by Noelle Adams
“They weren’t abusive, of course. I believe they loved him. But they treated him like an adult, even when he was barely past a toddler. They praised him for achievements. They kept pushing him to excel more and more in academics—even when he was just ten. I really think he might have believed they only loved him when he earned it.”
Sarah gulped, understanding something about Jonathan she hadn’t known before. It fit. It fit perfectly with the rest of what she knew about him—why he only allowed work into his life, why he did things to show he appreciated other people and never wanted any thanks.
And her heart ached for him, more than it ever had before.
Realizing Cyrus was waiting for an answer, she managed to say, “That’s too bad.”
“It is. I worry about him.”
She looked at the man beside her and suddenly wondered if he knew that Jonathan believed Cyrus only cared about him when he earned it too. Jonathan’s whole approach to the lab, its funding, and his uncle made sense in a way it hadn’t before.
“Is he okay?” Cyrus asked again, with a different resonance this time.
“He’s really fine. Everyone who works with him loves him. They really do. He’ll always be who he is, but what he is is a really good man. I don’t think you need to worry about him.”
Cyrus reached over and patted her hand. “I’m glad he has you, my dear. It takes a lot of worries off my mind, knowing he has someone to love him like you.”
Sarah couldn’t meet his eyes. For the first time, she realized she shouldn’t have agreed to this engagement farce. Not because it was making her indulge in hopes about Jonathan that could never come to pass—although it was—but because lying was just plain wrong.
***
Jonathan hadn’t had anything to do that morning, so he’d found an empty room and gone through some more of his collected email, since working made him feel like he wasn’t a complete waste of space.
It also took his mind off how much (and how wrongly) he was thinking about Sarah.
It was almost lunch before he finished up, figuring he’d better find everyone else. He went downstairs and didn’t see anyone, so he wandered until he found Gordon.
The butler was on the back patio, where the staff was laying out the table for lunch. Gordon was arranging the centerpiece.
“Hey, Gordon,” Jonathan said. “Where is everyone?”
Gordon glanced over but didn’t stop clipping and positioning the tulips. “Ms. Edwards and Ms. Gray are on their way back from the dress fitting, and Harrison and Andrew are still talking to the lawyer.”
Jonathan frowned. “Didn’t Sarah go with Marietta and Laurel?”
“No, sir. She didn’t.”
“Where is she?”
If Gordon thought it was strange that Jonathan didn’t know where his own fiancée was, his expression didn’t convey it in the slightest. “When I last saw her a couple of hours ago, she was going to walk in the gardens.”
Jonathan’s frown deepened. “She’s been walking in the garden all this time?” If she hadn’t gone with the other women for the dress fitting, why the hell hadn’t she come to find him? He would have been happy for the company.
“I’m afraid I don’t know, sir. Would you like me to send someone to find her? Or perhaps you’d like to look yourself?” The question was mild, with no accusatory intonation.
But Jonathan knew very well that Gordon thought he should have done a better job taking care of his fiancée and not set her adrift in the vast gardens of the estate by herself.
“I’ll go find her,” Jonathan murmured, heading off the patio and across the wide lawn that led to the gardens.
The gardens were endless. It might take him an hour to find her. And she might not even still be there.
But he didn’t know where else she would be. Gordon would know if she’d come back into the house.
He hadn’t even reached the Rococo fountain when he saw Sarah. She looked absolutely beautiful in the noonday sun, the light gilding her red hair and making her skin glow. She wore a casual, flowing skirt and soft top, and the fabric of both clung to her luscious body.
Jonathan stared, wondering how he’d not realized she was so gorgeous all this time.
She was smiling, warm and vivid, up at his uncle.
The sight was disturbing—not just because she was so lovely and desirable, but because she was enjoying his uncle’s company so much.
His uncle was obviously enjoying her company too.
They saw him, and Sarah waved. As Jonathan watched, Cyrus Damon lifted her hand and brought it to his lips in an old-fashioned gesture of parting. Then he walked back toward the house, at a different angle than the one Jonathan had taken. He gestured to him with a friendly greeting which Jonathan returned.
Jonathan was still standing in the same place when Sarah came up to him.
“What’s going on?” he demanded, looking at his uncle’s retreating back.
Her full lips turned down. “What do you mean? I was just talking to your uncle. He showed me the secret garden.”
“What garden?” He had no idea what she was talking about, and he didn’t like that she and his uncle suddenly seemed to be close.
As if she might drift into his uncle’s world and no longer be part of his.
He couldn’t stand to not have her as part of his world. He didn’t know why he hadn’t realized it before.
“The walled garden near the woods. He called it the secret garden.”
Jonathan shrugged and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I thought you’d gone with Marietta and Laurel.”
“No.” Her blue eyes had widened, and they looked startlingly blue in the sunlight. “Why did you think that?”
“Marietta said she’d asked you, so I assumed you’d go.”
“Well, I didn’t. I thought…” She shook her head slightly, as if changing her mind. “What have you been doing?”
