Romancing the Billionaire
Page 17Violet smoothed her hair behind one ear and decided to ignore Jonathan and concentrate on her surroundings. There were trees, flowers, and greenery everywhere. It was early in the morning, and the skies were overcast and gray. A light fog hovered over the grounds, and along one of the paths she could see a decorative sign that read Thames Footpath. She pointed to it and Jonathan nodded. There were a few vendors just setting up down the road, and Violet suppressed a yawn. Maybe after they found her father’s envelope, they could head to a nearby coffee shop and get something to wake her up.
As they approached the river, several ducks began to swim toward them, quacking. “Oh, dear,” Violet said with a laugh as the ducks continued to follow them as they walked. “I think they’re expecting a handout.”
“Unless they want a stick of gum, I don’t have anything for them.”
She laughed again, tucking another lock of hair behind her ears. The laugh died when she saw the intense, almost hungry look Jonathan cast in her direction. God, how had she ever thought that they could hang out together as friends? Jonathan didn’t know how to be friendly with a woman. All he knew how to do was devour her with his eyes.
Like he was doing right now.
Averting her gaze, she took another experimental step forward, and the ducks continued to swim alongside. “We should get something to distract them,” she told him. And you. “Do you want to go to a nearby coffee shop and get something to eat?”
“I suppose I could,” he said slowly. “Do you want something, too?”
“That’d be lovely,” she told him, flashing him a smile. “Three sugars, extra cream?”
He nodded and jogged down the path, heading in the opposite direction from where she stood. She watched him go, admiring the lines of his shoulders in his jacket and the way his ass filled out the back of his jeans. Damn you for not having a potbelly and a bald spot, she thought with a self-deprecating grin. Then, she turned and marched toward the Marlow Bridge, tablet clutched tightly in hand.
Following the footpath, she soon came to the bridge and edged toward a plaque set amongst the bricks, curious despite herself. Marlow Suspension Bridge, it read, along with the name of the designer. She scanned it but there was no mention of “Ozymandias,” no mention of Percy Shelley, and she felt a bit of doubt. What if they were grasping at straws? Surely her father hadn’t meant for them to take thirteen steps underneath the bridge?
After all, thirteen steps underneath pretty much led right into the water. Violet gazed at the quacking ducks, who were eager for a handout.
Then, she shrugged and sat on the grassy bank, undoing the buckles on the ankle of her high heels. After her disorienting wake-up, she’d “armored” herself in her schoolteacher attire. In a knee-length wool skirt, a demure long-sleeved cardigan, and low, strappy heels, she felt like her normal self, her controlled, careful self. That was the woman she was now, she told herself. Not the girl who’d fallen in love with an intense, soulful-eyed college boy so long ago.
The fleet of ducks quacked and streamed away from Violet, and she looked up to see Jonathan returning, two coffees and a small brown bag in hand. He frowned down at her as she removed her first shoe. “What are you doing, Violet?”
“Getting ready to go into the water.”
Nearby, a goose honked.
He gazed down at her, his expression intent. “It’s cold. I should be the one doing it.”
He was silent for a long moment, no doubt formulating a new argument, Violet figured. She was surprised when he capitulated. “Very well,” Jonathan said. “Just be careful.”
“I will,” she told him, and tossed her other shoe on the bank. “You’ll have to feed the ducks and keep them away from me,” she said, and glanced up at him.
Her breath escaped her throat.
Jonathan’s intense gaze had moved from her face to her legs, and his hands were clutching the coffees so tightly she could see the whites of his knuckles. The expression in his eyes was pure lust as he regarded her stocking-clad legs, which she’d thoughtlessly sprawled on the embankment. There was a prominent bulge in the crotch of his jeans.
Oh.
Violet turned away, her cheeks reddening, and she picked up a shoe and pretended to fiddle with one of the dainty buckles. Jonathan was aroused by the sight of her stripping off her shoes on the riverbank. She should be appalled. She really should be.
Instead, she felt an old, familiar ache start between her legs. Her breathing quickened, and she put the shoe down and did the worst thing imaginable.
She hitched up her nice, sweet, demure skirt to the tops of her thighs and began to slowly roll one thigh-high down her leg with great care. He wanted to watch, did he? She’d give him something to see.
Funny how the thought of him watching her undress made her breath catch.
Ever so slowly, she rolled the stocking down her thigh. Her fingers brushed her knee and she bit her lip, hesitated, and then continued downward, gently tugging the stocking down her calf. She arched her foot and pointed her toes as she lifted her leg into the air and carefully pulled the stocking off. “You don’t mind if I’m the one who goes into the water, do you?” she asked him in a sultry voice, placing the stocking into the grass.
When he didn’t answer, she looked over.
Jonathan’s jaw was set, the lines of his mouth hard and flat. He might have looked angry if it weren’t for the dark, smoky look in his eyes that she’d seen so many times before.
He was incredibly aroused.
