Engaging the Boss (Heirs of Damon)

by Noelle Adams

  For a moment, he thought she was going to caress his face, but her fingers glided over his hair instead. “You should have combed your hair,” she said with a teasing smile.

  “Is it bad?” He wasn’t surprised, what with the frustrating search for her, the rush back to the house, and the rampant lust.

  She smoothed it down, her lips quivering. “Not too bad.”

  He was pretty sure she was lying, but he didn’t give a damn about his hair.

  When Sarah started on her salad again, looking more relaxed, he glanced over at his uncle, who was watching him thoughtfully.

  Jonathan looked away, and his eyes landed on Andrew. Andrew was watching him too, for some reason, and was wearing an expression of barely concealed hilarity.

  Jonathan wasn’t always up on social nuances, but he knew instinctively what had amused his cousin.

  He and Sarah had arrived late to dinner, and they were both tousled and flushed. Andrew, naturally, would assume they were doing something other than rushing from the garden.

  If only that were the case.

  Chapter Nine

  Sarah felt absolutely beautiful.

  It was a rare enough feeling for her to be rather overwhelmed by it. She kept wanting to giggle or hug herself.

  She didn’t, of course. She was walking into the four-hundred-year-old chapel on Damon manor beside Jonathan in front of the eyes of two-hundred guests, so she kept a composed smile on her face.

  Inside, she was giddy, though.

  She wore an elegant gown of slate blue silk, since the wedding was black tie. It had vintage-looking lace straps and cinched in a thick band just under her breasts. She wore it with a fine webbed silk cardigan, since she didn’t want to flash too much skin at an old-fashioned wedding.

  Jonathan had stared at her speechlessly when she’d come out of the bathroom fully dressed, but she’d learned to read him better during the last week, and she was sure it was admiration in his eyes.

  When she walked down the center aisle of the chapel with Jonathan toward the family pews in the front, she was conscious that other guests were watching her. But she felt pretty, so it was an excited kind of self-consciousness rather than the old familiar kind that made her want to sink into the floor.

  Sarah had always known she was smart. And she’d always known she was competent and successful at the things she tried her hand to. She knew some men had liked her, even wanted to have sex with her. But she’d always assumed they were settling for her looks because they liked other things about her.

  Most women, she assumed, became aware of their power to attract men some time in their teens. For Sarah, it was only happening now.

  Which might have been why she, at the moment, felt like a silly adolescent girl on her way to the prom.

  Jonathan put his hand on the small of her back to guide her to the pew the usher was gesturing them into. He looked startlingly handsome in his traditional tux—more like a sexy secret agent from a movie than the rumpled, brilliant man she knew.

  She slid in the pew to sit beside Ben, who was actually wearing a tuxedo too. The contrast between the sophisticated suit and his unruly beard was odd but still attractive.

  She grinned at him and leaned over to whisper that he looked good and he should wear a tux more often.

  Jonathan had been quiet since they’d gotten dressed for the wedding. Even quieter than usual for him. He was giving her an oddly cool look now, like he was displeased about something. But he put his arm on the back of the pew behind her shoulders when they sat down, and she loved the way it felt, like he was claiming her, protecting her.

  The chapel was decorated beautifully in white roses, pink tulips, and purple orchids. There were candles at all of the stained-glass windows, and more at the front around the altar.

  When Harrison took his place at the front next to Andrew—both looking like movie stars in theirs tuxes—Sarah felt a brief surge of envy. Harrison was one of the most controlled, confident men she’d ever encountered. Yet he looked antsy, almost anxious, standing in the front. Not like he was scared or reluctant to take this big step, but like he was desperately anxious for it to happen.

  He loved Marietta that much.

  Sarah had never really believed a man could ever love and want her like that, but now the recognition ached.

  She didn’t just want any faceless man to love her like that—the way she had in so many of her youthful daydreams. She wanted Jonathan to. And not as a dream hero, but as a flesh-and-blood man.

