The possibility left him feeling panicked, which was odd, considering he’d just made sure she got decorating experience with the express purpose of fast-tracking her exit from his life. Yet he couldn’t deny she was good at the job he’d actually hired her for, better than any of the qualified, professional nannies he’d hired over the past eighteen months. Down to earth and difficult to faze, Meg was the perfect caretaker for his wilful daughter.
Bryce thought of how she had felt in his arms.
She was perfect.
He shook his head as though he could so easily silence his inner voice. He couldn’t kiss her again — not ever. He shouldn’t have kissed her the first time.
The difference was now he knew what he was missing. Excitement, elation, pure bliss.
With resolute motions he prepared himself to head to the office.
***
On Friday morning, Meg was using the laptop Bryce had said she could use to research furniture suppliers online when the phone rang. Mrs Dunkirk beat Meg to it, and sent Meg a look that seemed to say phone answering was not her job, before turning away to speak into the receiver.
A moment later Meg’s ears pricked up at the older woman’s exclamation. ‘I told you not to try and lift that Mother! Why don’t you ever listen to me?’ A pause and then, ‘I’ll have to come right away, won’t I?’
Meg was waiting for details, not bothering to hide her interest when Mrs Dunkirk whirled around. The woman seemed harried. ‘My mother was trying to move a pot plant and has taken a fall. She can’t get up off the ground. It was lucky she had the mobile phone I gave her in her pocket. She’s called an ambulance and I’m going to meet it at the hospital.’
‘Crikey, you’d better get going Mrs D.’ When the other woman’s expression barely flickered at the way Meg had accidentally called her
Mrs D
, Meg knew she was very worried about her mother. She said, gently coaxing, ‘Just go, I’ll handle everything here today.’
‘You will?’ she asked doubtfully. ‘Even the dinner?’
Meg would have been insulted if she hadn’t been thoroughly used to the woman’s distrust of her by now. ‘I am capable of cooking, you know. I’ll call Bryce and let him know what’s going on. I’m sure he’ll insist you take the rest of the day off.’
The housekeeper muttered something about her taking liberties but, obviously preoccupied, she collected her bag and scurried out the door.
Moments later, Meg picked up the phone and dialled the number on the business card Bryce had left her in case of emergencies. It wasn’t long before the phone was answered by a woman with a smoothly cultured voice.
‘Bryce Carlton’s office.’
‘Hello my name is Meg Lacy. I was wondering if Bryce — Mr Carlton — was free to talk?’
‘What is your business with Mr Carlton please?
‘Oh, no business. It’s personal.’
‘I see. One moment please and I’ll see if he’s available.’
Meaning of course, she’ll see if he wants to talk to her.
Oh dear
, thought Meg,
what if he fobs me off?
She’d barely seen him in the three days since that mind-blowing encounter in the kitchen, although she’d thought of little else. Was he avoiding her?
Probably. Meg was certain he must be regretting what happened between them. He’d lost his bearings for a moment and had done something out of character. She’d be naïve to read more into the kiss.
It had been a wonderful kiss.
It was a terrible thing to do, Meg. You started it, throwing yourself at him like that.
Meg ran her fingers over her lips. She fancied she could recall every sweep of Bryce’s mouth over them, every shared, shallow breath.
She wished she could forget about it as easily as Bryce apparently could.
‘Meg, is everything all right? Is it Phillipa?’
‘No, no she’s fine,’ Meg assured him. ‘It’s Mrs Dunkirk’s mother. She’s had a fall and Mrs D’s had to go to the hospital.’
‘How bad is it?’
‘I’m not sure. I just thought you should know I’m on my own here.’
Meg rolled her eyes at herself. That last comment had made it sound as though she were lonely or something.
‘Did you need something else?’ he asked when the silence stretched on.
‘Ah, no. I only wanted to make sure it was okay that I told Mrs Dunkirk to take the rest of the day off.’
‘Of course. I would have insisted on it.’
‘That’s what I thought.’ Meg coughed nervously. She was making an absolute monkey of herself. ‘Um, and I need to know if you’ll be home for dinner tonight.’
There was a silence on the other end of the line. Then, ‘I’ll be home. Is there some reason I shouldn’t come home?’
