Page 76 of A Secret In The Garden

Instead of smiling, I just gaped at the sight of his tall, powerful-looking body filling out a pair of worn blue jeans and a white T-shirt. He was always in a suit or insanely luxurious business attire. It was usually a darker color, which only lent to his dark, broody atmosphere. But now, in his jeans—he was devastatingly attractive. Like, Fuck it! So you murdered your mother two decades ago. Who cares, handsome? Like, Oh, you have a couple of felonies and are serving jailtime? It’s fine; here’s some money on your books. When can we get a conjugal visit? type of handsome.

I closed my gaping mouth and tried to make my eyes not so bulgy. They felt bulgy.

It was going to be a lot harder to convince him I had no romantic feelings while I was drooling. Were those Wranglers? Look at how muscly his thighs are…

Eliza, get it together!

I focused on the newly independent feelings stirring away in my gut, the ones in the very back, just past the horny ones that wanted to touch every centimeter of his skin, and tried to use them as a reminder of how easily this man could hurt me if he ever wanted to, if I ever gave him the power to—which I wouldn’t. I swallowed, forcing my butterfly-infested stomach back down where it belonged.

“Jasper, hello.” God, I sounded like a news reporter. It didn’t matter; I didn’t even have time to cringe before he hugged me. I stiffened so that I wouldn’t melt into a puddle on his—“Nikes. You’re wearing Nikes,” I said out loud.

He released me but didn’t let me move too far away from him, keeping a possessive hand on my arm. The skin of said appendage burned under his firm touch, making my whole body sweat.

“If you’re going to stare at my mouth like that”—he stepped in close, calm but electric. I could feel the heat bleeding from his body—“don’t act surprised if I start thinking about what else you’d let me use it for.”

A blush heated my cheeks, and I had to clench my thighs as the barely there soreness throbbed at the thought of letting him use my mouth.

“You look good, maybe too good.” His gaze dragged over me, slow and heavy. “It’s a good thing I like being tested sometimes.”

“You’ve quite literally seen me in this exact outfit almost every day for two months,” I argued. I did not look great. He looked great. I looked like a toad.

His brown eyes burrowed into mine. “And you’ve looked beautiful every one of those times, Eliza. Here, I got you something.”

A flush crept so hotly over the back of my neck that it itched as I took the six-inch nursery pot, realizing it had holes punctured all around it, almost dropping it with shaking hands. What was going on with me? I needed to stop being so nervous and get my shit together. My head hadn’t been right ever since I woke up to him in my bed—no. Ever since I tasted the softly metallic edge of his lips and tongue.

“What is this for?” I asked as I started to untie the top of the white cloth.

He bit his lower lip as something like excitement danced in his eyes. “I saw you admiring it on the computer a while ago. I knew you wanted it.”

His eyes pressed into mine, invading my thoughts.

“When you want something, Eliza…” He paused as his eyes turned frighteningly serious, roving over my face. “I’ll be the one who gives it to you. By the way, this one is for you, not the conservatory.”

He’d seen me admiring it on the computer? When had he watched me on the computer? I laughed as I undid the last tie and carefully let the covering fall from the small plant.

My smile dropped. “Jasper—” I double-checked that it was actually what I thought it was before I made a fool of myself. It was a healthy, mature ghost orchid, or Dendrophylax lindenii, one of the rarest and most sought-after orchids, and he was right: I had been admiring it, along with every other orchid lover in the world. “Are you insane? I can’t take this.” The ghost orchid was even more rare than the corpse flower.

“You can; in fact, I insist.” He winked at me with dark confidence.

I gawked. “I can’t keep this. It’s like a three-thousand-dollar plant.”

“Consider it a bonus since I’m not paying you to work on the conservatory,” he said lazily.

I almost choked. “A bonus? I could quit working on the conservatory right now, and this could sustain the botanical gardens,” I said cautiously.

“I know.” The amusement in his eyes dimmed slightly. “I want you to stay here and finish the conservatory because you want to, not because you have to.”

He was giving me a ticket to leave if I wanted to. A ticket that, no matter what happened—even if I couldn’t finish the garden in time—meant that I still had a job if I wanted to at the end of all of this.

It was a gesture beyond anything I could comprehend.

“Thank you,” I mumbled, unable to find any other words that could tell him how much it meant to me.

He watched as I carefully, with shaking hands, wrapped up the beautiful white orchid, replacing the covering. I ran back up to my room before returning to where I had left Jasper and throwing my arms tightly around his neck. I couldn’t stop myself. No one had ever done something like that for me, and it shook me to my core.

“Thank you. You don’t know what that means to me,” I mumbled against the cotton of his white T-shirt.

He wrapped his arms around me and firmly held me against him as if we were bracing for a storm, anchoring and safe. He was all hard lines and dense muscle and only a whisper of tenderness, but I felt it. Under the solid wall of unyielding muscle, there was the slow rise and fall of someone who cared.