by Sophia Lynn
Jordan came back to herself slowly. Her muscles relaxed, her body melted against Cord's beneath her, and slowly, so slowly, she came back to herself. However, it wasn't bliss she returned to, but something else entirely.
What the hell had she done?
Jordan's mind, still raw and vulnerable from the pleasure, suddenly seized on the fact of what she was doing and who she was doing it with. God, this was the son of the man who had ruined her father. This was a man who had lived in the luxury that was only possible due to her own father's destruction and likely the destruction of dozens or even hundreds of people like him. She had allowed him to touch her, she had allowed him to have her in the study like some kind of . . . some kind of . . .
Her heart felt as if it was going to shatter from shame, and before she knew what was happening, there were fat tears sliding down her face. She couldn't stop the sobs from racking her body, even when Cord stirred, realizing that something was wrong.
"Jordan? Jordan, what's the matter?"
It was stupid. She knew very well how stupid it was that she was crying. She tried to tell him that it wasn't important—it was that or let him know everything in a shocking and disastrous display of honesty—she tried to tell him that it would all be fine, but instead, all she could do was sob.
She was barely aware of it when he turned her so that she was seated more firmly on his lap, her legs draped over one side and her head tucked under his chin. Cord gathered her into his strong arms, and enemy or not, all she could do in that moment was cry and be grateful for how comforting he was.
“Shh, shh, it's all right. You're all right. It'll be fine.”
She sat on his lap for some timeless minutes, simply allowing herself to be comforted and petted. Soon enough, however, Jordan realized what was going on, and she sprang away from him with a short cry. She was ready to flee in humiliation, but then she saw Cord's face, and she realized with a strange feeling that the man she had built up as her enemy was utterly miserable.
“I'm sorry, Jordan,” he said, his voice grave and dark. “I did not mean to hurt you. That was not my intent.”
“You . . . you didn't hurt me. At least, there was no pain,” she said. Even in her own ears, her voice sounded rough, harsh. “But . . . dear God, you can't just . . . you can't . . .”
Cord flinched as if she had struck him. Hell, she thought that if she’d actually struck him, he wouldn't have budged. The shame and sorrow in his face, however, made her think that this was far more effective, and for some reason, she felt sick.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “I am so sorry. Believe me when I say that it was never my intent to . . .”
“I know,” she said, and she turned away from him, feeling as if all of her was twisting, setting on fire. She didn't understand herself. Right then, all she wanted was to race back to him, to fall into his arms, to do anything she could to take that miserable look off his face. Her body still prickled with the pleasure he had given her, but right now, she couldn't. She couldn't.
“Here, let me . . .”
She turned to him dully, wondering if he was going to hand her back her dress or something, but then she realized that he was reaching for his checkbook. She watched in horrified shock as he started to write something out, but then she stepped back toward him, swiping blindly at the pen he was using to write. The pen went skittering off to strike the wall, and now Jordan knew how she was feeling. She felt as if she was lit up with fury.
“Are you serious?” she hissed. “Do you really think that you can just pay me off?”
For the first time, she saw Cord looking completely nonplussed. His blue eyes were wide, and a part of her cynically wondered if anyone had ever defied him like this, if any woman had ever spoken to him like this.
Well, if this is his first time, he’s dramatically overdue, she thought, and she stalked toward her dress, where it lay on the ground like a fallen bird.
“You don't get to buy your way out of things that make you feel ashamed of yourself,” she said, not looking at him. “You don't get to put a goddamn dollar amount on how bad you feel and then buy yourself out of it.”
“That wasn't what I was doing,” he started, but when she cut across his words with a jerky gesture of her hand, he stilled.
“Yes it was! Don't even try to deny it. You realized that maybe you shouldn't have been . . . shouldn't have been messing with the help, and the first thing you do is reach for your pocket book. God . . .”
She shook her head. There was a tiny cold part of her, a cold and mercenary part, that suggested that she could use this to her advantage, but she dismissed it. Right now, the only things that were echoing in her brain were fury and regret, and she would be damned if she sold those emotions to something like that. It would make her no better than the man who was watching her, his face oddly pale.
“People aren't things,” she said at last. “I'm not. Brianna or whoever you were talking to on the phone with? She wasn't either. The only thing that separates me from Brianna is that I don't exactly need the ten thousand dollars or whatever it was that you were going to give me.”
“It wasn't ten—”
“Oh, God, don't you even know that's worse?” she cried. “I don't want to know how much less a maid is worth than a woman who said she loved you! I don't want to know!”
There was something tearing in her voice, but thank God that by then, she had her dress uniform on. Zipping it up behind her, she could finally claim some kind of dignity again, some kind of calm. She wondered what she could say to him, and then finally, she decided that there was nothing to be said, not now, not to Cord.
He looked stricken when she simply walked out. It went against every instinct in her. Some damned fool part of her wanted to go back and to smooth things over, to touch him and to be touched by him. She knew that that would have been the most foolish thing she could have done, so she kept walking.
