Page 19 of Forbidden Pawn

And then something odd happens: She blushes when I smile at her. It’s just a hint of color on her pretty cheeks, but I’m sure the wine did not cause it.

She looks away and focuses on the delicious meal in front of her. We eat in silence for a while, and I refill her glass as soon as it’s half empty.

“So, how’s it going in the gardens?” I ask eventually. “What did you do out there all day?”

She raises an eyebrow at me. “As if you weren’t watching me through the cameras all day long.”

“I wasn’t,” I lie. “Believe it or not, I’ve got better things to do.”

I was watching her, albeit not all day long. But I saw her bent over the wilted flower beds, my eyes firmly locked on her perky ass, while she worked up a sweat.

“I started by pulling out weeds,” she says. “They are everywhere. It’ll probably take a while to get rid of all of them before I can plant anything.”

“Plant anything?” I ask. “You won’t be staying here for that long.”

“Yeah… no, I mean. I don’t know. I’ll just keep going and see how far I come,” she stutters. “I enjoy being outside, especially in this weather. It’s soothing to be among plants and flowers all day.”

Her words hit me like a dagger to the heart. This is exactly what my mother used to say. She always dreamed of having a garden like this, dreamed of planting gigantic beds full of wild flowers and having her own vegetable garden.

It never turned into more than a dream. She died before I could make her dream come true, and I will forever live with that regret. We lived in poverty when I was growing up, my father succumbed to alcohol when I was too young to remember him, and my mother shared that struggle throughout her life. She tried to get better for me, but her body gave in shortly after I moved out. It was like she only had enough fight left in here until I reached adulthood, and once the job of raising me was done, so was she. All I could ever give her were a few strawberry plantsshe put on the kitchen windowsill, which was facing south. Strawberries need all the light they can get, she used to say, before she added: And all the love they can get, but that’s true for all plants.

She would have loved this garden, and she would have loved Grace for wanting to take care of it.

“You said you had someone to take care of the garden before,” Grace rips me out my solemn musings. “But you’ve spent no time out there yourself?”

A pensive smile tugs at the corner of my mouth.

“I used to, when I first moved here,” I say. “I thought I’d have a green thumb, because…”

My voice trails off and I clear my throat, before concluding: “Well, anyway, it turned out I didn’t. I didn’t have the time, either, so it only made sense to hire someone.”

I avoid looking at her, because every time I do, it feels like she’s reaching right inside me. As if she could see all the pain I’m hiding, all the sorrow and regret. The death of my mother left a mark on me that feels like a deep cut that refuses to heal. It has been a decade since she died, but her absence still pains me to this day.

I reach for the bottle of wine and refill both of our glasses again. She’s far from being drunk or even tipsy, but I can already see the warmth blossoming in her cheeks.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” she jokes, as she reaches for the glass to take another sip.

“You don’t seem to mind,” I say.

And then I wink at her, mostly to gauge her reaction. Just as I suspected, the color on her cheeks darkens more, and she shies away.

Chapter 13

June

I blame the wine.

I blame the wine for the butterflies that flutter through my tummy when he looks at me. I blame the wine for the way my cheeks burn every time our eyes meet. And I blame that awfully delicious wine for the thoughts that creep into my mind when he looks at me with that challenging smirk.

I don’t want him, obviously. I can’t want him.

But it might be a good idea to act like I did, right? If he falls for me, he might get careless. Men always lose their heads when they’re hunting prey. They get hyper focused on getting their dick wet and forget everything else in the world. He might stop treating me like a prisoner if I seduce him.

And I have a feeling that it won’t be that hard. It wouldn’t take much from me. I just have to be careful not to give him too much too quickly. I can’t make it easy for him, but I will have to make him think that I’m interested.

I take another swig of wine, a little too greedy, which doesn’t go unnoticed by him.

“I knew it,” he says. “You don’t drink like someone who never had anything before.”

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