Chapter 17
BUBBLES ARE THE NEW BLACK
Margot
I never knew I could be grateful for not having a penis, but here I am, massively relieved that no one can outwardly tell how turned on I am after that discussion with Rhys.
For the past four years, anytime anyone would ask me what I was looking for in a man now that I was single, I’d say the same thing.
Someone pliable who takes orders well.
I like them meek and subservient.
But here I am, lusting after a giant of a former military man who’s both vulnerable and dangerous, agreeable but only to a point, with a strong mind of his own and the added bonus of a massive case of the grumpies.
Grumpy has always been inconvenient to me. There’s an extra layer of work to manage someone who’s grumpy.
But Rhys’s brand of grumpy—it’s understandable.
Sympathetic, even.
I was a bear that first year after being single again, when I was also absurdly worried about Daphne, who was refusing all of my attempts to help her get set up after the disinheriting.
That’s what I’m contemplating—how much I like Rhys and how turned on I am by him admitting he wants justice in his life—when I walk into the laundry room.
And gasp.
No, I choke on a gasp.
A knee-deep ocean of bubbles has flowed almost to the doorway, stretching across the room, the occasional sud-peak piled as high as the countertops where we fold the towels and sheets. A thin line still drizzles out of the open washing machine.
Cynthia, my boss, rounds the corner to the laundry room and shoves a mop at me. “Do this again, and you’re fired.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I reply, despite every instinct yelling at me to deny that this was my doing.
I would never.
Never ever.
But when my options are being blamed for a room of suds or getting made by Jonas Rutherford, I’ll take responsibility for the suds.
And for real—my lady boner isn’t getting any smaller at the respect growing for how large of an issue Rhys managed to cause me.
He hasn’t followed me down here, so I don’t know where he is, but I get to work, head down, apologizing anytime any other staff attempts to enter the room while I’m cleaning.
Playing the part.
Equally impressed with how Rhys saved me and irritated at the pile of work he made for me.
We owe each other payback.
I’ll take mine in bed. With his sweaty, broad body over mine, his beard tickling my skin while he—
“You know not to put the sheets back in the washing machine, right?” Louisa, one of my fellow housekeepers, says to me from the doorway, pulling me out of my fantasy.
I stifle a shriek and feel my cheeks heat. “Yes. Rinse them in the sink until they’re not soapy anymore, then wash them the right way.”
She points to a pile of white towels. “Those too.” Her brow wrinkles. “I haven’t known you long, but I thought you knew better.”
Thank you. Of course I wouldn’t do this.
Instead of saying it out loud, I give her a lopsided Margie Johnson grin. “What I get for listening to a podcast while I do laundry.”
And putting myself in a position where I need saving from a man who’s rapidly growing on me.
I’m finishing up a while after my shift should’ve ended, my brain already firmly back at the cabin, watching Rhys cook dinner, maybe with a glass of wine, most definitely while ogling his ass—I hope he wears jeans if he insists on cooking with clothes on—when my phone vibrates with a text message from Lucky.
Dinner plans? Jack and Decker are coming for a cookout. You should join us. Bring Chex Mix.
Dammit.
Hang with Lucky or get lucky?
I wince to myself.
Never thinking that phrase again, because now I’m thinking about my half brother getting lucky, and despite only knowing he’s my brother for a few months, and only seeing him in person for a week, he still already feels like my brother.
My phone buzzes again.
Decker’s dragging Rhys along too. Dude makes a killer apple cobbler. Like, you haven’t lived until you’ve had it. So I know it’s been awkward having him as a roommate, but for real, this apple cobbler will make you change your mind about him.
And now I’m smiling.
Because I still get to have dinner with Rhys without having to choose one over the other.
Even if there will definitely be more clothes involved.
Probably not a good sign, but while I’ve had the occasional fling here and there the past few years since my engagement ended, I haven’t enjoyed the feeling of my body lighting up like I touched a live electrical wire around any of my choices in dates in—
Well.
Not since high school, when I had an irrepressible crush on a guy who was there on scholarship.
His father was a plumber, and his mother was an admin assistant somewhere.
His family wasn’t the right kind of family.
So much so that my father made sure he didn’t return for senior year.
It’s one of those things I’m not supposed to know, but I do. Overheard the wrong things at the wrong times, and there was zero question.
My father knew I had a crush. My father didn’t deem him worthy of me. My father eliminated the problem.
So at seventeen years old, I had to make the choice for the first time in my life.
