Chapter 17
Allena stalked past him and left the room, her chest so tight that her ribs ached. She raced down the hall and headed for her rooms, slammed the door, and flopped onto the couch, every part of her body hurting.
She was on the verge of letting the tears flow when there was a sharp rap on her door. She got to her feet, rubbed her hand over her face, and walked across the room, only to find Justin standing on the other side of the door.
Allena sucked in a breath and stared at him.
“What do you want?” If she sounded rude, she didn’t care. But she wasn’t in the mood for an argument or a rehash of the very obvious tension burning between them.
“To talk.” He said, and then sighed. “To apologize.”
Allena turned on her heel and walked further into the room. She stood by the couch and faced him, hands on her hips.
“So, talk.”
“I’m sorry, okay?” he said quietly and moved across the room, standing a few feet from her. “I shouldn’t have made that remark about your personal life. And I shouldn’t have—”
“Set up two interviews with people clearly unfit for the role of looking after your children because you wanted to make me feel guilty for leaving?” Allena was so mad and so hurt, her chest heaved. “Does that cover it?”
He took a breath, nodding a little. “Like I said, I’m sorry.”
Allena glared at him, noticing that he looked tired, as though he hadn’t slept much. She shouldn’t have cared that he was probably having sleepless nights thinking about who would watch over his children once she was gone, but she did. “Stop making this hard for me.”
“I can’t,” he admitted.
“Why?” she asked, surprised by his candor.
“Because I don’t want you to go.”
“Why, Justin? Because I make your life easier?” she reminded him.
He shook his head, and she could see the conflicting emotion in his expression and realized, maybe for the first time, that there was more to this than his need for an orderly life. “It doesn’t feel easy at the moment. It feels like….”
She suddenly became aware that he was in front of her, his chest heaving, staring at her in a way that put every sense she possessed on red alert. Somehow, something had changed in their relationship over the previous days, and the man standing in front of her—watching her with such burning intensity—was not the Justin she was used to. A pulse throbbed in his cheek; his eyes were dark, and he looked completely out of sorts, as though he were searching for what to say and what to do.
He looked as though he was hanging on by a thread.She smiled, foolishly trying to make things easier for him. Her heart hammered so loudly that she was certain he could hear it. He was certain he’d know what she was feeling and that he could see the longing in her eyes. For four years, she’d hidden it, determined he would never know the truth—that she wanted him so much. Because he didn’t want her that way. He never looked at her with desire.
Until now.
“It feels like…what?” she whispered, her heart pounding and her legs weakening.
And then, just as in her secret dreams, his hand reached out, and he gently cupped her nape, drawing her close.
“It feels like I am out of control,” he said, his voice raw.
So was she, in that moment. The searing heat from his fingertips warmed her entire body. Of course, they had been physically close many times—like when he was teaching her to ride a horse, or when they were helping the children with their homework or a new project, or even when they were up late washing dishes in the kitchen, which they often did together.
But this was different. This was pure and unadulterated intimacy. The kind she’d never expected to experience with him.
“Allena…”
He said her name so softly, almost as though he were saying it against his will, and she swallowed hard, noticing everything about him in that moment—the way his green eyes had suddenly darkened, the tiny scar on his left temple, the way his mouth curled up a little.
He grasped her chin gently, tilted her head upward, and gazed at her with such heat that her insides quivered as she realised, without a shred of doubt, that he was going to kiss her.
This is so crazy.
Justin said the words to himself over and over, repeating them like a chant from the moment he’d crossed the threshold into Allena’s room. Her domain. Her world. A place he didn’t belong. How could he? She worked for him and it was his responsibility to maintain the professionalism between them. But he hadn’t expected to feel so inexplicably drawn to her. He hadn’t expected the building awareness and attraction he had for her to take hold so hard.
He hadn’t expected to suddenly want to kiss her so badly.
Not suddenly. That was a lie. All week it had messed with his good sense, making him think about her when he should have been doing a dozen other things. And now, as he felt her lips touch his, Justin was at the mercy of the reckless attraction that he’d fought so hard to ignore. She sighed, then pressed her lips against his, and Justin instinctively moved closer, deepening the kiss. Her mouth opened, and he let her take the lead. Her tongue moved between their lips, winding around his, awakening feelings he’d suppressed for a long time—forever, he’d thought. Until now.
Every shred of defence he’d put up over the years, every sermon he’d silently preached to himself about boundaries, suddenly and spectacularly disappeared. Her mouth, her breath, the sweet sensation of her tongue against his own—nothing had prepared him for the rush of desire it created and the way his body reacted.
Justin prided himself on always being in control, but beneath the softness of Allena’s mouth, every inch of his control slipped away, and he was completely at her mercy. Instinct tormented him, and he fought against the need to press closer, to feel her lovely curves against him, and to plunge his tongue deeper into her mouth.
Holy freaking hell!
