Next to You (8 page)

J
ared Connor was
one confusing man, Phlox thought as she lay in bed, unable to sleep even though the clock had just ticked past midnight. He had wanted her. Maybe his brain didn’t—maybe he didn’t
want
to want her—but his body had.

Well, at least he didn’t yell and swear at her this time. That must count as progress, right? She smiled up at the dark ceiling. remembering the way his body had felt against hers, hot and hard.

And really, he didn’t look as bad as he seemed to think. Not to her. Maybe to the “beautiful people” but Phlox had never been one of them anyway. No one had been more surprised than her that she had ended up running a skin care company. That’s why she called herself the Chief Scientist. That was her interest in the whole enterprise anyway—the science of it all.

Somewhere along the line science had failed Jared Connor, but there was still art in his face. Phlox saw it. The left side of his face was nearly untouched—classically handsome with a strong jaw, straight nose, and dark dark eyes. Eyes like an abyss. The right side of his face, though, was puckered and rippled, ravaged by burns. Phlox didn’t care. She wasn’t put off by the way he looked.

She wanted to know how it happened though. And when. It wasn’t recent, she could tell that.

She thought back to her first day at the house, when she’d wigged out and hurled herself off the back porch. He had carried her inside, washed off her knees, found the first aid kit and covered her bloody scrapes with bandages. He had been gentle, tender even. If he hadn’t wanted her to see his face, why had he bothered doing that?

Phlox lifted her head, punched at the pillow to fluff it up and let her head fall back onto it. On the other hand, he was technically her employee. There was that. She could already hear Rye squawking over the idiocy of kissing an employee.

From outside came the sound of a sudden splash. She jumped out of bed and peered out the window toward the pool. Ripples radiated outward in the water. A dark form glided beneath the surface before emerging halfway across the pool. It was Jared on another midnight swim.

She wasn’t going to just watch from her bedroom this time. She dug her swimsuit out of the bureau drawer and pulled it on. She glanced down at her body. Unfortunately, she didn’t keep any sexy beach-worthy suits at the house in Connecticut, only a black one-piece Speedo. It would have to do.

She hurried down the stairs and across the back porch. She knew from experience that Jared was liable to disappear in the blink of an eye and she didn’t want that tonight. At the pool’s edge, she saw him approaching the far wall. Just as he tucked under to turn, she dove into the water one lap over. She caught his eye as he turned his head to breathe but she continued on with her lap, waiting to see if he would stay or leave.

The night air was cool in the mountains, the water cooler still. It felt good to Phlox, the water coursing over muscles that had spent too much time lying in hospital beds over the past year. Above, the moon had tucked itself behind a bank of clouds, leaving Phlox and Jared swimming through water as dark as ink.

He was waiting for her when she finished her third lap. She glided to a stop next to a pair of well-muscled calves dangling in the water. She looked up at him, sitting on the edge of the pool. His face was barely visible, just glowing eyes and shadows. She felt those eyes on her as she pulled herself out of the water and sat next to him, careful not to touch him. He was skittish, and she would respect that.

“I guess I owe you another apology,” he offered.

“You don’t owe me anything, Jared. I’m probably the one who should apologize. I’m not usually that forward with men.”

“Wealthy beautiful women don’t have to be, in my observation.”

“I haven’t been wealthy or beautiful for all that long, so I guess I’m still learning.”

She looked down at their thighs, side by side, and at the dark wet hairs covering his.

“How did it happen?” he asked. “Your … accident.”

“It happened here.” She nodded her head toward the house behind them. “I was experimenting with a new product in the kitchen. Which was dumb of me, I know. Knew that back then but beautiful, wealthy, intelligent—two out of three ain’t bad. And a pot of wax and oil sort of blew up in my face.”

Jared was quiet for a minute. “You weren’t here by yourself, were you?”

“Yeah. I was. I barely managed to get to my phone to call 911. This is the first time I’ve been back here since.”

“And what happened last week? The day you arrived and fell off the porch.”

“I tried to turn on one of the burners and I panicked. That’s why I’m here though. I’m supposed to be, as my partner puts it, vanquishing the demons.”