  Laurel was Marietta’s only attendant, and she walked down the aisle first. Sarah saw Andrew wink at her and Laurel give him a discreet, disapproving shake of her head, all the while hiding a smile.

  Then the music swelled and everyone stood up. Sarah couldn’t see much past Jonathan’s broad shoulder and the people behind them, but she knew Marietta had started down the aisle.

  She glanced back toward Harrison, whom she could see better. He was gazing at Marietta, and Sarah had to turn away from what she saw on his face.

  Her chest hurt for no good reason. No good reason at all.

  Marietta had now gotten far enough up the aisle for Sarah to see her. She was escorted by an older man. Vern Edwards, Marietta’s grandfather. Sarah had met him last night. He was very clearly almost in tears now.

  Marietta’s dress had probably cost a fortune, but it was simply cut with thick straps, a square neckline, and a fitted bodice that flared out into a princess skirt. It wasn’t what Sarah would have chosen for a wedding dress, but it was innocent and delicately pretty—much like Marietta herself.

  Marietta had told Sarah a couple of nights ago at her bachelorette party that Harrison was the only man she’d ever had sex with.

  Sarah’s throat was hurting now, and her hands were trembling. She had no idea why.

  They’d reached the minister at the front of the chapel, and Edwards kissed Marietta’s cheek and went to sit down.

  Harrison and Marietta stood side by side. He didn’t look at anyone but her.

  It was a beautiful wedding—with every detail pitch perfect. Harrison and Marietta obviously loved each other deeply. But there wasn’t anything unusual about the wedding, and Sarah didn’t even know the couple very well. She’d been to dozens of weddings before and had never felt this way.

  But, for no good reason, her eyes burned with tears.

  She twisted her hands together in her lap nervously, trying to focus on anything but her ridiculous emotional response. She shifted in her seat.

  The minister was talking now, and then Cyrus Damon got up to read a passage from the book of Isaiah about how the sin and death and tears of the world would all be remade in love and new life.

  And Sarah couldn’t sit still, afraid at any moment she was going to break down and cry.

  She wasn’t a woman who did that. She never cried at weddings. She didn’t cry much at all. None of this made any sense.

  Without even looking at her, Jonathan reached over and covered her twisting hands on her lap with one of his big, warm ones, maybe to keep her still or maybe to comfort her. She didn’t know. It stilled her fidgeting immediately.

  It also made her lose it.

  Her shoulders shook, and the tears she’d been trying to keep in her eyes spilled out to stream down her face. She ducked her head, wishing she’d worn her hair loose so it could hide her face. But it was pulled back in an elegant chignon at the nape of her neck and offered no protection.

  When she didn’t pull it together in a few moments, Ben nudged her with his elbow, giving her a look that was obviously a question about whether she was all right.

  She smiled and made a helpless gesture, trying to signal that she had no idea what was wrong but it was no big deal.

  Jonathan had let go of her hands when she’d gestured to Ben, and now he put his arm around her shoulder. He still hadn’t looked at her. She had no idea what he was thinking.

  Maybe he would think it was just that time of the month.
Maybe he would think she was someone who always cried at weddings. Maybe he would think she was one of those pitiful women who cried because she wanted this for herself so much and could never have it.

  She wouldn’t have been able to explain it anyway, since she had no idea why she was crying.

  Marietta and Harrison were saying simple, traditional vows now, and Sarah tried desperately to listen.

  Tears still streamed down her face, and she had to sniffle to keep her nose from running.

  She was a mess. She was a fool. She was horribly embarrassed.

  She saw a motion farther down the pew. Ben’s mother had reached for her purse and was pulling something out of it. She handed it to Ben, who was sitting beside her.

  Ben handed it to Sarah.

  A tissue.

  Sarah accepted it gratefully, mopping up her face. She must look like a wreck, all her makeup smeared off.

  She’d thought she’d been so pretty today, too.

  She leaned against Jonathan’s side, feeling sheltered beneath his arm. It felt like he was taking care of her. Maybe he was.

