WORTHY

by Lexie Ray

  I ducked my head. “I don’t know, but I did,” I said. “My parents are dead.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Collier said. “I am very sorry.”

  “Thank you. It’s very personal. That’s why I didn’t want to talk about it earlier.”

  There was a long pause as we both looked anywhere but each other. I was afraid that my past had ruined the chance of me getting any insight into Jonathan’s, when Collier finally started speaking again.

  “It’s my understanding that when we didn’t hear from Jonathan, we backed off,” Collier said. “The Jonathan prior to the accident—the Jonathan we all knew—was hotheaded and cocky. He was prone to bouts of temper, and it was best to just let him have it out instead of intervening.”

  I tried to wrap my mind around that. A temperamental Jonathan. I couldn’t even imagine it. The idea of him flying into a rage was laughable. The angriest I’d seen him, besides the time we’d spent in the city, was the night I went to pieces in front of the mirror he’d brought to the house from the barn. I hadn’t expected to see my scar in such high definition when I walked into the bathroom, but it was Jonathan who tried to convince me that I was beautiful inside and out. I blushed. It wasn’t too long after that when our attraction drew us together and we made love for the first time.

  “So you didn’t even try to find him?” I asked, a little dumbfounded. “Not for months and months?”

  “It was complicated, Michelle,” Collier said. “I’m not saying that our response should be excused. It’s obvious now that Jonathan was in legitimate trouble—though it’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that he ended up in capable hands.”

  Those capable hands were mine. I was thankful for the dark of night so that Collier wouldn’t see me blushing. Yes, my hands had gotten to know Jonathan very well.

  “We didn’t want to alert the media,” Collier continued. “It wouldn’t be good for the company—or for Jonathan’s reputation—for what we believed to be the truth to get out. We thought he was off sulking somewhere and started looking ourselves. We flew to our home in Monaco, our island in the Caribbean, our condo in Switzerland, traveling the world to try to sniff him out.”

  Wow. I couldn’t believe that the Whartons owned so much property across the world. What would a person do with so many homes? They couldn’t live in all of them.

  “At the same time, we started reaching out to our clients and business partners across the globe,” Collier said. “We told them that Jonathan was on a sort of sabbatical, reassuring them that we still valued them. Managing all of the ties the Wharton Group has to other companies is a tricky, touchy business. We couldn’t tell them that Jonathan had simply disappeared. It would discredit everything, make the conglomerate untrustworthy.”

  “But do you really believe that he would purposefully go missing for months?” I asked.

  Collier shrugged. “I do. Like I said, the Jonathan before the accident and the Jonathan after the accident are two different people. It’s shocking for all of us because we’ve never seen him so … gentle before. So calm. So thoughtful. My son before … let’s just say that he didn’t always think things through before jumping right in.”

  It was still surreal to imagine all of this from another perspective. Most of the time, loving Jonathan was the simplest thing I could do. We’d known each other for months, lived together intimately, worked side by side.

  But he had this whole other life that only his family knew about. He and I couldn’t access that information firsthand. We had to rely on other people to tell us things about Jonathan, and they were often turning out to be disturbing nuggets of information.

  I couldn’t fathom the Jonathan before the accident, the Jonathan who was a stranger to me. Impulsive, moody, thoughtless Jonathan didn’t make sense to me. The Jonathan I knew was nothing like that.

  To see their son so transformed must have been challenging for Collier and Amelia. Collier, of course, had been taking it much better and even adapting as best he could. But I now understood the little instances of pride and wonder that I kept seeing on Collier’s face, in the way he looked at Jonathan.

  This Jonathan—my Jonathan—was kind and caring, professional and diplomatic, passionate and eager to do the right thing.

  I was starting to suspect that Collier might prefer my Jonathan over the Jonathan before the accident. It was a strange thought, and one I didn’t dare give voice to.

  “So I’ll ask you again,” Collier said. “Do you love my son? Do you love Jonathan?”

  “More than anything else,” I said. “More than air. More than I love myself.”

