A Beauty Dark & Deadly (A Dark & Deadly Series Book 1) (6 page)

“I came here for the seclusion,” Jason said, finally looking away from her and at his garden.  “There were too many distractions in Seattle and I felt blocked.  I would sit in front of my computer and stare at the blank screen, but no matter what, nothing would come.  Words that used to flow so freely from my fingertips reached some sort of obstacle.”  He paused, his brow furrowing, and he gently nibbled the bottom of his lip.  “Stacey was always off somewhere, doing… something.  I got the seclusion I wanted, but my muse seems to have left me.”

Emmy had always been curious about how the process of writing worked.  There were so many ideas out there, and it was interesting to see which author accumulated which idea, put it on paper, and sold it.  She was also incredibly interested in the whole inspiration thing; she would never admit it aloud, but she loved the sort of story where a love story inspired a romance or vice versa.  But she supposed music would suffice, maybe even something elemental, like rain.  Or visual, like fresh snow.  She wondered what his muse had been, before, of course, it had left him.

“Can you get it back?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.

He turned and looked at her.  “Some authors will say that lack of inspiration is an excuse of justifying not writing,” he told her, “and I agree with them to a point.  But having a muse makes it so much easier.  When you have a muse, it feels like your sole purpose on this planet is to write this story.  Nothing can stop you.  No distractions will sway you.  It’s one of the best feelings of the world.”  He paused, and the happy light that cascaded his eyes dimmed a bit.  “But once you lose that muse, you’re stuck.  Words come out, but they feel like they came from someone else.  It’s crap.  It’s horrible, and you wonder how you came up with something so bad when just the day before, words came freely, like a fountain of water forever producing liquid.  I don’t know if you can ever regain the same muse once it’s lost, but sooner or later, one comes back, and the process starts over again.”

“How long have you gone without one?” Emmy asked curiously, genuinely.  Whatever fear she had had long disappeared.  He was distracting her, but at this moment, she did not seem to care.

“A very long while now,” Jason replied, sitting up now and running his finger through his hair.

“Maybe you’re concentrating too hard,” Emmy mused aloud, her eyes returning to the colorful vegetables.  Jason looked at her with an interested gaze, but said nothing. He seemed to have known that she was not yet finished with what she was going to say but did not press her.  He had incredible patience, she noticed.  “Maybe a muse is kind of like a butterfly.  You have to hold on to it, but hold too hard and you’ll kill it.  I think you should do something that has nothing to do with writing.  Maybe then you’ll find your muse.”  With every word, Emmy’s face began to get darker and darker with redness because, in all honesty, she had no idea what she was talking about.  But whenever she had to write something for her creative writing class, she found that distancing herself from writing actually helped her write.

Jason looked at her, somewhat intently.  A few of his long fingers gently caressed his chin and his lips pursed, but not into a frown.  His eyes seemed to consume hers, and Emmy found that try as she might, she could not look away.  If it were any other person looking at her like that, she might feel uncomfortable, but ironically enough, she didn’t.  Despite her own warnings, she found that she liked the way it felt when his eyes were upon her.  She also liked looking at him.  His obvious beauty provided millions of different things for her to continuously notice; it reminded her of a painting, where each time she looked upon it, she noticed something different yet just as beautiful.  The guilt that usually accompanied these feelings was lacking, for whatever reason, so she tried to conjure up some and failed to do so.     

“That’s a good idea,” he murmured, and Emmy could have sworn he was blushing, something that, until now, Emmy had deemed impossible.  She even blinked a couple of times, making sure that it was not her mind playing tricks on her.  “I’m completely embarrassed that I didn’t think of it sooner.”  He smiled softly then and his fixated back on his vegetables.  “Maybe I’ll go into town…”

“The people in town don’t like you.”  The phrase slipped out of her mouth before she could stop it.  Without even thinking, the young woman clamped her mouth shut with her hand, hoping that it would prevent any further embarrassment, and prayed that she would still have her job in the next five minutes.  Her cheeks had colored substantially, and she was sure that if she shaped her body into a round circle, she could very easily blend in with the tomatoes. 

Well, it’s tru
e
, a very quiet voice inside an isolated place in her mind tried to reassure her.
 
Nobody likes him.  It’s not your fault…

“No,” he stated simply, quietly as he pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.  “They don’t like me, do they?  Which is why I have acquired you as my ally.  They don’t know that you’re working for me, and as such, they won’t give you that much of a hassle.”

“You’re wrong,” Emmy said, upon realizing that, no, he wa
s
no
t
actually mad at her.  “I don’t think they like me either.  Somehow, they found out that I was working for you and they weren’t really friendly when I confirmed it.”

“Well, that places us in the same boat,” Jason murmured, dropping a carrot into the basket.  “At least we’re together then.”

Emmy forced a smile and nodded a couple of times, but otherwise remained silent.  A cool breeze had crept upon them and was gently caressing the waves of her hair, beckoning them back over her shoulder with gentle whispers.  The leaves of the trees ruffled each other as the branches swayed, the crisping sound of the leaves providing the melody to an otherwise silent song.  The sun, now up, hid behind the tops of the trees, only allowing a few rays to break through the forest’s shield.  It would seem even the sun was upset at the thought that Mister Jason Belmont had a companion in his seclusion.

“Well, I think we’ve salvaged as much as we can right now,” Jason stated, and pushed himself up into a standing position.  Emmy followed suit, and as she stood, her limbs burned in pain; she must have sat there in that position for longer than she first assumed.  Who knew that spending time with Jason Belmont could pass the time?