Did his voice seem strained to her? Angry? ‘Of course not. I just thought you might have a… date. Or something. It is Friday night.’ Silently, Meg started to bang her head against the refrigerator.
‘I do not have a date.’ He did sound angry. Tersely, he demanded, ‘Do you?’
‘No!’ Did she have to make it seem like such a ludicrous proposition?
‘Because if you want the night off Meg, you need only say so.’
He could not care less if she was here or not, clearly. ‘I don’t want the night off. I don’t have a date.’
‘We never did discuss the protocol relating to boyfriends.’
‘Boyfriends plural?’ Meg gasped at his implication. Just because she had practically thrown herself at him a couple of times, didn’t mean she was hot to trot for anyone wearing trousers. He was a special case, the only man who’d ever made her behave so stupidly. Didn’t he know that? ‘Just what kind of girl do you think I am?’
‘A very attractive one,’ he stated plainly, causing Meg’s mouth to dangle open again. ‘I’m sure we’ll have to address this issue at some point.’
‘Eager to foist me off, are you?’ Meg inquired crossly before she could prevent the words coming out. It hurt her more than she cared to think about that he might be starting to see her as a thorn in his side.
‘Meg…’ He drew her name out in one long, frustrated syllable. She felt sure she could hear him tearing his hair out again. ‘Why don’t we discuss this later?’
‘Lovely,’ Meg said, in a very un-lovely voice. ‘But I will need your answer about dinner. I thought that if you were coming home I’d make something special. I didn’t want to go to any trouble if you were going out.’
Yikes. Something special made it sound romantic somehow, although that was not at all the way she’d intended it. She raced to add, ‘I thought I could discuss the ideas I’ve come up with for the dining room. Call it a business dinner.’
Bryce took his time thinking it over. Meg waited on tenterhooks for his response. At last he spoke. ‘If you’d like to cook, both Phillipa and I will be there.’
‘Okay,’ Meg breathed and closed her eyes, glad the embarrassing conversation was finally over. ‘I’ll see you this afternoon then,’ she said, and rang off before she could muddle things any further.
She had only about eight and a half seconds of relief before it hit her. She had said she’d cook something special for dinner. She had seen the meals Mrs Dunkirk prepared. They were arranged like modern works of art on the plate, with things like mango jus on the side. Meg didn’t know how to make things like that. Her idea of special was spaghetti bolognaise with a side order of Lambrusco.
Panicking in earnest, Meg raced to the cupboard in search of Mrs Dunkirk’s cookbooks.
***
Several hours later, Meg was no closer to achieving a new standard of perfection in
nouveau cuisine
than she had been when she had made the badly-thought-out call to Bryce’s office. The kitchen looked like a cyclone had been through it, every surface littered with one or another of her works in progress, failed creations that would never be sampled. It was hopeless. She could officially scratch apprentice chef off the list of possible careers, should the decorating thing not work out.
Meg had sunk to the floor and sat there, cross-legged, nibbling absently on a carrot stick that would never be glazed in honey sesame reduction now, when she heard the front door open. Oh great. Mrs Dunkirk had come back after all. What a kick the scene of Meg’s latest disaster would give her.
But it wasn’t Mrs Dunkirk’s voice that inquired with caustic interest, ‘Well, well, well. What do we have here?’
Meg looked up to see an elegant, immaculately maintained brunette standing in the kitchen doorway, a hand tipped with professionally manicured pink fingernails resting on one slender hip, the colour an attractive contrast to the cream linen of her designer pantsuit. If the long dark hair rolled into a French twist and the wide brown eyes hadn’t given it away, Meg’s memory of the photos lining Phillipa’s dressing table would have confirmed it.
She had been caught covered in flour and huddling on the floor of Bryce’s kitchen by his ex-wife, Isabelle.
She really wasn’t in the mood for this. Her polite inquiry sounded as forced as it was. ‘May I help you with something?’
A perfectly shaped dark brow hiked over one eye as Isabelle surveyed the room. ‘My dear, it doesn’t look to me as though you’d be any help to anyone right now. I assume you’re the new nanny my daughter’s been telling me about.’
‘You assume correctly.’ Meg pulled herself to her feet so she could face the other woman on equal footing. She felt a glimmer of satisfaction to find she was in fact an inch or so taller than the brunette. Not nearly as well proportioned and certainly not half as clean, but the small advantage gave her the temerity to fabricate the intimation that she didn’t know exactly who she was talking to. ‘My name is Meg, and yours is…?’
