Engaging the Boss (Heirs of Damon) (6 page)

Realizing
Cyrus was waiting for an answer, she managed to say, “That’s too bad.”

“It
is. I worry about him.”

She
looked at the man beside her and suddenly wondered if he knew that Jonathan
believed Cyrus only cared about him when he earned it too. Jonathan’s whole approach
to the lab, its funding, and his uncle made sense in a way it hadn’t before.

“Is
he okay?” Cyrus asked again, with a different resonance this time.

“He’s
really fine. Everyone who works with him loves him. They really do. He’ll
always be who he is, but what he is is a really good man. I don’t think you
need to worry about him.”

Cyrus
reached over and patted her hand. “I’m glad he has you, my dear. It takes a lot
of worries off my mind, knowing he has someone to love him like you.”

Sarah
couldn’t meet his eyes. For the first time, she realized she shouldn’t have
agreed to this engagement farce. Not because it was making her indulge in hopes
about Jonathan that could never come to pass—although it was—but because lying
was just plain wrong.

***

Jonathan hadn’t had
anything to do that morning, so he’d found an empty room and gone through some
more of his collected email, since working made him feel like he wasn’t a
complete waste of space.

It
also took his mind off how much (and how wrongly) he was thinking about Sarah.

It
was almost lunch before he finished up, figuring he’d better find everyone
else. He went downstairs and didn’t see anyone, so he wandered until he found
Gordon.

The
butler was on the back patio, where the staff was laying out the table for
lunch. Gordon was arranging the centerpiece.

“Hey,
Gordon,” Jonathan said. “Where is everyone?”

Gordon
glanced over but didn’t stop clipping and positioning the tulips. “Ms. Edwards
and Ms. Gray are on their way back from the dress fitting, and Harrison and
Andrew are still talking to the lawyer.”

Jonathan
frowned. “Didn’t Sarah go with Marietta and Laurel?”

“No,
sir. She didn’t.”

“Where
is she?”

If
Gordon thought it was strange that Jonathan didn’t know where his own fiancée
was, his expression didn’t convey it in the slightest. “When I last saw her a
couple of hours ago, she was going to walk in the gardens.”

Jonathan’s
frown deepened. “She’s been walking in the garden all this time?” If she hadn’t
gone with the other women for the dress fitting, why the hell hadn’t she come
to find him? He would have been happy for the company.

“I’m
afraid I don’t know, sir. Would you like me to send someone to find her? Or
perhaps you’d like to look yourself?” The question was mild, with no accusatory
intonation.

But
Jonathan knew very well that Gordon thought he should have done a better job
taking care of his fiancée and not set her adrift in the vast gardens of the
estate by herself.

“I’ll
go find her,” Jonathan murmured, heading off the patio and across the wide lawn
that led to the gardens.

The
gardens were endless. It might take him an hour to find her. And she might not
even still be there.

But
he didn’t know where else she would be. Gordon would know if she’d come back
into the house.

He
hadn’t even reached the Rococo fountain when he saw Sarah. She looked
absolutely beautiful in the noonday sun, the light gilding her red hair and
making her skin glow. She wore a casual, flowing skirt and soft top, and the
fabric of both clung to her luscious body.

Jonathan
stared, wondering how he’d not realized she was so gorgeous all this time.

She
was smiling, warm and vivid, up at his uncle.

The
sight was disturbing—not just because she was so lovely and desirable, but
because she was enjoying his uncle’s company so much.

His
uncle was obviously enjoying her company too.

They
saw him, and Sarah waved. As Jonathan watched, Cyrus Damon lifted her hand and
brought it to his lips in an old-fashioned gesture of parting. Then he walked
back toward the house, at a different angle than the one Jonathan had taken. He
gestured to him with a friendly greeting which Jonathan returned.

 Jonathan
was still standing in the same place when Sarah came up to him.

“What’s
going on?” he demanded, looking at his uncle’s retreating back.

Her
full lips turned down. “What do you mean? I was just talking to your uncle. He
showed me the secret garden.”

“What
garden?” He had no idea what she was talking about, and he didn’t like that she
and his uncle suddenly seemed to be close.

As
if she might drift into his uncle’s world and no longer be part of his.

He
couldn’t stand to not have her as part of his world. He didn’t know why he
hadn’t realized it before.

“The
walled garden near the woods. He called it the secret garden.”

Jonathan
shrugged and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I thought you’d gone with
Marietta and Laurel.”

“No.”
Her blue eyes had widened, and they looked startlingly blue in the sunlight.
“Why did you think that?”

“Marietta
said she’d asked you, so I assumed you’d go.”

“Well,
I didn’t. I thought…” She shook her head slightly, as if changing her mind.
“What have you been doing?”

He
shrugged again. “Nothing.”

“Well,
I couldn’t find you earlier, so you must have been doing something.”

Jonathan
wasn’t about to tell her he’d been working all morning. She already thought he
was incapable of anything but work, and she didn’t need to be even less
impressed with him than she was. “It doesn’t matter. I was around. Why couldn’t
you find me?”

“What
is that supposed to mean?” She’d been on the edge of annoyed before, but now
she’d crossed the line. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes narrowed. “I
looked around and didn’t see you. Was I supposed to ask Gordon and the rest of
the staff to do a full-fledged hunt for my fiancé?”

“Why
are you angry?” She was always so even-tempered. This sign of spirit, as
arousing as it was, was quite disorienting.

