Seduction by Smith Lauren

Author:Smith, Lauren [Smith, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Forever Yours
Published: 2016-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

I want you to have everything you love, Kat,” Tristan said softly.

What if all I want is you?

She couldn’t tell him that, and he could never know how deep her feelings for him ran. He could break her heart, their parents could split up and get hurt…too much was at risk. What would he do if he learned she was falling in love with him?

“I just want to have fun with you today.” With a few rapid blinks of her eyes to clear the newly forming tears, she took a deep breath and sat back, determined to enjoy the half-hour ride to Kew Gardens.

After the taxi had dropped them off, she and Tristan walked down the wide, open path toward the glass edifice in the distance. Evergreen trees were dusted with snow and sunlight illuminated the ice beneath their feet, making it shimmer and sparkle like crushed diamonds.

“Come on, you have to see this,” Tristan said before trotting toward a magnificent tree that stood at the northern end of the Broad Walk.

Covered in snow, an old, thick-trunked tree spread its branches out in a wild fan.

“This is an oriental plane tree. They call it the ‘Old Lion.’ It was planted around 1762.” Tristan pressed a palm to the bark and looked her way. The boyish charm he wielded to devastating perfection tugged at her heart.

Unable to resist, she walked over to join him, placing her hand next to his, feeling the rough scrape of the cold bark. “How do you know all of this?” she asked.

He glanced away, a hint of sadness in his eyes. “My mother used to bring me here as a child. She loves flowers, and whenever she was sad or hurting, we came here to escape our lives for a few hours.”

The picture he painted was a melancholy one. A strained, unhappy woman and her tiny son, wandering among the gardens, happy to find some measure of peace. Not unlike the way her father used to sit on the edge of her bed and read her stories of Verne’s metal ships beneath the sea, of mighty squid and hot-air balloons uplifted to the skies to begin grand adventures.

She and Tristan had more in common than she’d realized. They’d both been hurt by one parent and were desperate to protect their other parent from the pain of the world. It wasn’t a duty a child was meant to have, but when you loved someone, you did what was necessary to protect them. In this one way they were the same. It’s why we understand each other on a deeper level.

“The entrance is this way.” He covered her hand with his, calling Kat out of her thoughts.

As she followed him toward the building, she glanced back at the Old Lion tree, wondering if it would last another two hundred and fifty years. Some things could stand the test of time.

The interior of Kew Gardens was bright and rich with color. Perfumed scents from a multitude of flowers filled the air.

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