Breaking Up with Barrett: The English Brothers #1 (The Blueberry Lane Series - The English Brothers) (6 page)

Barrett’s mother was young and bouncy when she met ten-years-older Tom English skiing at Vail thirty-three years ago. She had, quite possibly, been on the hunt for a little old money, then surprised herself in discovering that she’d actually fallen in love with Tom. She went from being a very young trophy wife to a very young mother in the first ten months of their marriage, and her five rowdy sons had kept her on her toes.

“Yes, Felix is very important to father. Which is why it was so touching to see you both offering your support at the hospital last night,” Barrett answered drily with one raised eyebrow.

“We were at the Graves’s house until the wee hours for bridge, brat of mine. We didn’t even know Susannah had fallen until we returned home after midnight. Poor thing. I called over to Kindred right away and sent two dozen roses to arrive this morning.” She cocked her head to the side, her blue eyes bright and inquisitive. “You know your father would move heaven or earth for Felix, Barrett, which is why you must be careful.”

“Hmm.”

“Don’t ‘hmm’ at me, Barrett Edward English. You may be thirty-two and a shark of a financier, but I’m still your mother.”

“As if I could forget.”

“What
are
you doing with Emily Edwards?” she asked directly.

Taking her to dinner. Making up wild fake engagement stories. Kissing her like my life depends on it.
His body reacted to his thoughts, and he shifted under the covers.

“Oh, Barrett!” she exclaimed, springing up from his bed. She scrunched up her lips in disapproval and shook her head. “I might have expected this from Alex. But certainly not from you.”

“You didn’t even let me answer.”

She flicked her glance at the sheets disdainfully before returning to his face. “Your, um,
eyes
are telling me all I need to know.”

Barrett sighed, sitting up in his bed with his knees to his chest and pulling the comforter up over his bare chest. “It’s not what you think.”

“Is that so?” She crossed her arms and looked at him squarely. “Emily’s a wonderful girl, but use your head, eh, sport? Dabbling with the gardener’s daughter isn’t exactly a solid plan. Find someone else. Don’t let’s crap where we eat.”

“Alex offered the same eloquent advice.”

“Alex is smart. Devious and too charming for his own good, of course. But smart.”

Barrett nodded at her, though his mother was wrong. In a million years, Barrett wouldn’t dream of “dabbling” with Emily. Like his father’s bond with Felix, Barrett’s bond with Emily had been forged so many years ago, he didn’t remember a time he didn’t have true, genuine feelings for her. What he felt had no room for “dabbling.” It sailed way beyond “like,” floating perilously close to something deeper altogether. Still, one thing Barrett loved about his mother was that she never minced words. She was frothy and cheerful to all outward appearances, but when it came to her sons, she’d always insisted on complete honesty and openness and he respected that.

“I promise no dabbling,” he answered with pursed lips, unwilling to fill her in on his feelings until he’d had a chance to figure them out himself.

“And get some sunshine today! You’re pale! You work way too hard.” She headed for the door. “Weston’s around this weekend too, you know. But he’s supposed to be studying for the bar so don’t bother him.” She winked at him and was gone.

He huffed once, feeling his brows crease as he reviewed his mother’s warning to stay away from Emily.

Like that’s even a choice anymore.

By now her roommate would have gotten the rent notice, and surely Emily would be reconsidering their arrangement. He felt like a cad, but if he was honest with himself—which he had decided was for the best—his reasons for trapping her into being his date next weekend were not solely business-related, but twofold.

One, yes, he legitimately needed her help to cinch the deal. The Harrisons liked her and he needed to close the deal with them. If he showed up without her, it would raise questions about the legitimacy of their engagement, casting shadows on Barrett’s honesty and ethics, which he couldn’t afford to have happen. He needed Emily to continue playing the part of the imminent Mrs. Barrett English, because it would ensure this deal happened.

