Page 37 of A Secret In The Garden

“Oh my god,” he muttered, moving to sit down. “How have I never put it together?” A look of hurt lanced across his face but was gone in an instant. “I can’t believe they told you and not me. Why?” The newly darkened bags under his eyes seemed to double in size before my eyes.

I shrugged and took a large swallow of my coffee, torn between feeling sorry for him and wondering how he could have missed something so obvious. It occurred to me that they might have been the ones keeping it quiet from their employer. I hoped I hadn’t messed anything up for them. “Do you have any card stock? Want to make a card with me?” I laughed.

“I don’t know. Come to my office, and I’ll check,” he said in a daze.

Twenty minutes later, Jasper and I sat next to each other behind his desk, drawing a makeshift anniversary card with printer paper and only red, blue, and black dry-erase markers to choose from.

“You have to draw something, or this is going to seem really stupid,” I said to him as I put the finishing touches on the pot my little chef bear was holding.

“It’s already really stupid,” he mumbled.

We had started the craft on opposite sides of his desk, but he had moved my chair next to his so he could watch. That’s what he’d said, but for the last ten minutes, I don’t think he looked down to see my drawing one time. I could feel his eyes latched onto the side of my face. I struggled to not make the stupid, open-mouthed faces that I normally did when drawing. It was hard to focus on anything when he was sitting so close and watching so intently.

“Draw something.”

“Absolutely not,” he stated.

“What?” I said, falling back in my chair. “You promised you would draw something!”

He scowled and I stiffened, immediately feeling exposed and foolish.

“Didn’t promise. I never promise anyone anything. I said I would, and now I’m retracting it.” He leaned back in the chair. “You can’t expect me to follow that type of skill and still feel like a man.”

My mouth stretched open a little, unable to believe what I was hearing. I threw my hands up in the air. “Well, fuck, I’m sorry,” I said sarcastically. “I had no idea asking you to draw a sweet card for your closest staff members would be a threat to your manhood.” I rolled my eyes.

He grinned and I felt it all the way through my body. “That’s not what will destroy my manliness; the stick figure or bubble money sign that I draw next to your masterpiece will shame me and detract from your art.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes. “If you don’t want to draw anything, just say that. You don’t have to get weird. It’s a bear with a chef’s hat. Ten-year-olds can draw better.”

“Interesting,” he said, leaning back in his chair, examining me.

“What?” I asked defensively.

“Nothing, you’re just awful at taking compliments, that’s all.” His eyes were alive with a playful gleam that felt more dangerous than his stare.

I returned my eyes to the desk and finished up the words on the card. “Sorry, I don’t get a lot of compliments, so that’s probably true,” I said under my breath as I drew.

“Impossible, with the ability to draw bears like that,” he deadpanned. “You said at dinner you wished you could have gone to school for art. What made you choose plants over art?”

Needing to steer away from that line of questioning, I slid the card and blue marker over to him and shrugged. I was trying to get into his family details, not give him mine. I never spoke about my family to anyone; no one could understand what I went through with them—except what Jasper had gone through made him feel more like a teammate in the family-problem area.

I shrugged. “I didn’t really choose one. Botany was the farthest I was able to get away from what my parents wanted while still doing what they wanted. I’m thankful for it; it’s mostly just playing in dirt and looking at beautiful flowers. I think even if I were to have been a painter, I would have done nature and landscapes, although I probably only think that because the only thing I’ve ever painted are plants in my botany journal,” I said with a laugh. I felt like a child admitting that they wanted to be a marine biologist.

He looked at me for a long moment. “So why don’t you do it, then? Paint?”

I tried to school my exhausted features, but I felt overcome with frustration and discomfort. How had the subject turned to me?

“Because some of us weren’t born with an inheritance. I have a degree and a career with people who depend on me, people that I like, and debt. I have a lot of debt, and I’m still paying for that degree. Only like 10 percent of artists are successful enough to make a living off it, and…and it’s just the way things are,” I bit out, flustered. I didn’t want to get on his bad side, but the last thing I could handle right now was hearing Jasper fucking Blackwood, heir to the Blackwood fortune, judging me for not pursuing my dreams. He had no idea what it was like not to have options. From the minute he was born, he had been spoiled. I was tired of walking on eggshells for fear of really angering him, but I wanted more information—and didn’t want to be let go from this project. For some reason, of all the people in the whole world, this man brought out the wily, outspoken Eliza I had wished to be in a thousand other scenarios and been unable to.

He grabbed a marker and absently began doodling something on the folded paper. I got the feeling he was only doing it so I wouldn’t leave. He was perceptive enough to have picked up that I was uncomfortable and wanted to; he was always watching me, taking in details and things I’m sure I didn’t want him to see.

“Things change,” he said rather gruffly.

I shifted in my chair, feeling my hackles prickle. “Not for me.”

“Why not?”

Why was he asking me so many questions? “Because—” Frustrated, I struggled to find words that sounded better than the real reasons. As always seemed to happen when I was speaking with him, the truth slid too easily from my tongue. “Because I hate disappointing the people I love. I don’t like making them mad.”