Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ALEXANDER
Ihad expected her to look guilty, maybe even caught out.
But no, Isabelle Blackthorne’s innocent features contorted into a look of absolute panic. And I felt like a total dick. Again.
“Christian?” she asked.
I realised that she didn’t look too dissimilar to how Ben had earlier this evening.
Had I managed to do the same thing twice?
“Yes, Christian.” I was careful to remove the accusation I’d laid on a moment earlier. I had no interest in heightening the fear she was radiating.
“I didn’t hide caller ID,” she muttered.
Her cheeks were warming with colour, either from the coat and being indoors or at whatever emotions roiled within her. Or both.
I realised she’d fallen silent and worked on how to rouse an actual response from her without spooking her further.
“You called him from our phone?” I offered her an opportunity to pick up the story from there.
“When I arrived. He’s the person I was meeting in town,” she continued for me. “I was meant to call him three weeks from when I arrived. Did I miss it? What day is it?”
“It would be three weeks today.” I did the maths for her.
“He called me?” She sounded confused.
“Yes, this morning.”
She scowled at me and I realised what she was thinking.
“Jesus, Isabelle. I got a voice message because I missed his call. I didn’t keep it from you,” I clarified.
Her frown softened but didn’t disappear. “What did he say?”
“Seven days.”
“That’s it?” she pressed.
“I can play it for you when we get home.” Home. I swallowed and continued. “The gist was seven days, no overnight arrangements. Midday at meeting point two. I assume that means something to you then?”
I watched her for a reaction, the words registered and the tension in her shoulders dropped, just a little.
“Okay,” she muttered to herself. “Okay.” The second time it was a little louder, a thread of determination to it. “Right.”
The last word was suddenly entirely unconvincing. Were her eyes watering?
“Right,” I echoed her words. “Let’s go inside.”
“Uh-huh,” she whispered.
I unlocked the back door to the main house, turning to see that she hadn’t moved.
“Isabelle?” She didn’t reply to my calling her name. “Izzy!”
She snapped free of her thoughts. “Yes?”
“Izzy, let’s go,” I urged gently. The anger was quickly draining from me after the nightmare that was today, and I wasn’t willing to be a big enough dick to press her further. Not right now, anyway.
She was just pushing the food around the plate in front of her. I’d prompted her to eat several times already but it made no difference.
Had Seb been here, or Ben, I had no doubt that they’d ask and she’d immediately acquiesce, but not for me. I didn’t have that effect on her. The only reaction I could rouse from the woman was anger and irritation.
“Come on.” I stood and she mutely followed.
The house was freezing so I offered her the coat I carried, the one she had shed in the kitchen, but she didn’t take it.
I accepted the uncomfortable silence, Izzy following me up the wooden staircase and across the hallway to one of the smaller bedrooms.
Dust-sheets covered every single thing in the property, with the exception of this room and the small kitchen.
I swung the door inwards, waiting for her to follow then securing it closed behind us and switching on the space heater.
It would take a while but the room was liveable with the heater on.
I opened the en-suite door and ushered her inside. She watched me warily.
“Disposable toothbrushes are in the vanity, the towel is almost entirely clean, I don’t have spares,” I admitted. “I didn’t think to bring them.”
Nice work, Alex.
“Anything else you need should be in here.” I opened a cupboard to show combs and toiletries and left her.
Time dragged while I waited for her to finish up.
Finally, she emerged, hair newly braided, the soft pink splodges on her cheeks told me what I already knew. She’d been crying. Either because of me, or because of this Christian. Whichever of us it was, I didn’t like it.
“If you get an early night, we can get up earlier and I’ll clear the way for you to get back to the boys.” I’d rather her there with them, than upset here.
I had wanted her honesty, not her tears.
She blinked up at me hopefully.
“Bed?” I pointed to the large four-poster.
I’d done the renovations on this room first. In an ideal world I would have stayed over more often, all the better to get longer days working on the property. Ben, however, was my first priority, and I couldn’t be there for him and here to finish the house at the same time.
