“I’ll get the cars done this weekend,” Ben said as he, Hanna, and I cleared the table after lunch.
Hanna nodded. Hanna ran the household and was probably technically in charge of Ben, but she seemed to trust him completely.
She looked over. “Do you have a little time this afternoon?” she asked him.
“Sure. What d’ya need?”
“There’s a hole that needs patched.”
“Where?”
“Upstairs.”
He nodded and set the plates in the sink. He seemed to understand, and so did I. I’d thought it sounded like Alec had punched the wall, but he’d punched through the wall. I still didn’t know what’d happened to make him so angry.
While Ben was busy upstairs, Hanna sat on the couch to watch her “stories”, and I took my usual armchair with Jane Eyre. I hadn’t been able to finish reading it since meeting Alec. I supposed a part of me was always hoping to find my Mr. Rochester.
I knew my story wasn’t over, just like I knew Jane’s wedding day wouldn’t go as planned. Too much of the book was left. Stories are filled with complications, not two hundred pages of happy endings. I was waiting for the insane wife in the attic to make an appearance, for mysterious things to start happening, for the secrets to pull him away. I knew Alec had secrets. Something would give, eventually.
“I’m impressed,” Hanna said.
She never talked while her shows were playing.
“Hm?” I asked.
“You got him to eat.”
“I suppose he was hungry this morning.”
“He seemed to be.”
Thankfully, she kept her gaze on the television, and didn’t see that my face was the shade of her favorite roses in the streaming pink light of the evening. I couldn’t believe she’d said that about him…or was I just reading too much into it? I decided to stick with that theory. It helped my skin return to its usual shade.
“Is he coming to dinner?” she continued.
I was sure she’d been able to hear us. “I don’t think so.”
The conversation paused. I really didn’t want to deal with too much of her curiosity, so I steered the conversation. “Does Ben have to patch holes often?” I asked.
“Uh...”
That took her off guard. Ha.
She went with honesty, of course. I don’t think Hanna was capable of lying. “Much better than those teenage years. Although he had some difficulties around the time his father died.”
“That must’ve been hard.”
She turned back to the television. “Yes.”
His father seemed to be the one subject she didn’t like to discuss, which just made me all the more curious.
After dinner, I took a walk out front. At the edge of the cliffs, I watched the sunset through the sparse trees. Those last, persistent rays of the sun drew the outlines of the limbs onto the grass, thickened the thin line of trees until I felt like I was in the deep woods, surrounded by black branches.
As I stood there, I came up with a few possibilities that might help to explain Alec’s contrasting behavior. Perhaps kind of a backward Nightingale Syndrome, being drawn to someone in your care. It would explain why he’d stayed away, and maybe, his aggravation. He’d realized the pull was irrational and not something that would last.
“Adriane,” Hanna called.
I looked back and saw Hanna standing in the light of the open front door behind her.
I walked toward the house. “Sorry, Hanna. Lost track of time,” I said as I approached.
“That’s all right, dear. I just wanted to tell you I’m going to bed, and Ben has already gone.”
“Okay. I’ll probably go to bed in a few minutes, too.”
With a smile, she turned back into the house.
Just as I took the first step, I noticed Zoe down the front walk, almost to the garage. That was unusual. Security usually stayed farther out; the only ones that came up to the house were the four who came to meals.
“Hey,” I said.
She took a few more steps away, and then stopped. She turned to face me, and I moved closer. The light from the kitchen window spilled out onto the grass.
“How are you, Miss Graham?” she asked.
“Adriane,” I corrected. “I, um, haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Things have been busy.” She glanced out across the lawn. She had the prettiest profile.
“I wanted to apologize,” I said.
She turned back to me.
“I shouldn’t have yelled at you or hit you.” I tried to smile a little. “But I’m sure I didn’t cause any damage, anyway.” Then I glanced at her right hand, at the bruise slipping out of her sleeve.
“You were just trying to defend yourself.” She took a breath. “Alec—Mr. Kaden was right. I was only supposed to find you.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t mind if you call him Alec.”
“Yeah, um, sometimes it slips. Back when I first met him. I’d have never thought I’d call him Mr. Kaden.”
“You’ve known him a while?”
She hesitated.
“High school?” I asked.
“No, actually, he’s four years younger than me.”
“Oh.” I smiled. “I think he’s younger than just about everyone.” I was only a couple years younger than him, but I was starting to feel like the baby around here, though no one treated me like it. Why in the world did she insist on calling me Miss Graham, anyway?
