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"Unfortunately," he continued, and I straightened as he took a step towards me, "a challenge is a rare beast."
I looked up at him and tried to take him in without my brain melting. "Yeah, I suppose for someone like you it must be. Does it bother you that you're able to get whatever you want so easily? I think I'd hate it." I knew I was being presumptuous, probably stepping way over the line, but the way his steel-greys were flashing at me, I didn't think he minded.
"You think so? You don't think you'd enjoy being able to go anywhere? Buy anything? Never having to wait in line, never having to fly coach…"
"Well, I've never flown anywhere so I'd just be grateful to be flying at all."
"You're lying." He looked at me like I was an alien but I just shrugged. I knew it was strange but I'd never been able to afford a holiday even though there were a million places I wanted to go.
"No, and to answer your other questions, I'm sure the novelty would wear off if there wasn't any actual substance in my life. How could I ever be proud of myself if I could get everything so easily? How could I ever be satisfied? The world would lose its mystique, its magical elusiveness, it's…why are you looking at me like that?"
He was suddenly so close I could smell him. He looked at me like I was a puzzle and all the while he was in front of me I noticed just…him. The broadness of his shoulders, his strong brow, and his eyes that were killing me. He looked like everything a man should be.
"I like looking at you," he whispered as if it was the most natural thing to say in the world.
"It's creepy," I lied. It was hot as hell.
"But you like it."
"Who said I like it?"
"Your flushed skin and the way you press your thighs together tells me you like it." His gaze dropped to my chest where I swore he would be able to see my heartbeat. "What's this?" My mind was spinning so fast it took a moment to realize he was holding my necklace.
He toyed with it, turning it over in his long fingers, brushing the skin of my breastbone with light, fluttering touches that sent the hairs up on the back of my neck.
"It's a flower?" he asked as he turned it again.
"Yes, it's a bleeding heart pressed between glass. My mum made it for me when I was little. She cut the flower, pressed it herself, and had it set into the gold edging." My mum's necklace, my most precious possession. Usually, I was fiercely protective over it, but for some reason I didn't mind him touching it.
"A bleeding heart?" He looked closer at the heart-shaped flower, at the droplet-shaped bottom that made it look as though it were bleeding.
"Yes, it's a wildflower. They're usually pink but my mum grew them in all colours; red, blue, black, yellow. White was her favourite." Why was I telling him about my mum? She was a sacred part of me that I kept hidden safely away from prying eyes. I didn't talk about her to complete strangers.
"What does it mean?"
"The white one? Innocence, purity, goodness, but the bleeding heart represents passion, a powerful love between people. You gift white ones to people who mean the most to you. They're my favourite kind of flower." I clamped my mouth shut to stop me from giving away any more of my secrets to this man.
"It suits you." He released the necklace and traced the line of my collarbone with a teasing finger. “How did you learn about all of this?”
“My mother, she started my love for it.” I took a breath, pushing down painful memories, pushing down the butterflies he'd put in my stomach. “I got my obsession with gardens from her, now I dream about designing them but rarely get the opportunity.” He looked surprised when I took a step away, regaining some much needed distance. Wasn't I supposed to be trying to leave?
"So, why did you buy this place? Why here and not somewhere else?" I asked, trying to move our conversation onto safer seas.
"Why not?" He shrugged as if it was justall in a daywhich I suppose for him it was. Still, it annoyed me and I shook my head at his blasé attitude. "Why are you shaking your head?"
"Nothing. I'm just having a strange day." I didn't want to say what I was really thinking—that he was a spoiled, silver-spooned…
"Strange how?"
"You mean, apart from crashing into your car and then falling flat on my backside?" I raised my brows and a hint of a smile played on his lips before he pulled it back, as if the very act of smiling had pained him. "I just don't have days like this, that’s all." It was almost painful to be near him and I had no idea why. Something about him just had me feeling so precarious.
"Days like what?"
"Days where I get to wander around places like this and look at views like that." I gestured towards the landscape. The landscape thatheowned. How could he not be overawed by that? "I could look at it all day."
"You can if you like."
"Pardon?"