“It’s just a bit of rain.”
“It’s not just a bit of rain.” He shook his head. She wanted to run from their conversation, and he didn’t blame her for that. But the facts were the facts. “And it’s not a quick dash up the hill, either.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I can’t let you go out in that.” He leaned forward, forcing her to make eye contact with him. “I won’t risk you slipping and breaking an ankle.”
Her eyes revealed nothing. Looked like that mask was firmly back in place. “Fine. I’ll sign a waiver.”
After a moment of silence, her gaze locked on his, he tossed his hands up in the air. “If you want to walk for half an hour uphill in the middle of a storm, be my guest.”
…
She needed out of this cottage. Now.
How could you let him know how much he hurt you? What a stupid move.
She hadn’t been able to help herself. The past had come tumbling out before she could stop it. All the resentment, the shame and embarrassment she thought she’d tucked away tight had bubbled up without warning. The memories still made her cringe, even to this day.
She’d rushed out of his apartment, tears streaming down her face and almost walked smack bang into the two drunk idiots who lived across the hall. The way they’d looked at her, their lips curled and fingers pointed, was like the embodiment of her entire university experience. She hadn’t made friends, hadn’t been able to fit in. Hadn’t even been able to get laid.
How am I ever going to marry you off? her mother had once asked. You can’t hold a man’s attention if you’re nothing but a boring wallflower.
Raindrops pelted against glass and the wind howled like a wolf, but Stella would have walked directly into a typhoon right then if it’d meant getting out of that cottage. When she stood and thanked Evan for the tea, he rolled his eyes.
“You’re stubborn as a mule.” He pushed back from the table and stalked over to the front door, where his umbrella rested. “Come on, I’m not letting you walk on your own.”
As soon as Evan pushed the front door open the cold air rushed in, chilling Stella to the bone. She hugged her arms against her chest and bowed her head to the wind. The storm roared in her ears and tiny hailstones pelted a steady rhythm against the cottage walls. Evan looked at her as if to say, do you want to back down yet?
When she didn’t respond, he shook his head and opened the umbrella to the wind. The nylon fabric flapped in protest.
“Come on, then.” He charged into the rain, umbrella overhead, without waiting for her.
She scrambled after him, her boots slipping on the grass and mud underfoot. Rain soaked her hair and the wind pulled strands from her ponytail, causing them to whip and streak across her face. He had a good lead and her shorter legs struggled to keep up with his powerful movement. He was confident in each step. He knew every bump, every hollow. And she did not.
“Hurry up!” he yelled above the elements, pausing to turn and reach out to her. Her hand slipped into his, wet and cold as a fistful of snow. He gripped her tight, his fingers wrapping around hers as he pulled her against him, under the shelter of the umbrella.
Their bodies knocked as they powered up the hill, hips and shoulders bumping with each stride. He looked straight ahead, his eyes affixed on their destination. What was he thinking?
Part of her wanted to know what his reaction would be to her confession—but that would be a lose-lose scenario. If he empathized with her then she would think him a liar, and if he confirmed that he didn’t care…well, it would be like facing his rejection all over again.
Damn him, and damn this bloody estate.
Stella slipped, her boot sliding straight over a patch of ice. Her arm wrenched from Evan’s grip and she drove a knee hard into the ground as she landed. The pain shot up her leg, causing her to gasp. A tear squeezed out of the corner of her eye to mingle with the rain and she swiped at it with the back of her hand.
He leaned down to help her up and slid one arm around her waist, his weight easily supporting hers. They hobbled up the hill together but each step sent a fiery stab of pain shooting through her.
The estate was in sight, and they walked as quickly as possible with her limping. Evan guided her to the front door, which was mercifully sheltered, and threw down the umbrella. He left her propped against the facade as he pushed the door open.
“Ethel!” he bellowed inside.
She came quickly, her small frame shuffling into view. “Dear God,” she said. “What on earth are you two doing out in this weather?”
“Someone felt like a walk.” Evan removed his boots, flicking mud onto the ground.
Stella hobbled over to a wrought iron chair that decorated the front of the house, and tugged her own boots off, wincing as she moved her ankle.
“Weren’t you near the cottage?” Ethel looked from Evan to Stella, confused. “You could have taken shelter there.”
“Little Miss Stubborn over here decided she wanted to trek back in the rain.” His voice was cutting. “I couldn’t let her go on her own, so now we’re both soaked and she’s sprained an ankle. Just as I predicted.”
Stella pursed her lips, swallowing down the urge to argue with him. She didn’t want to do it in front of Ethel. “No need to get snippy.”
His icy stare sliced straight through her. With one glance he was able to bore into her as though there was nothing between them, as though he knew everything about her.
“This isn’t snippy,” he bit out. “This is seriously pissed off. You could have really hurt yourself.”
She was convinced she had really hurt herself. At least that’s what the throbbing in her foot was telling her.
Stella pushed up from her seat, testing her weight on her injured joint. It throbbed in protest and she stifled a gasp. Without warning, Evan scooped her up and carried her through the front door. Her legs dangled over one of his arms, her back cradled in the other.
