Chapter 33

ChapterThirty-Three

Alistair tried to avoid her in the house, and at first, that appeared to go quite well. He had so much work for the upcoming school year anyway, and the house was big enough for the two of them.

And then came the first fateful day when he saw her. He was at the top of the stairwell, heading down to the dining room for breakfast, as he always did. She was on the second landing, thankfully not looking at him. But he could see her, and his heart stopped beating in his chest.

From this distance, it didn’t look like she’d changed a single day since he saw her. All that dark hair tumbled down her back, almost to her waist now. She wore the same bright colors that he so rarely saw in Wildecliff. That day she’d worn a vivid green, like the color of leaves with the sun filtering through them.

He’d watched as she smoothed her hands down the bodice of her dress, took a deep breath, and then marched down the stairs as though she felt no fear at all. And his chest had swelled with pride in knowing that he’d assisted that in some way. She had a safe place to rest her head at night. He’d done that.

Of course, at the time, she didn’t know he was even in the building.

Until the second time he saw her, which was a little harder to avoid. He’d been leaving the kitchens after talking with Nora about the finances and what they could order to stock the kitchens. It wasn’t much, unfortunately. They both had to give up a few of their favorite things, but that didn’t matter. They could run a household on porridge if they needed to.

He had made it to the top of the stairs when he heard the whispered word.

“Alistair?”

Without looking, he had walked away from her and rushed to his father’s study. He couldn’t see her this close. He wasn’t ready to look Thea in the eyes when she had come so far, and he had been the dolt who hired the woman he was still very much in love with.

Remembering all the times he’d seen her and then run away like a coward made his head hurt. Groaning, Alistair laid his head down on his desk and sighed. He couldn’t even stay in his own study because he swore he’d heard her approach a few mornings ago, and he refused to have her meet him for the first time while he was working. She could continue helping Nora. The gods knew that poor woman needed all the help she could get running this place.

So he’d found refuge in the library because he remembered Thea had been particularly nervous in this room, and she was very unlikely to seek him out here. Trudging down the stairs with all the papers while balancing a quill and ink on the top hadn’t been the smartest of choices, but he’d made it down here without too much of an issue.

The library whispered around him. The grimoires liked to make their opinions known, and right now, they were disappointed in the head of their household. He ran through the shadows of the house as though trying to avoid the young woman who had joined them. The grimoires thought it would be smarter just to get rid of her. Send her off from the home if it was going to disturb their peace so much.

But they also didn’t like it when anyone was in the library. He ignored them and pulled another sheet to sign in front of him.

The words swam before his eyes. Something about desiring to document the history of the Orbweaver men and wanting permission to put his father’s name and his own likeness in a book that would be published next year.

Why? So they could idolize the man who had caused a war between two sides of the river? He refused to even consider why people would want to worship his father as a hero. Balthazar Orbweaver had been a monster.

Pulling a blank sheet of paper in front of himself, he started to write his letter in response. First, he would thank the author for reaching out and asking for permission. Second, he would compliment them in their endeavor, as recording history was an honorable struggle. However, he would not allow anyone to use the history of his family in documentation other than what he himself had written.

It wasn’t a great excuse, but it should keep the man off his front step at the very least.

Alistair signed his name with a flourish and then rubbed his forehead. Why had his headache returned already?

He adjusted his fingers and realized he wasn’t wearing his glasses. That was why he’d had a headache the entire day. The problem now was, where had he placed his glasses? He was constantly putting them where they didn’t need to go, and if he asked the fae...

Someone cleared their throat in the doorway to the library.

Hopefully, Nora, since she remembered that he always forgot his glasses in certain places. But when he looked up, Alistair’s eyes widened, and his stomach dropped to his feet.

Thea leaned against the door frame. The long, tangled waves of her hair blanketed her arm. She’d pulled the mass over her shoulder, and it obscured her bright yellow bodice that fell into a full circle skirt. His eyes trailed down the swooshing fabric to note that it stopped just below her knees. Rainbow striped socks covered her calves, and she wore bright yellow boots with the slightest heel.