  Harrison was kissing his bride now, and Marietta was glowing like the sunshine. And the ceremony was over as they were all introduced to the newly married couple.

  Sarah had finally managed to stop crying.

  She ducked her head against Jonathan’s shoulder as they got up and walked to the narthex. She didn’t want Ben or anyone to ask what had been wrong with her.

  She didn’t have any sort of answer, except the wedding had felt real to her in a way weddings never had before.

  The next hour passed in a haze. They had to stay for some photographs—fortunately not too many, since they weren’t part of the bridal party. Sarah went to the restroom to restore her face with a paper towel. She needed to touch up her makeup, which she hadn’t brought with her, and her hair was slipping out of the chignon, but otherwise she decided she didn’t look too bad.

  The reception was back in the ballroom of the estate, spilling out into the terrace and formal gardens. Jonathan had his hand on her back again as they entered the mansion, guiding her toward the reception. But she stopped. “Do you think I can run upstairs real quick and fix my makeup?”

  Jonathan blinked. “Sure. I’ll wait for you here.”

  “No, no.” She felt silly enough as it was, and she didn’t want to make a big deal about her makeup touch-ups. “You go on. I’ll find you.”

  He nodded. He still hadn’t asked her what had made her cry.

  He probably never would.

  She ran upstairs to her room, reapplied makeup, tried to smooth down her hair, and was on her way down the hall again in less than five minutes.

  She nearly ran into Ben on the stairs.

  “Hey,” she said, “What are you doing?”

  “I had to get away for a minute,” he admitted. “Too many people.”

  She peered up at him curiously, figuring the crowds must be too hard on him emotionally, because of his history with his family.

  “You all right?” he asked, studying her face with his very dark eyes. “What was the breakdown about?”

  “It wasn’t a breakdown,” she insisted. “It was nothing. Weddings make me emotional.” It was a lie, but he would have no way of knowing that.

  “Hmm,” he said, like he didn’t believe her. Then he arched his eyebrows. “I thought maybe you were upset about losing your ring.”

  She stared up at him blankly. “What?”

  “Your engagement ring.” He nodded toward her left hand.

  She looked down at it. Her ring finger was empty.

  It took a minute for it to process, but when it did she gasped with a flare of panic. “My ring! What happened to it?”

  “I don’t know. You didn’t have it on earlier today either. It didn’t appear as though you and Jonathan had broken up your fake engagement, so I assumed you’d lost it or forgotten to put it on.”

  Sarah wracked her brain, trying to remember when she’d last been aware of it. She’d only worn the thing for a week and so she wasn’t used to keeping track of it, but it was unforgivable to lose something so expensive.

  “Maybe it’s just in your room,” Ben suggested.

  “Yes. Probably.” She grabbed his arm. “Please help me look. I’m supposed to go down and meet Jonathan, and I don’t want him to see it’s missing.”

  Ben came along, agreeably enough, although he seemed to think the situation was amusing rather than urgent.

  They looked on all the surfaces and the floor of the bedroom, bathroom, and closet. But the ring wasn’t there.

  When they’d finished searching, Sarah was almost in tears again. That ring was the most beautiful piece of jewelry she’d ever seen. She’d loved it. And she knew Jonathan must have paid a lot for it.

  It wasn’t even really hers. How could she have lost it?

  “Don’t start to panic yet,” Ben said. “Try to calm down and think. When was the last time you noticed it.”

  His reasonable tone struck her as rather obnoxious, but she knew he was right. She made herself close her eyes and breathe.

  Then she remembered. “Damn. I was fiddling with it yesterday in the secret garden before I fell asleep.”

  “And you didn’t see it afterwards?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then that’s where it is.”

  She glanced down nervously, as if she could see through to the ballroom on the floor beneath them. “What am I going to tell Jonathan?”

  “Don’t tell him anything. It’s a madhouse down there. No one will know we’ve gone to look.”

  “You’ll come with me?”

  “Sure. Why not? Besides, it’s dark and the gates are open. You shouldn’t wander alone by yourself.”

