I try to wake up, but my brain feels thick and hazy as if heavy drapes have been drawn and the sign says, ‘gone for the day.’ I rub my hands back and forth across my eyes. I can’t rid myself of the fog.
Large old pine trees line both sides of the driveway. Acres of green pasture stretch out in either direction. Heavy weights pull at my eyes, but I struggle against them. I will not miss the entrance to Jeb’s house. I will not disappoint the only person in the world who has not abandoned me.
“How’d you find this place?”
“I discovered it one day when I was cruising around. It wasn’t for sale—at least not officially, but I persuaded the remaining heir that it would be in her best interest to sell the property.”
I look over at him, feeling a pang of jealousy. “And just how did you persuade her?”
He winks at me. “Not to worry, ninety-year olds do nothing for me. I threw a load of money at her and she moved to Florida. She’s probably sunning herself on the beach with a pina colada in her hand.”
He dips his head to peer out the windshield. “Look.”
My breath catches as I take in the giant white Victorian mansion complete with filigree trim. “Is that a turret?”
“Yes, it is. Your room is actually on the first floor of it. When you feel up to it, you can sit and look out the windows. The old lady charged me double for the incredible view,” he says. “I love sitting out on the front porch and reading. It’s so peaceful. No one to bother you. No chatty neighbors.”
A large covered porch runs the full length of the house. “It sounds perfect,” I sigh. I imagine myself sitting in one of the matching white rocking chairs.
“I brought in some Amish men to redo the slate roof, but I painted the entire place including all the trim. It still needs a lot of work, especially the inside, but I made the downstairs comfortable.”
“I’m sure it’s beautiful. Your place reminds me of an old house down the street from my dad’s. I always imagined playing in the gardens.”
“Well now, you’ve got your own gardens to tend to,” he pauses. Sorrow lines his face. “When you’re ready, of course.”
His sympathy makes me feel loved and tended to. I can’t remember the last time anyone cared so much.
He parks in front of a hosta lined walk way. “In the meantime, you can rest and recover. Just give me a second to get your room ready.”
He hurries down the winding stone path, then takes the front steps two at a time and disappears into the house. In no time, he’s back, opening my door for me. “Miss Watson, your room awaits.”
He hooks my knees under one arm and pulls me to his chest with the other. I can feel the heat of his skin through his thin shirt. I rest my head along the curve of his neck. “Thank you for saving me.”
He tilts his head. “You’re welcome Angel.”
Angel. I like the sound of that. He stops at the threshold to his house. “Ready?”
“I’ve never been so ready in my life,” I whisper.
Chapter Forty-Four
Jeb grossly understated his remodeling abilities. Dark wood paneled walls. Pristine hardwood floors. Oriental runners through the hallway and up the stairs. A teardrop crystal chandelier. A white tin-paneled ceiling. A carved wood banister staircase.
He clutches me to his chest. “Say something.”
I can feel the fast thumping of his heart. “I don’t know what to say. You did this all by yourself?”
“One achieves success through attention to detail. I’ve dedicated my life to the pursuit of it,” he says. His arrogant remark should make him sound like a pretentious prick, but he sounds proud, as if he’s waited a lifetime for this very moment, as if he’s waited a lifetime for my approval. “Let me show you to your room.”
He carries me down the hall to an open doorway on the right. A matching, albeit smaller version, of the tear drop chandelier from the foyer hangs from the center of the room.
At first, I think the room’s on fire because of the flickering lights and the rush of warmth, but I soon realize candles burn from every corner and a large fire crackles in the fireplace.
Cascades of purple silk fall to the floor at each corner of a giant four poster mahogany bed. The candlelight dances off the rich fabric canopy and matching comforter.
“A bed fit for a queen,” he whispers.
“Jeb, I…” There are no words to capture what I’m feeling.
“Let me show you the rest of the room.” He carries me to the far corner. “I bought the chairs while I stopped over in England for a few days. I had them refurbished in Lancaster.” Two matching wingback chairs face each other in front of the windows. The placement conducive to conversation. Another set of matching wingbacks faces each other in front of the fireplace. Bookshelves flank either side of the fireplace. Leather bound hard books with gold gilded writing fill the shelves.
“I set up this area as your changing room,” he says. He walks behind a fabric privacy screen. I notice a white satin night gown hanging from a fancy fabric hanger. “Get changed and I’ll put you to bed.”
“I’ll just wear this.”
His arms tense. “No, I can’t allow it. You must change.”
“Jeb,” I whisper, “I can’t undress myself yet. The nurses helped me.”
“I know,” he says. “I’m your nurse.”
Jeb changing me? Gee, that won’t complicate things in the least. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Miss Watson, I am a gentleman. I set the stool next to the railing I built for you so you can lean on it to get changed and if that’s too difficult for you, I hung a privacy curtain so I can help you stand without making you feel uncomfortable.”
Tears spring to my eyes. He put more thought and effort preparing for my stay than Drew did when he gave me that stupid promise ring. Asshole.
