WORTHY

by Lexie Ray

  Violet, Jonathan, and Jane came out of the restroom, Violet dabbing at her eyes.

  “Isn’t that sweet?” Brock said, lifting his chin at them. “Like I said, Michelle, my money’s on you. You look like a fighter to me, and I have an eye for fighters. It’s what I do for a living. But I meant what I said about Violet. She’s scrappy. And sneaky.”

  “She just looks really sad,” I said. All that hard work at the spa for her makeup to to melt off so dramatically.

  “Oh, Violet, honey, have you been crying again?” Amelia cooed, sweeping into the game room. “What did I tell you about that?”

  “That things are going to get better,” Violet said, sniffling cutely.

  “That’s right,” Amelia said, putting her arm around Violet’s bare shoulders. “Things are going to get much better. I promise you.”

  Was I the only one who caught Amelia’s cutting glance directed my way? On the surface, her caring for Violet only seemed like simple affection. But either I was reading too much into it, or Amelia meant something concrete by “things are going to get much better.” And the only way things would get better is if I got out of the picture.

  “So we’ll meet for lunch soon, all right?” Jonathan confirmed, offering Violet another tissue. “Lunch as friends, remember.”

  “Yes, all right,” she said, nodding emphatically. “As friends.”

  “See?” Amelia said, hugging Violet to her. “Better already.”

  Jonathan rejoined me, and it was all I could do to smile tightly before walking away from the scene with him.

  “What do you mean you’re meeting for lunch?” I asked. “I thought you just told her to give it all up.”

  My heart was pounding so hard that I was sure everyone could see it thumping beneath the skin of my chest. I realized that I was furious, that somehow Violet had arranged her chess pieces into an advantage over me. I thought I’d only been playing with Amelia, but I knew now that was wrong. Everything was wrong.

  “What was I supposed to do, baby?” Jonathan asked softly. “She was weeping like she wouldn’t stop. All I said was that I’d go over some of the boxes with her. That’s it. I didn’t know how else to get her to stop, Michelle.”

  “You eventually stop crying,” I said, my voice morose. “You have to eventually stop. I feel like she manipulated you into going out with her.”

  “She manipulated me?” Jonathan asked, frowning. “I don’t know. She seems kind of … ditzy.”

  “You told her things were over, and now you all have a lunch date,” I said. “That’s master planning, right there.”

  “Are we having our first fight?” Jonathan wondered aloud, peering down at me.

  “I don’t know, are we?” I countered lamely. “I thought that we were moving forward, Jon. You going out to lunch with Violet seems like backpedaling to me.”

  “Why don’t you come along?” he asked. “That way, you can see that I only agreed to it out of pity. She’s sort of simple, baby. Pretty, but not much inside. I’m not sure what I—what the old me, anyways—saw in her.”

  Nothing sounded more miserable than being a third wheel on a lunch date with my fiancé and his former fiancée. My face must have said as much because Jonathan kissed me.

  “This doesn’t change anything, Michelle,” he said. “Believe me. Believe this.” He fingered my engagement ring, reminding me of the weight of its promise. “This is what’s happening, baby. This means you’re mine. We’re getting married no matter what. Do I need to prove it to you?”

  “I’m wearing the ring,” I said tiredly. “There’s nothing else to prove.”

  “Are you sure?” he whispered darkly, his lips brushing my ear. I shuddered violently at his closeness—and the promise in his voice—and he put his arms around me.

  “Hey, lovebirds,” Brock called from across the dining room. “We’re going to get a game of poker going. Want to join?”

  “I think we’re going to turn in early,” Jonathan said, his eyes not leaving mine. “But thanks anyways.”

  “It was nice seeing everyone,” I added, following my fiancé to the elevator. I didn’t care about the looks we were getting for leaving the party before everyone else. All I cared about was how Jonathan was looking at me and what he was going to do to me as soon as we got to his room.

  I didn’t have to wait that long. As soon as the elevator’s doors rolled closed, Jonathan kissed me deeply, his tongue probing my mouth, questing.