She heard a low chuckle in the dark. She was still hesitant to turn her head and look at him. This was nice, sitting here talking to him. She didn’t want to spook him again and cause it to end.

“Hmm. Demons are hard little buggers to vanquish. In my experience.”

A finger touched her temple, lightly. She held her breath as he traced the scar that ran down her face, a scar she normally hid with makeup. Her eyes closed when his finger rounded the curve of her jaw and he flattened the back of his hand against the soft skin beneath her chin.

“How many?”

“How many what?” His hand dropped away from her neck and she missed his touch immediately.

“How many surgeries?”

“Thirty-two. Thirty-three if my mother gets her way and browbeats me into implants.”

She felt his gaze on her chest.

“I think you look fine,” he said.

“I used to be, ah, better endowed.”

He shifted his legs on the tiled edge of the pool. It took all her willpower not to look at his crotch. He had felt pretty well endowed himself when she had pressed herself against him in her kitchen.

Their conversation fell quiet then. Phlox was dying to kiss him again, wanted him to kiss her back this time. But why? Why him?
You just haven’t been in close proximity to a man in awhile, and especially to one wearing nothing but swim trunks.
Was that it? Simple chemistry? Phlox believed in chemistry, for certain. She’d been a chem major, after all.

“It’s not that I didn’t like kissing you.” Jared broke the silence. “But you have a boyfriend.”

“I do?”

“That guy who was here over the weekend. With the sweet BMW.”

Phlox laughed. “Oh that was Rye. My brother. He brought the photo album up. I asked my assistant to just overnight it but Rye wanted to check up on me.” She kicked at the water. “If you had seen me before, you would have figured it out. I don’t look like anyone in my family anymore though.”

“Yeah, I don’t look my brother anymore either.”

She took a deep breath. It was the perfect opening, and she wanted to know, but she was afraid he would get up and run off again. She screwed up her courage and took the plunge.

“How about you? How did it …” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

“House fire. I got my brother out, but our parents …”

She nodded.

“I was ten.”

A choked sob escaped her throat, and he was touching her face again. This time, his thumb grazed the scar at the corner of her eye.

“You’re lucky you could afford all this. I was just lucky they saved my life.”

“Jared,” she said quietly. She reached up to cover his hand and hold it against her cheek. Her heart ached at the thought of him as a little boy in a hospital, with all those injuries. It had been tough for her and she’d been an adult.

She was surprised when his other hand cupped her head tentatively, his fingers pushing gently into her wet hair. “I’d kiss you but I’m not very good at this,” he said.

“I don’t care.”

His lips brushed hers lightly, hesitant.

“Harder,” she murmured. She wanted him to take the lead so he could be in control. She didn’t want to scare him off this time.

She felt the firmer pressure of his hand on her scalp as he pulled her closer. His mouth began to explore hers, tasting and testing, and what had started as a shy kiss quickly ignited into two people grasping and panting. Phlox couldn’t tell which moans were hers and which were Jared’s as his tongue brushed hers. She opened her mouth to let him in deeper.

His palms slid down to her shoulders as he gently pushed her onto the pool deck. The stone pavers were rough beneath her skin but Phlox didn’t care. She pulled his body onto hers, letting him settle between her legs. He was hard as steel against her, with nothing but their thin swimsuits between them. She hooked a finger beneath the waistband of his trunks. He froze for a moment, his lips hovering just over her neck.

Please don’t stop. Please don’t.

He groaned and ground his erection into her hips. She felt his hand cover one of her breasts, then his thumb rubbed her nipple through her swimsuit.

“Phlox. I want this so bad,” he moaned into her breast.

The heat of his breath seeped through her suit and warmed her skin. “So do I.”

She knew what was coming next though. He pushed himself up onto his knees and looked at her, sadness and regret on his face. “I’m sorry. I can’t—it won’t be any good for you. I’m sorry.”

“Jared.” Her arms stretched out to pull him back down but he was quicker and stronger, already up and walking away. She bit back a scream of frustration. “If you’re not here in the morning, I will so fucking fire you,” she called after him, his nearly naked figure disappearing into the moonless night. His silence was her only reply.