He sets me down on a purple velvet cushioned stool. When I’m balanced and situated, he gently lifts my broken leg, cast and all, and rests it on a small plush ottoman. Pure, unadulterated agony shoots up and down it. I half expect the cast to splinter into a million pieces or spontaneously combust. “I wish there was something more I could give you for the pain,” he says.
“It’s okay,” I gasp. “I’ve had worse.”
He kneels down before me and removes my shoes. I remember back to the reunion so many months ago. I spent many nights recreating this very moment, but not once did I imagine Jeb as my nurse maid, not once did I envision myself so broken, not once did I foresee how alone I really am.
“What are you thinking?” He whispers, his hand caressing my foot.
The medication compels me to honesty, but I’m coherent enough to realize some truths should not be spoken. “Another time and another place and much different circumstances.”
He smiles as he stands. He steps behind me and removes the Patagonia fleece he gave me at the hospital. A going home present he called it. He gestures to the paisley hospital gown. “Let’s get that thing off you.”
Somehow he unknots each of the ties on the gown without touching my back. “If you can pull that rag off, I’ll hand you the nightgown.”
The weight of exhaustion sweeps over me. I remove the gown and drop it to the floor. One thin piece of material separates Jeb and my naked body, but I’m too tired to be nervous or exhilarated or a range of other emotions I should feel with him so close.
“If you put your hands in the air, I’ll put the gown over you. All you’ll have to do is pull it over your head and,” a pause so subtle and quick I almost miss it, “the rest of your body.” The wavering of his voice sounds too high pitched to be mistaken for nonchalance.
Anticipation pushes the tiredness out of my body. I’d have to be dead not to be affected. I feel the pinch of my ribs stabbing into my chest as I raise my arms into the air, the squeeze of my lungs from my bruised back, and the brush of lush satin across my fingertips. The rich fabric pours over my shoulders, across my chest, down my waist.
“The nightgown should be long enough to cover your legs and hips. As soon as I help you stand, you’ll be properly dressed.”
Moments later, I’m luxuriating at the feel of 1,500 count Egyptian cotton sheets against skin that’s only known 50 grit Walmart special.
He closes the heavy brocade curtains that frame the two large front windows. All evidence of daylight disappears behind the thick material.
I roam the room with my eyes, tracing every fabric fold, every silver candelabra, every curve and bend of furniture. I love all the features Jeb selected, except the walls. The pale lavender remind me of my childhood bedrooms. Two bedrooms in two different homes painted the same color so I could pretend that it was my parents who shuffled from house to house and family to family, instead of me. At sixteen, when Mom kicked me out for reasons I still don’t understand, I painted my room at Dad’s dark blue and burned every stitch of lavender I owned. The color now reminds me of broken promises and shattered egos.
But when I was young, and my parents were battling each other, I used to dream a dashing white knight would save me from the fire-breathing dragons. We’d ride off into the sunset to live happily ever after.
I think I’ve finally found my very own knight.
Chapter Forty-Five
Breakfast in bed. Long afternoon conversations. Evening dinners by candlelight. With each passing day, I realize I am falling more and more in love with Jeb. He looks after me with more care than my own gin-burping mother or frequent flyer, carry-on only father.
Every night he reads to me after dinner. He always chooses one of his favorites, Sir Thomas More, Shakespeare, Kipling. Tonight, it’s Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, and it’s a fight to stay awake.
“Oh, Jane, you torture me!” he exclaimed. “With that searching and yet faithful and generous look, you torture me!”
He drones on and on, page after page. The steady pace lulls me to sleep. I am an ocean apart from the rest of the world. Closed off from light and the chaos that exists beyond my curtained window.
“Isn’t Bronte magnificent?” He sighs. I snap back to attention. “After all those years and all the trials and tribulations Jane and Rochester went through, they still wound up together.”
A triumphant smile spreads across his face as he reaches his arms toward the ceiling to stretch. I can’t pretend to feel the same. “She is brilliant. It’s just…”
“What is it?”
I pull on the border of my comforter, working the rich fabric in and out of my fingers. “It’s not that I don’t love the classics, but I was wondering if maybe you could read me something a little faster paced?” I don’t look over at him, afraid that I disappointed him or worse, hurt his feelings.
“Don’t you like Bronte? You have a degree in Literature,” he says. His words an accusation. His voice thick and controlled, as if he’s balancing on the precipice of anger.
“No, I enjoy Bronte, but there’s a difference between studying the classics versus reading for pleasure…,” I pause to gauge his reaction. He’s leaning against the arm of the wingback. He hooks his hand under his chin. His thumb digs into his cheek, leaving an angry patch of red, but his face doesn’t reveal a hint of emotion. “Maybe the medication makes it more difficult to pay attention?”
He remains silent.
“Most people nowadays aren’t interested in the classics. It takes time to linger over the poetry of the alliteration or the symbolism of the metaphor. Time is something modern readers don’t have. We also don’t want to take weeks or even months to read a single book. We want the story here and now.”
I glance at him. It’s the first time we’ve ever disagreed. It’s barely a disagreement. It’s so minor, really. I mean I’ve had similar conversations with Professors and classmates. Some people love the classics and enjoy literary fiction. Others love commercial fiction. As long as we read, who cares what we love.
