Breaking Up with Barrett: The English Brothers #1 (The Blueberry Lane Series - The English Brothers) (7 page)

“Barrett,” she whispered, and he returned his lips to hers, nibbling lightly on the top, then the bottom, before exploring her mouth with his tongue again. And Emily realized she was a fool if she thought she could pose as Barrett’s fiancée and not touch him. It would be impossible. They couldn’t even keep their hands to themselves while making meatballs, for heaven’s sake. But she needed the money. She needed it. She couldn’t be evicted.

Using every bit of strength, she pulled her mouth away from his, leaning back against the cabinets. “My father…” she murmured. “The water just went off.”

Barrett panted in front of her, his eyes dazed and confused, like she was speaking an alien language. His chest swelled with every breath, but Emily caved backwards, so her breasts no longer touched him. If they did, she’d reach for him again. She slid her ankles down and dropped her hands from the back of his neck.

“Jesus, Emily. Just…give me a minute.” He leaned his head forward, bracing his hands on the counter on either side of her hips. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

His head snapped up, and his eyes were focused and hungry. “Don’t
ever
say you’re sorry for touching me. Never.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but every thought flew from her head from the way Barrett was looking at her. She bit her lip instead, and his eyes zeroed in on that small move like a tractor beam.

“Emily,” he growled in warning.

With a small popping sound she let go of her lip, but it was too late. He leaned forward, catching it between his teeth gently, tugging on it. It was the only place their bodies touched, but it sent a shock of heat from her mouth straight down to her belly until it pooled in her stomach making her insides clench and tighten with longing for him. Her eyes closed and she whimpered lightly as his lips landed flush on hers, his hands tilting up from the counter to hold her hips tightly.

Barrett must have heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs before she did, because he pulled back abruptly, muttering “Damn it” and picking up the knife without a word. Still panting softly, he kept his head down as he resumed his place in front of the cutting board. Emily was still perched on the counter a second later when her father entered the kitchen.

“You want a beer, Barrett? Emily, get off the counter. Your mother would have a fit.”

Emily looked quickly at Barrett as she hopped down, noticing that he was smiling down at the cutting board as her father scolded her.

“I’d love one, Felix. Thanks.”

“What about me, Dad? Beer for men only?”

“Emily Faith,” he said, turning from the frig with three beers hooked through his fingers, “I didn’t ask, because I already knew what your answer would be.”

“Women were the prime brewers of beer in medieval Europe, you know.”

“I know,” answered her father patiently, pulling three frosty glasses from a collection at the back of the small freezer.

“Even by the seventeen hundreds, over seventy-eight percent of the brewers in England were still women.”

“Yup,” said her father, popping the caps off the bottles.

“And in colonial times, here in America, women still appeared as tavern-keepers, many of whom brewed their own beer.”

Emily looked to her left and Barrett was standing with his back to the counter, grinning at her. “Why do you know so much about beer?”

Felix handed cold glasses to Emily and Barrett, then fixed his eyes on Barrett. “How much do you know about Emmy’s Ph.D.?”

Barrett looked a little chagrined, glancing at her then back at her father. “Not a lot.”

“Ask her to tell you about it sometime.” Her father raised his glass, winking at Emily. “To Emmy, who knows more about beer than any woman I ever met.”

Emily cocked her head to the side and grinned at Barrett as they clinked their glasses together and drank.

***

Over dinner Barrett learned that part of Emily’s planned dissertation would focus on how England’s shift from ale to beer brewing illustrated the transition from a traditional agricultural economy to a capitalist market economy, and how women were slowly edged out of the process. She intended to use this historical shift to show how women were the basis for most businesses in society and only sidelined by men when the established business became successful.

Now, Barrett respected the entirety of her thesis—he had a healthy respect for women in the finance industry and treated women with the same cutthroat tactics he did men—but he was a little ashamed that the thought that kept running through his head was this:
My super smart girl studies beer.
If there was anything—
anything
—sexier than that, Barrett couldn’t possibly imagine what it was… until Emily started describing the process of home-brewing beer. She talked about boiling short batches of hops and other grains, combining the water in a large barrel and cooling it down in a chiller, which pretty much would’ve been her nickname if they’d gone to college together.

Apparently Emily and her father brewed a new batch of Edwards Select every summer, and the beer they were presently drinking was one of their own IPAs. He watched Emily and Felix bounce off each other so effortlessly, and fleetingly wished he’d spent more time visiting with them in the little gatehouse while he was growing up.

“Well, Emmy, excellent dinner, as always.”

