Because I Can (Montgomery Manor)

by Tamara Morgan

  Impotent?

  “In fact, I’m a little worried that taking on another charitable project—even one as worthwhile as yours—might be a bit much for him. Especially at this time.”

  Impotent? Georgia begged to differ. What she suffered from wasn’t impotence. It was situational. A question of quality. She’d like to see Mr. Montgomery stay on schedule if all he had to rely on were the Palecki brothers of the world.

  “I’m sure you can understand my concerns.”

  “No, not really,” she said, and forced her concentration into place. They were still talking about Homeward Bound, right?

  Mr. Montgomery didn’t enlighten her. Nor did he lose the smile on his face. All he did was change positions, resulting in the drop of his hem over that safe patch of skin. “How long would you say you’ve been with us now, Georgia?”

  She wanted the hairy leg back. “Um...eighteen years? Give or take a few months?”

  “That’s a long time.”

  “It is.”

  “And you enjoy it?”

  Oh, dear. This sounded an awful lot like a precursor to the dissolution of a contract. Unemployment better not be Monty’s idea of a present. Even something horrific like jewelry was preferable to that.

  She turned to Mr. Montgomery with a gulp. She hadn’t been kidding when she told Monty she’d walk away from this place with her head held high before she’d do anything that would bring actual harm to him or his family, but that didn’t mean she’d like it.

  “Of course I enjoy working here,” she said, her voice only slightly wobbly. Who wouldn’t? Nice people, good pay, incredible phone sex... “I sometimes think walking through the gates of Montgomery Manor is like walking into a hug. It just feels so safe here, you know?”

  “I do know, and I’m happy to hear you confirm it.” Mr. Montgomery smiled, his eyes crinkling in that same way Monty’s did when the sentiment was real. “We’d hate to lose you for any reason. Any reason whatsoever. You know that, don’t you?”

  She gulped. “Yes, sir.”

  “We consider you one of us, Georgia. We always have.”

  She swallowed heavily, fearful that to show her panic would give it justification. He knew. He knew that his fancy millionaire son had put his penis inside her plain hundredaire vagina, and now it was all over.

  “Which is why I feel comfortable admitting that I wish you’d come to me first. If you needed more volunteers, I’d have been happy to talk to my builders to see what kind of arrangement we could come up with. There’s no shortage of skill on the Montgomery crew.”

  Alarm bubbled in her throat, followed quickly by the constriction of rage, making her choke. Mr. Montgomery wasn’t sitting here talking to her because he was concerned about her ability to tempt his son away with her questionable female charms. Oh, no. He was concerned because he thought she couldn’t hack it as a contractor.

  Just like my mother. Just like everyone else.

  It wouldn’t be so terrible if it wasn’t so true.

  “Thank you, but no,” she said, and shook her head. Pride rendered her movements stiff, anger made them jerky. “I’m more than capable of seeing to my own team. There have been a few setbacks, but nothing I can’t handle on my own.”

  Mr. Montgomery opened his mouth as if he wanted to object, but he changed his mind and closed it again.

  “Is that everything?” she asked tightly.

  “For now, yes.” Mr. Montgomery was on his feet again, his smile back in place. “But if you change your mind, please let me know—I’m open to suggestion. If you don’t want to use my crew, perhaps there’s another solution we haven’t discovered yet.”

  She thought that was the end of it, but he had yet to move away, his wide form casting a shadow over her, making her feel small.

  “I’d like to see more of you, my dear. I know you get your work orders through Sarge, but I think you should pop upstairs every once in a while to let me know how things are getting on. My doors are always open to you—I hope you know that.”

  It was a kind thing to say, but Georgia couldn’t help feel uneasy as Mr. Montgomery politely bowed back into his office. Her uneasiness didn’t get a chance to abate, either, as the moment one man withdrew, the other appeared as if by magic.

