The Glasshouse (Lavender Shores Book 6)

by Rosalind Abel

  “I kissed Harrison a few minutes before the ceremony.” I shrugged. “Or he kissed me. I’m not really sure.”

  He gaped for a few seconds and then laughed. An actual Andre laugh.

  I smacked his chest with the back of my hand. “What the fuck is wrong with you? It’s not funny.”

  He laughed so hard he had to grip the doorframe. After a few seconds, he wiped his eyes and smiled at me. “Wait till I tell Mom. You fucked up a founding family wedding. On national TV. And the golden, perfect Epstein’s, to boot.” This time he smacked me in the chest. “If you thought I was the favorite twin before, I have a feeling you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  “You’re a bitch.” Despite myself, I started to laugh.

  Andre moved back, making room for me to pass. “So here’s the deal—you can come in as long as I get the details on that clown parade, and then we drink until we’re passed out on the floor. Deal?”

  “Hell yeah.”

  I walked in and had a horrible thought. “You’re not actually going to tell Mom, are you?”

  He smacked me again. “Shut the fuck up.”

  Seven

  Harrison

  As much as I’d missed my old room, after five days of seclusion, Jasper’s apartment began to feel less like a sanctuary and more like a prison. With the state of my mind, not so much a prison—more an insane asylum.

  I only had myself to blame. Quite literally in every way. I was the one who broke off our engagement.

  Was that what it was? I kept trying to figure it out. Had I broken our engagement, or ended our marriage…? The terminology probably didn’t matter. It was just something else to obsess over. Bottom line was I’d humiliated myself and the man I loved on national television and international internet.

  And that man I loved? I’d gotten one raging voicemail and then nothing. Will didn’t return my texts or my calls. Nothing. From the gossip Jasper was picking up as he spent his days below me in the bookshop, it sounded like Will had fled the country. Knowing him, he was somewhere in England, the Anglophile that he was. Probably reenacting scenes from Downton Abbey, or The Crown. Sharing tea and crumpets with some beautiful dandy and working off his rage, embarrassment, and heartache in naked cardiovascular activities.

  And he should. I deserved it. I couldn’t blame him for not responding, couldn’t blame him for disappearing. And if he was sleeping with every man between here and Big Ben, I had it coming. It couldn’t even be called cheating.

  Cheating? I was wondering that too. Were we together? I’d run away from our wedding, but had I run away from our marriage? Our relationship? I didn’t know. I didn’t have Will to help me figure it out.

  But it had all been my fault. So whatever it was, it didn’t matter. Will had the right to do whatever he damn well wanted.

  And then there was Jasper. He kept telling me that it’d only been a kiss, momentary panic of nerves and emotion and that I had nothing to feel guilty about. That he was proud of me for listening to my instinct and not going through with the wedding if I wasn’t certain.

  Proud of me!

  That’s what my little brother thought after I fucked this up royally.

  Ridiculous.

  I didn’t deserve him.

  I deserved to be miserable. I deserved the constant ache in my knee. More than an ache.

  And yet, whether I deserved it or not, another minute in self-seclusion and I really would lose my mind. I knew where I needed to start. Not that it would change anything or make things right, but it was a beginning. I had the entire world to apologize to, quite literally. And so far, I’d only managed to apologize to one. And I figured no one else would respond quite as lovingly as my brother. But still, it needed to be done.

  As I drove out of Lavender Shores, my spirits lifted a bit. Though the day was unusually muggy for Northern California, I lowered my windows and opened the sunroof to let in the fresh air.

  For a couple of heartbeats, I felt like Harrison Getty again. Even the pain in my knee disappeared. I was just me. Driving through the forested roads of Point Reyes National Seashore.

  I’d done it. Made my father proud, had achieved riches and fame on the football field. I’d done with my life what I needed to make certain Dad was pleased, Jasper was free to be Jasper, and I was reaping unexpected benefits.

  That sensation truly lasted only a matter of heartbeats. As I left the national park and pulled into Adrian’s unmarked farm, it all came crashing back. I had lived in that sweet spot for several years. It was gone now, and it wasn’t ever coming back.