Two, he liked her. He
really
liked her. He liked her so much it was squeezing his chest like a vise, and he still wasn’t backing away. She was smart and charming and fantastically beautiful, and he had a funny feeling she held his past and his future in the palm of her hand. He wanted a million repeats of last night—he wanted to wake up naked beside her, their limbs loose and tangled as he pulled her against him, and she welcomed him inside. Barrett couldn’t remember much of his life before Emily was a beacon on his radar. The reality was that he was accustomed to getting exactly what he wanted, and for as long as Emily Edwards had drawn breath, Barrett English had wanted her.

And for that to happen, the one immediate thing he needed from Emily Edwards was time.

Emily’s mother was awake when they arrived at noon for the start of visiting hours. As her test results came back throughout the afternoon, it turned out that she didn’t need a neurologist, after all, but a cardiologist. Susannah had developed stable Angina, which had caused her to faint. But with rest and proper medication, she should be able to keep it under control, and the doctors had reassured her that her life could go back to normal. She still had a fairly nasty contusion on her forehead from face-planting on the English’s stairs, so the doctors had suggested one more night in the hospital.

By the time Emily and her father returned to Haverford, it was almost five o’clock. Even though her father had offered to take her for a BLT at the Haverford Diner, she wanted him to have a home-cooked meal tonight after the anxiety of the last two days, so they stopped at the grocery store on the way home. Emily picked up ground meat and breadcrumbs for meatballs, tomato sauce, spaghetti and everything she needed for a garden salad. Her father popped a loaf of garlic bread in the cart, and Emily grinned at him, relieved when he grinned back.

“I haven’t even asked you about your studies, Emmy,” said her father as they drove home.

“They’re going really well.”

“Awfully expensive, PhD at U Penn.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, knowing he felt bad that he wasn’t able to help more. But Emily felt lucky. Mr. and Mrs. English had kindly covered the cost of her undergraduate work, so the cost of her PhD would be a fraction of what she would have owed. And yes, she might be eighty before she paid off her student loans, but damn it, there’d be a PhD beside her name when she did. “I’m student teaching and tutoring, plus I pick up, um, odd jobs here and there. Anyway, it’s worth it, Dad.”

“Never thought I’d have such a brilliant daughter. You’re the first Edwards to go to grad school, Emily Faith, and you’ll certainly be the first who has the right to call herself a doctor.”

“Hey Dad,” she said, cocking her head to the side as she asked the familiar question. “Why’d you decide to become a gardener?”

“That old story?” He sighed, but started telling it again because he knew she loved it as much as any bedtime story. “Well, as you know, I grew up here at Haverford Park, just like you. Watched my granddad and my father both tend the grounds, and I guess I knew every inch of this place like the back of my hand by the time I graduated Penn State at twenty-one with a degree in Horticulture Science. But like most twenty-one year-old fools, I decided to turn my back on Haverford Park and make my own way.

“I graduated college, thanked Mr. and Mrs. English very much for the free ride, packed everything I owned in a duffel bag, took the money I’d saved from gardening every summer and flew to London. I spent three months backpacking around Europe—”

“Until you met Mama in a garden in Giverny.”

“She was sitting there in a peasant blouse with a long skirt and her wavy blonde hair in a bun held back with an extra paintbrush. I sat down on a bench beside her and without even looking at me, she said she wished she knew someone who could cut back the forsythia that was ruining the view she was trying to paint.”

“So you went to the store and came back an hour later with a pair of shears.”

He grinned. “Scissors. Barber scissors, Emmy. They were all I could find. I cut that yellow bush into a thing of beauty with barber scissors, and when I returned to Philly that Winter, she was my bride.”

“And you came home to Haverford Park.”

“Yes, I did. My old Dad was aging by that time, so I started taking over little by little until it all belonged to me.”

“Who will take over after you?” asked Emily, feeling the familiar guilt that she hadn’t been born male to take over for her father as the fourth generation gardener for the English family.

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll find someone who loves the gardens here just as much as I do. New blood for this little gatehouse.” Felix shrugged beside her. “Anyway. That’s how I became the gardener.”