He purses his lips a few times, and then he pulls them tight against his teeth.
The corner of his jaw pulses, as if it has a life of his own. His chest rises and falls, but instead of calming down, I sense fury growing within him. The very fury I witnessed when he attacked Isaac at the reunion. The same fury I witnessed the night at the club when the tattooed ogre clutched me to his waist, and Jeb slammed his body to the ground prepared to tear him to pieces with his bare hands. Now, that fury is directed at me. My body recoils from him. He leaps from the chair and strides toward the bed. My brain screams at me to run, but I can’t move, immobilized by mechanical injury and debilitating fear. I cower against my pillows and close my eyes.
I listen to the jagged breathing of a monster that desires nothing more than tearing me to shreds. He growls. He grunts. I brace myself for what might come next.
But nothing does. His boots stomp across the floor. He slams the door and locks it.
With that click, my white knight becomes my prison guard.
Should I be scared? Hell yes, because evidently, I’m not living up to his expectations.
Chapter Forty-Six
Jeb denies me his companionship.
Chapter Forty-Seven
His absence provides the most awful form of torture I have ever experienced.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Loneliness consumes every waking moment of my existence.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Time no longer matters.
Chapter Fifty
Days blur together.
Chapter Fifty-One
I am starved for his attention.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Three times a day, he delivers bread so hard I must dip it in water in order to eat it, but I don’t complain. I don’t say a word. I made the mistake of disagreeing with him once. I will never make that mistake again. I’m grateful that he gives me food to eat and a soft bed to sleep in.
He won’t look at me. He won’t speak to me. I have gone from long evenings with his company to nothing but a brief exchange revolving around the distribution of medication.
My hand wavers as I hand him my empty Dixie cup. “How much longer do I need to take all this medicine?”
His jaw tightens. He crushes the cup and throws it at me. I duck, blocking the shot with my hands. I look up in time to see him storming toward the door.
“Jeb, please,” I whisper. He hesitates at the threshold. “I miss you.” He cracks his neck from side to side. “I’m sorry I upset you. It won’t happen again. I promise.”
He grabs the crutches from the wall next to the door. They clank together as he drops them on my bed, just missing my cast. “Take a shower. You’re disgusting.” He slams the door behind him.
Sad doe tears slide down my cheeks. Defeat weighs heavy on me. The one person who took me in when everyone else abandoned me wants me gone. I’ve nowhere else to go, no one else who cares what happens to me. Drew and Cassie cut me off. My parents are worthless. I can barely step into the shower; let alone make the climb up the stairs to my apartment. That is, if I still have an apartment.
Without Jeb, I am all alone. No job. No friends. No prospects. He remains my last connection to the world, the sole light in the darkness that has descended upon me.
Somehow, I must prove to him that beneath the bandages and broken bones I am the same classmate he sought out at the reunion, the same girl he rock climbed with, the same woman he couldn’t keep his hands off of at the club.
And he’s right. I am disgusting.
Gritting my teeth, I reach for my crutches. Greasy tendrils fall into my face as I hop over to the bathroom. The crutches dig into my armpits, but that’s the only discomfort I feel, and I am thankful because my heart hurts more than enough. I can’t keep disappointing him.
I avoid the vanity mirror. I lack the courage to witness how low I’ve fallen. The moment Jeb shut me off was the moment I stopped caring about many things. Most everything.
He placed the shower bench close enough to the faucet so I can turn the water on and off myself. The tips
of my fingers trace the gauze around my chest. I imagine the dry chapped skin and the red welts beneath the wrappings. It seems impossible to win back his favor when I am so broken, so worthless. I stare at the razor in the far corner of the shower, envisioning myself slashing it across my wrists and bleeding out on the white shower floor. Would anyone notice if I died? Would anyone care if they never heard from me again?
In the end it doesn’t matter, I would never trouble Jeb to clean up my mess. I couldn’t ask that of anyone.
I reach for the bag he hung next to the shampoo to cover my cast. Shattered ribs pierce into my lungs launching me into uncontrollable coughing spasms. Blackness tunnels my vision. White spots explode in front of my eyes. The world turns soft and fuzzy. I blink once, twice… “Jeb!”
Chapter Fifty-Three
Jeb enters my room with a large tray of food. He smiles at me from the doorway. It’s the first smile I’ve seen in days and days, maybe weeks. I let out a sigh of relief.
He sets the silver tray across my legs. I stare into his warm amber eyes. I lose myself in the gold and green flecks that I’ve longed to gaze into for what feels like lifetimes. His lips quirk into the crooked smile I love. “Aren’t you going to eat?”
I want to savor his presence. I want to bask in his glow for the rest of my days, but I don’t want to cross him. Not now, not ever. I glance at the plate of food—cinnamon buns loaded with extra icing, a bowl of strawberries, a tall glass of orange juice, and a mug of steaming tea. My mouth salivates at the sight of all the food. “What have I done to deserve all this?”
And Then He: A Rogue Mountain Billionaire Novel Page 14