  I’d put on a shoulder-length wig, large dark sunglasses, and a ratty baseball hat before leaving Jasper’s—one of my go-to disguises when I didn’t want to be recognized. Jasper had assured me that the camera crews had left, but Angela figured there’d be somebody waiting with a camera, somewhere. My attempt to apologize to my publicist had gone nowhere. She thought it was brilliant, better than a sex tape she’d said as far as free publicity, not that the wedding had been free. But as far as ratings? They’d shot through the roof. So much so that the network wanted to do a reality series with me. Whether it was a honeymoon with Will or my own version of Big Brother. I could make it any type of show I wanted.

  They were rewarding me for my cowardice. They were as bad as Jasper.

  I glanced at the wig, glasses, and cap in the passenger seat, considering whether I should put them back on before getting out of the car. I hadn’t been followed, and I doubted anyone was hanging out at Adrian’s farm. Outside of Jasper, no one knew that I’d kissed him before the ceremony. Not even Angela. I decided to go as myself. That was a minimum expectation where apologies were concerned, right?

  I’d barely gotten out of the car when a tall man with a couple of crates of vegetables on his shoulders walked to the truck beside my car. He placed the crates in the back and turned to me. At his wide-eyed expression, part of me wanted to stick my hand back into the car and grab the wig.

  “Oh. Harri—er… Mr. Getty.” The man’s cheeks flushed, highlighting a few acne spots on his face.

  The complexion and the stammer helped readjust the picture. Not a man. Though close. Already as tall as me, and given a few more years, he’d surpass my quarterback physique and turn into a linebacker. Micah and Connor’s nephew—I searched for a name, but it wasn’t coming. “Harrison is fine.” If I was this edgy with a kid barely out of high school, maybe I needed to reconsider talking to Adrian.

  His nervous gaze darted down my body, and he looked away, his blush deepening. For a second, I thought he was embarrassed that I had shown up, but as he shifted and clasped his hands in front of his waist, I realized it was another matter. For some reason, his act of aroused innocence brought his name back. I also figured it was a good idea, and might help him out, to bring up his family.

  “I just talked to Micah. He told me Adrian was here on the farm today.” Sure enough, at his uncle’s name Moses paled. “Is he close by?”

  “Yeah… um….” He gestured behind him, encompassing the entirety of the farm in a rather unhelpful way. “I believe he’s in the back, at the new land they just bought.” He dared to meet my gaze, and that time, I was willing to bet the embarrassment was more from remembering my recent humiliation than any raging hormones. “I can go get him for you.”

  “No, that’s okay.” I gestured toward the truck with my chin. “Looks like you’re heading somewhere.”

  He nodded. “Just deliveries to the Green Violin. It can wait.”

  “Thanks, Moses, but I don’t mind a walk. Being outside feels nice.”

  He looked surprised when I said his name but covered it quickly. “You sure? It’s gonna rain. You can feel it.”

  Getting caught in a downpour would serve me right. Maybe a lightning bolt would end the chaos I’d created. “That’s all right. If you’ll just point me in the right direction.”

  “Sure. Whatever you want.”

  It was a stupid idea. Stupid, stupid idea. I had
n’t been out of the house in five days. The first quarter mile didn’t hurt too bad. But it wasn’t long before my knee throbbed and screamed to be elevated. Chances were, it would swell nearly as much as it had the night of the wedding, if not bigger.

  Like I didn’t deserve the pain. I kept going. Despite my knee, it was a relief to be outside. Even with thunder rumbling in the distance, I felt an odd sense of safety. Though I saw a few people working in the fields, they were far away. And I kept to the line of trees that bordered the property, as Moses had told me to do. I was alone, unobserved, and the change of scenery helped shut off my brain, interrupting the crazy cycle whirling through it since the wedding.

  Since before that, actually. I hadn’t even realized.

  With my slow pace and the pain in my knee, there was no telling how far I actually walked, but it took a long time. Long enough that the thunder moved from the distance to overhead. Moses had been right. I was most definitely going to get caught in the rain.