A crush or my future?
I picked my future.
And I kept picking my future through college and beyond.
Oliver was the best choice, not because of passion or desperate love, but because he was smart and kind and agreeable, and if I was going to choose someone my family approved of, then I wanted someone who wouldn’t make my life miserable.
And I did love him the only way I knew how to love someone.
Safely. Comfortably.
Daph’s told us both we were boring together.
She was right.
He wouldn’t have made me unhappy, but he wouldn’t have made me happy either.
Set me on fire.
Been an obsession.
All with just a few touches and one soul-imprinting kiss.
Now I don’t have to bend to whatever my family wants. I’ve made enough of a name for myself that if my current plans to destroy my father fail, I’ll find another way.
And besides—this is, obviously, just a fling.
So rushing back to the cabin to see Rhys before dinner once I finally have the laundry room cleaned up?
Damn right.
Disappointed doesn’t begin to cover how I feel when I get there and it’s empty though.
I’d thought Rhys would be here.
That we’d get ready together. The long way. With equal parts assistance and interference from each other.
Apparently not.
I’ve fixed myself up in a fall dress, clearance rack cowboy boots, and a jean jacket, taking extra care with my makeup and picking simple hoop earrings—and I’m locking the front door so I can head to Lucky’s house when Rhys pulls up in his truck.
“Want a ride?” he calls through the open passenger window.
Training tells me not to smile. Not to let them see when you want something. When something makes you happy.
Fuck training.
I’m not just smiling. I’m beaming. “Right now?”
“Already late, Skillet.”
Dammit. “Then yes, thank you.”
He jerks his head in a climb on up gesture. “Hop in.”
“Did you come back here just to offer me a ride?”
“I can buy apples and the Chex Mix you’ll claim you picked up and time it right to give you a lift.”
There’s a snort from the woods on the other side of the house.
We both look that way, him from the safety of the vehicle, me from the porch.
“Get in the truck,” he murmurs. “Don’t run. Just go quickly.”
He’s parked practically at the front door, so it’s easy to do as he’s asked.
I heft myself into the black leather passenger seat and shut my door just as the moose wanders into the yard.
“Has it followed us everywhere today?” I whisper, leaning closer to Rhys while I take in the immaculate interior. Freshly cleaned, or is it always neat?
I’m guessing always neat.
“Different moose at the center,” he tells me.
“Seriously?”
He gestures to his head. “Antlers were smaller.”
He doesn’t start the truck, so we both sit, watching the moose wander through the yard, occasionally eyeballing us.
I have to lean closer into him to see the moose better, which means somehow, my hand ends up on his very solid thigh.
Gosh, whoops.
How did that ever happen?
Clearly he hates it because he covers my hand with his and brushes his thumb over my knuckles.
A subtle cologne tickles my nose. Something fresh, but also old. Like a grandpa’s tobacco and the way the wood smelled like new pine last night when we were splitting it.
I glance at Rhys.
He’s in dark jeans and a blue flannel that makes his eyes pop. The flannel’s open over a tight white undershirt.
Most of the purple streaks have faded from his face, and he trimmed his beard down to scruff this morning, so the purple’s gone from there too. He’s sporting a plain black baseball cap that I want to push off his head so I can run my fingers through his hair.
And now I’m not just smelling his cologne.
I’m also smelling the scent of my own arousal as my panties get damp.
He shifts his gaze off the moose and turns it to me.
Then he smirks.
Like he knows he’s tormenting me.
The moose glares at us.
“Oh, don’t be so moody,” I say to him, partially to distract myself, even if I’m still gripping Rhys’s thigh. “We’ll be back soon. You don’t need to be so emo about being alone for a couple hours.”
The moose stares at me for a beat, visibly snorts, and then moseys around to the back of the house.
“I’ve been honing my communication skills at work, but I didn’t think they’d work on a moose,” I murmur.
“Margot Merriweather-Brown, moose whisperer,” Rhys says as he puts the truck in gear.
I laugh. “Hardly.”
He lifts his brows and shrugs. “Looks like it from here.”
The drive isn’t long—maybe fifteen minutes—and I make Rhys stop twice for pictures of the view to send to Daphne.
Both times leaning over him in the car to point my phone out his window.
Both times getting the benefit of him dipping his nose into my hair and inhaling deeply while running a hand down my back.
We should not be going to dinner here tonight.
My brothers are going to figure out what’s up in a hot millisecond.