“What the f—”
“Hey!” Ethel’s voice cut in. “We’ll have none of that language in this house.”
“Put me down.” Stella thumped on Evan’s arm with her fist, but to no effect. His muscles were like rocks and her fist bounced off him without garnering so much as a flinch. There was nothing soft or comforting about Evan Foss, that was for damn sure.
“Relax.” He rolled his eyes at her, his full lips pressed into a flat line. “I’m not trying to objectify you.”
“It does feel rather cave man-ish,” she responded tartly. “I’m surprised you didn’t drag me in by my hair.”
Flecks of slate blue marred his pale green irises and burgeoning lines adorned the corners of his eyes. Damn him. The bastard even made fine lines look attractive.
Evan carried Stella toward the sitting room where the fire was already burning bright. The warmth called to her, she was soaked again and her ankle throbbed insistently. He set her down gently on the couch, dragging a cushion under her ankle to elevate it.
“So tell me.” Evan moved to stand by the fireplace so he could warm himself. “What’s with the death wish?”
“I don’t have a death wish.” Stella planted her hands into the couch and tried to shift her position. She clamped her teeth down on her bottom lip, sealing in a yelp when she accidentally moved her ankle.
“You’re lucky you didn’t break your damn leg out there.” He glowered at her.
“I’ll be fine.” She waved his anger away. “And I didn’t ask you to come with me.”
Her ankle was tender and she predicted her knee would have a nasty bruise, but it was superficial. No broken bones, nothing permanent. At least here she didn’t feel suffocated by his closeness.
“What if you fell and there was no one there to help?” He raked a hand through his damp hair.
She pressed her lips together. The fact that he had a point was irritating at best, so she sighed and looked out the window.
“Pretending I’m not here isn’t going to mak
e me disappear,” he said.
At that moment Ethel returned with a tray containing a teapot, two floral cups, and a small plate of shortbread biscuits.
“I understand that you’re holding on to a grudge, but the fact is, I know this land better than you.” Evan’s voice teetered on the edge of anger, but he held it together. Ethel shot him a terse look. “If I tell you something is unsafe, you should listen.”
Evan looked as though he wanted to say more, but something held him back. Eventually he shook his head.
“I have some calls to make,” he said, and left the room.
Ethel’s gaze trailed after him, motherly concern etched into the deep grooves around her eyes. “He’s got a hard way about him, but he means well. I promise you that.”
“He has a temper,” Stella said.
Ethel reached for the teapot and poured the perfectly brewed liquid into one of the cups. “He almost lost his mother in a storm like this once.”
“Lost her?”
“I don’t know how much you remember about Ms. Foss, but she wasn’t a well woman,” Ethel said. “She took off one day and he spent an hour searching the grounds for her in a similar storm. Eventually he found her huddled against the hedges at the bottom of the estate. She’d broken her leg from a bad fall.”
Her mind searched through memories, trying to locate Evan’s mother. But nothing much surfaced—she’d been a quiet lady, polite but distant. Kind of like Evan minus the temper.
“What do you mean, she wasn’t well?”
“She had a tough life and…well, I shouldn’t be talking about it. It’s none of my business or yours.” Ethel patted Stella’s arm. “Let me see if I can rustle up an ice pack for that ankle.”
Stella nodded and dropped her head back against the armrest of the couch, her hand reaching for the vintage Rolex that’d become a permanent fixture on her left arm. The round face was battered with years of being worn by a man who liked to get his hands dirty. At one point, a date had been etched into the back but time had faded the numbers until they were illegible. And the gold band hung off her wrist, the heavy face causing it to slide up and down her arm when she gesticulated. It swung whenever she walked, a constant reminder of its presence.
Something had stopped her from getting the band adjusted. Maybe it was because the ill fit reminded her that it was not hers, or maybe it was because she felt compelled to hang on to the past as it was and changing the watch would be like accepting he was gone.
Alone, Stella was engulfed by the silence of the estate. Only the sound of the storm rumbling outside stopped her from checking to see if her hearing had suddenly disappeared. She traced the floral pattern of the couch with her fingertip, remembering how vibrant the fabric once was. Now, like her memories, the once red flowers had dulled. Time had worn them into a lesser version of themselves, eroding their brilliance.
She pushed up from the couch and hobbled slowly to her room. She had to hop on her good foot and lean on the railing to get up the stairs, but she’d be damned if she had to call out for help.
As soon as she dropped onto her bed, she noticed her iPhone sitting on the bedside table. She checked her text messages. Nada. Her voice mail held only a few calls from her assistant, two prospective buyers for the estate wanting to meet, and a single message from a supplier for the hotel.
Not a single personal message, unless you counted the “hope you landed safely” from her assistant. She didn’t.
“Stella?” Evan’s voice came through the door, followed by a heavy knock.
Chapter Five
What the fuck was he doing? Evan hovered outside Stella’s room, a strange sense of unease rocking inside him as he toyed with the ice pack wrapped in cloth. He’d gone off the deep end before. Acted like a total and utter dick. He shouldn’t have yelled at her. But the feeling of the ice-cold rain on his skin, the slip of her fingers through his grip as she fell, the fear that raced through his veins like a runaway train…it was all too familiar. It took him to a place he never wanted to revisit.
