Chapter 23 Eliza
Eliza
I stood waiting in the grand entrance of Blackwood Manor, where Jasper had asked me to meet him for dinner.
In an act of defiance and a way of further proving that there was, in fact, nothing romantic between us, I had opted out of wearing anything particularly fancy, an easy choice considering that the only nice dresses I had were the ones Leah and Katya had gotten for me.
Even though some part of me wanted to dress up and show Jasper that I could be pretty and put together, I fought it away.
I waited, knowing I would sense when he approached.
We couldn’t be in the same space without it feeling supercharged with electricity.
I’d never felt anything like it, and in the deep, hidden parts of my soul, I knew I wouldn’t again.
But it didn’t matter. No matter how much we might want to come together, to melt into the other, we had both been through far too much to be able to do that; it would never work out.
One relationship could only hold so much trauma.
Not to mention, as the ghost of his dead mother reminded me, I still had some pretty important questions that needed answers.
There were too many holes in everyone’s story, and as much as I really, really, really didn’t want to believe Jasper had murdered Hester, I still had an odd feeling in my gut that I couldn’t ignore when it came to Jasper and his innocence.
I trusted him, but something felt off that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
I had been obsessively checking my—Hester’s—locket, wishing and hoping that she would give me something, anything, that would help me. I was running out of time to help her…despite my best efforts, the corpse flower’s growth was not slowing down.
Last night with Jasper, I had been reckless.
I was never reckless. Every move I made was meticulously planned and thought out.
It had to be. That’s how I’d survived. I wasn’t very beautiful or intelligent.
I wasn’t charming. In fact, I never knew the right thing to say or when to say it.
I wasn’t passionate about anything but trying to get my parents to like me, as pitiful as that sounded.
I wasn’t an academic environmental juggernaut hell-bent on saving the earth as my mother and father had wanted; I preferred smutty fantasy books to ethics and orange Fanta to green juice.
I was never the person I was supposed to be, but still, I read The End of Nature by Bill McKibben, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson and could quote A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold and all the other things I was told to—not because I enjoyed it, but because it was what I was good at.
Doing what I was told to.
Even at Pinehurst, I was barely cutting it.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed working in nature with the plants immensely; they were safe and predictable…
relatable even, but if I could have done what I’d wanted, I wouldn’t have been in these clothes, manor, or garden.
Essentially, I was doing what I was told to do, though I was grateful I ended up here with Jasper and Hester and the rest of the friends I’d made at the Blackwood Manor.
It felt weird to think of my life without them now. It was nice to feel welcome.
My sister, Lucy, barely spoke to me. She hardly spoke to any of us anymore, and I never blamed her.
In fact, I envied her ability to break away.
It was really bad at home when she left and moved to the UK, and after she was gone, everything got worse.
My mother viewed Lucy’s rebellious move as a personal failure and, in turn, was twice as strict with me.
My sister had always hated me for being the goody-goody daughter, but she never knew that I had done all of it for her, stupidly believing that if I could take the brunt of it, they would leave her alone. They hadn’t.
I’d thought about calling Lucy several times since I’d been at Blackwood Manor.
The peace of mind I’d experienced staying at Blackwood made me miss her even more than normal.
She was younger than me by a few years, and I couldn’t help but feel my soul reaching for her, wanting to ask her advice about what to do about Mom.
Lucy was the only other person who knew what I was going through.
Mom had gotten so much worse these last few years.
Maybe I would call Lucy tomorrow.
A crackle of awareness drew my attention from my thoughts.
I turned to see Jasper striding toward me, holding a small green nursery pot with a burlap sleeve over the top, with a smile on his face that should be illegal. My stomach flip-flopped when his eyes traced over my body and his smile grew even wider.
Smile, you idiot.
Smile!
Instead of smiling, I just gaped at the sight of his tall, powerful-looking body filling out a pair of worn blue jeans and a white T-shirt.
He was always in a suit or insanely luxurious business attire.
It was usually a darker color, which only lent to his dark, broody atmosphere.