  Magicians—that was what they were, the whole lot of them. Master manipulators trying to pull quarters out of her ears and orgasms from between her legs. She wasn’t getting anywhere near a box or a saw without writing her will first.

  “You came.” Monty beamed from the doorway, full of all the broad shoulders and piercing blue eyes a girl could hope for. And he probably didn’t have argyle socks to offset them, either. “I didn’t think you would, to be honest. I figured you’d chicken out.”

  She pulled a face and stalked into his office without waiting for an invitation.

  “Please. I don’t chicken out of anything,” she said, even as her legs longed to send her running as fast—and as far—in the opposite direction they could go.

  * * *

  “What are you doing? You can’t touch me. Your father is two doors down.”

  Monty knew it wasn’t nice of him to laugh at Georgia when she wore such a panicked look, her fight-or-flight reflexes kicking in and visible on every line of her face. He also knew it wasn’t nice of him to enjoy the sight of those lines. Too bad.

  When she wasn’t moving, Georgia’s features were just that—features. A nose and lips, eyes and cheeks, each one easily labeled by its constituent parts. It was when emotion took over—for good or for bad—that all her features came together, working as one. As was the case with her other strengths, it was the combined force that held the potential to fell civilizations.

  Georgia in motion was a beautiful thing.

  “I mean it. He had me cornered out there—it was like he was waiting for me to get upstairs and out of my element so he could pounce.”

  “My father is occasionally a wise man.”

  Monty inched closer, cornering her against a bookcase, enjoying the incongruity of the bedraggled woman in coveralls surrounded by all that expensively bound leather. If he liked the way this room set Ashleigh off to advantage, showcasing her at ease among his belongings, he loved what it did to Georgia. She was a square peg firmly wedged in a round hole, as oblivious to any and all things related to the laws of geometry as she was to the rest of society’s rules.

  “I’ll scream,” she warned.

  “Go ahead. I’m sure security can be here in under a minute. Alex would probably love you for it. I think he gets bored.”

  Georgia braced her legs shoulder-width apart and tensed her arms at her sides. “I don’t need Alex to fight for me. I’m serious, Monty. You are not giving me that kind of present. Not in your family’s house.”

  He slowed but didn’t stop. “You aren’t going to make me wrestle you for real, are you?”

  The glare in her eyes turned into a flash, and he found himself grinning deeper. He had no idea what it was about these Lennoxes, but they stripped him of almost all his self-consciousness, replacing every emotion with a simple urge to fight—and to win.

  “What is this about?”

  “I’m going to do exactly what I threatened to do.” He drew close enough to kiss her, though he didn’t dare make contact. Bracing his arms on either side of her head, he leaned close, locking her in place. “I’m going to trap you underneath me.”

  “You’re going to try to trap me underneath you.”

  “And I’m going to make you tell me a story.”

  Knowing she could easily kick him in the groin and render all his future offspring null and void, he nonetheless brought his arms around her and pulled her body against his. She didn’t fight—at least not yet—but she held herself stiff, her cheek pressed flat against his shoulder.


  “Relax.” He gave her a jiggle. “Five minutes is all I ask. Just let me hold you for five minutes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I like you.”

  “Why?”

  “Your brother was right. You do ask a lot of annoying questions.” He loosened his grip enough to peer down at her. As he’d hoped, she looked more annoyed than upset. “Given how tense your muscles are right now, I’m guessing you aren’t used to this kind of thing.”

  “People touch me. People touch me all the time.” She made a face. “They just don’t touch me in a place where I do business, because that would be inappropriate. And weird.”

  His response was to run his hands up and down her arms, enjoying the contours hidden underneath the thick fabric.

  “Relax,” he commanded again. “I’m not going to take things any further than a hug. I want you to get used to my touch.”

  “Oh, nice. Because I’m like the mangy dog in the corner of the animal shelter everyone is afraid to approach because it might decide to bite?”

  “Yes.”