  Feeling better, she and Ben went downstairs and, instead of heading to the ballroom, they turned into another hall. Ben had put his hand on her back as they got to the bottom of the stairs, but it didn’t feel nice and protective like when Jonathan did it. It felt like he was discreetly hurrying her along.

  She didn’t care. It was nice that Ben was helping her at all. She was particularly glad because he paused to grab something from a utility closet. A flashlight.

  She wouldn’t have even thought about that.

  The several minutes it took to walk to the garden only made Sarah more urgent and impatient. And the minutes it took to search the grass and beds around the hammock she’d been sleeping on yesterday were even worse.

  They didn’t find the ring immediately, and in the dark it was hard to see anything at all. Ben aimed the flashlight, but it only lit up a limited section of ground.

  Getting more and more nervous, Sarah hiked up her skirt and knelt on the ground beneath the hammock. It had to be here somewhere.

  “There!” she exclaimed, catching a glint as Ben moved the flashlight across the grass. “Point back here.”

  Ben knelt on the grass too and aimed the flashlight where she’d indicated.

  The ring was there, mostly hidden in the soft grass.

  She leaned over to grab it, ignoring how inelegant she must look on her hands and knees in the grass.

  The hand she was bracing herself with slipped on the grass as she grabbed the ring, and she almost fell on her face. She would have fallen had Ben not reached out to grab her waist.

  They were trying to extricate themselves from the awkward tangle when lights suddenly went on all around them.

  They both blinked in surprise. Evidently there were landscape lights in the garden, which neither of them had even thought to look for.

  Sarah was squinting toward the entrance to discover who’d turned them on when a familiar voice bellowed in a very unfamiliar tone. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Ben managed to stand up, and he helped Sarah to her feet as well before he turned toward his cousin. “No need to overreact,” he began, in a bland voice that would be like a slap in the face to someone who was angry.

  Jonathan
was definitely angry. He strode over to where they stood, practically shaking with pent rage. “Overreact? Overreact?”

  Sarah was flabberghasted. She’d never seen Jonathan openly express anger before, and she’d certainly never seen him on the verge of implosion as he was now.

  Ridiculously, something about the raw power of his anger stirred a response inside her. An emotional one. And a physical one.

  She felt shaky so she reached out to grab something. It happened to be Ben’s arm.

  Evidently, this was a mistake. Jonathan made a sound in his throat—one that sounded strangely like a growl—and he grabbed her wrist to pull her hand away from his cousin’s arm.

  Sarah gaped at him.

  “If you’re going to sneak away to fuck, you could at least try to be more discreet,” Jonathan gritted out. “If I saw you leave, others could see too.”

  Suddenly, Sarah realized what Jonathan had thought, why he was so angry. Maybe it had looked bad, she and Ben slipping away in the dark together. They’d both been on their knees in the grass, his arm around her waist.

  Jonathan’s assumption wasn’t an entirely unreasonable one.

  But still…

  “Damn, man, you’re an idiot,” Ben muttered.

  Jonathan stiffened visibly, his dark eyes glinting in the soothing landscape lighting. “I shouldn’t be angry that you’re here screwing my fiancée?”

  “We both know she’s not your fiancée.”

  “Ben,” Sarah said reproachfully. He was saying exactly the wrong thing to calm Jonathan down. She had to assume he wasn’t trying to. “Jonathan, I can see how you misinterpreted it, but we weren’t—”

  “What do you mean you know she’s not my fiancée?” Jonathan interrupted, glaring between Sarah and Ben. He must have decided who to fix his anger on because he turned to Sarah. “You told him?”

  “No,” she insisted, her voice wobbly. Not because she was scared of Jonathan but because she was so affected by his angry intensity. “I didn’t tell him. He figured it out on his own. But would you please listen? We weren’t doing anything.”

  “You weren’t on your hands and knees in the dark with your dress pushed up?” Jonathan’s words were curt, bitter. He was obviously trying to control his eruption of anger. Not to calm himself down but to ensure he remained in control of this encounter.