  “You taste like champagne,” he declared softly. “Like champagne and cheesecake.”

  “Not your preferred dessert,” I said.

  “No,” he agreed. “Not my favorite.”

  He plundered my mouth again, caressing my breasts through my dress, and lifted me into his arms as the doors rolled open again. Jonathan carried me to the bed before depositing me on its surface. He pushed up the long, flowing skirt of the dress to feel me through my panties.

  “I kind of hoped you weren’t wearing any,” he confessed, leaning forward to kiss me again. I captured him in my arms and deepened our embrace.

  “There was one dress Rowan made me try on that I wouldn’t have been able to wear panties in,” I said, rocking against his hand.

  “You should’ve bought it,” he said, massaging my clitoris with deadly accuracy.

  “Not for the dinner,” I moaned, mussing his hair with my fingers.

  “No, not for the dinner,” he said, straddling me, careful to keep all his weight on his forearms. “For me. For later.”

  When he finally plunged into my sopping wet entrance, his passion and devotion to me banished all worries about Violet. It was just a pity date, really. She’d agreed that it was as friends. Because she could never hope to have Jonathan like I was having him now, taking every inch of him in my body and emptying out again, over and over, building our tempo until we both came to crashing completion.

  “I love you,” I said, not sure why I was sobbing. “I love you so much.”

  “Everything’s going to be all right,” he promised me, rolling off of me and drawing me onto his chest. “You just have to trust me, baby.”

  “I trust you.”

  When I woke up the next day, I realized that it was already midmorning. I never would’ve woken up this late at the cottage. There was always too much to do with the house, garden, and chickens. Oh, and the woods. I couldn’t forget about the woods. By now, they’d be coated in a layer of snow, I was sure. Parts of the creek would freeze, but not all of it, the gurgling water adding to the magic of the woods and winter. The thought of it made me ache with homesickness.

  I would’ve given anything to be back there, especially after dinner last night. I hoped that the horrid displays of cattiness represented the worst that my situation could get with the Whartons—and Violet—but I dreaded any further interaction with them. It was easier to just avoid them, to become a ghost in this place, visible only to Jonathan.

  He was my one ally in this, though Collier and Jane had been friendly enough. Even with their blessings, it always felt like Jonathan and I were going against the entire world.

  I yawned and stretched, feeling the dull ache between my legs from the sex we’d had last night. The thought of it made me smile. Where was Jonathan? I was more than up for a repeat performance. I sighed and frowned, thinking of him hard at work helming the Wharton Group, but then brightened. It was Saturday. Maybe he and I could do something together—something fun that would take our minds off of all the problems that had been presenting themselves one after the other. I got out of bed and padded across the room, slipping on a robe before I went to locate him.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, finding Jonathan sitting on the floor of his home office, poring over the contents of a file he had spread open on his lap. There were about five or six other boxes around him filled to the brim with other files. There had to be hundreds of them. How long had he been here?

  As soon as he looked up at me, Jonathan snapped the file clo
sed. It was so sudden that I jumped a little, surprised at his reaction to the sight of me.

  “Nothing,” he said quickly, jamming the file into a box and trying to fit the lid on again. The box was so overstuffed that the lid wouldn’t fit all the way. “Just going through some old things. You know. The whole search for my identity.”

  Poor thing. I helped him to his feet and hugged him. Would he ever get his memories back, or was he doomed for the rest of his life to wonder about the man he used to be?

  “You want to take a break for a while?” I asked. “Looks like you could use it.”

  As I snuggled against him, I could feel his heart pounding in his chest. Had I startled him as much as he had startled me?

  “No rest for the wicked,” Jonathan said grimly. “I have some stuff that I need to attend to back at the office.”

  “At the office?” I repeated, frowning. “But it’s a Saturday.”

  “I’m starting to suspect that there’s no such thing as weekends for CEOs,” he said, kicking at one of the boxes.

