Veronica tossed and turned through the night, and ended up spending half of the time staring up at the ceiling rather than sleeping. She managed to get a few hours, but she was still highly disgruntled when her alarm rang. Grumbling, she rose, and moved to the closet to pick out a set of clothes for her morning jog.
It was still about an hour until she needed to start making a breakfast for herself and the girls, so she was looking forward to clearing her head on this run. She quietly left her room, and hesitated in the hallway, looking across at Frank’s door.
After a moment, she released a sigh and continued into the main hall and down the stairs, silently exiting the house.
Veronica was unfamiliar with the expanse of the property, but she figured it would be large enough to get in a few miles. So, she turned on the GPS on her phone, and set off along the long driveway, and then into a path that led into the trees that decorated the property.
While much of the land on the estate was very deliberately managed and cultivated, this particular section of trees seemed largely untamed, save for the path that wound around it. As she looked around, she was even a little surprised to find a brook running through them. It really was beautiful, and once again Veronica found herself in awe of her surroundings.
As she ran, Veronica’s mind couldn’t keep from traveling back to the previous night, and particularly about the way Frank had made her feel. She had felt like a woman again. For so long, she just felt dull and uninterested in her own life. She had fallen into a routine, and become nearly detached from enjoying life itself.
The, Frank Davenport appeared. Everything had happened so fast, and it bewildered her that they had met only the day before she had given into her feelings and slept with him. She never would have imagined that she was capable of such a thing.
As she thought about it, she felt a fair amount of guilt that she had cheated on Calvin. She had no idea if she should tell him, or how she would go about it if she chose
to do so. Their relationship surely had its problems, but up until now they had never cheated on her.
Calvin had been reluctant about her taking this job and moving into the estate, and now all his worried and suspicions had been founded. Veronica knew that this guilt would follow her as long as she was in a relationship with him.
She also vaguely wondered if this was a sign that her relationship with him needed to end. Things had not been going completely well between them for quite some time, and if she was honest with herself, she had been debating leaving him for quite a while. She had just never really had a good reason.
In the end, though, she had always come to the conclusion that she ought to stay with him, because he really could provide her with a good life if they shared a future. He was a good man and a hard worker with a good job. She had no doubt that he could take care of her, and their children if they had any.
In addition, her parents fully expected her to marry him. They were more than thrilled that she had ended up with someone with a real, steady job, and that had already provided her with a home and with a viable future. She knew that they would be bitterly disappointed and ceaselessly worried about her if their relationship came to an end.
It certainly didn’t help that her father was the type of man who really didn’t believe a woman could truly have a successful life on her own.
Veronica knew very well that with this job, and this set of circumstances, she could actually save a lot of money in this job. And given that she had almost no expenses to pay for herself, the longer she could keep this job, the better off she would be.
Still, there would be no way to explain that to her old-fashioned parents, and it would always just be easier to stay with Calvin and ease their minds.
Now, though, that she had slept with her boss, she knew that this would not be able to last much longer.
Veronica let out a huff of air as she ran, and tried to push these pesky thoughts from her mind. She would have to deal with all this at another time. She wanted to prove that she could be a valuable member of the staff before she got too comfortable with any situation. The rest of her problems could wait.
She also had to deal with the issue of being in such close quarters with Frank all the time. There was a part of her that wanted to let him know that what happened between them the previous night could not happen again. She wanted to get back to and maintain a professional relationship from there on out.
Another part of her though, was eager to feel him between her thighs again. She had never had such good sex before in her life. Sure, she could remember early in her relationship with Calvin when everything sexual had seemed fresh and exciting and new. Looking back, though, she realized that her opinions then were largely based on lack of experience.
Veronica had seen hot, passionate love scenes on television and read about them in romance novels, but she had chalked those up as works of fiction, and thought that nobody truly had those experiences in real life. Now, though, that notion had been completely erased from her mind. She knew that passion and hot lust were very real things, and that they were going to plague her for as long as she was in such close proximity to Frank.
Even now, as she jogged, Veronica felt a hot surge of heat in her core. There was no denying the attraction she felt for Frank, but that wasn’t hard to believe. He certainly wouldn’t have gotten this far in his career without charisma, good looks and intelligence. He was a man that would make any woman swoon.
Veronica knew that he had likely played this game before with other women. He constantly had a household full of staff, and she found it quite hard to believe that she was the only woman he had ever slept with since his wife’s passing.
Still, he had done a good job of making her believe that he was truly attracted to her and interested in her. He had been gentle and forceful at exactly the right times, and looked at her in just the right way to make her feel wanted, and more than that, it made her feel unique. Though Veronica had been tricked at the time and believed him to be genuine, she knew very well that he could have developed such a gaze from years of practice.
As Veronica approached the house again, she steeled her mind. She knew she would have to encounter Frank again at some point, and she had to be prepared to resist him. As hard as she knew it was going to be, she also knew it was necessary.
Veronica slowed to a trot and was at a walk as she made it to the porch. She quietly opened the door and slipped into the kitchen, not bothering to turn on the light. She worked hard to make no noise as she reached into the cupboard to withdraw a glass. She shut the cabinet slowly, and then began to make her way to the sink.
As she moved, though, the light to the kitchen flipped on, and she stopped dead in her tracks. She looked over to where she knew the light switch was, and her stomach clenched as she saw Frank standing there, his eyebrow raised, and a smirk of humor on his lips.
CHAPTER 2
“Good morning,” he greeted her, his voice a little lower and gruffer than she was used to.
“Good morning,” Veronica replied as best she could, considering her throat had tightened up upon seeing him.