Seduced by Stratton (The English Brothers Book 4) (12 page)

She’d asked him to dance? No.

She’d asked him if he was continuing with lessons? No.

But here’s where it got tricky, and why he felt like such an asshole as he stood outside the studio door on the sidewalk as Sunday shoppers bustled by.

When she’d asked if she could study at his apartment?

If he took his attraction to her out of the equation, the answer should have been yes.

Barrett was
his
brother, and if
his
brother was encroaching on Val’s comfort and well-being and Stratton could help fix that, it was his responsibility to try. He was disappointed in himself for letting his feelings get in the way of right and wrong, and immediately determined he needed to make it up to her.

Sighting ornate cupcakes covered with lavender and pink sugar roses in the bakery window under the studio, he got an idea. Slipping into the bakery, he purchased one, then stepped back outside just as Valeria exited the studio.

With her head down, she plowed into him, and he reached for her elbow with his free hand to steady her.

“Oh! I’m sorry, I—”

Her voice trailed off as she looked up at Stratton.

Red eyes and cheeks made his heart squeeze with regret. He’d made her cry. God damn it, how did he end up hurting this woman every time he turned around?

“Val,” he said softly, offering a sorry smile.

The back of one pink mitten swiped at her eyes as she wrenched her arm away from him. Her voice was hurt and angry when she said, “Excuse me. I’m headed to the library.” Then she turned away from him and started walking away.

“Wait!”

She turned around, putting her hands on her hips.

“For what?” she snapped.

He held out the little white bakery box. “Peace offering.”

Her face was suspicious as she eyed the box before taking a tentative step forward. “What is it?”

“You’ll have to open it to see . . . but, it’s coming home with me first.”

She huffed, crossing her arms over her chest and looking furious. “Then how exactly am I supposed to open it? Because we both know I’m not welcome.”

He winced. “You are. You
are
welcome. I’m an ass. Again.”

“Yes,” she agreed, her face softening a little. “You are. Again.”

“I shouldn’t have said no. I’m . . .” He was a mess. Confused. Longing. Wanting to do the right thing. Wanting to follow his heart. Being pulled in two separate directions. “I’m so out of my depth, Val.”

Her shoulders relaxed, and she uncrossed her arms as she took another step closer. “Is it a cupcake?”

“Would that be your first choice?”

She nodded, and he couldn’t help grinning at her.

“One of the pink and lavender flowered ones?” she asked, her lips tilting up just a fraction.

“I can’t tell you.” His grin widened a little more. “But you can have it once we’re at my place.”

“Okay,” she said softly, still standing several paces back from him, and eyeing him cautiously.

***

He quickly hailed a cab and gave the driver his address. Once seated, Valeria looked out the window, trying to figure out what had just happened.

When he left the studio so abruptly, her eyes had welled, and she hadn’t been able to keep the tears at bay as she finished tidying up. She liked Stratton so much, she saw such potential in him, but he’d effectively ended their four-day flirtation, turning his back on her and coldly dismissing her pathetic last-ditch attempt to spend time with him. It was humiliating, of course, but her tears weren’t about embarrassment, they were about loss.

Her feelings for him had grown by leaps and bounds over the last few days, and she didn’t want for today to be the end. But it was. The end.

She’d shut off the lights, put on her parka, and pulled her heavy messenger bag across her chest as she trudged down the stairs feeling sorry for herself. There was a library about twenty minutes away near the Liberty Bell, and she could study there until it closed at five o’clock and then maybe she could find a coffee shop. She considered calling her sister, Angie, who might be waitressing tonight, to ask if she could use her apartment. The problem was, her deadbeat boyfriend was always hanging around, and Valeria didn’t feel like dealing with him. Toni was out of town, which would be perfect if Valeria had her key, but didn’t, and her parents’ house was too loud with her sister, Gina, aunts, uncles, and cousins coming and going on Sunday afternoon. Carolina’s apartment, covered with kids’ toys, was no place to study either. With the term starting tomorrow, and her first student teaching assignment on Tuesday morning, she needed to knuckle down. Her best bet was a library or a coffee shop. So be it, she’d thought, resigned but still weepy, and set off.

And then suddenly she was bumping into the wall of man that was Stratton, who apologized for hurting her feelings and invited her over to his place.

She was starting to see the pattern with Stratton. Every time he let her down, he did this thing where he quickly realized his mistake and immediately made amends. Every time he hurt her feelings, he said he was sorry as soon as he’d figured it out. And it endeared him to her that much more, because she didn’t require that Stratton could read her mind. He couldn’t. He was struggling to understand her, just like every man on earth struggles to understand a woman. He was clumsy. He wasn’t perfect—and she okay with that. In fact, she
preferred
that he wasn’t perfect—but she liked the way he painstakingly navigated his way through unfamiliar social waters, trying to do the right thing. Unlike so many other men she’d met in her life, Stratton tried, and he tried hard. It made her admire him, it made her like him that much more, and it made her heart swell with something
real
for him.

“Sorry again,” he said quietly beside her, balancing the bakery box on his knee. “After last night . . . kissing you . . . well, I thought it would be better for both of us if we stopped seeing each other, so I just decided to say no to anything and everything that might lead to more plans after today. Stupid. I don’t want to hurt you, but I keep screwing up. I keep making you sad, and I’m sorry, Val.”

“You’re just figuring out things like everyone else. I don’t want to hurt you either,” she added softly. “The . . . the woman you mentioned last night? Is she married, Stratton?”

“What? No! No, she’s not married. That wouldn’t be—I mean, I wouldn’t go after a married woman.”

Valeria turned to him, pursing her lips to hide her smile. She was relieved. She didn’t realize how much it would have bothered her if he was pining after a married woman, but it would have. Very much.