P
hlox was exhausted
and bleary-eyed the next morning. Sleep had eluded her most of the night, catching up to her only as the first rays of dawn seeped in through the blinds. In the shower, she turned the water on as hot as she could stand it and let it wash away the frustration of the night before. Sexual and otherwise.

At least he had kissed her back this time. One step forward, two steps back. As she toweled off and dressed, she asked herself why she even wanted to sleep with him. She was supposed to be in Connecticut relaxing and getting over her fear of lighting a stove burner. That particular demon had yet to be vanquished.

Demons are hard little buggers to vanquish.
Jared Connor was obviously battling some demons of his own. A house fire, his parents killed, he and his brother orphaned. Phlox couldn’t even begin to imagine the horror of that. And at the age of ten. He was entitled to his demons.

But Phlox still wanted to get rid of hers. Downstairs, she started a pot of coffee and then stood in front of her lovely, expensive-as-hell range. She ran her fingers over the stainless steel knobs.
Just turn one.
She knew what would happen. Turn the knob a hair, the electric ignition would click and then whoosh. A bright blue flame would appear. Turn the knob some more to lower the flame. Simple.

She did it. Click, whoosh. She turned the flame down and watched it flicker orange and red. She let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

I’m fine. Just standing here watching a burner. I’m in control.
She turned the burner off. Of course, there was nothing on the burner, a voice in the back of her head oh-so-helpfully pointed out. No skillet of grease. No boiling pot of whatever.

But it was a start, and Phlox made up her mind to run with it before a wiser part of her brain kicked in. She would cook dinner tonight, a dinner that required the use of the range. She thought for a minute, running through menu options in her head. Lasagna. That’s what she would make. Cheesy-tomatoey lasagna. There would be onions and garlic to sauté, beef to be browned, sauce to be simmered, noodles to cook. She would make a large pan of lasagna and eat it and … gain five pounds in one meal.

Maybe she should share.

Forgetting that her hair was still wet and she had absolutely no makeup on, she ran out of the house and over to Jared’s cottage. She knocked, then remembered how early it was, only eight o’clock.

“What?” came a sleep-roughened voice from inside the cottage.

“Jared. It’s me. Phlox.”

“Are you okay? What’s happened?”

Her spirits lifted at the note of concern she detected in his voice.

“I’m fine. I just came over to invite you to dinner tonight.”

“What? No. I can’t. I’m sorry, Phlox. I can’t go out to dinner.”

“Not out. Here. At the house.”

“Oh.”

“Jared? Can you open the door?”

“Hold on a minute.”

Phlox waited anxiously until the cottage door finally opened.
Damn.
Jared stood before her wearing nothing but bedhead and grey sweatpants. Phlox was speechless for a moment, her brain short circuiting at the sight of his perfectly defined chest muscles and the smattering of golden hair that covered his pecs and pointed the way to ...

He cleared his throat. “You have a one-track mind.”

Phlox had the grace to blush as she forced her eyes up from his happy—oh-so-happy—trail. It was then that she noticed what she hadn’t before: the puckered skin covering his shoulders, chest and upper biceps. Her heart broke a little more at the thought of him as a young boy trying to escape a burning house with his brother.

The urge to wrap her arms around Jared and comfort him was overpowering.

“I’d like you to come to dinner this evening. I won’t jump you or anything, I promise. I’ll just feed you.”

“Why do you want to do that?”

“Don’t you think it’s weird that we’re the only two people here and every night we eat by ourselves?”

“Hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Well, it’s weird. What do you eat normally anyway?” She tried to peer around him and into the cottage. She doubted he cooked much for himself.

“Muffins,” he snorted.

She rolled her eyes. “What else?”

“Sandwiches. Cereal. Sometimes I go to the drive-through at McDonald’s.”

“That’s not healthy.”

“Who cares whether I’m healthy? People can’t even bear to look at me.” He leaned against the frame of the door, throwing down the gauntlet.

Oh I am so picking that up.

“I care, Jared.” She reached up to touch him but he flinched and leaned away. “You know,” she continued, “I could afford all the surgery but I couldn’t have it all done at once. It had to be done in stages. So I do know what it’s like to have people stare at you like you’re not human.”

