AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Rose stopped her swaying. Her heart felt bruised from all this Natalie talk.What about me?She wanted to yell. But that was childish. It would prove to him that she wasn’t ready for him.
“Why do you think that?” Rose breathed.
Oren cocked his head. “Natalie was engaged when I met her.”
This was news to Rose. She swallowed, hating the image of Oren sweeping Natalie off her feet—and away from her fiancé. It wasn’t so difficult to see how it had happened. Oren was everything a man should be—handsome, powerful, and intelligent. He had a mastery of language unmatched in all of Mississippi or the rest of the world, as far as Rose was concerned.
“She loved him?” Rose asked meekly because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Oren touched his ear. “She brought him up during arguments,” he said darkly. “She always said he would have donethisorthatbetter, that he would never have donethis or thatto her.”
“What kinds of things?” Rose asked, frustrated with Oren’s vagueness.
“It doesn’t matter.” Oren hung his head. “Maybe she never should have left him. Maybe everything would have been better.”
Rose took a hesitant step toward him and touched his shoulder. She had no idea what to say.He’ll never get over her. Even if he thinks they might have divorced, the fact that she died means he will never get over any of this.
Oren met Rose’s gaze and asked, “What do you want?”
Rose stuttered with surprise. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. You’re twenty-one years old with the rest of your life ahead of you. You don’t want to be a babysitter for the rest of your life. But what do you want? How do you want to fill your days?” Oren asked. His tone was urgent. Wild.
Rose knew she couldn’t answer sarcastically. She couldn’t be silly about such a serious topic.
So she said, “I just don’t want to go back to Mississippi.”
A smile fluttered across Oren’s lips.
“What do you want?” Rose asked, throwing the question back. “You’re only twenty-seven.”
“Only twenty-seven,” Oren repeated as though he couldn’t believe it. “I feel like I’ve lived seven thousand different lives.”
“Only seven thousand?”
Oren’s smile widened. He shifted off the desk and approached her. Rose’s nose was filled with his musk, the smell of smoke, patchouli, and oak. Her heart pumped.This is the romance I’ve always dreamed of. This is the beginning of everything.
Suddenly, his arms were around her waist. She was pressed up against him.
“I want a future,” Oren affirmed. “I want children. I want a wife.”
Rose’s eyes filled with tears. This was exactly what she’d yearned for him to say. It was hard to believe this was happening—just two months after she’d met him. Just two months after his wife had died.
He couldn’t have killed his wife. It was impossible.
Not this man. Not this man she was falling head over heels for.
Suddenly, his lips were upon hers. Swiftly, the world shifted off its axis, and Rose’s eyes were closed, and she was wrapped up in his arms. Suddenly, nothing she’d ever known made sense to her anymore, and this was all she’d ever understood.
Rose and Oren kept their romance a secret from the Waldens and Zachary. Rose was tentative, and Oren agreed that it might “frighten” the Waldens to know that Oren was seeing their babysitter.
“Everyone thinks I’m off my rocker right now,” Oren said tenderly one night when they were wrapped up in each other’s arms in his study, their minds swimming with whiskey and love. “I don’t want them to think you’re apart of some kind of mental break. When the time comes, I’ll tell them. When the time comes, we’ll leave the place and make a real go of it.”
What could Rose do but trust him?
Rose’s love for Oren gave her a newfound purpose. She’d never felt this way before. Her hours with the children sizzled with magic; she was funnier, prettier, and more talkative with the other employees at the Walden Estate. Baxter and Miriam both told her there was a “light” in her.
“You’re glowing, honey,” Miriam explained. “You’re infectious.”
