Chapter Four
CHAPTER FOUR
S HE WAS SMART.
He had to give her that.
He couldn’t be upset that she tried to manipulate his masculine urges for her own gain. They were similar creatures in that regard, it would seem. He had been known to do the same thing—working people to get what he wanted.
However …
He was upset that she’d thrown him. That his carefully crafted control crumbled to nothing at her sharp tongue and the sight of her perfect, grabbable legs.
Once their encounter ended, he fled to the safety of his carriage and ordered his driver to return him home. He had a list of tasks to complete at The Empire, but he elected to forgo the lot of them.
It would have been impossible, after all, to attend to any of those tasks with the impressive erection straining against his trousers.
Present Day
“ Y OU’RE NOT PUTTING THAT IN THE BOOK, ARE YOU?”
Armitage Gallier was reading over my shoulder again. Like a kid trying to sneak a peek at a present before Christmas, he was peering down at the worn notebook where I’d been scribbling Thomas and Evelyn’s story.
I hadn’t expected much extended interaction when I took this side hustle. I imagined I’d keep working at the Manhattan Historical Preservation Society by day, and then spend nights in my studio apartment poring over Armitage’s collection of Thomas Gallier’s personal ephemera and papers.
It wasn’t like that, though. Armitage surprised me.
In more ways than one.
The first surprise was the treasure trove of boxes in the attic of the Fifth Avenue house—basically a historian’s fantasy in the form of hundreds of letters, ledgers, and newspapers that had never before seen the light of day. I could understand why Armitage wouldn’t just let me pack hundred-year-old letters into my ratty Strand tote bag. But I was used to archives that were only open from 2 to 4 p.m. on the first Tuesday of every month. I certainly wasn’t expecting him to invite me to work in the house whenever I needed to make full use of the materials.
Surprise #2: Instead of giving me a key and leaving me to my own devices—or giving me a heavy ivory business card for some secretary who would relay messages to and from the man himself, Armitage took my phone and typed in the number for his personal cell. He told me to text him. He even used the box and ancient scroll emoji as we exchanged messages about my next research session.
Then, when I showed up for my next research session, and the research session after that, and the research session after that , Mr. Titan of Industry didn’t just let me into the house and leave me to sift through Evelyn and Thomas’s story. While he was clearly attempting to feign disinterest, he hovered, pretending to work on his own projects while watching me with great interest from over the edge of his laptop. Questions would come casually, almost offhandedly, and the sound of his voice traveling across the fireplace-warmed room always left me with goosebumps.
I couldn’t tell, not then, why he wouldn’t just buzz off. Why he averted his gaze every time I caught him looking at me across the room. Why he always brought me tea just the way I liked it.
I thought maybe it was that he didn’t trust me. That I was a stranger in his house, in his past, and he thought he could protect both by monitoring my every move.
That had to explain why I kept catching him reading over my shoulder as I scribbled notes about the story I would one day write for him. Right?
That day, a shadow crossed over me, and his cologne—a mix of vanilla and petrichor and vetiver (rain and sharp smoke for all you non-romance readers out there) announced his presence.
“We agreed that you weren’t going to read my research until after it was entirely complete,” I sing-songed, not looking up from my notebook, determinedly not swayed by his sudden proximity and nice smells. “We can’t keep having these little study dates if you can’t respect the process, Mr. Gallier.”
He scoffed. “‘Study dates.’ We’re not—”
“If you say so.”
“I’m supervising my employee.”
“Sure.”
“Minding my investment.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And it’s a good thing, too. Because”—he pointed to the line I had just written, which, as you recall, described the status of Thomas Gallier’s dick—“you can’t be putting that in the research.”
I laughed. He now stood in front of me, so I had to crane my neck to see his slightly flustered expression. “Why not? It’s not like anyone’s going to see this. You’re not even supposed to see it until I’ve finished writing.”
“Still. It’s not—he’s dead, Phoebe. More than that, he’s a Gallier . We have an image to protect. My family would die if they knew Thomas was being talked about like this.”
“Talked about like what? Like he had a big dick?”
“Small point of order, but you didn’t mention size.”
“You’re right. I should go back and add that. Prodigiously impressive erection has a nice ring, don’t you think?”
