скачать книгу бесплатно
Her expression mirrored his. “I’m not exactly sure how to ‘sauté’ or ‘reduce.’”
He hadn’t really noticed the faint shadows beneath her eyes before now or how tired she looked beneath her faintly frustrated smile. But then, he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge much of anything about her that didn’t directly affect the reason he was there. He considered himself a fair man, though, and to be fair, he had to admit that she didn’t seem much like the woman he’d expected. She was young, to be certain, and there was no mistaking that she knew privilege. Yet she hadn’t once acted spoiled, selfish, difficult or demanding. A little needy maybe, though he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was about her that made him think so. But so far she didn’t appear to be anything like the diva the press had portrayed.
With hints of her fatigue staring him in the face, impressed by how intent she seemed to disregard it, he felt his priorities take a subtle shift. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning in the country she’d just left. The woman was probably dead on her feet.
Telling himself he was only taking pity on the boy, he ignored his earlier insistence that he wouldn’t be her cook and handed her back the book.
“They aren’t that complicated,” he told her, slipping off his tie. “But you shouldn’t practice on an unsuspecting child. I’ll make it.”
Tess blinked in disbelief. “I can’t ask you do that.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“What I mean is that you don’t have to do it. I can manage this.”
His response was the challenging arch of one dark eyebrow as he shrugged off his jacket.
“Well, I can if you’ll tell me how,” she qualified.
“It’ll be faster to just do it myself.” The jacket was dropped over the back of a chair at the staff’s table. “The pot by the stove will work for the pasta,” he said, rolling up the sleeves of his starched white shirt. “But I’ll need a small one for the sauce. Mind if I look in the pantry?” he asked, already heading for it. “All I need is garlic, olive oil, salt and basil. Fresh is best if there’s any growing outside, but dried will do.”
Tess opened her mouth, closed it again. She didn’t know if her bodyguard wanted to speed up the dinner project so she could show him around as soon as Mikey woke up or if he thought her incapable of the task herself. The latter thought stung, especially since she already had the feeling he thought of her as either naive, young, helpless or some unflattering combination of all three. But whatever his rationale, she couldn’t allow him or anyone else to defeat her purpose.
The man was accustomed to taking charge. He’d already found the olive oil and had removed a bottle of something green and flaky from a shelf when she stepped into the pantry herself.
She’d been around big men before. A couple of her grandmother’s sentries had been built like tanks, and her own brothers were over six feet. But Parker’s body seemed to dwarf hers, and she wasn’t a short woman by any means. Barefoot, she stood an easy five foot seven inches. In heels, five ten. Even at that, she barely reached his broad shoulders.
Terribly conscious of the scents of clean soap and warm male, she took the ingredients from him.
“You don’t need to do this,” she repeated more firmly. “But I would appreciate it if you would tell me how.”
She stood too close to look up without bending back her neck. Ahead, all she could see was the solid expanse of his chest. A woman would feel very safe held there.
The unexpected thought brought a flush of heat, caused her to turn away. “Please.”
Her request seemed to give him pause. Probably, she suspected, because he was accustomed to bulldozing ahead once he’d decided on a course of action and wasn’t used to anyone slowing him down.
She rather envied him that.
He finally muttered, “Fine,” as she set the ingredients by the tomatoes and pasta she’d left on the island. “Take off your jacket and get yourself an apron.”
“I’ll leave my jacket on.”
“You don’t want to ruin what you’re wearing.”
A white silk Armani wasn’t the most practical thing to wear for her first cooking lesson. She would, however, have to make do. She didn’t want to leave to change clothes. “It’s okay.”
Parker frowned at her slender back. Okay? he thought, absently watching her go through the drawers again. Okay because she could afford to stain two-thousand-dollar suits? Or okay because she was inherently stubborn and accustomed to getting her own way?
“Tomato sauce stains,” he warned.
An odd note of awkwardness slipped into her voice. “I don’t have anything on under it,” she explained, coming up with a white chef’s apron. “No blouse, I mean.”
His glance darted to the V of flesh exposed between her lapels as she held the white cotton apron by its inch-wide strings.
That was more information than he needed.
“Here.” Feeling chastised, he jerked his glance to what she held. He did not need to be imagining her standing there in a skimpy lace bra. “Turn around.”
Dutifully she did as he asked.
“Lift your hair.”
She did that, too, gathering the thick mane below the intricate clip already restraining it.
His fingers felt clumsy as he tied the strings behind her neck—quickly so he couldn’t think too much about the appealing curve of her shoulder, the baby-fine hairs below her nape. Her skin felt like warm satin to him, the brush of her hair against the back of his hand like strands of silk.
