by Lili Valente
I won’t be able to smell mint again without thinking of him.
Of the way his fingers are threading into my hair as he tips his forehead closer to mine and whispers, “I would make love to you every minute of every day until we were both too exhausted to move. And then I’d take a nap with you curled up in my armpit and wake up and start all over again. I want to be inside you almost as much as I want your fever to break.”
My nerve endings tingle with delight, and goosebumps rise on my skin. “We don’t have to wait until my fever breaks. I’m not contagious.”
“But you are out of your head,” he says. “And you’re still engaged to my brother. But…that could all change with a phone call. Tell me where the phone is, Lizzy, and let me put an end to this farce before someone gets hurt.”
I bite my lip and wrap my arms around my shivering body. “I can’t. Please understand. Everything is going to be fine. Andrew and Sabrina are going to be happy.”
“I have to call my brother.”
“Okay, okay,” I say, sensing he’s nearly at the end of his patience. “We’ll do it together. But promise you won’t call until I’m better? You’re right, I’m not in my right mind, and I should be. I have to explain things in a way that won’t make everyone hate me. Or each other.” I cast pleading eyes up at Jeffrey. “That’s what I’m most worried about. If this doesn’t come out the right way, Andrew might hate Sabrina, and this isn’t her fault. I’m the sneaky one. I should be punished and despised. He and Sabrina should stay in love and be happy and make beautiful babies together.”
His gaze remains narrow, but his jaw softens slightly, giving me the courage to add, “Pretty please? Two days. Give me two more days to get well, and then we’ll call our siblings and sort everything out.” I press my lips together for a beat before adding, “And then you and I can see what we think about each other with all the conflicts of interest out of the way.”
Jeffrey grunts.
“Is that a yes grunt?” I ask. “Please with honey on top?”
He crosses his arms, making his muscles bulge beneath his gray sweatshirt in a way that would make my knees weak even I wasn’t running a fever, but he doesn’t say a word.
Easing closer, I add, “Sticky, yummy honey we can lick off each other when all of this is done?”
His gaze goes dark again, but he isn’t angry this time. I would bet a month of my remaining time on earth he’s thinking about honey and my tongue and his tongue and all the fantastic things we can make each other feel.
We’ll be good together, Jeffrey and me. I can feel it every time he wraps his arms around me. When we snuggle up, we fit together so perfectly. I’m sure we’ll fit perfectly in more intimate ways, too. And for all his bluster and glowering, I know he’ll be the ideal first—and most likely, last—lover.
He will be gentle and patient and not judge me for being a twenty-five-year-old virgin.
Jeffrey is judgmental about a lot of things, but I sense he won’t be about that.
“All right,” he finally says, “I won’t call until you’re feeling better.” I start to thank him, but he cuts me off with a firm finger pointed at the bath. “But that means you get your ass in the bath, take the medicine I bring you, and do everything it takes to get your fever down.”
“Yes, sir, General, sir.” I salute him and reach for the top of my leggings.
A beat later, he’s out the door and pounding up the stairs. I have a momentary flash of nerves at the thought of being completely nude in the bath when he comes back with the pain pills.
All my body fluff is blond and fairly hard to see, but it’s also completely untamed. I can’t remember the last time I bothered shaving anything. I rarely see anyone aside from my family, and I never date.
So, what’s the point?
If I happen to wear a tank top and shorts on one of the rare occasions when I do the shopping, and a villager I’ve known my entire life gets a glimpse at my hairy legs, we both survive the encounter no worse for wear. And all the older women are hairy, too. Chamomile says that shaving wasn’t a thing for women in the U.S. until the 1920s, and that it took decades longer for anyone in Europe to care about things like underarm fuzz.
Before our more connected world made us easy prey to advertisers eager to shame us into de-fluffing ourselves, European women used to be fuzzy and proud. And damn it, I’m on a timeline. Do I really want to waste even twenty minutes of the life I have left shaving because I think a boy might like me better for it?
The answer is “hell, no,” and I step into the bath. If Jeffrey doesn’t like what he sees, he can find another woman to pour honey on.
I don’t care, one way or another.
Of course, I do care—I’m dying to find out what it’s like to be with Jeffrey—but by the time I’ve forced myself to lie down in the freezing water, I’m shivering so hard I’ve completely forgotten that I’m taking a stand on body fuzz.
I forget to be embarrassed by my nakedness, too.
I’m so cold and shivery and miserable that when Jeffrey kneels by the bath with two pills in his palm, all I can do is whimper.
“You poor thing,” he says, holding up a glass of water. “Here, let’s get these down, and hopefully you’ll feel better in twenty or thirty minutes.”
I lift my head, letting Jeffrey put the pills on my tongue and tip water in my mouth. I swallow and lie back, shivering so hard the clack of my teeth echoes off the tile wall beside the bath.
Jeffrey lays a hand on my forehead. “If you still have a fever in an hour, will you tell me where the phone is so I can call for that medevac?”
I nod and shiver harder. Maybe he’s right to be worried. I don’t think I’ve ever been this ill, at least not since I was old enough to remember it.
