He should have told her sooner that he had bought this place, and he should have confessed they were going to be neighbors before he had succumbed to the foolish temptation to kiss her. And he certainly shouldn’t have even kissed her in the first place.
He realized that now.
Venus Merriwell’s intoxicating kisses were as dangerous and destructive as a siren’s song. Dangerous enough that they were capable of bewitching him, of overriding his reason and diverting him from the road he needed to take. For a while, thanks to her and the effect her hypnotic lips had had on him, he had lost all control of his life. All control of what he was and where he was going, and had handed it all to her, and that was madness.
Utter madness when he knew to his cost that the second you ceased to hold the reins of your life, someone else drove you headfirst into a wall. Or a dead end. Or a trap. Or off a cliff.
Therefore, she, and most especially her lips, was best avoided unless he wanted to watch all his hard-won, longed-for plans and dreams get smashed to smithereens on the perilous rocks of her pious and unreasonable whimsy.
Sell his building to her! Pay for Mallory’s mistakes! Wave goodbye to everything he had worked damn hard for!
Scrimped for. Saved for.
Dreamed of every goddamn day since the day he’d lost everything.
Not today!
Yet there was no denying Gal had been so entranced by the power she held over him, so sold on the alluring prospect of her that he’d almost made the biggest mistake of his adult life. Thank the Lord fate had stepped in to save him before any real damage had been done. He’d made a fool of himself, that was all, and some dented pride was a small price to pay for his lucky escape.
As he had all his life, he would take that mistake and learn from it.
Yes, on the spectrum of kisses, that one had been stupendous, but that was exactly why Saint Venus Merriwell was best suffered at a distancegoing forward. In that respect, her fresh hatred of him was a bonus. Something to be celebrated, not lamented. He was furious at himself for losing control in Brighton, for succumbing to and then displaying weakness, and so livid at his own continued stupidity directly after at that ball that he could barely stand to look at himself in the mirror.
What the hell had he been thinking to go chasing after her like that, and then throwing out the baby with the bathwater on the back of one ill-considered kiss? When he knew any decision made in the irrational heat of the moment was always the wrong one.
Thanks to a mad moment of passion and a stupid ache in his heart, he had practically begged, when he had never ever stooped that low for anyone else before.
As if he had the time for a romance? With someone so determined to be a wife, for pity’s sake?
A trouble and strife.
A ball and chain.
When the last place he needed to be right now was caught in the goddamn parson’s trap!
With his rational head now screwed firmly back on his shoulders, Gal knew that he was too damn sensible for any of that distracting nonsense. He had likely only been seduced into the thought of it back in Brighton because she had caught him at a bad time. He had been overwhelmed, panicked, and melancholy, lost in the past and uncharacteristically lonely that night, too, so obviously her feminine softness had appealed. When you combined that with the intimacy of the moonlight, and the intimacy of the conversation and his blatant attraction to the alluring minx, it was hardly surprising that Venus had called to his soul. Toss in that kiss—that phenomenal kiss—was it any wonder he had been so thoroughly seduced?
However, thanks to some distance, and the timely reminder that no good ever came out of letting someone in, he was over it.
Over her.
Or soon would be.
On that he was resolute.
He had seen her only three times since Brighton. The first had been at that ball where she’d used the idiot Dorchester as a weapon. The second had been a week ago when she had stormed off in a hackney with a face like thunder. The last time he had seen her was yesterday, when she had briefly glanced out of the orphanage window, spotted him, scowled in repulsion, then yanked the drapes closed, so he figured he was destined to languish in purgatory for a while longer despite him directing his workmen to charitably fix her roof first.
So be it.
“We’ve had to waste another hour this morning oiling every tool against rust.” Mr. Evans held up a saw as if it were a crucial piece of evidence in court. “It’s not on, Mr. Sinclair, and it’s certainly not fair to either me or my boys to waste countless hours on sabotage when we already have more than enough to do and a short window to do it all in.”
“It isn’t fair, Mr. Evans, and I shall sort it.” Although how he was supposed to do that when Tommy’s commander in chief Venus the Unreasonable wouldn’t speak to him, he had no clue. “I shall find the culprit and I shall stop him.”
“Until the bleeder is found and stopped, you need to employ a watchman after hours, as this state of affairs cannot continue!” Mr. Evans waved the saw in the air like a broadsword. “Time is money, Mr. Sinclair, and my time is limited. When I moved this job forward, I moved them all forward, and I told my next client I would be finished here by the end of March. The Duke of Harlow is too important a customer to upset. If it comes to it, I’ve no choice but to go to where my bread is buttered, even if that does leave this place unfinished.”
“I understand that, too.” The clock was ticking and in more ways than one. As Mr. Evans’s reputation for fine work preceded him, and because Gal really couldn’t afford the delay, either, when—thanks to three renovations instead of the planned-for two—his funds were depleting faster than he could replenish them. He had to do whatever it took to keep the man on the job and the job moving in a timely manner.This new club had to open in the spring. Ithadto or Gal would have no savings left at the rate he was going through them.
“I’ll stay here myself tonight to guard everything, Mr. Evans, and every night until I employ someone. You have my word.” Which wasn’t the most ideal or comfortable solution, but it was the best he had at this precise moment.