“I love that story,” said Emily quietly, wondering what her own love story would look like from a view of forty years. Would it begin with a man she’d known all of her life, stern and cold, asking her to playact as his fiancée?

“Barrett drove you home last night,” her father said, as though reading her thoughts.

“Mm-hm.”

“You dating him?”

“It’s not really like that.”

“You care for him?”

“Oh, Dad.” She looked over at her father, wishing she had answers for him. Wishing she had answers for
her
.

“He sent over that fancy doctor last night.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Well, there’s no time like the present to uncomplicate things, Emmy…especially since he’s here waiting for you.”

Emily’s eyes snapped from her father’s profile forward to look through the windshield. A smile took over the entire real estate of her face as she drank in the sight of beautiful, blond, blue-eyed Barrett English, sitting on the bench under a Technicolor oak tree, waiting for her.

***

“Evening, Barrett.”

“Hey, Felix,” said Barrett as he stood, holding out his hand and offering a cautious smile. “How’s Susannah?”

“She’s got Angina. She’s going to be fine. Thanks for the doc.”

“Oh, sure. It was nothing.”

“You were always a good kid, Barrett. Stay for dinner. Emily’s making spaghetti and meatballs.”

“Oh, thanks, I’ll uh…”

Felix took the sack of groceries out of Emily’s arms without a word, then continued into the cottage, letting the door close behind him.

“I didn’t know you stayed over last night,” said Emily, her cheeks pink. Her eyes darted down his body, taking in his U Penn T-shirt and worn jeans. The slight tilt of her lips told him that she liked what she saw.

Turnabout was fair play, wasn’t it? Barrett dragged his eyes slowly and deliberately down her body too. She wore a white button-down tucked into soft-looking jeans, and little black shoes on her feet. On the way back up, he stared at the V in her shirt for an extra minute, then lingered at her lips before finding her eyes again.

She took a deep breath and he could hear the raggedness of it as her chest swelled appealingly.

“Barrett,” she said softly in warning, then seemed lost and bit her lower lip as she stared up at him.

“Don’t do that,” he said in a low voice, “or I’ll kiss you again.”

“My Dad’s right inside. He’s probably watching us.”

“I don’t care who’s watching.”

Emily released her lip slowly and took another deep breath.

“Your mother’s okay?”

Emily nodded.

“You want me to stay for dinner?”

Emily nodded.

“You going to come stargazing with me on the tennis courts later?”

Her eyes widened and she grinned at him, nodding again.

His lips twitched as his heart thumped with the thought of having her all to himself for a little while.

She started toward the little house, but he called out softly to her. “Emily.”

She turned back to him, her blue eyes bright and just a little darker than they’d been a moment before. He took two steps toward her until he was so close he could smell Shalimar and feel the heat of her skin.

She was still as he leaned down slowly, deliberately, stopping just short of her ear, his lips grazing the hot skin as he whispered in a low promise, “Whether you bite your lip or not and no matter who’s watching, I’m kissing you later.”

Emily drew back, searching his eyes as her cheeks flushed. Flicking a glance to his lips before finding his eyes again, she said, “Maybe.”

She gave him the sexiest grin he’d ever seen, then turned and followed her father into the house, leaving the door ajar for him.

“Damn,” muttered Barrett under his breath, not blinking until she was totally out of sight. How the hell was he supposed to sit through dinner with Felix?

***

Emily needed her job back.

According to Valeria, with whom she’d been texting as she visited with her mother that afternoon, the rent had been raised by four hundred dollars a month, an almost absurd amount for the modest walk-up they rented in downtown Philly. Neither of them had that sort of money lying around and while Emily’s parents were comfortable, they weren’t the sort of comfortable that could subsidize Emily’s life. And though Valeria’s father, who owned a chain of Italian restaurants in Philadelphia, had been kind enough to float them a time or two, this wasn’t about being floated for a few days while they scraped together the balance. This was about the girls needing subsequent income to make the rent at all. And while Val said she could go back to moonlighting as a ballroom dancing instructor at her aunt’s studio, that wouldn’t even net one hundred dollars a week. They both agreed the best way to get it fast was for Emily to continue to “work” for Barrett.

