Modern Romance Collection July 2024 Books 1-4

CHAPTER EIGHT

ROSALINDPAUSEDLONG enough to pull on a pair of slippers she’d brought downstairs before she hurried out the door onto the patio. Heart pounding, eyes aching with unshed tears, she rushed down the stairs and into the garden.

She’d gone to Griffith’s office to bring up the contract again. She knew it was wrong, knew he’d told her to stay away. But a text Mr. Nettleton had sent yesterday had come through, demanding to know why she hadn’t sent him a daily report. It hadn’t been too hard to imagine the barrage of missed calls, texts and emails that would be waiting for her when she finally got back into an area of full service. It had galvanized her to action.

The last two days had been spent distracting herself with work, reviewing documents she had thankfully packed in her briefcase for the new clients she would take on after she completed the Lykaois contract. She had told herself she just needed to give Griffith time to adjust to her being at the chateau. That one day she would come down and he would at least be in the hall, the kitchen, somewhere other than hiding away.

This had marked the third morning she’d come down to an eerily empty house. Nettleton’s text, combined with her exasperation over Griffith’s immature behavior, had spurred her on as she’d climbed the stairs to the third floor. It had been long enough since their last encounter over the contract. Surely, he could take five minutes and listen to his options.

Except he hadn’t. And then he’d been cruel. Like a wounded animal lashing out. His pain touched her empathetic nature, tugged at the strands of her own grief of losing her mother.

But it had also done what he’d intended it to do. Hurt her until she had no choice but to turn away before she let him see just how deeply his words affected her. How his insinuation about her career path chipped away at her already eroding self-confidence. How his accusation that she would use her mother’s death to connect with him and entice him to sell struck at her heart.

As she walked down the path, she glanced to her left. A small tunnel of ivy beckoned to her, curving just a few feet ahead so she couldn’t see what lay at the end.

Needing something, anything, to distract her, she stepped inside. Coolness enveloped her as the thick netting of ivy shut out the sunlight. She followed the twists and turns of the tunnel, running her fingers over the thick, smooth leaves.

Slowly, she became aware of a dull roaring. Anticipation built as the sound grew louder and the ivy began to thin. She turned another corner, saw the sunlight up ahead and, beyond that, the beautiful blue of the sea.

She emerged onto a plateau thick with wild grasses and flowers. Wind rose up over the nearby cliffs, tumbled across the plain and stirred the stalks of grass into a frenzy.

Mindful of the cliff’s edge, she walked until she was twenty feet or so away from it. Being unfamiliar with the terrain, she had no desire to end this eventful journey with the ground suddenly giving way and falling into the ocean.

A glimmer of white caught her eye. Turning, her breath caught.

A couple kilometers down the coast, the ocean curved into a shallow bay. The plateau jutted out far enough that she could see a sandy beach backed by soaring white cliffs and topped with green grass. The cliffs nearest to her jutted out into the ocean and formed an arch. Beyond that, at the far end of the beach, a single pillar of white jutted up from the waves, the top narrowing into a point.

The setting from the painting. Even though the painting had been stunning, it didn’t hold a candle to the view in front of her.

It was odd to see the cluster of buildings beyond that. To know there were people so close and yet so far away.

Her lips curved up. Even if she lost her job, lost the respect of her family and friends back home, she would have moments like these to remember from her chaotic adventure. Moments that made her feel...content. Peaceful. Like herself.

She wrapped her arms around her waist. If the worst happened and she did lose her job, the hardest part would be telling her father. It had been her parents’ dream for her to go to college, to travel and see the world. Since Rosalind had entertained those dreams herself, it hadn’t bothered her much that her parents had been so adamant about certain things. Her ability to find the good had helped, too. Even when something hadn’t felt quite right, had felt more like a wish of her parents’ rather than her own, she hadn’t known what she wanted enough to take a different path.

But now, as she faced the truth that she wanted something far different than what her parents had envisioned for her, she was also confronting the very real possibility of letting her father down. Of seeing his face crumple as he realized his daughter wouldn’t be a powerful attorney at a distinguished law firm in London. That she might very well own a hole-in-the-wall office helping single parents and grandmothers instead of wealthy CEOs and political powerhouses. Barely scraping by but being fulfilled by the good she was doing.

She’d never disappointed her family before. Didn’t want to.

