She wondered if her gratitude for having found such a cushy job had blinded her to the fact that she was now working for a man who seemed to think he had the right to talk to her as if she were nothing, just because he was in a filthy mood.
She stilled her spoon and crashed the copper bowl down on the table, aware that already the air would be leaving those carefully beaten egg whites—but suddenly she didn’t care. Perhaps she’d been in danger of caring a bit too much what Lucas Conway had for his supper, instead of looking after herself. ‘Then maybe you should find yourself someone who does know their place,’ she declared.
Lucas turned round from the coffee machine with a slightly bemused look on his face. ‘I’m sorry?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s too late for an apology, Lucas.’
‘I wasn’t apologising,’ he ground out. ‘I was trying to work out what the hell you’re talking about.’
Now he was making her sound as if she were incapable of stringing a coherent sentence together! ‘I’m talking about knowing my place,’ Tara repeated, with an indignation which felt new and peculiar but oddly...liberating. ‘I was trying to be kind to Charlotte because she was crying, and because I’ve actually spent several months of my life trying to wash her lipstick out of your pillowcases—so it wasn’t like she was a complete stranger to me. And I once found one of her diamond studs when it was wedged into the floorboards of the dining room and she bought me a nice big bunch of flowers as a thank-you present. So what was I expected to do when she turned up today with mascara running all down her cheeks?’ She glared at him. ‘Turn her away?’
‘Tara—’
‘Do you think she was in any fit state to drive in that condition—with her eyes full of tears and her shoulders heaving?’
‘Tara. I seem to have missed something along the way.’ Lucas put his untouched coffee cup down on the table with as close an expression to incomprehension as she’d ever seen on those ruggedly handsome features. ‘What’s got into you all of a sudden?’
Tara still didn’t know. Was it something to do with the dismissive way her boss’s gaze had flicked over her admittedly disobedient hair when he’d walked into the kitchen? As if she were not a woman at all, but some odd-looking robot designed to cook and clean for him. She wondered if he would have looked like that if Mona O’Sullivan had been standing there whipping him up a cheese soufflé, with her high heels and her luscious curves accentuated by a tight belt.
But you dress like a frump deliberately, a small voice in her head reminded her. You always have done. You were taught that the safest way to be around men was to make yourself look invisible and you heeded that lesson well. So what do you expect?
And suddenly she saw exactly what she might expect. More of the same for the countless days which lay ahead of her. More of working her fingers to the bone for a man who didn’t really appreciate her—and that maybe it was time to break out and reach for something new. To find herself a job in a big, noisy house with lots of children running around—wouldn’t that be something which might fulfil her?
‘I’ve decided I need a change of direction,’ she said firmly.
‘What are you talking about?’
Tara hesitated. Lucas Conway might be the biggest pain in the world at times, but surely he would give her a glowing reference as she’d worked for him since she’d been eighteen years old—when she’d arrived in the big city, slightly daunted by all the traffic, and the noise. ‘A new job,’ she elaborated.
He narrowed his stunning eyes—eyes as green as the valleys of Connemara. ‘A new job?’
‘That’s right,’ she agreed, thinking how satisfying it was to see the normally unflappable billionaire looking so perplexed. ‘I’ve worked for you for almost six years, Lucas,’ she informed him coolly. ‘Surely you don’t expect me to still be cooking and cleaning for you when you reach retirement age?’
From the deepening of his frown, he was clearly having difficulty getting his head around the idea of retirement and, indeed, Tara herself couldn’t really imagine this very vital man ever stopping work for long enough to wind down.
‘I shouldn’t have spoken to you so rudely,’ he said slowly. ‘And that is an apology.’
‘No, you shouldn’t,’ she agreed. ‘But maybe you’ve done me a favour. It’s about time I started looking for a new job.’
He shook his head and gave a bland but determined smile. ‘You can’t do that.’
Tara stilled. It was a long time since anyone had said those words to her, but it was the refrain which had defined her childhood.
You can’t do that, Tara.
You mustn’t do that, Tara.
She had been the scapegoat—carrying the can for the sins of her mother and of her grandmother before her. She had been expected to nod and keep her head down, never to make waves. To be obedient and hard-working and do as she was told. To stay away from boys because they only brought trouble with them.
And she’d learned her lessons well. She’d never been in a relationship. There hadn’t been anyone to speak of since she’d arrived in Dublin and had gone on a few disastrous dates, encouraged by her friend Stella. She tried her best to forget the couple of encounters she’d shared with one of the farm hands back home, just before she’d left for the big city and landed the first job she’d been interviewed for. The agency had warned her that Lucas Conway was notoriously difficult to work for and she probably wouldn’t last longer than the month but somehow she had proved them wrong. She earned more money than she’d ever imagined just by keeping his house clean, his shirts ironed and by putting a hot meal in front of him, when he wasn’t gallivanting around the globe. It wasn’t exactly brain surgery, was it?
