Unfinished (Historical Fiction) - By Harper Alibeck Page 0,14

and rested his hand on her shoulder.

“Yes?” he whispered, unsure of his own vocal cords. Right now, he was unsure of himself. Unsure of the night. Unsure of everything but those gemstone eyes.

His hand seemed to render her speechless. Blinking, she stared at him, then sighed and shook her head slightly. Tightening his grasp was involuntarily; he feared she was shaking off the very feelings that stirred inside him, searching for homeostasis. Particles that clouded the solution of his heart and soul as they were shaken by this turn of events. Particles that would, nonetheless, settle sometime.

Yet always remain in the liquid.

Her face inclined toward his, a small moon to the one in the sky, and as if pulled by fate his lips found hers, tiny hands wrapping around his neck as he bent over, nearly folding in half to catch her mouth.

Her artless response took him by surprise but increased this confounded tenderness that he could not help but feel toward her. While lacking in skill, Lilith's eager response showed an abundance of desire. As he slowly, playfully teased her lips with his tongue, a wellspring of desire claimed his rational mind and he pressed against her, his arousal unmistakably clear.

The kisses slowed, the connection fostered, the aftermath now inevitably making its way to clarity signaled to both that a parting of faces and bodies must take place. James, pulled back, then leaned his forehead against hers, inhaling her lavender scent mixed with the musk and grime of his respectable, though well-worn, coat.

“James,” she breathlessly intoned.

“Yes?”

“Do you have a healthy fear of billionaire fathers?” She kept her face hidden, but he could feel her grin piercing his heart, the implied laughter a balm that felt forbidden.

He pulled back and held her at arm's distance, the streetlight's arc of light around them forming a protective barrier against the dark. “I do indeed, Lilith. But more important: does your father have a healthy fear of Southie ne'er do wells who kiss his daughter?”

“I think,” she replied, narrowing her eyes as if appraising a jewel, turning her head to and fro to examine him through her own unyielding prism, “we are about to find out.”

Chapter Four

JAMES SPENT THE NEXT MONTH WONDERING how to court a billionaire's daughter. He might as well have attempted to build a time machine with scraps from the city dump. An impossible task lay before him, but memories of those kisses, of her gentle vulnerability, Lilith's willingness to let him in behind that seemingly impenetrable fortress, fueled him to find a way.

Jack Reed was no help; John Stone had dismissed him, and Reed hung on to his job by his teeth. As Reed's main clerk,this meant that James would have had no legitimate reason to conduct business in or around Lilith, but some finagling and flattery had gotten him moved over to work with the partner who now managed Stone's affairs, a well-known opium addict named Michael Hanlon. He was as slim as James was wide, with a face that hung so long it looked like the moon in its sliver time. Neither pleasant nor gruff, Hanlon kept his job for one simple reason: his father had founded the firm.

And, according to rumor, he had no sex drive of any kind. For women.

James helped Hanlon with very basic work and found ways to encourage the man to let him make courier deliveries himself. Four separate visits to the Stone house revealed nothing of Lilith. What would she want with him anyway? He could offer her kisses and a warm coat and not much else.

Soon enough, though, that might change.

James read constantly. Obsessively. He had figured out letters and words on his own, long before being shoved off to school at six, and he'd taken to printed matter like some kids took to pickpocketing. Even now, at twenty-six, he picked up any newspaper he found, reading it front and back. A chance encounter with a dropped copy of Financial News, a halfpenny newspaper from London, England, gave James an idea, a way out, an opportunity that could catapult him into the ranks of the Carnegies, the Jarveys – and, maybe, even the Stones.

The article described the Nitrate Railway, a system developed by one Colonel John North. Though he'd died several years back, the article described his success in extracting sodium nitrate, a powerful fertilizer, from the mine fields of Peru and Chile.

Maria Escola had popped into his head just then, and he'd promptly used the excuse of research to