by Amy Andrews
He didn’t know what to say. “Jesus, Addie. You look—it’s—why do you keep it?” It was a graphic photo that was almost too painful to look at, and yet she had it in a place of pride on her fridge. His hand shook as he stared at it. What if she got sick again like this? Hadn’t she said she wasn’t in the clear just yet? “Doesn’t it bring back awful memories?”
Addie shrugged. “I keep it so I remember every day how lucky I am. How fragile life is. And every time my parents ring to harangue me about getting a proper job and a proper place to live, or some headhunter drops by or rings offering me the world on a platter, I look at it and know what’s really important.”
Nathaniel looked back down at the photo. He wanted to drop it on the floor and turn on his heel and get the hell out of there. Addie had been through something he could never understand and her insights into life were unsettling. He’d chosen his path and he didn’t want or need it questioned.
By her. Or himself.
His gaze snagged on the vibrant red rose lying on her lap. It was a splash of color that only seemed to emphasize Addie’s deathly pallor. “Is the rose from the garden?”
Addie nodded. “Penny picked me one every day so I could stay connected with the world outside.”
Nathaniel felt as if she’d slugged him. His decision to bulldoze the garden had been quick and easy—uncomplicated—a few months ago. It was vital to his plans for the development and crucial for his end goal. Now with this picture in his hand it seemed very complicated indeed.
He looked at her. “There are other gardens in London, Addie.” He wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince her or himself.
“Not like this, Nate. It’s unique. Special. And not just to me. To generations of patients who needed that splash of color in their lives. Never underestimate the power of nature.”
Her voice was low with conviction and he felt completely out of his depth. Luckily, his phone saved him and it was a relief to answer it, to stop looking at the photo, to stop thinking about her being like this again.
It was Margaret. “I think you need to turn your television on, sir.”
“What? Why?” He put his hand over the receiver and said to Addie. “Do you have a television?”
Addie pointed behind him and he whirled around, striding toward it. “What channel?” he asked.
“Four.”
Nathaniel picked the remote up off the top and flicked a few buttons until the Channel Four news took up the screen. A huge, bearded, gray-haired guy in biker leathers was standing in the St. Agnes’s rose garden surrounded by a gaggle of press. He was talking about the vision of the Virgin Mother that had appeared to him in the garden last night.
Nathaniel blinked at the television before turning to face Addie, whose mouth had broken into a goofy grin.
“Margaret,” he said, his gaze firmly trained on Addie.
“Yes, sir, I know. I’ve already called your lawyer.”
“Thank you,” he said, then hung up. “Did you know about this?” he demanded.
He could see Addie was trying to rein in her enjoyment. “I had no idea Dave was so—”
“Good at acting?” Nathaniel suggested.
“Religious.”
Nathaniel could feel his blood pressure skyrocketing. This stunt was going to put the whole project back by precious weeks. Was it too much to ask for things to go according to plan? He wasn’t clubbing baby seals, for crying out loud. It was one lousy garden in a city renowned for its green spaces.
The photo in his hand mocked him and he placed it back under its magnet on the fridge.
Out of sight. Out of mind.
He shoved his hands on his hips. “Will I wake up tomorrow to find some rare butterfly or bug has been discovered in the garden? Maybe a lost species of Welsh tree frog that can only eat the petals of two-hundred-year-old roses?”
Addie’s grin broke free again. “Ooh, good idea.”
Nathaniel failed to see the humor in the situation. “I have to go,” he said, the muscles in his neck and jaw tightening like piano wire. “I have a mess to sort out.”
He didn’t wait for her to respond, just turned and left, shrugging into his jacket he went.
…
The next few days Nathaniel bombarded her with more flowers. She protested they were unnecessary but they still arrived every day. She could only assume this was his usual modus operandi with women he dated—not that they were dating—and like everything else in his life, he didn’t deviate from the script.
If he had any clue about her at all, he’d realize that big splashy floral arrangements meant very little to her. Sure, they were beautiful and smelled divine, but she doubted he was personally organizing them and that’s what mattered most to women.
Well, to her, anyway.
A single hand-picked rose was more her style.
Like the one in the photo on her fridge. The photo that had shaken Nathaniel. She’d watched him as he’d looked at it and she could see it had affected him. His blue gaze had clouded, his fingers had trembled.
It was a pretty grim image, she knew that, but for someone who seemed hell-bent on forging a particular path, his reaction had surprised her. Maybe she should have pushed him a bit more on the rose garden then and there—he’d given her the perfect opportunity, but she didn’t want to risk driving him away altogether.
She was just beginning her campaign.
The photo spoke for itself and if it discomfited Nathaniel, then hopefully the image would slowly erode his determination and bring him around to her way of thinking.
She hoped she was already making some headway. She’d spent three lunch hours dragging him onto the open-topped red double-decker bus tours at a different location each time, and although he always tried to fob her off, he seemed to relax a little more each time. They didn’t get off at any of the stops—it wasn’t about that. The weather was still glorious, the commentary was lively, and the wind was in their hair.
