I couldn’t get the word out of my head. I couldn’t get her out of my head. I should not have spent any more time with her than was absolutely necessary. I should not have joked with her. I probably should have never hired her in the first place.
But even thinking that, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop myself from making all of these mistakes again and again. The more time I spent with her, the more time I wanted to spend with her. It was the slipperiest damn slope I’d ever seen in my life.
I was in big trouble.
20
Oliver
A week later, they started work on my study.
I was forced to clear out, setting up a makeshift office in one of the spare bedrooms. It shouldn’t have felt quite so dire.
It did.
“It’s nice up here,” Liz commented, pointing to the rear facing window. The garden stretched out beyond it. The first blooms of spring had poked their heads above ground, and a perfumed breeze swirled in through the open window.
I surveyed my new “home”. Since I told Elizabeth there was no way in hell I’d allow her to touch my desk or chair, she’d had them sent up here with me while the rest of the study was eviscerated. They did not suit the modern sleigh bed, with its ivory sheets.
“You sound surprised,” I said.
Liz turned from the window. “This is my first time seeing this room complete,” she said. “The furniture only just got put back in yesterday. Molly was kind enough to put all the sheets on and do the finishing touches for me.”
“Now you’re getting my maid to do the dirty work?”
Elizabeth scowled. “Let’s not start this argument.”
We hadn’t started any arguments in the past two weeks. We hadn’t done much else, either. It was like we didn’t know how to be around each other when one of us wasn’t pissing the other off. I kept finding myself itching to pick fights in the silence. Liz, on the other hand, was being about as testy as a brick wall.
“So how are things going downstairs?” I asked, rolling back from my desk. The plastic carpet protector and the old wheels of the chair did not get along. It was like pushing through sludge.
“Oh, you know,” she said. “They’re going.”
In the distance, crickets.
“I heard the chandelier’s being removed next week.”
Liz crossed the room and sank down onto the foot of the bed. She hunched over, resting her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands. “We’ll be installing the new one almost right away. You don’t have to worry,” she said.
I cocked my eyebrow, studying her. “I’m not worried, I was just making conversation.”
She let out an amused snort. I failed to see what was so funny, but I didn’t feel like I could ask. She was closed off, lately. Not that she’d ever particularly been an open book.
I never used to care though.
So why do I now?
“If you didn’t come for my sterling conversational skills, what are you here for?” I finally asked.
She sat up straighter, letting her hands fall away from her face. “I thought I’d come see if you had any questions or concerns about how things are going. I know that your office means a lot to you.”
I’d chosen not to hover over the contractors while they did their work. Elizabeth had, at some point, decided that meant I couldn’t bear to see it changed.
“For the last time,” I said. “If I didn’t want it renovated I wouldn’t have let you in there.”
She opened her mouth as if to say something and stopped. The smile that was still on her face dropped away before she finally spoke. “I noticed that there are some carvings on the side of one of the bookcases. They’re pretty low down, so you might not have seen them. It looks like a kid did them.”
I perked up. I’d forgotten about those.
“So you do know about them,” Elizabeth observed. “Do you want me to get rid of them? I’m not sure if I’d be able to sand it down and refinish it to make it fit in with the rest of the bookcase, but I can always get a new bookcase if need be.”
I shook my head. “That’s not necessary.”
When I didn’t elaborate, she asked who did them.
“I did,” I admitted. “And you’re right, I was a child at the time.”
Her mouth grew into a wide grin. I had no idea how much I’d missed that smile lately, so I elaborated in the hopes of keeping it from disappearing.
“My grandfather worked long hours. Some nights he would stay in there until morning. He never trusted anyone to run his business but him, so he did twice the work he needed to. I didn’t have many friends, so I spent much of my childhood in there. You’ll notice that the carvings are only on one side. That’s the side that he couldn’t see from his desk. His hearing wasn’t great, and it only got worse as he aged. It seemed like the perfect plan.”
“He must have seen them at some point though,” she said. “They’re not small.”
“He did find out,” I confirmed. “Our maid told him. He brought me over to the bookcase and he asked me to tell him what I saw.”
“That’s a trap if I’ve ever heard one,” she laughed.
I ran a thumb across the smooth edge of the desk. “That was what I thought. He had to coax it out of me before I told him.”
“Was he really mad?”
This time I laughed as I shook my head. “He asked me not to carve the furniture anymore, but praised my creativity. The next day he came home with a bunch of books on wood carving. Said he’d get lessons for me and everything if I wanted.”
“Since I don’t see wood sculptures or ornate doors all over the house, I take it the whittling career didn’t pan out?”
She seemed more relaxed now, judging by the soft lines of her face and the way she seemed to speak without thinking. Like she was when we first met. Until I wore her down.
“You’ve seen the carvings,” I replied. “I think you know the answer to that question.”
Elizabeth giggled. “They’re pretty bad.” She put a hand over her mouth to try and keep it together. “What are they supposed to be, anyway? Aliens?”
