Monster Among the Roses

The silence that followed my confession was resounding. It echoed around in my head until sweat misted on my brow.

I opened my eyes to find Isobel watching me, her expression bleak.

She shook her head. “What do you mean?”

Glancing down at my hands, I began to pick at a piece of skin coming loose around a callus on my palm.

“I told you before, I originally went to your dad because of my mom, right?”

She nodded. “What? Is that not true?”

“No, it’s true,” I said. Then I drew in a deep breath and began my story.

“I went to him because she owed him money. He’d given her a loan for her bakery. I swear, she owed everyone money. I have no idea how a single person could rack up that much debt, but she kept it from me for as long as she could. By the time I learned about it, it was out of my control. I sold my truck, sold her house, sold most of our furniture. And it still wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. After I moved her in with me, she tripped on the stairwell outside my apartment. I live on the second floor, and they’ve always been steep steps. I wish I could’ve moved us somewhere safer, but I’d been working at Pestle.”

Isobel nodded in understanding. “But they went out of business,” she said for me.

“But they went out of business,” I repeated, nodding too. “Then Mom lost the bakery, and suddenly we were making no money, so I couldn’t afford to move us. And after she broke her hip, I had to be there for her almost every hour of the day. It took her a few months before she was able to get around on her own, enough for me to safely leave the apartment and look for work. But by then, pretty much everyone who’d been let go at the shoe factory had filled all the available jobs around. Bills kept coming in, the one from Nash Corporation included. Mom had talked about how she’d gotten to speak to Henry Nash personally when she was given the loan for her bakery—and he was the richest man I knew that I thought I might get to speak to in person—so I thought maybe he’d let me in to see him too.”

I paused to glance at Isobel, gauging her interest, her mood. For the most part, she seemed patient and not too upset.

But I knew that wouldn’t last. Fearing her ultimate reaction, I drew in a deep breath and dived back into my story.

“I was so desperate. You have no idea how desperate I was. When I was able to get a meeting with your dad, I thought…” I shook my head. “I’m not even sure what I thought. I’d worked so hard all my life only to fall into debt and poverty. It was humiliating and humbling. It stripped most of the pride right out of me.”

Wincing, I admitted, “I was ready to do anything to get out of this slump. And…well, I was sure someone as rich and powerful as Henry Nash had to be crooked at the core, that he had to have about a dozen undercover, black market, blackmailing deals going on with people. So I went to him to offer myself up as…as one of his thugs, I guess.”

Isobel blinked before a smile cracked her face. “Wait. You seriously thought my dad was crooked? Really?” She snorted before beginning to laugh outright. “Oh my God, that’s so funny. My mobster dad.” She laughed again.

I scowled. “It’s not funny. I mean, I didn’t know!”

“What the heck did you think he was going to say—‘Sure, I just met you but come be my evil minion henchman.’ Oh, Lord.”

She threw her head back, giggling so hard tears streamed down her cheeks. I sat there, brooding, and waited it out.

“I so wish I could’ve seen how that conversation went. How did you even ask such a question?”

I shrugged, feeling ridiculous for ever thinking Henry could be some kind of mob lord. “I just told him I’d do anything,” I muttered moodily.

No way was I going to tell her what I’d first feared he wanted from me when he’d hired me. She’d probably bust her gut right open from the power of her laughter.

Her brows wrinkled as she shook her head. “So…he just gave you a job?”

I sniffed. “In my defense, I was pretty damn convincing.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” Pressing the back of her hand to her brow, she tried to mimic how dramatic she must’ve thought I had sounded. “Please, sir,” she wailed. “I’ll do anything.”

My face grew uncomfortably hot. “I got the job, didn’t I?”

She straightened, sobering. “You did,” she murmured thoughtfully. Then her face began to drain of color, and on a whisper, she said, “Yeah. You did. Why did you get the job?”

Realizing she’d caught on as to the why already, I sighed. “He didn’t tell me what he wanted me to do. He just gave me the address to Porter Hall and said to be here by nine the next morning. I had no idea what I was supposed to do; I showed up ready for anything. Absolutely anything. So when he told me he just wanted me to be the new handyman, I was relieved. You have no idea, Isobel. It felt as if I’d been pardoned from a death sentence and allowed to live after all. I still had no clue about anything other than being a handyman when the first place he sent me was the rose garden.”

I looked around me, breathing in the scent of her roses, and feeling sad for the first time since I’d come in here.

“Oh, God,” Isobel murmured, knowing exactly where this was headed. Pressing her hands to her face, she looked up toward the ceiling and gave a harsh laugh. “Of course he sent you to my roses. Where else would he send you?”

She was beginning to fall apart, so I talked faster. “He didn’t tell me anything about you, he just mentioned it was his daughter’s garden and he wanted me to keep your flowers in tip-top shape. But then you…you showed up, and you seemed so adamant that he should know you wouldn’t want anyone in there. I confronted him after you left his office.”

