Chapter Nine
Eden
I didn’t even know there was a sunroom, but Gareth had asked me to it.
And as I stepped over the threshold, my heart pounding, thoughts of last night’s kisses and cuddles fresh in my mind, I couldn’t hold back a smile and a blush.
Over by the windows, with his back to the door and his hands tucked at the small of his back, was Gareth Wolfe.
He turned to face me as if he’d sensed my presence and the temperature dropped by ten degrees.
I stopped mid-step, uncertain whether I was even supposed to be in here or if I’d mistaken the time, but he’d already locked onto me.
His jaw ticked. I’d seen it a few times now, but never quite like this.
Today, Gareth wasn’t just annoyed. He was ready to murder someone and use their bones as fertilizer for his prized roses.
“Ms. Blake,” he said, the words freezing me in place as every bit of warmth and excitement drained from me. “How kind of you to join me. Do you have a moment?”
The “Ms.” sent an electric pulse down my spine. He only got formal when he was about to eviscerate someone. Besides, I didn’t really have a choice but to join him, though I expected a very different response.
What had I done wrong?
“I- of course,” I said, but it sounded more like a question than an answer.
“Sit.”
I sat, sinking onto an expensive-looking white chaise lounge as he pulled over a leather armchair as if it weighed nothing. But he didn’t sit.
No, he loomed. Towering over me with an expression that could refreeze the polar icecaps and probably the oceans, too. “We have a problem.”
I swallowed, heart beating erratically as panic closed in like a noose at my throat. “I assume you’re about to tell me what it is?”
He didn’t smirk, but his eyes did something close. “Would you like to explain why I received a phone call from my uncle at six-thirty this morning? Or why he’s now under the impression that he’s a guest of honor at our little event?”
I tried to keep my poker face, but my pulse was in my ears. “I- thought it was a family reunion. Isn’t that the point of a reunion? To invite…family?”
He leaned forward, forearms braced on his knees. “My uncle has not set foot in my company in fifteen years. He’s a liability. He’s a drunk, a pathological liar, and he owes half of Europe money. You invited him without consulting me.”
“Technically, I invited everyone on your mother’s side,” I said, trying not to shrink under his glare. “That’s what I thought you wanted.”
“What I wanted,” he echoed, his face puckering as if the words were poison.
I pressed on, emboldened by the flicker of surprise in his eyes.
“You tasked me with coordinating the event. That means managing the guest list, which was, might I add, only available by cross-referencing the old staff directories and your digital contacts. If you didn’t want certain people here, maybe redact your files more thoroughly. ”
His eyes narrowed. “You went through my personal contacts.”
I shrugged, a little too breezily. “I went through your work calendar and the linked accounts. It’s called efficiency.”
He made a sound at the back of his throat, equal parts disgust and admiration. “You could have asked.”
“You would have said no,” I said. “Then I’d have to lie to you. I don’t like lying to you.”
He looked away, out the window, the skin at his temples flushed.
A vein stood out at his throat. “You do realize you’ve just turned a manageable crisis into a public relations nightmare?
When my uncle shows up and starts pitching pyramid schemes to the staff, it’s not my reputation on the line. It’s yours.”
“That’s what NDAs are for,” I said, before I could think better of it.
He turned back to me, eyes glassy with disbelief. “You think this is funny?”
I knew better than to say yes. I also knew better than to say no. So I just met his gaze and let the silence – broken only by the pouring rain outside - expand between us, daring him to blink first.
He didn’t. Instead, he said, “You’re reckless.”
My whole body went hot, then cold. “And you’re a control freak.”
I regretted it immediately. But instead of detonating, he just laughed, a short, joyless bark that sounded like it hurt. “You’re not wrong,” he said. “But I can’t afford to be otherwise.”
I found my hands clenched in my lap. “Look, if you want me to retract the invitation-”
He waved it off, impatient. “It’s too late. Damage done. We’ll have to manage the fallout.” He stood, pacing the perimeter of the room, fingers trailing over the lemon tree’s leaves in a huge white pot in the corner of the room. “I have to know, Eden. Why did you do it?”
The way he said my name made something inside me shudder.
I wanted to lie. I wanted to tell him it was for optics, for morale, for the sake of a fuller guest list. But the truth was, I’d done it because I hated the idea of a family reunion where half the family was missing.
