“Who needs an assistant when you’re on hand?” he answers smoothly, but for the tight pinch between his brows.
“I like to be useful,” I retort. “Besides, if I don’t do it, who else will?” Don’t pretend you care, I want to add. The children and dog are my responsibility, and humoring the temperamental, my stock in trade. Just ask my creditors. “Anyway, what are you doing out here in the service corridor?”
“Looking for you.”
Trying to get me alone, more like, I can tell. Laser focused, he just gets this look, his intentions settling around him like a cloak. I got the impression I’d upset him earlier by suggesting our marriage would be hellish. Apparently not.
“Well, you’ve found me, but sorry, Van. I’m not playing tonight.” As I reach the bottom, I make as though to breeze past him when he catches me around the waist.
“That’s an interesting way to describe what’s between us.” Taking my hands in his, he slides them behind me, pressing me back against the curved banister. Everything inside me pulls tight, my pleasure points twinkling like fairy lights. Why him? After everything he put me through, why does it have to be him? Maybe I just like being held. Held and my body bent. Told what to do. And when. Well, in the bedroom. Not that anyone else ever has. He’s the only man who seems to know me, and I don’t just mean sexually. I sometimes feel like he can see into my head, see the less pleasant side of me. The side that no one else sees.
Urgh! Not helpful, brain.
“Nothing is going on between us.” Damn. That sounded less needy in my head.
“Because you’ve been avoiding me,” he purrs, as though my body needed further encouragement.
To counteract whatever my nipples might be doing, I scowl. It’s a genuine reaction because I suddenly can’t decide if it’s idiotic or ironic that this man is both my divorce rebound and the reason I married Tom in the first place.
Probably idiotic.
“Van, please. I’m busy. I have the boys with me this weekend.” I glance up the stairs behind me as though they might traipse down at any moment. They won’t, fortunately. They’re not on this side of the house. I’m not sure where they are. I only know that Hugh, my almost ten-year-old, has led Archie, his eight-year-old brother, and three other children off in a hunt for the headless gray lady, one of Kilblair Castle’s resident ghosts.
“Didn’t you bring their nanny?”
“I think you’ll find she’s a bit busy. You might’ve seen her in the ballroom. She’s the one on my brother’s arm. In the white dress?” I add far too sweetly.
If I’m an idiot, my brother is a cliché because he married my nanny. Sort of. A better woman he couldn’t have picked, even if it took him a couple of tries to get there. Speaking of first loves, I glance up into cool alpine glacier eyes. No. I’m not thinking about second times because that way madness lies.
“Holland has been duchess for a few months now,” he says, like I need reminding. I don’t. I’ve been here most days since Christmas, helping her settle into her role as doyen of this monstrosity. I was hoping it might free me up to concentrate on my business. It hasn’t yet, but she’ll get the hang of it. “Haven’t you hired anyone else?”
“Obviously not,” I complain, tugging on his hold. I could barely afford her in the first place. I just sort of borrowed her and supplemented her pay. “Let go of me, Van. I haven’t got time for this.”
I ignore the twinge of melancholy when he does. I’m just tired, I tell myself. Tired of keeping up the pretense that everything is as it should be. My once shit of a husband is late with his alimony payment, my car is overdue its annual service, the driveway to the mortgage pit I call a home has more potholes than gravel, and thanks to said shit of an ex’s habit of shirking his responsibilities, I’ll probably have to put next term’s school fees on my credit card. In short, I’m broke.
I really shouldn’t complain. I know poor is a relative term, and I’m so thankful that I’m not living in my car, but that silver spoon I was born with is very much tarnished these days. My once stylish updo is more an up-don’t, and this Valentino rental is more than a smidge too tight. I just want to go back to my room and kick off these party shoes that are older than my firstborn child.
“Come and have a drink with me, Isla.”
“Why?” I hate how I notice that he’s overdue a haircut as I curl my fingers against the urge to brush it back from his forehead.