She
snapped. He’d never seen it happen before. She got so tense she was shaking with
it, and her voice was clipped and cold. “I’m angry because I’m doing you a
favor by pretending to be engaged to you, and you act like you want nothing to
do with me. I don’t know any of these people. They’re
your
family. But
you keep leaving me alone with them while you go lurk in some dark corner
somewhere. It’s just
rude
.”

Jonathan
froze, taking in her words and what they implied. It was rude, he realized.
Evidently she wanted his company. She’d prefer to be with him than with anyone
else here.

“Well?”
she prompted, when he didn’t respond. “You don’t have anything to say for
yourself?”

“Sorry.
I wasn’t thinking. You seemed to get along with them all so well I just
assumed… Sorry.”

He
felt—and no doubt sounded—like an idiot. And he doubted his inarticulate
apology would satisfy her. When he’d dated girls in the past and they’d
complained that he was neglecting them for study or work in the lab, it would
take hours for them to get over their bad moods.

But
Sarah’s face and shoulders relaxed immediately. She peered into his face and
seemed content with whatever she saw there. “Okay. It’s fine. I don’t need to
be entertained or have company twenty-four hours a day, but it would be nice if
you could at least tell me what you’re doing so I’ll know if I need to make my
own plans.”

“I
will,” he said. “Sorry.”

“It’s
fine. I’m not mad or anything.” She looked flushed again, but more because she
was flustered than because she was angry.

“You
were
mad.”

She
gave him a quick, quirky smile. “Maybe just a little.”

“I’ve
never seen you angry before this week.”

“Everyone
gets angry occasionally. Even you.”

They’d
started walking back toward the house instinctively, and Jonathan slanted her a
discreet look. He wasn’t positive, but she appeared to be teasing him.

“Not
very much. It’s usually not worth the effort.”

“One
day,” she said, a fond, teasing note in her voice he’d never heard there
before, “I’m going to see you totally lose it.”

He
kind of liked the tone, so he smiled despite himself. “I doubt it.”

“I
will. One day. And I’m going to totally gloat when you do.”

He
laughed. He couldn’t help it. At the moment, he couldn’t imagine what would
possibly get him so angry, so he could say in all truthfulness, “I doubt you’ll
ever have the opportunity, but if I lose it one day, you’ll deserve to gloat.”

***

That evening, after
dinner, Jonathan went back up to the media room to play Sea and Sky.

He’d
checked to see that Sarah was occupied. She was tying up little sacks of
birdseed with Laurel to throw at the newlyweds instead of rice as they were
leaving. Harrison was working on email, and Andrew was talking to their uncle
about the inn he and Laurel managed in Santorini.

Since
everyone else was occupied, Jonathan figured he was free to do what he wanted.

He’d
been playing for about an hour when he was conscious of a presence behind him.

Reluctantly,
he turned to see Sarah standing in the doorway, staring at him with narrowed
eyes.

“So
this is what you’ve been doing when you sneak away,” she said.

He
gave her a sheepish shrug. “Nothing else to do.”

“Isn’t
this game like twenty years old?”

“I
used to play it as a kid, when I was here on holiday. I can’t believe my uncle
still has it.”

She
came over to sit beside him on the floor, leaning back against the couch just
as he was. He’d taken off the jacket and tie he’d worn for dinner, but she
still wore a long gray skirt with a very high slit on one side and a blue silk
top that matched her eyes. She seemed unconscious of her nice clothes, though,
as she picked up a second joystick. “How do you play?”

He’d
expected her to mock him. She seemed to be serious, however, gazing up at him
and waiting for instructions.

He
felt the strangest overflow of feeling, a tension in his chest, in his stomach.
He’d never met anyone like her, never realized anyone could know him as well as
she did and still want to be around him, when it wasn’t even part of her job,
even when he was unquestionably unimpressive.

“Jonathan?”
she prompted, her expression becoming slightly confused.

“Yeah,”
he said, shaking himself out of the weird thought. “It’s not hard. You can pick
it up quickly. The object is to collect stars and starfish while not getting
hit with birds and fish.”

She
did pick it up quickly. She was smart and coordinated, and in twenty minutes
she could provide him with a decent challenge. They played for two hours,
focused intently on the game and become more and more competitive as she kept
getting closer to beating him.

She
didn’t beat him. No one ever had. But she came surprisingly close a few times.
There was something intoxicating about it, about how she laughed, about how
intensely she focused, about how excited she became when she did well.

“All
right,” she said at last, setting down her joystick after just missing out on a
win. “I give up for tonight. We’ll try again later, though, so don’t get too
comfortable.”

He
wasn’t comfortable. His back hurt a little from sitting too long on the floor
like this, and he was now having trouble not leering at her legs. She’d
evidently forgotten she was wearing a dress, and one of her legs was fully
visible through the high slit.

She
was wearing another pair of those irresistible lace-topped stockings. He could
see where the lace met her skin.

She
noticed his distraction and got flustered when she saw how much leg she was
exposing. “Sorry,” she mumbled, adjusting her skirt and tucking her leg back
under it. “I’m not used to wearing clothes like this.”

He
wasn’t used to seeing her in clothes like that, but he realized she’d always
been beautiful. Even in less revealing clothes and with her hair pulled back in
a ponytail, she hadn’t looked that much different.

He’d
just never been conscious of it before.

He
was very much afraid that he would never see her as anything but gorgeous from
now on. Even back in the lab, in her white lab coat and no-nonsense work mood,
he’d still want her this intensely.

It
was a very disturbing thought.

She
still seemed embarrassed—either at her inadvertent exposure or at the way he
was staring at her—as she got to her feet. “I think I’m going to go to bed.”

“Yeah,”
he said, glancing at his watch. “I guess it’s pretty late.”