Page 38 of A Secret In The Garden

When he didn’t react or even bother to look up, I calmed a fraction.

“Would you be disappointed if someone you loved did something that made them happy?” he asked, still laser-focused on the doodle he was drawing.

I stilled. Only my chest rose and fell with my labored breath as my eyes danced over his profile, struggling to stay on one spot. “No, of course not,” I stammered. “But⁠—”

Irritatingly calm, he continued. “An enemy is defined as a person who is actively opposed or hostile to another. Would you listen to an enemy if they told you what to do?” he questioned.

“No, but—” I wanted to leave the room. The manor. The world. My skin felt hot and tight. He had somehow managed to reach in and take the troublesome, uncomfortable thoughts that were too hard to address out of my head and turned them into a passive conversation.

He glanced up and locked his deep mahogany orbs with mine. If he could read secrets from my eyes before, he’d just gotten a whole library full in one look. “Sometimes our saviors are simply enemies cloaked in white robes,” he stated, leaning back from the desk. “You cannot depend on anyone but yourself in this world. You must carve your own path or else someone will cut into your flesh, slicing through every part of your soul and leaving nothing behind. You need to have boundaries, or else everyone, including the saintly clad enemies, get in.”

His words struck so sharp against the tender parts of me that I wanted to cry. And yell. And hit something. Lash out. So I did.

“I would much rather have no boundaries and allow others in than to have fortress walls so high no one can ever get inside, so I’m all alone like you,” I snapped.

He seemed completely unbothered as he looked at me, the most passive expression on his lightly stubbled face, but a soft flare in his intelligent eyes suggested he wasn’t as calm as he projected.

A tingle of fear tickled at the base of my neck. What would he do when I angered him? Would he hurt me? I inhaled and the scent of masculine power and leather filled my head, tightening my stomach.

“Socrates says sometimes people put up walls, not to keep others out but to see who cares enough to break them down. What’s in your necklace?” he asked, leaning into my space to get a better look.

My smart retort fell into the ether when I noticed he was so suddenly in my personal space. I could make out every one of the faint vertical lines decorating his soft pink lips when he was this close, the tan skin of his face including the taut indent where his skin had been torn open and forcibly reshaped in a jagged, angular way. The scar was bold and asymmetrical, like an unfinished sketch or the markings of a road map, cutting through the smoothness of skin. On anyone else, the scar would have been everyone’s first impression, but on Jasper, it was hidden in the shadows of his dark confidence. It only added to his face, balancing his almost too strikingly beautiful looks with a hint of male barbarism and danger.

My hand twitched to reach out and touch that scar. I pulled my hands into fists and pushed them between my thighs to keep from touching him. His minty-toothpaste breath tickled across my lips and chin. He must have been feeling my own breath on his mouth. He was so close, I could almost taste the flavor of his soapy skin.

Suddenly, it occurred to me what he’d asked about: the locket.

I hadn’t realized it was outside of my shirt. It had stopped dripping green before I threw it on this morning…had it not? It felt dangerous to have him inspecting it this closely, like a panther deciding if he wanted to strike out at you or not.

“P-pictures,” I stuttered. I’d been afraid a lot in my life, and it had never once turned me on, but the alluring flavor of excitement and danger that Jasper emitted had my thighs clenching together. I was so close to his mouth right now that one small move from him and our lips would touch.

I bet he knew how to kiss in a way that made it feel like he was already inside of me—full and commanding. God, I wanted him to dominate me… No.

He was hovering to see how much he rattled me—that was all. My teeth sank into my lower lip with sharp pressure. He could tell what he was doing to me. I was sure of it. I couldn’t hide it like he could. There was an element of excitement and lust that poured from him straight into me. I was afraid of him only slightly less than I was attracted to him—in an achy, uncomfortably overwhelming way. I knew he wanted me too; I could see it in his face—not in his stoic, unbothered expression, but in the dark restraint glimmering in his brown eyes as they looked at my lips. My eyes. My chest.

His large hand reached out and coiled around the locket, lifting it from where it sat at the top of my cleavage. His fingers brushed the fabric separating our skin. His hand remained, feeling the weight of the locket. The soft thud of hammering echoed through my head, and I wasn’t sure if it was the men outside working or my heart pounding with such ferocity.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. He must not recognize it yet. Oh god, what’s he going to do once he realizes it’s his mother’s?

His thumb moved over the seam to open it, and god only knew what was going to fly out at him this time. If Hester wanted to communicate anything to her son, now was her time.

I closed my eyes and braced myself as the locket clicked open in his hand, my chest brushing against the knuckles of his hand with every inhale.

“Love heals everything,” he read. “Who gave you this, a sister or something?” He continued examining it.

I let out the breath I had been holding long enough to look down and see the cursive inscription inside the locket. Thank fuck she didn’t do something wild.

Love heals everything.

“Why do you assume a sister and not a boyfriend?” I said indignantly.

“I know you don’t have a boyfriend. I had my security check before you moved in, and—” He looked away, filtering himself.

“And what?” I practically snarled. I couldn’t believe he did a deep dive into my life. A criminal background check was one thing, but prodding into my personal life was another. My privacy felt invaded, and I hated it. What business was it of his?

“And it looks like an heirloom, valuable. Any boyfriend worth a shit, bothering to give you jewelry of value, wouldn’t sit back and let you get hurt by anyone, even your family.” His eyes flickered with his words. He closed the locket and leaned back in his chair, spreading his muscular legs out comfortably. This man didn’t give a shit about anything.

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to talk about me and my family anymore. “A security check doesn’t tell if someone has a boyfriend or not,” I snapped, suddenly feeling filleted open, exposed—my worst fear.