She managed to get back to work without anyone being the wiser, but then Mrs. O'Donnely came looking for her as she vacuumed the curtains in the gold sitting room. Really, who needed two sitting rooms, let alone three?
“Turn that off, please,” said Mrs. O'Donnely, and wincing, Jordan did as she was told.
Here it comes, she thought. Cord had apparently decided that if he couldn't pay her off, he could just get rid of her . . .
Mrs. O'Donnely gave her a long, searching look, and Jordan could feel herself start to fidget. God, if she was going to be let go, she would rather just get it over with instead of needing to go through some long and drawn out . . .
“You should have mentioned that you were feeling ill,” the housekeeper said at last. “Really, Jordan, if you are feeling ill, you cannot possibly be doing your job properly.”
“What?”
Mrs. O'Donnely shook her head.
“Mr. Everett called down not long after you delivered his food. He said that you were not looking well, and he wanted my personal judgment. You look like you might be running a fever. Put away the vacuum. You can come back to it tomorrow. Right now, just go back to your room and get some rest. Your duties will keep.”
Jordan started to protest, but then she shrugged and meekly did as she was told. She supposed a lie down and a day off after what she had done with Cord wasn't a terrible idea, and at least it would let her calm down and do some thinking.
Even as she made her way to her room, however, she wondered why she felt the urge to go to Cord, to try to explain . . . explain what, exactly? Anything she could have said to comfort him would only have made her own position more tenuous by far, would only have made her more vulnerable.
Jeez, get it together, girl. You can't keep on thinking like this. You can't keep on thinking that he's anything but the enemy.
As she lay down in bed, however, she wondered. He wasn't her true enemy, and if Jordan were being honest with herself, she had no idea what he really was at this point. All she knew was that when she thought of him, a bright spark appeared in
her heart and refused to be blown out.
You're being a little fool, she told herself. Get back to work! Vengeance doesn't come to those who simply put it off and hope for the best!
However, she was at a bit of a loss.
Chapter Seven
After Jordan left his study, Cord was left first with a strange feeling of awe. She was almost a full foot shorter than he was. She was so young, and despite her fire, she was so delicate in some ways. Men twice her weight and a full foot taller than she was had been afraid to cross him, and the fact that she looked up at him with that bright and fevered gaze made her something special.
Cord wasn't sure that he had ever really understood what was meant when people said that a woman could be magnificent in her rage, but now he thought he did.
When she was angry, something shone out in Jordan, something that usually had to be kept hidden, he thought. Her rage let you see to the heart of her, a place where she was good and true and fair.
Then he remembered her sobs, her tears, and Cord buried his face in his hands.
"Oh, God above," he groaned.
The guilt that crashed into him was powerful, almost a touchable force. It slammed into him, and it left him breathless. He had guessed at how untried she was. He had known almost from the moment that he touched her that she was new to this kind of game. However, like a bull in full rut, he had chased her and forced her to submit.
To his disgust, just the thought of her made his blood rise. He knew that if he lacked even a small measure of self-control, he would go and seek her out, and then things he wanted to do to her would make what he had done to her look tame.
Maybe this is why you've always chosen experienced women before, he thought bitterly to himself. You knew that they could handle you.
Of course he’d had women weep at him before. To a woman, they had always been crocodile tears designed to manipulate and to see if they could bend him to their will. Cord had always held a casually amused contempt for women who had tried them on him, but he could tell right away that Jordan was something different.
For a young girl who scrubbed floors and brought him his breakfast, she was full of pride. He could imagine her lifting her chin and staring him down. She would rather have shot him than cried in front of him, and somehow, he had pushed her there.
Absently, he thought that if she were skilled with seduction, she would have known that that afternoon would have been a perfect time to turn to him with a smile and to test if he was interested in keeping her on as his mistress. He’d had it happen a handful of times, and those assignations tended to be fairly successful as those things went.
For a moment, Cord thought about it. Would Jordan want a small apartment in her name in some attractive large city? Would she like an allowance that she could spend exactly as she pleased? What would she think of the idea that her only responsibility was to be available to Cord when he came to town, to smile, to welcome him . . .
Cord shook his head, as much in disgust with himself as to clear away that disturbingly attractive image. Had he really sunk so low as to think that everyone was for sale?
Perhaps the majority of people were, but somehow, he knew that Jordan wasn't. She was too fine, too proud, and if he made the offer, he knew she would spit in his eye.
He glanced down at the check he had started to write, flinching a little. She’d had no idea how much he had been prepared to offer her. It was going to be a lot more than ten thousand, that was for sure, but judging from the way she acted, even half a million would have gotten the same response.
"I've got to make it up to her," he said out loud, but he had no idea how he might have gone about that. She was a mystery to him.
Cord sighed, opening his laptop again. Work was a good distraction, but he knew that he couldn't keep at it forever, especially not when thoughts of a beautiful blonde with haunting black eyes kept interfering.
