Ramsay (13 page)

I shook her off. "So do your friends." I looked around at Lindsey's followers, the women who were standing there idiotically waiting for their next instructions from the leader of their den of stupidity. "You'd all be wise to remember that." I enjoyed Lindsey's outraged intake of breath as I walked away.

The rest of the party went by far too slowly for me as my guests took their time drinking my liquor, eating my food, and making themselves at home on my property. I made the rounds once or twice but couldn't stomach more than that. Lindsey and her brainless bunch had apparently left early, but the mindless self-centered chatter of the other overinflated egos in attendance was more than I could handle today. Especially when I constantly had one eye focused on Lydia as she moved through the crowd as if she herself were the hostess of this mess of a party even though she wore the uniform and role of a servant.

I might have even been able to see the humor in it if my emotions weren't all twisted in a tangle of frustration, anger . . . and guilt. I felt like the biggest bastard who had ever lived.

Finally, finally, the guests started leaving, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Fionn and Eileen had evidently had a grand time witnessing my misery, standing off to the side and cheering each other and placing bets of some kind or another. Miserable Benedict Arnolds that they were. They finally came up and said their goodbyes, not seeming to mind in the least that I focused my most evil glare upon them and told them I was happy to see them go. They walked off laughing.

Those dwindling stayed another hour and then I made my way inside and tipped the staff that was packing up. Lydia was helping to clean the kitchen and when the catering staff began leaving, Therese gave Lydia a big hug and winked at her. Lydia had apparently won
her
over, too. Therese barely gave me a glance as she picked up the last of her things and headed for the door. And
I
was the one who had given her an overly generous tip.

Checking outside that everything was cleared away and all staff gone, I returned inside feeling relief that the party was over.

"Lydia?" We needed to talk. The kitchen was clean and empty, so I went upstairs, but both her bedroom and bathroom door were open. Frowning, I returned back downstairs. My heart picked up in speed. She wouldn't have left, would she? Why shouldn't she? I was a fecking arsehole to the nth degree. What reason did she have to stay? If it were me, I would leave after today, too. I
should
be happy to be rid of her. This had all gone arseways, just as Fionn had predicted.

So why did I feel a desperate misery descending over me?

I turned when I heard a small sound come from the living room, my heart hammering as I rushed in. Lydia was collapsed in a chair, her feet sitting on the coffee table, her high heels on the floor beside her. Relief swept through me.
She hadn't left.
But then my eyes moved to her feet.
Oh feck.
Her feet looked awful—swollen, with angry red welts in several places where her shoe straps must have been. I entered the room and sat down on the coffee table in front of her, taking her feet into my lap. Her tired eyes cracked open half-mast.
God, she was exhausted.
Another wave of guilt crashed over me. It must have taken everything she had in her to perform the way she did today. And yet she hadn't cracked, not once. And she hadn't let on about the state of her injured feet either. I felt . . . proud of her, yet also fearful and confused.

"Unhand me you spiteful villain," she slurred, but then she let out a deep moan of pleasure when my thumb pressed into her arch. I prayed she didn't feel what that sound did to the place right above where her foot was now resting.

"I have turned myself into a villain, haven't I?"

She cocked one eye open. "A conscienceless devil," she agreed. "Balor himself."

I let out a startled chuckle. "You remember that story?"

Her lips moved very slightly into what I thought might be the attempt at a smile. "Hmm-hmm. Balor can kill someone just by staring at them with his evil eye. I remember every story about Irish gods and devils and banshees and will-o-the-wisps you ever told me. I remember what you said about clovers, how they're lucky because the three leaves signify yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Each time I see one, I think of you. I remember it all, Brogan."

My heart squeezed tightly, and I felt slightly breathless. "Today was a mistake," I let out on an exhale.

"A mistake? You mean you mistakenly arranged for me to serve you and your guests? Your
friends?
"

I shook my head. "No, no, that's not what I meant."

She sighed. "I know what you meant." She attempted to rise, but I gently pushed her back into the chair. She watched my hands on her feet for a few minutes, letting out another small moan that raced straight to my cock. "Do all your employees get such personal treatment, or am I special somehow?"