He shrugged again. “Nothing.”
“Well, I couldn’t find you earlier, so you must have been doing something.”
Jonathan wasn’t about to tell her he’d been working all morning. She already thought he was incapable of anything but work, and she didn’t need to be even less impressed with him than she was. “It doesn’t matter. I was around. Why couldn’t you find me?”
“What is that supposed to mean?” She’d been on the edge of annoyed before, but now she’d crossed the line. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes narrowed. “I looked around and didn’t see you. Was I supposed to ask Gordon and the rest of the staff to do a full-fledged hunt for my fiancé?”
“Why are you angry?” She was always so even-tempered. This sign of spirit, as arousing as it was, was quite disorienting.
She snapped. He’d never seen it happen before. She got so tense she was shaking with it, and her voice was clipped and cold. “I’m angry because I’m doing you a favor by pretending to be engaged to you, and you act like you want nothing to do with me. I don’t know any of these people. They’re your family. But you keep leaving me alone with them while you go lurk in some dark corner somewhere. It’s just rude.”
Jonathan froze, taking in her words and what they implied. It was rude, he realized. Evidently she wanted his company. She’d prefer to be with him than with anyone else here.
“Well?” she prompted, when he didn’t respond. “You don’t have anything to say for yourself?”
“Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. You seemed to get along with them all so well I just assumed… Sorry.”
He felt—and no doubt sounded—like an idiot. And he doubted his inarticulate apology would satisfy her. When he’d dated girls in the past and they’d complained that he was neglecting them for study or work in the lab, it would take hours for them to get over their bad moods.
But Sarah’s face and shoulders relaxed immediately. She peered into his face and seemed content with whatever she saw there. “Okay. It’s fine. I don’t need to be entertained or have company twenty-fo
ur hours a day, but it would be nice if you could at least tell me what you’re doing so I’ll know if I need to make my own plans.”
“I will,” he said. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. I’m not mad or anything.” She looked flushed again, but more because she was flustered than because she was angry.
“You were mad.”
She gave him a quick, quirky smile. “Maybe just a little.”
“I’ve never seen you angry before this week.”
“Everyone gets angry occasionally. Even you.”
They’d started walking back toward the house instinctively, and Jonathan slanted her a discreet look. He wasn’t positive, but she appeared to be teasing him.
“Not very much. It’s usually not worth the effort.”
“One day,” she said, a fond, teasing note in her voice he’d never heard there before, “I’m going to see you totally lose it.”
He kind of liked the tone, so he smiled despite himself. “I doubt it.”
“I will. One day. And I’m going to totally gloat when you do.”
He laughed. He couldn’t help it. At the moment, he couldn’t imagine what would possibly get him so angry, so he could say in all truthfulness, “I doubt you’ll ever have the opportunity, but if I lose it one day, you’ll deserve to gloat.”
***
That evening, after dinner, Jonathan went back up to the media room to play Sea and Sky.
He’d checked to see that Sarah was occupied. She was tying up little sacks of birdseed with Laurel to throw at the newlyweds instead of rice as they were leaving. Harrison was working on email, and Andrew was talking to their uncle about the inn he and Laurel managed in Santorini.
Since everyone else was occupied, Jonathan figured he was free to do what he wanted.
He’d been playing for about an hour when he was conscious of a presence behind him.
Reluctantly, he turned to see Sarah standing in the doorway, staring at him with narrowed eyes.
“So this is what you’ve been doing when you sneak away,” she said.
He gave her a sheepish shrug. “Nothing else to do.”
“Isn’t this game like twenty years old?”
“I used to play it as a kid, when I was here on holiday. I can’t believe my uncle still has it.”
She came over to sit beside him on the floor, leaning back against the couch just as he was. He’d taken off the jacket and tie he’d worn for dinner, but she still wore a long gray skirt with a very high slit on one side and a blue silk top that matched her eyes. She seemed unconscious of her nice clothes, though, as she picked up a second joystick. “How do you play?”
He’d expected her to mock him. She seemed to be serious, however, gazing up at him and waiting for instructions.
He felt the strangest overflow of feeling, a tension in his chest, in his stomach. He’d never met anyone like her, never realized anyone could know him as well as she did and still want to be around him, when it wasn’t even part of her job, even when he was unquestionably unimpressive.
“Jonathan?” she prompted, her expression becoming slightly confused.
“Yeah,” he said, shaking himself out of the weird thought. “It’s not hard. You can pick it up quickly. The object is to collect stars and starfish while not getting hit with birds and fish.”
She did pick it up quickly. She was smart and coordinated, and in twenty minutes she could provide him with a decent challenge. They played for two hours, focused intently on the game and become more and more competitive as she kept getting closer to beating him.
She didn’t beat him. No one ever had. But she came surprisingly close a few times. There was something intoxicating about it, about how she laughed, about how intensely she focused, about how excited she became when she did well.
“All right,” she said at last, setting down her joystick after just missing out on a win. “I give up for tonight. We’ll try again later, though, so don’t get too comfortable.”
