Maybe if he hadn’t dedicated his every waking hour to work, his lack of progress wouldn’t feel so dire. But growing up a famous father’s overlooked second son had warped his sense of self. Clark grew up defining the relationships in his life by what he could offer people—knowledge or assistance, and on his worst days, borrowed clout.
Especially now, without the halo effect of his father or brother—he knew he had to be the smartest person in any room. Otherwise, no one would want him there.
Another two days passed.
Martin stopped by only long enough to say he was going on holiday to France for a bit over a fortnight. When Clark asked if the investment firm would be sending a replacement to monitor their progress, he laughed.
Apparently oversight of the dilapidated castle was low on their list of management priorities.
It was just as well, since Clark continued to acquire nothing of note from his survey except for a mild sunburn on the back of his neck. He took a small degree of solace in the fact that whatever Riley was trying to do didn’t seem to be working either.
Yesterday, she had constructed this thing—it looked sort of like a wreath, only shaped like a triangle—made of twigs and herbs and wildflowers. She kept hanging it in different places around the castle. First the front entrance. Then the back. Even outside the stable at one point.
She tried making it bigger, then switching the direction the point faced, groaning for some reason every time Clark walked past it on his way in or out. Perhaps she was just groaning at the sight of him. He didn’t ask.
Though it wasn’t her fault, her beauty carried the constant threat of distraction. Both her body, soft and full—as lush as the most indulgent portrait of Venus—and her arrestingly expressive face. Her frustration was so animated—she pumped her arms in the air and stomped away, blowing air through her lips like she was trying to fill a balloon. Clark envied the freedom of her anger. How she trusted herself to show it.
He told himself she was only a woman, like any other. That he could, with a bit of effort, work in parallel to her while remaining calm, cool, and—Dear god did she have to close her eyes as she rubbed sunscreen down her throat?
Needless to say, when she came up to him around noon on Wednesday, a hamper over her arm and a scowl on her face, and said, “I got you a picnic,” Clark was more than a little taken aback.
It didn’t help that she’d chosen an entirely black spandex outfit today. As if she hadn’t messed with his head enough this week. Christ, she was curvy.
“Pardon?” He wiped his damp brow with the back of his hand.
“I did a shitty thing.” She toed at a clod of dirt rather than look at him. “And you did a shitty thing too—”
He had. Emotional whiplash from the oscillation between betrayer and betrayed had definitely contributed to his current funk.
“—but I don’t like my shitty thing being the last shitty thing that happened. So, here.” She held the basket out. “Guilt cheese.”
“Is that an American idiom?”
“No, there’s really cheese in there.” She shook the handle until he grasped it. “Plus sausage rolls, apples, and some grapes.”
“No wine?” He opened the hamper, saw a napkin with the pub’s logo. “Not much of an apology.”
She shrugged. “I don’t like you that much.”
As Clark laughed, his stomach muscles contracted in a way that felt morosely unfamiliar.
“You already apologized.” He knew she felt bad for the other day—and she should, it was a huge violation—but he hadn’t expected anything beyond what he’d previously received.
“I know,” she said softly, and then louder, “But I’m still trying to break the curse, and you’re sort of . . . in the line of fire. Usually, people who might get hurt are willing participants. They hire me, so they sign off on the risks. You didn’t.”
No. In fact he’d done just about everything he could to avoid getting caught in her crosshairs. Not that it had worked.
“So, whatever.” She tugged at the bottom of her stretchy shirt. “I guess I feel guilty seeing you walking around all extra mopey.”
“It’s called brooding,” Clark said, standing up a little straighter, “and no one complained when Darcy did it.”
“Yeah, well”—she gave him a look just shy of a leer—“that’s because Colin Firth had the decency to get his shirt wet.”
“I’m waiting to be asked,” he said reflexively, forgetting they weren’t allowed to flirt the way they had that first night at the pub.
He liked the little blush stealing across her cheeks too much.
“Hey.” He nodded at the basket. “Why don’t you join me?”
The second the words left his mouth, Clark wished he could snatch them back. He’d found a tiny bit of peace these last few days, even if he hadn’t particularly enjoyed it. What was he doing, willfully backtracking for a few kind words and a heated look?
“Like a truce?” Riley said, clearly uncertain.
“Are we still at war?” Clearly neither of them felt particularly comfortable with deception.
“Yes,” she said, any lightness from their earlier exchange gone from her face.
“Fine, then.” Clark supposed he should be grateful that she held the line when he seemed to struggle with it so much. “Like a truce.”
They found a bit of shade under a grove of trees in the courtyard and made one of Clark’s tarps into a picnic blanket. He even pulled two beers out of his fridge, bringing them out and explaining, “My contribution to peacekeeping efforts.”
In true picnic form, none of the food required utensils, though watching Riley lick cheese off her thumb momentarily made Clark wish otherwise.
“We should play a game,” she suggested, stretching out her legs and kicking off her boots to reveal mismatched socks, both navy but one with thin white stripes.
“Like what?” His position on the tarp provided an excellent view from which to admire her legs, if one were so inclined.
After some bickering, they settled on Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
Clark was awful.
“What do you mean, who is Laura Dern?” Riley’s shout scared a family of birds out of their nest. “She was in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, Big Little Lies on HBO. She was an integral part of a Star War!”
“I’ve never seen any of those things.” Clark popped another grape in his mouth. They were quite good. Tart. Juicy. It was fascinating to see how bothered Riley got over his lack of exposure to American pop culture.
“How?!” She blinked at him extravagantly, dropping open her jaw. “What about Jurassic Park?”
The movie with the all the dinosaurs? He supposed it might have been on TV sometime when he was in primary school. “What about it?”
“It’s got fossilized DNA in it.” Riley put down her apple to smack him on the arm. “As an archaeologist, you should be, like, obsessed with that.”
“Paleontology is in an entirely separate field,” he said primly, then took a long sip of his beer. “So does your Laura Dern voice one of the dinosaurs?”
“Does she—what—Oh my god, no! The dinosaurs don’t speak. Are you from another planet?” Riley gaped at him, wide-eyed with outrage, until he cracked and smiled, and she realized she’d been had.