Chapter Three
Eden
Maribel was waiting for me in the foyer, arms crossed and a grin already loaded, as if she’d known exactly when I’d emerge from my room and precisely how long it would take me to check my reflection in every shiny surface along the way.
She had a bright yellow scarf today, an impossible pop of color in the monochrome of Wolfe Manor, and I decided instantly that I loved her for it.
“Ready for the grand tour?” she said. “I hope you brought sunscreen. The boss’s ego reflects more UV than the marble.”
“I’ll risk premature aging,” I replied, and she barked a laugh.
She led the way through a side door, out onto the east lawn.
The morning was brutally crisp, air still wet with dew, and the grass looked hand-painted.
Two gardeners in matching khakis were already at work, one on a riding mower, the other coaxing hedges into geometric perfection.
I watched the blades glint in the sun, catching every drop of moisture and refracting it into a thousand tiny rainbows.
Maribel pointed out the formal rose garden.
“He’s obsessed, don’t ask, nobody knows why.
” The koi pond- “We started with twelve, there are six now. Do not name them, it’s bad luck.
” And the tennis courts- “He plays alone, and yes, he always wins.” She had a running commentary for every inch of the property, her tone somewhere between mocking and maternal.
“Do you always do the onboarding tour?” I asked, keeping to the flagstone path and trying not to trip over my own feet.
“Only for the survivors,” she said. “Or when the boss forgets to be a human and lets new staff wander around like lost sheep. He’s not big on hospitality.”
“Noticed,” I said, and she gave me a sly look.
We looped the lawn, and as we approached the house again, I realized that the mansion looked even bigger from the back.
Rows of windows, all glinting, none open.
The exterior stone was a shade lighter than the drive, almost the color of weathered bone, and the gutters had ornate downspouts that screamed money.
I stared at them a little too long and Maribel noticed.
“Custom. They cost more than my first house.” She didn’t sound impressed. Her tone was just flat.
We re-entered through a mudroom the size of my old apartment. Maribel deposited her scarf on a hook and waited for me. The house was cold, the kind of cold you only get in very old buildings, and I instantly regretted the lack of layers.
She led me into a hall paneled in honey-colored wood, with light slicing through stained glass and throwing colored bands on the floor. The contrast was complete. Outside was bright and wild. Inside was cool and cave-like, the air heavy with lemon polish and faint incense.
Maribel pointed at a portrait on the wall, a sepia-toned photo of a man in an Edwardian suit. “Gareth’s great-great-granddad. Original bastard of the line. Supposedly built the first railroad through here, but I bet he just took the credit.”
I followed her gaze. The ancestor’s eyes were as pale and piercing as Gareth’s, which was unsettling, but the rest of the face was softer, almost kindly.
“What happened to the cheekbones?” I said, and Maribel cackled.
“Heirloom genetics. Skip a few generations, come back even sharper.”
I pretended not to be interested, but my heart was beating faster than I liked.
The hallway opened into a library, a huge open room with what looked to me like every book in the world.
Of course, that was silly. I gazed around at the books from floor to ceiling, ladders on rails and all.
There was a massive desk at one end, and it looked so much like the desk in Gareth’s office that I wondered if it had been deliberately copied.
There was also a deep leather chair that looks incredibly comfortable.
Maribel caught my expression. “He does a lot of thinking in here. You ever need to track him down, and you’ve tried the usual suspects, try here.”
I nodded, but my mind was already trailing behind, stuck back in the study from yesterday.
The way Gareth had watched me during the meeting, like I was both the solution to a problem and the problem itself.
I could still feel the imprint of his gaze, as if it had left fingerprints on my skin.
My chest tightened, and heat pooled in my chest – and a little lower.
“Are you dead?” Maribel asked, waving a hand in front of my face.
“Sorry,” I said, and forced a smile. “You were saying?”
She studied me with open amusement, then jerked her head toward the main staircase. “Upstairs, as you know, are bedrooms. Down this way-” She led me down another corridor, this one lined with oil paintings of wolves in various dramatic poses. “-is the fun part.”
The fun part was the kitchen, obviously, but Maribel bypassed it for now, instead taking me through a series of rooms that were all varying degrees of intimidating.
A formal dining hall with a table that could seat twenty, a music room with a grand piano and four cellos, a smoking lounge with actual, honest-to-god cigars lined up in glass cases.