  And then I saw him. Standing in the middle of the field, his back to me, dressed in work boots, faded blue jeans, and a red sleeveless shirt.

  I paused, watching him. The sight of Adrian managed to erase the constant throb in my knee.

  He bent over, pulled a plant out of the ground, inspected it, and then tossed it aside. Was he pulling weeds? By hand?

  It took me off guard. I didn’t quite understand Lavender Shores or its founding families, but I knew he was from one of them. Rivera. From what I’d seen of the Epsteins, a member of a founding family did not stand in the middle of a field and pull weeds.

  But it looked as if he was doing exactly that.

  As he repeated the motion, all thoughts of Lavender Shores and founding families flitted away. Enough sun was cutting through the slices in the storm clouds above that it glinted on his bronze skin as his triceps flexed with the pull, then his biceps bulged as he lifted the plant for another inspection.

  The man was beautiful. Not in a tux, not coiffed and in makeup for television, not polished like he was getting ready to be on display. But he shone, nonetheless.

  Adrian tossed the plant down in what looked like disgust before dragging his fingers through his glistening black hair, and then lifted the hem of his shirt to wipe his brow as he repositioned. The move revealed tight abs and dark hair traveling up toward what promised to be a heavily muscled chest.

  My body responded. Though I’d forgotten I had a dick over the past five days, it twitched and sent a whole new world of images to my brain. So many that I couldn’t even push them aside or chastise myself for thinking them.

  I just wanted him to keep going, lift the shirt higher, pull it off. I needed to find out if that chest was as muscled as I thought, as hairy as I hoped.

  As if feeling my gaze, Adrian turned a little farther, looked my way, and met my gaze with a little jolt. He dropped the hem of his shirt instantly, cutting off the view from his body—as he should.

  We stared at each other, me with the trees to my back, him in the middle of a meadow, storm clouds roiling above his head.

  Thunder rumbled again. There was a charge. Electricity shot out, but it seemed to spark from Adrian to me instead of sky to earth. Neither of us moved. But still my body responded, strained for him.

  “Harrison?” Adrian called out over the little distance between us, partly a question but more confusion, as if thinking he was imagining things.

  With his voice, the spell broke. Well, it didn’t… but it was enough to bring me to my senses. There was no electricity between us. And though my cock said otherwise, it was just another result of my fucked-up brain and emotions, just like the other day in the bathroom before everything went to shit.

  I’d come here for a reason. Not to indulge my insanity or to make matters worse. Time to man up and make things right. With a wave, I started walking toward him.

  After a few seconds, Adrian headed my way and met me in the middle. “You’re limping. Did you walk all the way out here?”

  That was embarrassing. Him looking hotter with every step I’d taken and my wobbling around like an invalid. What did it matter? I was here to apologize. He’d already seen me in my weakness, the whole world had. Exaggerated limp was nothing, comparatively. “I needed some fresh air. Probably not doctor recommended, but the walk was good.”

  He nodded, seemed lost for words, but then he licked his lips. “How are you doing? I talked to Jasper this morning. He said you’re keeping a low profile in case reporters were still hanging around.”

  “I think I managed to get here without anyone following me. Plus, I don’t think there’s anyone trying to capture me at the moment, really.”

  “Well, that’s good.” He lifted a thick, dark eyebrow questioningly. “Right?”

  “Oh yeah, that’s very good. I’d be happy not making the news for a while.” My gaze flicked to his jeans as he took a couple of steps forward. The way the denim clung to him—maybe my body wasn’t the only one responding?

  Fuck that. I’d just got done thinking that I was in control. Time to prove it and finish this. “I don’t want to bother you. I know you’ve got a lot to do. Moses said something about this being new land, so you’re probably trying to figure out….” I had no idea what I was talking about or what new farmland entailed. “I came here to apologize, Adrian. I can’t explain what happened to me the other day. Not even to myself. But I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

  His response was immediate. “Not your fault. I was the one….” Adrian shifted uneasily from foot to foot. Thunder boomed directly overhead.

  He was the one who what?

