Page 22 of Married to My Master

The backyard was expansive, with lush grass sweeping out from the back porch. A high privacy fence surrounded the property, ensuring no neighbors would be able to spy into the yard unless they were in one of the second-story windows.

They both blinked as they stepped out into the bright evening sun, the whole world seeming to shine under its warm, yellow glow. Beside him, Emily took a deep breath of fresh air and seemed to immediately brighten a little.

“Come on,” Dane said, as gave the leash a gentle tug and began to lead her over to the garden.

Emily followed along beside him, not fighting him in any way. Dane couldn't help but wonder if it was working. Perhaps she was beginning to realize how much better it would be to help him with his brother.

They looked over the garden, bag of tools in hand. “Yep,” he said. “First thing is to get some of these weeds out of here. My mom always says a weed is just a plant that doesn’t belong.”

Emily smiled a little. “Sounds like she's a funny lady, sir.”

“No,” Dane replied, as he hunkered down next to the garden and peered at it. “She's a real bitch.”

She laughed as she got down next to him, close enough that her knee brushed against Dane's. “I can kind of relate, sir.”

He felt a little electrical tingle go through his body, where her skin grazed his slacks, and he glanced down at her. She'd worn short shorts for the outside work, and they left very little to the imagination. Her light cotton shirt was sheer, and he loved how he could see the faint outline of her bra through it. There was just a natural beauty about her, and a sort of femininity that made him want to grab her, hold her, and protect her from the outside world any way he could.

The key, though, was getting her to let him.

They spent the next couple of hours digging in the dirt, laughing together, as they told each other about their lives. Dane spoke about what it had been like growing up with a sibling, a twin brother, even. He told her, too, about their lives growing up with two parents who had been involved with their children, before they divorced.

“Benton and I look an awful lot like our dad,” he said as he worked a weed out of the soil. “And I think mom held it against us after he left. She didn't handle him walking out very well, which I can't really blame her for after fifteen years being married. What about you? What about your mother?”

“You really don't know anything about me, do you?” Emily asked, laughing.

He noticed she didn't use the proper word to address him, but he decided he'd let it slide this time.

“Sorry,” he said, “I've just never been much for celebrity gossip, that's all.”

“Well, sir,” she said. “My father died in a skiing accident when I was a little girl. After that, mom never remarried or anything.” She adopted her mother's tight jawed, teeth-clenched accent from the northeast. “'I refuse to bend to any new man.'”

Dane laughed and shook his head at the impression.

She glanced up at him, smiling in such a way that it warmed his heart just a little to see it. “She was always working, though. I was pretty much raised by nannies, tutors, cooks—that kind of thing. She never wanted me in show business, like she had been. She wanted me to be a real business woman—a woman with real power.”

“Was she not?” he asked.

“Oh, believe me, she was,” Emily said, her eyes wide. “She ran her own production company for decades. Did you ever watch reruns ofJeannie Riley?”

“I think I remember it. Was that the one where the woman was a single mother and a career lawyer or something?”

She nodded as she tossed some weeds. “Yes, sir, that one. My mom's company produced that show, her first big success after she semi-retired from acting. She wanted me to be like Jeannie Riley, she always said. A career woman not bogged down by family, children, or anything else.”

That made sense, Dane reasoned. Her mother was a driven woman and wanted her daughter to be the same. “So, is that why you're still single?”

Emily just glanced up at him, then returned to her work, shaking her head.

Dane didn't press the point, and they continued to garden in silence as he thought about what he was doing.

On its surface, this was all just fucking wrong. He'd proceeded without any logical course of action to get his brother out, and he'd ended up holding a high-powered, wealthy woman hostage in her fucking closet, then sexually stimulating her in her bedroom.

He shook his head. This was all wrong.

But, at the same time, he felt the connection between them slowly beginning to build and truly developing. Besides, he couldn't help but wonder if this is what life could have been like for him. —eating dinner with a beautiful woman and spending time in the garden together. This could have been his life, if Benton's psychotic break hadn't completely upended his world.

After a while, Emily spoke up. “Sir?” she said. “Can I ask you something?”

She remembered rule number two! Maybe she really was coming along? “What is it?” he asked, his voice gruff as he pulled another weed out.

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