“It’s hard to find competent people much younger than thirty.” She stood a little taller.
“I’m sure.” All these people who worked here were surely very skilled, especially for Alec to trust them with Hanna’s safety, with all that was happening. But I also figured they might not know what was going on, just that Alec wanted his home secure. I went on before the subject moved to something Alec might not want me to tell her. “Hanna said Alec went to boarding school and college overseas, so you must’ve met him before that?”
“Yeah, um, I heard something about that.” She stuffed her hands in her jacket pockets and glanced down at the brick under her feet.
Was she jealous because she didn’t know things like this, wasn’t included? That hadn’t occurred to me, but it made sense, especially since she’d known Alec before. Now I was dying to know how they’d met, but I didn’t want to pry.
She looked back up, and her smile faltered at the corner, like the unsteadiness of an old man’s hand. “I used to waitress at this little diner on the South Side, and Mr. Kaden hung around.”
“After he came back from school?” The South Side wasn’t known for its nice areas. It didn’t sound like the kind of place a teenager would be allowed to hang around.
“Before. He must’ve been like fifteen or sixteen. I think he snuck out of the house.”
“Hanna said he got into trouble.” Then I realized I probably shouldn’t mention Hanna, point out that I got to talk to someone so close to Alec. I was just starting to understand what it meant that I was staying in his house, with Hanna.
“He was infamous even then,” she said, “Gregor Kaden’s kid.”
“So, how’d you meet?”
“He, um, he used to come in the diner and, well…I suppose we were friends.”
Oh. I should’ve guessed—she was so pretty, and he was captivating and charming. And they were both young, and…
“Well, um,” she said as she pulled up her sleeve to look at her watch. “I’d better go. I have a shift at the gate tonight. See you, Miss Graham.”
I lurched a polite smile into place. “Bye.”
She turned and walked away.
***
Alec came in the front door, and I stood from my chair as he walked toward me. He pulled me into a hug. I didn’t understand how he made me relax so easily.
Then his hand slid an inch lower, on my waist, and his other hand smoothed across my back. I hoped he couldn’t feel the pounding in my chest.
He looked down at me, reading, always carefully reading. I met his gaze. It felt easy with him, like he already knew me, like I didn’t have to hide who I was.
His hand drifted up to my neck as he leaned down to lightly brush his lips on mine. He paused then met my lips again. They parted a little more. The kiss continued slowly, and I laid my hand against his chest, to steady myself, to revel in the fact that I could touch him. I couldn’t remember having ever seen anyone make physical contact with him. There was an aura around him, an intangible barrier. No one crossed it.
He pulled back, just barely off my lips. His voice was the murmur of water in the deepest well. “How was your day?”
My eyes slowly opened. “Fine.”
He maintained the intensity even as his lips twitched. “Glad to hear it.”
I didn’t have time to respond. He resumed the kiss, both hands on my neck, fingers curling into my hair. His lips parted farther, and I tasted more of him, like the flavor of an orchard breeze on an autumn day. His tongue slid against mine. My head tilted so I could welcome more.
It was easy. He made it easy, and I definitely kissed him back. I didn’t worry about doing it right. That hidden passion of his began to seep out from under the locked door of his personality.
He slowed, then rested his cheek against mine, face tilted toward my shoulder as he caught his breath.
“My day just got better,” I said.
He laughed quietly. “I agree.” A few seconds later he added, “Are you tired, Adriane?”
“No.”
He stood straight. “I should still take you to bed.”
My mind stuttered over that sentence. “I need to ice your shoulder again.” And remove your shirt.
The corner of his mouth pulled in. “Yes, ma’am.” But then the coolness of his fingers on my neck was replaced by the warmth of his mouth.
I pushed him back a few steps to an armchair and ordered, “Sit down.”
He did as he was told, and his fingers draped lightly down my arm to my hand. He held it to his lips then turned his gaze up to mine. “Thank you.”
In the kitchen, I prepared the ice then put it on the glass part of the coffee table so I could help him remove his jacket. The stiffness of his movement was already less pronounced. Leaned back in the chair, he watched as I unbuttoned his shirt.
He sat up to help me remove his shirt and then rested back into the chair. His slouch accentuated even more the cut of his chest and stomach.
I draped his shirt over the back of the couch and then sat on the arm of the chair and set the ice against his skin. He didn’t tense at all this time.