  “Then fight for him,” Collier urged. “Fight for him as hard as he’s fighting for you. Prove to everyone that you’re here to stay, that he’s yours and you’re his. Show them all, Michelle. Don’t run away.”

  The idea of fleeing to the woods was the furthest thing from my mind. I saw that I couldn’t do that. It would be cowardly. It would be abandonment. It would ruin everything that I had.

  Jonathan was mine, and I was his. That was how simple it was. We loved each other and would do anything for each other. All we had to do was weather this storm. We’d get through this. This wasn’t the worst tempest we’d seen, anyways.

  “Mr. Wharton?”

  “Please. It’s Collier.”

  “Thank you, Collier,” I said. “I was about to do something foolish, but you talked me out of it.”

  “You weren’t going to do anything foolish,” he said, smiling. “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve had a lovely conversation with my future daughter-in-law. Neither of us could sleep, and the night was so beautiful.”

  His kindness left me speechless. All I could do was stand up and hug him, which seemed to surprise the man. None of the Whartons really seemed like the hugging type.

  “I can’t begin to thank you enough,” I said. “I will fight.”

  “Good night, Michelle.”

  I slipped back inside, leaving Collier to his thoughts out in the courtyard. What had he been doing out there in the first place? What would’ve happened if he hadn’t been out there? I would’ve made a terrible mistake, throwing away everything I had with Jonathan. Maybe I wouldn’t have made it across the courtyard before turning back, full of regret. But now I was fully in this. I wouldn’t think about going back to the cottage anymore.

  We couldn’t go back in time. We could only march forward. My future with Jonathan was going to be so bright. That’s what we were marching toward.

  I tiptoed into the bedroom, relieved to see that Jonathan was out cold on the bed. He’d had a long day, and he deserved his rest. My heart squeezed, and I had to swallow down a quiet sob. What would he have thought waking up to an empty bed, me having fled the city? I didn’t like to imagine it and sent up yet another prayer of thanks for Collier.

  Collier was in our corner, and he was a powerful ally to have.

  I stashed the backpack in the closet, resolving to unpack it after a few hours of sleep. I was exhausted, I realized, exhausted from the day and the events and just everything. But that was the beauty of rest. I’d learned from my own grief-filled past that everything looked better in the morning. I just had to get some sleep.

  I got into bed as gently as I could, but the shifting mattress still propelled Jonathan into a twilight of consciousness.

  “Where were you?” he mumbled sleepily, throwing his arms around me and pulling me to his chest. I snuggled into him, reveling in his scent, feeling safe in his embrace. Nothing could get to me when I was with him. When we were together, we were unstoppable.

  “Nowhere,” I said, kissing him as his breathing evened back out into slumber. “I’ve been here the whole time.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  When I awoke the next morning, the house was a flurry of activity. Even Lucy seemed on edge.

  “What’s going on?” I asked sleepily, looking over at the clock. Why was I so tired? I had to squint to make out the numbers with my ble
ary eyes. Eleven o’clock. It was incredibly late. My conversation with Collier came rushing back to me. Of course. That’s why I was exhausted. I’d spent hours in the courtyard debating whether or not I should I should leave the city—and Jonathan—and go back to where I belonged.

  Even as I felt a rush of gratitude toward Collier for convincing me that I was good for his son, I wondered if I’d made the right decision.

  “It’s the welcome home dinner tonight,” she said, bustling around with her duster.

  “That’s right,” I said, feeling a dull sort of panic. “What time is the dinner?”

  “Seven,” Lucy said. “Have you thought about what you want to wear?”

  “Should it take eight hours?” I asked, confused, checking the clock again in case I’d misread it.

  Lucy shrugged. “Well, Mrs. Wharton and Miss Jane both have spa appointments this afternoon. Should I see if they could fit you in as well? There may not be time for a Swedish massage, but I’ll bet you can at least have the facial, manicure, pedicure, and hair styling.”

  Spa appointments? A formal dinner with the entire Wharton family—and guests—seemed more daunting now.