***
Jordan found the next few days passing in a blur. It appeared that Mr. Everett had started taking breakfast in town, which relieved her of her duties in the morning. Honestly, Jordan wasn't sure if she was relieved or not. On one hand, it was a good thing not to be confronted by the man who was the source of her turmoil every morning.
On the other hand, it felt as if the very air that she walked through was thick and humid. Jordan decided that she simply wanted to clear the air with him, to explain that she hadn't burst into tears about anything that he had done. She wasn't sure if she could make a good explanation without making him suspicious, but it would have been better than this drawn out edginess.
Then she had caught Alice, the girl who handled the laundry, shaking her head.
"Honest to God, I don't know why I need to do the laundry when it's clear that it's never been used at all!" she said, pushing her cart. "No reason I can't just do them once a week like I do the guest rooms."
Mrs. O'Donnely had turned on Alice with that famous gimlet eye, making her hunch her shoulders defensively.
"Because those are Mr. Everett's orders," Mrs. O'Donnely said, her voice as sharp as a dagger. "New linens every day, Alice, and if you cannot abide by that rule, I am sure that there are other establishments that are lax enough to suit you."
Alice had muttered some kind of defense, and later that day, Jordan caught up with her while she was eating in the communal kitchen.
"Heard you talking with Mrs. O'Donnely earlier," Jordan said casually. "I didn't even know Everett wasn't in the house."
"Oh I don't know," Alice said with an irritated look on her face. "He comes back to work, but I think he's staying in town. All I know is that it's clean linens at night and clean in the morning, with no reason they can't keep being clean for another few days . . ."
Jordan nodded obligingly, but even as she pretended to listen to Alice, her mind was racing. She remembered the layout of Cord's bedroom. There had been a decorative bookshelf set into the wall, and it was filled with a variety of books. Perhaps those had been the ledgers that she was looking for?
"And if you ask me, it's a crying shame that he spends all his time in town, but then I guess I don't want him bringing that woman up here, either."
"Wait, what? What woman?" asked Jordan, who had not been listening with more than a quarter of an ear for a while.
Alice shot her a pitying look.
"You know, Victoria Logan, the daughter of the man who runs the timber company," Alice said. "Everyone knows about it. He's been seeing her for the last week or so. They go dancing together and then back to her place."
Jordan had not seen this piece of news coming, but even if she had, she would not have been prepared. The first thing that she felt was an overwhelming tidal wave of rage, and hard on the heels of the anger, she wanted to sit down and cry.
A week ago. That would have been right after their ill-fated encounter in the study. Did that mean that he had gone straight from touching her, from making her feel all of those things, straight to another woman?
Fool, little fool, did you really think that you were somehow different? Did you think that he cared about you beyond what you were doing together?
She shook her head because a part of her had perhaps believed it, and to find out that it meant so little to him stung like the crack of a whip.
She came back to herself to see that Alice was looking at her. She had never had much to say to Alice before today. She thought that Alice was a bit of a grumbler, and she knew that the girl hated working hard, but now there was a sympathy in her eyes that made Jordan feel even worse.
"So I guess you've got yourself a crush, huh?"
"What? Oh, God, no. I just . . ."
She trailed off, because right now, Jordan wasn't sure she could lie her way out of a paper bag. Alice took it as a confirmation of her suspicions. To Jordan's surprise, she draped her arm over Jordan's shoulders.
"Don't take it too hard. I think most of the girls who work here have had one at some point or another. It doesn't really do mu
ch good though. The Everetts are kind of old-school. They don't screw the help."
Jordan flinched at the coarseness of Alice's terms, but the other girl continued.
"They're way too worried about getting a maid pregnant or something and having it all get out that they're human, right?" Alice chuckled. "I mean, not that many of us would mind, I guess. That would be one hell of a ticket to an easy life, but they really stick to their own."
Alice eyed her up and down.
"And generally, maybe it's best if we stick to our own side of things too. You know, if you're looking for someone fun, Jimmy, the guy who does the driving, said that he thought you were pretty."
Jordan was never sure afterward how she had extricated herself from the situation. She must have babbled something convincing, because then she was in the hallway, touching her hot cheeks gently.
She took several deep breaths, but it didn't seem to help at all. No matter what she did, she couldn't get the thought of Cord out of her mind. Cord with another woman. Cord looking for someone less complicated, someone who was better than just a maid.
Against her will, she could not stop herself from conjuring up Victoria Logan. She imagined a tall and leggy redhead, someone with all the right connections, someone who would be perfectly suited for Mr. Cord Everett. God, she had been such a little fool to even think that there might have been something else to the time that they’d spent together, to dream of it!
It's time for me to get back to work, Jordan thought grimly. If Cord is going to be in town sleeping around, that means that he's not going to be too worried about people making their way into his bedroom.
Even as she coldly made her plans for that evening, Jordan couldn't help feeling as if a great hand were clamping around her heart. She knew that she had no claim on Cord, especially not now, but a part of her still cried at the unfairness. Did she really mean so little to him? Was she really nothing at all?
