He swung his briefcase off the counter. “All right, I accept your offer. But I owe you.”
Looking defensive, she moved to tidy her handbag mess. “You’ve already done enough.”
“What? Allowed you to cook, clean and do my laundry?”
“You gave me a place to stay when I needed it most.”
When she hesitated before dropping her purse into her handbag, Tristan studied her suddenly tight-lipped expression. Her background wasn’t any of his business, particularly now that she’d resigned. Still, he was in-trigued as he’d never been before. What harm would it do to get a little closer now that she was leaving? In fact, perhaps he could satisfy his curiosity over his un-assuming duckling turned swan and at the same time thank Ella in some small but apt way.
He cocked his head. “I insist I repay the favor. What would you say to me supplying dinner for a change?”
Her eyes narrowed almost playfully as she stuffed the last article, a hairbrush, into her bag. “I didn’t think you could cook.”
“I can’t. But I know a few chefs who can.”
Her expression froze as a pulse beat high in her throat. She took a moment to speak. “You want to take me to dinner? But I’m your housekeeper.”
“Only for another three weeks.” But he didn’t want to give her the wrong idea. “It’s just a small show of appreciation for your efforts in the past, as well as for staying on longer than you’d intended.”
It wasn’t a date. Truth was he hadn’t had a real date in a while. He didn’t count the run of women he’d asked out once or twice to see if the chemistry worked.
He was thirty-two—time to find a wife and have that family. But with each passing birthday more and more he realized he preferred the old-fashioned type, and the women in his circle were either sickeningly simpering, over-opinionated or flat-out treacherous, as Bindy Rufus had been.
Ella crossed to the pot to make coffee—strong and fresh, just the way he liked it. Head bowed, she curled wet hair behind her ear and answered his question. “I don’t think going out to dinner would be…appropri-ate.”
“Then you need to think again.” When he made up his mind, no one and nothing dissuaded him. Neverthe-less, he put a smile into his voice. “Today’s a day to kick off your shoes and let go, remember?’
She chewed her lower lip then, looking up at him, slowly grinned. “I guess it is.”
Ignoring the embers that innocent smile stirred in the pit of his stomach, he headed for his study. “We’ll make it tomorrow night.”
He smacked his forehead and turned back. Where was his mind today?
“Ella, is my tux back from the cleaners? I have an event tonight.”
“It’s hanging in your wardrobe.”
She paled and he read her thoughts as clearly as this morning’s newspaper. The wardrobe where I saw you without a stitch on last week.
But that was all behind them.
He stole a last look at those legs.
At least he thought it was.
Chapter Two
Finished applying her new lip gloss, Ella examined her reflection in the bedroom mirror and let out a sigh.
Life truly could turn on a pin. Only eight months ago she’d buried the poor wasted body of her mother, Roslyn Jacob, who’d finally succumbed to cancer. Later that same day, a man she would revile until the end of time had paid her a visit. A man Ella hoped she would never see again.
She’d first met Drago Scarpini some weeks before the death of her mother. He’d claimed to be her half brother, conceived out of wedlock by Ella’s father before he’d married her mother.
Scarpini’s own mother, an Italian who’d immigrated to Western Australia many years before, had recently passed away. On her deathbed she’d revealed the name of her son’s father, Vance Jacob. Scarpini discovered that Ella’s father had passed away long ago but Scarpini had wanted to visit his father’s widow to see if he had any brothers or sisters.
A well-packaged story, but from his first, Scarpini had sent chills up Ella’s spine. As days wound into weeks and Roslyn’s condition and faculties deterio-rated more, Scarpini’s visits continued and his ulterior motives became clear.
Ella had overheard Scarpini talking to her mother about his difficult life growing up without a father, without money. Although Vance Jacob couldn’t make recompense now, Roslyn could change her will and divide the estate between Ella and himself. That, Scarpini had said, would’ve made her husband happy. After all those years of unwitting abandonment, it was the right thing to do.
Ella had been disgusted at his prodding. Her mother had been so ill, so confused. And there had been no proof Scarpini was who he claimed to be. If she’d had a few thousand to spare, she’d have hired an investigator.
The second time Ella had heard him pushing Roslyn, she’d told him to get out. Roslyn had died the day after, sooner than doctors had anticipated. Scarpini had attended the funeral and had even played the sorrowful, supportive brother. Later, however, he’d arrived on Ella’s doorstep demanding she divide the estate. When Ella had reminded him she’d just buried her mother, he’d exploded. He needed money to pay off pressing gambling debts.
As she’d shut the door in his face, he’d shouted she would regret it.
The next day, the police had arrived. Scarpini had alleged Ella had murdered Roslyn with a morphine overdose to head off the change she had been about to make to her will. It had been an hour of horror Ella would never forget, but, of course, no charges were laid. The following day her front window was smashed and a condolence card left on the mantel. Scarpini had phoned—either she agreed to his suggestion, or he would get nasty. He’d said he intended to haunt her until he got what he deserved.
Quaking all over, she’d immediately called the police, who couldn’t do much about Scarpini’s threats. She could petition for a restraining order, the officer ex-plained, but perhaps it would be better to wait and see if Scarpini would cool down and disappear. If he physi-cally harmed her, she should get in touch straight away, the officer had advised.
Ella hadn’t slept that night. She’d given up her job to care for her mother and, after medical expenses, there was no cash to speak of. The house, as well as an investment property, needed to be sold before the estate could be settled. That would take several weeks, if not months.
By dawn Ella had made two decisions. One, she needed a job to survive until the estate came through. Two, she didn’t intend to wait around for Scarpini’s next sadistic game. She’d bought a prepaid phone, or-ganized a post office box for correspondence from the will’s executor—the husband of a longtime friend of her mother’s—and dyed her hair a different shade for good measure. Then she’d applied for the house-keeper’s position at the Barkley mansion.
It had been a bold move, particularly without refer-ences, but she certainly knew how to cook and clean and do laundry. When she had secured the job, she’d settled and kept very much to herself.
She’d heard nothing from her harasser since. She hoped the police were right and Scarpini had slid back beneath the rock from which he’d crawled. Now with the house and investment property sold and all of her inheritance in hand—just over a million dollars—the time was finally right to take a deep breath, emerge from her cocoon and start afresh.
And what a way to mark the occasion…asked to dinner by the thoroughly enthralling, undeniably dreamy Tristan