Page 55 of Married at Midnight

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Two hours later, Connor returned home to find Ellie lying in bed awake. “I’m sorry, Ellie,” he said. The words were raw. No longer angry and desperate for the comfort of her touch, Connor slipped into bed beside her.

Her response was a kiss that led to a long night of incredible sex.

The next morning when the sun filtered through the bedroom window, Connor woke first. Needing to head to work, he finally summoned the strength to pull out of Ellie’s arms. He liked sharing a bed with her, liked their limbs damp and tangled after a night of lovemaking. He especially liked the way she looked in the aftermath—her expression serene, her hair a wild tumble, her skin aglow with warmth.

Last night her voice had drifted through the darkness. “It’s so easy to forget about everything else when we’re like this.”

“So easy,” he’d replied, knowing exactly what she referred to . . . the promise they’d made to stay uninvolved. Yet each night he spent in her arms brought him dangerously close to breaking their agreement. Part of him wanted to push her away, to keep his mental distance, and to put them back on more even ground that didn’t involve thoughts of her lying in their bed with a banked fire in her eyes. The other part of him was losing his grip on the situation. He wanted her with a need that went well beyond reason, making thoughts of giving her up excruciating.

But he had to. The last ten days since they’d been married had proven to him that he couldn’t split his attention between two masters. He’d tried to keep both Ellie and his development team happy, responding to each of their needs, without success.

He would have to choose.

Regardless of what his body wanted, the choice had already been made. There was no room in his life for Ellie, not when he was so close to finalizing the artificial intelligence he needed to push his self-driving car into a realm above the rest. All that remained were a few more hours of coding and testing, and he’d be done.

Lingering by the bedside, he looked down at the woman he cared about far more than he should. Her hair lay across her pillow in a tumbled mass. The featherlight weight had draped across his chest only moments before in a silken caress. With his next heartbeat, his decision faltered, replaced with the wish that they were two different people in a different life where they could be together.

Ellie would be fine on her own with Grayson House. Because of her organizational skills, the refurbishment and preparations for the house’s showing were ahead of schedule. Most of the remaining tasks were design elements she had tucked away in that creative mind of hers.

When he’d asked her last night about going into the lab from now until Thanksgiving, she’d responded with a casual, “That’s fine,” as though she didn’t care if he were gone, or she didn’t need him any longer.

Connor turned away from the bed. He had to keep his focus on his work and nothing more. Quietly he dressed and headed out of the room. Morning sunshine lit his way down the staircase. At the top he paused at the sound of a cat hissing below.

“Zanzibar?” Connor called as he took the stairs two at a time. At the bottom, he flicked the lights on to find the cat on top of the grandfather clock, the door to the pendulum swung open, and the foyer and parlor trashed.

He reached up to the cat, and the nervous creature jumped willingly into his arms. He held the animal close, stroking his fur. “It’s okay,” he said, even as the back of his neck prickled. Was someone still in the house?

With one hand, he plucked the red roses from a metal vase that lay on its side on the hall table, a puddle of water languishing on the floor beneath, then picked up the vase. Gripping the makeshift weapon in his hand, he set Zanzibar down and headed silently down the hallway. In the kitchen, the cupboards and drawers hung open, everything inside them askew. The contents of the trash can littered the floor, as did the decorating supplies Ellie had left on the table. Greenery, flowers, and Christmas ornaments were everywhere, making the kitchen look as though Christmas had exploded within its walls.

With the crunch of broken ornaments beneath his feet, Connor moved through the living room, family room, and dining room to discover they hadn’t been spared. The furnishings were turned on their sides and upside down. How had he and Ellie not heard anything during the night with this kind of destruction?

He growled as the answer came to him. It was because they’d been upstairs in bed and otherwise occupied.

“Who would do such a thing?” Ellie’s voice came from behind him.

He turned around. At her wide-eyed stare, he lowered his weapon and set it on the ground. “I don’t know. Judging by the kitchen, I’d say it’s someone who doesn’t want us to finish the house.”

A soft meow came from Connor’s feet. He bent and scratched the cat behind the ears while he studied Ellie. Confusion clouded her brown eyes.

“The decorations are ruined, but that doesn’t mean we can’t purchase more. If they were truly trying to stop us—” She gasped, turned, and raced for the foyer.

Before he caught up with her, she was out the front door. She jerked to a stop on the sidewalk, examining the exterior of the house in the pale morning light. “No damage,” she said, her chest heaving. “Thank goodness, the house is fine.”

“Then what was this all about?”

Seconds ticked past as they made their way back inside. “Does it look like anything is missing?”

Her gaze traveled over each room’s contents as they wandered through them once more. “Nothing appears to be missing. Aside from antiques, Viola doesn’t really have much of great value in the house.”

Her voice hung in the air between them. Great value?

His research.

The thought stopped him in his tracks. His lab was secure. Maybe that was why someone had broken into his home instead. Not that he’d ever be such a fool as to leave such important work in an unsecure location.

A crash sounded from upstairs.