“Is she dating someone else?”

“Wha’? How . . .?”

Pulling no punches, she stared him straight in the eye. “Because you care for her. Despite what you might think, if it’s obvious to me, it’s obvious to her too. And if it’s obvious to her, it makes no sense that you two aren’t together. And if she’s not married, then she must be . . . blinded by someone else.”

He stared at her with barely concealed awe, his mouth lightly open, his eyes wide and stunned.

“There are other possible scenarios, of course,” she said quickly, feeling nervous that he was staring at her and not saying a peep. “This one just makes the most sense to me.”

“You’re amazing,” he whispered.

Not amazing enough
, she thought.

She shook her head. “I told you . . . courtship is my specialty.”

“Early American, I thought.”

“People are people,” she responded with a gentle smile. “Seventeen-hundreds or 2000s, it doesn’t really matter so much. Customs change. Cultural norms change. Hearts don’t. You can’t help who you long for.”

“What if you long for more than one person?” he asked suddenly, looking surprised as soon as the words left his mouth.

He was talking about her. She knew it instinctively. She knew it because he wanted so much not to like her, but his feelings for her were growing just as surely as hers were. She felt it in his eyes, in his words, in the way he’d kissed her last night and watched her leave with such regret. She felt some satisfaction and deep tenderness for his inadvertent confession, because she wanted him too. Because if she was ever going to have him, he needed to long for her more than his mystery woman.

“Eventually,” she said gently, choosing her words carefully as they pulled up in front of his building, “you’ll have to make a choice.”

He stared back at her gravely as the cabbie interrupted them to request his fare.

They didn’t pursue the conversation further as Valeria followed him through the lobby and up to his apartment. Both quiet and thoughtful, she was relieved the silence wasn’t awkward but strangely comfortable. More and more of their cards were hitting the table now, and Valeria was hopeful that when he fanned out his hand, he’d see that they deserved a chance.

Two hours later, curled up in the corner of Stratton’s couch with an empty cupcake box on the coffee table, a half-empty glass of good Merlot beside her, and a warm fire crackling, Valeria sighed as she finished reading the case study of a young Connecticut minister who romanced his seventeenth century teenage sweetheart via letters. He confessed his love for her burned like “a golden ball of pure fire,” but then went on to explain that their love must be “subordinate to God’s Glory.”

She thought of Stratton pining for an unavailable woman while he desperately fought his growing feelings for her. Genuine feelings of love and passion could be renounced or held back or concealed or tempered by the mind when inconvenient to the Subject’s life or life philosophy. Love and longing were uncontrollable. Actions and declarations could be controlled, subordinated.
But for how long?
she wondered.
Will the mind always triumph? How long will the heart be denied?

She glanced at Stratton, who sat diagonally across the small living room from her, beside the fire in a leather arm chair, his legs crossed and slippered feet resting on a matching foot rest as he read something on his Kindle. After the charged conversation they’d had in the cab, it surprised her that they’d managed to settle down by the fire and turn their minds to reading. Almost two hours had passed, and though she was still desperately aware of his presence so close to her, she’d accepted her longing for him. The intimacy of the space somehow excited her and reassured her at the same time. She liked the constant buzz of anticipation in her stomach, the sensitivity of her hearing every time he shifted in his chair, the way she fought not to look up even when she felt his eyes idling on her. It was intoxicating to be so close. It was the most quietly exhilarating two hours of her life.

Finished with her notes, she closed the book, putting it back in the messenger bag at her feet and pulling out her laptop.

“Stratton,” she asked, breaking their long, comfortable silence, “do you mind if I plug this in?”

“Yeah. No problem,” he said, putting his Kindle on the arm of his chair and crossing the room, anxious to assist her. “I believe there’s an outlet under . . . yep. It’s behind the couch. Can you . . .?”

She leapt up, and he pulled the couch away from the wall, holding out his hand for the cord. As she handed it to him, her fingers brushed his palm, making her breath hitch. His eyes cut to hers, almost as though he was grateful for the excuse to drink in her face. His gaze lit on her cheeks, her eyes, her lips, where he lingered for several seconds, clenching his jaw. Finally, he gave her a tight smile, leaned down quickly and plugged in her laptop, but when he straightened he didn’t turn back to his chair immediately.

He stood close to her as he asked, “Do you have to study all night?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, um, I was thinking . . .” His eyes dropped to her lips again, and she tugged her bottom lip between her teeth, watching his eyes dilate and his cheeks flush as he stared at her, transfixed.

“What were you thinking?” she prompted him softly.

His eyes darted up to hers, but he sounded out of breath when he answered. “That maybe we could get a pizza. I figure you have to eat.”

“Sure,” she said, making an effort to appear breezy even though her heart was racing. “I’d love it. Thank you.”

Without releasing his eyes, she sat back down, her neck tilted up, her breath held so her breasts swelled against her leotard, imagining the view he had from several feet above her. She wasn’t going to be inappropriate, but she wasn’t going to make this easy for him either. She wanted—no, she
needed
—for Stratton to be panting with want for her. Her heart begged for him to choose her.

He stared down at her, unmoving. “Great. I’ll order in a little while. What do you like on it?”

“Anything,” she said softly, darting a glance at his hips before raking her eyes back up his body. “Everything.”

His tongue darted out to wet his lips, and his eyes burned as he exhaled in a rush. “Jesus, Val.”

“What?” she asked innocently. “What, Stratton?”

He shook his head and turned away from her sharply, crossing the room and squatting before the fire with his back to her. Picking up a poker, he attacked the logs on the grate, rearranging them before dropping another piece of wood on the flames. The dry log caught immediately, crackling and spitting in surrender, sparks flying up the flue in a fractured burst of bright orange.