She was so far from any woman he’d ever seen in Wildecliff, and it made him breathless to look at her.

“So you are still here,” she said. “I thought Nora was joking when she kept talking about the master of the house not having children and being kinder than the previous one. I should have guessed that person was you.”

She’d been asking about him?

Alistair found he couldn’t think of what to say. Or how to speak. She was standing right in front of him, as he’d always seen her in his dreams, but that didn’t mean... Well, she might not want to see him. She worked for him now, and that was a rather difficult relationship to manage between two people.

Let alone two people who had once been very close to each other. How was he supposed to navigate this conversation when his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth?

She reached into the pocket of her dress—he took a moment to marvel that there were pockets in those skirts—and pulled out his glasses. “Nora said you get headaches if you work for too long without these. I thought you might need them.”

“Ah.” He cleared his throat and held out his hand. “I do need those, thank you. I was just wondering where I’d left them.”

“On the banister, actually. I found them when I was coming down the stairs this morning for breakfast.” She twirled them on her finger but made no move to walk toward his desk. “Can I ask you a question, Alistair?”

The sound of his name coming out of her lovely lips would have sent him to his knees if he were standing. But he wasn’t, and frankly, he wasn’t sure he could stand right now. “I don’t see why not.”

What if she asked about what had happened between them? What if she wanted to know why his family had been behind the death and destruction of so many people in her city?

Sweat slicked his palms, and he tried to wipe them on his pants below the desk, but that didn’t help. His heart thudded hard in his chest, and electricity shuddered through his fingers as though he was holding onto the end of an electrical cable.

“You hired me to work for you, right?”

He nodded. “I’m afraid I didn’t look at the name on the application. I should have been more detail oriented when hiring someone.”

“So you wouldn’t have hired me if you had known who was applying for the job?” She lifted a single dark eyebrow, and he realized there were more wrinkles on her forehead. As if she had somehow learned how to frown in the time since he’d last seen her.

He supposed she had plenty of reasons to frown, thanks to his family. Alistair shook his head to clear his mind of the thoughts. “I suppose if you were the most qualified for the role, then I still would have hired you.”

“For what job?”

“Secretarial work.” What was she on about? She knew why she was here.

“Ah ha.” She pushed herself off the doorframe and waltzed into the room. Her heels clacked against the floor so loudly that even some grimoires quieted down. “I have to admit, I don’t mind living here while getting paid for doing so. But it does feel rather unfair to everyone else who is working hard while I’m doing undemanding jobs and waiting for my employer to give me something to do. Especially related to the job I was hired for.”

She held out his glasses for him to take, but he couldn’t focus on anything other than that she was leaning over his desk. His Thea. And she hadn’t changed a bit, other than perhaps becoming a little more angular. He remembered the curve of her jaw being a little smoother, perhaps not quite so sharp. But those eyes.... Oh, those midnight eyes still saw straight into his soul.

“Pardon?” he stuttered.

“I’m supposed to be your secretary, Alistair. I think that job is a little more difficult if you don’t talk to me.” She lifted her hand so that his glasses were right in front of his eyes. “So, are you going to use me as a secretary or not?”

Use her?

He could think of a million ways he wanted to use her, and none of them were befitting thoughts for a gentleman. Clearing his throat, he reached up for his glasses. “I can have Nora instruct you on the finer details. She should have already sent out your signature so people know you may sign documents on my behalf.”

The frame of the glasses slid into his grip while Thea shifted her fingers. Suddenly, his hand was in her grasp, and he couldn’t think because he was touching her again. After all these years.

Her hands were more calloused than he remembered, although maybe they always had been. But she held onto his hand with a surprisingly firm grip, tilting it back and forth as she stared down at his fingers.

He could feel his pulse racing in his throat and wasn’t certain how much more of this stress he could take. “What are you doing?”

“I remember you always had dirt underneath your fingernails,” she muttered, still peering down at his hands as though they offended her. “I guess some things do change after all.”

What did she mean by that?

What things changed? And more importantly, what things stayed the same?

