Chapter 10
June
“Where would you like to eat breakfast this morning?” Veronica asks me when I make my way down the stairs.
I stop at the bottom of the staircase to consider my options.
As usual, I get dressed before breakfast. It’s what I grew up doing, and breaking a long-ingrained habit doesn’t just feel alien; it feels plain wrong.
I picked out a midi-length green polka-dot dress with short sleeves and a thin brown belt.
After slipping into a pair of brown sandals, I braided my hair and came down to eat.
There are days I want to pad down the stairs with unbrushed teeth, tangled hair, and wearing a scruffy pair of ugly PJs. The Harrington in me, or maybe it’s my mother’s voice demanding perfection, won’t let me. Maybe one day I’ll silence my mother’s voice, but it is not this day.
“The dining room,” I tell Veronica.
She nods. “I’ll have everything set up for you there, Miss.”
I release a quiet sigh at her refusal to call me by name.
It’s been a month since I walked out of the games room after Archer’s terrifying words scared me out of leaving this house, and, as usual, there is no trace of my scent matches.
If I didn’t occasionally hear the sound of their laughter or footsteps on the stairs, I’d assume that I lived in this house on my own.
As she walks into the kitchen, I head for the dining room, my preferred eating place.
With my sister living full time at Haven Academy, where students aren’t allowed to keep cell phones, and my parents doing whatever kept them so busy they had nannies raise River and me, Veronica is my only friend in the world.
I try not to think about how pathetic that is.
With eight chairs in the dining room to choose from, I pick one that will give me a view of the garden through the double patio doors, so I have something to look at as I eat my breakfast. I’ve been here long enough now not to expect any company for meals.
Veronica walks in carrying a large silver tray and sets it on the table beside me. It’s my usual breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast with cherry jam, and sliced melon, along with a large glass of freshly squeezed orange juice.
“Enjoy, Miss,” she says as she places it down in front of me.
“Thank you, Veronica.”
She picks up the silver tray and leaves me to eat alone. I asked her to stay once. I was that desperate for company, I’d have talked to a cat if there had been one around. She smiled sympathetically and said, “It would not be right for me to do that.”
I apologized, and she’d left me to eat alone. I haven’t dared ask her again.
Despite my belly grumbling from having picked at the fish she served me for dinner last night, I play with my breakfast. I should eat, but I have no interest in food. I’m too restless to want to sit still.
After three bites, I get up from my chair and wander over to the doors when a figure outside catches my eye.
I’d thought it was one of them.
My scent matches.
I don’t know where they go, what they do, or even where they sleep. It’s as if they spend their days avoiding me.
The gardener, a broad-shouldered olive-skinned man in dark green pants, a green t-shirt, and brown mid-calf-length boots, is watering roses.
I watch him for a bit, curious about where he stays. In my parents' house, the servants lived in the servants' quarters on the third floor. I got used to seeing them every day, learning a bit about them, or as much about their lives as they would want to share with a curious, sheltered omega.
Here, it’s different.
The servants aren’t an extended part of the family.
Veronica is there when I need something from her, and she keeps the house clean and tidy, but I know nothing about her. When I ask about her family, she gently but firmly turns the conversation back to me.
This is the first time I’ve even seen the gardener. Does he live in the house, or does he come every day to work on the gardens and then leave?
I chew on my lip, my eyes lingering on him. He might talk to me, at least for a bit, turning another lonely day into one where at least something happens.
I glance at my barely touched breakfast, and push the garden doors open and step outside to sate my curiosity.
“You spend a lot of time alone.”
Startled, I jerk my gaze up from the grass, meeting the gardener’s brown stare.
I’d come outside to ask the gardener about himself when I remembered Veronica’s polite refusal to be anything other than a housekeeper to me. Not wanting to be rejected again, I’d sat down feet away to toy with a blade of grass instead.
The gardener must have finished pruning the roses and wondered what I was doing sitting on the grass, staring at nothing. At least it’s a nice, sunny morning, so I’m getting some sun even if I failed to start a conversation.
I grew up with money. I know all the rules. The servants are not your friends. You don’t discuss personal, family matters with them, even though they live under the same roof as you, and probably know all about your family issues anyway.
Now I look at the gardener, and I just wish I had a friend.
“It’s a beautiful garden,” I say instead of asking him to stay and talk to me.
Going from an academy full of omegas where I always had someone to talk to, and before that, a house with a little sister I adore, to wandering aimlessly around a mansion alone, is a shock I have yet to recover from.
“It is,” the gardener agrees with a smile.
There’s no cruelty in his eyes, and because he isn’t gently but firmly pushing me away like Veronica, I feel myself relax a little. “You do a good job.”
He shrugs. “It’s just basic upkeep.”
“The orchids are beautiful.” My eyes linger on the delicate-looking purple flowers. “My parents have them in a big glass greenhouse, and they require a lot of maintenance.”
“They’re fussy,” the gardener agrees. “But that doesn’t mean they don’t appreciate touch.”
When I look at him, he’s staring back at me. He's no longer smiling, and there’s a new intensity in his gaze that wasn’t there before.