“My
Sous Chef
helped,” she said, gesturing open-palmed to Barrett, who lifted his glass and toasted her before sipping. Dinner had been a great distraction, and thoroughly enjoyable, but he was anxious to get her alone.

As though Felix could read his thoughts, he leaned forward, and piled the three plates together. “Why don’t you two go for a walk or something. Still warm enough, huh?”

Barrett looked at Emily across the candlelit table. She reached over and touched the back of her father’s hand. “It’s okay, Dad. We’ll stay and help clean up.”

“No, Miss. You made the dinner. You don’t have to go for a walk if you’re not up for it, but either way, I’ll take care of the dishes. Solo. It’s only fair.”

“Come on, Emily,” said Barrett, winking at her. “We’ll get some fresh air.”

“I’ll grab a sweater,” she said, hopping up from her place and setting a little kiss on a bald spot on the top of her father’s head before sprinting to the stairs.

“She’s quite a girl,” said Felix, looking up at Barrett.

“No argument here,” said Barrett carefully, feeling the shift from Felix, his family’s gardener, to Felix, Emily’s protective father. Barrett adjusted accordingly from son of the manor to prospective suitor, anxious to assure Felix that his intentions toward Emily were totally and completely above-board.

“I don’t know what you two are up to, Barrett… and I have to say, if it was Alex who’d driven her home last night I sure wouldn’t have invited him for dinner, no matter how many doctors he called.”

Barrett inclined his head once, holding Felix’s steady gaze. “I appreciate that, sir.”

“You’ve never given me reason to question your judgment. You’ve were always a serious kid. Hard worker. Tough businessman. Your Dad’s plenty proud of you.”

Barrett forced himself not to look away, though accepting compliments was always difficult for him.

“But if you’re not serious about her, I’d just as soon you walk away. Right now. When she comes back down the stairs, I’ll just tell her you got a phone call and had to head back to the main house. I’m not asking if you plan to marry her, son, but she’s not one to trifle with either.”

“Understood, Felix.” Barrett nodded, sitting back in his chair deliberately. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“All right then,” said Felix, his face neither happy nor unhappy as he reached across the table to take the unused silverware and pile it on top of the dirty plates. But his blue eyes were shrewd as they caught Barrett’s before turning into the kitchen. “As long as we’re clear, Barrett.”

“We’re clear, sir.”

Emily’s footsteps on the creaky stairs made Barrett stand up, and then there she was, standing in the doorway of the tiny dining room, a soft pink sweater covering her white shirt, and her blonde hair down from its ponytail. Her lips were shiny, and she was wearing a gold necklace. He got a whiff of Shalimar as she put her hands on her hips and grinned at him. If there was a prettier, sweeter, smarter girl on the face of the earth, Barrett English had yet to meet her.

“Ready to go stargazing?” he asked, offering her his hand.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” she answered, letting him pull her out the side door, into the cool of the evening.

Haverford Park was a grand estate, equal to any other on the Philadelphia Main Line, in Newport, Rhode Island, or in the Hudson Valley of New York.

Even having grown up there, Emily still managed to be surprised by its awesome beauty every time she returned home. Her father tended the grounds carefully with his staff of four, and there were dozens of gardens throughout the property, in addition to fountains, porches and patios, stone benches in charming copses, an outdoor pool, tennis courts, a putting green, and a game lawn for croquet or cricket, a game which the English family hosted annually as part of their summer party. Every English son was an excellent cricket player.

Emily and Barrett walked up the well-lit white gravel driveway toward the main house, hand-in-hand, before Barrett pulled her through one of the arched openings in the high hedges. Emily knew the way to the tennis courts with her eyes closed, but there was something magical about letting Barrett lead the way, inviting her from the gatehouse to the grounds of the main house. There was something about it that she liked very much.

And she wondered, again, how to get her job back without losing whatever was going on between them, because what she really wanted to do was to press pause and come right back to this minute in a week or two, as soon as she’d made eight hundred dollars. Come right back here. Back here to perfect.

They walked slowly across the game lawn in the twilight saying nothing. It smelled of fall—the dueling smells of fresh cut grass and the burning wood in a nearby fireplace, and Emily thought that if she had to remember one perfect moment for the rest of her life, it would be this one. Her mother’s health wasn’t in danger. Her father had been funny and loving over dinner, occasionally shooting a brief, concerned glance between her and Barrett, but otherwise leaving her to make her own choices and live her own life. And Barrett English, with whom she’d been deeply infatuated with for most of her life, was holding her hand, walking beside her in the dying light, like maybe there was space in his life for her. It didn’t matter that her rent had been raised or that she was getting behind on her studies as she spent the weekend in Haverford. It didn’t matter that he was an English and she was an Edwards. Nothing mattered except right here and right now with Barrett, and Emily wanted to soak up every second.