  “You know, this isn’t how I remember my family having dinners,” I said, propping myself up on my elbow.

  “Between you and me, I don’t think this is how any family has dinner,” Lucy sniped, making me laugh. “The Whartons go all out. They’ve even imported a small army of chefs from the city’s top restaurants to create tonight’s meal. It’s five courses. Now, what can I order you for breakfast?”

  “Five courses?” My mouth watered even as I voiced my disbelief. “I don’t think I should eat anything at all.”

  “Miss Jane had the same idea,” Lucy said grimly. “But I think it was more to fit into her dress than to properly enjoy the culinary exploits of our hired chefs.”

  “Well, when you put it like that, maybe I should have some granola or something,” I laughed. “Wait, fit into her dress? Just how formal is this dinner?”

  “Black tie,” Lucy barked as she walked into the bathroom to put out fresh towels.

  I blanched. “Hey, Lucy?”

  “Yes, Miss Michelle?”

  “I don’t know what to wear to dinner tonight.”

  She poked her head out of the bathroom, smiling. “I have planned for this contingency,” she said. “You have an appointment with a stylist in one hour.”

  “You’re a lifesaver,” I gasped, flopping down on the bed.

  After my light breakfast and a shower, Lucy recommended I simply dress in a robe for the stylist.

  “Isn’t that kind of underdressed?” I asked, cinching the terrycloth belt tightly around my waist.

  “The point is that the stylist is going to be dressing you,” Lucy said. “We’ll make her job as easy as possible with the robe.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll just put on a little makeup while I wait.”

  “Oh, no,” Lucy said, snagging me by the sleeve of the robe. “The stylist is going to take care of that, too. Just wait and see.”

  Lucy left for a few minutes to attend to other arcane matters that were required of her ahead of the dinner, and I took the opportunity to pad on some foundation and concealer anyways. I hated the idea of facing a stranger who would dress me for tonight and make me look “fabulous”—Lucy’s word—without at least a little protection.

  “They’re here,” Lucy announced, darting back into the room. I dropped the foam sponge I used to cover up my scar. “Miss Michelle! I told you! The makeup will be taken care of!”

  “Sorry!” I squeaked. “I thought just a little bit would help—but wait. Who is ‘they’?”

  “Why, the stylist,” Lucy said, “and her staff.”

  “Oh, God,” I moaned. “Just how many people are going to see me in a bathrobe?”

  It had been hard enough adjusting to Lucy invading my privacy on a regular basis. But now I was going to have a staff? I wondered what Jonathan would think about all of this.

  “So how are the Wharton men preparing for dinner tonight?” I asked, raising my eyebrows as I heard the elevator doors ding open in the hallway. Dread took root in my stomach as I heard a flurry of voices, plastic bags crinkling, and wheels squeaking along the wood flooring. “Let me guess. Intensive spa treatments? Tanning? Psychotherapy?”

  Lucy guffawed before covering her mouth with her hand. “As far as I know, Mr. Jonathan is working a full day today—he has a tuxedo fitting around lunchtime—and Mr. Wharton is playing golf all day.”

  “Lucky men,” I sighed, just as my style army arrived.

  “Hello, darling,” a woman gushed, stepping out from the pack to seize me by my shoulders. She kissed me on both cheeks—pausing for the briefest of moments at the sight of my scar—before holding me at arms’ length. “I’m Rowan, your stylist. You must be Miss Michelle Smith, young Jonathan’s fiancée. It is enchanting, simply enchanting, to meet you.”

  Rowan had a shock of orange hair that stood out in all different directions in direct defiance of gravity. She had cat eye eyeliner that extended very nearly to her hairline, and her bright green eyes sparkled at me from behind thick-rimmed glasses.

  “It’s nice to meet you, too,” I said. “I’m so glad you’re here to help. I don’t know what I’d do—this dinner is apparently a bigger deal than I thought.”

  “Oh, honey, put your fears to rest,” Rowan declared. “I’m going to make you the belle of the ball.”

