The footsteps came closer, turned the corner, then stuttered to a halt not far from him. Rhys finished patting the dirt down around the current petunia before looking up.
Sophie.
Even he could feel how wide his smile was. “Hey, you. How are you?”
She shifted from one foot to another, not smiling. “Good. I was just curious about the party preparations.”
Rhys waved behind him. “Take a look around. It’s shaping up nicely.” He stood, brushing his hands off on his jeans. “I could show you around.”
“I’m sure you’re busy—”
“Not at all.” He put his hand out.
She looked at it for a second before placing her hand in his. “You really don’t have to do this.”
“My pleasure.” He tucked her hand in his arm and walked forward. “This area normally has some tables and chairs but they’ve already been moved to the shed. Tomorrow workers will come and lay down a dance floor over this stonework.”
“How will they do that?”
“It’s a modular thing—the different pieces of the floor click into place. At least that’s how it was described to me.” Rhys pointed to the side of the dance floor area farthest from the house. “That’s where the deejay will set up. And over there,” he pointed to the side opposite them, where Harris still planted petunias, “we’ll have a couple of tables of hors d’oeuvres and one of the bartenders.”
“And we’ll have wait staff circulating with food as well, right?” she said.
“Yes. But we’re going to warn them to stay off the dance floor. Can’t you just see it—kids flailing to the music, trays of food hitting the ground left and right?”
Sophie laughed, leaning into him. “That’s a nightmare. All of my food!”
“Exactly. We don’t want to lose a morsel.” He put his hand over hers on his arm.
She straightened, but didn’t pull her hand away. “Are you going to let them go into the gardens?”
“I don’t see how we can stop them.”
“But they’re sixteen—won’t they be tempted to sneak off and...” Her cheeks turned pink.
“Good point. Maybe you and I should patrol the gardens on the night of the party.” He could think of some things he’d like to do with her under the rose bushes on a dark night.
“I’ll be in the kitchen, remember? Churning out hot appetizers for the troops.”
“And dancing with a certain man?”
Sophie bit her lip. “So is this what you do around the house? You’re a gardener? You could have told me that, you know.”
He’d been trying so hard not to lie to her—at least not outright. It was getting very old. He wanted to tell her the truth, but he feared she’d push him away as quick as she could. So he’d deflect yet again. “I enjoy gardening.”
She gazed at him a moment, as though she knew he had just given her another non-answer. “Did you grow up here? Is that why you know the family so well?”
He could answer that one truthfully, but it would come across as a lie. And he just didn’t want to. “Have you met Harris?”
Sophie frowned. “Yes, we met a couple of weeks ago.”
Which was just as well, because Rhys hadn’t been thinking. Harris would give him away faster than anyone, and never realize he’d done anything wrong. “Let me show you the gardens.” He pulled her along by the hand she still had tucked in his arm.
He liked touching her, even if it was something as innocent as this.
Rhys led her onto a path between two huge oak trees. They passed through a wooded area with little flowerbeds and benches strategically arranged throughout. These were the shade beds, with flowers and plants that didn’t like the scorching sun. He loved this part of the garden more than any other, for the feeling he got of being sheltered under the arms of these huge trees, protected from the stark sun.
“It’s beautiful,” Sophie said.
“I used to come out here as a boy and play in the trees. I even built a tree house.” He pointed toward the right. “You can just see it up there. It’s well-hidden. I didn’t want anyone to be able to stumble upon it.”
She squeezed his arm. “Your privacy was important to you even then.”
This woman sure had his number. “You want to see it?”
“Sure. But I need to get back to the kitchen soon. And I’m sure you need to get back to work, too.”
“It’ll wait.” He did have work to get back to, but it wasn’t the gardening she thought it was. He had to review the reports on a company he was thinking about acquiring and make a decision about whether to move forward or not.
Rhys led Sophie off the path and through the trees. The tree house wasn’t as well hidden as he’d thought when he was a boy. He didn’t know if that was because he was shorter then or if he’d been kidding himself or if the foliage had thinned. In any case, when they were ten feet away from the tree, the house perched in its branches was clear as day.
Without missing a step, Rhys clambered up the boards pounded into the trunk that made a makeshift ladder. He climbed through the hole in the floor and into the tree house. “Come on up.”
Sophie stood at the foot of the tree. “Is there room?”
Rhys paused for a second. The tree house was a little small, now that he was grown. Then again, he had no objection to squeezing into a tight space with Sophie. “Plenty of room!”
Chapter 8
Easy for him to say. Sophie wasn’t sure she could fit through that little hole. And she didn’t want to get stuck. How embarrassing would that be?
“Come on up,” Rhys said again.
She might as well try. If it looked like she might get stuck, she could always retreat.
Sophie climbed the ladder. When she got to the hole, she went through slowly, mostly concerned about her hips getting stuck. But as soon as her shoulders had cleared the floor, Rhys lifted her up.
“Oh, stop! I’m too heavy,” she said. She hadn’t gotten stuck. Thank goodness.