When they got to the tennis courts, Barrett dropped her hand and took two lounge chair cushions off two chaises and dragged them to the center of the courts. He gestured to them and Emily lay down on one while he lay down beside her, and they were still, side-by-side, as the inky sky grew darker.

“Can I ask you something?” Barrett finally asked, breaking the silence.

“Sure.”

“Do you even
like
Riesling?”

Emily chuckled. “No.”

“You’d prefer a beer, wouldn’t you?”

“Always.”

“Then why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“Why in the world did you think I liked Riesling?”

“Because that’s what you drank… that night on the trampoline.”

“You weren’t hanging out with us. I’m surprised you remember a detail like that.”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t sitting on the trampoline with you, but I was there. I was home for the weekend.”

“I remember. You came out to yell at us.”

“That’s what you remember?”

“Was there more?”

“I walked you and Daisy back to the gatehouse at two o’clock in the morning.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“We were drunk as skunks. I imagine you were very disapproving.”

“I was.”

“Better I don’t remember then.”

“Stuffy Barrett, right?”

She heard a very slight edge slip into his voice. “I didn’t say that.”

“I was jealous,” he whispered, his fingers moving lightly beside hers, tentatively reaching out, then lacing their hands together firmly when she didn’t pull away.

“You were? Why? Of what? You were all grown up, in grad school and—”

“And you were this gorgeous fifteen-year-old hanging out with three of my younger brothers, and I hated their guts for it. I hated myself too. You were just a kid. I had no business thinking about you like that.”

“Like what?” she whispered, staring up at the night sky, every cell of her body aware of the slow circles his thumb was making against her hand.

He raised her hand to his lips and brushed them against her skin softly, before lowering their joined hands to his chest. She could feel the fierce pounding of his heart beneath her fingers, and it matched the galloping of hers.

She swallowed, pushing thoughts of dating Barrett legitimately out of her mind, no matter how much she wanted to think about it. She needed money. She needed to get her job back before things between them went any further.

“Barrett,” she started, rolling her neck to look at him on the pillow beside her. “I shouldn’t have given you back the ring last night and quit. That was… hasty.”

***

His heart plummeted. He’d been about to tell her…

Like the only girl who existed on the face of the earth. Like the only girl who ever mattered. Like the only girl I ever wanted.

He swallowed his disappointment, reminding himself of Harrison Shipbuilding, and that by raising her rent, he’d actually been the one to engineer her need for further employment. If anyone was confusing things between them, it was him. It still stung, though, because it made him wonder if everything they’d shared tonight had been pre-meditated on her part to get her job back.

Well, it didn’t matter. He needed her this weekend, regardless of how she felt. And after he solidified things with J.J. Harrison, he’d lower the rent and tell her he didn’t want her to work for him anymore. He’d tell her that a part of him had always been in love with her and he wanted her to be his real girlfriend. And God willing what they’d been flirting with since last night wasn’t just an act and she wanted to be with him as much as he wanted to be with her. As for losing her income source, well, once they were a couple, if she ever needed his help—financially or otherwise—all she’d need to do is ask.

“You want me to hire you back?”

“Do you have any upcoming jobs?”

“In fact, I do,” he said, releasing her hand and lacing his own together to pillow them under his head. He didn’t trust himself not to reach for her, but he only wanted her to accept his touch if she really liked him. And right now? He couldn’t tell if she liked him or needed his money.

“So…?” she prompted.

“The Harrisons, actually. They’re having a house party out in the Hamptons next weekend. Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. There will be polo and parties, boat trips and business. They specifically asked about you and hoped we could come together if your mother had recuperated by then.”

“A whole weekend?” she asked softly.

“Two nights.”

“And what would you… pay me?”

He heard the wince in her voice, and he hated it, and he hated himself for putting it there, but forced himself to respond. This was business, after all, and he needed her. “For a whole weekend? One thousand dollars. If the deal closes before we leave, five hundred more. As a bonus.”

Her breath, which she must have been holding, came out in a rush. “Whew! That’s a lot of money.”

Not for me
, he thought
. I’d pay ten times as much to have you by my side for a weekend.

That’s something else Barrett hadn’t been totally honest about.