Mercifully, half an hour later, my fever has fallen to a tolerable one hundred degrees, and the general allows me to get out of the bath and into bed. Jeffrey helps me out of the water and into my pajamas, as chaste as an attending nurse, and tucks me in with a promise that he’ll be right outside.
Then he kisses my forehead, a sweet kiss that makes my weary heart flip in my chest, and he steps out of the room.
I watch him go, his broad shoulders silhouetted in the doorway the last thing I see before I fall deeply, peacefully asleep, certain I’ve held disaster at bay for another forty-eight hours.
When I wake up, I know I’ve turned a corner.
I feel refreshed and healthier than I have in days, wrung out, but clear-headed and eager to get back to business. I have sewing to catch up on and not much time left to finish the final touches on my designs.
But first, I have to thank Jeffrey for taking care of me and make us the biggest breakfast ever. I’m starving.
I wander into the library to crawl into bed with my sweet General and his lovely armpit, only to find the liar with the no-longer-hidden phone’s receiver pressed to his ear, telling Sabrina everything he promised he wouldn’t.
I’m still standing in the doorway, frozen with shock, my skin stinging with betrayal when he adds in a frustrated tone, “Your sister is fine, by the way. Just stubborn as hell and refusing to listen to reason.”
“I am not stubborn! And you swore you wouldn’t call Sabrina, you liar,” I shout, launching myself at the phone.
“Get back in bed,” Jeffrey orders. I bat his pointing finger out of the way, only to have him to shove it back in my face. On instinct, I lunge forward, biting down on the offending digit.
Hard.
With a curse, Jeffrey slams the phone back into the receiver. Before I can demand to talk to Sabrina, to fix this somehow, he’s thrown me over his shoulder, toting me back toward the bedroom.
But if he thinks this betrayal is ending with kisses and honey, he’s going to be sadly, sadly mistaken.
7
Jeffrey
“Calm down and listen, damn you!” I pin Elizabeth’s arms to the mattress over her head, sparing myself another swipe of her claws. I knew
she wasn’t going to be thrilled that I’d broken my promise not to call home, but I didn’t expect her to come at me like a feral cat.
“I will not calm down, you liar!” She aims a knee at my balls, which thankfully connects with my thigh instead.
I leverage one leg across both of hers, a precaution in case I want to sire children someday.
“You’re a dirty, rotten liar,” she says, bucking beneath me with surprising strength. I’d be thrilled to see her feeling so much better if she weren’t using her restored health to try to murder me. “You promised you wouldn’t call, and then the second I’m asleep, you’re on the phone like a dirty, lying, phone rat.”
“That isn’t true. You’ve been asleep for an entire day.”
“Liar!” she shouts.
“I am not a liar,” I boom with enough volume that I startle her into momentary stillness. “I woke you up to give you medicine twice,” I continue more softly, “but you went right back to sleep after. It’s almost sunset again, Elizabeth. The engagement ceremony begins in less than an hour. I had to let my mother know where I was, or she would have been out of her mind with worry.”
“You didn’t have to talk to my sister,” she says, her breath still coming faster. “You didn’t have to turn your brother against her.”
“I didn’t tell Andrew,” I counter. “I didn’t speak to him at all. I wanted to give Sabrina the chance to come clean with him and the rest of my family on her own. It will be easier for Andrew if he finds out from her instead of hearing from his little brother that he’s been played for a fool.”
“You’re the fool, not him,” she says, her eyes shining. “And if you’ve ruined their happiness, I’ll never forgive you. Never!”
“You mean for the next six months?” I shoot back, even though I know it’s a shite thing to say.
But her words have been haunting me. Ever since she told me that she thinks she’s cursed, I’ve been imagining what it must have been like for her, to suffer with this secret, to have an unaddressed childhood trauma distorting her entire life and dooming her hopes for the future.
No surprise she’s making terrible decisions.
She’s mentally ill, so dangerously deluded that our first stop after leaving this cabin should be at a psychiatrist’s office.
She glares up at me, her sky-blue eyes sharp and focused. “I wish I hadn’t told you that. But I suppose it’s good I did. It’s always nice to know someone’s true colors, even if the finding out part is awful.”
I sigh. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“I know what you meant.” She hitches her chin higher. “Now get off of me. I have to pack.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” I say, staying put. “You’re ill.”
“No, I’m not. Not anymore,” she says, the heat in her tone pretty damned convincing. “I’m homicidally angry. Trust me, you don’t want me sleeping here tonight. You might not wake up in the morning.”
“Are you serious? You’re threatening to kill me?” I challenge. “Because I couldn’t, in good conscience, allow my brother to remain engaged to a woman who’s been lying to him from the moment they met? Do you realize how insane that sounds?”
“No, I’m not seriously threatening to kill you.” She growls low in her throat. “Argh! You’re the most obtuse, infuriating, patience-chafing man on the planet. I can’t believe I thought I wanted to sleep with you. I must have been out of my head with fever. Only a diseased mind would make that call.”
“I kept trying to tell you that,” I snap before I realize what I’m saying. When I do, I clench my jaw and grit out, “And same here. If I’d had a good night’s sleep since we arrived, I wouldn’t have said the things I said last night. I wouldn’t even have thought them.”