“You stop and take pictures in Manhattan?” Rhys asks me after the second time I ask him to pull over for a photo.
“Sunrise and sunset from my place at least once a week, and regularly on the beach when I’m in the Hamptons or a few of my other favorite places.”
His lips curve up in a soft smile as he pulls back onto the road. “Moose whisperer and hider of surprises.”
“Now that you know my secret talents, what are yours?”
“Baking apple cobbler and knowing when creepy assholes are going to hit on the housekeeper.”
I raise a brow at him.
And even though he’s driving, with his attention on the curving roads as we enter a residential area, I’m positive he notices.
You can tell by the growing smirk.
Heaven help me, I love it when he smirks at me.
I may have been wrong about liking my men meek and mild.
I might like them better when they go toe-to-toe with me.
That might be what’s been missing from my love life.
“Do you think Lucky has any firewood he needs split?” I ask. “So I can make myself useful while you’re cooking?”
His smirk turns into a real smile. “His only fireplace is gas.”
“Oh.”
“Is that the face you make when you’re disappointed at work too? Your normal job back home?”
I burst out laughing at the idea of letting anyone at work see when I’m honestly sad.
Support and build up my team? Yes.
Let them support and build me up?
Still working on that.
“Stop talking about who I really am,” I tell Rhys. “I have to be Margie for the next few hours.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your trigger point? When do you know it’s time to tell them beyond some made-up date you gave me to shut me up?”
I sink deeper into the soft leather passenger seat and sigh. “I’ll know.”
“That simple?”
“It’ll be when I realize I’ve been hiding it longer than I should have because I like it when people like me for me instead of my titles and family and investments. Also, my sabbatical can only last so long before—before I need to go back.”
He slides a glance at me as he pulls to a stop on the street behind a truck I recognize as Jack’s. “Before all of the pieces are in place for whatever grand scheme you need them for?”
“I wish I could be offended by that,” I murmur.
“Didn’t mean it as offensive. I unfortunately think it’s hot.”
I smile at him. “How hot?”
“We’re in front of your brother’s place.”
“That’s a level of hot.”
He pins me with another look, then smiles and shakes his head as he shuts the engine off.
But he doesn’t immediately get out of the truck.
Oh, no.
The man gives me a slow once-over that has my nipples pebbling and my panties getting wetter.
Like he too would rather we’d been invited to this cookout another night, and like he too intends to tease and flirt with me all night long.
“Grab those apples and the Chex Mix, would you? Then I can tell your brothers you helped.”
I’m laughing as I unbuckle and twist in my seat to look for the groceries in the back seat. As I’m twisted, another car pulls up behind us.
Two people are in front.
But neither is Decker.
And suddenly nothing’s funny anymore.
“Oh, shit,” I whisper.
Rhys glances behind us too, but I don’t enjoy the way our shoulders are connecting the way I should.
Not when he’s spotting the same thing I’m looking at.
His smile turns grim, and he grabs his phone.
“Tell me that’s not the triplets’ parents,” I say.
“You seem like too big a fan of the truth for me to tell that lie.”
I glance at him.
If he’s amused, worried, or feeling anything other than calm, his poker face isn’t giving it away.
While he checks his phone, I check mine too.
I have six messages from Lucky that have come in since Rhys pulled over for my last photos.
Shit. Jack invited Mom and Dad.
This will be fine. Right? Don’t tell them.
I don’t know how the fuck Jack missed that you were coming. Just be cool, okay?
If you got sick, I’d understand. Not that I want you to be sick. I’m just fucking nervous.
We do want to see you tonight. Awkward isn’t our specialty though. Not when it’s our awkward. We love it when it’s someone else’s awkward. Possibly we’re dicks.
Let me know when you get this. Remember who you are—my friend who flunked out of nursing school and needed a job.
I text Lucky back that I won’t mess this up, then glance at Rhys.
His gaze meets mine, and I swear there’s a hint of amusement lingering with the recognition that tonight is going to be very, very awkward.
“Show time,” he says. “Don’t fuck up.”
“I dislike that you’re attractive when you’re baiting me.”
His whole face breaks into a heart-stopping grin that transforms grumpy bodyguard man into a mountain of a snack. “How terrible for you.”
And then he’s swinging himself out of the truck while I’m still grabbing the cloth bag of groceries.
Two breaths.
I give myself two breaths, and then I climb out of the truck too.
He’s right.
It’s showtime.