Breaking Up with Barrett: The English Brothers #1 (The Blueberry Lane Series - The English Brothers) (4 page)

He had a sudden image of her lazy in his bed, her blonde hair spread out on the white pillowcase, her eyes closed, her breasts peaked under a thin white sheet. He’d lower his head and capture one in his mouth, wetting the sheet around it to transparency as he sucked it into a tight point, before attending its twin. She’d wake up to his mouth, hot and wet, caressing her, and wind her fingers through his hair. Then he’d shove down the sheet down so there was no barrier between his tongue and her sensitive nipples—

“What then?” asked Hélène eagerly.

“Emily, tell them the rest,” he rasped, unable to escape from the fantasy playing in his head. He was utterly captivated by the story they were weaving of a happy young couple waking up to hot sex, pancakes, jeans, bare feet… it was like walking into a dream you’d been longing for, hoping for, wishing for your entire life. Although Barrett was working like hell to conceal it, he was as rapt as Hélène and J.J., wondering what happened next.

“I did the dishes because it’s only fair to take care of him after he’s taken care of me,” she said softly, turning her luminous face to look up at him.

The words “take care of him” made another bolt of heat shoot down to his already growing erection, which tented his Armani suit pants under the table. He let his mind wander back to his fantasy of Emily in his bed, his lips skimming from her breasts to the flat, soft planes of her stomach, over a neat triangle of curls to the hidden bud of her throbbing sex that he’d take between his lips as he had her nipples, listening for her moans and whimpers as her fingers curled into the sheets by his head.

“Barrett?” asked Emily softly from beside him, still holding his eyes with hers.

Barrett swallowed deliberately, reaching for his scotch and dropping her eyes. He didn’t want her to see the raw lust there, the lifetime of want. “Go on.”

“Barrett was cagey when I came out from the bedroom all dressed. I suspected something was up.”

He looked at her grin and sparkling blue eyes. “You were wearing that pink top with the pink sweater.”

She nodded with surprise. It was the same outfit she’d been wearing when he “accidentally” bumped into her at Penn at few months ago.

“Barrett’s lived in Philly all his life, and yet he’d never seen the Japanese House,” said Emily softly.

“It takes a woman to make sure we get our dose of culture,” said J.J. warmly, squeezing Hélène’s shoulder affectionately.

Barrett turned his eyes back to Emily, realizing that for the first time—in a long, long time—he was actually having fun. And it felt good. Really good. “Emily’s always been fascinated by history. Did you know she’s a doctoral student at Penn?”

“Japanese studies?” asked Hélène.

“Early American,” answered Emily, and her thumb lightly stroked the skin of his hand as he’d done to her before.

He swallowed, glancing down at their hands, and trying to keep the thread of conversation. Had such light contact been this distracting for her a few minutes ago? He recalled her stammer. He was affecting her just as much as she was him. It was a heady notion that cool as ice Emily Edwards was affected by him—he’d barely dared to hope she could ever see him as someone other than Barrett “the Shark” English, and now here she was beside him, spinning delicious tales and undamming a lifetime’s worth of yearning for her. He didn’t know what to do with this new information—not immediately—but it was firmly in the column of things he needed to explore further, in depth, after tonight.

“So you headed for the Japanese House…” said J.J., taking a slice of bread from the basket on the table and buttering it.

“Yes,” Emily said, increasing the pressure against Barrett’s thigh and making him grit his teeth.

He took the cue and picked up the story. “And what Emily didn’t know, was that I’d visited the Japanese House the week before and arranged to have it all to ourselves for the afternoon.”

Her thumb was still making mesmerizing circles on his skin.

“I couldn’t figure out why it was so empty at first,” she said, grinning up at him.

He smiled back, and it felt odd at first because he wasn’t accustomed to smiling; smirking or polite half-grins were more his style.

“She called it a ‘blue-sky-day’ and kept berating the good citizens of Philadelphia for not appreciating a cultural treasure on such a beautiful day.”

She chuckled lightly. “The garden is very lovely, Hélène, with flowering trees in whites and reds. And there are koi fish in a rock pond. We strolled over bridges and all the while I thought Barrett was indulging me, wishing he was back at home in his office closing on a big deal.”

Is that really what she thought? That he’d rather be closing on a deal than spending time with her? He mulled her comment for a moment. She was right, of course. Even tonight, he’d been very annoyed when she’d started this whole engagement fantasy, but it shocked him to realize he hadn’t actually turned his mind to business for a whole fifteen minutes now, distracted by Emily’s body, captivated with the story they were creating.

“I assure you,” he said quietly and firmly, lifting her hand to his lips again as his eyes seized hers hungrily. “When I have you all to myself, the last thing I’ll be thinking about is business.”