Justin wrenched himself free, breathing so hard that he thought he might pass out. She looked no better as she took a couple of steps backward and stared at him, her chest rising and falling so rapidly that he had to pull on every ounce of self-control he had left to not look at it. He wasn’t that guy.
He’d never been that guy. He respected women. He respected Allena. And he had too much self-respect to overstep acceptable boundaries.
“Allena.” He said her name, hating the way he sounded like he couldn’t quite get enough air into his lungs. “I’m really… I don’t know what happened then… I’m so…”
“You kissed me,” she said bluntly, trying to catch her breath. “I kissed you back. That’s what happened.”
Heat crawled up his neck. “I’m sorry, Allena, that was way out of bounds. I didn’t come in here to—”
“Forget it,” she said, and she waved a hand casually. But Justin wasn’t fooled. She was as wound up by the events of the last sixty seconds as he was. “Let’s just... let's just not overanalyze this. Okay?”
Justin’s insides twitched. Yeah, he would forget it. That was the sensible thing to do. But he didn’t believe she was so easily motivated to ignore the heat between them or the fact that he’d practically kissed her senseless. “Okay. Uh…” He wasn’t sure what to say, since she seemed to want him gone. “I’ll talk to you later?”
“Sure,” she said dismissively, and she walked towards the door. “Whatever.”
Justin turned on his heel and followed, lingering by the door for a moment. “I meant what I said, Allena. What just happened was a mistake, and I’m sorry.”
He left and headed back to the main house, walked directly to his office, shut the door, and sat at his desk for half an hour. He turned his laptop on and off twice, pushed papers around his desk, and changed the ink cartridge in his fountain pen. He did anything and everything he could to take his mind off the problem at hand, and after thirty minutes, he gave up trying.
He found his grandmother in the kitchen, making cupcakes, and once he’d poured himself coffee, he sat across the countertop.
“Something on your mind?” Mittie asked, one brow higher than the other.
Justin glanced at his grandmother and shrugged a little. “Nope.”
“You always were a terrible liar.”
He ignored her. “Where’s Leah?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe with Allena.”
He sipped his coffee. “Did she say anything to you?”
“Leah?
“No,” he said irritably. “Allena.”
“About what?” Mittie asked, icing the cupcakes.
“About anything?”
“No,” his grandmother replied. “Should she have?”
He shrugged again. “Ah…no.”
“I heard you argue before,” Mittie said, shaking her head in disapproval. “Not helping the situation.”
Nothing he did helped the situation. Particularly kissing Allena! But he wasn’t about to say that to his grandmother. “It’s complicated.”
“What’s complicated?”
It was his stepdad’s voice he heard from the back door. Ivan shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on a peg by the door, then sat on the stool beside him.
“The Allena situation,” Mittie explained, and widened her eyes as she passed Igor a coffee mug.
“You know,” she added, jerking her gaze in Justin’s direction.
“Still intent on leaving, is she?”
Mittie nodded. "It looks that way.”
“So,” Igor said, elbowing Justin in the ribs. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Do?” Justin echoed. “There’s nothing I can do.”
“Really? It’s not like you to give in so easily.”
“She’s got it into her head that she wants to leave,” he said quietly. “I can’t make her change her mind.”
“Of course you can,” Ivan said, grinning. “Use your charm.”
“I’m all out,” he said humorlessly.
“You simply have to find out what she wants,” his stepdad said, nodding. “Easy.”
“I know what she wants,” he said, grimacing as he drained his coffee mug. “She wants to get married and have a baby.”
“Then marry her and give her a baby,” Ivan said, grinning. “Before someone else does.”
Justin pushed himself off the stool and got to his feet. He didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to think of it. Didn’t want to acknowledge, even for a second, that the idea of her marrying the fireman or anyone else was eating away at him. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“What’s ridiculous about it?” Igor shot back. “Unless you don’t find her attractive?”
“No,” he said quickly and then shook his head. “Of course she's... I mean, I don’t think about her in that way.”
Big fat lie number one.
“Because?” his stepdad asked.
“Because it would be inappropriate, and I’m not going to have this conversation,” he said impatiently.
“Inappropriate because she works for you?” Ivan inquired.
“Exactly.”
His stepfather’s eyes widened. “So when she’s not working for you, in…” he paused and counted numbers on his fingers. "In a few weeks, it won’t be inappropriate?”
Justin frowned. “Well…yes. But then the point will be moot because I’ll hire another nanny and won’t need her to—” He stopped speaking and shook his head. “Like I said, I’m not having this conversation.”
“You mean the thought has never crossed your mind?” Igor asked.
“Of course not.”
Big fat lie number two...
Because it had. It was all he could think about. Dream about. And he was confused by his feelings.
He needed to get a grip. And fast.
He needed to stop thinking about Allena running off to marry some man she’d never met. A stranger who didn’t know how beautiful she was, how caring she was, or how important she was to everyone.
And mostly, how important she was to him.