Sophie Pembroke – Snowed In For Christmas: Snowed in with the Billionaire / Stranded with the Tycoon / Proposal at the Lazy S Ranch (страница 9)

‘Just in here? There’s nowhere to hide.’

‘Oh, you’d be surprised,’ she said, her laugh like music to his ears. ‘Go and hide, Josh. Sebastian will count to ten and look for you.’ She met his eyes over the table, mischief dancing in them. ‘It’s simple. He “hides”,’ she explained with little air quotes, ‘and you look for him. I’m sure you can remember how it works.’

Oh, yes. He could remember how it all worked, particularly the finding part. She’d never made that difficult after the first time...

He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them she’d looked away and was halving cherry tomatoes.

‘Well, go on, then. Count!’

So he counted to ten, deluged with memories that refused to stay in their box, and then he got to his feet, ignoring the giggling child under the table, and said softly, ‘Ready or not, here I come!’

Their eyes met, and he felt his heart bump against his ribs. The air seemed to be sucked out of the room, the tension palpable. And then she dropped the knife with a clatter, bent to pick it up and turned away, and he found he could breathe again.

* * *

‘Has he settled?’

‘Finally. I’m sorry it took so long.’

‘Don’t worry about it. It’s a strange place. Will he be all right up there on his own?’

‘Yes, he’s gone out like a light now and I’ve got the baby monitor.’

He nodded. He was sprawled on a chair by the Aga, legs outstretched and crossed at the ankle, one arm resting on the dining table with a glass of wine held loosely in his fingers, watching the news.

He tilted his head towards the screen. ‘The country seems to be gridlocked,’ he said drily.

‘Well, that’s not a surprise. It always is if it snows.’

‘Yeah. Well, there’s over a foot already in the courtyard and the wind hasn’t let up at all which doesn’t bode well for the lane.’

‘Which means you’re stuck with us, then, doesn’t it?’ she said, her heart sinking, and swallowed. ‘I’m so, so sorry. I should have left earlier, paid more attention to the weather forecast.’ Gone the other way and stayed in the traffic jam, and she’d have been home by now instead of putting them both in this impossibly difficult situation.

He shook his head. ‘They got it wrong. The wind picked up, a high pressure area shifted, and that was it. Not even you could cause this much havoc.’

But a wry smile softened his words, and he slid the bottle towards her. ‘Try this. It’s quite interesting. I’ve found some duck breasts. I thought it might go rather nicely.’

She poured a little into the clean glass that was waiting, and sipped. ‘Mmm. Lovely. So—do you want me to cook for us?’

‘No, I’ll do it.’

She blinked. ‘You can cook?’

‘No,’ he said drily. ‘I have a resident housekeeper and if she’s got a day off I get something delivered from the restaurant over the road—of course I can cook! I’ve been looking after myself for years. And anyway, my mother taught me.’ He uncrossed his legs and stood up. ‘So—how does pan-fried duck breast with a red wine and redcurrant jus on root-vegetable mash with tenderstem broccoli and julienne carrots sound?’

‘Like a restaurant menu,’ she said, trying not to laugh at him, but she had to bite her lips and he balled up a tea towel and threw it at her, his lips twitching.

‘So is that yes or no?’

‘Oh, yes—please. But only if you can manage it,’ she added mischievously.

He rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t push your luck or you’ll end up with beans on toast,’ he warned, and rolled up his sleeves and started emptying the fridge onto the worktop.

‘Can I help?’

‘Yes. You can lay the table. I’ll let you.’

‘Big of you.’

‘It is. Do it properly. The cutlery’s in this drawer.’

She threw the tea towel back, catching him squarely in the middle of his chest, and he grabbed it and chuckled, and for a second the years seemed to melt away.

And then he turned, picking up a knife, and the moment was gone.

* * *

It was no hardship to watch him while he cooked.

She studied every nuance of his body, tracking the changes brought about in nine years. He’d only been twenty-one then, nearly twenty-two. Now, he was thirty-one, and a man in his prime.

Not that he’d been anything other than a man then, there’d been no doubt about that, but now his shoulders under the soft cotton shirt seemed broader, more solidly muscled, and he seemed a little taller. The skilfully cut trousers hugged the same neat hips, though, and hinted at the taut muscles of his legs. She’d always loved his legs, and every time he shifted, her body tightened in response.

And while she watched, greedily drinking in every movement of the frame she’d once known so well, he peeled and chopped and sliced, mashed and seasoned, deglazed the frying pan with a sizzle of the lovely red, stirred in a hefty dollop of port and redcurrant sauce and then arranged it all with mathematical precision on perfectly warmed plates.

‘Voilà!’

He set the plates down on the places she’d laid, and she smiled. ‘Very pretty.’

‘We aim to please. Dig in.’

She dug, her mouth watering, and it was every bit as good as it looked and smelled.

‘Oh, wow,’ she mumbled, and he gave a wry huff of laughter.

‘See? No faith in me. You never have had.’

Georgie shook her head. ‘I’ve always had faith in you. I always knew you’d be a success, and you are.’

Even if she hadn’t been able to live with him any more.

He shrugged. There was success, and then there was happiness. That still eluded him, chased out by a restless, fretful search for his identity, his fundamental self, and it had cost him Georgia and everything that went with her. Everything she’d then had with another man—and he really didn’t want to think about that. He changed the subject. Sort of.

‘Josh seems a nice little kid. I didn’t know you’d had a child.’

She met his eyes, her fork suspended in mid-air. ‘Why would you unless you were keeping tabs on me?’

A smile touched his eyes. ‘Touché,’ he murmured softly, and the smile faded. ‘I was sorry to hear about your husband. That must have been tough for you.’

Tough? He didn’t know the half of it. ‘It was,’ she said quietly.

‘What happened?’

She put her fork down. ‘He had a heart attack. He was at work and I had a call to say he’d collapsed and died at his desk.’

He winced. ‘Ouch. Wasn’t he a bit young for that?’

‘Thirty-nine. And we’d just moved and extended the mortgage, so things are a bit tight.’

‘What about the life insurance? Surely that covered the mortgage?’

Her mouth twisted slightly. ‘He’d cancelled it three months before.’

That shocked him. ‘Cancelled it? Why would he cancel it?’

‘Cash flow, I presume. Property wasn’t selling, and because he’d cancelled the insurance of course they won’t pay out, so I’m having to work full-time to pay the mortgage. And it’s still not selling, so I can’t shift the house, and I’m stuck.’

He rammed a hand through his hair. ‘Oh, George. That’s tough. I’m sorry.’

‘Yeah, me, too, but there’s nothing I can do. I just have to get on with it.’

He frowned, slowly turning his wine glass round and round by the stem with his thumb and forefinger. ‘So what do you do with Josh while you’re at work?’

‘I have him with me. I work at home—mostly at night. He goes to nursery three mornings a week to give me a straight stretch of time, and it just about works.’

He topped up her glass and leaned back against the chair, his eyes searching her face. ‘So what do you do?’

She smiled. ‘I’m a virtual PA. My boss is very understanding, and we get by, but I won’t pretend it’s easy.’