by Kat Cotton
And I didn’t even want to consider anything more than kissing. Kissing was enough, more than enough.
This moment would transform me forever but, as Ren’s lips moved closer to mine, I knew I couldn’t stop. No matter what the damage, I couldn’t stop myself, didn’t want to stop myself.
My arm went around his shoulder, our bodies pressed together.
When his lips met mine, the heat between us surged, a violent, passionate heat that pulsed with power.
I never wanted this moment to end. I wanted to stay cocooned in this garden forever, just Ren and I.
Chapter 21
“REN!” A VOICE CALLED from far away.
Ren broke away from me and the coldness of the day rushed back, chilling me.
“We should go.” Ren stood up.
He held out his hand and I took it, unsteady getting to my feet.
The two of us walked back, hand in hand. Happiness surged through my body even if we had to return to that cold, dark house. We still had the rest of the break together and we’d be together the whole time.
When we got in sight of the house, Ren dropped my hand. I thrust my hand in my pocket, pretending I hadn’t noticed that.
Miranda waited outside the door. It must’ve been her who’d called Ren.
“Thanks.” He smiled at her but I didn’t understand. Surely he didn’t need to be called back to the house like a young child.
“Mrs. Cavendish has prepared roast beef for your lunch. Your favorite.”
We went straight up to his room. I waited for him to explain but he didn’t mention it. I didn’t know enough about how rich people worked to figure out if that was normal or not. We sat at the small dining table in his living area, Ren on one side of the table, me on the other. Our knees touching under the table. That touch reassured me.
Mrs. Cavendish delivered lunch to Ren’s room and even her crazy scowls couldn’t ruin my mood.
“Now for some gaming,” Ren said when we finished eating.
I fake coughed. “Not likely. There’s no way you’d get into a veterinary course with your marks. No one wants a dunce healing their horse.”
Ren sighed but he had no comeback for that. I’d get learning into his head if I had to stuff it in his ears.
I ran to my room to get my school books. When I opened the door, I got a shivery feeling down my spine, as though someone watched me. Then I saw her. That girl who’d served our breakfast. Miranda.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I know who you are.” Her gaze darted around as though she feared someone or something hid in the shadows. “I need to talk to you, privately. I’ve got the information you’re looking for.”
What information could she have? I mean, she wasn’t wrong about me looking for information but I hadn’t exactly been holding up a sign saying “where’s Mrs. Worthington?” Still, when she’d said that, heat flared from the birthmark on my hip. That didn’t happen often but, when it did, it never steered me wrong.
Miranda trembled, her face ashen. Was she in some kind of danger? Maybe she’d gone a little deranged working in this house. I hoped I was safe being in my room alone with her.
She rubbed her face in a frantic way. “You want to find Mrs. Worthington, right?”
I jumped. How did she know that?
“Maybe.”
“She’s still alive and she’s —”
The thud of heavy footsteps interrupted us.
Miranda darted for the door.
“Miranda,” Mrs. Cavendish’s voice hissed from the hallway. “Miranda? Miranda?’
Miranda flinched. “I can’t let her catch me here.” She gazed at the window as though jumping out was a viable alternative “Tomorrow. After breakfast. Come back to your room.”
I nodded. I wasn’t sure if the housekeeper could stop her from speaking to me but maybe she’d do anything to hide the family secrets. Miranda’s hand was on the doorknob but she didn’t move.
I put my hand up. “I’ll get rid of her.”
I wasn’t sure what I’d do but I slung my backpack over my shoulder and walked out into the hallway. “Mrs. Cavendish?”
“Is something not to your liking?”
“Well, it’s mighty cold. Is it possible to turn up the heating or something?”
That wasn’t a lie.
“I’ll bring up some extra blankets later. Right now, I’m busy.”
“I’ll go with you to get them.”
She tsked. “I’m far too busy to look for blankets now. I’ll put them in your room.”
I wanted to ask her just exactly how busy they were looking after the empty house but figured I’d be better off keeping my mouth shut, rather than stand around in the drafty hallway arguing with the staff.
“That’s okay.” I started down the hallway to Ren’s room. “I’ll ask Ren to help me.”
“Wait. I’m heading toward the linen room now. I guess you could come with me.”
Yeah, I knew she wouldn’t want me running to Ren. Even if he wasn’t in charge, they all still thought of him as the young master.
“The linen room?” I asked in a loud voice, hoping Miranda would hear and know the coast was clear.
Mrs. Cavendish didn’t reply but took off down the hallway at a fast pace. I rushed to keep up with her. We went past Mr. Worthington’s rooms to the other wing. She opened the door to a huge closet that smelled of starch and moth balls. Shelves lined the room. Mrs. Cavendish walked to the end of the closet and handed me a thin blanket.
“And the rest... One thin blanket is just a drop in the ocean. I really feel the cold, you know. Is there a reason this house isn’t heated?”
“The master doesn’t like things too warm.”
“I’ve been in cool rooms that are warmer than this.” That was a lie. I’d never been in a cold room in my life but this place was definitely colder than anywhere I had been and I wasn’t about to mention orphanages and foster homes to this stern-faced woman who already hated me.