Emmy wiped off the back of her jeans, trying to rid herself of any dirt before grabbing her warm hoodie.  She followed Jason as he headed back towards the house.  As she watched him, she began to notice habits of his.  For whatever reason, his head was always down, either because he was trying to decode a pattern in the ground, or because his hair provided an excellent sort of hiding place.  His right hand securely held the basket, and Emmy could see that despite his oddities, he was quite strong, as evidenced by his prominent bicep.  Even Emmy had to applaud such fine sculpture.  However, his other arm was relaxed by his side save for his wrist; it was tense, and as a result, his hand stuck out and his index and middle finger rubbed against each other.  Maybe he was in dire need of a cigarette.  Finally, his steps were bigger than necessary, but not dramatically so.  Emmy figured he must have spent a good portion of his life in New York, for he had adopted a determined sort of stride.  All in all, it was fascinating for Emmy to watch all of Jason’s oddities; he could very easily be a character of his own story, and what a fascinating read he would be.

When they reached the house, Jason quickly turned around, surprising Emmy so suddenly that she nearly ran into him.  Her instincts were nothing to brag about, but she was sure that after cohabiting with this man, they would be sharpened.  She managed to stop herself just in time and did not fight off the questioning look on her face as she regarded him with silence.

“I would like to cook dinner tonight,” he said, and with that, he turned around and headed back to the kitchen, expecting no such questions to arise from such a simple statement.          

While Jason headed into the kitchen, Emmy decided that this would be the perfect time to take her own tour of the house now that its owner was temporarily distracted with his task.  She stood idly in the living room, her hands on her hips, wondering if Jason could cook.  Would he ask her for help, or would she be free to do as she liked for the better part of an hour?  Her eyes surveyed the empty room and a frown found its way onto her face.  She had already known that he was isolated, but beside the necessary furniture, the room was vacant.  There wasn’t even a television, which wasn’t exactly a bad thing, but it just furthered his disconnection to the outside world.  How would he keep in touch with what’s going around him?  Taking a few steps toward the couch, her eyes rested on the large piece of furniture.  It was an eyesore, from the bold pattern to the scattered rips and holes.  There were two cushions that might have originally blended well with the couch, but through time, had transformed into something quite different and awful as well.  There was a groove in the couch, probably caused by Jason sleeping there rather than his bedroom.  The telephone was still resting on the coffee table, and there were a couple of shelves on the wall opposite the couch, filled with books.  As Emmy stepped closer, she realized that they wer
e
hi
s
books, Jason’s books.

She couldn’t stop herself.  The young woman reached her arm out and plucked a book with her fingers from its resting place.  It looked like some sort of spy psychological thriller.  Flipping it open, she flipped through the first couple of pages but stopped when she caught sight of the dedication page.  There, in italics, it read
,
To my loving wife Stacey, May you always be my mus
e
.  She pursed her lips; how could this woman find comfort in another man’s arms?  He obviously loved her very much, had a very good career, and was very handsome.  Yet, as usual, she knew there was more to their story than such simplicities and quickly snapped the book closed, as well as any further inquiries her mind might make.

Emmy turned and walked down a very small hallway.  There was no other bedroom downstairs, but there was a bathroom, and right across from that, a nearly empty closet.  All that was inside were a couple of coats and an umbrella.

Well then.

Emmy then decided to head upstairs.  A squeak cried out from under her foot as she stepped on the third step, but this time, her focus was on what she wanted to accomplish.  Instead of heading into her room, however, she took a right down the hallway.  Passing Jason’s office, she continued to walk down the hall.  There was a larger bathroom, complete with a bathtub/shower instead of just a mere toilet.  Just across the hall was his room, and much to Emmy’s surprise, the door was halfway open.  Her brows perked at the mere notion of peeking into the very private room of a very private man.

Don’t do it, Emm
y
, a voice cautioned, but her feet refused to listen, and continued ever-so-delicately to head into the room.

Emmy slid through the opening and was surprised to find it rather ordinary.  Even she couldn’t deny her disappointment; she was hoping for unclean blades and blood splatter, maybe even a stained raincoat similar to Patrick Bateman’s.  Her eyes moved swiftly; there was a very unkempt king-sized bed in the center of the room, a window with a lovely view of the forest, a bookshelf, a desk, and a closet.  However, her search did not go completely unwarranted.  On a nightstand adjacent to the left side of the bed, there was a framed photograph faced towards the bed.

You’re on thin ice, Emm
y
, the voice murmured.
 
What if he catches you here?  What will you do then?

“I’ll jump out the window,” Emmy murmured back, as her feet, on their own accord, of course, continued to head in the direction of the photograph.

She took a seat on the bed as well as a deep breath before reaching for the picture.  Her fingers shook, and she wasn’t sure if it was due to excitement or fear.  However, neither emotion seemed to stop her, and she continued to wrap her fingers around the simple black frame and held it so that she could see it more clearly.  It was a wedding picture.  There was Jason, much younger, but still incredibly handsome, smiling a smile Emmy had never seen and hoped to never encounter.  It was one of pure happiness, blinding in its beauty.  If she wasn’t already in love with him, she would most certainly be if she saw it even for a mere second.  Standing next to him in a simple white wedding dress was Stacey, or so Emmy assumed, and she was just as lovely as he was.  She had dark, curly long hair and a very petite frame.  Emmy began to feel self-conscious just looking at it, but she couldn’t bring herself to feel any jealousy at Stacey’s beauty because her crystal blue eyes and her bright smile revealed a kindness about her.  No wonder he had fallen in love with her, and no wonder why she had fallen in love with him.