“I think you can agree that it’s not appropriate.”
“Who decides what’s appropriate?”
“Me,” he snapped. “Because I’m paying for it.”
The whiplash of his sudden sharpness threw me. I’d thought we were joking around—you know, you’re the flustered uptight boss and I’m the lovably impertinent scamp you hired to sort your family’s dirty laundry, aren’t we a funny pair?
But I guess I’d read it wrong. Sure, he was paying me way above asking rate for work like this—enough money that I had started considering a move to a slightly less shitty apartment and following eBay auctions for early twentieth-century jewelry I definitely didn’t need. But I had felt sure that we both understood that this was not just a business transaction—this history was something we both cared about, even after just a few nights spent looking through those boxes and making notes.
If I were Evelyn Cross, I would have stood up right then, tossed my chin, and stormed out of the room with some line about how my silence couldn’t be bought. But I wasn’t Evelyn, no matter how much I might have wanted her confidence.
No, I was all bark and no bite. A few quips here and there, sure. But in the end, I just got quiet and muttered:
“Well. At least I know where we stand, sir. Sorry.”
Folding in on myself, I rifled through my bag for an eraser. There had to be one in there somewhere.
The fireplace crackled. The shadow over me moved. “It’s just that I read your dissertation—”
“You read my dissertation?”
“—and you’re excellent. Very talented. Smart. Exceptional, really.”
My heart throbbed right at the top of my throat. He’d read my dissertation. No one had read my dissertation except for the adjudicators, and they hadn’t particularly liked it. Armitage, though, thought I was “very talented.” He thought …
I went back to rifling around for that damn eraser.
“As exceptional as anyone can be when they’re writing about sweating to death in Louisiana in the 1700s,” I muttered.
“Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“I don’t waste my time on anything but the best. And you are.”
He was the kind of man who could have anything he wanted. Anyone he wanted. The best, just like he said.
And over everyone else, he’d chosen me.
I gave up looking for the eraser. I wouldn’t need it.
“Good.” My smile returned. “Let me have the erection thing, then?”
He threw his hands up and dropped into the nearest chair.
“C’mon, Mr. Gallier,” I goaded. “No one’s ever going to see this but you and me. Give me a few creative liberties. I won’t even describe the size if that makes you feel any better.”
His lip tugged in the tiniest smile. The kind of smile that felt like a secret. “Just … I want to know the truth here. Don’t add anything that will change the story. Alright?”
Lifting my pencil, I held it across my heart. “You have my word.”
When he left, though, the interaction stuck with me, leaving me to chew on it like a Tootsie Roll caught in my molar. One minute, he was snapping at me about my work, and the next, he was telling me how brilliant I was. Every time I thought he had his guard all the way up, he shocked me with a bolt of vulnerability.
It reminded me of Thomas and Evelyn, really. Like he didn’t want me close but couldn’t stand to push me away.
I could read into that, I supposed. Make wild guesses about why that must be. But he’d literally just told me not to go guessing about Thomas and Evelyn. Speculating about him had to be off-limits too.
My thoughts turned back to my research. If I wanted to assert the boner conclusion (great band name, by the way—I totally call it), I had to support my “Thomas Gallier hard-on” contention with evidence.
The first and slightly less compelling bit of evidence was simple inference. Who amongst us wouldn’t get hard in the presence of an absolute plus-size goddess like Evelyn Cross? My lady boner is throbbing just thinking about her. Maybe I wasn’t the kind of big girl who inspired erections in men, but I knew Evelyn was. It only made sense that Thomas’s first meeting with the woman would awaken some desire in him.
However, the second piece of evidence was far more concrete. I was able to locate the below note from the log of the butler at Thomas’s residence, dated the night Thomas and Evelyn met:
Half past ten in the evening—dispatched by M. Gallier to the back room of DF Datton’s shop. Requested card of Miss Evelyn Cross in “Spring will Come Again” dress. Urgent. Returned within half hour. M. Gallier retreated to quarters for the rest of the night.
Hm. Sending your butler out in the middle of the night to one of Manhattan’s seediest literary institutions to “urgently” acquire a copy of some half-dressed woman’s girlie card? Interesting.
One can only imagine what he needed such a thing for.