  Her assistants were setting things up in a flurry. They’d walked in with a rolling rack of hanging garments, all of them encased in plastic, as well as several makeup cases, boxes of all shapes, bags, and rolling suitcases. It was hard to tell just how many assistants Rowan had—as soon as I started to count, another popped up and the first ducked away to unzip this or rearrange that.

  “I don’t want to be the belle of the ball, per se,” I said, biting my lip as I imagined myself with a punky hairstyle and cat eye makeup, just like my stylist. “I just want to fit in. I’m not used to the formality of the Whartons, and it would be good to prove to them that I—that I can belong here. With Jonathan.”

  “Oh, you sweet thing,” Rowan crowed. “I’m going to make you so gorgeous that they’re going to wonder if you weren’t here from the start.”

  A wicked thought flitted through my mind. What if I was the one who stole the show tonight? Amelia and Jane were getting their spa treatments all afternoon, but what if I could just walk down those steps and into the dining room the most polished of them all? It wasn’t something I was used to thinking. In the woods, it didn’t matter how my face looked, just how quickly and proficiently I could get all my chores done. But it was becoming clearer to me that the game of survival here in the compound had very different rules than I was used to.

  “First things first,” Rowan said, clapping her hands. Her assistants stopped their fluttering to see what she would command. “Let’s see what we’re going to put you in tonight. Do you have a label preference? I’ve brought them all.”

  Assistants started peeling hangers off the rolling rack, showing me dress after dress after dress. They were all colors of the rainbow, dozens of sparkly and slinky numbers that dazzled me.

  “I don’t really have a label preference,” I said slowly, feeling shell-shocked by all those pretty dresses. Thank God for Lucy and Rowan. If I’d been left to my own devices, I would’ve just worn something from my closet that I’d gotten on my first shopping outing in the city. None of those dresses could hold a candle to these.

  “Then let’s get started,” Rowan said. “We’re going to try all of them on.”

  By then, it was just after noon. I was beginning to be thankful that we had seven hours to go before dinner.

  Rowan and her assistants were brutally efficient and exceedingly professional. Those qualities were the only things that kept me from curling up and dying in embarrassment as they continually dressed and undressed me as if I were a life size Barbie
doll.

  I tried on dresses in greens and blues, yellows and oranges, reds and pinks. I twirled around in black taffeta, pranced in purple satins. Lucy took a break from whatever madness she was supposed to be doing to get ready for the night’s big event to offer her opinions on all the different looks. All I needed was a song in the background to make my own dressing room montage. The entire situation was that surreal—for me to step back and realize it could be a movie.

  “How do we feel in this one?” Rowan asked, stepping back as I looked at myself in the full-length mirror she’d brought. I was wearing a gorgeous dress that conformed to my curves and hit me right at the knee. It was camel-colored underneath a black lacy overlay, making me look as if all I was wearing was lace. It was risqué but gorgeous.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Is this a little much for dinner?”

  “You’ve obviously never attended a Wharton family dinner,” Lucy said. “This should be a definite maybe. You look fantastic.”

  I didn’t really recognize my reflection in that mirror. I’d never worn anything as gorgeous as this, but I felt like I should be going to a night at the opera—or a night at an exclusive nightclub—instead of flaunting myself in front of Jonathan’s family.

  “Trust me,” Lucy urged. “You do not want to be underdressed tonight.”

  “I feel downright underdressed—as if the dress were missing a few pieces—with this one,” I mumbled, turning to look at myself from the back. The dress was fancy, but I was so plain. It was hard to imagine what the finished product would look like.

  “We just have a couple more dresses,” Rowan promised, lifting the dress over my head, only giving me a moment to hide my breasts with my hands. Her assistants—male and female—didn’t even give me a lingering glance. They were devoted to the task at hand.

  The next dress was a deep plum—so deep that it was almost black—and went all the way down to the floor. It was just as tight as the other one, making me look more curvaceous than I actually was. I still retained my athlete’s body from all my hard work at the cottage, but this dress gave me the illusion of being a high society girl instead of one who’d spent the last five years of her life in the wilderness.