“
Mon Dieu
!” exclaimed Hélène, fanning her face again. “How romantic.”

Emily’s lips parted softly, her eyes losing some of their confidence to vulnerability. Her eyebrows furrowed ever so subtly. If he’d been looking any less intensely, he would have missed it.

“Barrett…” she whispered, searching his eyes with hers for a deeply intimate moment, and he felt the lines between game and reality, fiction and truth, blur irreparably. His heart raced and he thought about pulling her away from the table, finding a dark nook somewhere, and kissing her slowly and deeply without stopping for a long, long time. Would she let him? Was this game her way of telling him she’d fantasized about him the way he had about her?

“Emily sometimes forgets the romantic hidden deep inside of me.”

“I do,” she murmured in a daze, her eyes soft and supple, staring at him in languid fascination.

“But I had a lunch arranged at a small table under a cherry blossom tree.”

“You did?” Her voice tilted up and his eyes widened at her, squeezing her hand a little harder, forcing her to shake herself out of her reverie, and play along. “You did,” she said with more confidence. “A lunch. Under a cherry tree.”

“And then he just…popped the question?” asked Hélène.

Barrett turned away from Emily, forcing a light smile for Hélène’s benefit. “Not yet.”

“We had lunch first,” she said. “After lunch we gazed out at the gardens, and finally I said it was time to go.”

“But I said it wasn’t time to go. I dropped to one knee.”

“And you asked me to be your wife.”

“And you said yes.”

Emily picked up her wineglass and downed the entire thing in a single gulp. “And I said yes.”

Hélène and J.J. clapped quietly, offering their half-empty glasses for a toast and exclaiming over the romance of Barrett and Emily’s love story.

Barrett flashed his eyes at J.J., feeling like the king of the world with Emily Edwards still holding his hand beside him. “You see, J.J.? I always get what I want in the end.”

“We’ll see, Shark,” said J.J., his eyes narrowing. “We’ll see about that.”

Emily pulled her hand away from him to pick up her wineglass and he instantly missed the warmth of her fingers entwined with his. He pushed his thigh into hers, but she moved away slightly, crossing her leg to the other side. What had just happened? What had he missed?

When Barrett looked at Emily, her face was reserved and polite, as it always was at these dinners, and she smiled appropriately at him, then at the Harrisons, before excusing herself in a perfectly modulated voice to go to the ladies’ room.

Another cliché that Emily was particularly fond of? “Can’t pull the wool over
her
eyes.” And yet, she’d willfully pulled the wool over her own.

Emily sat on a puffy, mint green ottoman set in front of a low mirror and opened her small purse to root around for her lip gloss.

At first, she’d wanted see what would happen if she tried to rouse a little emotion in Barrett, but she’d never expected him to engage with her so playfully, eliciting emotions she had no business feeling. At the time, she’d wavered between enjoying the fun of it—the teasing and the flirtation, the surprising way he remembered her favorite breakfast food and spoke admiringly about her studies—and fantasizing that it was true, breathless with the way Barrett was making her feel. It was when he said, “
You see, J.J.? I always get what I want in the end,”
that everything had suddenly changed on a dime.

In that moment, Emily had reminded herself that she was doing a job and their night would end with three hundred dollars tidily transferred from his hands to hers. Barrett had never misrepresented himself. He’d made it clear from the start he had no romantic interest in her. She was an Edwards and he wasn’t interested in messy romantic entanglements, so he’d drawn the lines boldly, placing employment and money between them.

And yet she
had
fallen for him, engaging in a dangerous fantasy that meant something real to her, that she would play out in her mind long after tonight. And the thought that it probably meant nothing to Barrett made her heart ache.

It was the words, “
When I have you all to myself, the last thing I’ll be thinking about is business,”
that had made her heart soar to unsafe heights. As she’d gazed into his eyes, for the first time she could ever remember, his eyes weren’t dark with anger or cool with indifference—they were hungry, but soft. Almost…tender. And while she couldn’t ever
remember
seeing that expression in Barrett’s eyes, she recognized it which meant she
had
seen it before. Deep, deep inside of her heart, on a visceral, primitive level, she knew he had looked at her with unmasked tenderness on one previous occasion of her life. Once before, he gazed at her like they were in a bubble together, like she was the sun and the moon and all of the stars—if not, how else would she have recognized it? Emily couldn’t remember where or when, but she knew it was true and it made her stupid heart leap with hope.