  “I thought that it was supposed to be a sweet life at the top of a company,” I teased, rubbing my cheek against his playfully. “Long, drinking lunches and golf meetings.”

  “I’m terrible at golf,” he laughed. “I wonder if I used to have a better game. I’ll have to ask Collier—my father.”

  I hugged him harder. It hurt me to hear him try to remind himself that Collier was his father. I had no idea how much hurt Jonathan was bearing silently on the inside.

  “Well, here’s an idea,” I proposed. “How about you head over to the office and get started on what you need to attend to, and I’ll follow in a bit with a picnic lunch.”

  “Did I put you in the mood for a picnic last night?” he said, grinning as he circled his arms around my waist. “I hope we’ll have the same dessert.”

  I laughed, but I couldn’t ignore the fingers of desire that crept up my spine. I wouldn’t say no to a little naughtiness in the corner office.

  “You’ll just have to wait and see,” I said, kissing him, my lips lingering over his.

  “You’re making me actually look forward to work,” he said, his tone somewhere between accusatory and wondering. “I guess I’ll head on over, then, and look forward to your arrival.”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” I said, following Jonathan as he walked to the room and slipped on a pair of loafers. “I haven’t seen your office yet.”

  “It does have a pretty nice view,” he said. “But the view will be immediately improved once you’re there.”

  “Oh, stop,” I said, blushing and smiling. I was sure that my scarred face couldn’t hold a candle to the city of Chicago laid out below us like a buffet of well-envisioned architecture. Jonathan was just trying to be sweet.

  He threw a polo shirt on instead of the T-shirt he’d been wearing and stopped to look at me. He was so impossibly handsome, so effortlessly beautiful that it took my breath away.

  “I’ll be seeing you for our picnic,” he said, kissing me again. “But remember: it’s not a picnic unless it has a picnic basket.”

  “I always remember that,” I said. “And I’m sure I can procure something much fancier than a five-gallon bucket this time.”

  We walked downstairs together, Jonathan exiting the front door and me sidling off to the kitchen to see what I could raid from the refrigerators.

  But when I slipped into the kitchen, expecting it to be empty around this time of day, I was surprised to find the chef himself and a couple of assistants going over recipes and taking inventory.

  I froze, intent on backing out of the kitchen the way I’d come in—unnoticed. As much as I’d cooked in my dilapidated little kitchen at the cottage, I felt like I didn’t belong in this gleaming monolith to the culinary arts. All three of the kitchen staff had on the same uniforms that identified the rest of the Wharton family staff, but they all wore hats befitting their station. I wished I knew what the different shapes and heights meant.

  “Miss Michelle,” the chef announced suddenly, bringing the assistants’ chatter to a halt. “Is there something we can do for you?”

  My cheeks immediately reddened. I bet that none of the other members of Jonathan’s family ever entered the kitchen. I wondered if there was some sort of protocol I should follow to get the food. I probably should’ve spoken with Lucy or even Winston before trying to gain access to the kitchen myself.

  “I’m sorry that I’ve interrupted you,” I said, going into immediate defense mode, ducking my head to the right to try to conceal my scar.

  “No apologies required,” the chef said smoothly. “What can we help you with?”

  My cheeks reddened. It felt silly to tell them that I was trying to get a picnic together for Jonathan. Picnics didn’t seem like something the Whartons would waste their time with.

  “Oh, I was just hoping to put together a little lunch for Jonathan and me,” I said, looking up briefly at the group of cooks. They looked intrigued by my very presence, confirming my suspicions that the rest of the Whartons never stepped foot in there.

  “Right away,” the chef said briskly. “What would you like?”

  I winced and fought the urge to cover my face with embarrassment.

  “Um, something for a picnic,” I said, barely able to look at the professionals assembled before me.

  “A picnic,” the chef said, his question framed in a disbelieving statement.

  “A picnic,” I confirmed. “I’m guessing that the man Jonathan was before didn’t go on many picnics.”

  “We’ll get something together,” the chef said a little more confidently. “Right away.”