And the sex? Well, that was nothing short of mind blowing, and if part of her was uncomfortable with how easily she’d let him into her bed and how accommodating she was being, she ignored it. If being with him every night helped her make inroads, she was going to take it. He was starting to unwind around her and that had to be conducive to opening a meaningful dialogue.
And quite simply, she couldn’t get enough of him.
…
Nathaniel prowled around his office at five o’clock on Friday afternoon. He’d just finished meeting with his lawyers and representatives from London’s religious community, who wanted to talk to him about the importance of Dave’s vision. He’d agreed graciously to give them a couple of weeks to investigate the claims, knowing full well they were totally bogus.
But that wasn’t what was causing his restlessness.
Addie hadn’t been in today, and his concentration was shot. Her visits were highly inconvenient to his work schedule, necessitating longer hours, but in a few short days he’d grown used to them. Almost as much as he’d grown used to going to her boat every night.
She was always naked and never complained what hour of the night he slipped in beside her and woke her up. She just turned and opened her arms to him.
Even thinking about it now as he looked out his window was getting him hard.
He was starting to worry something had happened to her. If it had been any other woman, he wouldn’t have worried because he’d have known she was at work. But as Addie seemed to rarely ever go to the shop, he doubted that.
The image in the photo flitted through his brain and his gut contracted into a tight knot. He was fast becoming hooked on Addie’s hot, eager loving, and the thought that this vibrant sexy woman had been through such a ravaging illness put an itch up his spine.
He didn’t know what the hell he was doing with her. She wasn’t his type, and frankly he just didn’t get her.
He didn’t understand her attitude toward money or her laissez-faire business drive or her attachme
nt to something as frivolous as a garden. All he knew was he wanted her.
And that he’d obviously gone insane.
His door opened and he spun around. She was standing there in skinny jeans and a peasant-style shirt and he didn’t realize how worried he’d been until the tension in his neck released with a ping.
“C’mon, Nate. Let’s take a Tube ride.”
He folded his arms, relief making him irritable. “It’s peak hour,” he said. “It’ll be jam-packed.”
She smiled at him and the utter wickedness of it took his breath away. “That’s the point.”
He frowned. “Where are we going?”
“Nowhere. Anywhere. Everywhere.” She smiled. “Heaven.”
Fifteen minutes later, they were crammed like sardines into a Tube carriage. Addie had slowly worked them toward the far back corner and Nathaniel had followed. It was hot from the warm weather and the press of bodies but her, “I’d keep that on if I were you,” when he’d tried to remove his jacket on the platform had prevented him from cooling down.
“I think I’ve been on the Tube enough now,” he grumbled as bored strangers crowded in around them. He was shielding her with his body and very conscious of the friction between them that built with every rock and sway of the train.
“Well, let’s see if I can make it worth your while,” she whispered as her fingers undid the two buttons holding his jacket together and slid inside as it flapped open.
When her thumb brushed against his fly, a jolt went through him and his eyes narrowed. “What are you doing?”
“Groping you,” she murmured as her fingers drifted back and forth.
He looked down, her furtive moments covered by the press of their bodies and the confines of his jacket. He checked around him. People stared into space, some with earpieces in, others read, some people lucky enough to score seats chatted.
Mostly, people avoided eye contact.
His groin stirred at her light finger strokes. He felt himself thicken and grow hard as she touched him through his trousers in front of hundreds of oblivious passengers.
“You brought me on the Tube to grope me?” he whispered, dropping his mouth to her ear, his eyes shutting as she squeezed his throbbing erection
Addie smiled as she pressed the flat of her palm against him. “Yup.”
The air in his lungs grew thick and heavy as he resisted the overwhelming urge to push himself into her hand. “My mother warned me about girls like you,” he said, his voice low.
It was satisfying to hear that her quiet laugh had a rough edge. She squeezed up and down the length of him and just when Nathaniel thought it couldn’t get any hotter, her hand dropped to cup him, her thumb idly stroking.
Addie raised herself up on her toes and whispered, “You have the most amazing penis I’ve ever had the pleasure to know.”
She squeezed where she cupped him and lust slammed through the fibers of his belly. He grasped her hip as the train slowed and a voice announced the name of the approaching station.
He grabbed her hand doing his jacket buttons up to cover himself. “C’mon, we’re getting out.”
Addie laughed. “Where to?” she asked as he pulled her along.
“The nearest hotel.”
Chapter Ten
“These selling well?”
Addie looked up from the stack of mail on the shop counter she’d been neglecting for the last couple of weeks. A fresh bouquet of flowers wafted sweet perfume her way.
She’d sent Tiffany to lunch and Nathaniel had just delivered a batch of alpaca woolens as his grandmother, in what Addie could only assume was a priceless bit of matchmaking, insisted on sending them to him to be personally delivered.
Addie nodded absently. “A few a week.”
“You do know you could make much more on these than you are, right? I know for a fact that Grandy sells these for twenty quid each at the market and you’re paying them fifty quid each and then selling them for only seventy.”
