What a Woman Wants (A Manley Maids Novel) (5 page)

S
EAN
jerked his head to look into those eyes he’d wanted to drown in moments ago—and wanted to go under again.

But, good God, this was a really bad idea.

“If your pig thinks he’s a cat, why is he acting like a guard dog?” He needed to put some sense into the moment and if guard pigs were it, then he was definitely in a lot of trouble.

But it did the trick; Livvy’s eyes danced with laughter. “Reggie’s a little, um, jealous of anyone who gets more attention than he does. It could be Calliope, it could be Rhett. He doesn’t have anything against you specifically.”

Oh, yes, Reggie did. The pig’s
snout
was against him. In a very inopportune spot. One toss of the animal’s head and Sean would be singing soprano for a while. “Care to call him off?”

Livvy chuckled again and took a step back. Sean felt the loss immediately. But he also felt Reggie ease away. The thing glared at him as it did so.

Sean nodded at the animal. “Effective.”

Livvy shrugged—and it did way too many good things to the thin shirt still plastered to her chest. If Reggie hadn’t grunted a warning, Sean would have closed the gap between them again.

That, however, wouldn’t be smart. He had to stay far, far away from Livvy Carolla.

But then she tossed her curls over her shoulder, the curve of her neck reminding him he hadn’t gotten to taste that part of her yet.

“Why’d you do that?”

Because it’d been a better idea than getting her upstairs and out of those clothes. “You mean kiss you?”

She nibbled on her index finger and Sean wanted to groan. The tip of her tongue, a hint of pink, that sweet tart taste of apples . . .

“Uh, yeah. That.”

“A guy needs a reason to want to kiss a sexy woman?”

She snorted. “Oh, puh-leaze. I look like a drowning poodle.” She brushed her hands in front of her skirt and looked down . . .

And saw what he saw.

Those amber eyes shot back to his.

He tried to hide his smile. “I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, well . . .” She drew her hair forward and hunched her shoulders, crossing her arms for more protection.
His
protection, if she only knew. “Do you make a habit of kissing rain-drenched women? Must make you quite the popular guy. I’m surprised no one’s rearranged your pretty-boy face yet.”

“You weren’t exactly fighting me off.”

“You weren’t exactly giving me the chance.”

“Nice try, Princess, but your sigh and that tongue sliding into my mouth were pure come-on. Don’t go putting all of this on me. I would’ve stopped any time you put up a fuss.” And if he believed that, he’d have no doubts that he was going to end up with this place.

“I could fire you, you know.”

“Yes. You could. But then who’d show you around? Give you the keys? Clean out your barn?” Sean used bravado to cover up the very real fear she
would
fire him. What had he been thinking? Breaking the contract with Manley Maids was the last thing he wanted her to do.

“Look, I’m sorry.” He blew out a breath and raked his hands through his hair. “It won’t happen again. I guess I just misinterpreted the interest.” Right. That might not have been the reason her nipples had been saluting him at first, but she’d been as into the moment as he had.

But the project was what was important: getting her to fail. He’d do whatever it took to stay here.

Including keeping away from one hot Livvy Carolla.

M
ISINTERPRETED
the interest.
Oh, he hadn’t misinterpreted anything, but Livvy wasn’t about to admit it. What on earth had she been thinking, kissing him like that? The man was a perfect stranger.

“Perfect” being the operative word.

She certainly couldn’t disagree with him. She hadn’t put up a fuss because kissing him had seemed the right thing to do.

Right thing to do—sheesh. Now she was thinking like her mother.

Of course, if Mom hadn’t thought kissing
the worm
was the right thing to do, Livvy wouldn’t be standing here, staring at the most gorgeous guy she’d ever met.

“Fine. Apology accepted. Let’s just not have a repeat, okay?” Thunder rumbled the panes of glass again as the rain picked up. Another flash of lightning made Rhett snort in the corner. Daisy started snorting and the goats jumped over each other, trying for higher ground. Reggie did what he always did during a storm—scrambled between her legs, coughing as if he had something stuck in his snout.

And then she heard the screechy rendition of “Yellow Submarine” echoing through the foyer: Orwell at his most frightened.

