CHAPTER TWELVE
Cara
I woke up feeling groggy, with a headache and a dry mouth.
I looked around me. Where was I? This was not my bed.
I looked beside me, but that side of the bed was empty.
In fact, it was still made. Unslept in. I could hear someone in the shower, and then in a flash I remembered.
I’d run out of the Hart mansion like they were murderers or something. With Edward Ashton of all people.
I sat up in a hurry and then groaned.
“How much did I drink last night?” I mumbled, holding my head.
I couldn’t believe I’d seen Edward again, much less left the party with him. And he’d told me he wanted to talk about what happened between us. Ugh. I didn’t know if I wanted to go through those memories this morning feeling like I did.
In the light of day, I was feeling altogether less confident that being around Edward at all was a great idea. He’d hurt me once; I couldn’t take it if he did it again. And that was reason enough to stay away from him.
I looked down at what I was wearing. It must be one of Edward’s T-shirts. I didn’t remember anything past riding in his car with him. I looked around and noticed that he had made up a pull-out sofa to sleep on. What a gentleman. He always had been.
Until he dumped me out of the blue and hooked up with Sara MacAllister. I winced.
There was a knock at the door. “Room service,” a voice called out.
I went over and let the waitress in. She rolled a cart with a large cloche over it into the room. I looked around quickly for my purse. I hurried over to get a tip for her, but she stopped me.
“Oh, the gentleman already covered it, ma’am.” She smiled at me, and I thought he’d probably left her a nice-sized tip.
She rolled the meal in and set everything up for us. She even moved chairs over. About the time she was finishing up, Edward came out of the shower. He was wearing gray joggers that hung a little low on his waist, showing the top band of his boxers. His shirtless body was amazing.
Both the waitress and I stared at him, open-mouthed as he towel-dried his hair.
He was tall and lean but had a heavily muscled chest and arms. His abs were a perfectly defined six pack.
He was tanned and looked like he did actual work in his orchard to get those muscles as opposed to just working out in the gym.
I remembered from years ago that he would talk about climbing the trees to get the fruit or nuts.
Or working to repair equipment. He must still be doing things like that himself.
Whatever he was doing, I thought as my eyes trailed over his perfect body, it was definitely working for him.
He caught both of us staring as he finished with his hair and tossed the towel back into the bathroom.
His hair was darker than normal since it was still a little wet, and it brought out the blue in his eyes even more.
I heard the waitress let out a small sigh before she remembered what she was doing.
“Your breakfast, sir,” she said, removing the cloche to reveal any breakfast food a person could ever possibly want. Then she hurried towards the door, with a quick backwards glance at Edward over her shoulder.
He smiled at her. “Thank you so much,” he said.
She ran into the door.
“Oh, I’m so clumsy,” she choked out, her face bright red.
I worked to cover my laughter with a cough while Edward hurried over to her.
“Do you need help?” His concern was so cute. I was sure he had no clue why she was so flustered.
“No,” the maid gasped and hurried out the door, forgetting to close it behind her.
“Huh. That was weird,” Edward murmured and closed the door himself. He turned and faced me. “Hey,” he said kind of shyly. “Good morning. I didn’t know what you wanted to eat, so I got…”
“The entire restaurant?” I laughed.
“Yeah,” he said, self-consciously. He noticed my eyes on him and moved to his suitcase to put on a T-shirt. If he was trying to hide how great his body was, it didn’t work. The T-shirt molded to his damp muscles and then hung loosely over his abs. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
I moved to the table and sat down, waiting for him to join me.
He slid on some flip-flops and sat down with me.
I’d never seen him look quite so casual before. He’d always had to dress more formally when we were growing up. His mom had been all over him about how he dressed. Even his casual shorts and T-shirts were twice as dressy as whatever the Whittaker boys wore.
I felt a little nervous now that it was just the two of us. “Thanks for breakfast,” I said, dishing some eggs and fresh fruit onto my plate and pouring some orange juice for both of us.
“Is that all you’re eating?” He looked at my plate skeptically. He was heaping his high with hash browns, sausages, pancakes… pretty much everything.
