Page 23 of Wallflower
Violet drops her eyes with a small smile and walks past me. I breathe in the sweet, floral air she leaves in her wake and, without thinking, brush the base of her back to usher her inside. My hand presses against the fabric of her hoodie, her hip just out of reach of my fingertips and the top of her ass only a short fall away from my palm.
She freezes at my touch, and so do I, but whatever this is lasts only a moment before Violet inhales deeply, drops her chin, and hurries into the house.
I stare at her ass as she moves down the hall, losing a chunk of time in exchange for the memory of white spandex hugging her curves when she walks. But when she turns a corner and is out of my sight, I straighten from my stupor.
Fuck me.
I slam the front door and glare at nothing as I storm through the house, adrenaline buzzing like I haven’t just run eight miles. I grab a towel on my way to my gym, then go to the nearest station and launch into a set of pull-ups, impatient for the burn to start.
Sweat rolls down my temples, my neck, and my spine. My grip falters, but the fatigue only makes me work harder. I’m focused. I’m disciplined. I’m in control. I know what I want and a womanisn’t it. It’s hockey. It’s the Cup. It’s to be the fucking best. So, no more distractions. No more temptation. And no more thinking about Violet James.
eleven
Violet
DAY 8 AT SILVER LEAF... ONLY 78 TO GO
I’ve spent a weekas Chord’s personal assistant, and here’s what I’ve learned: I need to try harder to stay out of his way.
It shouldn’t be this hard. It’s a big house. It’s an enormous property. His busy schedule and the daily instructions stuck to his fridge can only be strategies he’s using to limit direct contact with me. And that’s smart, I reassure myself. Logical and practical and I can’t take it personally. If anything, I should be relieved.
Chord and I don’t need to be friendly for me to do my job, and after all, professional distance was always my plan. Keep my head down. Do my job. Survive the summer without making a fool of myself or getting fired.
There’s no good reason I should be surprising Chord when he’s nursing bloody wounds in darkened kitchens or disturbing him while he’s on his half-naked morning runs.
Oh. My.God.
I twist in my sheets, away from the soft morning sun streaming into my room, and squeal into my pillow. I will never, ever get over the sight of a shirtless, breathless Chord Davenport, his gray workout shorts slung low enough to show the carved dips of his hips, t-shirt dangling from his waistband, every hard muscle on his body glistening with sweat and tight with strain. Dark hair, damp and matted. Blue eyes, nowhere near cool enough to counteract the extreme heat of his extraordinary physique.
I’ll never forget how my pulse raced when he set his hand on my back.
But I’ll also always remember how inadequate I felt when he learned I’ve lived in San Francisco for ten years without ever driving out to Sonoma. How agonizing it was to force small talk with a man who would rather converse via sticky notes.
Resolved to try harder to keep out of sight, I find a pencil and scrap of paper and scribble down what I know about Chord’s schedule outside of the appointments I set for him. He leaves the house early torun practically nakedaround the ranch. Passes an hour in the gym before lunch. Swims until two p.m. He spends the late afternoon performing tasks around the property and eats dinner alone long after sunset.
Satisfied I can work around him for the next seventy-eight days and counting, and with a little more confidence than I had last night, I shower and dress, throw my hair in a knot and my glasses on my nose, and head down to the kitchen.
As I expect, there’s a new list of tasks on the fridge, Chord’s messy scrawl covering the square of yellow paper, but that’s not the only thing stuck to the stainless steel this morning. For the first time, there’s something else, and even with my glasses on, I can’t work out what it is until I’ve slipped the stack of brochures out from under the chunky black magnet and spread them out over the kitchen counter.
Tourist information for Sonoma County. Wineries and restaurants. Historic gardens and hiking trails. Bicycle rentals and horseback riding. Guided tours and swimming spots. Markets and galleries.
I look up and around, half-expecting Chord to be watching nearby, but I’m alone, so I allow myself a small, honest smile of excitement and gratitude, which is chased by a falling rush of incredulity. I’d dismissed Chord’s suggestion to take an afternoon for myself off as empty words to fill a silence, but maybe he meant it. He went out of his way to collect these for me, and that’s… Well, it’s sweet, and not at all the kind of gesture I expect from my grumpy, self-absorbed boss.
I glance around again, wishing it were one of those times we might run into each other so I could thank him, but the house is quiet, and I’m alone. Before I talk myself out of it, I tear a square of paper from the stack on the counter, dash off a quick “Thank you for the brochures—Violet” and attach it to the fridge, then scurry from the room.
After that, I’m so nervous I eat my breakfast in the office. Lunch, too. A dull, fluttering ache in my chest reminds me how silly it is to want toaccidentallybump into him, but when I visit the kitchen later in the afternoon, and my thank-you note is no longer on the fridge, the ache drops into my stomach. All this effort to avoid him and I’m disappointed that it worked.
Frustrated with my daydreams and ready to take a breather from sorting through Chord’s unhinged fan mail, I run up to my bedroom and scoop up armfuls of dirty laundry.
The eight days of worn clothing is more than the compact bathroom hamper can hold, but I shove in as much as I can and balance the overflow against my chest. I’ve been waiting for a safe time to do it and now, while Chord’s working on the fences and I’m guaranteed a few hours without interruption, is as good a time as any.
The laundry room in Chord’s house is plucked straight from an interior design magazine. It’s located in the basement adjacent to a full bathroom with an infrared sauna attached to the spectacular gym, and it’s at least as big as my kitchen back home. Completely outfitted and finished with the same white Shaker cabinets and dark-veined marble surfaces as the kitchen upstairs, it also has sleek, top-of-the-line, front-loader washer and dryer machines with every bell and whistle—a fact I filed away when Chord gave me the tour.
No more washing my lingerie in the bathroom sink for me.
I drop the clothes hamper with a thud and dump the extra armfuls of laundry on the smooth, clear counter. I sort it into three loads—whites, darks, and delicates—and put the largest in to wash first. I locate laundry detergent and fabric softener in an overhead cupboard, choose a thirty-minute cycle, and hitstart.
Once I return the empty hamper to my bathroom, I spend the half hour in the home office setting Chord’s physiotherapy appointments for the next two weeks. Back in the laundry room, I transfer my wet clothes to the dryer and add the next load to the machine. With another thirty minutes to kill, I sort through Chord’s official Fury correspondence, including event invitations and media requests, and hurry back just as the machine beeps to signal the end of the wash cycle.