“Watch these guys,” she told Sean as she herded Reggie toward him by the bell collar. “I’ll be right back.”

“Watch them?” Sean took the harness for a second, then dropped it as if it were on fire. “What do you mean,
watch them
?”

“Let Reggie stand next to you and don’t let the others start nipping each other. Especially the alpacas. I need their fleece in good shape.” If Sean had felt any attraction to her before that moment, it had to be gone now; he was looking at her as though she had a few screws loose. But it couldn’t be helped. Orwell would only get louder and work himself into a state, and it’d take him days to calm down. A psycho parrot was not good company.

She bolted through the doorway, wincing as Orwell started in on the chorus.

Taking the steps two at a time, Livvy flew up them and into her room, swooping up the parrot’s cage and high-tailing it into the closet. The moment darkness enveloped him, Orwell calmed down. Traveling and being alone in a storm: his two worst nightmares.

Livvy reined in her breathing and searched for the latch to the birdcage. He’d be fine once he was on her shoulder.

Sure enough, he hopped onto her hand, then scrambled up her arm, making her wish she’d worn long sleeves. He leaned over and, with a loud smacking sound, gave her the non-biting version of a parrot’s kiss.

“Good boy, Orwell,” he said.

“Good boy, Orwell.” Livvy stroked his head, then opened the closet door.

To find Sean standing in the doorway to her room.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“What was that?” Sean asked at the same moment as another crash of thunder drowned their words.

Orwell stuck his head beneath her hair.

“Sean, what are you doing here? Didn’t you hear me? You have to watch the alpacas.”

“Alpaca watching is not part of my job description. And your damn pig almost broke my kneecap at that last bolt of lightning.” He took a step into the room and looked at her shoulder. “A bird? You ran up here for a bird?”

She huffed and shook her head, then skirted around him. “Yes, I ran up here for a bird. Didn’t you hear him screeching?” She headed toward the stairs. Rhett could get very temperamental, and Daisy could be overly protective of her lambs. Livvy couldn’t afford to have their wool damaged.

She stopped on the second stair from the bottom. Actually, she
could
afford to have their wool damaged. Imagine that.

Then she shook her head. It didn’t matter what she could afford; she didn’t need neurotic animals. She’d worked hard to give them a sense of security after the instability of their lives before she’d rescued them.

She took the last two steps as Sean caught up with her. He followed her back inside the room to find—

Oh, joy. Rhett and Scarlett had found a new way to ignore the storm.

Right in the middle of the rug.

O
H
hell. The animals were
doing it
in the middle of the room. On the half-eaten rug.

Sean started laughing. Insanity. Crazy, absurd insanity. Here he was in a room furnished with priceless antiques, planning to convert it into a reception room for no-expenses-spared weddings, and there was alpaca copulation going on. And one of the sexiest women he’d seen in a long time—whom he’d just kissed at great risk to his job and his company’s future—was standing there in almost see-through wet clothing with a parrot on her shoulder.

A singing parrot. Whose off-key rendition of “I’m in the Mood for Love”
was hysterically appropriate.

“Shh! Orwell! Bad boy! Bad boy!” Livvy tried to clamp the parrot’s beak shut. “Ow!”

Yeah, she wasn’t successful.

But Rhett, ol’ boy, sure was. With a back-shivering grunt, the alpaca removed himself from his lady, then took to preening around the room as if he’d just performed the greatest service in the world.

Sean glanced at Livvy, whose nipples were
still
outlined beneath her shirt. He wasn’t about to begrudge Rhett one second of crowing. Lord knew,
he’d
do the same thing if it wouldn’t get him fired—making love to her
and
crowing about it, that was.

Sean shook his head.
Mind back on the job.
Not
the woman.
Even if she
was
the job.

And then the doorbell sounded.

“I’ll get it,” he said, leaping over a baby goat, almost taking one to the nuts as the kid jumped at the same time.

He left Livvy in the asylum and sprinted to the door, opening it as a flash of lightning outlined the man standing there like Lurch.

“Can I help you?”

