by Leslie North
“Will the glass coating reactivate with UV rays?” Sarah wondered.
Her insight surprised him, and the unexpected flare in his temper subsided as a result. Gavin nodded. “For a week, approximately.”
“Oh, you don’t want that,” Sarah pounced unexpectedly. When Gavin glanced at her sharply, he saw that her gaze was unfocused; she was somewhere else, going a mile a minute to diagnose his problem for him. “What you need is a wash system to spray the dust and organic matter off manually if there’s no sun for an extended period. Or even if the roof’s closed for an extended period.” She straightened and planted her hands on her hips, nodding to herself as she looked the panel over. “It’s the only solution. Especially if you plan to market these first in rainy ol’ England. You’re going to want to have that sort of system in place to ensure it all runs smoothly when your investors come to check it out.”
She spoke as if they were working together on the roof—as if his agreement was something she already took for granted—and Gavin couldn’t stop himself from bristling. “I’ll find a way to fix the pre-existing system,” he argued. “Improvements can be made to what is already in place.”
Sarah’s brow furrowed as she looked at him. “Improvement doesn’t always come by hammering away at something that hasn’t proven to work,” she pointed out.
Damn, that rankled. “And what experience do you have working on roofs?” he demanded before he could help himself. “More specifically, on my roof? The one I invented? No—the one I am in the process of inventing?”
“Jeez, okay.” Sarah put up her hands and backed off, and Gavin instantly wished he could take his words back… but pride had expanded in him like a balloon until it left little room for sense or reason to shine through. “I won’t bug you anymore about it, all right?”
“Sarah…” He warred with his pride now, trying to stick a pin in it.
But Sarah only shook her head. “No. No, you’re right. It’s in the contract that we aren’t to interfere with each other, except for the sanctioned, and publically romantic, interferences.”
“Sarah, that’s not what I—“
She waved him off, and he thought she was trying for all the world to fix her expression into one of unperturbed dismissal, but Gavin could see that his knee-jerk response had affected her. The soft skin around those gorgeous cornflower-blue eyes of hers had tightened, and the seemingly ceaseless smile was gone.
Damn it. He wanted to grab for the nearest item and throw it to vent his frustration; unfortunately, all that was available was a stack of freshly purchased clay pots. No way he would recover from destroying those, if he had any hope of recovery at all.
But he couldn’t take this. So many of his interactions with Sarah—the woman who was his fiancée in name only—were colored by his own sexual frustration. This entire situation had been his idea to start—so why was he suddenly finding it so hard to work in her proximity? They had been enjoying their time together in the solarium this week, hadn’t they? Even though Gavin was used to working alone, his hermit-like nature hadn’t been truly challenged until today.
“…bollocks,” he hissed below his breath when, hours later, and after researching a few dozen opened tabs in his browser, he had come to the conclusion that Sarah was right. He sat back in his office chair and rumpled his hair with his fingers. His frustration had only mounted at the discovery, though this time, it was self-directed.
He had made the mistake of thinking Sarah was like the employees operating within his family’s company: always seeking to insert themselves in the projects he generated with no understanding of the basics or of what he was trying to accomplish. His mother invariably entertained these interfering minds, but Gavin had no patience for them in general.
Or did the problem lie with him? Had he grown into such a curmudgeon at the tender age of thirty-one? If he couldn’t listen to a woman whose opinion he respected, what hope did he have of bringing his inventions into the wider world?
Gavin reached across his desk and spun his phone closer. He thumbed open his texts. Nothing new, not from the one person he was hoping to hear from.
Sarah. He had offended her. Even if his rusty intuition when it came to people hadn’t been enough to save him from making the error, the warning was sounding loud and clear as a bell now. I have to apologize.
And then what? Invite her to collaborate? Gavin mulled the idea over as he rotated his phone around and around beneath the pads of his fingertips. Working together with Sarah wouldn’t be so bad, he thought. She was as sharp as one of the thorns on the roses she prized so much, and equally lovely. If that kiss from the other day was anything to go on, then it seemed to him safe to assume that they were hopelessly attracted to each other—and in Gavin’s case, to her mind as much as her body. If he could learn to swallow his pride and admit when he was wrong, then he and Sarah really were a perfect fit for each other.
But Sarah wanted a family. A “big family.” That was something Gavin didn’t feel he could ever budge on. He valued his solitude too greatly. His independence—now so close, he could almost taste it—wasn’t something he was willing to compromise. So where could they possibly go from there? They had no real option for a future together, did they?
So he would have to satisfy himself with a temporary future. A fake future. He supposed he should be glad it was with Sarah.
Now to apologize.
The next day, Sarah hid in the castle’s kitchen. Hiding in the home of the man she was actively trying to avoid seemed counterintuitive, but what could she do? She was bound by their contract, which clearly outlined her schedule, and worse, even went into detail in specifying the amount of time she’d spend on the property.
“Fuck,” she hissed and forked her fingers through her hair. She quickly extracted them when she realized she was starting to mirror Gavin’s own displays of frustration. Dear God, was there no escaping that man?
