Next to You (7 page)

She would never be so ungrateful as to complain about it. It just wasn’t hers, and she wasn’t sure how to behave in it. Men talked to her on the subway, in coffee shops, standing in line for whatever. They never used to do that, so Phlox wasn’t good at making that kind of small talk or deflecting over-aggressive interest. Zee knew how to do it. Phlox had seen her in action. Zee could give her advice in that area, but so far, Phlox had been too embarrassed to ask.

She flipped the page. There was only one photo on this page, her lying in a hospital bed, her face, neck and torso wrapped in bandages, an oxygen mask over her mouth, wires and tubes going in and out of her every which way. This was her between faces, the old one burned off, the new one not yet designed.

She flipped through more pages and more photos of her as she gradually healed and the dozens of operations began. These were the faces people stared at on the street, looked away from on the elevator. She had avoided the subway during that period, but try catching a cab looking like that. Finally, Zee had insisted on a car service to get her around the city. That had made Phlox feel silly and even more conspicuous, so she’d ended up just staying in her apartment as much as possible. That was simpler for everyone concerned—herself and the entire population of Manhattan.

Then the photos got better. Skin grafts smoothed out her face. Her nose and lips were rebuilt. What was left of her eyebrows were filled in with tattoos. Page by page, she began to look recognizably human again. Then came the section for her breasts. More skin grafts. No implants.

After every new operation came yet another moment of truth when the bandages were finally removed and Phlox would see who was underneath. She had never really thought about how attached she was to her old self until she wasn’t sure that old self still existed.

The memory of Jared stalking off the other day still stung. “People like you fucking well do not understand what it’s like,” he had said to her.
Yeah, I do fucking well understand what it’s like.

She wondered what had happened to Jared. Whatever it was, she hoped he hadn’t done it to himself like she had. Some days that was the hardest part of it, retracing her steps of that day, wishing she had done something else instead. Gone outside to garden or driven to the grocery store to shop or taken a nap or gone swimming. Anything but decide she just absolutely had to work on a new product in the kitchen.

It had been her own stupid-ass fault and it always would be. She owned that. But she wasn’t letting anyone tell her she fucking well did not understand, because she did.

She took one last look at the photographs, then closed the album and stood up.
No, you Jared Connor do not fucking well understand the first thing about me. But you’re about to.

She set the photo album on the bench outside the cottage, the one where she had left all those baked goods. No treats today, not for Jared Connor. Just a little light reading.

I
’m an asshole
.

Not exactly breaking news, that. Jared turned the pages of the photo album she had left for him. So she was Phlox Miller, the CEO of Phlox Beauty. Not her daughter or sister or niece. She was his employer, the woman whose photograph—old photograph—was on the company web site. He tried to remember what his brother had said about her. A nerdy scientist type, he believed it was, and something about an accident. But Jared had cut him off before Jake had told him the whole story.

Normally, Jared hated hearing stories of other people’s accidents, like it was some bond of brotherhood between them. He hated being expected to compare surgical histories to see who’d had more, like it was a fucking badge of honor. But now he wished he had let Jake finish. It would have saved him making a total ass out of himself in front of her.

She didn’t look like a nerdy scientist type. She hadn’t really even looked like one before. She’d been reasonably attractive then, too. But now she was a knockout. Yeah well, clearly she could afford all the plastic surgery she had needed. That always helped, of course.

“You could have it done now,” Jake reminded him far more often than Jared cared to hear. “Hell, you could have had it done last year or the year before or whenever you wanted to.”

Yeah, Jared was stubborn that way. He didn’t want no stinking surgery anymore. This was the way he looked. This was who he was now. Yeah so it was his fucking badge of honor. Get over it.

He couldn’t help himself though. When he got to the end of the book, he flipped back through and tried to calculate how many operations she’d undergone. It was hard to tell, but the number was easily “a lot.”

Yeah, you got a way with women, Connor. Only you could meet a woman who’s been through what you have and still manage to insult her over it. Nice fucking job.

