“I know. It’s just that… Look, about what just happened—”
“If you know, then what were you doing sashaying around naked?”
He saw her face flush. It was like watching the sun sweep across a pale sky.
She’d been behind a closed door. Naked was her business, not his. And she hadn’t been sashaying. He wasn’t even sure what the word meant.
The only certainty was that she’d slugged him. And it had been a slug to be proud of. It was just too bad it had taken his legs, what passed for his legs, out from under him.
That wasn’t what a man wanted. Getting dumped ass over teakettle by a gorgeous, naked woman—
“Here’s news that’s bound to shock you,” she said, her chin lifted, her eyes flashing, the color in her cheeks now a deep rose. “Most people are naked when they get out of the shower. And I wasn’t sashaying. Besides, no matter what I was or wasn’t doing, nothing gave you the right to beat down the door and—”
“I didn’t beat down anything! This miserable old house is falling apart. Things collapse if you breathe on them.” Nick narrowed his eyes. “And I wouldn’t have had to come up here at all if you’d been doing your job.”
“My job? My job?”
She blew a still-wet curl back from her eyes. Despite his anger, his chagrin at not being the man he’d once been, it was hard not to notice that she had beautiful hair, a dozen different shades of gold, even something he’d call champagne.
“I do not work for you, Mr. Gentry. Please keep that in mind.”
“You do work for me, Ms. Wilde.”
“I most certainly do not! Tomorrow, first thing—”
“But it isn’t tomorrow. Not yet. And you have a meal to cook—or did you think I wouldn’t hold you to that commitment?”
So much for feeling sorry she’d embarrassed him.
“I said I’d prepare supper,” she said coldly. “And I will.”
“When? At midnight?”
“You said your men eat at six.”
Nick raised one dark eyebrow. “And?”
“And, what? I don’t need more than an hour to make a meal.”
&nb
sp; Her chin rose another notch. She took a step toward him; the enormous robe slipped off her right shoulder, exposing pale skin and a couple of errant drops of water before she righted it.
Damn.
What a time for a man’s libido to decide to come back on line.
Nick shifted the crutch, hoped it would provide cover for his third erection of the afternoon—which just happened to be the third in the months since the accident.
“Your sex drive will come back,” one of his doctors had told him. Not that he’d asked, but the guy had read between the lines.
Yes, but what good was a rampant libido when it involved a woman with all the charm of a badger?
“Trust me, Mr. Gentry. Supper will be ready at six. Sharp.”
Nick checked his watch, looked at Lissa and flashed a grim smile.
“You must be one hell of a cook if you can have a meal on the table in less than fifteen minutes.”