She handed me five of those thin blankets.
“What about this one?” I rubbed the edge of a thick woolen blanket between my fingers. It smelled of violets. Ren had told me once the main thing he remembered about his mother was that she smelled like violets and soap.
Mrs. Cavendish snatched it out of my fingers. “Don’t touch that. It belongs to someone else.”
“But she doesn’t live here anymore.”
Mrs. Cavendish hustled me out of there and locked the door. “She passed away. But her things aren’t to be disturbed.”
The cold, flinty look in her eyes flickered when she said that. A definite lie.
“I can find my own way back to my room,” I stomped off down the hallway, my footsteps hitting the floorboards hard and echoing around me.
I checked my room before going to Ren’s. Miranda had left.
Chapter 22
REN’S ROOM WAS WARM and full of Ren. That made it far superior to anywhere else in this house.
“What took you so long?” he asked.
“I went to get some more blankets for my room.”
“Oh, do you have a heater in your room? I asked Mrs. Cavendish to put one in there for you.”
I shook my head. The old battle axe hadn’t even mentioned getting a heater when I’d told her how cold I’d been. She’d be happy if I froze to death.
I threw my bag on the table.
“You were serious about studying?” Ren flinched as I unloaded books as though the books could actually hurt him.
“You think I wasn’t?” I handed Ren the printout of our science assignment. “You must be so far behind.”
“I can study on my own, you know.”
I laughed in a mocking way. “I’m sure you can but if you want to get into a good college, on a scholarship, you have to be more than average.”
I’d been keeping an eye on Ren’s marks over the past few weeks and he’d been doing better than I expected but he had a long way to go.
Without his father’s money to buy him good grades, he needed to study hard.
By the end of the afternoon, I was a lot happier with Ren’s work. Most of the time, Ren worked on assignments with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. I watched, amazed at his concentration, this boy who’d so recently barely looked at a school book, happy just to breeze through life with no effort at all.
A couple of times, he glanced up and caught me watching him. My face blazed and I looked away.
Finally, he’d finished.
“I’m exhausted.” He stretched his arms above his head. “And hungry. We should have dinner.”
I was hungry too but I thought we’d fool around a bit before eating. Ren wasn’t so interested, or maybe he just didn’t want to do anything inside the house. That sucked because my lips ached to kiss him again.
“Can we order in pizza?” I asked.
Ren laughed. “Mrs. Cavendish would be very upset after cooking us dinner.”
After dinner, I went back to my room. I needed to get ready to explore the house in more detail. I put a hairpin in my hair so I could get into Mr. Worthington’s room and waited until I thought everyone would be settled down for the night. Then I tiptoed down the hallway to the front of the house and unlocked one of the doors.
His bedroom. I rushed over to a connecting door, not comfortable being in his personal space even if he was long dead. The smell of him lingered in the room and it creeped me out.
The first door I tried led to a bathroom. I quickly shut it and went to a door on the other side of the room. That led to a living area, not warm and comfortable like Ren’s but kind of stuffy and overly neat like the rooms downstairs. Had that man ever relaxed?
I went through to another room. Bingo! His private study.
That room had a smell like cigars, stuffy and unaired. There were filing cabinets on one wall and a huge desk. The filing cabinets were locked and, when I tried to get the lock open, a sharp buzz shot down my arm. A ward. I inhaled and tried again, this time using my powers counteract the ward.
The lock turned and I opened the first drawer. Personal files on the household staff and other names I didn’t recognize. I got out Mrs. Cavendish’s file, sure she had dark secrets in her past but a brief scan showed nothing interesting. Then I got out Miranda’s. She was in her thirties, which made sense after Ren saying she’d worked here for ten years. He’d noted that she might have some kind of supernatural abilities but they were weak enough to defy testing. The only thing that jumped out at me was the date of her employment. A date I’d never forget. The day my parents died and Ren’s mother disappeared.
I ignored the rest of the files and opened the second drawer. It all seemed boring and businessy and I was about to close it until one name stood out. Carmichael. Oscar’s father? I removed the file and started reading.
Definitely Oscar’s father judging from the photo clipped to the inside of the file. They looked way too much alike.
Then a bunch of business stuff I didn’t understand, until I got to the back of the file. Oscar’s father had set himself up as a rival to Mr. Worthington, trying to lure Mr. Quiller’s business away from him. Ren’s father had hired a private investigator to follow Oscar’s father and there were records of meetings between the two of them. Interesting but I couldn’t let myself get sidetracked.
I put the file back and opened the bottom drawer.
The first file was labeled “Ren 1-5 years”. I took it out and leafed through it. Mostly test results from a whole bunch of experiments Mr. Worthington had run. My hands shook with anger. That man’s evil shouldn’t shock me by now but he’d been the most terrible father ever. There were a heap more files, covering different age ranges. I didn’t want to pry into those files even if I was tempted. There’d be things about Ren that he might not want me to see. I could be snoopy but I could never be that snoopy.