She redoubled her efforts to focus on the order in front of her. Shipping costs on this garden swing were ridiculous, but maybe if she scoured the Internet further, or made a few more calls to associates, she could find a discount offer code to apply.
Either way, she already knew she was going to buy it. It was remarkably similar to the one Princess Rebecca had once had installed on the grounds—hell, further research proved it was an intentional replica. She had to have it. Gavin might not understand her need, but then, he wasn’t an artist, either.
And that was exactly why she should have kept her thoughts to herself yesterday. What business did she have sticking her nose into his inventing? Even if—and she had to allow herself this much credit—she had been right about his roof’s self-cleaning apparatus? She wouldn’t question her own intelligence in that regard, but she was perfectly right to debate her instinct to try and collaborate with him. The roof was not her invention. It was Gavin’s.
Gavin wasn’t really her partner, and he certainly wasn’t her fiancé in reality. What had she expected, inserting herself into his private business the way she had?
“Fuck,” she said again and closed her laptop without checking out her cart. The garden swing could wait. What couldn’t wait was making things right with—
“Gavin?” There he was, to her belated astonishment, standing in the entry to the kitchen and regarding her with dark, inscrutable eyes. “When did you…? How long have you been there?”
“May I come in?” God, the depths of his quiet baritone still made her shiver. He had never been what she would call a wild and carefree youth, but she could see now that she had been mistaken three years ago when she’d thought of him as a man.
“It’s your kitchen,” she reminded him.
“I don’t want to interrupt you,” he replied. “You looked like you were in the middle of something pretty intense.”
If only he knew how she had been wasting the work day staring at her computer screen, he wouldn’t be so quick with an apology! “Really? Because I feel as though I could
use an interruption,” she replied. It was, to her, a brave implication—especially because she had no idea where they stood as of this afternoon—but she took advantage of his surprised pause to soldier on. “Would you… do you want to go out to lunch with me?”
“Yes.” His immediate response time left her feeling winded. “Only, I’m taking you out.”
Sarah blushed. She wanted to argue, but lunches on him had been a part of their contract, after all. She had hoped he would have forgotten, so that today’s amends could be hers. “Deal,” she said at last. She didn’t know what else to do.
They drove into town together. He let her pick the place, seeming pleased when she decided on the Boar’s Head. Sarah wanted atmosphere, and besides, she happened to know that the pub’s food was surprisingly excellent. Gavin himself probably knew that better than anyone—she knew that he met his friends, Max and Tony here at least once a week. Sometimes, Sarah suspected the three billionaires had shopped around for castles in the area just to be within easy distance of the pub.
Gavin didn’t usually call for his car; he preferred to walk into town. He had told her more than once that something about the change in atmosphere, and the exercise, helped him to generate ideas when he got stuck on a project. “Storm?” she guessed as they seated themselves at the bar.
The billionaire inventor’s brow furrowed as he looked at her. “Why do you say that?”
“Your leg always seems to bother you more before it’s going to rain.”
Gavin tucked his leg discreetly beneath the bar, and Sarah regretted calling attention to it. She realized she still didn’t know the specifics of his childhood injury—only that the memory seemed as uncomfortable for him as the limp itself appeared to be in cold weather.
“You’re right,” he surprised her by answering. Sarah blinked but held fast to her silence to allow him room to speak. “Sometimes I think they accidentally installed a lightning rod in me when they patched me back together.”
“It was a break, right? When did you—?”
But the arrival of the bartender cut off her query, and maybe it was a good thing. Sarah was so eager to know any detail of Gavin’s life that he might be willing to divulge to her that she had forgotten they had come here so she could apologize.
“I’ll have a stout,” Gavin ordered. “And two of whatever my fiancée wants to order. Just keep them coming.”
Sarah flushed and lowered her eyes to her clasped hands. She had certainly never considered herself as demure as her posture suddenly implied, but she would never get used to Gavin introducing her in those terms. As his fiancée. “I’ll have the pilsner, please,” she said. The bartender nodded, smiled at them both, and whisked himself away again.
“Gavin…” Might as well strike while the iron of her courage was hot. “I just wanted to say that I—“
“I’m going to interrupt you,” he cut in quickly. “Because it sounds like you’re speaking in that tone people use for an apology.”
Sarah’s brow furrowed. “So what if I am? Maybe I’m trying to say I’m sorry for the other day.”
Gavin shook his head. “You have nothing to apologize for, Sarah. I’m the one who acted out of line. I… I’m so used to having my time alone taken away from me, by the company, by my mother. I’ve come to jealously guard the time I have alone to work uninterrupted, and I’ve stopped listening…”
Without thinking, Sarah reached for his hands. She had known them, in their shared past, to be competent (and even that thought was enough to make her blush harder); now, watching him grip the bar top while he spoke, as if it might be the only thing anchoring him enough to be able to speak to her now, tugged at her heartstrings. “Gavin, it’s all right. Really,” she told him. “We’re both trying to navigate… the contract. I know it’s not easy.”
That was definitely not what she had meant to say. Not at all. Still, a lie by omission—or by substitution—was the safest thing for them both, wasn’t it? As difficult as the contract was proving to be, it certainly had its uses in conversation.