I study him, not sure what to say. Is he flirting with me? Should I get up and leave?
I start to get up because the unspoken look in his eyes is making me think it’s wrong that I’m here, talking to him.
Wrong that he’s looking at me like that.
Wrong that this is happening in my scent matches backyard.
“Orchids are special.” Holding my gaze, the gardener continues before I can return to the house, “But if you treat 'em right, give them the care they need, they’re the most beautiful flower to open up you’ve ever seen.”
“I—” The gardener’s eyes dart past me, and he takes a step back as I cry out when a hand grips my wrist and pulls me to my feet.
Archer.
He drags me into the house, and I have to run to keep up with his long, ground-eating strides. With his lips pressed into a flat line, he says not a word as he pulls me into the library, slams the door shut, and steps into me.
He stares down at me, and there’s a storm in his eyes that makes me want to run away. My gaze darts to the closed door inches away. As if he knows I’m planning to run, he rests his palms flat on the wall on either side of me, caging me in.
He bows his head, and my pulse leaps in response. I’d think he was getting ready to kiss me if he weren’t so furious. “It won’t work.”
I gulp and shake my head. “I don’t understand.”
“Flirting with the gardener. If you think flirting with him will get me to pay attention to you, it won’t work.”
That wasn’t what I was doing, and even if it had been my intention, it would have worked because he is noticing me. His eyes are on me. His hands are gripping my arms. He’s close, his mouth inches from mine.
“I don’t want you,” he says, his gruff voice rough.
But he’s nuzzling me, his hands caressing my hips and his nose against my throat, sucking in huge, hungry gulps of the scent of my skin like he needs it to breathe.
I’m doing the same.
Wild forest and maple syrup. I love the way he smells too much to back away. Biology is short-circuiting both our brains, and I hate that I’m drowning in pure feeling as much as I love it.
My hands are on him. His back, his shoulders, and I’m rubbing myself against him. My pebbled nipples against his muscled chest. Nothing about his kiss is soft or gentle. It’s hard, unforgiving, and all-consuming.
I want to shove him away after everything he said to me, but I need this so badly.
With a hungry groan, he breaks the kiss and spins me around so I’m facing the bookshelf.
He yanks my dress up, my panties down, and I grab the bookshelf and hold on. My heart is in my throat, and liquid pools within me at the sounds of rustling fabric behind me. He mutters a curse. More fabric rustles, and then his hands are on my hips, dragging me back as he thrusts.
I cry out and moan as he slams himself home. For one perfect second, he holds me flush against him, his arms wrapped tight around my middle, his mouth at my throat. A more intimate hug than any I’ve had before.
He lifts his head then. As his hands tighten on my hips, lifting me slightly, I rise to my tiptoes as he starts moving.
This isn’t lovemaking.
This has nothing to do with love.
This is fucking.
In and out, our breathing harsh and overly loud, his cock slides in and out of me. My body opens up around him, my hips push back, wanting more.
“Please,” I whimper, willing him to go faster, needing this to never stop. “Please.”
And I grit my teeth, my orgasm tantalizingly close, desperate for his knot to lock us together so he can’t ever leave me.
I want it all.
His cock jerks, he grunts, and rips himself out of me.
I cry out as I lose my balance and fall, my knees slamming against the floor and my forehead bumping the bookcase, knocking a book aside and making my head pound.
By the time my heart has steadied, and I twist around, Archer has gone. I’m alone.
Getting to my feet is hard. Stopping my tears from falling is impossible.
The library door starts to open. “Juniper?”
I brush the tears from my cheeks and yank my skirt down, flashing a false smile at Veronica when she peers into the room. “Sorry. Did you need to clean in here?”
She looks at me as if she knows something is wrong. Maybe she heard what Archer and I were doing in here. Maybe she smells the sex.
Humiliated that I let myself want something that I should never have let happen, I rush past her, up the stairs, and to my room, where I pick up my cell phone from where it’s charging on my bedside table.
I dial a number from memory. My fingers tighten around the handset as I take in a breath and release it.
“Yes?” Mom asks once the phone stops ringing.
She sounds distracted. That’s nothing new.
“Mom, I want to come home.”
She laughs. “Don’t be silly, Juniper, you are home. With your alphas, where you belong.”
“But Mom, I—I just want to come home.”
“Well, of course you can come home,” she says with a laugh.
All the muscles in my body relax.
“But not until this weekend, and you’ll have to tell me what meal your alphas prefer for dinner. I can make it a special occasion. It’s been some time since I’ve hosted.”
I nearly scream with frustration. “Mom, you don’t understand. I—”
“Your father is calling me. We’ll speak soon. Bye, sweetheart.”
I’m opening my mouth to respond when the dial tone blares in my ear.
I continue holding the phone, then hang up, put it down, and sit on the edge of my bed. I won’t cry again. All I do in this house is cry, hurt, and cry again.
When I’ve finally gotten control of my emotions, I get up and walk into the bathroom so I can wash the scent of Archer from my skin. That will be the last time I let any of them touch me.