Her scent assaulted his remaining senses.
The tightness low in his gut seemed to make its way to his voice.
“The first thing you do is mince a clove of garlic.”
She dropped her hair as she turned. Stepping back, she met his oddly guarded eyes. “I don’t think Mikey will like garlic.”
“You can’t make a proper marinara without it.”
“Then, show me how to make an improper one.”
Tess could practically feel his eyes boring into her back as she hurried to gather a pen and notepad from the desk. “I need to write this down,” she explained. “I want to be able to do it again.”
She had the distinct impression that he was mentally shaking his head at her. At that moment, she really didn’t care. She would not have considered an ex-Marine who looked capable of bench-pressing her mom’s Mercedes to know his way around the kitchen. Since he did, she intended to take full advantage of his knowledge.
She also wanted to know how he’d acquired it.
“Where did you learn how to cook?”
“From my mom.”
“Is she a chef?”
“She’s first violin with the Philadelphia Symphony. You need to put a few tablespoons of olive oil in this,” he said, clearly changing the subject as he set a pot on the eight-burner stove in the middle of the island. “If we were doing this right, you’d put the garlic in next, then open the tomatoes and add them. Since we’re not, just add the tomatoes to the oil.”
“How much?”
“The whole can.”
“Oil, I mean.”
“A few tablespoons,” he repeated. “It’s a matter of taste. A little more or less won’t hurt.”
“Give me exact.”
With a pen poised above a notepad, she looked much as he imagined a young student might waiting for a teacher to proceed. Yet it wasn’t her expectation that struck him as he found measuring spoons for her and she dutifully wrote out his instructions before adding the ingredients precisely as he instructed. It was how young she looked each time she glanced up to make sure she’d done the step correctly or to ask what came next, how very innocent and how incredibly, unbelievably tempting.
The texture of her skin all but invited a man’s touch. Her lush lips fairly begged to be kissed. And a man would have to be dead not to notice the appealing concern in her lovely dark eyes when an uncertain, “Mommy?” had her abandoning everything to turn to the hallway.
“I’m right here,” she called. “Will that be all right?” she asked with a quick glance back at the pot.
He’d no sooner told her he would watch it than she headed for the sleepy-looking child who’d wandered toward the sound of her voice.
She scooped him up and turned, smiling, with him in her arms.
Parker had known beautiful women. They’d been arm candy for rich clients or the men’s daughters, wives or mistresses. He’d guarded female rock stars and models and on occasion found himself in the unenviable position of having to decline advances he wouldn’t have minded pursuing, on a purely recreational basis, had company policy not frowned on fraternization.
But recalling company policy wasn’t necessary as he deliberately dismissed the sharp physical pull he felt toward Tess. It wasn’t even necessary to remind himself that she was Cord Kendrick’s little sister and that the only reason he’d recommended Parker was because he knew he could trust him.
Shifting his attention to the boy as she set him down and took his hand, all Parker had to do was remind himself that she had robbed the child of a relationship with his natural father.
That alone was enough to dampen the heat.
The little boy with the button nose and big brown eyes stared at him uneasily. A tuft of his cornsilk hair stuck up in back.
His mom smoothed it down.
Snagging his slacks above his knees, Parker crouched down to bring himself more or less to the child’s level.
“Great shirt,” he said, smiling at the logo above the tiny pocket. “Do you play soccer?”
Smashed against his mom’s leg, Mikey nodded. “I have a ball.”
“You do?”
Fine blond hair brushed his eyebrows as he gave a vigorous nod.
“You’ll have to show it to me sometime.”
Without moving from where his arm wrapped his mom’s leg, he tipped back his head and looked up at her. “Do I have my soccer ball?”
“It’s not unpacked yet.”
“Can I show it to him when it is?”
“If Mr. Parker wants to see it.”
Parker gave the boy a wink.
Mikey grinned.
Planting his hands on his knees, Parker rose to tower over them both.
“That can simmer for a while,” he said, nodding toward her creation. With the little boy looking a little less wary of him, Parker pulled his professionalism back into place. “Where do you plan to eat?”
“It’s so nice outside, I thought we’d eat out there. Unless you’d prefer the dining room,” she offered, much as she might to a guest.
He was not a guest. He was her employee. “I’ll eat at the staff table.” Distance seemed prudent. So did boundaries. “Why don’t you show me around the house now?”
