Page 62 of Duke It Out
He crosses the hall to join me, the top buttons of his shirt loose and his hair mussed, as if he’s run his hand through it one too many times. The usual version of him – tense and guarded – seems to have gone.
“Well done for surviving that,” he says with a half-smile. “Trial by fire. Finn doesn’t like anyone, and you seem to have won his approval.”
“Glad to hear it.” I tip my head in acknowledgement. “Although it’s probably the whisky.”
I’m standing on the first step, and we are almost eye to eye. There’s something between us, like an electrical current.
“I don’t think it’s the whisky,” he says quietly, and the words seem to hover somewhere between a compliment anda confession. Something inside me responds with a flicker of heat I can’t quite contain.
There’s a long pause. It’s not awkward, more… weighted. I should move back, step out of his presence, but I don’t.
His eyes drop to my mouth for a second and I feel my chest rising and falling. He leans in, a breath closer. It’s enough. I don’t know if he’s going to kiss me, or if I want him to, or if I’m even imagining the whole thing. I’m not even sure I’m ready for?—
And then there’s a creak in the hallway behind him, and footsteps. I hear Jamie’s shout of laughter and Rory straightens immediately. I take a step backwards onto the second stair.
“I should…” I murmur, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the stairs.
“Yes.” He nods. “Goodnight.”
I climb the stairs. I don’t turn around, but I’m almost certain that his gaze is on me. I can feel it burning through the silk of my dress, but I keep walking. I don’t dare look back.
25
RORY
I don’t sleep.
It’s not the whisky or the prospect of a week of back-to-back board meetings while Janey hassles me about the final preparation for the ball, hideous prospect as it is. It’s the look on Edie’s face when she turned on the stairs, the colour staining her cheeks. The pause when I almost forgot myself. I need to get a fucking grip of myself. I shower at 3 a.m., once again fisting my cock like a horny teenager.
I don’t want this. There is a very narrow set of priorities in my life these days and they do not include writers, especially not the sort of writer who could cause me to lose focus.
By morning I’ve convinced myself it was something and nothing. She’s here to do a job, as am I. And to prove it, I’m going to take her with me this morning on the site inspection for the safe houses.
I find myself knocking on her door before nine, still out of breath from my run down by the loch. The dogs wag with delight as she answers, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, face scrubbed clean.
“I’d like to show you something.”
“Sorry?” She blinks at me, surprised.
“You said you wanted an idea of how the estate works.”
The Land Rover rattles over the moor road, suspension groaning. Bramble and Tilly are hanging out of the back windows, their ears flapping in the wind. Edie’s sitting beside me, her denim-clad thigh a distraction I could do without. Every time I change gear I almost brush against the fabric.
“So where are we going?” she asks eventually.
“You’ll see.”
She glances at me, but I keep my eyes on the road, slowing as we rattle over a cattle grid. I point out the plantation of young oaks that Jamie’s been working on with the community team, and we head up through the glen, the light dappling through the windscreen as we reach the old forest. We cross the stone bridge over the river and turn down the newly laid road through the trees.
We pull up outside a low white cottage. Sheep graze in the stone-walled field behind. In the distance there’s another cottage, safe and secure behind a wooden fence.
Edie climbs out of the Defender, and I watch as she takes it in, head cocked slightly to one side in confusion.
“It’s beautiful,” she says. “What is it?”
“It’s a safe house.” I reach in my pocket for the keys, and beckon for her to follow me inside. “We have three of them – they were workers cottages, and we’ve renovated them.”
She walks to the door and touches the frame with her fingers, as if she’s trying to get a feel for the place. I open the door and gesture for her to go inside.