I smiled back at her. “Jungle animals,” I said. “I used to love reading my grandfather’s National Geographic magazines. For a few years, I dreamed of being a jungle explorer.”
“That is so cute!” Elizabeth cooed. “What happened, then?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, did you become a jungle explorer? Did you ruin anymore of the furniture?” she asked. “You sound like you were such a sweet little kid.”
I liked that she thought so. I chose to continue letting her think so.
“I didn’t become a jungle explorer. Nor did I become a carver, a chef, a trapeze artist, or a famous guitar player. But my grandfather stood by me with every passion project I took up, and encouraged me to keep working at it when things got tough.” I chuckled softly at the memory of how I’d tossed my guitar at the wall when I was twelve. “But I guess I never found that one thing that I loved enough to not give up on.”
“Still?” Elizabeth asked, voice barely above a whisper. Her wide eyes seemed ready to flood with tears at any moment. I wrinkled my nose.
“Don’t get like that,” I said. “You’re not allowed to feel sorry for me. I’m incredibly wealthy and have all the time, money, and good looks in the world to find my passion.”
I could tell she wanted to dig in deeper, but she didn’t. Instead she rose from the bed, smiling gently at me. “Your grandfather sounds like he was a great man.”
I nodded. “He was.”
“I’ll make sure nobody so much as thinks about touching that bookcase,” she said, walking from the room.
“I appreciate it.”
I watched Elizabeth’s lean form disappear into the hallway, feeling oddly light. I’d never told anybody about the carvings. Nobody except Elizabeth and my grandfather had ever asked.
But I didn’t tell them everything.
I carved those pictures
during those first tense few months with my grandfather. I’d barely known him before coming to live with him. He’d always been much too busy. But suddenly it was just him and me, alone together in a great big house that I imagined being full of ghosts and monsters.
Because he was quiet and had no idea what to do with a young boy, I’d thought him stern and strict. But I was lonely—so fucking lonely in those first few months. And, of course, the house was a dangerous supernatural minefield. So I stayed with him in his study while he worked. I wanted to draw the animals, but I’d been too afraid to ask for a pen and paper from him. I was too afraid to talk to him at all.
The day he discovered what I’d done was the day I realized I wasn’t just a burden to him. He wanted me to be there—he just didn’t know how to show it.
And that’s when I knew I would be okay.
I’d never told anyone that. I had the strangest feeling that if Elizabeth had dug a little deeper, I might have told her.
I kind of wished she had.
She’d been holding back on me lately. I couldn’t tell whether it was because there was unresolved tension from before our truce, or whether she just felt like she couldn’t be herself anymore. Either way, I didn’t like it. I missed the constant bickering. I missed her spark.
But how to get it back?
21
Elizabeth
I watched them lower the chandelier with gritted teeth, imagining the kind of damage a fixture like that could do if even one little thing went wrong. We were one malevolent opera ghost away from a huge worker’s comp suit.
“Easy there,” Rodney said. “We’ve got all day.”
Someone walked up to the bannister on the second floor. I could just see the form of a person through the quivering crystals, but couldn’t make out who it was. A shiver ran through me.
“Elizabeth, can I talk to you for a minute?” Oliver voice called down.
Of course it was Oliver. Apparently I’d watched one too many broadway musicals.
“Coming!” I turned to Rodney. “You got this?”
“Yep. And I’ll probably do better without you watching me like hawk.”
“Fair enough.” I turned toward the stairs and headed up to where Oliver was still waiting at the top. “Everything okay?”
“Just come with me to my office for a minute.” Something mysterious lurked in those big green eyes. He was up to something.
I followed him anyway, waiting awkwardly by his desk as he closed the door. He approached me, stopping a few feet away. I hadn’t been this close to him since before the truce. My body began to light up and tingle, completely involuntarily.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Am I in trouble?”
He smirked. “Not exactly, but we do have something we need to work out.”
I scanned him up and down. T-shirt, gray sweatpants, socks. Wait—sweatpants?
“I never see you in sweats,” I remarked. “What gives?”
“It’s in case there’s any blood,” he said nonchalantly.
My eyes bugged out of my head and I took an instinctive step back. “Blood? What the hell?”
“Relax,” he said, raising a placating hand. “Just hear me out. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Things have been tense between us. I’ve noticed you’ve been acting a little strange.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but he gestured for me to let him finish.
Sure, I’d been avoiding him a little bit, maybe a tad unsure how to act—but I thought he’d appreciate that. He always seemed to be annoyed by my presence, so keeping my distance had been me doing my part at keeping the peace.
It was like when we made that truce, we drew a line in the sand. I just wasn’t sure exactly where the line was, and wanted to make sure I stayed clear of it for risk of stepping over and having everything blow up and return to how it was.
“Normally I’d just let you do your thing. We’ve only got another few weeks until everything is finished, so it hardly matters,” he explained.
“But?”
“But I’ve come to realize that going straight from being at each other’s throats to making a shaky truce probably didn’t provide enough closure for you.”