Sharp eyes drilled him beneath an overhanging brow, rain dripping off an umbrella onto Sean’s shoes. “I’m here to see Miss Olivia Carolla.”

“She’s a bit busy at the moment. I’m assuming you want to wait?”

“Thank you. I’m Benjamin Scanlon, her attorney. Or, rather, the estate’s attorney.”

Sean worked hard at keeping the grin off his face and the calculation out of his eyes. The attorney. The guy he’d been trying to talk to ever since Mrs. Martinson’s death. The one who held the keys to this kingdom. And who was about to hand them over to Livvy—though not if Sean could help it.

“No problem at all. You can wait in here.” He directed the lawyer to the Victorian-era study. “Want some coffee or something? A beer?”

“I’d love a beer, but in this mess”—the lawyer nodded as another crash of thunder reverberated overhead, complete with a bunch of snorts and whinnies from the room down the hall—“I’d better not since I’m driving. Coffee it’ll have to be.”

It was just the excuse Sean needed to make sure Livvy was doing okay on her own with the zoo. And that they’d keep her occupied long enough for him to get some info from her lawyer.

Ignoring his guilty conscience, Sean pulled the door to the study closed, ran down the hall to the living room, tiptoed past when Livvy’s back was turned, went out through the French doors at the back of the hall, and slipped over to the ones from the living room to the patio, praying one curious lamb would find the opening he’d made with the door.

L
IVVY
whirled around as Rhett tried to bite Orwell and Orwell tried to bite him back. These two never got along, and the storm’s electricity only made them antsier.

Kind of what the electricity she had with Sean did to her.

Livvy snorted. She’d made out with the maid. Wouldn’t the girls at school be surprised? And even more so once they’d gotten a look at said “maid.” Good-looking and he could kiss. He’d probably had so much practice at the second because of the first that she really shouldn’t be surprised.

Rhett hocked a big noisy one at Orwell, but the bird managed to dodge it, leaving her cheek the perfect target, erasing the memory of Sean’s kiss faster than anything else could. Ugh.

“Knock it off, Rhett.” She tried to shove the brute sideways, but he’d wedged himself next to the curio cabinet and wouldn’t budge.

Total analogy for her life and the family she’d come from.

But things would change once this place was hers. She’d be able to do whatever she wanted with it. Sell it, donate it, or even tear it down, and no one could tell her otherwise. She’d finally be able to put the past behind her and pay them back for the disinterested hell they’d put her through. Mom, too.

And speaking of hell . . . The geese had settled onto the sideboard and were nipping at the kids as they tried to jump up with them. Randy, appropriately named, almost made it, but he slipped off and landed on top of Buttercup, who took off with a loud bleat and made a beeline for the opening in the French doors—

How in the world did
that
happen? She could have sworn she’d shut them.

And then it didn’t matter how it happened because Buttercup slipped out into the storm.

Livvy took off after the scared little lamb. Daisy had the same idea. They met with a crash against each other and the doorframe, with Livvy’s leg taking the worst of it. Or rather, her butt did as she landed with a spine-jarring thud, cold wet marble not being the optimal surface to land on.

Out Daisy went.

This only encouraged the rest of the ewe’s triplets to follow. And then the kids followed suit, which, naturally, had their mother after them in yet another parade.

Livvy scrambled to her feet, shoved Digger aside, and launched herself through the door onto Daisy’s back just before the sheep could ram into the wrought iron sofa and set everyone free.

Cursing the rain, her grandmother, Daisy, Buttercup, and most especially Randy for starting it all, Livvy managed to round them all up after fifteen minutes that felt more like fifteen years.

Where the hell was that sexy maid guy that had come with this place? It’d been much easier when she’d had him there to help her.

Finally, with hair so wet there wasn’t a spring of curl left in it, her shirt doing double duty as a sponge, and the skirt more a hindrance than anything else, Livvy managed to corral all of the animals back inside where they went back to happily munching the rug. That reminded her; she needed to get them their feed from the barn where the driver had left it.

At least it was dry. Too bad she couldn’t say the same for anything else in this room. Well, except for Orwell. Who was singing a Beatles’ medley at the top of his tiny little bird lungs fifteen feet up in the air on the corbel holding up the curtains.

