much. He works out intensely. I’ve learned from his sister, Ella, he has a temper, and it stems from his childhood, but I’ve never seen it. I’ve always assumed he works things out in boxing exercises or by writing his novels.
“Of course,” I assure him, and his brows pinch while he bites his lip.
Okay, maybe he’s scaring me just a little right now because he’s giving me a look like he wants to pounce. Like he wants to toss me back on the pillows and have his way with me. And that’s not frightening in the least bit. What I should be afraid of is my own imagination and projecting it on a man who would never do such a thing to me.
I’m so ridiculous. It must be the fever.
“I’m done with the soup,” I say, swallowing a sudden lump in my throat.
“You only took two sips,” Jacob admonishes, staring at my lips. “Finish the bowl and then you need a nap.”
I’ve slept so much in the past two days I don’t know if I can sleep any more, but my body does feel like mush. Jacob seems to sense the war within me, so he makes a suggestion.
“Let me finish the chapter I’m working on. You eat your soup, then we can watch a movie or something in a little bit.” He speaks as if he’s pacifying a child, and I want to punch myself in the face for loving it so much. Other than reading his manuscripts on occasion at his house, I don’t spend time with Jacob directly. We speak often via text or email, and somehow that morphed into the other things I do for him, like finding him a live-in cook and house cleaning services. He claims he asks me to do these things because I know this town. I know who to trust, and he trusts me. However, the day he asks me to pick up his dry cleaning is the day I quit him regardless of the pay.
I nod to accept his present offer, and he stands, leaning toward me. Again, the fantasies take over, the one where he’ll lean down and kiss my temple. He hesitates a second, and then straightens as if reading my thoughts. Quickly excusing himself, he disappears behind me, through his sitting area and out the entrance of his room. Neither his room which is the entire north end of the house nor his sister’s room on the south end has a door, just an opening to their private spaces. A loft bridge connects the two sides, but the siblings rarely entered each other’s bedrooms.
I consider myself a friend to his stepsister. Ella has had a rough couple of years, and I know the feeling. She needed to find herself—outside of Jacob, outside of this town, and even outside of Ethan Scott, her one true love. I helped her with that when she escaped to New York. I didn’t think Jacob would forgive me at first for helping her leave, but he came around, apologizing for overreacting toward me. It might be the one time he’s truly been angry with me and asked my forgiveness afterward. I finish the soup with additional wandering thoughts. I’m curious about Jacob’s surprise that I hadn’t told my mother about him.
Mary Carter is what everyone would call good people, and I admire her for raising four kids and surviving the death of my father, who was the love of her life. His passing was difficult on all of us in our own way. My father and I were close. He knew how lost I was in my early thirties, and it’s something I like to think I recognize in Jacob. He has a put together look on the outside, but he’s dying on the inside. His dungeon door is locked tight, and I’ll never have the key to understanding him.
+ + +
To my surprise, I nap for three hours after the soup and eventually wander down to the entrance of Jacob’s office again.
“Jesus, I thought you would never rise,” he teases, glancing up at me over the rim of his glasses. These are relatively new to him and give him a sexy professor appearance. With rumpled hair, the flannel shirt, and bare feet, Jacob takes sexy to a new level of torture for me.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” I question.
“Because you’re sick, Lilac, and you need the rest. But I’m starving.” He stands and pats his rock-hard belly, which thuds in response.