Every surface gleamed, every chair looked like it belonged in a period drama.
“Ever feel like you’re trespassing in a museum?” I asked.
“All the time,” Maribel replied. “The trick is to act like you own the place. Works for Gareth. Works for me.”
That sounded like solid advice.
We ended in a small sitting room, walls painted a deep, soothing green.
The furniture was newer, less formal, and the windows looked out on the north lawn, where a pair of gardeners were now chasing an escaped corgi through the grass.
Maribel poured us both a glass of water from a cut crystal pitcher and gestured for me to take the chair across from hers.
She waited until I was settled, then fixed me with a look that was a little too knowing.
“So,” she said, drawing the o out, “has the boss fallen head over heels yet, or does he still pretend to be made of ice?”
My glass nearly slipped from my fingers. “Excuse me?”
She leaned in, elbows on her knees. “Come on. I’ve been here long enough to know the signs. He gets all tense and fidgety, then he holes up in his gym for an hour and doesn’t speak to anyone for the rest of the day. It’s like clockwork.”
I tried to play it cool, but my face was on fire. “We had a meeting. He…listened. I think.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, unimpressed. “Did you notice him staring at your mouth when you talked?”
If I’d been drinking coffee, I would have snorted it all over the vintage carpet. “No,” I lied. How much worse would it be if she discovered he’d been staring at my chest, too? “That’s not, I mean, I’m sure he looks at everyone like that.”
“Sure, hon. But not everyone looks back.”
I couldn’t decide if I wanted to crawl under the chair or set it on fire to erase all evidence. My heart was pounding beneath my blouse, like a drumline again, and I was acutely aware of my own pulse, thumping away in my wrists, my throat, everywhere.
Maribel grinned, satisfied with her effect. “Don’t worry. He’s only dangerous if you let him be.”
I tried to change the subject. “So. The sitting room. Does anyone actually sit in here?”
She rolled her eyes, but let me have my dignity. “He does, when his mother visits. Otherwise, it’s just for show.” She sipped her water. “You’ll get the hang of it. The house, I mean. Just don’t let it get to you. Or him, for that matter.”
I nodded, but my mind had already skipped ahead, replaying the memory of Gareth’s eyes on me, the razor-wire focus, the way he’d looked at my hands, my lips, even my chest. It was impossible to forget, especially now that Maribel had called it out.
She finished her water, stood, and clapped her hands once. “Back to work, then. I’ll see you in the kitchen at lunch. If you don’t get lost in the library, that is.”
I watched her leave, then sat for a minute longer, letting the silence wrap around me. My fingers toyed with the cuff of my blouse, over and over, until the memory of Gareth’s gaze faded just enough for me to stand up.
I made my way back through the echoing halls, past the wolf portraits and the marble stair, and finally found the familiar door to my own quarters. I closed it behind me and leaned against the wood, heart still hammering, face still burning.
He’d looked at me. Really looked. Other people noticed.
And now I had to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do about it.
The bedroom had been turned down while I was out. The bed was perfectly made, the corners crisp enough to draw blood, and the sheets smelled faintly of lavender instead of my usual nothing.
I found a square of chocolate on the pillow, wrapped in gold foil. The level of hospitality was both flattering and intimidating, and it made me wonder if there was a hidden camera to catch me breaking down and devouring the chocolate in two bites. Spoiler; there wasn’t. I checked.
With a sigh, I flopped onto the bed and let myself sink in. The mattress was so plush, it took half a minute for my body to settle. For a second I considered taking a nap, but my brain was still on high alert, spinning with the aftereffects of Maribel’s not-so-subtle needling.
Instead, I did what any self-respecting twenty-something does when alone and mildly panicked; I called my grandmother.
It rang three times, then, “Who died?” in Gram’s voice, sharp and bright as ever.
“Hi to you, too, Peggy,” I said. “No one’s dead.”
“Then why the hell are you calling in the middle of the day? Don’t tell me you got fired already.”
I grinned, the knot in my stomach untangling a little. “Not yet. The boss is a hard-ass, but I’ve only said two awkward things and spilled zero liquids so far.”
There was a pause as she processed this. “That’s a record. Give it three days. Where are you, anyway? Is it true they put you up in the mansion?”