  She laughed, shaking them both, and finally relaxed against him. Her own arms came up and manacled around his waist—adding a quick and almost painful squeeze as if to prove she could end this embrace whenever she felt like it.

  He didn’t mind. She could end the embrace whenever she felt like it. But he hoped the sensation of his heart beating against hers, the warmth of their bodies working like a kind of thermal massage, would do for her what it always did for him. Build comfort, make her feel more at home in her skin. Allow herself a chance to feel what it was like to belong, if only while the moment lasted. He never felt more alive than he did in the arms of a woman he cared about.

  He wasn’t sure if that made him the most pathetic man alive or merely human, but he liked to think it was the second one. There was life in this boring old soul yet.

  “This feels strange,” Georgia said, her voice muffled by his chest.

  “It’s only strange because you’re not used to it.”

  “Monty, I’ve hugged men before. Not in my coveralls, obviously, and not because I was threatened to get wrestled to the ground otherwise, but it’s not as if I’ve lived in a cave for the past twenty-nine years.”

  “You’ve had boyfriends.”

  As Monty phrased his words as neither a statement nor a question, Georgia couldn’t decide whether or not to take offense. She was leaning toward yes, but it was hard when she was drowning in the scent of warm almonds and a pair of strong arms.

  Monty, as it turned out, was a crazy good hugger. It’s because he hugs the way he kisses. Like he means it.

  “Define what you mean by boyfriend,” she said, breathing him in. Five minutes of this wouldn’t kill her. Five minutes of this might actually be nice.

  “Is there more than one definition?”

  “I have lots of friends who are boys. Dozens of them, in fact. I’ve slept with a few, but as Adam so kindly pointed out the other night, it never goes much beyond that.”

  He didn’t loosen his hold on her, but his breathing slowed. It was the standard response she’d come to expect when conversing with this man. This moment of suspension—of stillness—was him taking the time to craft a careful response. She enjoyed it the same way she might the first plunge underwater at the lake, the quiet of a winter morning untouched by footsteps in the snow.

  “Is it that your brothers scare them away?” he eventually asked.

  “No.”

  “Really?” His surprise was clear. “I thought for sure they were part of the problem—not letting anyone through, the princess up in the tower sort of thing.”

  The idea of Georgia being some kind of dainty fairy-tale maiden was so laughable it made her snort. As in, actually create a pig-like sound with her nose. Here was Monty, being gallant and romantic and holding her in his arms, and she was wearing her coveralls and acting like a barnyard animal.

  “They’re the exact opposite, if you want the truth,” she said. “They’re constantly trying to set me up with their friends.”

  While her brothers might gleefully chase away the Carls and Montys of the world—men they suspected of using her or being insincere in their pursuit—they didn’t balk at making their own love connections. In fact, she suspected they downright loved it. Her early twenties had been the worst, a blur of blind dates and chance encounters she cringed to look back on. Not a single weekend went by without some meet-cute at a bar with one of Adam’s law school cronies or Charlie’s teacher friends—guys who liked her fine as a drinking buddy, but who had no interest in candlelight dinners or meditations on her downy complexion.

  She could sense Monty’s incredulity, so she elaborated. “You have to understand how my brothers function. They see the world only through their own eyes, and refuse to consider there might be other realities in existence. Because they love me so much and without question, it’s hard for them to understand why other men don’t feel the same way.”

  Monty’s whole body tensed where it curved around hers. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Exactly what it sounds like. Look, I know you’re being really nice and patient with me, and I appreciate it more than you’ll ever realize, but since we’re being so honest with one another, why not come out and say it? Men aren’t interested in me like that.”

  “I am,” he growled. “Don’t I count?”

