But from the firm smile on Agatha’s face, perhaps it’s not my place to joke about that.
“We will be hiring from off-island,” she says.
“Of course,” I say back, matching her smile. I should figure they’ve got all this worked out. It accounts for how they’ve got trucks full of building materials out front, ready to go.
“It will be nice for the duke and duchess to have you next door,” Agatha says as she leads the way across the marble floors through the first level, which is sparsely decorated with some art prints of the Pacific Northwest. “We’re all a bit fish out of water at the moment.”
“That’s what I’m here for!” I say, way too enthusiastically. “Anything you need, any questions at all, I’m your gal.”
“I’m your gal”? This isn’t a forties screwball comedy, Piper.
I really need to dial it down a notch.
I glance up (way up) at Harrison, who has fallen in step beside me, expecting him to be giving me a look.
And he is. He looks rather amused.
But what’s catching me completely off guard is that his sunglasses are up on his head.
Which means, for the first time ever, I can see his eyes.
And . . . dear lord . . . am I in trouble.
Harrison’s eyes are this gorgeous blue, a color that flirts between the sky and smoky sage green. At the moment they’re crinkling slightly at the corners, yet I can tell how quickly they’d change in intensity. No wonder I could feel his gaze even beneath his glasses.
I swallow hard, unable to take my eyes away. At least until he raises his brow, those beautiful blues seeming to smirk at me.
They seem to ask, Which do you prefer, my eyes or my ass?
To which I’d say, That’s an impossible choice.
“Watch your step,” Agatha says quickly.
I look down in time to see that I’m in the middle of stepping off a landing.
Harrison’s arm shoots out and grabs me by the elbow with so much force that I’m practically frozen in mid-step before he pulls me back.
“Oops,” I say, giving him a quick, red-cheeked smile. Shit. I nearly ate it just because I was caught up looking at his eyes. I can only hope he doesn’t bring that up or else I’ll probably never stop hearing about it.
He lets go of my arm and gives me a nod, and still, there’s that amusement in his expression. The kind that says he’s laughing internally at me.
“Here we are,” Agatha says, leading me over to a living room type of area with a see-through gas fireplace in the middle and floor-to-ceiling windows. The room looks over their sloping backyard, a spacious tile patio among a cultivated rose garden and sun-bleached brown grass beyond that. There are a few massive fir and arbutus trees and a stone-worn path that leads down to the private dock where a fifty-foot powerboat is tied up, sea-green waves crashing against the hull. In the distance, a ferry passes.
It’s stunning. Absolutely. But in the back of my mind I can’t help but notice that this would be our view if it weren’t for where my house is situated and the trees that block it. It’s like I’m realizing for the first time that my mother and I really do live in what used to be a very rich family’s servants’ quarters. We’re buried in the trees, forgotten; they’re up here in the open with the sun and the waves.
“Please sit,” Agatha says, pointing to a modern-looking wing-back chair beside a polished wood coffee table. “I’ll let them know you’re here.”
She walks off, and I half expect Harrison to walk off too.
But of course not. He wouldn’t leave a potential “threat” alone in their house. He’s standing in front of me, as if I’m going to make a run for it and start rummaging through Monica’s underwear drawer or something, though his attention is out the window.
“Do you have the same view?” I ask him. I’m too nervous to sit down, so I just stand awkwardly by the chair.
He looks to me and gives me a strange look. Now I can see that laser focus in his eyes. It’s almost unnerving, like they’re seeing right through me. Maybe it would be better with his aviators back on.
“I beg your pardon?” he asks, his brows together in that formidable line.
I nod at the windows. “I was wondering if you had the same view. If you lived here with them.”
His face is like a mask. “I will be living . . .” He pauses, clears his throat. “I live above the garage. Agatha lives in the lower level.”
“Was it like that back in the UK? Did you live with them?”
“I had a cottage on the compound.”
“So this is a big change for you too.”
He shrugs with one shoulder. “I can deal.”