“Not at all. Light as a feather.” He set her down beside where he sat. The ceiling was a little low, particularly for him, so sitting was a better idea than standing. But he had enough room to stretch out his legs. Rhys kept his arm around her, his fingers resting on her hip. “I can’t believe you think you’re fat. You’re not fat. You’re sexy and cuddly.”
“Cuddly? That sounds like a teddy bear.” Maybe she wasn’t fat exactly, but she wore a size fourteen, so she wasn’t small, either.
“Exactly. What do you want to cuddle up with in bed at night? A teddy bear.”
She groaned. “Teddy bears aren’t sexy.”
“The hell you say.” He tightened his grip on her. “You think I want to go to bed with a scarecrow?”
“Those aren’t the choices.”
Rhys leaned even closer until his forehead rested against her temple and his words whispered in her ear. “I want to cuddle up with someone soft and warm with no sharp edges.” He squeezed her hip. “You’re incredibly sexy. Exactly what I like.”
Her heart pounded, her mouth dry. “We agreed to be friends.” Her voice sounded a little high.
Rhys relaxed, letting his head fall back against the wooden wall of the tree house. “Of course. We’re just talking here.”
That wasn’t what she’d thought he’d say. But his words contradicted his actions. He still had his arm around her and his hand rubbed her hip absently.
She needed a new subject. Something far, far away from sex and how much he’d like to cuddle with her. “How old were you when you built this tree house?”
“Eleven. The—” He stumbled for a second. “The gardener at the time helped me with it.”
“So you’re not the son of that gardener? You didn’t go into the same career as your dad?”
He paused.
Ah...he was preparing another evasion. She was getting really tired of that.
“I’m not the son of the gardener, no. How about you? Is one of your parents a chef
?”
Not a total evasion. They were making progress. “Nope, neither of them. And they’re not very pleased with my career, either.”
Rhys shifted so he could look her in the face. “What does that mean? There’s nothing wrong with being a chef.”
“They’re both college professors, and rather liberal ones at that. I think they could have gotten around my being a chef if I were working in a restaurant, but to have their daughter being a servant in a mansion...it’s more than they can stomach.”
Rhys brushed a curl of hair off her shoulder with his free hand. “You’re not a servant. You’re a highly valued chef.”
Her eyes lit up. “I’m highly valued?”
“Of course. Hasn’t Mr. Blackwell told you that?”
“No. I’ve never met him.”
“But you told me he liked that one meal...”
“Oh, sure. Raymond tells me every night that Mr. Blackwell liked the food. Especially that night I made the mac and cheese. Thanks for that.”
“My pleasure.” His eyes roamed her face.
That’s when she realized how close he was sitting. He’d shifted so he could see her, and somehow pulled her into him at the same time. Their chests where nearly touching, his arm around her back holding her tightly in place.
Rhys’ eyes focused on her lips.
Sophie cleared her throat. “So. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
He chuckled, his eyes meeting hers again. “Trying to change the subject?”
“Yes.” Her voice sounded soft.
“Two brothers. I’m the oldest.”
“And your parents?”
“Retired to Florida. And you? Siblings?”
Now she looked at his lips. She knew what they felt like. Why was she resisting him? “A sister,” she said.
“You keep looking at me like that and I’m going to have to do something about it.”
Her eyes jerked up to his. “We should probably go.”
His arm tightened. “No.” He took a breath and his arm relaxed a little. “Not yet. Let’s talk a little more. What does your sister do?”
“She’s a professor, just like my parents. I’m the black sheep of the family.”
He laughed as though he didn’t believe her. “If your family really thinks that they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
“Oh, really? Do you have a black sheep in your family?”
“One of my brothers ran away to join a rock band when he was fifteen. You can’t imagine how livid our parents were.”
“That’s interesting. Was the band any good?”
“They were awful. He came slinking back home after only a month. But after that it was one thing after another, like he’d realized he could do whatever he wanted and he meant to take full advantage of it.” He squeezed her hip again. “So a chef in a family of college professors isn’t quite the same.”
She fought the urge to snuggle into him. “Tell my parents that.” Why was it so easy talking to him? And weren’t they the pair – the gardener and the cook. If she ever did date him, it would send her parents into a tizzy. They’d told her over and over they wanted her to marry someone smart.
They lapsed into silence, Rhys’ thumb rubbing gently against her hip. His other hand came up to touch her cheek, gliding over her skin. His eyes settled on her mouth again. “You’re so beautiful.”
She wasn’t. She knew she wasn’t. But it felt so good to hear him say that. “Thanks.”
Rhys leaned toward her.
She put her hand on his chest to hold him back. “We can’t.”
“Sure we can.” His voice sounded breathy.
“No, really. I told you–I can’t get involved.”
A scowl crossed his face. “What if I promise you won’t lose your job?”
“You can’t promise that. And even if you could, it wouldn’t mean anything. I didn’t get fired from my last job. I left because it was too painful to stay there and see him all the time.”
He got a crease right between his eyebrows.
She pushed on his chest. “Let me go. We need to get back.”