Just for me? I was a bit suspicious. “So wait, you pulled me aside so we could have a heart to heart?”
A look of disgust passed over Oliver’s face. “Heart to heart? Oh god no.”
“Then what am I doing here?”
He grinned. “I want you to punch me in the face.”
“What?” I shrieked.
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
“I’m being dramatic?” I asked, shaking my finger at him. “You just told me to punch you in the face!”
“Yes,” he said matter-of-factly. “For the good of our working relationship.”
“I’m not going to punch you.”
Oliver frowned. “I can always order you to, but I think it’ll be more cathartic if you get there of your own free will.” He raised a fist demonstratively. “Remember not to tuck your thumb inside of your fist. You could break it that way.”
“Oliver!” I said. “I don’t want to punch you.”
“I find it hard to believe that. You told me yourself you fantasized about hitting me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Just because I at one point wanted to punch you, does not mean I want to do it now,” I said. “Do you honestly think me knocking you out is going to suddenly make us best friends?”
He laughed uproariously. “You knock me out? You’re the size of teddy bear.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Now I kind of want to punch you.”
“Do it,” he challenged, lips quirked. “You’ll feel better.”
I was already starting to feel better just from the fact that we’d addressed the weirdness. And, to be honest, the fact that it was vexing him so much that he thought the best way out of it was for me to punch him made my heart flutter around my ribcage like a trapped butterfly. He wasn’t fooling anyone by claiming I was only here for my own benefit.
“I’m still not going to punch you,” I decided. “It wouldn’t be fair. Not unless you get to hit me, too.”
Now Oliver took a step back, looking horrified.
“You weren’t the only one at fault, Oliver,” I reminded. He was the asshole, and he certainly started it. But I did act unprofessionally, which probably just made things worse. “And surely you’ve got some unresolved tension you could ease by duking it out a little.”
“I’m not going to punch you! That’s sick!” he spat.
“Because I’m a girl?”
“Because I’m twice your size,” he corrected. “And I don’t want to have to explain to Rodney and his band of merry men why you’re unconscious when I drive you to the hospital.”
I glanced over to the bed. “There’s another way we could play this out,” I said thoughtfully.
Oliver followed my gaze. When I looked back at him, his eyes burned with lust. It surprised me. I hadn’t seen him like that since before the truce. My belly filled with fire, but I thrust the feeling aside.
Before either of us got carried away, I moved to the head of the bed to clarify my intent. “A pillow fight,” I said. I threw one of the pillows at him. He snatched it out of the air without taking his eyes off me.
“You want to have a pillow fight?” he asked incredulously. “Are we children?”
I grabbed for one of the other pillows, walking back toward him. “Need I remind you that your idea was for me to punch you in the face?”
“Touché.” He looked at the object in his hand. “Even if I did agree to this, how does a pillow fight even work?”
“You’ve never had a pillow fight?”
He shook his head. “Are there rules? Maneuvers I should know? What should I—“
I whacked Oliver hard across the side of the head. The pillows were light, and I could tell we wouldn’t be able to do much damage with them, but damn it felt good.<
br />
“Hey!” he said, patting his hair back into place. “I never said that—“
I whacked him again, this time in his side.
I couldn’t help the grin that took over my face—especially when Oliver matched it with his own.
He darted forward and I leapt back, raising my arm just in time to block his first attack. He pushed forward, swinging his pillow over and over until I was at the wall. I ducked and rolled away from him, coming up to smack him behind the knees. He turned and got a decent hit to my shoulder. I rose onto my feet and we started at it again.
We danced around the room, filling the air with the sound of thumps, laughter, and the occasional girlish shriek. The shrieks, admittedly, were all from me. But I did manage to draw out a couple of groans from him when I landed some well targeted hits.
I’d never seen Oliver so carelessly happy. He was focused, sure, but he was also free.
I was too.
My arms started to ache but I kept pushing, taking in whatever panting breaths I could between attacks. I managed to nail Oliver in the side of the head again, cackling as he stumbled back a few paces.
“You’ll pay for that, woman!”
He came at me even faster, swinging his pillow in an arc that caught me just as I tried to leap out of its path. I went toppling to the floor on my ass. I struggled to get up, but was laughing too hard to make any leeway. Before I had a chance to recover, Oliver straddled me, ripping the pillow from my hand and throwing it across the room. His eyes were bright. Wild.
“No!” I cried, giggling. “Get off of me!”
I tried to buck him off, but he was too heavy. He captured my wrists and held them over my head. His body leaned close over me.
“Give up?” he asked.
His face hovered mere inches above mine. My eyes flicked down to his lips. “Never!” I said, bucking again.
He released a low growl that sent heat flooding between my legs. The logical part of my brain fell away, quickly overtaken by the scent and warmth of Oliver’s body. I couldn’t ignore the heat trapped between us or the way my body sizzled at his touch.
Billionaire's Bombshell Page 11