“Yeah,” I said a little sadly, eyeing the hash browns and the croissants. “I have to eat a certain way to stay in shape.”
“Oh,” he said. “That makes sense.” He looked guilty. “If I’d thought about it, I wouldn’t have tempted you with all this other stuff,” he waved his hand over the heaping pile of breakfast foods.
“It’s okay,” I said, smiling. “I think it’s nice that you ordered all of this.”
He smiled back at me.
An awkward silence fell between us, and it was growing thicker by the second.
I was almost relieved when a buzz sounded from my purse.
The interruption was welcome. I went to grab my phone.
“Whoa, I have thirty something missed messages.” I looked to see who was calling.
It was Nora. And I had missed calls from Monty.
And Libby. Even Garrison, who had never called me before, had left a voice mail.
Before I could text Nora, Edward was suddenly behind me, pulling my phone out of my hands. “What are you doing?”
“Sorry,” he said, “I just think we should talk first before you text any of the Harts.”
I gaped at him. “You seriously believe those things you said last night?”
He nodded. “They weren’t going to let me leave the party with you. Do you remember that?”
“Kind of,” I said slowly. “But I’m still not sure they weren’t going to let us leave together. What exactly happened when you met with Garrison?”
He sighed. “It was the strangest business meeting I ever had. First, we signed off on documents entering into an agreement for Hart Family Farmers Markets to carry fruits and nuts from Ashton Orchards. That was the only normal part, and it only took about fifteen minutes. Then he started asking all kinds of questions about you and me.” Edward looked uncomfortable.
“Like what?”
He looked down at his plate and moved his food around absently.
“He wanted me to tell him I had only platonic feelings for you. He kept pushing me to say I thought of you like a sister or something. I told him that wasn’t how things were.
Or… how they used to be, at least.” He looked up and locked eyes with me.
“Then he wanted me to assure him I didn’t feel that way about you anymore. But I wouldn’t.”
He paused to take a sip of his orange juice. When he looked back at me, he seemed a little upset. “Then he practically offered me half his business if I would forget about you and date his daughter Nora instead.”
“What?” I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Why would he do that? Until last night, I thought he was trying to push Nora and Eric together.”
He looked guarded, as if he was gauging my reaction.
“He said he thought Nora and I would be good together. And that he’d had his eye on me ever since he saw me at an agricultural fair a year or so back.
He thought I’d be good for Hart Family Farmers Market, too.
I’d be like a two for one deal—someone for Nora to marry and someone he could use in his business.
But he made it clear last night that all of that is secondary to you and Monty being together.
He thought if I was with Nora, you might be more interested in Monty.
And I can tell you this much—he cares way more about you being with Monty than me being with Nora. ”
“What makes you think that?” He was making me nervous.
“I got the sense that he thinks Eric is a fine choice for Nora, if he can’t get me on board with his plans. But you and Monty? That’s a huge deal to him.”
I shook my head. Everything about this was strange. Seeing Edward again after so long, the Harts wanting Edward and Nora together, Edward’s belief that they all thought I was one step away from marrying Monty, the ‘escape’ from the Hart estate the night before. It was… a lot.
“Then, when I made it clear I wasn’t interested in Nora and I did not see you like a sister, he told me he could get me, um, a… date with any of the other dancers I wanted. Even the married ones.”
“Gross,” I said, surprised.
“Yeah. But I said no, obviously. And he wasn’t happy at all about that. He said that you and Monty were practically engaged, and that I should forget about any feelings I still had for you.”
“That’s so hard to believe,” I protested.
“Like I told you last night, I’m not interested in Monty at all.
I went out with him once in college, and I’ve done nothing with him since then except that I’ve seen him at the Moonlight or at the Hart estate when they have a party.
He’s asked me out a handful of times since then, but I’ve always turned him down.
Gently, of course. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
” I shook my head. “But why would the Harts be telling anyone that I was going to marry him? None of them have ever said anything like that to me. That just… doesn’t make any sense. ”
He looked a little relieved. “I didn’t think you were with Monty after the things you told me before I went to see Garrison.
But after the things Garrison said, I was starting to wonder.
” He cleared his throat, not elaborating on what those things were, which immediately made me want to know everything he’d said.