“Good.” Her eyes narrow. “Because we are never getting naked together now. I would rather die a virgin and take my dusty hymen with me to the grave.”
I blink, so shocked that I drop my guard for a moment.
A moment is all it takes for Elizabeth to execute an eel-slippery flip onto her side and wiggle out from under me, kneeing me in the groin on her way out.
Pain floods between my legs, but I refuse to groan.
Or to let her get away.
I bite down on the inside of my lip, ignoring the agony spreading through my midsection as I lunge for her. But I miss her arm and tumble off the bed onto the wooden floor. I crunch my neck and give my skull a good knock, but my aching balls are what really slows me down.
By the time I make it back to my feet, Elizabeth is already slamming the bedroom door behind her.
Hearing her footsteps thudding up the stairs, I rip open the door and race after her, but she’s insanely fast for a woman who’s been feverish for days.
Still, I’m certain I’m going to catch her, so certain I’m shocked to reach the top of the stairs and find no sign of her anywhere. The main room isn’t large, and there’s nowhere to hide.
I rush to the window, but her car is still parked next to mine. On the table by the door, her keys are still in the ceramic lily pad dish provided for the purpose.
Heart pounding harder, I wrench open the tiny coat closet. She isn’t inside, and I didn’t really expect her to be. It’s the smallest closet I’ve ever seen, and two black parkas take up most of the available space. I hurry around the kitchen counter, but there’s no Lizzy crouched on the tiles.
I search behind every piece of furniture in the living room before taking my investigation outside. No sign of her in the back yard or the forest beyond or in any of the ditches I stomp through as I scour the area. I search until the sunset light begins to fade, finally returning to the house to do another sweep. But still…nothing.
It’s like she’s vanished off the face of the earth.
Poof. One second here and gone the next.
Like magic.
But there’s no such thing as magic or curses or invisibility cloaks. Elizabeth is somewhere.
It’s just somewhere I haven’t thought to look yet.
I pace the floor by the kitchen, raking my hand through my hair and making a fist as I try to think like an enraged, possibly insane princess determined to get rid of an unwelcome gentleman companion at any cost.
At first, I reject the possibility that she’s fled on foot. She must realize I can catch up to her quickly in one of the cars. But the more I think about it, the more I suspect that must be her plan. She’s not here or in the surrounding woods, and she wouldn’t keep going up the road away from town. We took an exploratory drive in that direction a couple of days ago. There’s nothing up there but trees and more trees and an abrupt dead end long before the summit.
She must be headed back to the village where I found her.
At dusk. On foot. After being seriously ill. With no cell phone or money or anything else a woman —or anyone—would want or need.
Lizzy’s purse is still on the table by the door, too, left behind along with all her clothes and the sewing bag down in the bedroom.
She must really hate me, I realize as I grab my keys and wallet and head out to the car, to leave that sewing bag behind. The rest of her things are replacable but whatever she’s designing seems to mean the world to her. She kept trying to sneak away to work on it, even when she was so feverish she could barely lift a glass of water to her lips without shaking, and she was quick to hide her precious creations from me whenever I entered the room.
I felt oddly hurt by that. I couldn’t care less about clothes or fashion—I wear nearly the same thing nearly every single day—but I’m curious about her work.
About her. The more I learn about her, the more I want to know.
Like the thing she said about being a virgin.
Is it true? And if so…why?
She’s so beautiful and sweet and funny. So sexy without even trying.
“None of your business,” I tell myself as I pull out onto the road and start toward the village, scanning the woods on either side f
or signs of a woman in pajamas and sock feet.
That’s what I should be thinking about—the fact that a woman I’ve taken under my protection is out in the rapidly cooling Alpine night without a jacket or shoes or any way of calling for help if she runs into trouble.
And I am thinking about—worrying about—those things.
But I’m also thinking about how beautiful she was last night, naked in the bath, fragile-looking, but with a sensual strength vibrating from her slender frame. I’d wanted to touch her so badly I’d been ashamed of myself. She was sick and suffering, and there I was, sneaking looks at her curves beneath the water and wishing I could taste every inch of her fever-hot skin.
By the time I’d helped her out of the bath and into her pajamas, I’d been hard, but thankfully she’d been too exhausted to notice.
Still, the fact that I’d been turned on by a seriously ill woman kept me awake for a good hour after I lay down on the sofa bed beneath the bookshelves.
But it wasn’t her weakness that appealed to me. It was her determination in the face of it, her unflagging sense of humor, even when I could tell she wasn’t feeling up to making jokes. It was the way she smiled when I read aloud to her from Great Expectations these past few days, humming in agreement with all my favorite parts.
It’s just…her.
This woman I’m falling in love with.
This woman who hates my guts.
“Fuck,” I mutter into the stillness in the car. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
8
Elizabeth
There are few advantages to being scrawny and chronically out of shape.
My sit bones stick out of my nearly non-existent backside in a way that makes it painful to sit in a chair without a cushion, I get winded walking up the circular stairs to my sewing room, and off-the-rack clothing never fits quite right.