He wasn’t comfortable. His back hurt a little from sitting too long on the floor like this, and he was now having trouble not leering at her legs. She’d evidently forgotten she was wearing a dress, and one of her legs was fully visible through the high slit.
She was wearing another pair of those irresistible lace-topped stockings. He could see where the lace met her skin.
She noticed his distraction and got flustered when she saw how much leg she was exposing. “Sorry,” she mumbled, adjusting her skirt and tucking her leg back under it. “I’m not used to wearing clothes like this.”
He wasn’t used to seeing her in clothes like that, but he realized she’d always been beautiful. Even in less revealing clothes and with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, she hadn’t looked that much different.
He’d just never been conscious of it before.
He was very much afraid that he would never see her as anything but gorgeous from now on. Even back in the lab, in her white lab coat and no-nonsense work mood, he’d still want her this intensely.
It was a very disturbing thought.
She still seemed embarrassed—either at her inadvertent exposure or at the way he was staring at her—as she got to her feet. “I think I’m going to go to bed.”
“Yeah,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I guess it’s pretty late.”
They went down to their room. He took a shower, since he was slightly aroused and it wouldn’t be smart to go to bed with her in that condition. By the time he came out, she was under the covers and had turned off all but the light on his side of the bed.
They didn’t talk as he got in bed and turned off the light. It was earlier than he normally went to sleep, but he didn’t feel like reading.
They lay awake in silence for several minutes. She was perfectly still beside him, but he knew she was awake.
Finally, she said what she’d obviously been thinking about. “Your uncle is worried about you.”
He tensed slightly, not minding talking to her but not liking the direction of the conversation. “What do you mean?”
“He’s worried about you. He was asking me about you today in the garden. He wanted to make sure you were happy.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him you were.”
He relaxed slightly.
“He loves you, you know.” Her voice was mild, almost casual. “He wants to connect with you but doesn’t know how.”
Jonathan didn’t say anything. Had no idea what to say, even if he’d wanted to.
“I know you think he doesn’t care much about you, but he does. I think, if you made a little effort to connect with him, it would pay off.”
A thick bubble of feeling and confusion choked him. He had no idea how Sarah had known that about him. He didn’t like that she knew. It made him feel vulnerable.
As vulnerable as the idea that his uncle wanted to connect with him. He’d never believed that was true. Still couldn’t really believe it. He’d never been able to do anything to really impress his uncle. Even his work at the lab wasn’t enough.
“Jonathan?” Sarah prompted finally.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “It’s not really any of your business.”
“Okay. Sorry.”
He’d said the worst possible thing he could have said. He’d hurt her feelings. He could hear it in her voice, sense it in the tension of her body beside his. She’d been trying to help him, and he’d thrown it back into her face.
He was an idiot and an ass in almost every way. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to—”
“No, it’s fine. I understand. I shouldn’t pry.”
Her voice was natural again, but he thought she was still upset.
“Goodnight,” she added, ending the conversation by rolling over so she was facing away from him on the bed.
Jonathan wanted to say something, wanted to make it better. He wanted her to look at him the way she’d been looking at him earlier that evening—like he was somethin
g special.
He wished he was like Harrison or Andrew, always able to find the right words.
But he couldn’t. He didn’t know how to fix it. So he just said “goodnight” back to her and rolled over away from her, counting down the days until this trip was over and his life could return to normal again.
***
Jonathan wasn’t sure how it happened.
He wasn’t conscious of having an erotic dream, but the first thing he was aware of on awakening was being deeply, dangerously aroused.
It wasn’t like a normal morning hard-on either. The need was urgent, and it was the only thing in the world he was aware of.
Then he became conscious of a few more things, which only deepened his arousal. He must have moved in his sleep because he was almost on top of a soft, warm, female body.
She was wearing some sort of tank top to sleep in, but it had somehow gotten pushed up, so his bare chest pressed against the smooth, bare skin of her back.
Her hair was all around, soft and fragrant, in his face, against his skin. He shifted, since even in his half-awakened state, he knew he shouldn’t be lying on top of someone.
He was too heavy.
She moaned when he moved, and the throaty sound went straight to his groin. She pushed her bottom up as he shifted until it was in perfect, tortuous alignment with his erection.
She was still asleep, he realized. She made a huff of sound and pressed her hips up again, as if she were instinctively seeking what she’d felt before.
No wonder he’d woken up so turned off. She was clearly having a sexy dream, and it felt all too real to him.
He couldn’t seem to think. Couldn’t seem to focus. The world had reduced to a hot haze of need, and nothing mattered but the feel of this woman and the throbbing need of his body.
He pushed back against her ass, letting out a breath at the delicious pressure where he desperately needed it.
She moaned and pushed up against his thrust.
Sarah. He wanted Sarah so much.
Some faint hint of awareness prodded its way into his muddled mind, telling him he couldn’t hump a sleeping woman, no matter how desperately he needed to.
