Page 81 of A Secret In The Garden

I bucked into his hand, my breath ragged.

“Makes you come harder.” He leaned in, towering over me. “Makes you wetter.”

I came with a muffled cry, biting my lip until I tasted blood. What was wrong with me?

He didn’t stop until I was shaking. Then he pulled his fingers out, wiped them slowly, deliberately on the hem of my shorts, looked me dead in the eyes.

“If I ever wanted to hurt you, Eliza…” He paused.

All I heard was the heaviness of both of our breathing.

“…you wouldn’t get a warning.”

My stomach dropped as he stepped back and turned his back to me dismissively.

“Go. Before I remind you why you really should be afraid of me.”

I stood on shaking legs, unable to think. At the door, he stopped me.

“Eliza?”

I looked over my shoulder.

His voice was quieter now, still dark but with something softer threaded through. “Put the file back where you found it. And don’t ever lie to me about what you’re looking for.” Then he added, without turning around, “You’re mine. You want to know something? You can just ask me next time.”

My head spun. That night we ate dinner together again, but we were quiet. He didn’t bring it up, just left me to unravel in my thoughts—thoughts that were about to get much, much worse.

Chapter 25

Eliza

I don’t know what to do,” I shrieked. “I’ve already lowered the temperature, shielded its light, and reduced its water; I don’t know what else to do. I still have one bed left to plant before the conservatory is done.”

“Well, looks like you better get to planting, then,” Nick sang into the receiver.

“Oh my god,” I breathed, trying but failing to get a grip.

“Yeah, Eliza, can you hear me?” my boss shouted loudly over the speakerphone. “Press your nose against the spathe and tell me what you smell.”

It was a carrion flower, so that only meant one thing. If it had a scent, it wouldn’t smell good. Their blooms smelled like rotting animals to attract pollinators and scavengers.

Struggling to make my limbs move in my panicked state, I stepped over the freshly swept stone walkway and border, and into the central flower bed. It took up the center of the conservatory, wrapping itself around the towering rock waterfall and koi pond that splashed happily, cascading down to the left of the corpse flower’s bed. There had ended up being three corpse flowers in total, but only one was healthy and in a blooming cycle, the others in their leaf stages. Dark-red-and-black orchids peeked out from behind the towering structure of the large eight-foot Amorphophallus titanum. The other two were small, and I had to carefully sidestep the rippling bird’s-nest ferns and balance between the various clumps of rabbit’s foot ferns before reaching the bare perimeter surrounding the corpse flower.

I moved close, grazing my nose against the pleated-looking furls that pressed against the long spadix, and took a giant inhale. My stomach lurched over more than just the smell as my heart sank into the dirt beneath my feet.

“Well?” both Nick and Lithgow asked, prompting me.

“It’s horrible. Decaying flesh and rotting meat mixed with urine and a musty basement,” I answered. It was the signature scent of the corpse flower when in bloom.

“Well, it looks like we’re having a party in two days, Eliza. I’ll tell everyone here and pass it on to the philanthropists I’ve been in contact with,” Lithgow said with a bit of excitement in his voice.

“Email me the list, and I’ll call the other people coming,” Nick added helpfully.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he answered. “You don’t have time. Finish the last bed. I can’t wait to see it all. If you want, I can take some of your stuff back to our house after the party, so you don’t have to stay at Blackwood Manor.”

It suddenly felt like my world was caving in around me.