It was all over, he knew. He’d been worried about losing his job when the property owner learned he had yelled at her guest. Hah. The joke was on him. Nothing for the property owner to learn when she was the person he had unloaded on. Well, it wouldn’t take him long to pack. Jared traveled light.

Guess Jake’s kids are going to get that visit from their uncle, after all.
Jake and Mina’s manny job didn’t look so bad now.

Still, he knew what he had to do. He had to go apologize to Phlox Miller. She wouldn’t be giving him any employment references, that was for sure, but he owed her an apology. There was still some residual gentleman buried beneath all his asshattery.

At least her boyfriend had left. Otherwise, Jared would be exchanging an apology for a punch to his sorry, scarred face.

He closed the photo album and headed for the main house, rehearsing his words as he went.
I’m very sorry, ma’am.
No, nix the ma’am. She wasn’t that old.
I was out of line. I never should have said what I did. Please accept my apology and my resignation, effective immediately.

He rapped sharply on the wooden screen door. The interior door was open and Jared could see straight through the center hall to the back screen door. Clearly, she was around somewhere. Not that leaving the doors open posed any great security risk out here, especially with a caretaker on site. A scary-looking caretaker at that.

He knocked again but still there was no answer. He looked down at the porch. He wasn’t comfortable leaving the photo album outside. The weather forecast was clear but it could change and there were plenty of curious small animals around.

Slowly he pulled open the screen door and stepped inside, listening for any sign of her.

“Ms. Miller? You home?”

He let the door wheeze closed behind him, holding onto its frame so it wouldn’t slam shut at the end. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been in the house before. Before her arrival, he spent quite a bit of time in it, checking up on the cleaning service, making small repairs, keeping an eye on problems that might develop. It was an old house and needed a close eye.

He walked past the wide front stairway and headed toward the back of the house, the old hardwood planks creaking beneath his feet. Maybe she was in the kitchen with earbuds in, listening to music. As soon as he laid the photo album on the kitchen island, footsteps clattered down the front stairway.

“Oh hey. I thought I heard someone down here.” Phlox Miller seemed unconcerned that he had entered her house uninvited and was standing in the middle of her kitchen. He dipped his head toward the floor anyway, an automatic reaction to other people so they didn’t have to look at his face, but not before he registered what she was wearing. White shorts, a peach and blue striped shirt, and tiny leather flip flops. Her blonde hair was pulled up into a messy bun … thing. Jared was clueless when it came to women’s hairstyles or clothing or makeup. He was sure there was some actual name for the way her hair was right now. He could call Mina later and describe it to her.

What Jared was sure of, however, was that he liked the messy bun thing. It was practically inviting him to undo it, to let her gorgeous golden hair fall down around her shoulders where he could bury his face in it and inhale the scent of her shampoo.

He wanted Phlox Miller.

Jared hadn’t thought much about women in ages. Hadn’t let himself think about women. Why torture himself with thoughts of something he couldn’t have? He kept all those desires pushed way down deep where they couldn’t bother him.

But he was thinking about this woman. Thinking about all the things he wanted to do with her—innocent things like sit down here in her kitchen and talk over a beer or coffee. And not-so-innocent things like pull that striped tee shirt over her head and press his face to her breasts. He didn’t even care if they were surgically reconstructed breasts. He wanted to see them and touch them. Taste them.

Her flip-flopped feet appeared in his line of vision. He’d never really thought about feet being sexy before, but hers definitely were. There were hundreds of bones in the human foot, according to his nephew, and Jared wanted to run his finger along each and every one of her delicate foot bones. He wanted to sit on her bed and watch her paint that pink polish on those toenails. Her company probably sold that nail polish.

“Jared?”

Her voice was quiet but concerned. Like maybe she wasn’t totally unhappy that he had barged into her house but still wasn’t sure whether he was going to blow a gasket again or not. He lifted his sights from her toes to her knees.

“I, uh, returned your pictures.” He waved a hand at the island behind them. “I owe you an apology, Ms. Miller.”