The unexpected ease Tess had started to feel with him vanished like smoke in a stiff wind. She had just been quite pointedly reminded that there were certain distances to maintain. Certain protocols to follow. She had thought they would eat together simply because it was only the three of them and it hadn’t seemed right that he should eat alone. Especially since he’d shown her how to prepare the meal.
The reserve he had just pulled into place brought a tug of embarrassment. The way his manner changed so quickly almost made it seem as if he thought she’d been coming on to him. She wasn’t sure she’d know how to come on to a guy even if she wanted to. Despite what Brad had told the world about her supposed inability to settle for one man, she was nowhere near as experienced as he’d portrayed her to be. Certainly not as experienced as the press had assumed in its relentless attempt to discover her nonexistent lovers.
It hadn’t helped that one enterprising reporter claimed to have unearthed two of them, then gone on to explain that they had refused to go public out of respect for how special the relationships had been. It had been the sort of tabloid treachery that couldn’t be refuted without adding fuel to the fire but fed the gossip and scandal just the same.
Hating where her thoughts had gone, she straightened her shoulders, smiled politely and took her son by the hand. Reenergized, Mikey could inadvertently do serious damage to her mother’s Mings. The large, ornate vases flanking the foyer staircases had survived for over four hundred years. Not only her mother but museum directors and antique dealers all over the country would weep to discover that in his first couple of hours in the house a three-year-old whirlwind had caused a crack or a chip, much less destroyed one.
She really needed her own place.
Doing her best imitation of her sister’s cool poise, she moved through the swinging door leading to the family dining room. Mikey trotted along beside her, looking around to check out the man following them. She felt like a tour guide as she called off the names of the still and silent rooms they entered and left. The music salon, the living room that was seldom lived in at all and used mostly for entertaining, the library, her father’s study, her mother’s office. The sunroom. The atrium. The family room. The game room. And that was before Parker helped her carry up the luggage he’d brought in along with the bags Eddy had left beside them and they went through the two wings of bedroom suites upstairs
Parker said little as he lifted back drapes, checked out windows and doors and looked up at the ceiling in search of heaven only knew what. She had no idea how his mind worked. She knew only that it was with some relief that he disappeared to retrieve his own luggage from the SUV while she and Mikey dined on the first meal she’d ever made.
The fact that it was good—very good—filled her with a definite sort of relief.
At least her son wouldn’t starve.
She would have thanked Parker for that. She didn’t see him, though, until after she had dumped their dishes in the sink, too tired to tackle them that night, and he knocked on her bedroom door.
Chapter Three
Tess was now officially exhausted. She’d lost nearly an entire night’s sleep to stress before she’d left Luzandria and she hadn’t slept on the plane at all. Having crossed multiple time zones, she wasn’t even sure how many hours she’d gone without rest. It didn’t matter. She was just hoping that Mikey’s hour-long nap before dinner wouldn’t keep him up past a bedtime story when her search for his pajamas was interrupted by three short raps on the door.
Leaving her son and the open suitcases on the daybed in her sitting room, she hurried past the king bed that had replaced her old twin, tossed a throw pillow from the floor onto the piles of powder-blue and cream pillows already covering it and pulled open the door.
Parker filled her doorway. Even with his white shirt open at the collar and his sleeves rolled to just below his elbows, he looked much as he had when she’d seen him a while ago. Just as staid. Just as professional.
He held something small and black out to her.
“Use this if you need me at night. Just flip back this guard, punch this key and I’ll be here.”
She took what looked like a small pager.
“The doors are all locked and the alarm set. I’ll be in my room,” he continued, glancing to where Mikey peeked around the corner. A smile tugged at the sensual line of his mouth as he winked at her son. That smile and the ease in it was gone by the time he looked back to her. “I think that’s everything,” he concluded, “so I’ll say good night.”
Her hand shot out as he started to turn. “Wait,” she said, pulling back before she could overstep the employee-employer line and grab his muscular forearm. “Thank you for helping me tonight. With dinner,” she murmured, because she didn’t want him to think she hadn’t appreciated what he’d done. He hadn’t had to offer the assist.
Though his smile had died, she offered a weary one of her own. “And thanks for this.” She held up the device that would keep her linked to him while she slept. Peace of mind in the palm of her hand. “Rest well.”
For a moment he simply looked at her. Then, incredibly, she saw his facade crack. That fissure was pathetically slight. Yet, as his glance slowly skimmed her tired features, it was enough to allow a bit of warmth back into the cool blue of his eyes. “You rest well, too,” he said, sounding as if he knew how badly she needed sleep. With a nod he added, “See you in the morning,” and left her staring at his back.