Stupid because Barrett English was playing a little game with her for the sake of Hélène and J.J. Harrison’s amusement. A game. Nothing more. After that performance, no doubt the business deal would be sealed upon her return to the table. Then he would call Smith to pick her up, slip the money inconspicuously into her palm as they shook hands goodnight, and she wouldn’t see him again until she was needed.

She stared at herself in the mirror, more determined than ever to let go of this charade. Whatever she felt in her head for Barrett before tonight’s dinner had become significantly more substantial in her heart over the last half hour, and she needed to place distance between them. Now. Immediately. No matter what, she needed to break up with him so she could begin the painful process of getting over him.

She was distracted by the faint ringing of her phone in her bag and replaced the top of her lip gloss, throwing it back in her purse and fishing her phone out.

Her parent’s number. At nine o’clock on a Friday night. She creased her brows. It wasn’t the typical time she’d expect a call from them.

“Mom?”

“Emmy,” her father’s tone was serious, but sounded relieved to hear her voice.

“Is everything okay, Dad?”

“Now, I don’t want you to worry, honey.”

Emily’s blood rushed cold as her fingers tightened on the phone. She was the only child of her aging parents. Their “little miracle,” Emily had blessed their lives when her parents had long given up hope of having a child of their own.

“What’s happened?”

“It’s your mother. She, um, she took a spill.”

Emily stood up, pulling the drawstring on her purse and heading toward the ladies’ room door. She needed to find a taxi and head out to Haverford. Now.

“What do you mean?”

“She fainted at the top of the grand staircase, Emmy. She took a bad fall.”

The grand staircase was the massive marble staircase in the front foyer of the English house that split at a landing, branching off to the two wings of the second floor gallery where there were guest rooms, a library, and several other common rooms. The family’s bedrooms were on the third floor, offering the best views of the estate.

“From the landing or the top?”

“She was found on the landing.”

“Is she conscious, Dad?”

“In and out. She has a concussion.”

“Where are you?”

“Over at Kindred Hospital.”

“I’m leaving right now. I’m downtown, but I’ll be there in forty-five minutes.”

“Don’t rush, Emmy. She’s sleeping. I just…well, I got a little scared, because Susannah, well…” He choked up, and it twisted Emily’s heart.

“It’s okay, Dad. She’s going to be okay. I’m on my way.”

Emily burst out of the ladies’ room, heading for the coat check, only belatedly remembering that she should quickly say goodnight to Barrett and the Harrisons. She approached the table, Barrett’s eyes locking on hers, his brows creasing as she got closer. He and J.J. stood up politely as she reached the table.

“I’m so sorry to cut our evening short, but I just received an important phone call. I’m afraid I need to go immediately.”

“What?” exclaimed Barrett. “Why? Where do you have to go?”

Emily swallowed, not trusting herself to share the news of her mother’s accident, worried out of her mind.

“I have to go,” she repeated, leaning down to brush her cheek against Hélène Harrison’s. “It was so lovely meeting you.”

“I hope we meet again soon. I was just telling Barrett that we’re—”

“Thank you so much,” managed Emily, swallowing the lump in her throat and turning away from the table to beeline for the coat check.

In her haste to find the ticket, or because of her shaking hands, her purse dropped to the floor, causing her credit card, a few dollars, her lip gloss, ID and apartment keys to scatter on the runner in front of the coat check window. She squeezed her eyes shut against the burn of tears, about to fall to her knees when she felt a strong hand on her shoulder.

“I’ll get it.”

She looked down at Barrett’s dirty blond head. He squatted on the floor, gathering her things together, then reached up with the claim ticket which she handed it to the coat check girl.

When he returned her purse, his eyes searched hers. “I’m sorry things got a little, um—you don’t have to go, Emily. It was all just silliness.”

She stared at him, slack-jawed, and it took her a full minute to realize what he was talking about. Oh, God. He meant their little game at the table. He thought she was leaving because of that?

“Barrett,” she said, taking her coat from the coat check girl and shrugging into it as Barrett held the shoulders for her. “My mother fell down the stairs at Haverford Park. She’s at Kindred. I need to get a cab.”

His face changed in an instant, the elegant lines transforming effortlessly from emotion to business. He took his phone out of his pocket and pressed a button. “Smith? Car. Now. Front entrance. Emily needs to go to Kindred Hospital.” His face was hard and his lips were tight as he stared at her. “I’m coming with you. Just let me explain to the Harrisons.”

Emily shook her head, moving quickly toward the revolving door that led to the street. “No, Barrett. Don’t leave your meeting. I messed it up enough for you tonight.”

“You all but clinched the deal.” He turned on his heel, looking back once to growl, “Don’t leave. Wait for me, Emily.”

