“She’s not here.” She took a deep breath and prepared for an explosion. Oh, Aunt Maida. Why didn’t you tell him? “She’s already checked into the hospital in Henderson.”
He started to speak, then clamped his mouth closed. Maybe he was counting to ten. She could only hope it worked.
“She’s scheduled for surgery tomorrow.” She might as well get it all out. If he intended to explode, he’d just have to do it once. “I guess she thought I could help out here, at least until you make a decision about replacing her.”
“You said she didn’t want to worry me. Did she think this wasn’t worrying—going to the hospital and leaving you to break the news?”
The fine lines around Alex’s dark eyes seemed to deepen. She longed to smooth them away with her fingertips. The urge, so strong her skin tingled, shocked her. She couldn’t think that, couldn’t feel it.
She didn’t have a good answer to his question. “I thought she planned to tell you. When we talked on the phone last week, she said she would.”
Maida had sounded so desperate. “I need you, Paula. Jason needs you. That child is hurting, and you might be the only one who can help him.” Maida must not have wanted to risk telling Alex, and his finding some other solution to her absence. She could only pray Maida was right.
“Why didn’t you tell me, then?”
Alex’s intense, dark stare seemed to pierce right through her, finding the vulnerabilities she longed to hide. She took a deep breath, trying to quell jittery nerves. She’d known it would be difficult to come back here. She just hadn’t anticipated how difficult. If Aunt Maida knew how hard this was for her—
No, she couldn’t let Maida know that. She’d agreed to do this thing, and she had to do it.
“I am telling you. I mean, now you know, don’t you?” She clenched her hands together, hoping he didn’t realize how much of her attitude was bravado. “Look, all I know is that she said she’d tell you. I thought it was all arranged. That’s why I’m here—” she gestured toward the scattered pots “—trying to fix dinner for you and Jason.”
Alex looked if it was the worst idea he’d ever heard. If he sent her packing, she’d never have a chance to make up for the mistakes she’d made the last time she was here.
“I can cook, you know,” she assured him. “I learned from the best.” Maida had insisted on giving her cooking lessons every time Paula came to visit.
“Of course you’re going to get an education and have a profession,” Maida would say. “But it never does any harm to know how to cook.”
He looked at her skeptically, and her doubts rose. Why was this so difficult?
Lord, if this really is the right thing to do, please let me know it.
“Dinner tonight isn’t important.” His voice was clipped. “I’ll take Jason out for a hamburger—he always welcomes that. As for the rest of it, I’ll make a decision later. You can go to the hospital to see Maida. Tell her I’ll be there tomorrow.”
She nodded, trying not to react to his tone. As heir to the Caine family fortune, he’d probably been born with the commanding manner that assumed compliance with his orders. The quality never failed to irritate Paula, but Alex had a right to make his own decisions about his staff. And if she did work for him, he’d also have a perfect right to give her orders and expect obedience.
Seeming to consider the matter settled, Alex turned toward the front of the house.
She wanted to let him go, because his disturbing presence upset her equilibrium and made her silly heart flutter. But she couldn’t. There was too much yet to be settled. She had to convince him that she was the right person for this job.
She caught up with him at the swinging door marking the boundary between the family’s part of the mansion and the servants’ section.
“Alex—” She put her hand on his arm to stop him, and was instantly sorry. Through the silky broadcloth of his shirt, his skin warmed to her touch. He wore the dress shirt and tie that was part of his usual attire, but the sleeves were turned back at the wrists, exposing a gold watchband that gleamed against his skin.
She pulled her gaze from his hands, fighting for balance, and focused on his face, instead. It didn’t help. He bore lines he hadn’t two years ago, and the narrow scar that crossed his cheekbone added an attractively dangerous look to his even, classic features.
She snatched her hand away. “I mean, Mr. Caine.” She felt her cheeks flushing. Observing the proprieties might help keep things businesslike between them. It might prevent a recurrence of what happened two years ago.
He stopped, looking down at her, his dark eyes unreadable beneath winged brows. Then he shook his head.
“You’ve been calling me Alex since the first time you came here. You were only about Jason’s age.”
She nodded, deflected by memories of the past. At least Alex seemed able to put his antagonism aside for the moment and remember a more peaceful time. That had to be a good sign.
“I was eight. And homesick as could be. You showed me where the children’s books were in the library and told me to help myself.”
She’d been awestruck when Alex Caine, only child of the town’s richest man and the prince in the Caine castle, had made the effort to be kind to her. She’d felt like Cinderella when he’d led her into the elegant room lined with books and shown her the window seat next to the fireplace where she could curl up and read. Not that she’d ever done it when there was a chance his formidable father might find her.
“So we’re old friends.” The smile that came too rarely lit his lean face, causing an uncomfortable flutter somewhere in the vicinity of her heart. “Alex will do.”
“Alex,” she repeated, trying not to linger on his name. “You know how stubborn Aunt Maida can be. I’m sure she was just doing what she thought would cause the least trouble. If she could have delayed the surgery, she would have, but the doctor insisted.”
She wanted to say the words that would convince him to let her stay, but she couldn’t find them. Instead, she swung back to her worries about Maida.
“She told me Dr. Overton retired. Someone else took over his practice.”
“You can have confidence in Brett Elliot,” he said promptly, apparently reading her concern. “He’s an excellent doctor, and I’m sure he’s recommended the best surgeon.” A hint of a smile touched his lips again. “And I’m not saying that because Brett’s an old friend.”
She suddenly saw herself as a child, peering from the housekeeper’s cottage toward the swimming pool. A teenage Alex entertained two other boys: Mitch Donovan and Brett Elliot, his closest friends.
“Aunt Maida seems to trust him. That’s the important thing.”
He nodded, hand on the door. She could sense the impatience in him, as if he wanted to be elsewhere, as if only his deeply ingrained politeness kept him standing there.
She probably should let this go, but she couldn’t. She took a breath. “I know Aunt Maida’s suggestion has put you on the spot. But it really would ease her mind if she knew I was staying.”
She knew instantly she’d pressed too hard. He seemed to withdraw, putting distance between them even though he hadn’t moved. His face set in bleak lines.
Alex had never looked that way when she was growing up. He’d always been surrounded by a golden aura nothing could diminish. But that had been before his wife left, before he’d spent too many weeks in that hospital himself.
“Let’s get the immediate situation taken care of first,” he said. “You settle Maida at the hospital. If she needs