Rhys released her. “What did he do to you?” His voice was low and she could barely make out the words.
“What?”
“What did he do to you to make it too painful to see him?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
She’d made it to the opening in the floor when Rhys grabbed her arm.
“Tell me. Please. Because right now I’m imagining awful things.”
The truth was pretty bad, although who knew what he was thinking. She didn’t want to talk about it though.
“Please,” Rhys said.
Sophie gazed at the tree, trying to forget that Rhys was behind her. “He told me he loved me, and that we’d get married. I was a fool, and I believed him, so when we slept together I didn’t always make him use protection.” Make that never. She’d never insisted. She’d been stupid blind with love for him. “When I got pregnant, he gave me a stack of bills so I could get an abortion.”
She paused. “I told him I didn’t want an abortion and that I didn’t see the point, since we were going to get married. That’s when he laughed at me and told me it had all been a lie to get me into bed.” She’d been so gullible. What had made her think a rich, good-looking man would marry a round-in-the-middle cook?
Rhys squeezed her arm, just a little. “And the baby?”
“Miscarriage.” She spat the word out, trying not to think about what it meant. “I’m sure he was happy. Took me a while to get myself together again. Then I found this job, and here I am.”
Rhys put his arms around her from behind and hugged her. “That’s terrible.”
She put her hand on one of the arms around her. She’d gotten plenty of hugs from her family when she’d lost the baby. Somehow, this felt different. Maybe because Stanford hadn’t once consoled her. And now this man who hadn’t even known her then was giving her what she’d needed all along.
Sophie leaned her head back and rested it against his chest. “It’s over. But sometimes I still think about my little baby. I wonder if it would’ve been a boy or a girl, and what it might have grown up to do. And I wonder if I would have lost it if he’d kept his promises.” She’d never know. But she’d always wondered if the stress of losing him had somehow hurt the baby.
Rhys squeezed her tighter. They sat like that for a while. Then he loosened his arms and said, “Let’s get back.” He helped her find the wooden slats so she didn’t fall climbing out of the tree house. When they’d both reached the ground, he put his hand on her back and steered her down the path.
“Isn’t this away from the house?”
“We’re taking another route. There’s something I want to show you.”
They wound through the wooded area and emerged into the sun. More gardens and wild patches ranged for as far as she could see. “This is all Mr. Blackwell’s?”
“It is.”
“He must love the outdoors.”
Rhys didn’t say anything, just guided her down another path through shrubs and flower beds bursting with reds and pinks and purples. They seemed to be edging back toward the house, though she couldn’t see it through the trees.
“Here we are,” Rhys said.
They stepped into a small clearing still wild with clover and pretty little wild flowers scattered through the grass. As they stepped closer, she could see the ring of stones and the unhurried flight of ten...no, twenty, maybe even thirty...different butterflies.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“I built it thinking someday my kids could come here and play. These flowers are designed to attract butterflies, and we’ve done other things as well to make this a sort of butterfly refuge.”
She took a few steps closer. Butterflies flew all around her.
“I would think, wherever your little baby went, it might be something like this.”
&
nbsp; Sophie blinked back tears. She’d often wondered about where her child had gone. “Thank you.”
Rhys put his arms around her again and kissed the top of her head. They stood like that for a while and eventually, a butterfly landed on one of Rhys’ arms. It flapped its wings lazily not far from Sophie’s face.
She’d never been anyplace that felt so peaceful. This is exactly where she’d have wanted her child to have gone.
Sophie rubbed her cheek against Rhys’ arm. “Thank you,” she said again.
Quietly, without talking about it, they disentangled themselves and left the butterflies. Rhys took her down a different path that led back into the forest.
“You can go there anytime,” he said at length.
“I think I will.”
He walked her all the way to the kitchen door before wandering back into the garden. She still thought she needed to avoid a relationship with him. But was she making a big mistake in pushing him away?
Chapter 9
The same day as the party, Rhys had to go to a hearing on the Skinny issue. Court was the last place he wanted to be when his entire household was busy getting ready for Tamara’s party, but he knew better than to ask for it to be rescheduled. His lawyer, Dan, had already talked to him about giving the judge due respect and doing his utmost not to come off as an entitled rich man.
Skinny arrived looking somber in a navy suit. She’d never worn anything even remotely close to that when she’d worked at his house. She’d favored tight jeans and t-shirts with slightly risqué comments on them. He hadn’t cared since she spent most of her time out of sight. But he wished the judge had seen her looking like that instead of looking conservative and upstanding.
The hearing got underway. They were there because Rhys’ lawyer had made a motion to dismiss and the judge had thought it worth considering. Rhys hoped they’d have good news to celebrate at the party tonight.
Rhys’ lawyer kicked things off. “Your Honor, the plaintiff hasn’t provided any evidence to support her claim. As such, we move to dismiss.”
Skinny’s lawyer stood. “Any potential witnesses to the claim have been cowed by Mr. Blackwell. They’re worried they’ll lose their jobs if they come forward.”
Crazy About Curves: 10 Luscious Reads Page 82