But she also didn’t want to keep living like this. Working hard, then harder, then harder still, all for something far in the future and missing the present.

She glanced back at the chateau, at the numerous gleaming windows and polished stone. The kind of place she would have described as a fairy-tale castle.

Right now, though, it seemed little better than a gilded prison.

A shudder passed through her. If Griffith Lykaois wanted to hide here from the media attention, that was his choice. He was punishing himself. For what, she had no idea. The news reports had all stated that Griffith had had a green light. That the driver, whose blood alcohol level had been triple the legal limit, had torn through the intersection and only applied the brakes a second before the crash.

His mother had passed from some sort of illness. Something also out of Griffith’s control. Yet based off the articles she’d read, his indulgent lifestyle had started a few months after his mother’s death.

She sighed. Slid off the flats she’d found in the trunk and savored the feel of cool earth and soft grass beneath her bare feet as she’d chosen to in the rose garden earlier. It grounded her, gave her a moment of much-needed pleasure as her mind tried to piece everything together.

None of it was her business. Just like going into his private domain had been none of her business, she realized that. Yes, she’d been angry. And growing bored. But there had been books scattered throughout the house. Other rooms she could have explored. Garden paths she hadn’t ventured down. A beautiful kitchen with plenty of food and ingredients. She had chosen work, as always, over taking time to relax, to do exactly what she had been saying she wanted to do and enjoy herself.

And then she had given her dratted boss even more power by letting his text get to her and spur her to action. Instead of waiting, of hanging out in the kitchen or one of the main rooms Griffith would have to pass through eventually, she’d violated his request and intruded on his privacy.

She sighed. Four days to go. If she left Griffith alone, gave him space the next few days, perhaps by the time the bridge was repaired they would both be in better places to at least have a conversation about the contract.

You’re in the wrong business...

Had he seen how much those words had twisted her up inside? How much they’d torn at her rapidly growing doubts?

No, she wasn’t good at working with clients like him. Big clients with big reputations and even bigger bank accounts, the kind who brought prestige to a firm like Nettleton Thompson. She preferred working with the grandmother who wanted to divide up her assets fairly among her grandchildren. The parents who worried about providing for a son with health concerns once they passed. The husband confronted with his mortality too soon who wanted his wife and children to be financially stable.

Those were the people she wanted to work with. The people she loved working with.

Once she became a midlevel attorney, those types of clients would be rare. Even rarer still when she became a senior attorney.

A bird flew overhead. She watched it soar, swoop down before it arced back into the sky. Entranced, she stepped forward as it winged out over the edge of the cliff and flew above the waves.

“Stop!”

Startled by the loud voice behind her, she whipped around. A sharp, stabbing pain shot through her foot as something pierced her skin. She sank down into the grass, clutching at her leg.

“What in the hell do you think you were doing?” Griffith demanded as he reached her side.

“What are you talking about?” she asked as she gritted her teeth against the pain.

“Do you have any idea how unstable the ground is around here? How close we are to the cliffs?”

“Yes,” she groused as she looked down and spied a thorn sticking out of the sole of her foot, “dangerous territory.”

“If you hadn’t come traipsing about out here, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

“If you hadn’t ordered me to get out of your office, I wouldn’t have been out here in the first place.”

He dropped down next to her and took her foot in his large hands with a surprisingly gentle touch.

“If you hadn’t come into my office when I told you not to, I wouldn’t have asked you to leave.”

Her lips curled back over her teeth as another bolt of pain shot up her leg at his probing.

“You know, I think I have something that trumps all of this.”

He arched a brow as he glanced up. “Oh?”

“If you would have just signed the contract or the refusal, we wouldn’t be in this position right now.”

He stared at her for so long she wondered if he was just going to leave her out amongst the grasses. Instead, he did something even more unexpected. He scooped her into his arms, held her tight against his chest and stood.

“What are you doing?” she shrieked.

“Carrying you back to the house.”

She thumped a hand against his chest. “Let me down. I can walk.”

“Not with a thorn that size in your foot.”

“Hobble, then,” she amended.

“I’m more than capable of carrying you.”

Through her pain she detected the offense in his tone.

“I’m not saying you’re not physically capable,” she said quietly.

His hold on her tightened. It startled her, made her want to relax into his embrace, savor the novel sensation of being carried by a man who obviously took good care of himself.

