With Abandon: With or Without, Book 4

throat was suddenly dry. Why had Carson’s voice gotten husky?
    “If you ever get tired of this bozo, give me a call.” Carson winked.
    Matt barely suppressed a gasp. Carson was coming on to him?
    Aubrey growled.
    “What?” Carson feigned innocence.
    Aubrey glared.
    It was like watching a tennis match, looking back and forth between them.
    “I was only playing.” Carson scoffed and lowered his voice to a whisper. “And you have to admit
    Matt and I would look pretty together.” He grinned at Matt. The mischief in his eyes helped put Matt at ease a little. Maybe he was just playing with Aubrey. It didn’t explain why he was here working with
    Aubrey though. “Think about it. I know you like to watch.”
    This time Matt was unsuccessful at squelching his gasp. Aubrey liked to watch? Had Aubrey watched
    someone with Carson before? The butterflies in Matt’s stomach ramped up a notch. Would Aubrey expect
    him to be with other people? Could he even hold Aubrey’s interest with his measly lack of experience?
    “Carson…” Aubrey warned.
    Carson chuckled. “Oh come on, where is your sense of humor?” He sobered and tapped Matt on the
    shoulder. “Sorry.”
    Matt nodded, not sure what else to do. What was proper etiquette when being teased by an ex-lover of
    one’s mate? At least Matt hoped they were ex -lovers.
    Carson said goodbye, and Aubrey pulled out of the hotel parking lot and rested his hand on Matt’s
    thigh. “Just ignore him.”
    The weight of Aubrey’s hand reminded Matt of last night, but he didn’t let it distract him. “I thought
    he worked in Macon?”
    “He did. I hired him to be my executive assistant to get him away from the mess he got himself into.
    Boskie is giving him problems.”

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    J.L. Langley
    “Oh.” Matt didn’t know how he felt about that. He shouldn’t be jealous, but— “Why didn’t you tell
    me?”
    Aubrey caressed his thigh. “I just did.”

    Home, finally. The sense of relief and pride eased over Aubrey like a warm blanket. He’d known Matt wasn’t happy with him hiring Carson as his EA, but he didn’t know what to do about it. He wasn’t going to let Matt dictate his decisions. The sooner Matt understood how things were going to be, the better off
    they’d both be.
    “Whoa.”
    Matt’s admiration filled Aubrey with pride. Being here always brought forth a myriad of feelings. It
    pounded in the responsibility of caring for the mansion and its history, but more than that it soothed something deep inside him.
    He glanced over at his mate as he drove through the iron gates. It weighed upon him too, because as
    much as he wished otherwise, Matt could not be the mansion’s chatelain.
    “Whoa,” Matt repeated. “It’s amazing.” His voice took on the same timbre one used in a church or
    museum.
    Pulling himself out of his musings, Aubrey nodded. He promised himself he wasn’t going to dwell on
    what couldn’t be. Instead he’d share with Matt what he could. “It is. It makes me feel insignificant and like king of the castle all at the same time.” The stately mansion had been here for almost two hundred and fifty years and would likely be here many more centuries after Aubrey was dead and buried.
    As they drove up the oak-lined dirt drive, the house loomed in front of them with its big white
    columns.
    The look on Matt’s face was priceless. His gaze darted everywhere, his eyes wide with wonder. “Is
    everything original?”
    “What do you mean? Like the furniture and stuff? The actual house? The grounds?”
    “Yeah.”
    It wasn’t an answer. Aubrey chuckled. “The kitchen was added to the back of the house in the early
    nineteen hundreds, and a few of the outbuildings have been redone. The barn and stables out back are brand new, only about ten years old. Some of the slave quarters were torn down, but a few were saved for storage and guestrooms. Most of the main furniture is pretty old. Some of it’s been refinished, and other stuff has been updated. Like my bed. It’s almost two hundred years old, but I bought a memory-foam mattress last
    year. Obviously the claw-foot tub in my bathroom isn’t as old as the house, but it’s pretty old, like the late eighteen hundreds or early nineteen hundreds when the indoor plumbing was put in. I think the plumbing
    and electricity was majorly redone again in 1961. And we’ve had other things added, like the cable and
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