And suddenly, Violet felt as if she were playing with fire. What was she doing? Why did she care if Jonathan was aroused by the sight of her stripping her stockings off? Jesus, was she insane? Violet suddenly wanted to kick herself. This was not the way to keep him in the friend zone. This was just her torturing him with what he couldn’t have.
It was rather classless of her.
Angry with herself, Violet jerked at her other stocking, shoving it down her leg as unsexily as possible. When both of her legs were bare, she got to her feet and paused on the bank. She’d originally planned on taking off her cardigan so she could see how Jonathan reacted to her wearing nothing but a skimpy camisole underneath, but that suddenly seemed like an incredibly stupid idea. What was she thinking? Violet frowned to herself and buttoned her cardigan up higher. “Just hold my coffee until I get done, all right?”
“Of course,” he said in that low, ardent voice.
Shivers rippled through her. She ignored them, ignored him. Brushing off her skirt, she headed to the edge of the water. “Thirteen steps in, right?”
“Thirteen,” he agreed tensely. “Be careful.”
“I’ll be just fine,” Violet assured him, glad for the distraction. She tiptoed to the edge. It was hard to tell how deep the water was from the bank, but there was a bridge, so that meant deep, right? Violet swung one foot over and dipped the other in, trying to determine how deep it was.
To her surprise, it only came up to her calf. “Wow. It’s not all that deep. Maybe the river’s low at the moment.” She took another step in and let her hitched-up skirt drop, since it was clear that it wasn’t going to get wet. Another step in and she turned around, glancing back at Jonathan. “Do you think that it’s thirteen steps from the bridge, or thirteen steps into the water?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Well,” Violet said, and put her hands on her hips. “Nothing to do but wander around and hope I hit something with my feet, then.”
“Be my guest,” Jonathan said. “I’ll just be here on shore with coffee and muffins.”
“Beast,” she teased, feeling a bit more at ease. It didn’t sound like he was holding her little striptease against her, which was good. “If you break out those muffins, watch for the ducks. They’ll chew off your arm to get to that bread, I suspect.” Even now, they were hovering near him, ignoring her.
“I’ll save my muffins for you,” he said, and the amusement was back in his voice. Good. She was relieved to hear that.
Violet trudged along the muddy bottom of the river, moving slowly and feeling around with her toes. The water was cold but shallow, and she took her time, not wanting to step over something and miss it. It got deeper as she moved farther in, and she ended up hitching up her skirt a bit more. There was a little graveyard and a church across the river, and she wondered if she was starting from the wrong side. Did that have meaning? Was Shelley buried there and they were looking in the wrong place? Now that they were here, the clue seemed awfully vague.
“How’s it going?” Jonathan called after a time.
“Nothing,” she said, turning around and moving a step or two over, then heading back the way she came, toward the bank. She looked over at him with his coffee, sipping it as he watched her. “I’m starting to think I shouldn’t have been so quick to volunteer. That coffee looks rather good.”
“It is rather good,” Jonathan said. “But I promise not to relish it an unfair amount.”
“Don’t know,” Jonathan said. “It might take us a few weeks to find it.”
“That’s a rather dismal thought.”
“Is it?” He didn’t sound as if he disliked the idea at all.
And that made her wonder. She kept her wondering to herself, though, and continued to trudge, up and down the riverbank. She tried thirteen steps out from the shore. She tried thirteen steps out from the base of the bridge. She tried small steps. She tried large steps. But all that was under her feet was silty river mud. She went back and forth over every inch of riverbank that the bridge covered, and when that all turned up nothing, she looked over at Jonathan again.
“I’m not getting anything,” she told him. “There’s nothing but mud. Should we try the opposite bank?”
“We can,” he said, getting to his feet. “Want to go across the bridge?”
“Actually I’m pretty sure it’s shallow enough,” she began, heading toward the middle of the river, “for me to wade through—”
Her foot didn’t connect, and her entire body went under the water.
For a brief, frightening second, Violet’s world was nothing but water. She heard a male voice shout her name, the sound murky. Then her feet touched the ground, just a bit of a step down, and she pushed back up, gasping for breath.
Her head broke the surface and she pushed streaming water out of her eyes, spluttering in outrage.
A moment later, two strong hands grabbed her and she was hauled against a large male form. “Violet! Are you all right?”
She blinked river water out of her eyes, surprised to see Jonathan right in front of her. He’d waded right in to rescue her, his jeans were wet up to the knee, and she was pretty sure he was still wearing his shoes. “I . . . I think I’m okay,” she said weakly. “Just surprised.”
“Christ, you scared the shit out of me,” he said in a ragged voice, his fingers tight on her arms. It was like he was trying to squeeze some of the water out of her sweater just by touching her. The mental image of that made her giggle. “It’s not funny,” Jonathan snapped.
“It’s a little funny,” she admitted, still giggling. She had to laugh at herself. It was funny. “Watch that next step. It’s a doozy.”
He snorted. “What did you trip on? Is it a lockbox?”