Phlox felt herself choking up and turned away. The memories were still painful. Young children reaching up for their mother’s hand when they saw her. Teenagers elbowing each other on the street. Store cashiers looking everywhere but at her when she bought a coffee, a magazine, a box of tampons.

“You’re beautiful now, though.” Jared’s voice, husky and deep, broke into the memories.

She looked back at him. “But when I look in the mirror now, it’s not my face I see. This is someone else’s face, someone who didn’t exist a year ago.”

She turned and headed back toward the house. Jared’s footsteps followed. He grabbed her arm.

“What time tonight?”

She stopped and turned—and found herself right up against his bare chest. The heat and musky-spicy scent of his skin were intoxicating. She forgot what the question was.

“Dinner. What time?” he asked again.

He was accepting her invitation, after all?

“Seven?” The word came out of her mouth more as a question than a definite answer.

“Seven then.” His answer was definite. He let his hand linger on her arm before letting go and returning to the cottage.

P
hlox spent
the day shopping and cleaning and primping. In other words, procrastinating and putting off the moment when she would have to set foot in the kitchen. The moment of truth. She had invited Jared over to dinner and, as tempting as the pan of frozen lasagna had looked in the supermarket, she knew she had to deliver. No, more than deliver.

She wanted to impress him. She had developed a major crush on Jared Connor, her caretaker. Her employee, a tiny voice in the back of her head tried to remind her.
Oh hush.

Somehow she doubted that Jared Connor really saw himself as anyone’s employee.

At five o’clock she knew she could procrastinate no longer. She tied an apron on over the outfit she had chosen—ankle jeans and a sleeveless navy eyelet blouse, pretty but casual. She didn’t want to scare Jared off with anything that screamed “date!” She pulled her hair back into a loose ponytail and got to work.

She chopped onions, garlic and green pepper. She poured a little olive oil into a pot, then took a deep breath and turned the knob. Whoosh, the gas flame ignited and she tossed in the vegetables, taking a quick step back. The garlic turned fragrant in the warming oil and the onions sizzled.

So far, so good.

Next she added a package of ground beef to brown, then tomatoes, tomato sauce and tomato paste. Oregano and basil, a dash of salt and pepper. She stirred once more and covered the pot with a lid. While that simmered, she filled a stock pot with water and set that on another burner to boil.

She had two burners on and everything was fine. The scar on her face tingled a little but her heart rate was only slightly elevated. She could do this. It was just like old times, cooking a meal in her beloved kitchen, going through the steps she knew by heart. She preheated the oven, chopped a salad, shook up some vinaigrette. Soon the mouthwatering aroma of tomatoes and herbs simmering on the stove filled the kitchen.

When the stock pot was boiling, she dropped in the lasagna noodles, giving them and the filling each a quick stir. She sliced a loaf of Italian bread into thick slices and mixed oil, cheese and garlic to make garlic toast. She dug out her small footed dessert dishes and washed them. Pistachio gelato from the store was waiting in the freezer.

This felt good. She was in a groove, in her zone again. Operation Demon Vanquish—mission accomplished. When the noodles were cooked, she layered them with the meat-tomato filling and cheese into a baking dish and popped it into the oven.

By six-forty-five, the table was set, the lasagna out of the oven and resting on the island. Phlox arranged the garlic toast in a basket and dished out two bowls of salad. She filled the dishwasher with cooking utensils and cutting boards to make the kitchen presentable. Then she sat down to wait.

At six-forty-eight, she remembered that she was still wearing the apron and jumped up to remove it and hang it on the hook inside the pantry. She straightened the dish towels on the rack on her way back to the table. At six-fifty-two, she undid her ponytail and smoothed her hair before binding it up again. At six-fifty-four, she touched her earlobes, making sure she had put in earrings. She had, her tiny gold hoops. At six-fifty-eight, she remembered the candles. Not to be romantic but so the light would be low. She thought Jared might be more comfortable with less light illuminating his face. As she grabbed the candles from the hall table and lit them, she hoped he wouldn’t misinterpret their function.