Isabelle’s laughter was both incredulous and snide. ‘Don’t be silly. You know perfectly well I’m Bryce’s wife.’
Ex-wife, Meg felt like correcting, but stopped herself from giving away how much it niggled her that the other woman had dropped the ex part of her title.
Don’t go acting like you have some kind of claim on Bryce, Meg. You’ll make an even bigger fool of yourself.
Instead she asked, ‘Is Phillipa with you?’
‘She’s upstairs collecting her things for the weekend. I picked her up from school early,’ she stated breezily as she swept past Meg toward the espresso machine and began operating it as though she were still the lady of the manor. ‘Paolo and I came back from our trip a few days early and I couldn’t wait to hear all Phillipa’s news and give her her presents.’
‘You’re taking her for the weekend? Does her father know?’
Isabelle turned and gave her a sharp look, her shiny pink lips pressing into a taut line. ‘The visitation arrangements I make with my daughter’s father are none of your concern.’
Meg bristled at the woman’s haughty tone. ‘As his daughter’s nanny I don’t believe Bryce would have made arrangements for you to take Phillipa without informing me.’
She saw the speculation that hovered over the other woman’s expression and mentally kicked herself for using Bryce’s first name. No matter that he was the one who insisted she do so in the first place, he was clearly the only one who saw nothing improper in it.
A gurgling noise from the espresso machine signalled that the coffee had been poured and at last Isabelle took her eyes off Meg long enough to collect the brew. Gliding to the breakfast bench, she sipped delicately at the short black while eyeing Meg over the rim of the white china cup.
At last she deigned to explain, ‘Bryce was in another one of his endless meetings, so I left a message with his secretary. He knew perfectly well Phillipa was coming to stay with me the minute I returned from my trip.’
Meg refrained from reminding the imperious woman of what she had just said — that she had come home early from her trip. Instead she affected a nonchalant shrug. ‘As long as Phillipa is happy to go…’
Her words trailed off when Isabelle laughed at her. ‘Of course she is. She’s ecstatic.’
The implication seemed to be that she was ecstatic to be escaping the abysmal company of the nanny.
‘I would have thought you’d be happy to have an unexpected weekend off,’ Isabelle went on with a casualness Meg suspected concealed shrewd interest. ‘You can go out with friends, get away from this stodgy place.’ She gave the surroundings the once-over, her nose twitching ever-so-slightly to express distaste.
There was something else besides the awkward possibility of either of them dating that she and Bryce hadn’t yet discussed — what she would do with herself when Phillipa went to stay with her mother. She’d given up her apartment the minute she’d been hired here, and Jessica had rented out the second room almost immediately because Lachlan lost had his job and they couldn’t afford the rent by themselves after all. While it might be fun to visit Jessica, Meg didn’t think spending the entire weekend on the pull-out couch while her former flatmate and her boyfriend got amorous in their room sounded like two days in paradise.
Something of what she was thinking must have telegraphed on her face, because Isabelle’s gaze turned acidly amused. ‘Surely you don’t think you can stay here, you and Bryce alone?’ she asked maliciously. ‘You think he might notice you, as a woman, if you hang around here long enough? Sweetie, you’ll only make a fool of yourself, or be sent packing by my daughter as soon as she gets wind of it.’
Gosh, they had quite the team effort going here. Isabelle, Phillipa and Mrs Dunkirk, all scaring off any woman who showed the slightest interest in Bryce. All for different reasons – Mrs Dunkirk was being protective in a motherly kind of way, Phillipa was afraid of losing her father’s affection. As for Isabelle’s motivations, she could only guess.
Isabelle carried on. ‘Whatever silly fantasies you have in your head about you and Bryce will amount to nothing. That man is used to women of class and sophistication.’ From the proud tilt of her chin Meg could only guess Isabelle included herself in those categories. The contemptuous glance she raked over Meg’s shabby appearance was equally as telling, her next words aiming right for the heart of Meg’s self-esteem. ‘He’s hardly going to have his head turned by you.’
The drawled words from the kitchen doorway had both women turning to see the subject of their discussion regarding the scene with curiosity. ‘Hello Isabelle. You’re winning Meg over with your charms I see.’