  Wanted the kiss?

  I shoved that away. I’d practiced what to say to him. I couldn’t remember a damn line of it. “Anyway, that’s all I came to say. I’m sorry. I can’t apologize enough.” I turned, once more ready to run, but maybe, luckily, that wasn’t an option this time.

  But a slow limping walk? That I could handle.

  Adrian’s footsteps sounded as twigs or something cracked beneath his feet before he gripped my arm, reminding me of how his hand had felt on my shoulders in the bathroom. “Harrison, wait.”

  I turned to him. He was a little shorter than me, but our eyes met. This time, I had no idea what was thunder and lightning from the sky and what was a circuit-breaking charge between the two of us. And though I didn’t trust my instincts at that moment, and even if I knew it wasn’t right, there was no doubt of his desire.

  Shit.

  As I’d replayed the moments between us in the bathroom over and over and over, I’d convinced myself the only sensation I had gotten from Adrian was shock. That any arousal I’d thought I felt from him had been of my own design. And probably nothing more than a result of my panic.

  Adrian’s hand didn’t leave my arm, and he drew even closer. Enough that the scent of him reached me, the same as before—though a little more musk and earth now that he was out of the tux and had been working all day. His thumb did a gentle swipe over my shoulder, making me want to lose my shirt to feel his touch against my bare skin, and his eyes darkened. “Just wait a moment, Harrison.” His voice was as dark as his eyes, and as heated, while the lightning sparked overhead.

  I hadn’t known it at the wedding. I hadn’t felt it coming, would never have predicted it. But in the middle of the field, as I lowered my lips toward his, I knew what I was doing. I knew what I wanted.

  The instant our lips met, he pulled me to him, pressing our bodies together, making it clear I hadn’t been imagining his physical reaction to me. There was no pause or shock like there had been in the bathroom. But once more, I wasn’t sure who was kissing whom.

  Another thunder crash, and then the clouds broke, and warm summer rain fell in torrents, drenching us instantly.

  Even so, it was several seconds before he broke the kiss. He met my eyes once more, and through the heat, there was a moment of confusion, a moment of questioning, but I saw the second he decided. “Follow me. Let’s get out of
the rain first.”

  Fuck.

  Yeah, he’d decided. The realization was a relief. He wanted this. Some minuscule part of my brain attempted to shout a warning. It was drowned out by another roll of thunder and my blood demanding I give Adrian anything he wanted.

  As he turned, his hand left my shoulder and traveled down my arm to grip mine and pull me along behind him. Though we hurried, he didn’t run; even in his haste, he clearly remembered my bad knee.

  We slowly rushed through the downpour for several minutes. With each step, it fell impossibly harder, making it difficult to see. Then we were there. Some glass-and-brick square of a building that appeared as if from nowhere out of the rain.

  Adrian let go of my hand, attempted to get the door open, let out a curse, then took a step away before kicking it open. He turned back to me and grabbed my hand again. “Come on.”

  No turning back.

  I didn’t think. Didn’t question, didn’t try to figure a damn thing out. My body wanted him, and clearly Adrian’s wanted mine. And he’d decided. I allowed him to pull me inside.

  Adrian let go of my hand again, attempted to shut the door, couldn’t, then left it open. As he turned back to me, he pulled off his sleeveless shirt, and though it was dim inside, lightning flashed again, highlighting his muscled body. Every inch of his arms and shoulders and chest were solid and thick. And the dark, damp hair clung to the swells of his chest and over the ripples of his abs. He was even more erotic than I’d thought.

  And then his hands were on me, yanking my shirt over my head.

  Eight

  Adrian

  In my frenzy, I threw Harrison’s shirt as if it offended me. It hit something on the far side of the glasshouse—whatever it was fell with a crash.

  I whimpered at the sight of him. I’d like to pretend that the sound hadn’t come from me. That I wasn’t even capable of making such a noise. But I did. Maybe the crashing sound covered it up and Harrison hadn’t noticed. But I knew. At the revealing of his body, I whimpered. And I had to bite my lip to keep from doing it again.