I hated the idea of Gareth alone in his glass house, pretending he didn’t want to see the people who’d abandoned him.
I hated that he could be so smart and so blind at the same time.
So I told him the truth. “I did it because it’s what you’re supposed to do. You can’t choose your family, but you can choose to show up for them. Even if it’s a disaster.”
He went still, one hand on the lemon tree, the other fisted at his side. “That’s idealistic.”
“It’s human,” I shot back.
He moved so fast I flinched. He crossed the space between us and loomed, fists braced on the front and back of the chase, trapping me. His breath was warm, coffee and something darker. His eyes, for the first time, looked less like weapons and more like wounds.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, voice low. “You don’t know what they did to me.”
“I know what they didn’t do,” I said, just as quiet. “They didn’t show up for you. That doesn’t mean you get to erase them.”
He stared at me, jaw working, eyes narrowing with fury and something I couldn’t name. For a second, I thought he was going to yell, or worse, fire me on the spot.
Instead, he straightened, stepped back, and let the anger drain from his body in one long, shaking exhale. “You’re impossible,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said, and meant it.
He looked away, pinched the bridge of his nose. “If you want to keep this job, you have to learn to anticipate me, not just outmaneuver me.”
I stood, closing the gap between us. I don’t know what possessed me, maybe adrenaline or the sick, sweet aftershock of confrontation, but I leaned in until we were eye to eye. “Maybe I don’t want to work for a man who only respects fear.”
He blinked, caught off guard. “I don’t-”
“You do,” I said. “You want people to be afraid of you because you’re afraid of needing them.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
I could feel my heart hammering in my chest, the rush of blood loud enough to drown out the rest of the house. My whole body was wired, every nerve on fire. I hated him for making me feel this alive.
He took a step closer, just half a foot, but it felt like a chasm closing. I felt a jolt of anticipation. If he touched me now, I’d combust.
But he didn’t. Instead, he said, “You’re wrong about me. But you’re also right.”
I wanted to scream, or cry, or hit him. Instead, I said, “So, what now?”
“Now you clean up your mess. Run the event. Keep my uncle away from the press, and pray he doesn’t try to sell shares in a nonexistent vineyard. Do your job, Ms. Blake, and do it well.”
There was something soft in his voice when he said my name, and it made me furious.
“Understood,” I said, chin high.
He watched me a second longer, eyes raking over my face, my mouth, my hands. I saw the tension in his body—how badly he wanted to say something else, to do something else. But he didn’t.
Instead, he turned and left, the door swinging shut behind him with a gentle click.
I stood there, knees shaking, breath ragged, and wondered how the hell I could want someone so much while simultaneously wanting to punch him in the face.
I hated myself for it. But I knew, in the pit of my stomach, that it was only getting worse.
He didn’t look at me for the rest of the day.
Not at lunch, not in the corridor, not during the logistics meeting where he systematically shredded my week’s planning like it was kindling. Instead, Gareth performed a flawless imitation of someone who had never seen, heard of, or even considered the concept of Eden Blake.
By five, my mood had gone from smoldering to radioactive.
I was ready to email in my resignation, throw my phone out the window, and hitchhike to the nearest convent.
Anything to stop thinking about the fight, about his hands on either side of my chaise, about the way his aggressive behavior had secretly excited me and got my body running hot and hungry for him.
Instead, I found myself outside his door at exactly 6:01, heart ramming against my ribs, uncertain whether I was here to grovel or gouge his eyes out. The note on my phone said “6p.m. - urgent,” unsigned but unmistakably him.
The door opened before I could knock. He stood in the threshold, shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow, hair loose from whatever tyrannical styling product usually contained it.
He looked… God, he looked wrecked. Like he hadn’t slept for days, or maybe had, but only after losing a twelve-round fight with his own mind.
I expected him to bark at me. Instead, he stepped aside and let me pass, silent as the grave.
His quarters were as severe as I’d imagined, dark walls, one massive bed, all angles and navy linens, a desk stacked with reports, a walk-in closet that looked like it had been curated by an entire PR team.
The windows faced the roses and treed mountains beyond, but the blinds were half-drawn, filtering everything in cold blue shadow.
I hovered, waiting for a command.
He crossed to the desk and leaned against it, arms folded. “Why are you still here?” he asked.