At His Service: Cinderella Housekeeper. Fiona Harper
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She searched the darkness above her head for an answer, desperate to make sense of it all.
But Mark hadn’t seemed like a womaniser tonight in the garden, quite the reverse. He’d sent Piers Double-Barrelled packing, backing her up and taking her side, and he hadn’t even taken advantage of the situation when she’d been vulnerable and heaving with hormones. She could have walked away …
Maybe it wasn’t about Mark. Maybe it was a symptom of her decision to break free, to learn to live again. Perhaps part of herself that she’d thought had died and been buried along with Sam had sprung to life again. She was a young woman still. It was just a healthy interest in the opposite sex, a natural response to a good-looking man.
But that train of thought derailed just as fast as the last one had.
It was only since meeting Mark that she’d been anything but numb. He was a catalyst of some kind. And … and if it was just about pent-up desires, she wouldn’t have rejected Piers. He was suave and attractive, but it didn’t stop her experiencing a wave of revulsion every time she thought of him.
So she was back to Mark. Her brain was swinging in wild arcs, but it always came back to Mark. What was she going to do about that … about him?
His attraction to her was genuine, there was no mistaking that, but it wouldn’t last. Men like him didn’t stay with women like her. After a couple of months it would fizzle out and she’d be left alone again. And in search of a new job.
She didn’t want an affair, or a fling, or a one-night stand. Settling for less than the all-encompassing love she’d had for Sam seemed like being unfaithful to his memory. It would be like losing the Crown Jewels and replacing them with paste and nickel that made your skin turn green. This thing with Mark, whatever it was, it couldn’t go anywhere. It couldn’t be anything.
She sniffed again and stretched out a little. Why? Why be interested in someone like him? She could say it was the money, or the success, his looks and his charm, but it wasn’t any of those things. Tonight she’d glimpsed something else behind the cheeky, boyish charm. Something darker and deeper that resonated with a similar something inside her too.
A faint hint of Mark’s aftershave drifted into her nostrils. She looked up, half expecting to see him standing there, waiting for her, but the room was empty. Then she realised she was still wearing his jacket. His masculine scent clung to it, and she was reminded of the moment he’d put it on her in the garden.
He’d seemed so vulnerable standing there. For a man who had women drop at his feet on a daily basis he’d almost seemed unsure of himself. Not at all what she’d expected.
She whimpered and covered her face with her hands, even though there was no one there to see her blush.
How was she going to face him in the morning?
CHAPTER SIX
MARK stumbled downstairs some time after ten. He’d intended to get up earlier, but he hadn’t dropped off until dawn and then his sleep had been heavy, full of dreams where he was running from unseen predators. He’d wanted to be fresh and calm this morning, to deal with the aftermath of last night’s events with just a little panache.
He didn’t have to search hard for Ellie, though; he could smell something delicious wafting from the kitchen, and he followed the mouthwatering smell like a zombie.
Well, almost like a zombie. His heart rate was pattering along too fast for him to be considered officially dead. Was he … was he nervous?
He’d spent hours last night in his study, going over and over it all in his head. Not that he’d come to any earth-shattering conclusions. He had a housekeeper. She kissed like a dream. That was about the sum total of it.
All he’d done was kiss her. It was hardly a big deal.
All he’d done … He should listen to himself.
If it had just been a kiss, his heart wouldn’t be flapping around inside his chest like a fish out of water.
He liked Ellie. And not in the let’s-have-dinner-at-the-Ivy kind of way he normally liked women. It felt different. As if this kind of liking had a different shape, was a different kind of entity all together.
Now, that was a scary thought.
Like Helena, Ellie was one of those delicate beings, beautiful in their frailty like an orchid or a butterfly. And that made her even more dangerous. He knew he couldn’t resist getting drawn in by women like that, finding himself wanting to protect them, to care for them until they were whole again. It was a weakness, he knew, but one that he channelled into his clients these days, by being the best manager in the business. At least they paid him for his devotion.
That kind of woman sucked everything out of a man until he had nothing left to give. And then she took what he’d done, all the tender, loving care he’d given, and bestowed it on someone else, someone who didn’t remind her of the pain. Someone who didn’t remind her of who she used to be when she was just a shell, empty and hurting.
He couldn’t do that again. He couldn’t be that for anyone again.
So he would just have to deflect Ellie, dazzle her, and move things back to where they should be—on a purely professional level.
If he could talk a highly strung diva down from demanding three-hundred-pound-a-bottle mineral water that had been blessed by a Tibetan priest in her dressing room, he could surely manage this. And then he would invent a reason to go and stay at his flat in London for a few days. It wasn’t running away; it was self-preservation.
‘Morning,’ he said, overcompensating a little and sounding much too relaxed as he entered the kitchen. Ellie had her back turned to him. She was stirring something in a saucepan on the hob and returned his greeting in a cool, clipped voice, not looking up from the pan.
‘What are you doing?’
Ah, yes. This is the smooth wit and banter you are famous for … This will charm the socks off her and sort everything out.
Ellie didn’t say anything, just stirred harder.
‘It smells great. What is it?’
‘I decided to make a big batch of bolognaise and freeze it in smaller portions for quick suppers,’ she said in a starchy voice. ‘Would you like me to stop and fetch you breakfast?’
That was the last thing he wanted. Far too awkward.
‘It’s okay. I’m more than capable of getting my own coffee.’
He grabbed himself a mug of coffee and sat down at the circular wooden table near the French windows that led to the garden. Ellie was pushing what he now recognised as beef mince round the pan with a wooden spoon. It spat and hissed, the only sound in the rapidly thickening atmosphere.
He cleared his throat. ‘Ellie, listen …’
‘Look, Mark, I know where this is going.’
‘You do?’ He rubbed his nose with the heel of his hand.
‘I do. And let’s not go there.’
Good. They were reading off the same page. Why, then, had his stomach bottomed out like a plummeting lift?
‘Okay,’ he said, not trusting himself with anything more complicated. It seemed as if Ellie was doing fine on her own, anyway. She took a deep breath in readiness for another speech.
‘You’re my boss. You spend your time flitting around the globe and living the high life. And I’m …’ She looked at the ceiling, searching for the right word.
‘I know I’m your boss—of course I know that—and you’re …’
Surprising? Appealing? Unforgettable? Those were the words that filled his head. None of them were the right ones to come out of his mouth, though.
‘You’re