On that first morning she had slipped on her polyester housecoat and, apart from a foreign holiday every year, that was where she’d been ever since, in his beautiful home in Dalkey. She frowned. Why did Lucas even own a place this big when he lived in it all on his own, save for her, carefully hidden away at the top of the vast house like someone in a Gothic novel? It wasn’t as if he were showing any signs of settling down, was it? Why, she’d even seen him recoil in horror when his friend Finn Delaney had turned up one day with his wife Catherine and their brand-new baby.
‘You can’t stop me from leaving, Lucas,’ she said, with a touch of defiance. ‘I’ll work my month’s notice and you can find someone else. That won’t be a problem—people will be queuing up around the block for a job like this. You know they will.’
Lucas looked at her and told himself to just let her go, because she was right. There had been dozens of applicants for the job last time he’d advertised and nothing much had changed in the years since Tara had been working for him, except that his bank balance had become even more inflated and he could easily afford to hire a whole battalion of staff, should the need arise.
But the young redhead from the country did more than just act as his housekeeper—sometimes it felt as if she kept his whole life ticking over. She didn’t mind hard work and once he had asked her why she sometimes got down on her hands and knees to scrub the kitchen floor, when there was a perfectly serviceable mop to be had.
‘Because a mop won’t reach in the nooks and crannies,’ she’d answered, looking at him as if he should have known something as basic as that.
He frowned. She wasn’t just good at her job, she was also reliable, and no laundry could ever press a shirt as well as Tara Fitzpatrick did. It was true that sometimes she chattered too much—but on the plus side, she didn’t go out as often as other young women her age so she was always available when he needed her. If he asked her to cook when he had people over for dinner she happily obliged—and her culinary repertoire had greatly improved since he’d arranged for her to go on an upmarket cookery course, after pointing out there were other things you could eat, rather than meat pie. As far as he knew, she never gossiped about him and t
He didn’t want her to leave.
Especially not now.
He felt the pound of his heart.
Not when he needed to go to the States to deal with the past, having been contacted by a lawyer hinting at something unusual, which had inexplicably filled him with dread. A trip he knew couldn’t be avoided, no matter how much he would have preferred to. But the attorney’s letter had been insistent. He swallowed. He hadn’t been back to New York for years and that had been a deliberate choice. It was too full of memories. Bitter memories. And why confront stuff which made you feel uncomfortable, when avoidance was relatively simple?
Lucas allowed his gaze to skim down over the old-fashioned denim jeans Tara wore beneath her housecoat. Baggy and slightly too short, they looked as if they’d be more appropriate for working on a farm. No wonder she’d never brought a man back in all the time she worked for him when injecting a little glamour into her appearance seemed to be an unknown concept to her. And wasn’t that another reason why he regarded her as the personification of rock-like reliability? She wasn’t surreptitiously texting when she should have been working, was she? Nor gazing into space vacantly, mooning over some heartbreaker who’d recently let her down. Despite her slender build, she was strong and fit and he couldn’t contemplate the thought of trying to find a replacement for her, not when he was focussed on that damned letter.
He wondered how much money it would take to get her to change her mind, and then frowned. Because in that way Tara seemed different from every other woman he’d ever had dealings with. She didn’t openly lust after expensive clothes or belongings—not if her appearance was anything to go by. She wore no jewellery at all and, as far as he knew, she must be saving most of the salary he paid her, since he’d seen no signs of conspicuous spending—unless you counted the second-hand bicycle she’d purchased within a fortnight of coming to live here. The one with the very loud and irritating bell.
Lucas wasn’t particularly interested in human nature but that didn’t mean he couldn’t recognise certain aspects of it, and it seemed to him that a woman who wasn’t particularly interested in money would be unlikely to allow a salary increase to change her mind.
And then he had an idea. An idea so audacious and yet so brilliant that he couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to him before. Sensing triumph, he felt the flicker of a smile curving the edges of his mouth.
‘Before you decide definitely to leave, Tara,’ he said, ‘why don’t we discuss a couple of alternative plans for your future?’
‘What are you talking about?’ she questioned suspiciously. ‘What sort of plans?’
His smile was slow and, deliberately, he made it reach his eyes. It was the smile he used when he was determined to get something and it was rare enough to stop people in their tracks. Women sometimes called it his killer smile. ‘Not here and not now—not when you’re working,’ he said—a wave of his hand indicating the rows of copper pans which she kept so carefully gleaming. ‘Why don’t we have dinner together tonight so we can talk about it in comfort?’
‘Dinner?’ she echoed, with the same kind of horrified uncertainty she might have used if he’d suggested they both dance naked in Phoenix Park. ‘You’re saying you want to have dinner with me?’
It wasn’t exactly the way he would have expressed it—but want and need were pretty interchangeable, weren’t they? Especially to a man like him. ‘Why not?’ he questioned softly. ‘You have to eat and so do I.’