But now, in his jeans—he was devastatingly attractive.
Like, Fuck it! So you murdered your mother two decades ago.
Who cares, handsome? Like, Oh, you have a couple of felonies and are serving jailtime?
It’s fine; here’s some money on your books.
When can we get a conjugal visit? type of handsome.
I closed my gaping mouth and tried to make my eyes not so bulgy. They felt bulgy.
It was going to be a lot harder to convince him I had no romantic feelings while I was drooling. Were those Wranglers? Look at how muscly his thighs are…
Eliza, get it together!
I focused on the newly independent feelings stirring away in my gut, the ones in the very back, just past the horny ones that wanted to touch every centimeter of his skin, and tried to use them as a reminder of how easily this man could hurt me if he ever wanted to, if I ever gave him the power to—which I wouldn’t.
I swallowed, forcing my butterfly-infested stomach back down where it belonged.
“Jasper, hello.” God, I sounded like a news reporter. It didn’t matter; I didn’t even have time to cringe before he hugged me. I stiffened so that I wouldn’t melt into a puddle on his—“Nikes. You’re wearing Nikes,” I said out loud.
He released me but didn’t let me move too far away from him, keeping a possessive hand on my arm. The skin of said appendage burned under his firm touch, making my whole body sweat.
“If you’re going to stare at my mouth like that”—he stepped in close, calm but electric. I could feel the heat bleeding from his body—“don’t act surprised if I start thinking about what else you’d let me use it for.”
A blush heated my cheeks, and I had to clench my thighs as the barely there soreness throbbed at the thought of letting him use my mouth.
“You look good, maybe too good.” His gaze dragged over me, slow and heavy. “It’s a good thing I like being tested sometimes.”
“You’ve quite literally seen me in this exact outfit almost every day for two months,” I argued. I did not look great. He looked great. I looked like a toad.
His brown eyes burrowed into mine. “And you’ve looked beautiful every one of those times, Eliza. Here, I got you something.”
A flush crept so hotly over the back of my neck that it itched as I took the six-inch nursery pot, realizing it had holes punctured all around it, almost dropping it with shaking hands.
What was going on with me? I needed to stop being so nervous and get my shit together.
My head hadn’t been right ever since I woke up to him in my bed—no.
Ever since I tasted the softly metallic edge of his lips and tongue.
“What is this for?” I asked as I started to untie the top of the white cloth.
He bit his lower lip as something like excitement danced in his eyes. “I saw you admiring it on the computer a while ago. I knew you wanted it.”
His eyes pressed into mine, invading my thoughts.
“When you want something, Eliza…” He paused as his eyes turned frighteningly serious, roving over my face. “I’ll be the one who gives it to you. By the way, this one is for you, not the conservatory.”
He’d seen me admiring it on the computer? When had he watched me on the computer? I laughed as I undid the last tie and carefully let the covering fall from the small plant.
My smile dropped. “Jasper—” I double-checked that it was actually what I thought it was before I made a fool of myself.
It was a healthy, mature ghost orchid, or Dendrophylax lindenii, one of the rarest and most sought-after orchids, and he was right: I had been admiring it, along with every other orchid lover in the world.
“Are you insane? I can’t take this.” The ghost orchid was even more rare than the corpse flower.
“You can; in fact, I insist.” He winked at me with dark confidence.
I gawked. “I can’t keep this. It’s like a three-thousand-dollar plant.”
“Consider it a bonus since I’m not paying you to work on the conservatory,” he said lazily.
I almost choked. “A bonus? I could quit working on the conservatory right now, and this could sustain the botanical gardens,” I said cautiously.
“I know.” The amusement in his eyes dimmed slightly. “I want you to stay here and finish the conservatory because you want to, not because you have to.”
He was giving me a ticket to leave if I wanted to. A ticket that, no matter what happened—even if I couldn’t finish the garden in time—meant that I still had a job if I wanted to at the end of all of this.
It was a gesture beyond anything I could comprehend.
“Thank you,” I mumbled, unable to find any other words that could tell him how much it meant to me.