Built in the 1940s on Malibu Beach, this cottage was squat and ugly compared to the three-story glass mansions around it. When Edward saw it, he almost told her to drive on.
“Wait,” I’d said, putting my hand on his arm. Something about the tiny, rickety house had reminded me of my family home in Pasadena, where I’d lived when I was a very young child, before my father had died.
When he saw my face, Edward was suddenly willing to overlook the house’s flaws. Good thing, because there were so many. No air conditioning. The kitchen was ridiculously tiny and last remodeled in 1972. The wooden floorboards creaked, the dust was thick and the furniture was covered with white sheets. When I pulled the sheet off the baby grand piano, a dust cloud kicked up and made us all cough, even the estate agent.
“I shouldn’t have brought you here,” she said apologetically.
“No,” I’d whispered. “I love it.”
“We’ll take it,” Edward said.
But where was he now? I went heavily up the creaking stairs to the second floor. I’d been up here only once before, when we’d toured the house with the estate agent. It was just a small attic bedroom with slanted ceilings, and a tiny balcony overlooking the ocean.
As I reached the top of the stairs, the bedroom was in shadow. I saw only the brilliant slash of orange and persimmon to the west as the red ball of the sun fell like fire into the sea.
Then I saw Edward, sitting on the bed.
And then...
I sucked in my breath.
Hundreds of rose petals in a multitude of colors had been scattered across the bed and floor, illuminated by tapered white candles on the nightstands and handmade shelves. When Edward saw me standing in the doorway, in my sundress and casual ponytail, he rose from the bed. His chest and feet were bare. He wore only snug jeans that showed off his tanned skin, and the shape of his well-muscled legs. Stepping toward me, he smiled.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I can see that,” I whispered, knowing I was in trouble. Knowing I should run.
He lifted a long-stemmed red rose from a nearby vase. Leaning forward, he stroked the softest part of the rose against my cheek. “I know your secret.”
I blinked. “My...my secret?”
Leaning back, he gave me a lazily sensual smile. “How you tried to resist me. And failed.”
“I haven’t. I haven’t agreed to marriage or fallen into bed with you. Not yet,” I choked out. Then blushed when I realized the insinuation was that I soon would.
His smile lifted to a grin. He nodded toward a pile of books in a box in a corner of the room. “I just got that box this afternoon from Mrs. MacWhirter. It seems you left something, buried in your bedroom closet at Penryth Hall.
I looked down at the open box. Sitting on top was the faded dust jacket of the fine manual written by Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley, Private Nursing: How to Care for a Patient in His Home Whilst Maintaining Professional Distance and Avoiding Immoral Advances from Your Employer.
“Oh,” I said lamely, looking back at Edward with my cheeks on fire.
He gave a low laugh. “Didn’t do you much good, did it?”
Biting my lip, I shook my head.
Tilting his head, he looked at me wickedly. “What do you think Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley would say if she saw you now?”
I looked down at my hugely pregnant belly, which strained the knit fabric of my sundress. “I’m not sure she’d have the words.”
“I think...” He ran his fingertips lightly over my bare shoulder, turning me to face him. “She’d tell you to marry me.”
A tremble went through my body. My bare shoulder pulsed heat from the place when he touched me.
Scowling, I glared at him. “Do you always get your own way?”