Addie quirked an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting I rip off your grandmother?”
“No. I’m suggesting that healthy profit margins are good for business and I’m betting you don’t have much of a markup on the rest of the stuff you sell, either.”
She shrugged. “Times are hard for people out there, Nate.”
He shook his head and Addie wondered if taking off her shirt would avert the lecture she felt sure was coming. Anxiety reared its ugly head—it had been a few weeks and while Nathaniel certainly seemed to be enjoying the benefits of their arrangement, the blinders were still firmly attached to his eyes.
He still thought and acted like a businessman first, and the last two times she’d bought up the garden, he’d cut her off short.
She stretched her neck from side to side. She hadn’t meditated since he’d become a fixture in her life—being kept up all night, every night, was making her too bloody tired—and she could feel the buildup of bad energy and stress.
“It’s not the way to run a business. What profit do you make on the shop?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know the latest figures. That’s why I have an accountant.”
“Addie.”
She despaired at the exasperation in his voice. He really struggled with her casual attitude to money. “It breaks even. The online organic food is the profitable arm of the business.”
“And you outsourced the management of that, too, right?”
She bristled. “I hired some good people to run it for me, once it was established, yes.”
“You’re very trusting.”
Addie gave a brittle laugh at the way he said it. Like it was a bad thing. She guessed that was the difference between them—she took people at their word, he was naturally suspicious.
“You should try it some time,” she said testily.
He snorted. “My father would roll in his grave.”
She blinked. It was the first time he’d mentioned his father, and she was intrigued, despite her annoyance. She leaned her elbow on the top of the counter propping her chin on her fisted palm. “Maybe if your father had trusted more people, he might still be alive.”
His eyes turned arctic and Addie felt the chill all the way across the room. Too bad. She wasn’t here to back away when things got uncomfortable. She wasn’t one of his yes-women. And if he was going to be critical of her, then he could take a little heat himself.
Frankly, this whole conversation was setting her teeth on edge.
“You don’t know the first thing about my father.”
“I know he had a reputation for shady deals. I know he died at forty-five from a heart attack under a huge black cloud. I know you idolized him.”
Nathaniel crossed his arms. “He grew up dirt poor, being pushed from pillar to post, living on the streets half the time. He learned very early not to trust anyone. And despite that, he was a brilliant, hugely successful businessman who made a lot of money. What’s not to idolize?”
“Doesn’t it matter how he made it?” She was damned if she’d let Nathaniel romanticize his father’s less than salubrious dealings.
Nathaniel dropped his gaze and she watched as he started to prowl around the shelves, picking up crystals and inspecting them.
“He was a street kid, he didn’t have anyone to hand him down a moral compass, Addie. Yes, he pushed the envelope sometimes, but he did the best he could with what he had and never did anything illegal.”
Addie folded her arms. Just morally questionable.
“He certainly wouldn’t have put up with the crap over the St. Agnes rose garden that I have.”
She didn’t doubt it for a minute. “I guess he just would have bulldozed it into the ground in the middle of the night, huh?”
Nathaniel looked at her and she could see the stubborn set of his jaw. “And he would have had every right to do so.”
“So why haven’t you?” she asked softly.
He snorted. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.”
“But you haven’t,” Addie insisted, “because you do have a moral compass.”
A crystal clattered from Nathaniel’s hand onto the glass shelf and she watched as he righted it. He didn’t say anything for a moment and she wondered if he was reflecting on his mother’s influence. Eventually, his blue eyes swept over her like a lighthouse beacon, a sardonic smile on his beautiful mouth.
“Or maybe I just want to keep getting into your pants?”
Okay. Obviously he’d talked about his father as much as he was going to.
Addie swallowed at the calculating look in his predatory gaze and the deliberately coarse turn of phrase. She really shouldn’t be turned on so much now and the fact that she was didn’t sit easily.
Where was her pride and self–respect?
She’d spent weeks telling herself that she was doing this for Nathaniel, to save him from himself, but he casually mentioned destroying the garden and instead of being outraged as he slowly advanced toward her with sex in his eyes, she was practically melting into a puddle.
“Yes,” she murmured as he drew nearer, his broad shoulders filling her vision. “Bulldozing the garden would certainly not be conducive to getting into my pants.”
Nathaniel stood on the opposite of the counter and leaned in. Addie shifted back. She couldn’t think when the man was so damn close.
“What if I offered to look over your books? Give you some business advice, see if I can help the shop become a better earner for you?” She opened her mouth to protest, but he held up his hands and she let him continue. “Just advice, you don’t have to take it. Would that earn me some brownie points?”
Addie considered refusing, but maybe he was right—there wasn’t anything wrong with efficiency, was there? Maybe there was a better way she could be doing it? She’d made her business a success by being smart and taking good advice—why should she reject his out of hand?
And the truth was, there was a small part of her that was relieved he was actually interested in more than just sex. So far, their relationship had been pretty much a one-way street. One where she gave, gave, gave, and he took, took, took.