Oh Lydia, I wish you weren’t.

My lip quirked up into a small smile. "I figure I owe you this much. How in the hell did this happen anyway?" I held one foot up, turning it slightly so I could assess the full damage. At least there weren't any major blisters.

She nodded down to her shoes on the ground. "They were the only black shoes I had. I would have bought a more comfortable pair if I had known I'd walk the equivalent of seventeen miles today while hefting heavy food-laden trays over my shoulders. I have a newfound respect for those in the food serving industry. If you meant to teach me a lesson about—"

"Forget what I meant to teach you," I rasped. "I'm a stubborn jackass." She opened her eyes and stared at me for a moment. God, she was so beautiful, even exhausted and looking like she might pass out at any moment, her bruised and battered feet sitting in my lap. I wanted her. God, I'd never stopped wanting her. How could I? She had been the only person to ever really
see
me, I was ready to admit that now. I wanted to take her in my arms and kiss her until we were both panting with need. I wanted to feel her naked body against mine again, to dip my fingers into the place only I'd ever been, to feel the slippery wetness of her arousal, to know she wanted me, too. I wanted to bury myself inside her and forget where she ended and I began. I was hard and aching with the very thought of it. I clenched my eyes shut. I'd orchestrated my own demise. I was going to go down and go down hard.
Again.

Lydia's eyes moved lazily up my chest until she met my eyes. I could see a vein beating steadily at the base of her throat. Did I affect her, too? I'd never been sure—not then and not now.

My thumb found the small hollow under her ankle bone and here, too, I could feel her pulse. I rubbed my thumb over it in light circles, feeling the gentle throb under her skin, a reminder that the heart beat everywhere, controlled every inch of the body. When I met her eyes again, they were filled with questions. Questions I wasn't sure I'd be able to answer, even for myself. "Better?" I finally managed, nodding to her feet.

Her lips parted as if she thought to say something, but then they closed and she only nodded. "What happened to your date anyway?" she asked.

"She left with Rodney Calloway, Sr."

She raised one delicate, blonde brow. "Rodney Calloway, Sr. is ninety and in a wheelchair."

I shrugged. "When she realized I was distracted by you, she looked into other options."

Her eyes widened slightly and she stared at me. I'd surprised her with my admission about being distracted by her. But I suddenly found I wanted her to know.
You turn me inside out, Lydia. You always have.
"You used her," she finally said. "I thought you hated game playing."

"We used each other," I answered, not missing the reference she was making to herself. She was right, though. I'd acted like a hypocrite in so many ways since this had begun that I could hardly keep track. I sighed, my shoulders heavy with self-disgust.
Arseways.
Totally arseways.

"I should go to bed," she said after a moment.

I nodded, releasing the foot in my hand. "There are some things we need to talk about. Can we do that over dinner tomorrow night? I'm working from my office here tomorrow."

"Sure." I helped her stand up. When she started to hobble toward the door, I couldn't bear it. I swept her up into my arms and though she made a small, startled squeak, she didn't tell me to put her down. Surprisingly, she wrapped her arms around my neck and allowed me to carry her. When I kicked the door to her bedroom fully open so I could enter with her, I nodded toward the bathroom. "Do you want me to run you a bath?" I asked. My voice was hoarse as I pictured her naked, wet limbs hanging over the edge of the tub as she soaked in the hot, steamy water. I cleared my throat and tried to clear the image. But she shook her head.

"No, I just need to go to bed. You can put me down. I'll be okay."

I let go of her legs and lowered her gently, her body sliding against mine. "Goodnight, Lydia."

I needed her to stop looking up at me with her kind, beautiful eyes, somehow seeming to see through my confusion and despair.

I needed her skin not to be so soft, so silken that I didn’t want to let go.

I needed her to stop being so alluring, mesmerizing, irresistible.

"Goodnight, Brogan."
I
needed to be the one who broke away before I did something totally stupid that she didn't need any part of after the day she'd just endured, the day that I had
caused
her to endure. I turned away.

"Brogan," she called. I turned back. "To my mind, we're even now."

