His Housekeeper Bride

He was still holding her hand. Looking at his expression as they touched, she sensed that it had been a long time since he’d truly touched anyone. ‘Strawberry blonde.’ He was smiling. ‘You looked like a china doll.’

‘According to some people I still do,’ she said, sighing. ‘Sometimes I’d give anything to be a few inches taller, if nothing else.’

‘People don’t take you seriously?’ His voice held sympathy.

‘You didn’t,’ she retorted, disliking the tone that seemed too close to pity, too close to how she’d been treated for so many years of her life. She pulled her hand from his.

‘You’re right.’ He was looking at the broken connection, a strange expression in those frozen dreamer’s eyes. ‘Why do you want this position—or did you only come to thank me?’

His tone had lost the gentle warmth that made her glow. He wanted to be thanked even less than he’d appreciated her pointing out when he’d been in the wrong. By the look in his eyes, he also didn’t want to hear any personal reasons for her answering his advertisement, on this of all days.

‘I need the job,’ she said abruptly. ‘I’m in the final year of my nursing degree. I need somewhere to live and I need to pay the bills.’

‘Why now?’

The simple question drew her out—the not-quite-cynical tone, the weary implication of there must be a catch in this. She stiffened her spine. It was all she could do not to walk out—but even her unconquerable pride was less important than keeping her word. But, oh, if she’d known it would be so hard to come back into his life this way, to stand before him and ask, she would never have made that promise to Chloe.

She heard the flat curtness in her voice as she finally answered. ‘My flatmate Scott’s getting married in a few weeks, and Sarah, his fiancée, wants to move her stuff in. I could live on campus, but I’d still need a job.’

‘You still have the house?’ It wasn’t quite a question, more of an interrogation.

‘Drew married his long-time girlfriend a while back—they had a baby boy five months after. They needed the house. He’s in his third year of mechanical engineering, and with his study workload he can only work long enough hours to keep the family. Simon, Joel and I can get out there and pay rent.’ She smiled at him, as if it was no big deal.

‘I see.’ And the tone, though restrained, told her he really did.

Mark looked down at the face of memory, an echo of sweetness long submerged. He saw in the pretty face of Sylvie Browning the girl she’d been. She didn’t look as he’d expected except for her eyes—eyes still ancient in a young face—and her smile. The sweet, defiant smile of a girl who’d had to go to school while caring for her father and brothers, taking on a mother’s role long before her mother had died.

Yes, he did understand her—too well. She’d accepted his money for her family. The one person he’d wanted to help through the years probably hadn’t taken a cent for herself.

He shut himself off from the world with ice. Sylvie did it with a smile.

Behind the shutters he could make of his eyes, his famous brain raced. If she was desperate enough to play on a past so painful and intensely private, then she truly needed help—but she wouldn’t accept his charity.

‘Do you have references from past positions?’

As he’d judged, his cool detachment reassured her. Her shoulders relaxed and she breathed in deeply before she replied. ‘Here’s a reference from my boss at Dial-An-Angel, and some from many of my regular customers.’

She thrust a plastic sleeve at him, filled with letters.

His brows lifted as he read one glowing referral after another.

Honest, hard-working, discreet.

She made our house a home.

She became part of our family.

We offered her double to stay. We’re so sorry to lose her.

‘Impressive.’ He noted she’d updated the references that stretched back a dozen years to fit her name change. She obviously wanted to leave her past behind for some reason—a reason he’d have to find out. He hadn’t come this far in life by trusting anyone.

A wave of colour filled those soft-freckled cheeks. ‘I didn’t ask them to say it.’

The ‘Heart of Ice’ was famed for never descending to argument or reassurance on minor points. ‘I have a contract all employees sign—including a confidentiality clause. If you sell a story or steal anything from me I’ll sue you out of all human existence.’

She stared at him, and her flashing eyes—eyes the colour of old sherry, enormous, their curling lashes made thicker with mascara—held insult. The colour grew in her face. Sweet indignation and adorable anger. Yet she was so much a woman at that moment the image of little brave Shirley Temple wavered and fell in his mind, shattering like glass on a tile floor.

‘You’ll sign it?’ he pressed, fighting the ridiculous urge to take it back, to say he knew he could trust her. He hadn’t seen her in fifteen years. He knew nothing about the woman apart from her stiff-necked refusal to accept help. That much about her hadn’t changed a bit.

She nodded. ‘I have one condition.’

He lifted a brow. None of his housekeepers had ever tried to bargain with him before; he made sure they didn’t need to. ‘Well?’

‘I want to live in the cottage that comes with the job, but—’ her eyes held the smiling defiance he’d seen in her as a girl, setting boundaries as well as he did, with all his cold control ‘—you don’t come inside. Ever.’

He almost laughed in her face. What did she think? He hobnobbed with the help? He hadn’t been in that place since he’d had it renovated years ago. ‘Done. Now, please wait outside. If your references check out, the job’s yours.’

‘Thank you.’ The words were cool, reserved, but he felt relief inside. Oh, yeah, he understood that desperation and that pride, the need for personal space and dignity.

She walked out, her little feet in low-heeled sandals making no sound on his wooden flooring. He watched the sway of her gently flaring hips beneath the swishing skirt, saw the way her fists curled, her head held high, and didn’t bother to call her former employers.

He was neither stupid nor blind. He knew inevitability when he saw it. Sylvie had the job, and she would live in the housekeeper’s cottage behind his house for as long as she needed. If warning signs were flashing, if he felt as if he was standing in quicksand, he still couldn’t do anything but hire her. If he let her down for the sake of his own security she’d haunt him for life: he’d be wondering where she was, what job she had, if they were good to her. He’d taken care of her by proxy for too many years to stop now.

Suddenly he wondered. Did Bren know how he’d cared for the Brown family? Did she know it was Shirley Temple when she brought her here?

Anger flooded his soul. Oh, yeah, Bren must have recognised Sylvie. By now the whole family must know that the child Sylvie had been made her the only woman who could break his defences on this day of all days. Why she’d come to him he didn’t know, but he knew his family—still trying to rescue him from a life they abhorred, trying to break the ice around his heart. They were always trying to find him a woman like—

Didn’t they know if he ever found another woman like Chloe he’d only run like hell? People like Chloe weren’t meant to live long lives with guys like him. Just as Chloe had done, as little Mary had done, they touched your life and then left you—bereft, empty.

As empty as his heart and soul had become in the past fifteen years.

It was too late for redemption. None of his success changed what he’d done. No amount of money could take away the damage he’d inflicted on others—and Shirley Temple had come fifteen years too late.

Her name’s Sylvie, and she’s not a kid anymore, his mind taunted him. Small, delicate, haunting, but she’s a woman, head to foot.

He clenched his fists, hating that just by telling him who she was she’d breached his defences. Her gentle face with its freckled prettiness was vulnerable and genuine, and it made him feel warm in a place he’d forgotten existed. But he couldn’t let her get too close or she’d destroy him—and, worse, he’d destroy her.

He shuddered. Never, never again. No. It was time to erect a few barriers.

With cold deliberation he reached for the phone and, instead of calling Dial-An-Angel, he called a woman he’d dated once or twice—a model-actress as callous and uncaring as he’d been for years, who wanted only fun and a few minutes of fame.

If Sylvie was in the cottage behind his waterfront mansion tonight, she’d be alone. He’d be out on the town with Toni, doing what he did best: forgetting there had ever been someone who loved him just as he was, and who pushed him to be his best.

On this day he had two choices: drink, or take a woman to a hotel.

As usual, he chose the latter.

Balmain