Her parents were a prime example of that. They had found true love, but her mother’s death had cut their time short and had devastated her father. Life gave no guarantees.
That meant that she had to be very careful about the way she handled Reid Sutherland.
She reached for her drink and took a long swallow. She and Reid went back a very long time to the magical summer he was ten and she was six. She and her sisters had played games every single day with the Sutherland triplets, games that had opened up all kinds of story possibilities in her mind—posse and sheriff, pirates and treasure, good and evil.
That was the summer that she’d fallen in love with Reid. From a six-year-old’s perspective, he’d been the personification of all the storybook princes and adventure heroes she’d ever read about. Whenever the games they had played had gotten too dangerous or too challenging, he’d been her protector or her champion. Guinevere couldn’t have had a better Lancelot. Cinderella couldn’t have met a more handsome prince at the ball. Princess Leia couldn’t have fought side by side with a more daring Han Solo.
When that summer had ended and Reid had disappeared from her life, he’d remained the hero in all the stories she’d woven for years to come. Knowing full well that, at six, she’d seen Reid Sutherland through rose-colored Disney-movie glasses.
A dozen years later when his mother had married her father beneath Angus and Eleanor’s stone arch, the way she’d seen Reid had been entirely different. He was no longer just a good-looking boy. He’d turned into an incredibly attractive man. While their parents recited vows, she found her gaze returning to him again and again. She hadn’t been able to stop herself. Even now, years later, she could easily conjure up the image of that lean, raw-boned face, the tousled dark hair. The full, firm mouth.
And she could still remember what she’d felt— dryness in her throat, rapid beat to her heart and the strangest melting sensation in her body. When he had glanced over and met her gaze, she’d felt that flutter right beneath her heart, and she’d been certain that she was falling in love with him all over again.
A mistake that could be excused in a naive eighteen-year-old who’d never felt such strong attraction for a man before. Thank heavens she’d never let him or anyone else know that he’d twice been the object of her heart’s desire. He always thought of her as a child; someone he felt indulgent toward. Someone he had to go out of his way to protect from harm. After their parents’ wedding, he’d made his feelings for her quite clear when he’d kissed her on the nose and called her “my new little stepsister.”
Those words had crushed her heart, and inspired by one of Adair’s plans, she’d put pen to paper and created a very different narrative about Reid Sutherland.
Nell took another sip of her icy coffee as the memory poured into her mind in vivid detail. It had been midnight when Adair and Piper had come to her room and awakened her. The wedding guests had long-ago departed, and their aunt Vi was sound asleep. Piper had swiped a bottle of champagne, and they’d gone out to the stone arch, the way they’d done so many times growing up. But with cola or tea in their childhood years.
Beneath the stones, they’d shared their goals and dreams and secrets. More than that, at Adair’s suggestion, they’d written down those goals and put them in their mother’s old jewelry box. As children, they’d tucked the box behind some stones that were loose to tap into the power that resided there. Back then, Adair had come up with the idea of burying all their secret goals in the stones. The theory had been that, if the stone arch had the power to bring true lovers together, it might also have the power to make other dreams come true. Even the very practical-minded Piper had decided that it was worth a shot.
Nell had continued to tuck her goals into the box even after her sisters had gone away to college. Since it was divided into three compartments, it was perfect for their purpose. Adair had insisted from the beginning that they each use a different color paper to ensure privacy. Piper had chosen blue, Adair yellow and Nell had selected pink.
On the night of the wedding, it was Adair, of course, who had suggested that they cap the celebration by writing out their most secret and thrilling sexual fantasy. Perhaps Nell’s fantasy had evolved as it did because she had been standing in the exact same spot when her gaze had locked with Reid’s during the ceremony. Maybe because the memory of what she’d felt was still so fresh—that rush of desire, the glorious wave of heat and the flutter right beneath her heart. Or perhaps it had been the champagne. But, of course, her sexual fantasy had involved Reid Sutherland.
And that night she’d been creatively inspired. Her best story ideas came to her while she was actually writing. The physical acts of running her pen over the paper or her fingers atop the keyboard tapped into her creative imagination the way nothing else did. And she’d certainly tapped into it that night. Nell had been eighteen, a freshman in college, and what she’d written went far beyond her limited experience. The details of those original fantasies were a bit fuzzy now. But the setting she’d chosen and the broader picture were perfectly clear.
No longer was Reid the romantic hero of her childhood fairy tales. No, indeed. In her fantasy, seduction had been her goal. And she’d chosen the most romantic setting she could think of—Eleanor’s garden. Over the years, she’d had plenty of time to embroider and expand on her original ideas. And those scenarios had been fueling her dreams, especially since the Sutherland men had reentered her sisters’ lives.
Of course what she’d felt that day could have been a onetime thing. But working against that theory was the fact that every time she relived it in her mind, she felt the same things all over again. No one before or since had ever made her want with such intensity. With that feeling of inevitability.
The question was, when she finally met Reid again, what would happen next? Each time she asked it, a fresh thrill rippled through her system. As a writer, it was the question she always wanted foremost in her readers’ minds. It was what made them turn the page. And she found that the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to turn the page in her own life and discover what would happen.
Just thinking about it had her reaching again for her drink to cool down her system. She hadn’t seen Reid since their parents’ wedding day. His job heading up the vice president’s security team made him a very busy man. Still she had no doubt that they would meet again sometime soon, and she would have the opportunity to turn her fantasies into reality. And she’d made preparations.
A heady thrill moved through her at the thought.
“Earth to Nell.”
Piper’s words made Nell shift her gaze to the letters Piper was placing in her briefcase. Giving herself a mental shake, Nell refocused on the fact that she was currently involved in a much more pressing narrative.
“Duncan wants to see both letters. We’ll take a taxi to Reid’s office, and he’ll meet us there.” She left two bills on the table to pay for their coffees.
“Reid’s office? Why do we have to go there?” Nell asked.
“It’s halfway between Duncan’s office and here. Plus Duncan says Reid’s on vacation, and he’s going to the castle with you.”
In her mind, Nell pictured a guardian angel swooping down on her. “I don’t need anyone to protect me. I can handle this.”
“Don’t be silly.” Punching another number into her phone, Piper moved quickly toward the curb. “Abe, I’m going to be a little late for work. Family emergency.”
Family emergency? Nell frowned. Nell grabbed one last swallow of chocolate-laced
