Chapter Three #3
He grinned. “This nursery.”
She suddenly felt lightheaded.
“Are you all right?” the grubby gardener asked and grabbed hold of her elbow.
She snatched loose from his grimy hand. “I’m fine, just a little overheated.”
“Well, there’s a water cooler in the office. You should go have a drink and sit down for a bit. You can leave the scarf there too. Lily lives in the cottage at the back of the property.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder.
Delia followed the direction of his thumb-point and spied a small blue clapboard cottage beyond the greenhouses. The house wasn’t big enough for chauffeur’s quarters.
“She can pick up the scarf the next she comes up to the office,” the gardener was saying.
“I, uh . . . I didn’t bring the scarf with me. I’ll have to come back later.”
“Suit yourself.” He went back to his watering, obviously considering his assistance to be at an end.
Delia hemmed in her emotions, not daring to squeal aloud or do a crazy victory dance. The grubby man would ask questions. She settled for one huge and very smug grin that felt as though it stretched from ear to ear.
If Rhett thought his little slut was a customer, he no doubt assumed she came from Jupiter money. Wait until he discovered his latest conquest was a dirt farmer who had to live right on her farm.
Delia let out a contented sigh. The blond slut was after Rhett’s money, and Delia could not allow that to happen. She would have to protect Rhett. For his own good, of course.
~ ~ ~ ~
Rhett had more than one New York surprise up his sleeve, and their moonlit carriage ride the first night only stepped off the whirlwind fairy tale.
He spent every spare minute he could with Lily, filling her days and nights with a happiness she had never felt before—a baseball game at Yankee Stadium, trips to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, and a soul-stirring kiss at the top of the Empire State building, much to the delight and eventual applause of the other visiting tourists.
Wherever they were, they talked. About everything and about nothing.
About favorite things and about their dislikes too.
The scary part for Lily was that their favorites and dislikes matched too well.
Well enough she feared she would never find someone more perfect for her than Rhett.
They traded secrets too. Some painful. When she had unwittingly asked Rhett to divulge the secret of his success, the answer had been totally unexpected.
Her question had come late one night while the two of them lay curled up together on a chaise lounge on their balcony.
Rhett had gone silent a long time, and finally confessed that whenever he felt like giving up on a project, he would close his eyes and imagine himself back in his uncle’s matchbox house in Indiantown.
He would recall the stench of his uncle’s gin-soaked breath and visualize the gaunt man swaying slightly right before he took the all-too-frequent drunken swing at his nephew.
The pain-filled image had forced Rhett to persevere and to move ahead, to improve himself, to further increase the distance between him and that abusive childhood.
After his confession, Lily had hugged him tighter, and guilt over forcing him to remember had plagued her well into the night.
Rhett had also dragged her along to a formal business dinner, much to her trepidation. They had dined with six stodgy investors, there to haggle over a contractual agreement BDC–New York had on the table for a new resort in the Hamptons.
Rhett said it was either take Lily with him or spend the evening away from her, which he was not willing to do.
He was beaming at the end of the evening and declared she had charmed the “old geezers” into agreeing to his terms, and Rhett assured her they would still be arguing if he hadn’t brought her along.
For Lily, her week in New York was the most romantic and the most exhausting she had ever had.
She had to remain on her toes every second and wary enough to steer the conversation away from herself and her job when it veered too close.
Thankfully, she had admitted to Rhett from the get-go that she’d never been to New York, so she could keep the conversation littered with questions about the sights when she needed to, though her admission had given him pause.
“You’re a design consultant, and you’ve never been to New York?” he had asked, a bit astounded.
“I mostly stick to the Miami and Palm Beach scene,” she had responded quickly. Which was true enough—just specialty trees, not designer dresses.
They spent most of their waking hours roaming about the Big Apple, but their time alone in their hotel suite heated up quickly upon their return, with the two of them “necking like high school kids,” as Rhett put it.
Lily was wavering. Every hour spent with Rhett was heaven, and when he held her in his arms, her heart went squishy like a chocolate bar on Miami Beach in July.