"Even?"

"Today. It settled the score between you and me. You can try to dish out more, but I'll fight you from here on out if you do. Just so you're aware." She lifted her chin, challenging me.

I almost smiled, but held it back. Fierce, exquisite girl, with swollen feet, her golden hair cascading around her stunning face, and her . . . cream puffs falling out of her too-small shirt. She had absolutely nothing to bargain with, and yet she stood there as if she held all the cards. Then again, perhaps she did. Perhaps she had all along. She watched me as I watched her, a small wary look on her face as if she was waiting for me to do something, but she wasn't exactly sure what. Finally, I simply nodded and left her room.

Lydia

"Good morning," Brogan said, glancing back over his shoulder quickly as he flipped a pancake on his griddle. "How are your feet?"

My eyes ran down his jean-clad backside. God, I'd forgotten what an amazing ass Brogan had. He was wearing a brown T-shirt that showed off his back and arm muscles. I dragged my eyes away before he caught me staring.

"Better," I said, taking a seat at the bar and twisting my still-wet hair up into a messy bun and securing it with a rubber band from my wrist. In actuality, my feet were still sore, although I wasn't limping any longer. A good night's sleep and a long soak in the tub this morning had helped my feet
and
my muscles. My mood was buoyed by the fact that we were finally going to talk tonight and perhaps my life could resume again—at least in some manner. I would think about how I was going to attempt to solve what would be a new set of problems once Brogan laid out his terms. "You cook?"

"I can manage the basics," he said, smiling at me. I blinked.
Brogan Ramsay just smiled at me—a sincere one
. I had even caught a glimpse of teeth, the slightly overlapped front tooth causing my heart to speed up just as it had always done. He must really be feeling guilty to show me teeth. Well good, he should. Although he still hadn't actually apologized, I wasn't going to try to force him to. Like I'd told him last night, yesterday had evened the score between us. Now I was hopeful he'd return De Havilland Enterprises and come up with a reasonable payment plan. We could both go on our merry ways, no permanent harm done. So why did that thought bring a twinge of disappointment, no merriment at all? It wasn't as if I'd enjoyed more than a moment or two in Brogan's company this week. And yet . . . I believed in being honest with myself. There was still something between us—something I was having difficultly defining. Perhaps it was only a physical attraction, unrequited lust, the possibility we'd make sexual magic together if we really had the opportunity this time around. And whatever it was would never be fully known because our relationship—if you could call it that—was of a temporary nature and based on the exaction of revenge. I chewed at my lip, considering my mixed emotions.

Brogan brought a plate piled with fluffy pancakes to the breakfast nook and placed it on the already-set table. I saw there was already a plate of bacon, a plate piled high with potatoes mixed with what looked like onions and peppers, and two glasses of orange juice at each place setting.

"That's a lot of potatoes," I noted.

"I'm Irish. I like potatoes," he teased. "Coffee?" I nodded, and he poured two cups from a pot on the counter, bringing them with him to the table where he took a seat across from me.

"Thank you for this," I said, nodding at the food.

"My pleasure." We both dished up plates and the next few minutes were spent eating.

"God, this is good," I said, spearing another bite of fluffy pancake. "I didn't realize your domestic talents were on par with your gardening abil—" My eyes widened and met his, my stomach dropping at my own mindless, rude comment. "You know what I mean."

Brogan finished chewing. "Lydia," he said, an amused look on his face, "it's okay. The last time you knew me, I was a gardener. Actually, not even a gardener. A gardener's assistant. It's fine."

"Assistant or not, you were the hardest worker I've ever known," I said softly. "I'm not surprised you're so successful now. You did the work of two men on our property."

He paused with his coffee cup halfway to his lips. "You noticed that?"

"I noticed everything you did," I said, my cheeks warming. I lifted my chin. "I was a proper stalker. I took my job very seriously."

He tilted his head, his expression slightly bewildered. Had he really not known? I didn't think I'd been that subtle.

I took a sip of juice. "Anyway, you're a businessman now. Will you tell me about what you really do?"

He finished chewing. "We can get into all that later tonight."