  “I already told you I don’t have any problems getting sex—with you or with anyone. A one-night stand is different.” She didn’t wait for him to make that angry noise again. “I’m not seeking pity or compliments here. I’m stating a fact. Looks aren’t everything, and maybe if I wasn’t so off-putting in every other aspect of my life, I’d have a chance. But let’s face it. I’m not pretty. I don’t have nice clothes or a comfortable retirement account. I can’t clean or cook or even promise that I’d be any good at raising kids someday. I work with my hands and smell like it most of the time. I can beat men at almost every sport out there and refuse to strike out to make them feel better about it.”

  She could tell he wanted to argue with each fact she threw out, so she saved the best one for last. “And none of that might matter if I was even remotely good at sex. Men will forgive a lot if it turns out you’re a wildcat between the sheets. But as you’ve experienced for yourself, I’m not exactly setting hearts and reproductive organs aflame. So what’s left?”

  He didn’t say anything, and it wasn’t because he was crafting a careful response this time. She’d stumped him. There was no answer. Pot roast, perfume or pole dancing—you had to give men something to brag to their friends about. The most any of them could say about her was that she was handy for fixing things around the house. Hardly the start of a lifelong romance, and hardly good for their egos. Once you unclogged a man’s plumbing for him, there was no turning back.

  She thought that was going to be the end of it, but Monty nodded. Nodded. As if everything she’d said made perfect sense.

  But he surprised her, as he so often did. “I’m not very good at relationships either,” he said. “Not for the same reasons as you, obviously, but there’s something about my combination of features that puts women off in a similar way.”

  She wanted to protest or laugh or personally hunt down every female stupid enough to consider Monty anything but a catch, but something about his long pause had her reconsidering. “What do you mean?”

  He smiled sadly. “You already know. You guessed it the day I came down to the kitchen.”

  Goddammit. She wished she’d never said that thing about him being boring. Not only was it patently untrue, but it was a horrible thing for someone to have overheard. She knew better than to underestimate the cruelty of carelessly spoken words. “I don’t think
that anymore, Monty. Not now that I know you better.”

  “But it’s true,” he said, no touch of malice in his tone. “I never took the time to cultivate interests outside of work. I don’t have any hobbies except for the occasional pulp detective novel. I don’t enjoy long walks on the beach or drink alcohol to excess or secretly rescue puppies in my spare time. I’ll never care for small talk or spend fewer than ten hours a day at my desk. And even though I travel for work, I’ve never gone anywhere just for fun. My entire world is the size of my office, and it shows.”

  She knew better than to try and argue this time. He wouldn’t believe her if she did—and with good reason. She wouldn’t believe him if he all of a sudden changed his tune and started slinging compliments on her supple curves and fine eyes. So she settled instead for, “Lots of workaholics have perfectly happy married lives. Your dad does.”

  “There’s a difference between being a workaholic and being an automaton. No one falls in love with a machine.” His arms fell away from around her, but although there was a tightness to his jaw, he didn’t appear upset. “There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “You really called me all the way up here to give me a hug?”

  “Yes.” He ran a finger along the outside of her lips. The action was as intimate as a kiss, and she couldn’t help herself from nipping softly when he got too close to her teeth. “I have a pretty hectic schedule, so I won’t be able to see you until this weekend, but I wanted to make sure we maintained physical contact in the meantime. Meet me out behind the garden shed tomorrow at noon?”

  “Are you serious?”

  He placed a hand over his heart. “I never joke about clandestine meetings with my lover.”

  “Is that what I am?” she asked, flushed with pleasure. It was a silly, giddy reaction, but she couldn’t help it. No one had ever called her that before. “Your lover?”

  “My secret lover,” he said with a grin. Then he flushed too, as if surprised by his own audacity. “I’ve never had one of those. It’s fun, isn’t it?”

  She nodded, unable to stop herself. It was fun. It was new and strange and probably a bad idea, but she was also enjoying herself. She was having sex—sort of—and it wasn’t a disaster. But then she heard movement outside Monty’s office door and jumped away, her motion so abrupt she almost upended a globe. She met his eyes with a guilty start.