Life With Riley. Laurey Bright

looked up. “Thank you, Riley.” He gave her the glimmer of a conspiratorial smile.

      As she left, a light, feminine voice said, “Where’s Mrs. Hardy, Benedict?”

      That voice had been trained at one of Auckland’s best private schools—Riley would have taken a bet on it—and she just knew who it belonged to.

      Already on her way back to the kitchen, she couldn’t hear Benedict’s reply.

      Taking in the next dishes, she deliberately refrained from looking at either Benedict or the blonde.

      The other guests were a middle-aged pair and two thirtyish couples. Riley gathered from the conversation as she went in and out, clearing and serving, that the older people were the blonde young woman’s parents, that her name was Tiffany, and that Benedict had some sort of business connection with the family. The thirty-somethings were obviously friends of his, and they too had that air of sleek well-being and sophistication that came with money.

      When Riley had served dessert—a quickly made chilled specialty of her own involving fruit and whipped cream and topped with freshly toasted slivered almonds—she stopped by Benedict’s chair. “Would you like your coffee served here?”

      Tiffany interjected, “Oh, let’s have it on the terrace! It’s lovely out there. And it isn’t too cold, is it?”

      Everyone agreed that it wasn’t too cold, and Benedict nodded to Riley. “On the terrace, then.” He indicated the broad tiled area outside the dining room, where several canvas chairs and a couple of loungers were grouped. A palette-shaped swimming pool gleamed and glittered under outdoor lighting set among glossy shrubs.

      Riley was placing cups on a tray when she looked up to see Tiffany’s face above the center curve of the saloon doors before they parted and the young woman carried in a pile of emptied dessert plates. “Can I help?” she asked. “It was a magnificent meal. That wonderful dessert is going to be awfully bad for my figure though!”

      “Thank you,” Riley said. Darn, the woman was nice! In addition to the hair and the face and the cleavage, and the long legs that Riley would have killed for. And she wouldn’t be taller than Benedict. Just about on a level, in her heels.

      Tiffany crossed to the dishwashing machine and opened it. “Benedict had two helpings. I suppose you wouldn’t give me the recipe?” she asked, loading in spoons and plates.

      Riley swallowed. “Yes, of course. Do you want to write it down?” She looked toward the telephone where a grocery pad and pen hung.

      “Thank you!” Tiffany grabbed the pen, tore off a blank page and sat down at the table.

      Riley dictated the simple recipe while she waited for the coffee machine to finish doing its thing.