Unfortunately, Emily’s recent make-out session with Barrett in the back of the limo made this ethically dicey. It was one thing for Barrett to pay her for her time while she playacted at being his fiancée. But, if she was getting physical with him
and
taking his money? It came perilously close to a different sort of “arrangement” altogether, and Emily just wasn’t that kind of girl.

After a long discussion with Valeria, they agreed on two things: one, they needed to move within the next two months to a cheaper place. Valeria would start looking for an apartment whose rent met their combined income student teaching. And two, Emily would continue to “work” for Barrett just until she’d made the eight hundred dollars they needed to cover the rent for October and November. Both girls agreed she couldn’t accept money for last night, and she couldn’t fool around with him as long as money exchanged hands, which frustrated Emily. It was going to be almost impossible not to touch Barrett—or
long
to be touched by him—after what they’d shared in the car last night.

Still, if he’d hire her back and give her two easy jobs over the next week or so, she could make her eight hundred dollars and then she’d break up with him for good…at which point she’d be one-hundred percent free to start dating him… if that’s what he wanted. Because Emily knew without a shadow of a doubt if Barrett English actually wanted to be with her, there was nothing in the world that could keep her from him.

Her father headed upstairs to take a shower and clean up before dinner, which left Emily and Barrett in the kitchen alone. Emily mashed the ground beef between her fingers, then wiped them on her mother’s apron as she poured in some bread crumbs and cracked an egg into the mixture. Barrett had surprised her by volunteering to help and was dicing onions and garlic on the countertop beside her. What surprised her even more was that he appeared to know what he was doing.

“I didn’t know you cooked,” she said, throwing an egg shell in the trash and plunging her hands back into the sticky mixture.

Barrett shrugged. “No one really does. But I like to eat good food and takeout gets old. Plus, I think I put together some of my best deals while I’m distracted by making dinner.”

Emily looked up at him and grinned. “So, do you only cook for yourself, or…”

“Are you asking if I have a girlfriend?”

She felt the heat in her cheeks and looked at the bowl in front of her on the counter. His hip bumped into hers playfully.

“That would be pretty cheeky, seeing as how I had a fake fiancée up until a few hours ago.”

“Maybe you cheated on your fake fiancée with your fake girlfriend,” she teased.
Or with Felicity Atwell, whatever she is to you.

He stopped dicing for a moment, turning to face her. “Are you really asking?”

Emily looked up at him quickly and felt herself nodding before she gave herself permission. Barrett stared at her, flicking his glance to her lips, then back to her eyes. She saw his darken, narrow, as the moment took a heavy, serious turn.

“No, Emily,” he finally murmured. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

Again, without permission, her body reacted. Her lips trembled for a moment before tilting up into a smile. “Oh. Good.”

Barrett dropped the knife on the cutting board, letting it clatter into the pile of neatly chopped onions, and reached for her waist, pulling her up against his body. His chest heaved into hers, making her nipples pucker with want. She arched her back a little, pressing into him more intimately.

You haven’t been hired back yet!
thought Emily a little desperately.
Kiss him now while you still can!

If she thought about it, she’d talk herself out of it, so instead she leaned up quickly on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. She could tell she had surprised him, because for a moment, he was frozen. But then she wound her hands around his neck, flipping them so that the clean backs pressed up against his skin. She brushed her tongue softly along the seam of his lips. That’s all it took. That’s all.

Barrett growled into her mouth, grasping her hips and lifting her like a doll onto the kitchen counter. The bowl skidded backwards against the wall as he stepped between her legs. She wrapped them around his back, crossing her ankles together around his waist as his tongue swept into her mouth. His fingers fisted against the denim of her backside, and she pushed aggressively into his chest as he sucked on her tongue. Leaning her head to the side, he skimmed his way down her neck with his lips, sucking and licking as she moaned softly, her eyes closed and her head resting on the cabinets behind her.