Her gaze fell to the collapsing mixture in her bowl. ‘But I’m supposed to be making a cheese soufflé.’
‘Forget the soufflé,’ he gritted out. ‘We’ll go to a restaurant. Your choice,’ he added magnanimously, for he doubted she would ever have set foot inside one of Dublin’s finer establishments. ‘Why don’t you book somewhere for, say, seven-thirty?’
She was still blinking at him with disbelief, her pale lashes shuttering those strange amber eyes, until at last she nodded with a reluctance which somehow managed to be mildly insulting. Since when did someone take so long to deliberate about having dinner with him?
‘Okay,’ she said cautiously, with the air of someone feeling her way around in the dark. ‘I don’t see why not.’
CHAPTER TWO
THE AIR DOWN by the River Liffey offered no cooling respite against the muggy oppression of the evening and Lucas scowled as they walked along the quayside, unable to quite believe where he was. When he’d told Tara to choose a restaurant, he’d imagined she would immediately plump for one of Dublin’s many fine eating establishments. He’d envisaged drawing up outside a discreetly lit building in one of the city’s fancier streets with doormen springing to attention, instead of heading towards a distinctly edgy building which stood beside the dark gleam of the water.
‘What is this place?’ he demanded as at last they stopped beneath a red and white sign and she lifted her hand to open the door.
‘It’s a restaurant. A Polish restaurant,’ she supplied, adding defensively, ‘You told me to choose somewhere and so I did.’
He wanted to ask why but by then she had pushed the door open and a tinny bell was announcing their arrival. The place was surprisingly full of mainly young diners and an apple-cheeked woman in a white apron squealed her excitement before approaching and flinging her arms around Tara as if she were her long-lost daughter. A couple of interminable minutes followed, during which Lucas heard Tara hiss, ‘My boss...’ which was when the man behind the bar stopped pouring some frothy golden beer to pierce him with a suspicious look which was almost challenging.
Lucas felt like going straight back out the way he had come in but he was hungry and they were being shown to a table which was like a throwback to the last century—with its red and white checked tablecloth and a dripping candle jammed into the neck of an empty wine bottle. He waited until they were seated before he leaned across the table, his voice low.
‘Would you mind telling me why you chose to come and eat here out of all places in Dublin?’ he bit out.
‘Because Maria and her husband were very kind to me when I first came to the city and didn’t know many people. And I happen to like it here—there’s life and bustle and colour on the banks of the river. Plus it’s cheap.’
‘But I’m paying, Tara,’ he objected softly. ‘And budget isn’t an option. You know that.’
Tara pursed her lips and didn’t pass comment even though she wanted to suggest that maybe budget should be an option. That it might do the crazily rich Lucas Conway good to have to eat in restaurants which didn’t involve remortgaging your house in order to pay the bill—that was if you were lucky enough to actually have a mortgage, which, naturally, she didn’t. She felt like telling him she’d been terrified of choosing the kind of place she knew he usually frequented because she simply didn’t have the kind of wardrobe—or the confidence—which would have fitted into such an upmarket venue. But instead she just pursed her lips together and smiled as she hung her handbag over the back of her chair, still pinching herself to think she was here.
With him.
Her boss.
Her boss who had turned the head of everyone in the restaurant the moment he’d walked in, with his striking good looks and a powerful aura which spoke of wealth and privilege.
She shook her hair, which she’d left loose, and realised that for once he was staring at her as if she were a real person, rather than just part of the fixtures and fittings. And how ironic it should be that this state of affairs had only come about because she’d told him she was leaving, which had led to him bizarrely inviting her to dinner. Did he find it as strange as she did for them to be together in a restaurant like this? she wondered. Just as she wondered if he would be as shocked as she was to discover that, for once. she was far from immune to his physical appeal.
So why was that? Why—after nearly six years of working for him when her most common reaction towards him had been one of exasperation—should she suddenly start displaying all the signs of being attracted to him? Because she prided herself on not being like all those other women who stared at him lustfully whenever he swam into view. It might have had something to do with the fact that he had very few secrets from her. She did his laundry. She even ironed his underpants and she’d always done it with an unfeigned impartiality. At home it had been easy to stick him in the categories marked ‘boss’ and ‘off-limits’, because arrogant billionaires were way above her pay grade, but tonight he seemed like neither of these things. He seemed deliciously and dangerously accessible. Was it because they were sitting facing each other across a small table, which meant she was noticing things about him which didn’t normally register on her radar?
Like his body, for example. Had she ever properly registered just how broad his shoulders were? She didn’t think so. Just as the sight of two buttons undone on his denim shirt didn’t normally have the power to bring her out in a rash of goosebumps. She swallowed. In the candlelight, his olive skin was glowing like dark gold and casting entrancing shadows over his high cheekbones and ruggedly handsome face. She could feel her throat growing dry and her breasts tightening and wondered what had possessed her to agree to have dinner with him tonight, almost as if the two of them were on a date.
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