At seven o’clock sharp, Phlox was back sitting at the table, breathing deeply in and out. There was no reason to be this nervous—she had already overcome the biggest obstacle of the day, cooking—but she was. At seven-oh-two, she began to wonder whether he might stand her up. Certainly not out of the realm of possibility, as skittish as he was around her. Seven-oh-five.
If he doesn’t come, that’s it. I won’t bother him anymore. I can take a hint.

At seven-oh-seven, she contemplated a Plan B—marching over to the cottage and dragging his sorry ass out of it. Seven-oh-eight found her leaning her head into her hands and trying to ignore the hungry rumbling in her stomach. Eating by herself was going to be humiliating. She’d been eating by herself since she got here, of course, with the exception of Rye’s visit. But the thought of Jared Connor knowing she was sitting here alone with a nice dinner she’d prepared for two … epic humiliation.

The back screen door squeaked on its hinges and Phlox snapped her head up. Jared was standing just inside, holding a bottle of wine in each hand—one red, one white.

“Didn’t know what you were serving,” he said.

Phlox almost fainted from the g forces her emotions were pulling. “You look nice,” she managed to eek out.

He did look nice, in jeans and a button-down shirt neatly tucked in, flip flops on tan feet.

“So do you,” he said.

Her legs were shaky but she managed to stand up and find two wine glasses while Jared opened the bottle of cabernet. When she turned back from the cupboard, she found him staring thoughtfully at the range.

“Yeah, that’s it. My nemesis.”

"I wondered what happened to those floorboards."

"You were the one who replaced them?"

She set the glasses on the island and watched as he filled each one, expertly rolling the bottle so not even a drop of wine rolled down the outside of the neck. She recognized the winery on the silver label. It was a fifty-dollar bottle of wine.

"Yeah. That was me."

"Thank you. You can't even tell where they were fixed."

"You're welcome." He handed her a glass of wine.

She took a quick sip, then began scooping lasagna onto the plates. This was silly, being so nervous around him, but he
affected
her. Like he was rearranging molecules in the air around her.

“This is the first time I’ve cooked anything since I got here. I’ve been using the oven and the microwave but I haven’t put a pot on the stove until today.”

“You didn’t need to do that. Chinese takeout would have been fine.”

“Yeah. I did need to do it. For me. But I wouldn’t have been able to eat all this by myself.” She smiled weakly. No matter how this evening turned out, at least she had gotten over her fear of using the kitchen.

They carried their plates and wine to the table. She expected conversation with Jared to be like pulling teeth but he surprised her tonight. He spoke easily and without hesitation, asking her question after question about her company. How many products did they have? What was their first retail account? How many employees? Did they have overseas distribution, plans to sell direct to consumers from their own web site, dreams of going public?

She laughed after several minutes of this. “You’re in the wrong line of work, Jared Connor. You should be working for CNBC or Bloomberg.” Then she felt bad as his cheeks reddened.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized quickly. “I’m not used to talking about the company anymore. I used to do it all the time, before the accident, but I’ve been out of the public eye this past year. Zee has been shouldering all that for us.” She smiled a wry smile. “Zee has shouldered a lot this past year. I will owe her forever.”

“A good partner, that’s probably important to a business.” Jared forked more lasagna into his mouth.

Phlox felt awful now. She’d probably over-answered his questions. Why would a caretaker care about a skincare and cosmetics company? Well, a female caretaker would but not a guy. She glanced at his hands, which were as rough and callused as one might expect. Their Soft-As-A-Baby’s-Bum hand treatment balm would be perfect for him, though. She might ask Cherise to overnight a tube.

“Zee and I were roommates in college. Her mother is the actress, Ginger Moon. She won an Oscar a few years back.”

Jared nodded. “I think I saw that movie.”

“Do you like movies?” Movies seemed like a more normal date topic than business. Not that this was a date or anything.

Jared nodded again, taking a sip of wine. “But usually I wait until they come out on DVD or pay-per-view. I read a lot, too.”

“Zee’s grandfather is Maxwell Malisewski, the author. You might have read his short stories in school.” Or maybe he hadn’t? Maybe he didn’t go to college. But he came across as someone who had.