His Housekeeper Bride

From the moment Brenda had recognised her at the job interview today, her words had cemented what Sylvie had long suspected. Mark’s family loved him but didn’t understand him. They wanted to push him into happiness so they could stop worrying about him. It was love, but not the love he needed.

Just like her brother Simon, who tried to match her up with men all the time: men who were gentle, who wouldn’t rush her. Men who might as well have been invisible for all she could feel for them.

‘Stop reaching for the stars,’ Simon always said. ‘You’ll never see him again.’

But she’d rather live her life alone than with any man who wasn’t the one. Mark had been her childhood prince, but he might have faded from her memory if he hadn’t saved her life, saved her family…saved her from the unbearable choice facing her when the money came. And the prince of her little-girl fantasies had become her teenage hero. Then finally, when she’d seen the tabloid stories on him, seen the frozen suffering beneath the wolfish smile, he’d become her love, so entwined in her heart she’d never leave him behind.

The Heart of Ice wasn’t the boy she remembered, who’d stood beside a dying girl for years, even marrying her rather than running when it all became too hard. The boy who’d felt sick at the thought of giving a promise to love another girl because it would be a lie. Maybe all he wanted was to be left in peace with his memories but she’d given a promise, made sacred by death. At the right time she’d given up her home, her job security—and most importantly, her secure anonymity—to come to Mark and keep her vow.

Though she had nothing to speak of, she had something she could give Mark that he didn’t have: a true home, a friend…And if she could pull off a miracle, maybe she could help him learn to live again.

CHAPTER THREE

SYLVIE was in the kitchen Monday morning, making breakfast while Mark was out running, when the phone rang. She checked the oven clock: sixfourteen. She was sure Mark carried a mobile phone and a pager. She shouldn’t take his private calls. But by the fourth time it started ringing she’d realised the caller knew Mark was out. She picked up.

‘So, how’s it going, Sylvie?’ Brenda’s eager voice came the second she said hello.

‘Fine,’ she said warily. How would you describe a weekend where your employer had seemed to work all hours while you moved non-existent furniture around, aching to move your feet thirty metres but you’d been banned until Monday? And how did you say that to your employer’s sister whom you barely knew—hadn’t seen in fifteen years?

‘So, how’s Mark? Is he talking to you? Has he said anything?’

She bit her lip. This was her first real day of work. The course of wisdom was telling her to take her time—but, being Bigmouth Sylvie, she did the opposite. ‘Brenda, I appreciate you helped me get the job, but whatever Mark says to me remains between us. End of subject. I need this job, and I’m not about to risk it by being unprofessional—’

‘Sylvie, Mark needs you,’ Brenda said bluntly. ‘You’ve seen how he is. He’s not our Mark—the boy you knew.’

Sylvie sighed. ‘You can’t throw women at Mark like mud and hope one sticks. You can’t heal him; he can only do that himself. And calling me for updates is something I never agreed to. I’m only here to cook and clean.’ She almost added, For all you know, I could be romantically involved, but she remembered Brenda’s specific questions on her romantic status, with the excuse that Mark would welcome no overnight guests. ‘I haven’t seen him in fifteen years, but I’m sure of one thing: your anxiety probably makes him feel bad that he can’t make you feel better—and that makes it worse for him.’

Silence greeted her declaration for a few moments. ‘I’m sorry.’ Brenda’s voice had gone stiff and cold. ‘Wouldn’t you be anxious about your brother if he was like Mark?’

Before Sylvie could answer, the bleeping sound of disconnection filled her ear. She sighed and hung up, turning back to the breakfast she was making.

‘Thank you.’

She whirled around. Wearing exercise gear that moulded to his body like a second skin, he stood in the open doorway between the kitchen and dining room, hot and sweaty from his run, his dark-blond hair plastered to his skull. He was still breathing heavily.

‘You’re welcome.’ Her throat was thick, her heart pounding so hard it was as if she’d been running with him. Shocked by the depth of her response to him, she whirled to face the oven. She’d never felt desire in her life before, but the aching of her body, the itching in her fingertips to touch him, couldn’t be anything else. ‘I know I crossed the line, but she kept calling. She said…’ Hot colour scorched her face. She was talking about his sister!

‘I knew she would. Persistence and interference are the Hannaford middle names.’ He spoke with loving resignation. ‘The only mystery is why the other girls haven’t called or come over yet—you remember my sisters Becky and Katie—or my mother. You ought to expect them, though. Beware: they’ll dig and dig until they get what they want,’ he said, sounding surprised he’d said anything so personal.

To cut off the coldness she sensed was coming—his way of trying to keep a professional distance—she spoke in a flat tone.‘I’ll be at college.’ She opened the oven door.‘I hope coming in early to make breakfast is acceptable?’