The whole reason Barrett had approached Emily in the first place wasn’t because he had a board meeting at U Penn and had run into her by happenstance, but because he’d overheard his father and Felix talking one afternoon as they walked the gardens together. His father had asked about Emily and Felix had confided that he was concerned about her mounting expenses. Felix had overheard her on the phone with Valeria, arranging for Valeria’s father to help them with their rent one month. Felix and Susannah were not the sort of parents to swoop in and give Emily a free ride, but Barrett couldn’t stand the idea that she was struggling. He couldn’t help but figure out his own way to offer her a little extra income. So, he’d found out where she’d be and he’d “stumbled” across her one May afternoon.

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes, I’ll take the job,” said Emily in a small voice. “I’ll ask Valeria to teach my class on Friday afternoon.”

“I’ll arrange for a small plane to take us out and back. It’ll be a quick trip.”

“Fine,” she answered, shifting subtly away from him on her cushion… and he hated it.

“And I owe you four hundred dollars for last night.”

“No.”

He turned his head to look at her. “What? Why not? You earned every—”

“No, Barrett. I can’t accept anything for last night.”

Of course.
He understood. She didn’t feel that she deserved it by taking that risk with the engagement charade. He hurried to correct her. “I have to admit, I didn’t like the whole engagement story silliness at first, but I have to say, it worked in my benefit, Emily. The Harrisons were—”

“Not because of that.”

He narrowed his eyes at her stony profile, lifting up on his elbow to get a better look at her face. “I don’t understand.”

She cleared her throat. “We, um, we
made out
last night. In the car.”

“Yes.”
And it was the best kiss. Anywhere. Ever.
“I remember.”

“So I can’t accept any money from you, Barrett,” she snapped.

“Because we
made out
.”

“Yes.”

“You won’t accept money from me because we made out,” he repeated.

Ohhhhhh.

He said the words again in his head, and they finally made sense to him, and just as they did, a terrible realization occurred to him. Barrett’s mind, which was sharp as a tack in business negotiations, realized the unintended consequence—indeed, the unintended, personally
catastrophic
consequence—to their proposed arrangement just one second too late.

He’d fixed things so she needed money. But if she came to the Hamptons as his employee, she wouldn’t let him touch her. So essentially he had just arranged to spend a weekend in the Hamptons with the girl of his dreams, sharing a bedroom, playacting at fiancé, no doubt turned-on to the point of pain, without the slightest chance of being able to sleep with her.
Damn, damn, damn.

“Are you saying that if you come to the Hamptons with me as my fake fiancée, this—whatever is going on between us—is over?”

“Just on hold,” she confirmed in a small voice.

And that’s when Barrett “the Shark” English realized that all of his business acumen and training were no match against Emily Edwards, because he strenuously considered texting J.J. Harrison to go screw himself, turning his back on the deal and carrying Emily to his bedroom.

“And then?” he asked, staring down at her, searching her eyes with what must have been wild longing. “When we get home from the Harrison’s?”

She shrugged lightly. “We’ll see.”

“We’ll see
what
exactly?” he asked tightly, his hard body frustrated to the point of desperation at the idea of not touching Emily from now until next Monday.

“What happens next. What we want.”

“I already know what I want,” he said softly, leaning down to brush his lips against hers. “It’s the same thing I’ve wanted forever.”

“Then waiting an extra week shouldn’t matter,” she said, turning her head away.

“I haven’t given you the ring back. Technically you’re not working for me again yet. What about tonight?”

He brushed the soft strands of light hair away from her ear. When he leaned down and took her earlobe between his teeth gently, he heard her breath hitch.

“I already agreed to the job.”

“Emily,” he whispered against her hot skin. “One kiss.”

She turned back to look up at him and her eyes were glistening with tears. “I don’t want to muddy the waters, Barrett. I don’t want to confuse things. I…” Her breath was ragged against his lips as she exhaled shakily, nodding. “One kiss.”

Then she reached up and placed her palm against his cheek, pulling his head down to hers.

***

Emily knew that she had no business making out with him. She’d agreed to do one last job for him and until that job was over, it would confuse things for them to be intimate with one another. But he’d never been so forthcoming about his feelings before, and it made her frustrated and desperate to think that after tonight she wouldn’t be able to touch him again for at least a week… if not forever. The reality was that they’d made no promises to one another—nothing beyond this night was guaranteed, and if tonight was all she had with Barrett English, she wanted it to count.

Barrett rolled on top of her, cradling her face in his hands as his weight settled, pushing her body into the plush cushion below. One of his legs wedged between hers, while the other fell slightly onto the pliant turf of the court beneath them. His pelvis lined up with hers and she could feel the hard bulge of his erection through his jeans, pushing insistently against her softness. She shifted slightly, arching her back a little to better cradle him there. His solid chest crushed her breasts beneath him, and his elbows made indents in the cushion above her shoulders.