“Come in.” The reluctant reply was muffled by the door.
He entered to find Stella sitting on her bed. Her face was stony, her eyes narrowed. Bare feet peeked out from the bottom of a fresh pair of sweatpants and her swollen ankle was propped up on the bed. Thankfully, the injury didn’t appear to be as bad as he’d feared.
“Ethel said to bring this up.” He handed her the ice pack. “Do you need to have your foot looked at? We can get you to a doctor.”
She fitted the pack against her injured ankle and winced, forcing him to fight against the urge to reach out to her.
“I’ll be okay.” Her face softened and the hard set of her mouth relaxed. It wasn’t quite a smile, but he’d take it as a sign of improvement. “And I accept your apology.”
“Hard to accept something I haven’t given. That’s quite a talent,” he said, holding back an amused smirk. The girl was ballsy and he liked it.
“You should be saying sorry.”
“For getting you back to the house in one piece?”
“For speaking to me like I’m a child.”
The jut of her chin told him she wasn’t going to back down. He’d seen that stubborn look many times over the years. Like when her grandfather had told her to stand back while he chopped wood. When she’d wanted to come along to inspect a dead rat in the storeroom. And when Evan had suggested that she stop following him around like he was the Pied Piper.
If only she’d listened.
“And for getting all caveman,” she added. “I would’ve thought you’d be falling over yourself to get in my good books.”
“Is that so?”
She cocked her head and his insides tumbled. He’d always been attracted to girls who had a fire in them, and Stella was ablaze. “You want to buy this estate and I’m the one selling it. Or aren’t you capable of playing well with others?”
“Not generally.” It was true, he played to win and that meant friends in the industry were few and far between. Jealousy could be a bitch like that. “And I don’t think you’re looking for a pushover.”
“Oh?” She raised a brow. “Please, enlighten me. What am I looking for?”
“You want someone who’s got enough smarts to turn this place into something your grandfather would be proud of.”
“It’s already something he’s proud of.” She caught herself. “Was proud of. Maybe I want to sell to another family who’ll appreciate it for the next few generations.”
Stella was many things, but an actress she was not. Even as the words left her lips, doubt clouded her features. “So the girl with no family would be happy to watch some rich, Brady Bunch group take over her ancestral home?”
“It’s not my home,” she said tightly. “Never was.”
“I can turn it into something magnificent.” He crossed the room and sat down next to her, careful not to bump her bad ankle. The bed squeaked under his weight. “You might not believe in my character anymore, Stella. But I’m good at what I do. Your grandfather taught me everything I know and nothing would please me more than to be able to give that back to the Jackson Estate.”
“That’s a very impassioned speech.”
“But you’re not convinced?”
“The fact is…” She sucked in a long breath. “You really hurt me that night. I thought out of everyone, I could trust you not to make me feel like a leper. I didn’t fit in anywhere else, but with you I could at least stop pretending.”
He swallowed back a protest about how the estate had nothing to do with their personal issues. It was precisely the reason he loved real estate—there were no feelings, no baggage, and if a building needed to be torn down to make way for something better, then he’d knock it down without a second thought. An old building couldn’t come back to haunt him. To screw with his head.
“Why don’t we make a bet?” he said, an idea springing to his mind.
He couldn’t repair their history and he stood by wha
t he’d done. So the only way to get Stella to forget about the past was to refocus on something else. She’d always been competitive—doing whatever she could to beat him at chess or cards or in a race up the hill. Why not use that to his advantage?
“What kind of bet?” She raised a brow.
“We’ll have to figure that out. But we can agree on something and then when I do it you agree to sell me the estate.”
“That’s absurd.”
“No, it’s not.” The idea gathered steam as he watched her blue-green eyes narrow in concentration. She was considering it. “I’m the best person to take care of this place, and I know you don’t want that responsibility. I’ve got the capital, I’ve got the expertise, and I’ve got the balls to tackle a project like this.”
“That was never in question. You’ve got more balls than you should have,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “I can’t believe you want to make a bet for this.”
“Tell you what, I’m so confident I can deliver that I’ll even let you pick the bet. Anything you like.” He leaned back on his hands and enjoyed the conflict rolling across her face.
Betting wasn’t a new activity for them. “I bet you can’t” had been one of her most-used phrases as a kid. Every summer when she’d spent her holidays here with her grandfather, they’d bet on everything from who could finish their meal the fastest to who could ride their bike the farthest without touching the handlebars.
“I bet you can’t convince me to move to England,” she said, her lips pulling into a smug smile.
Well, fuck.
“That’s right.” She tapped a finger to her lips. “If you can convince me that England would make a better home for me than Australia by Christmas Day, I’ll agree to sell the estate to you.”
“You play dirty, Ms. Jackson.” He shook his head. She’d already made it clear that she thought her home country vastly superior to his. And with a strong, biting winter already having knocked her on her ass, how the hell was he supposed to change her mind?
“Do you accept?”
What choice did he have? At least this kept him in the running. “I do.”
Millionaire Under the Mistletoe Page 5