‘For something that smells like that, you can come in before dawn.’ He breathed in deeply.‘That smells incredible. What is it?’

Trying to hide a grin of delight—Brenda had told her that he preferred health foods—she said neutrally,‘Just some home-baked muesli and fresh coffee.’

‘Home-baked? I don’t think that was in the contract.’ But the way he inhaled, the smile as he did so, told her he wasn’t about to argue. ‘I usually eat fruit.’

‘I made fruit salad, too.’ She turned back to the food before he could comment, unsure whether he would say something kind or would freeze her. ‘It’ll be ready when you are.’

Fifteen minutes later he was wolfing down breakfast as she cleaned. ‘That was superb,’ he said as he brought the bowls and cup to her.‘Thank you, Sylvie.’

‘You’re welcome.’

Strange how such polite words and praise could hide so much. Somewhere between his coming in on her conversation with Brenda and his return from the shower he’d remembered her interference on Friday night. The air was strained, the tension almost visible; it would only become worse if she apologised. All they were leaving unsaid hovered in the air between them like a comic dialogue balloon—you could choose not to read it but it was still there.

He said a curt goodbye as he was leaving—before seven.

‘I’ll have dinner waiting,’ she said, not knowing why she’d said it or what she was hoping for.

His cold reply was all she deserved for poking her nose in again.‘I’m rarely home before nine.’

He worked fourteen-hour days on a regular basis?‘I’ll have it ready for eight, in case.’

She cursed her clumsy mouth—setting rules in his home. She didn’t expect an answer, and didn’t get one.

When he roared out of the garage she shrugged, ate her share of breakfast, put on her cleaning music, ran through the house until it was sparkling, and left for college before the family he’d forewarned her about could arrive.

‘So how’s the new housekeeper?’ his brother Pete asked after the morning meeting was done, and he, Pete and Glenn, his brother-in-law, were alone.

‘Tell Bren if she wants an update to ask me herself.’

Glenn chuckled, and Pete grinned.‘The Heart of Ice stuff doesn’t work on me, bro. I’ve shared a room with you, punched you up, stood beside you when the football jocks attacked us, and covered up for you when you and Chloe did midnight flits to invent something.’

Glenn laughed again, and agreed.

Mark smiled reluctantly. They’d all been close from school days. Pete, only a year younger than him, was his Chief IT Officer, and Glenn, besides being Bren’s husband, was Financial Controller for Howlcat. Nerds United, they used to call themselves; but they’d stuck together through good times and bad, and there were no two men he trusted more.

‘So, how is she? You know Mum’s sure to call me and ask.’

Mark gave an exaggerated sigh.‘We fell in love at first sight, made passionate love all night and we are eloping on our first day off. Now will you get off my back?’

Pete’s brows lifted.‘I only meant to ask if she can cook and clean all right, since I know you did her a favour in hiring her,’ he said mildly.

Mark found himself flushing.‘She makes muesli to die for, keeps the house in perfect order.’ He tried to stop himself, but the stress in him had been building like a pressure cooker on high all weekend, and it had to come out.‘She also says everything she shouldn’t, gives me presents that make my house hers somehow, then says something so sweet I can’t tell her off. She doesn’t act like any employee I’ve known, but I can’t fire her because—’ The words burst from him.‘She’s Shirley Temple—all right? Remember the kid whose dying mother was in the hospice the same time as Chloe a lot? She’s been through hell since then, and she deserves a break.’

His brother and his friend both nodded, but there was a suspicious twinkle in both sets of eyes, and he knew what was coming.‘I saw her the other day. She’s a real cutie,’ Glenn said.

‘Adorable, if you like the type,’ Pete added, grinning.‘Pretty and sweet. Just as well you prefer sophisticated women to china dolls.’

He was lying, and they all knew it. He growled in agreement and stalked out of the conference room to his haven in Howlcat Industries, pulling off his jacket and tie on the way. Nobody bothered him in the basement lab except in an emergency—even his mother.

Why he was home by seven-thirty he didn’t know. She was his housekeeper, he wasn’t accountable to her—but the good manners his mother had instilled in him came into play. If dinner was ready by eight, he’d be there.

Though he was still angry at her less-than-subtle manipulation of his working day, after the breakfast she’d made this morning his stomach was reminding him he didn’t have to get takeout, heat a frozen meal or eat at his parents’ tonight and answer the inevitable questions.

He came in the back way, and his reward for leaving work was immediate. The smell from the oven made his mouth water and his stomach growl double-time. Baking garlic, cheese and pasta…and music wafted from his ballroom.