Completely thrown off and incapable of thinking about anything else, Alistair put his glasses on and then curled his hands into fists on the desk. “I have too much work to do here, as you can see, to be outside with my hands in the dirt.”

“That’s a shame. I always thought you enjoyed having your hands in the dirt.” Thea put her hands back on her hips and tilted her chin up. “Regardless, I think it is best if we pretend our history didn’t happen. We are adults, and we can be around each other in a professional setting without making it awkward.”

Could they?

Alistair wasn’t so sure he could wake up with her in his house every day and not think about all the things they’d been through together. Or the life that had been stolen from them by cruel people who only saw the world in black and white.

“I...” he hesitated. How could he say yes to something like that? “I’m glad you’re here.”

No, that wasn’t what he meant to say at all. Why had that come out of his mouth when there were a million other things he could have said?

His cheeks burned, and the sweat on his palms kicked up a notch. If he could have run out of the room, he would have. But that would require him to walk past her, and he feared what he’d do if he were closer to her.

Thea’s eyes widened, but she didn’t look quite as affected as him. Alistair didn’t know if he should be offended by that or not.

She shifted on her feet, shuffling back and forth before sighing. “Alistair, I’m still very unsure why you hired me, or if it was a mistake. Whatever the reason for me being here, whether that is your desire to see me or fate, I came here to do a job. And that job requires you to train me, not Nora. She said she doesn’t know how to do the work you’re doing, or what it is you do. I’d appreciate not going into this blind.”

“Of course.” He needed to pull himself together. He wasn’t the young man she’d fallen in love with, and she wasn’t the same young woman he’d been so fond of. They were adults now. Completely different people.

Pulling himself together, he stood up and braced his hands on the desk as well. “I’ll teach you how to go through these documents and respond in a timely manner. There are an unending amount of them, as my father had set up an expectation that people only write to us. I have yet to convince anyone to do otherwise.”

“And should I be expecting a visit from your father any time soon?” she asked.

“No. He’s dead. Although you may see his spirit around here. The old man refuses to stay in the grave. This house hasn’t run the way he thought it would after putting me in charge. That makes it rather hard for him to rest.”

Her eyes had widened again. “Ah. And your brothers? I’ve heard enough stories about them to make me not wish to meet either of them.”

“Also dead.”

The silence stretched between them, taut and ready to snap at any moment. He knew how startling it was for him to so callously mention their demise, but they hadn’t been all that close. Especially in the later years of Cassius and Lysander’s foolish existences.

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Thea whispered. She placed her hand on top of his on the desk, only to snatch her fingers away again a moment after. “Losing family is one of the hardest things a person can suffer.”

“If only.” Losing his family had been nothing short of a blessing, but he couldn’t say that to her. She’d think he was a monster.

Alistair stepped away from her so he didn’t get lost in the stars of her eyes. He pointed to a stack of paper beside him and cleared his throat. “This is the first of many stacks. Nora sent out your signature, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then for today, if you can organize the stack into different categories, that way I can go through them more efficiently, that will suffice.” He needed to get out of this room. Away from the kindness in her eyes and the pity in her voice. He had to pull himself together and become her employer rather than the man he was.

Perhaps she was feeling the same way. Thea nodded and rounded the desk as he vacated it. “I can do that. What time would you like it finished?”

Tomorrow. Three days from now. A week. The further away from him, the better.

But he couldn’t say any of that because then he wasn’t being the employer she expected. That he expected himself to be.

Who would have thought having a secretary would make everything this much harder?

“By tomorrow morning, if you think that’s possible.”

She eyed the stack of pages and then set her jaw. “I think that’ll be acceptable. And tomorrow, when we reconvene, I imagine you have more papers for me to go through?”

“For the time being. Eventually, I’d prefer it if I never saw the papers again.” But that was letting her know too much. Did employers speak with their employees about how they felt?

He’d need to talk with a butler to understand what might be too far. Then maybe he could create his own ground rules in his head.

With a sharp nod, Alistair left the library on wobbly legs while his heart screamed for him to stay.