Dangerous. The warning whispered through her mind. Griffith, and her attraction to him, were very dangerous. She had never got to know a man well enough to feel comfortable taking a relationship beyond a good-night kiss. Thought that was what it would take to want to take things further.

Then Griffith had appeared in her life. She didn’t know him at all. Comfortable was the opposite of what she felt when she was around him. The instantaneous attraction was both thrilling and overwhelming.

Yet it had also set off warning bells. How could something so sudden be real?

No matter what she felt, he was off-limits. Yes, technically his father’s estate was her client, not him. But Griffith was involved. Sleeping with him could derail the career she’d worked so hard for.

Satisfying a simple burst of hormones was not worth that risk. It couldn’t be, could it?

The rest of the trip back to the house was made in silence. Once inside, he took her into the kitchen and sat her down on one of the chairs. She watched as he moved about from the state-of-the-art refrigerator and freezer hidden behind wood paneling to a cupboard that contained stacks of neatly folded cloth.

“How does it feel?”

“Painful,” she ground out through gritted teeth.

He sat in the chair across from her and made a motion with his hands for her to bring up her leg and rest it on his knee. She did so, even though it stung her pride.

“Hold still.”

“I’ll try.”

“If you yank back, I may not be able to keep a hold on it and it could break off in your foot. It could cause an infection.”

“I have three brothers. I helped my mom patch them up enough times to know about pulling out things. Thorns, glass, porcupine quills.”

His lips lifted a fraction. Not much, but just enough to count as an almost smile.

“Porcupine quills?”

“It always amazed me,” she forced out as pain pulsed in the bottom of her foot, “how something with such a cute face could be so menacing.”

“I’ve wondered the same thing.”

Her eyes came up to meet his and she realized with a jolt of surprise that he was teasing her.

“You’re saying I’m cute?”

“Perhaps.”

Shock rendered her speechless. He thought she was cute? She would have preferred beautiful or sexy. But she could make do with cute, too, especially from a man like him who maybe offered a compliment once or twice a year.

“I think the last time I was called cute,” she finally managed to say, “was in middle school by Henry Dorsey.”

“And you and he didn’t live happily ever after?”

“My brothers scared him off. As they—”

With a sudden yank, he pulled the thorn out of her foot.

“Ouch! You could have warned me.”

“Which would have made you tense up and made it all the more likely that the thorn would have broken off in your foot.”

She managed to keep her lips pressed together as he cleansed the wound and wrapped her foot.

“Thank you.”

His head snapped up. “What?”

“Thank you,” she repeated. “For taking care of me.”

He blinked, as if he didn’t know what to make of her gratitude. His lips parted, then came back together before he finally managed to say, “You’re welcome.”

Tension still lingered between them, but her accidental sojourn into the wild rose bushes had created a temporary truce between them.

A truce she needed to avoid. A truce meant the potential for her attraction to him to flourish. To tempt her closer to crossing a boundary she needed to keep in place.

“There.”

He lowered her foot to the floor, then stood up and moved away from her quickly. Relieved, she braced her hand on the table and started to stand.

“What are you doing?”

“Going up to my room.”

And as far away from you as I can get.

“Don’t put pressure on that foot, at least not for a few hours. It was a good-size thorn and it’s likely to be pretty painful.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. “If I’m going to be off my feet for a couple hours, I’d rather not do it in the kitchen. Besides, as I said, before I’m very good at hobbling. I can make my way upstairs—”

He moved forward. She started to step back, winced as her foot made contact with the floor. The pause gave him enough time to sweep her into his arms once more.

“Or I could just carry you.”

“You’ve really got to stop doing that.”

“What? Playing Prince Charming?”

She threw back her head and laughed. When he glanced down at her one brow raised, it only made her laugh harder.

“Not handsome enough for Prince Charming?”

“Oh, it’s not that,” she hastened to reassure him. “You’re actually too handsome.”

He shook his head slightly. “Too handsome?”

Embarrassed, she looked away.

“You said it.”

“I wish I hadn’t.”

“Why not?” he asked as he walked out into the main hall and headed toward the stairs. “Say more if you like. I haven’t heard a compliment about my appearance in...well, you can guess,” he said with a sardonic smile.

“What else is there to say?” She could feel the heat creeping up her neck and moving through her cheeks. “You’re handsome.”