And in avoidance.
But there was no way to avoid the way Gavin’s dark eyes burned into hers now. “You were right,” he said fiercely. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. I should have listened to you.”
“Sounds like you did listen to me. Eventually.” Sarah twisted her mouth in a teasing way to let him know she meant it playfully. All the while, her heart was hammering away in her chest. She was surprised heads didn’t turn, looking for where the construction site was located. “I—I was right, then?”
“Of course you were right,” Gavin repeated. “You’re brilliant.”
Sarah flushed. Sitting more upright, she tried to set him straight. “I’m not, I promise you. I just put two and two together… only because I…” Her mouth went dry when her eyes met his gaze once more. He looked to her as if he wanted to taste her words rather than hear them said. Oh, shit. Get it together, girl. And definitely don’t think about that kiss from the other day. “I work in gardens for a living?” It sounded absurdly like a question when she said it.
Gavin took his hands away, then… which would have been a relief, except for the fact that they had suddenly captured her knee. Were now practically inching between her legs. He didn’t spare a glance down, and she wondered if he had even noticed his maneuver. She certainly had. Her body reacted instantly to the new proximity of his touch. She would have been embarrassed at the way the sweat suddenly painted the inside of her thighs—at all the ways she was suddenly, inarguably drenched—if the intense sensation in her belly didn’t so starkly overwhelm everything. He was lucky she didn’t leap off her stool and straddle him in that instant.
And I am very unlucky that I don’t…
“We work well together, Sarah,” he said quietly. “I had forgotten what that was like. To have someone. To have you—“
An enormous clap of thunder sounded outside, making her jump. Gavin’s hands steadied her knee and kept her on her stool. “Oh. Wow!” She laughed at her own startled response and gratefully turned into the bar when the bartender reappeared with their drinks. “Sorry, I’m a bit jumpy today. Guess I had too much coffee this morning.”
“That’s the last stop of your Apology Tour,” Gavin replied. His hand was no longer on her knee, and Sarah ached with its absence. This is bad, she thought as she picked up her pilsner. I haven’t had a single sip, and I already feel drunk on Gavin. His own apology had her flying high. He was such a stubborn man, so set in his ways already despite being so relatively young—to see this side of him, the vulnerable side, the side capable of questioning his own actions and revisiting moments where he had been wrong, probably affected her more than it should.
Gavin was proving himself to be so much more than a first love. In retrospect, their past was starting to pale in comparison to their present. They were closer than they had ever been, and they hadn’t even gone to bed together…
Both of their cell phones sounded a warning tone at the same time, and they exchanged a curious glance. “Storm warning,” Gavin read as Sarah thumbed her own notifications open.
“Don’t we have storms all the time here?” She was still getting used to her new home’s temperamental weather, but she thought she knew all about the rain by now.
Gavin’s brow furrowed. “Looks like this one’s meant to be… how would you Americans say it?”
“A real doozy?” Sarah laughed, and Gavin returned an amused smile. “I wouldn’t normally say that.”
“A real doozy,” he agreed. “We had better order lunch and get you home before the roads get bad.”
“All right.” She lowered her eyes and pretended to read the menu. In all honesty, she was disappointed. She didn’t want to rush through an afternoon away from the castle with Gavin. She never wanted to rush anything when she was with Gavin.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that their time was running out.
8
“Sarah?” Gavin’s voice q
ueried.
They had made it back to the castle all right after lunch, and she had spent the last few hours finishing up planting in the solarium. She turned on hearing her name on his lips, rose, and dusted herself off. “Gavin! What time is it? I completely lost track.”
Outside, the rain sounded like an enormous hovering hand had opened to scatter a constant stream of stones down onto the roof. Is that rain, or is it hail? she wondered. She should have left sooner. Driving home in this was going to be the real doozy.
“Well past the time you should have left.” Gavin seemed to be in agreement with her own private anxieties. “Why don’t you stay for dinner and see if it clears up any?”
“I… okay.” It had been on the tip of her tongue to protest, especially considering how she had been feeling about him all day. The way things were going, it occurred to her that she might even be on the verge of giving up the garden and calling an end to the contract—which would enable her to either walk out and cut all ties with the man who drove her wild, or take fate into what would be her newly untied hands to actually do something about it.
“I promise it will be more than ‘okay.’” Gavin smiled, and the lines that flexed to life around his mouth had her wishing she could flex him in other ways. “But let’s start with a glass of wine, just to be safe.”
You’re in a good mood, Sarah noted as she slipped out of her work gloves and knocked the dirt off them. Surely it couldn’t be the storm that had him smiling that way. Was it the fact that this was the first time they had really, truly, planned to have dinner alone together? Was he as grateful for the excuse as she was at heart?
She followed him inside, then went to change out of her work clothes. She didn’t have anything extraordinary to wear—not that she needed to be thinking along those lines—but clean jeans, a baby-blue blouse, and the pair of barely used heels she kept at the bottom of her duffle bag would suffice for dinner. Wouldn’t they? What was a gal supposed to wear on her first real one-on-one date with her fake fiancé?