She wanted him, plain and simple. Rhett made her ache deep inside with a desire she had never known.
And the fact that he hadn’t pressed her to sleep with him made Lily want him all the more.
Their wonderful week would soon draw to a close, and she hated the thought that her fairy tale would end. Tonight, he was taking her to her very first Broadway show—Beauty and the Beast.
“For my little Disney freak,” he had said when he returned from a meeting and presented her with the tickets.
“You remembered I said that on our first date,” she whispered against his lips as she put her arms around his neck.
She was definitely falling for Rhett, and tonight was Broadway. Tonight would be special. Maybe . . .
~ ~ ~ ~
The clock on the mantel in their suite at the Waldorf Astoria chimed midnight when Lily and Rhett stepped inside.
He closed the door behind them, and before Lily could step away, he swept her into his arms. She went willingly.
He kissed her—hard—the way he had thought about doing all evening, slanting his lips across hers and swiftly shifting the kiss from tender to something more carnal, as he fought to temper his desire after he had imagined indulging in Lily’s taste and sweetness all evening.
She enjoyed the restaurant and the Broadway show with the unfettered joy of a child, and he had been amazed by his contentment just to be with her.
He had cuddled her in the cab ride from Broadway and thought to steal a kiss then, but her blue eyes were wide with excitement, drinking in the lights and sounds of Manhattan just as she’d done every night since they’d arrived.
Her rapid-fire questions about the Big Apple had never ceased.
He had shuttled her to all the must-see attractions in between his business meetings and loved watching her see everything for the first time.
It was like Rhett’s first time in New York all over again.
Lily’s excitement was contagious, and so he had settled her against his side in the cab and let her look to her heart’s content.
This woman was so different from all the other women in his life.
He could feel it in his gut. Out of a sense of self-preservation, Rhett had long ago relegated women to two useful purposes, sex and social engagements, or both if things happened to work out well.
He had never needed women for anything else.
His life had been too busy for the complication of a relationship—nor had he wanted one—and he made a point of telling every woman he dated exactly that, so they wouldn’t get any ideas.
But the thought of a relationship with Lily set his heart beating faster.
It had been all he could do to keep his mind on business during his meetings this week.
He wanted to be with her all the time, and when he wasn’t with her, he plotted and planned when he could get back to her.
The thought of taking Lily to bed made his mouth go dry.
He’d been incredibly patient this week, he thought.
Five days and nights in New York, and he still hadn’t taken Lily to his bed.
She had given no indication she was ready to take their relationship to the next level and damned if he hadn’t promised to let her make the first move in that direction.
The effort was killing him, but Rhett was a man who kept this promises.
Standing in the foyer and holding Lily in his arms, he suddenly felt like a high-school boy with his first real crush. He ate corporate CEOs for lunch, and this little slip of a girl had brought him to his knees—yet he felt fantastic. He grinned.
“What?” She smiled up at him.
“Did you have a good time tonight?”
Her eyes went wide. “Are you kidding me? Beauty and the Beast on Broadway? Tonight was fabulous, and that was exactly the show I would have picked. Your little Disney freak, remember?”
“A mighty pretty freak,” he said and brushed his lips gently against hers.
She gazed up at him, her blue eyes luminous. Her lashes fluttered. “You are so sweet,” she whispered.
The innocent, trusting look in her eyes was genuine.
Lily played no games with him. Rhett had been with women who tried that innocent game, and they had never succeeded.
Not with him. But what lay behind Lily’s innocence?
Inexperience maybe? A relationship that had gone bad?
She had a girl-next-door aura that made him feel like a knight in shining armor. Him, of all people.
His heart did a stutter-beat in his chest. No woman made him feel like this one did—like he was king of the world, a conqueror to protect her against all evil.
Those primal thoughts had the blood rushing away from his head to mobilize elsewhere for one dramatic and, on this evening, very necessary purpose.
He wanted Lily more than any woman he had ever met, and he was kicking himself again for that promise he’d made to her. Seduction ran heavy on his mind.