bedding. The grays in the marble played nicely with everything else. I wanted to see the kitchen. Would this decorator have chosen marble countertops for his kitchen? Because marble, as beautiful as it looks, is not very practical for a kitchen used often. I would love to catch a mistake. But she was without error.

We strolled together to the kitchen. It had been gutted too. And instead of marble, she had chosen quartzite, which has the sleek look of marble but is less delicate and can tolerate stains from red wine to lemon juice. Damn her. The color was just right too: a bright mother-of-pearl. I noticed the red knobs on the stove, a built-in refrigerator and dishwasher. Everything in Elliott’s apartment was state of the art, top of the line.

I was naïve. If Elliott had done all these major renovations, he must actually own his apartment. That caused me to rethink a few things. He lived in a very established neighborhood. I had known rent must be expensive here, but the fact that he owned it was another thing entirely. It made me wonder if this, too, came from “family support.”

I also wondered where my little gift would find a home. I had thought it perfect for the apartment I visited on New Year’s Eve. But now, his walls were crowded with impressive artwork.