“How was your day?” I asked.
“Nothing to worry about.”
I looked down at him and waited for a straight answer.
He sighed. “You know you’re a pain in the ass.”
I smiled pleasantly. “This morning you said I was cute.”
“I don’t know how in the hell you manage to fit it all in that one little body.”
While ignoring the warmth of my cheeks, I continued to look at him, to wait.
“Someone’s asking around about me,” he said.
“Joe Bishop?”
“It stands to reason.”
“What’s he asking?”
“He just wants to have a better idea of the situation, nothing more. He’s not the violent type.”
I glanced at his shoulder, at the black and purple skin oddly colored by the dragon tattoo.
“Unless you force his hand,” he said.
My voice barely made sound. “Please don’t do that again.”
He smiled a little—but he didn’t promise. I knew he wasn’t going to promise, no matter how much I wanted it. I steered the conversation toward teasing instead.
“Will he find anything interesting in his research?” I asked.
He smirked. “Doubtful.” It wasn’t his amused smirk. It was the conceited kind, as if it wasn’t that there was nothing to find but he was confident Joe Bishop wouldn’t be able to find it.
Intense curiosity. Conversations with him were like reading a mystery, but he was controlling the pace. I couldn’t read faster, flip through the pages to see how much more there was, or peek at the last page to see if it ended happily.
“Will it take him a while to sift through all the old girlfriends?” I teased. I was determined not to be jealous of Zoe.
“Doubtful.”
I gave him a look like he was being ridiculous. Hanna had to be wrong about his recent dating history. Surely, he just didn’t flaunt, didn’t allow Hanna to meet anyone he wasn’t serious about, which just proved my point. He went through them too quickly to be serious.
His smirk changed to a smile. “What?”
“You know you’re being ridiculous.”
“Why is that?”
Was he going to make me say it? I managed to maintain eye contact. “Drop-dead gorgeous.”
His smile faded, and his voice was low, gaze intense. “Am I?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
With both hands at my waist, he pulled me onto his lap. His fingertips started at my hairline and then trailed down the side of my face like the spread arms of a Chinese fan. At my jaw, he replaced his fingers with his mouth, barely touching, like a breeze on silk curtains. “So beautiful,” he murmured.
I closed my eyes and took a breath. The words he’d said to Hanna resounded through my ears—I’m not attracted to her.
“Adriane?”
I took another breath and opened my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
His eyebrows pulled together. “For what?”
“Ben fixed your wall today.”
His tone flattened, and he removed his hand from my cheek. “You heard.”
I held his hand in my lap, still apologizing.
His gaze fell to our hands, and when he looked back up, his jaw was flexed. “You thought I was angry,” he said. “At you.”
I lifted my hand to touch his face, but stopped.
Eyes closed, he turned his head, and his face hardened into a lip-curled glower. His forearm tightened, and his hand began to shake. I squeezed and rubbed the back of it with my thumb.
The shaking stopped.
He looked at our hands.
His gaze began to cool. He lifted my hand and rested it on his cheek.
I curved my fingers over his fresh stubble, and his expression, the anger there, began to relax.
He met my gaze. “I’ve never been angry at you. I promise.” He sighed. “I’m the one who should be apologizing.”
I tilted my head, confused.
“My gaze wandered. I made you uncomfortable.”
My mouth parted a little in shock.
His eyebrows pulled together. “You hadn’t seen?”
“I thought you…” My gaze fell.
He lifted my chin. “Why did you want to leave so quickly?”
Because I was trying to resist the urge to seduce you. “I was embarrassed. To be out of my room dressed like that.”
He paused, and then his lips twisted into the hint of an evil grin.
“Um, does your shoulder feel better today?” I was surprised to see the ice still there, steady as ever.
“Much. Thank you.”
“You should be more careful, you know. How’d I make it to bed last night?”
His expression turned innocent. “You walked, I swear.”
I giggled, and his grin escaped.
That little hand on the grandfather clock moved at a maddening pace. It was tilting a little to the right, and I insisted Alec get some sleep. I put the ice and towel away as I had the night before and then came back from the kitchen to see he already had his shirt on. I took his hand before he had the chance to button it. We walked up the stairs, and I held on to his hand at the door. I wasn’t sure where this courage of mine was coming from. I wondered if, somewhere in my mind, I was doing it to make me feel better, to fight back against the jealousy of Zoe that was lingering in some hidden corner in the back of my head. No matter how hard I fought it, I knew it was there somewhere.