“Handsome enough to be Prince Charming?”

“Yes,” she practically growled.

It was his turn to chuckle, a sound that hummed in his chest and stirred her skin. As the pain in her foot resided, she became aware of how snugly he held her body against his, of the sheer strength in his arms as he gripped her tight. She snuck a glance at him from beneath her lashes, her eyes traveling over the sculpted line of his jaw beneath his beard, the scar that cut down the left side of his face.

“Ask.”

“Excuse me?”

“The scars.” His lips thinned into a line. “Everyone stares, but no one has the guts to ask.”

What would it be like to have everyone know the details of your life? To know almost every horrific thing and still want to know more, to take every bit of knowledge as if it were their own?

“I didn’t really have a question. More of an observation.”

“What’s that?”

They reached the top of the stairs. As he moved down the hall, he spared her a glance.

“That it’s very unfair that people won’t leave you alone.”

This time his laugh was short, harsh. “For once, Miss Sutton, you and I agree. I didn’t used to mind the spotlight. As I’m sure you know, I embraced it.”

She thought back to the hours of meticulous research she had performed preparing to accept this challenge. To try and get inside the head of Griffith Lykaois, renowned shipping magnate and consummate playboy.

“I know.”

He reached her room and walked in through the open door, then sat her down on the long midnight blue sofa in front of the fireplace. As he released his hold on her, she knew a sense of loss, one that affected her body as much as it did her heart.

He moved over to the fireplace, turned his back to her as he braced his arm against the mantel.

“You think me spoiled.”

She thought for a moment, tried to find a way to be diplomatic. And then decided that the best course was truth.

“Yes.”

“I am,” he replied simply. “I’m spoiled and I like nice things. I also have the kind of money that can buy the kind of things that attract a lot of attention. Coupled together with...” He gestured at his face. “What I used to be, it attracted a lot of attention.”

She frowned. “That’s not all everyone focused on. I read a number of articles about the advancements you and your father made—”

“Stop.” The order snapped out, wiped away any of the intimacy that had developed between them in the kitchen. Her body tensed as she watched the tightening of muscles in his back beneath his shirt, the cords of his neck tensing.

“Don’t talk about my father. Please.”

“Okay.”

She wanted to say more, to offer some sort of comfort. His behavior, everything he said, convinced her more and more that while he might have selfish and indulgent tendencies, the man in front of her was a man in pain. A man with hidden depths, given the level of care he had administered to her just minutes after their argument.

He faced her then. Sadness bloomed in her chest at the frozen expression on his face. The mask had slipped back once more.

“Can I bring you anything?”

“No. I had some of the frozen crepes and fruit for breakfast. And there are bottles of water here in the guest room.”

One corner of Griffith’s mouth quirked up. “Beatrice lives in constant hope that one day I’ll return to the chateau. Bring someone here who I could share it with.”

A vision filled Rosalind’s head, of Griffith in the rose garden, a baby bouncing on his knee, a toddler running about. It was hard to imagine any of the women she’d seen pictured on his arm out here amongst the historic elegance. They seemed more suited to the city, to the nightlife and luxury shops that abounded in cities like London. But Griffith... Surprisingly, she could picture him here.

“Well, when you see her, please thank her.”

The stilted conversation stole her remaining energy. She leaned back into the couch.

“You could use some rest.” Griffith inclined his head to her. “I’ll check on you later.”

“I should be able to be up and about on my own in a few hours.”

“I’ll check on you all the same.”

“You would have made an excellent doctor,” she said as she failed to stifle a yawn.

“I sincerely doubt that,” he replied dryly. He hesitated, then nodded his head, as if he’d made a decision. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“We’ll talk about the contract.”

Confusion cut through her fatigue. Why the sudden change of heart? Had her accident stirred up some emotion? Perhaps guilt?

Does it matter? Just say yes!

“Okay. Thank you.”

He nodded once more. “Get some rest.”

As she shifted down to stretch out on the couch, she heard his sharp inhale, turned her head to see what he was about to say. But he was moving toward the door, not even looking in her direction. She waited until the door clicked behind him before she let her eyes drift shut.

Never in a million years would she have pictured a man like Griffith tending to her. It had made him seem almost human. And, she thought as she drifted off to sleep, it made her attraction to him all the more treacherous.