The labels on the next batch of files made me recoil. I jumped back, knocking my leg on the desk.
“Cherry Love.”
That man had extensive files on me!
My hands shook so badly, I could hardly remove the file from the drawer.
The first file had a bunch of details about my parents. I read through the notes, hungry for any information I could find out about them. My mother had been a school teacher who’d quit her job when she was pregnant. My father had been an accountant. There were a bunch of notes on my mother’s supernatural abilities but nothing conclusive.
I’d always wondered if my name had been changed when I’d been put in state care but nope.
I turned the pages and found a plastic pocket at the back. My teeth sunk into my lower lip, so hard I drew blood. Photos. Photos of my parents. I took them out of the pocket. I’d never seen a photo of my parents before. Even in my memories, when I was in the garden with my mother, her face had been blurred. Those photos belonged to me and not to whoever would end up with this stuff.
They laughed together in the first photo. Their arms around each other, clowning for the camera. They didn’t seem much older than I was now. Did I look like them? My father’s black, glossy hair was similar to mine and I think I had the same nose as my mother.
A wedding photo, stiff and formally posed. I looked closer. Who were those other people? I’d never met them. I’d been told my parents had no surviving relatives but that woman looked like she’d be my grandmother.
I sobbed as I picked up the next photo. My mother holding baby me. Her eyes shone with happiness as she looked at me, bundled in her arms. If I’d been asked, I’d have assumed that my parents loved me. That’s only natural. But this photo gave me proof.
I ran my finger down my mother’s face in the photo.
But I didn’t have time for this.
I grabbed all the files with my name on them. No way would I leave them sitting in the drawer for anyone else to find. I was glad I hadn’t read through Ren’s file. The violation I felt at anyone collecting or reading this information on me confirmed how wrong that would’ve been.
Mr. Worthington had tracked me through every foster home. He knew what I’d suffered and he’d even collected information from my foster parents. I bet that’d been easy if he’d slipped them a few bucks.
I stood up, clinging to the desk to collect myself. I still had the desk drawers to go through.
It took a moment before I could continue and noticed just how quiet this house was. Abnormally quiet. I’d never been anywhere so silent in my life. I shivered, wanting to get back to my room.
Sitting on the edge of the massive computer chair, I swung around. Just sitting in that chair made me feel more powerful and strong. I guess that’s what people paid the big bucks for.
The drawers of the desk weren’t locked and mostly contained stationery and a couple of girlie magazines. I dropped those magazines so fast then nudged them back in place with my foot. Feeling around under the desk, I couldn’t find any secret compartments or hidden bits. I even measured the insides to make sure they matched the outsides.
Apart from the filing cabinets, there was nothing secret in this room. And none of those files mentioned Mrs. Worthington. Not a thing at all even from when they’d been married. It’d been like she never existed at all. Maybe he kept that information somewhere else. There was a lot of rooms in this house to search. Anyway, I’d speak to Miranda in the morning. She might tell me everything I needed to know
I picked up the files and slunk down the hallway, making sure to keep to the shadows.
When I got back to my room, I nearly dropped the files from my arms.
Ren sat on my bed and he didn’t look happy.
Chapter 23
“WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN doing?”
I searched my mind for a good excuse to tell him but, with the files in my arms, I couldn’t think of anything but the truth.
“I’ve been in your father’s office —”
“You did what?” He looked horrified. “And what do you have there? You can’t just
steal things.”
“I stole nothing.” I tightened my grip on the files. No matter what, Ren still saw me as the orphan girl who couldn’t be trusted. “These files are on me. He stole from me. Not the other way around.”
Ren huffed. “But they’re my —”
“Don’t even go there. There are private things in here. Photos. Notes. All about me. I’m not leaving them sitting around for some lawyer to read through.”
Ren got up and stepped toward me. I stepped back, not sure what he intended doing, but I would not give up these files.
“You didn’t know this stuff was in there when you broke in, though. You couldn’t have possibly known.”
“Yeah. I didn’t. But you know what? He’s got a ton of files on you, too. And someone, your lawyers or whoever, will go through those files and read that information. You need to do something — take the files yourself and burn them or destroy them. It’s better that no one else sees those files.”
“Did you read them?”
“No.”
“Did you?” He glared.
I glared back with an intensity that totally triumphed over his.
“I said no.”
Right now, I did not want Ren in my room. I didn’t want to have this conversation and I didn’t even want to be in this house. I exhaled, figuring I should tell him the whole truth. He might be angry now but when he had time to consider things, he’d have agree that my idea was best.
“Ren, there’s a reason I’m doing this. I want to help you. I want to find your mother.”
“What?” The anger flashing in his eyes scared me. That was an intensity I couldn’t win against.
“If your mother is alive, she can claim the estate. She’ll be able to return here and, as the next of kin, she can restore your fortune, pay for your tuition and all that. I’m sure the only reason she left was because she was scared of your father. Now, he’s gone and she can safely return.”
The color of Ren’s face and the way that his nostrils flared screamed that he didn’t agree at all.