That was part of the reason the renovations took so long. That and the woeful lack of funds.
Izzy tore back the covers and slipped between the sheets, rustling them she removed the large jumper and I saw the hints of her shoulders and the strap of a vest top.
“You’ll be warm enough.” I didn’t know why I said it. She obviously knew she would be, otherwise she wouldn’t be taking off her jumper. I chided myself.
Surging onwards I cleared my throat, willing the conversation to be done so I didn’t sound like such an idiot. “Sorry, but I don’t have any other heaters, or any other rooms set up. Not to invade the space but are you comfortable if I take the floor?”
She rose to her elbows, watching me. Then she smirked.
I felt a tiny wave of relief at the reaction from her. The thought of me made her smile. Granted it was the thought of me sleeping on a hard wooden floor.
“It’s your bedroom, Alex. You don’t need my permission to sleep in here. Or on the floor. I’m an adult.” She paused, warring with a thought, then continued. “I can tolerate a top-and-tail arrangement?” There was a tiny hint of mockery in her tone.
“There is no need for feet in this already tense arrangement,” I joked and she smiled.
“Not a foot guy – noted.” She collapsed against the thick pillows.
“I can take a blanket and sleep on top of the duvet? It would be a million times better than the floor. The parquet is unforgiving.”
She barked a rough laugh. “Oh no, not the parquet,” she mocked me. “Get on the bed, Alex.”
I didn’t sleep. Not one bit, and frankly it was ridiculous.
She didn’t either, not if the tossing and turning that stopped an hour or so ago was anything to go by.
The wind outside still blew a gale and I worried what that meant for today.
I wondered if she was kept awake by the thought of the boys back at home, or if – like me – it was the person lying next to me keeping me from rest.
Rising slowly from the bed I gathered my boots and jumper and slipped from the room. Normally, the sound of my movement was comparable to stampeding wildebeests. Not this morning, this morning I made it out of the room so quietly there wasn’t so much as a hitch in her now steady breaths.
Cereal and coffee was all the sustenance I had for the long day ahead. Ideally I would have all the windows in place by nightfall, and every single pane of glass.
A day was overly optimistic, even two would be a push, but I was good at lying to myself.
The creak of the kitchen door alerted me to her presence. She shuffled in, braid dishevelled and rubbing her eyes. Her feet were clad only in her socks – she dropped her boots just inside the door and straightened her jumper.
She must have been freezing.
“You’re awake,” I observed.
She offered a weak smile and began making a coffee. “The earlier I’m up, the sooner I can get back and out of your hair.” She tapped the spoon against the mug and sat down.
“That all?” I observed her while she thought about my question.
Her shoulder lifted then dropped. “That’s the only thing worth focusing on for now. For this morning.”
“Right.” Now I understood. “That’s why you didn’t sleep?”
She scoffed. “Did I keep you up?” Her tight smile sold a nonchalance I could see she wasn’t feeling.
“Yep, I’m unused to a woman’s soft sighs of unhappiness in the bedroom. Very disconcerting.” My attempt at levity earned me the briefest glimpse of a true smile.
She stuffed her hand into the box of cereal, pulling out a fistful. “If you’re going to be crass, I’m going to finger your cereal.”
I barked a laugh. She was kind of funny.
“Okay, I’ll get the chainsaw.” Abandoning my dishes, I left her at the table, I grabbed my tools and wandered to the back of the house where I stopped in my tracks.
Not only were the trees bending and creaking in the ever-present wind, but one fallen sapling had become three.
She scuffed into the room, pulling up beside me to look at the devastation between her and her swift exit.
She didn’t say anything, she didn’t need to – I felt the disappointment rolling off her in waves.
“I can cut them, Izzy, but you still can’t go out in this, it’s not safe,” I voiced her reality.
“I don’t want to be here,” she murmured. Her words slicing at me in a way I hadn’t anticipated. “Is your phone working at least?”
