Gradually, he eased back, her lovely, flushed face held gently in his hands, her soft breasts still warm against his chest.“Don’t ever think you don’t belong here,” he said gruffly, his thumbs stroking her hot cheeks, then brushing once over her swollen lips.“If I know anything, I know you, Catriona Blake, belong with me.”
A door opened near the top of the stairs and suddenly footsteps sounded on the staircase.Cat jumped off his lap and moved to sit in the chair with her quilt.
Olivia peeped around the stairs, face flushed, eyes bleary.“I don’t feel good,” she said hoarsely.“It hurts to swallow.”
Cat immediately rose but Rhys beat her, reaching Olivia’s side with just a couple long strides.He put his hand to her brow.Definitely feverish.He tipped her head back, felt beneath her jaw.Swollen lymph nodes.“I’ll get you some Paracetamol,” he said, “and some warm honey tea, and then I’m going to tuck you in bed with me so I can keep an eye on you, right?”
She nodded and leaned wearily against him.“Will I be sick for Christmas?”she croaked.
“No, love.We’ll have you better in just a few days.We’re going to make sure you rest and watch lots of movies—”
“I like that,” Olivia said.
He smiled and smoothed her hair back from her hot cheek.“Let’s get you fixed up now, and then you’ll be able to sleep.”
*
Cat made acup of warm honey-sweetened tea and took it to Rhys’s room and then said to get her if he needed anything before going to her room.But back in bed, sleep continued to elude her.
How could she sleep after that kiss?After the things he’d said?
She lay awake for almost an hour, staring at the low beams of the ceiling, the quilt pulled to her chin, arms across her chest, holding the emotion in.Every part of her felt too alive—skin sensitive, chest tight, lips still tingling with the shape of his kiss.Even now she could feel his hands cradling her face, and the warmth of his breath against her cheek.She still felt the solid weight of him beneath her as she’d pressed herself into his lap, his body so hard, so strong she wanted to stay there forever.
Cat pressed her palms over her eyes, trying to quiet the tremor running through her.
What had she done?What hadtheydone?But what she felt wasn’t regret.She couldn’t regret that kiss.It had been everything—loneliness and longing, heat and hunger—and it probably had been the most real thing she’d ever felt.She had never been kissed like that, had never felt more real and alive, either.
And that was the problem.
Because wanting Rhys as much as she did was dangerous.Ruinous.She knew that.She knew how these stories played out.
Rolling onto her side, Cat curled her knees toward her chest, as if by making herself small she could hide from the consequences, as there would be consequences.What was it that Newton had written?Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
If Cat hadn’t promised Jillian that she wasn’t attracted to her father maybe there were options… possibilities… but having made that promise to Jillian, Cat was determined to keep it because she loved them.All of them.Far more than she’d meant to.
Chapter Thirteen
Rhys didn’t goup to the house to work the next day, Sunday, preferring to stay close to Olivia even though he knew it was just a cold and the worst of the symptoms would peak in two to three days, and then steadily improve.
He spread his things on the kitchen table, and worked when he could, but more often than not he was upstairs keeping Olivia company.Olivia didn’t want to be in her dad’s room without someone with her, even though she was asleep for hours at a time.Early Sunday afternoon, she asked if she could go lie on the couch by the fire, but Rhys said, in his best doctor voice, that if her fever came down a little, maybe tomorrow she could, but as long as she had a fever, she could be contagious and he didn’t want Jilly to get sick too.
In the kitchen Cat heated some chicken soup that Mrs.Johnson had dropped off on learning that the little one was sick.Cat had no idea who told whom what, but at Langley Park, everyone seemed to know everything.But the soup and crackers were welcome and Olivia sipped the broth, drinking nearly all of it although she ignored the carrots and celery.
“I hate being in here,” Olivia, said, lying back on the pillows and looking around the plain room with the heavy timbers.
“I’ll stay with you,” Cat said.“Want me to tell you a story?”
Olivia nodded.“About a poor but beautiful girl who lives in a small village, and she works very hard to take care of her sick mother and father.One day the duke sees her and falls in love and takes her away to his huge castle where she never has to work again in her life.”
Cat laughed and leaned over to smooth the covers across Olivia’s chest.“I think you just told the story.There’s not much for me to say.”
“Well, you can tell me what happens to her sick mother and father.”
Cat was smiling so hard it hurt.“What do you want to happen to her poor mother and father?”
“Well, the duke has to invite them to come live in his castle too.”
“That’s a very nice ending.I like it.”