“You should at least lie down,” he said.
I placated him by sitting on the bed. He sat on the edge, half turned with one foot on the floor and the other knee bent on the mattress.
He glanced at my clothes, at my jeans. “Do you want to change?” There was an evil grin in his eyes. “You could wear the little white nightgown.”
I smiled a little. Then I pulled the blankets up over my jeans. I didn’t lie down.
He was still looking at me.
I touched his shirt and pulled it back, only half an inch or so, to reveal some of the tattoo on his left chest.
He glanced down then back up. “Teenage rebellion.”
“Hanna said you got into trouble.”
He laughed one dark laugh. “Yeah.”
I kept looking at him.
“Patience has never been my strong suit.” He went on more seriously when I kept looking at him. “Physical pain is easy. It hurts for a while then goes away.”
“Was it your father? You rebelled against the way he lived, the way he ran things?”
“I suppose you could say that.” He had that closed-off expression, the one that meant he didn’t want to talk about it.
“You have to leave early?” I asked.
He paused. “No.”
“You’ll come to breakfast?”
“Yes.” He leaned closer, kind of in a threatening way. He was cute when he was trying to be scary. “If you’ve managed to get enough sleep to be lucid enough to see me.”
I lay my head on the pillow.
Elbow rested on the other pillow, he brushed my hair back off my face, and then continued to let his fingers drift along my skin. My eyes closed of their own volition.
“Not fair,” I whispered through unmoving lips.
“I don’t fight fair,” was the last thing I heard.
***
In the morning, as I walked into the hall, I smelled no scents of breakfast cooking, and I remembered it was Sunday, Hanna’s day off. I should’ve gotten up earlier. I had to figure out what to make.
I started down the stairs, and Alec came out from the hall that led to his office. He wore his usual slacks, but no jacket, and his top couple buttons were undone.
“Good morning,” he said as he watched me descend.
I smiled.
He took my hand as I made it to the bottom. “What would you like for breakfast?”
“I have it. I want to make something for Ben, anyway.” I’d let him try to fend for himself last Sunday. It was like watching a rabbit hunt bears.
“Ben has something else to do this morning,” he said.
My steps paused just inside the kitchen doorway. “So…it’s just us?”
“If that’s all right.”
I smiled and continued toward the pantry.
He grabbed my hand. “I said what would you like for breakfast?”
“Nope. You’re not winning this one.” I yanked my hand away and grabbed the pancake mix. I’d wondered why Hanna allowed a mix of all things in her pantry. Perhaps she’d seen my cooking skills for what they were.
“Stubborn,” he muttered.
“Thanks,” I said brightly.
He laughed.
I stuck with just the pancakes so he wouldn’t get to glower at me for too long. Hanna had a special skillet that sat over two burners, so I was able to make enough for both of us with only one round of flipping.
He leaned against the island and watched me cook. “I’m sorry your door hasn’t been locked the last couple nights. I’ll have Ben add a lock to the knob, so—”
I looked over my shoulder at him. “I never lock it.”
His eyebrows lowered. “The first night?”
I shook my head.
His expression flitted to something I couldn’t decipher. And then he turned and grabbed some plates from the cabinet.
The full plate I gave him, the amount an average man would eat, was, amazingly, cleared by the time he set his fork down.
He stood and took the plates like a magician pulling the tablecloth from under the place setting. He ran hot water and took the soap from under the sink. I stood next to him, glaring, trying to distract him. He grinned but didn’t pause.
Okay, so, glaring didn’t work. Let’s try…
My fingers trickled up his spine.
His hands paused on the last fork.
I draped the backs of my fingers along his neck, along his now freshly shaved skin.
He looked down at me from the corner of his eye. “You,” he said, and in one quick motion, he had my back pressed to the cabinets, caging me in with his hands on the counter. “Behave,” he finished.
My retort, surely something pithy, was cut off by his lips. There was no hesitation this time, no reading me. I lifted onto my toes and wrapped my arms around his neck. It was deep like last night but more urgent. Breathing was a nuisance.
The sound of the front door opening.
He stopped the kiss, and I turned my face away from the door. His shoulders and neck were tense.
His voice was barely polite. “What can I do for you, Vincent?”
“I would like to speak with you,” Vincent said.
“It can wait.”
“No, I don’t think it can.”