"Okay. But I'm holding you to this conversation," I said, raising a brow.

He gave me another small smile. "As you should. What are you going to do today? I noticed my sock drawer hasn't been organized by color." His lip quirked. He was teasing me.
Huh.
I grinned.
He was a man, there were only two colors, black and white. Therefore, a two-minute job.

"I can get to that this afternoon. But um . . . I have an errand I was going to run today while you're working."

"An errand?"

I nodded, picking up a piece of bacon, dipping it in my syrup, and biting off the end. "Actually, I'm going to go see my old house. My friend Daisy told me the family that bought it from Ginny moved." I took another bite of bacon and chewed and swallowed before continuing. "I won't be able to go inside, but I'd just like to walk around."

Brogan was studying me intently. "Why?"

I shrugged, trying to go for nonchalant. "My father died my first year of college. It was more sudden than anyone thought it would be. He'd been lingering . . ." My voice drifted away as I pictured receiving that terrible phone call, Stuart's voice choking back tears as he delivered the news, collapsing on my bed, and sobbing into my pillow. I'd been alone. Somehow I'd picked myself up and made flight arrangements. Somehow I'd picked myself back up a dozen times since then. I took a deep breath. "Anyway, I came home, of course, but everything happened so quickly. It was as if I were in a fog, you know?" I gave Brogan what felt like a sad smile. "I went back to school, but then we found out about the debt . . . Ginny put the estate up for sale and it sold quickly . . ."

"You never got to say goodbye," Brogan supplied.
I never got to say goodbye.

I met his eyes. "No," I whispered. "I never did. Not to my father, and not to the home I'd grown up in. After graduation, I came home from college and it was just all . . . gone." I did a fluttering movement with my fingers, a gesture that came from sudden sadness, nervousness at sharing this part of myself with him. I stilled my hand, replacing it on the table. "I just thought I'd walk around a bit. Maybe it's stupid, but I feel like I need to. And I don't know if I'll ever get another opportunity."

"It's not stupid," he said, reaching his hand across the table and placing it on top of mine. His skin was warm and lightly calloused, and suddenly, the only part of my body I was aware of was the small portion of skin he was touching. His hands were beautiful. It was something I remembered first noticing about him as I watched him work in our gardens. His fingers were long and slender, his hands elegant but strong. When I glanced up, our eyes met and held for several beats. I cleared my throat, removing my hand from under his. It took me another moment and a sip of coffee to get my bearings.

"I'd like to go with you."

I frowned. "I don't know if that's—"

"I won't get in your way. I'll just accompany you. I guess maybe I never really got a chance to say goodbye either." I watched his face, a bleakness moving through his eyes and I swallowed, a sudden lump in my throat as I recalled that long-ago evening: watching Brogan stride across the lawn, his head down and his shoulders tense even as the sprinklers drenched him.

"Okay," I said softly. "It's big enough for the both of us to wander separately I suppose." He gave me a small smile.

We finished our breakfast, and I offered to clean up while he did what he needed to do in his office. Once that was accomplished, I went upstairs and blow-dried my hair and put it in a ponytail. I was wearing a pair of linen, army-green shorts and a black blousy, button-down shirt. My feet were not going to tolerate anything other than my flip-flops so I slipped those on, grabbed my wallet and sunglasses, and went downstairs to meet Brogan. He was just coming out of his office.

"Just give me a second, and I'll be ready." I nodded, not knowing why exactly I felt nervous. I guessed because it was the first time I was going somewhere
with
Brogan. Strange because I'd been living in his home for the past week.
Not that he'd been living here, too, though.
But either way, this felt different. Maybe it was because of
where
we were headed together.

Brogan came downstairs a minute later with his shoes on and held the door open for me as he grabbed his keys out of a basket on the table right next to the door. I followed him to his car, and we drove the twenty minutes to my old home in relative silence as I watched the scenery out the window. This was the place I'd grown up and still loved so much, from the miles of gorgeous shoreline to the sprawling back country. As we neared the Merritt, the landscape became more pastoral, with green, rolling hills, beautiful stone walls, and large pastures where horses grazed. It was an extremely affluent area, but what I'd always loved the most about this part of Greenwich was the charming country feel, even though it was so close to New York City. Everything around me whispered
home.

