Trying very, very hard not to stare at his mouth, she dropped her gaze to the table and sipped at her cocoa. Silence settled over them for several minutes before she finally worked up the courage to ask, “Mr. Bounds, you’ve been very kind, but I need to know… am I fired?”
“Fired?” He arched one dark brow. Besides his near constant frowning, it was the most expressive she’d seen him. “Why would I fire you?”
Zia held the teacup close to her chest. “I… Because I broketherule? The one that’s a non-negotiable, termination-on-the-spot kind of rule?”
He made that clicking sound again, but this time she thought she caught what he was doing. When he was agitated or annoyed, it appeared he flicked his tongue against the back of his fangs — which were two razor sharp, semi-hollow blades perfectly designed for piercing flesh.
She would know. She’d done plenty of research on vampires. Very,verythorough research.
Setting his bottle on the table, he told her, “You are not fired.”
“But… why?” She swallowed thickly, the taste of rich chocolate and vanilla souring in her mouth. “Not that I’m not relieved, but Iamconfused. Mr. Eisele wasveryclear about what would happen if I got caught on the grounds after dark.”
Mr. Bounds tilted his head slightly to one side. She got the strangest impression that he was struggling to figure out how to talk to her. “And yet you did it anyway, knowing you would almost certainly be caught?”
She thumbed the handle of the teacup. Her treacherous cheeks heated again. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because Ilovethat garden, Mr. Bounds,” she told him. She didn’t care if she sounded crazy. He wouldn’t be the first person to think so.
Pressing her hands onto her dirt-streaked thighs, she explained, “You’ve got some of the rarest pre-War varieties in the UTA in your rose garden — ones that are almost extinct, or so obscure even the Society only has one or two examples in their archive. I’ve spent a year trying to bring everything back to its original state, and I’ve poured my magic into that soil. I couldn’t let those roses die when I knew that it would be so easy to save them.”
He was quiet for a moment, assessing her. She thought she spied some strange emotion in his fathomless eyes — surprise, or perhaps a shadow of longing — when he murmured, “And that is why you are not being fired.”
She blinked several times in quick succession. “Really?”
“Yes. Why would I fire someone so passionate about what they do?” Behind him, the clock on the wall dinged a doleful note. Mr. Bounds’s lips pressed together in a hard line. Eyes dropping to her cup, he said, “You should finish your cocoa. It’s getting late and you still have to drive home.”
She was almost too dizzy with relief to hear him. “R-right.”
I don’t have to leave the garden.Gods, it was a damn miracle.
A greenwitch bonded with land she worked on consistently, and Zia had poured more of her magic than was probably advisable into Mr. Bounds’s rose garden. Being forced to leave it would have broken her heart in too many ways to contemplate.
She finished her cocoa in a daze. They spoke more, but she couldn’t rightly recall the specifics of what was said. Something about calls he would make, and how he didn’t want her driving late. He was no gifted conversationalist, Mr. Bounds, but she was too relieved to feel any awkwardness.
If he was even slightly less intimidating, she would have given him the biggest, most grateful hug. It wasn’t about the money, or the hassle of moving back in with her family. It was about the garden and, if she were being honest,him.
When Mr. Bounds insisted that he would take care of the dishes and then would not be dissuaded from escorting her through the awful dark to the staff parking lot, she could only follow his lead with a big, dopey grin on her face.
I don’t have to leave,she thought, catching sight of him standing tall and stiff by the gate as she slowly pulled out onto the road.I don’t have to give up my roses and… and Mr. Bounds knows who I am.
Her heartbeat was still uneven by the time she made it to her lonely little house. The taste of rich chocolate lingered on her tongue, as deep and dark as the sound of his voice.He called me beautiful.
ChapterFive
Zia had never neededand also resented a weekend more.
On one hand, she was grateful for the space. She wasn’t sure how she was going to handle walking by the manor every day, knowing what her boss’s abs looked like, or how he must think she was nothing but a flighty, silly little gardener he let off the hook.
Or worse, that he called herbeautiful.
It was good to take the weekend to gather her wits again.
On theotherhand, it gave her two days to replay every single second she spent in his company until she couldn’t tell up from down anymore.
She found herself staring at food burning on her cooker as she got lost in the memory of his voice and how he looked at her with those disconcerting eyes. Her showers stretched longer and longer as she rehashed every word and glancing touch they traded. There were so many things she could have said, so many opportunities she missed, and each new realization made her confidence shrivel.