Emily stood under the awning outside of the Union League Club, waiting for Smith to pull up and Barrett to join her, wondering what had caused her mother to fall. Had she been carrying something heavy and slipped or was it something more serious encroaching on her mother’s health and stealing her balance? Emily’s fingers were cold and she pumped them, wishing she’d brought gloves. An instant later Smith arrived, and Emily suddenly felt the comforting strength of Barrett’s hand on the small of her back as he led her to the car and pulled the door shut behind them.

***

Barrett looked over at Emily, shadowed in the dim light of the backseat. He hadn’t been alone with her in a car for a long time. Not since he was twenty and she was twelve, and he found her walking into town on a Saturday afternoon to pick up a few groceries for her mother. He’d pulled over and offered her a lift and though she’d seemed surprised at first, she’d opened the door and let him drive her to the store. Even though he had a pool party to attend in the neighboring town, he’d strolled the aisles with her, asking her about school, smiling when she called herself a “history dork.” Half an hour later, he’d driven her home and Susannah had invited him to stay for hamburgers and hot dogs. He’d accepted the invitation, marveling at their use of paper plates and enjoying Susannah’s excellent potato salad. Hours later, as they toasted s’mores with Felix and watched the fireflies, he’d remembered the pool party, which was long over by then.

Felix and Susannah had been an important part of Barrett’s childhood and adolescence. He never remembered a day of his life when they weren’t somewhere on the grounds of his parents’ estate tending the gardens, fixing one of the fountains, serving at an elegant dinner or hustling up the stairs with a pile of fresh towels. Haverford Park, his parents’ thirty-acre, ten-bedroom estate in tony Haverford, had more staff than Felix and Susannah, of course, but there was something special about the Edwards, and all of the English children knew it.

Emily’s great-grandfather, Stuart Edwards, had been the gardener for Barrett’s great-grandfather back in the 1920s, brought along from Canada when the English family first emigrated to Philadelphia. Her grandfather had taken over the position in the 1950s and her father had stepped up in the 1980s. For as long as the English family had lived at Haverford Park, the Edwards family had lived there too.

Except for Boxing Day, which the Englishes and Edwardses celebrated together every year, the annual Summer Party, to which the Edwards were always invited, and very occasional impromptu gatherings—like Barrett staying for hamburgers and hot dogs on an odd Saturday afternoon after helping Emily run an errand to the store—the two families didn’t socialize, but co-existed peacefully, respecting the differences in their incomes and stations.

But for Barrett, Felix Edwards was more than just the third generation of Edwards men who had tended the gardens at Haverford Park. He and Susannah—and Emily, for that matter—had provided a sense of quiet stability at Haverford Park while Barrett’s parents attended a multitude of business and social engagements throughout Barrett’s childhood. Susannah often minded the five English brothers when his parents went out for the evening, telling them bedtime stories over hot cocoa and kissing them all goodnight. She would tousle Barrett’s hair affectionately when the five boys waited for the Catholic school bus that picked them up outside the gatehouse every weekday morning. Felix fixed up many a skinned knee with the Band-Aids he kept in the greenhouse. There was something terribly comforting about the constant presence of the Edwards family at Haverford Park, and Barrett was genuinely concerned about Emily’s mother.

People didn’t just fall down stairs. It was a symptom of something. Sitting beside Emily as the town car moved swiftly toward Haverford, Barrett took his phone out of his pocket and dialed a number.

“Victoria? Barrett English here. Yes, of course. Tell him we’ll set something up next week. I need a favor.”

He glanced over to see Emily still looking out the window despondently, the streetlights highlighting her worried features as they made good time leaving the city.

“You’re still on the board at Kindred Hospital, I presume? Who’s the best neurologist there?”

Emily’s back straightened, and her neck turned slowly to look at him, her expression unreadable.

“I need you to call him. Tonight. Yes, now, I’m afraid. If he’s not on duty, I need him to get dressed and head over there anyway. Yes. I need him to check on an important friend of our family, Susannah Edwards. Right.”

He stared at Emily, watching her eyes suddenly glisten with tears as he listened to Victoria yammer on about improvements needed at the hospital.

“Are you still having the Harvest Ball in November? Yes. I’ll buy a table. All right. Make it two. Yes, ten thousand for each is fine. Send the paperwork to Colleen on Monday.”

Emily’s lip quivered and she bit down on it to keep herself from crying. She looked so undone, he couldn’t have torn his eyes away from her if he tried.

“I want a complete work up on Susannah Edwards, Victoria. Very good. Yes. Goodnight.”

He tucked the phone into his breast pocket, keeping his face impassive as he gazed at Emily. He didn’t know what he expected, but when she launched herself across the seat and into his arms, his heart had never felt so full.