Brogan pulled into the long curving driveway of what had been my home until I was eighteen. A swell of emotion hit me as I stepped out of the car, gazing upward at the beautiful stone Georgian mansion that had once belonged to my family. I looked around slowly. The landscaping was clearly untended, the home indeed unoccupied. Swallowing down a lump, I turned to Brogan. "If you'd have just waited a little bit, you could have had this house."

He studied me for a moment, a strange expression moving over his face. "I wanted a property with a guest house for Eileen," he said softly. "She's in college at Fairfield University." 

"Oh," I said. Fairfield University was about a half hour from Greenwich. I hoped I'd get more of a chance to visit with Eileen and hear about her life, especially after she'd been so kind to me yesterday. "That's great." Our gazes held for a moment before one side of his lips tilted up. Almost a smile.

I turned and walked up the stairs, and using my hand as a visor to shade the sun, I looked into one of the windows to the side of the massive door. My eyes moved around the empty foyer, the sweeping staircase that I had bounded down so many times . . . I saw myself as a little girl running down it on Christmas morning, as a young woman in formal gowns, gliding down, trying to look as sophisticated as possible as some date or another waited at the bottom . . . Sighing, I stepped back. "Mind if I . . .?" I used my finger to gesture to the yard and the surrounding property.

"Of course," Brogan said, seeming to know exactly what I was asking and stepping back. I wondered what he was thinking, where he would wander, but I pushed it out of my mind. I needed to take this time for me.

"I'll meet you back at the car in a little while." He simply nodded.

I strolled around the property for a while, letting the many pleasant memories fill my mind: listening for the sound of my dad's car every evening and running to the driveway to greet him, throwing my arms around his neck as he laughed and swung me around. I remembered how my mother had loved the snow and how the first snowfall was always a magical day in our home. My mother's laugh would be filled with joy as we made snow angels and caught snowflakes on our tongues. I remembered my mother coming into my bedroom to kiss me goodnight, before she left for a night out with my father. I remembered her perfume, something light and feminine that I didn't know the name of. I remembered how she'd give me Eskimo kisses and tell me that someday I was going to fall in love with a man just like she'd fallen in love with my daddy. And someday I'd make a little girl as pretty as me.
Oh Mama.

As I walked around the fence of the pool, I remembered laughing with my girlfriends so many summers as we slathered on sunscreen, read magazine articles aloud to each other, and gossiped about boys. Closing my eyes, I inhaled the familiar scent: grass, flowers, and the faint smell of horses nearby, a smell that lingered even though all the animals had been sold. I turned around and looked toward the stable. It would be my last stop.

As I strolled there, a feeling of peace came over me. There was no particular reason for it—I felt sad, lost, my life in upheaval and nothing was certain and yet . . . there it was. I wanted to believe that for just a moment, my beloved parents had used the breeze to caress me and tell me everything would be okay, and that somewhere deep inside I knew it was true.
I miss you both so very much, and wish you were here to stand by my side.
I’d felt adrift for so long, and recently—even before Brogan had taken over our company—the resilient façade had started to crack a little. I realized now that a large part of it was that losing both parents by nineteen had been so grueling—
harrowing—
and I'd never fully acknowledged that deep pain. That searing loss. Yet, being within the grounds where I’d been raised brought welcome comfort. Soothing smells. Calm . . .

Both my parents had died here, but it was the
living
I was remembering. And God, I'd needed this.

I tried the back door of the stable. Surprisingly it was open. The light inside was dimmer, dust motes twirling lazily in shafts of sunlight coming from the skylights above. The smell of old wood, hay, and the faint scent of the horses that had once lived here mingled together in the still air. I walked to the stalls and stood staring into the empty space. My eyes filled with tears. "Oh Maribel," I whispered. She had been my horse and part of this property I'd grieved the hardest for when Ginny told me she had to sell it. She'd reassured me she had found a good home for her, but I still missed her even though so much time had passed. "Are they good to you?" I whispered.