Between the social need to apologize for his horrendous behavior and the wildly confusing effect her presence was having on his body, Jared felt like the low-level employee he suddenly realized he was. He had started a company, been its CEO, grown it into an industry leader and sold it for a boatload of money. But right now he felt like a teenaged pool boy.

“Phlox. Please call me Phlox.”

“I’ve never met anyone named Phlox before.”

“No one has.”

He could tell from the softness of her voice that she was smiling. Why wasn’t she yelling at him? Pushing him out of her house? Firing his sorry ass?

“I’m also here to tender my resignation. I can leave in the morning or stay until you find a replacement. Whichever causes the least inconvenience for you.”

Jared had never quit a job before. Or been fired, though he had fired plenty of people himself. Damn, this was humiliating. Jake would be rolling on the floor right now, laughing his ass off.

“Resignation not accepted.”

His head snapped up.

“Why do you want to leave?” she asked.

“I behaved abominably. You should fire me.”

“I forgive you.” Her eyes flashed hard, then soft again. “But I get the feeling you don’t want to be forgiven.”

She nailed him. Jared would never forgive and he didn’t understand why other people would want to, either.

“Why would you want to keep me on, after the way I acted?” he said.

“You’re good at the job. I don’t want to deal with the hassle of finding someone else. And …” Her voice trailed away and her eyes shifted to something behind him, over his shoulder. Yeah, that was about all she could take … he tried to shove the thought out of his head but it finished itself anyway. All she could take of his ugly mug.

P
hlox’s eyes
settled on her nemesis, the gleaming stainless steel range.
And I don’t want to be alone here.

“And what?” he pushed.

And ...

“And I like you, Jared.”
My body likes you.
Her body liked him a lot. A whole lot. When she came down the stairs and saw him standing there, every nerve ending in her body started dancing. He had to know how perfect his body was. The tee shirt he wore did nothing to conceal the hard contours of the muscles beneath. The guy was ripped, which made sense given he worked outside all the time. His jeans were faded and shrunk to fit on his hips and thighs.

And the scars on his face weren’t ugly to her, as he obviously expected them to be. Instead, they gave him a rough, rugged air.
He’s probably rough in bed, too.
A delicious heat suffused her body.

“I’m sure you’ll like someone else, too,” he said.

No. No, she didn’t think she would. Her eyes met his again. There was something going on behind his dark gaze. She could tell. Something hot and powerful that wanted to get out, if only he would allow it.

She took a step forward and pressed her body against his, cupping the back of his head with her hand, and pulled his mouth down onto hers. His lips stayed closed, not kissing her back. But Phlox persisted. A scientist doesn’t give up that easily. Kissing Jared Connor was an experiment and you don’t abandon an experiment just because you don’t get the results you want the first time. You reassess, make adjustments and try again.

Phlox let her hands slide around to his back, where she found his muscles tight with tension. Then she ran her tongue along the seam of his lips, exploring … waiting. This time she was rewarded with his mouth opening, yielding to hers, but still he wasn’t kissing her back.

Maybe he’s never kissed a woman before.
That wasn’t such a far-fetched idea, considering the way he’d run away from her. Obviously, he wasn’t big on social interaction.

The idea that he’d never been kissed, that he might even be a virgin, turned her on though. Massively turned her on. Her heart was pounding the way it did when an experiment took an unexpected—but better—turn, when you learned something you never would have imagined.

She slid her hands over the curve of his lower back and let them settle firmly on his hard ass. She pulled his hips into hers and was rewarded with a long, low groan from Jared, one she could feel rumble up from his chest until it rolled out of his mouth and into hers. She discovered another reward, too—Jared’s arousal pressed against her stomach, long and hard. That he was turned on by this as much as she was only made her want him more. It had been over a year since she’d been with a man and now suddenly all she could think of was maneuvering Jared Connor up the stairs to her bed and fucking his brains out.

Then just like that, he broke the kiss. Phlox watched as he turned on his heel and ran out of her house. This time she let him go.