I shook my head and her sadness became anger.
“For fuck’s sake! Not even a landline, Alex? I’m stuck here, with you. I can’t get back to them and I can’t even call them!” She tore off her coat and threw it onto a bench.
“When the storm calms we can clear the way and you can leave. As soon as it breaks,” I offered.
She turned to look at me, her brows were pinched, eyes watching me dubiously.
“Well done, Alex. You got what you wanted. I’m here, away from Ben, for however long this will take.
You know what?” she seethed. “I bet you knew this would happen. I bet you planned it out sooooo carefully. Drag me away from them, rob us of the handful of days we have left. I hope you’re happy.
” She spun on her heel and marched from the room leaving me speechless.
I stood stunned for several minutes before I stole away outside, spending an hour cutting and clearing a section of the fallen trees. Yes, it was a ridiculously stupid thing to do in an active storm, but for some reason it made me feel fractionally better.
By the time I returned inside, Izzy was sitting on a bench waiting for me. The soft pink rim to her eyes indicated that she’d been crying, again, but the stubborn set of her shoulders and her frosty glare also told me she didn’t want to talk about it.
“If I’m stuck here with you,” she growled. “Then I may as well do something to kill the time.”
“Okay?” I waited for her to continue.
“And to be clear, when I am done with this.” She gestured to the orangery. “I owe you fuck all, got it. You got a day, minimum, of enforced labour. That more than covers the costs of my time with you.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from negotiating a better day rate, knowing it would just piss her off more. “Alright, Firecracker. You got yourself a deal.”
She snarled at me, noise and all, then stood. “You’ll have to tell me what to do. And let’s be quick about it, I’m leaving as soon as the wind dies down.”
I saluted at her and she repeated the snarl.
For a second I had an insight into what it was like living with me, the realisation sobering.
“Okay, I’ll fix, you hold the panes. Two people, eight hours, tops.”
I was wrong. Two people and ten hours later I secured the final pane into the frame. We worked in silence throughout, her mood not improving and my guilt increasing with every hour that passed where the wind remained high.
Now it was dark and Izzy’s low mood had suffered further with the realisation she wasn’t leaving tonight.
“Thank you, Izzy. I know you don’t want to be here but without your help today, well this would have taken me nearly three times as long.
” I ran my finger along the sealant, making the room watertight for the first time in years.
“I don’t even think Eli would have been as efficient as you, maybe I need your help with his training. ”
She nodded shallowly.
Small talk was far from my forte. And this clawing feeling of being responsible for her unhappiness was forcing my tongue, and I hated it.
I was chatting and it was horrendous.
“Okay, great!” My irritation surged. It was a miracle I’d been this civil for this long. “Brilliant chat, Izzy. Real conversationalist you are.”
She looked at me as if I’d slapped her and the hurt in her eyes drove a similar emotion into my chest.
“You wanted me here, Alex.” She’d become cool, detached. “And now what? You’re not having a nice time? You don’t like my company? That’s not a shock to me, since I know you fucking hate me,” she barked.
My laugh did nothing to improve the way she glared at me.
“I don’t hate you, Isabelle. You are simply an unexpected complication, one I hadn’t foreseen,” I spat back.
“An unexpected complication?” she spat. “You’re kidding me, right? If this is how you treat an unexpected complication, then I would hate to see how you treat someone you truly dislike!”
I went to reply but she thrust her hand out to stop me.
“Nope, I don’t need to hear any more. This most hated complication will be out of your precious manor as soon as the weather permits, and away from your family in six days.”
The timeline was one I knew but still it stirred something in me. Something oddly like disappointment.
“I. Am. Taking. A. Shower.” Her glare gave me no room to reply. “And I am taking the ‘mostly clean’ towel. Don’t come upstairs any time soon.”
I nodded, the concession doing nothing to diminish her irritation.
“Oh! And you? You, Alex,” she floundered. “You can go fuck yourself.”