“And let me guess,” she said, her eyes filling with tears as she spilled out another bitter laugh. “He finally clued you in to your true duties here. Oh my God.” Pressing her hands to her face again, she choked out, “All this time. I thought we were actually becoming friends.”

“We were! We are.” I reached for her hands, but she pulled them away.

“Friends?” she said in a small, distraught voice. “But you were forced to spend time with me against your will.”

“No, not against my will. You’re making this out to be more lurid than it really was. Nothing was forced or unwanted. I was desperate, Isobel; I would have done any number of unpleasant, maybe even illegal things to pay back my mother’s debt. So when he said he just wanted me to spend time with you, I thought I’d hit the jackpot.”

But she shook her head. “You just don’t get it. He’s tried to buy me friends before, and it—”

I grabbed her hand before she could keep it away from me and I pressed it against the center of my chest. “I know. But that’s not what he did this time. He told me from the beginning I didn’t have to try to befriend you. It wasn’t like those other times before.”

She looked at me, her eyebrows pinched as if doubting but maybe, finally ready to listen to what I had to say. “Then what exactly was it like?”

I smiled. “I believe his exact words were for me to break up the monotony of your day. I could make you mad or make you laugh, as long as I made some kind of contact to force you into a little human interaction.”

Her expression grew thoughtful. She was trying to decide if she wanted to buy my story or not, if she liked my story or not.

I sighed. “He knew it was wrong to try to buy you friends before; he admitted that to me. He realized he wanted people to like you because of who you were, not because of how much he could pay them, so his instructions to me were actually not to become your friend.”

Shaking her head, she admitted, “That doesn’t make sense.”

With a smile, I admitted, “Yeah, it didn’t make much sense to me either. But he thought…” I winced.

“What?” she urged. “Just say it.”

I groaned away before admitting, “He thought you’d be attracted to me, and it’d help distract you from how lonely you felt.”

Her lips parted. She stared at me for an uncomfortably long time. Then she licked her lips and said, “So…my dad bought me eye candy?”

I shrugged, my face flaming hot. “Pretty much, yeah. I think.”

“Oh my God.” She groaned and covered her eyes with both hands. “This is so humiliating.”

It had to be as embarrassing for her as it was for me, but I couldn’t handle her feeling discomfited. Shifting closer, I touched her shoulder, trying to comfort her, make it better. “What I don’t think he counted on, and hopefully he still doesn’t know, is that I was attracted to you right back.”

“Don’t,” she whimpered, shaking her head. “Please don’t say that. That’s just the Stockholm syndrome talking.”

With a laugh, I shook my head and pressed my forehead to hers before gently easing her hands away from her eyes so she’d look at me. When I got a peek at blue heaven from between the longest eyelashes ever made, I confessed, “No, that’s my heart talking.”

She sucked in a hard breath, but I knew she couldn’t believe me. Not yet.

“Think about it, Isobel,” I urged her. “I just had to make sure I was in your presence during a scheduled time. I didn’t have to come in early to run with you, or stay later to build bookshelves with you. I didn’t have to open up to you and tell you about my life, my biggest dreams. I didn’t have to fall in love with you. I did because…because I couldn’t help it.”

“Wait. You did what?” Her eyes grew big as if horrified. “What did you just say?”

I couldn’t repeat the words. My hands were already shaking and my voice was beginning to wobble. “I went further than he asked me to go. Got closer than I think he wanted me to get. And the fact of the matter is I’m worried as fuck what he’s going to do when he finds out just how close I’ve gotten to you. He told me he didn’t want me to befriend you; what the hell is he going to do when he learns I’ve fallen in—”

I shook my head and gulped for air. “What if it pisses him off and he fires me, breaks our deal and takes back all the loans he paid off for my mom? Hell, what if he tells me I can never see you again? Because that’s what freaks me out most. My mom and my own livelihood are at risk here, and all I can think about is how much I don’t want to lose you. Christ, I’m so messed up right now, I don’t—”

“Shh.” She pressed her fingers to my lips, stopping the flow of words.

I lifted my gaze to her. She gave me a gentle smile.

“Don’t worry. I’ll never let that happen to you.”

I kissed her fingers. “You believe me, then?” Worry still choked me, but hope was beginning to spring eternal. “You believe that this thing between us is real and has nothing to do with your dad?”

She swiped a piece of hair tenderly across my forehead and stared into my eyes. Then she nodded. “Yeah. I believe you.”

“Oh, thank God.” I sank into her, closing my eyes and resting my brow on her shoulder. “I was so sure you were going to drop me flat when I told you the truth. You have no idea how worried I was.”

“I’m glad you told me. Thank you for trusting me with the truth.”

I looked up and smiled. “I trust you with my heart. Giving you the truth was easy.”