yours, Hanna.”
Joseph stopped short behind us. “You’re giving her this room?”
“Do you object?” There was more aggression in the question than Mark’s stony expression revealed.
“No,” Joseph said. “It’s just…interesting, don’t you think?”
“I think it will be easy for Hanna to find.” Abernathy set my suitcase down by the door, extracting a large, intricately carved key from his pocket.
Something inscrutable hid behind Joseph’s smile. “If you say so.”
Only when Allan and Joseph were out of earshot did Mark slide the key into the lock and turn it, releasing a brassy click from deep inside the wood. Mark pushed the door open and held it so I could enter first.
My mouth hung open in pure, dazzled shock.
Slick wood floor gave way to carpet thick enough to cushion every echo, submerging the room into a breathless kind of peace. An enormous four-poster canopy bed formed the room’s focal point, the lush wood-paneled walls a reflection of the tapestries and priceless masterworks we’d encountered in the hall.
As if drawn by a magnet, I floated over to the bed letting my fingers explore the intricate carvings. A story unfurled itself beneath my fingertips. Mermaids and sailors, faeries and knights, angels, demons, flowers, tree branches, all offering themselves up to my curious touch.
My hands fell to a green satin bedspread and brushed the tassels of an army of bed pillows. “This is lovely,” I said.
“You haven’t even seen the best part.” Mark crossed the room and tugged a gilded rope attached to the wall opposite the bed. Forest green curtains parted, a giant panoramic window.
The landscape unfolded beyond them like a living painting. The carpet of green ended abruptly at insistent rocks. Beyond them, the ocean shifted in endless brushstrokes of green, gray, blue, and white.
Padding across the sumptuous carpet, I joined Abernathy, where side by side, we surveyed the countryside of his birth.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For what?” he asked.
“For bringing me here. For giving me this room.”
Amusement lifted his lips into a smile. “As if I had a choice.”
“You could have said no,” I pointed out.
“I did, as I recall.” I saw his smile in my peripheral vision.
“Well, yes. But I wouldn’t be here if you really meant it. You could have made me stay, and you didn’t.”
“I try to give you what you want, when at all possible.”
What I wanted at that particular moment was to have Abernathy naked and sweaty in that giant, sumptuous bed.
Mark cleared his throat in the adorably official manner that usual preceded a serious announcement. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I already promised Allan. No jumping. No hugging. No stealing food from other people’s plates and/or hiding it in my purse,” I said, ticking each forbidden action off my outstretched fingers. “And under no circumstances am I to ask famous artists or writers if they want to make out.”
I flatter myself to think the slightly bemused expression on Abernathy’s face was fondness. The miraculously wrinkle-free fabric of his button-up shirt tightened over his chest as he took a deep breath. “Perhaps we ought to sit down for this discussion.”
Uh-oh.
Together, we surveyed the seating options. A brocaded chaise longue before the SUV-sized fireplace. Two intricately carved but severely straight-backed chairs on either side an end table that probably cost more than my entire college education.
And…the bed.
I lifted an eyebrow at him in a silent challenge.
Abernathy tucked his hands in the pockets of his criminally well-cut trousers. “I’m perfectly capable of controlling myself in the face of temptation.”
That made one of us.
“After you,” I invited.
This had less to do with deference and more to do with the rear view of the aforementioned trousers.
We crossed the sumptuous Persian rug with its tangle of forbidden forest colors. Languishing rose petals. Dead leaves. Weathered grapes.
Abernathy managed to seat himself on the waist high mattress without even having to do a cheek-lift. I, pragmatic creature that I am, availed myself of the small wooden set of stairs at the bed’s base. Opting for safety separation, I crawled up to the headboard. It would give me a good six feet of separation should Abernathy leap at me.
Or vice versa.
Snagging one of the many throw pillows, I hugged it to my chest and hunched over, elbows resting on my thighs. “So, what’s up?”
“While you’re here at Castle Abernathy, you’re going to experiences some—” he paused, clearly seeking a word that wouldn’t freak me the fuck out “—changes.”
“Changes,” I repeated. “What kind of changes?”
The buttery afternoon light filtering in through the window