Page 47 of A Secret In The Garden

I rolled my eyes and undid my belt buckle. She really had no idea the fucking fire she was playing with. “Go on and say it, Eliza. Say you want me. Or I swear I’ll keep teasing you till you’re soaking through those pretty little panties. Or are you not wearing those either?”

Her mouth fell open. “Bye, friend. Oh, I have to send you a picture of the naked man orchid I found in one of the beds. It’s hilarious, and yes, that’s its actual name. Okay, geez, bye.” She hung up, flustered.

The next morning, I awoke to an obscene flower photo that Eliza had sent at three thirty that morning.

Why were you in the conservatory at three in the morning? Is everything okay? I texted.

Hey, friend. Yeah…my balcony door kept blowing open.

I thought you had a couch in front of it? Don’t call me friend, it’s weird, I replied before immediately shooting a text to Sowerby to check the latches on her door.

I did, but the…couch keeps moving, she said before adding, best friend.

I sent her a very annoyed-looking selfie, hoping my frustrated face would make her stop with the stupid names. I couldn’t hide my concern about what was happening in her room. I had a lot of enemies. Do you sleepwalk?

She responded a minute later. No, at least not that I know of? I would call and ask my mom, but she texted me this morning saying that she is so stressed out over not being able to get to me that she wished she’d never had me and that if I don’t meet her at my apartment today, she is going to bag up and donate everything I own.

Jesus.

Do you need someone to drive you back into town? I know you said you hated the drive because of the whole ledges and heights thing. Victor is going with you. She was lucky I wasn’t in town, or I would have made certain her mother quit causing problems.

I’m not going. I don’t have time before the corpse flower blooms, she answered. Everything I have is stuff she made me get anyway. After I get these corpse flower corms to the botanical gardens and get a big, fat raise, I’m going to buy some stuff I like for once…extra nylon and polyester clothes.

You’re a wild woman.

By the middle of the week, we were talking for hours a day; I don’t even know what we talked about—everything, nothing. It just came naturally and easily. Stupidly, it still seemed like a safer idea that I stayed away; at least that had been the plan until the following week. Before I’d left the manor, I was a little interested in Eliza and really wanted to fuck her—now I was really interested in Eliza and absolutely feral to be inside of her.

My phone had been going crazy, vibrating in my pocket while I finished a meeting with my employees. By the time I checked, I had a swarm of missed calls from Sowerby, Katya, Eliza, Leah, and Victor. Pure panic set in. Something awful had happened. I got the familiar feeling of barbed wire in my gut.

Just as I was about to check the thirty-some texts, Sowerby called. I snatched the phone to my ear. “Sowerby, what the fuck is going on? Are you all right?” My heart raced. I felt doom sinking into my chest as I waited to find out what had happened.

“Jasper, you have to come home this minute—immediately. Get to the airport now.” His voice was rattled with fury and panic.

“Is she okay? Is Eliza okay?” My chest tightened. I should never have left. Was it her mother? Had she hurt her? I would destroy them.

“Your father’s here, Jasper. He’s here, and he’s trying to take back the estate.”

Chapter 16

Jasper

The sound of dried, dead leaves crunched beneath my tires, a harsh symphony that accompanied my reluctant approach to Blackwood Manor. The slightly brighter stone edge of the new addition stuck out a little to the left, hidden behind other parts of the main house. The space was for a vault of prototypes, a heavily fortified wing filled with failed, banned, and illegal weapons—things too dangerous or unethical to sell, but there are buyers and collectors for everything. I was one of them.

The few weeks I’d been in New York dissolved away into the dark, misty evening, replaced by the oppressive silhouette of my home. The skeletal trees that lined the driveway had since shed the remainder of their leaves. They reached out like spectral fingers, casting long shadows across the gravel path.

I gripped tightly to the strap of my leather messenger bag, a talisman of the professional world I’d just come from, but more than anything, I needed something in my hands to stop them from constantly curling into fists. Up to this point, I’d been living purely in an existence of anger and numbness, mostly out of spite for my parents. It’s no wonder the feelings Eliza brought out in me felt so uncomfortable—they had been a jolt to the system.

I let out a slow breath and got out of the car. With every step, memories flooded back: whispers of my childhood summers, my mother’s laughter echoing across the house, the painful silence of my parents’ absence. The realization that all the safe moments had been nothing but lies when they chose work and plants over me. Years of wondering what I’d done to have forced them to give up on me and leave.

The door from the garage to the house loomed before me. It seemed to watch my approach with challenge. I knew every inch of this place, yet it felt like a stranger’s house I was entering now.

As I reached for the door, the wood groaned under my touch as I opened it; the quiet of the manor was a tangible weight against my chest. I entered the main living room. Even though no one made a sound, the heavy panic in the air led me right to where they were: the two people who had discarded me. What would my mother think of me now? Was she proud? Did they regret having left? Or would they regret returning? Why now?

Sowerby stood by the fireplace, his weathered hands clasped nervously. Beside him, Eliza watched me with eyes that held both curiosity and caution as they found mine. She took a step toward me but stopped herself, instead giving me a slow, apprehensive nod. I wished I could send her away, keep her out of this, but no matter how much I tried, she kept getting tangled in my life. She had been right: I was a plant—a briar bush full of stabbing, painful thorns that dug in and made it hurt to leave…and hurt to stay.

Then, like a wisp of smoke emerging from the shadows, my father came into view.

Darius Blackwood stood by the window, silhouetted against the failing light of the autumn sky. Years of a life I didn’t know about had etched into his features—lines of guilt? Regret? Unspoken apologies? Our eyes met, and decades of unresolved tension crackled between us as my eyes took him in.