  “I really don’t want to trouble you,” I said. “I—I have quite a bit of cooking experience myself. I could easily whip a picnic lunch together.”

  “Miss Michelle, it’s our job,” the chef said. “I’ll send for you when it’s ready.”

  The dismissal in his voice was clear, and I was too ashamed of the entire situation to try and stay to help. And there was no way I was going to ask for a picnic basket. I remembered Lucy urging me to allow her to do her job of cleaning the room Jonathan and I shared. This was the exact same thing, as much as it pained me to comply. I thought the kitchen was somewhere I could belong in the compound. Instead, it had just become yet another place I didn’t fit in.

  As I was leaving, I caught a couple of words as the chef and his assistants began to confer—then to gossip.

  “Something portable, then,” he murmured.

  “But a picnic in the dead of winter?” an assistant remarked, his soft skepticism speeding my exit.

  “It’s not for us to judge,” the chef admonished.

  “I think it’s kind of romantic,” the other assistant said.

  I ran into Amelia on my way to the stairs, making everything immediately worse. Her hair and makeup looked freshly done, as if she were headed out to go shopping or to some event or something. I tried to say something nice, to offer some polite platitude, but her cold stare threw me off. She wasn’t looking into my eyes. She was gazing directly at my scar.

  “Hello,” I hazarded, trying not to think about what had happened at the ill-fated dinner she’d thrown, trying to keep my hands firmly at my sides instead of reaching for my face to ascertain whether my own makeup was still intact.

  Amelia arched her eyebrows and said nothing as I edged past her warily, as if she’d lash out as poisonously as she had that night. The expression on her face implied that my very presence offended her, and I was probably as eager to get the hell out of there as she was for me to do so.

  “Well, goodbye,” I said, reaching the staircase and running for it.

  I had never felt more unwelcome in a place in my life. There were hazards at every turn in the Wharton compound. Would I ever be able to adapt or fit in here? I was beginning to seriously doubt it.

  In Jonathan’s room once more—the only part of the house I felt remotely comfortable—I changed as quickly
as I could, opting for a turtleneck sweater, a pair of skinny jeans, and some flats. I decided against a coat because I’d only be outside for a couple of minutes, crossing the courtyard to get to the office building, and refreshed my makeup. I was getting better and better at putting it on, growing accustomed to the mask I donned every day as soon as I woke up. I told myself that I wanted to look nice for Jonathan—especially if we were going to have that special “dessert” after the picnic—but the truth fell closer to me not wanting to show my scars to anyone who might be overachieving at the office on a Saturday.

  Dressed and ready to go, I set myself to the task of finding something that would serve as a picnic basket. I wished I hadn’t been too shy to ask the chef’s help in procuring such a thing. Hell, I wished that Amelia hadn’t been so standoffish and hostile from the get go. It was her house; she’d know where to find a picnic basket. I’d never be able to ask her for any sort of help, I realized, not even for something as trivial as a picnic lunch with her son.

  I paced the floor, looking for possible baskets. I had several new tote bags hanging in the closet, but I was pretty sure that Lucy would throw a fit if I used any of them to carry a picnic lunch in.

  I stopped outside of Jonathan’s home office. Those boxes, the ones full of files. Could I empty one of them to serve my purpose? Even as the thought crossed my mind, I remembered how Jonathan had snapped the file shut when I stumbled upon him in here. What was in these, anyways? I bit my lip as I knelt next to one of them, running my hand along the lid. He’d said they were a part of his search into the past, into the man he’d lost alongside his memories during the accident.

  Curiosity—and the need for a picnic basket—drove me to flip the lid of the same box I’d seen Jonathan sitting beside earlier off and peer inside. What clues had been contained in all of these files for Jonathan? What was he learning about the man he’d been?

  What would I learn about my fiancé?

  I hesitated for a moment after I took the file that was thrown carelessly on top of all the rest—the one he had been looking at when I’d interrupted him. Maybe this was private. Maybe I shouldn’t be looking through this. One quick peek, I promised myself.