Free STORM: A Standalone Romance by Glenna Sinclair

yet, but I thought that you had met with so much dreariness and misfortune already that you deserved something beautiful to bring a smile back to your face.
    Imagine that you are the rose gifted to me under similar circumstances, and you will understand something of the feelings that I cannot express to you.
    You will find this in the morning, by which time my driver will have prepared the car to take you into town. He has instructions to do so regardless of weather.
    Thank you again for your invitation. Even if I cannot accept it, I will always remember it.
    Simon
     
    It appeared as if there had been more written toward the end, but it had been hastily scribbled out.
                  Cara stood in the doorway, clutching the rose and Simon's note tightly in her hands. If Simon thought she was such a brilliant detective, then surely he knew she would read between the lines of his words. He wasn't planning on being around in the morning when she left. The conversation in the dining room was to be their last real conversation.
                  Cara's temper returned. How dare he decide the terms for her departure? Obviously it was his house, and obviously he had every right to send her on her way whenever he wished, but did he really get to dictate the terms of their final goodbye?
                  No, Cara decided. No, he did not.
                  She roamed the darkened halls for ten aimless minutes before she found Melinda. "Oh! Melinda, excuse me," Cara greeted the elder woman with an apologetic smile. "I just needed to let Simon know where the driver will be taking me tomorrow. Do you know if he's downstairs?"
                  "He's just retired to his room for the evening," Melinda replied, pointing up a smaller flight of stairs that Cara had completely missed in the corner. "I'm sure he won't be bothered if you go and knock on his door. Mr. Banning is a bit of a night owl, you see, and I'm afraid he doesn't like storms much. I've just dropped off a nightcap for him."
                  Cara climbed the stairs to the top floor of the mansion. She was greeted with fewer doors on this story than the seemingly innumerable ones below, but she was uncertain of which was the door to Simon's room. She moved quietly out to the middle of the hallway, before noticing an empty silver tray lying in front of the centermost door.
                  Cara raised her fist and knocked.
     

CHAPTER 9
     
    Simon was relatively quick in answering the door; she assumed this was due to the fact that he probably thought she was Melinda returning with more alcohol. Just like her, he was still wearing his clothes from earlier in the evening. His shirt was untucked, and his dinner jacket hung off one shoulder as if he had been in the process of undressing.
                  Cara slipped by him before he could say anything, or worse, bar her from entering. It was a rude thing to do in either of their cultures—enter without an invitation—but she assured herself that she was only doing what he had been too hesitant to do when he had hovered before her own door.
                  "I got your note," she said unnecessarily; she was still holding it clutched in her hand. "I know I have to leave in the morning. I know you didn't want to see me again, but I couldn't just let it end with where we left it. Simon, I—"
                  "Of course I did," he interrupted her fiercely. "Of course I wanted to see you again. But I knew what would happen if I did."
                  Cara had crossed to the center of the man's bedroom. She turned now, and in the next moment, she dropped his parting gifts to her and forgot about them completely as he swept her up into a heated kiss. He dragged a hand down the side of her face, cushioning her head in his shoulder as he forced her mouth into submission to his; she tasted the burn of alcohol on his