Now how was she supposed to get him down from there?

A
RE
you sure she’s not available yet?” The lawyer set the tiny little china cup—the only serving glasses Sean could find—onto the mahogany desk.

Sean had, luckily, found an old jar of instant coffee in one of the cabinets, and prayed he wouldn’t accidentally kill the guy with rot before he got the answers he wanted.

“She’ll be along in a little bit. Some, ah, husbandry issues.”

“Husbandly? You’re married?”

It
couldn’t
be that easy, could it?

“Oh, not yet.” Technically, it wasn’t a lie. Scanlon hadn’t specified
who
Sean was married to, and, he
had
been thinking about the equivalent of husbandly rights in that living room a half hour ago.

Yeah, yeah, semantics, but he needed this property—almost to the point of compromising his principles.

No. There was no “almost” about it. Principles had been compromised the minute he’d put on this uniform knowing that he was going to have a fight on his hands because of the will. But he needed this property.
Needed
it. The rest of his company, hell, his future, was dependent on this deal, thereby putting his principles out of the picture. But it’d be a hell of a lot easier if he didn’t like her so much.

“So, um . . .” Sean set his own coffee cup down, hiked up the front of his pants, and sat in a chair beside yet another ornate fireplace. This house had ten, each a different style and each one with the original marble or stone surrounds. He’d done his research, and the description of each was already part of his brochure mock-up. Yeah, he was that far along in his plans. Had been for a while before Merriweather had tossed in her wrench. “What did you need to talk to Livvy about?”

Scanlon pasted an I-wasn’t-born-yesterday-son smile on his face. “I’m afraid I can only discuss that with her. You understand.”

Unfortunately, he did. So much for that tactic.

“Right. So . . . how long did you know Mrs. Martinson?”

The lawyer sat back and his lips relaxed into a shadow of a smile. “My firm has been representing the Martinson interests for generations.”

“Bet you guys know where all the skeletons are, huh?”

Scanlon’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not at liberty to discuss Martinson family matters.”

“Of course. I just meant, Livvy’s probably one in a long list that the Martinson money has hidden. It probably really got to Mrs. Martinson that her granddaughter was the only person she had to leave it all to.”

Yes, he was fishing, since he already knew Livvy hadn’t been Merriweather’s only option, but what could the
housekeeper
know, right? And if he read the lawyer correctly, the guy had been either infatuated with, or in awe of, the
grande dame
. Either could have him defending her. And hopefully giving something up.

“Mrs. Martinson did not have to leave it to Ms. Carolla. She could do whatever she wanted with the estate. It was hers. Family has always been important to Mrs. Martinson, and that is why she chose to do what she did.”

But with stipulations.

“Kind of a gamble, though, isn’t it? I mean, her giving all that money and this place to the granddaughter she’s barely spoken to? How did she know Livvy wouldn’t blow it on parties or fortune hunters?” Sean pretended to take a sip of the coffee. “Could be Mrs. Martinson was, you know.” He tapped his temple. “Old age and all.”

The lawyer, no spring chicken himself, took the appropriate offense. “Merriweather Martinson was of sound mind and body when she wrote her will. I, personally, can attest to that. She knew exactly what she was doing. She wanted to give her granddaughter a chance to get to know her history. That’s why the will was set up—” Scanlon set down his coffee cup. “Well.” He cleared his throat. “That’s why I’m here. I’m not at liberty to say any more.”

The family history was the key.

“What if Livvy doesn’t want to accept it?”

Scanlon’s cup rattled in the saucer. “Not accept it? I highly doubt that will happen. Who wouldn’t accept such a generous bequest?”

“True. This place has to be worth a fortune.” It was. Sean knew exactly how much, down to the last nickel.

The lawyer eyed Sean’s outfit. “I can see where that would be your first thought, but money isn’t everything.”

Said by a guy in a thousand-dollar suit and gold cuff links. Old money if ever Sean saw it. That “managed the Martinson affairs for generations” sealed the deal. The guy didn’t know what it was like to be
this close
to making his mark. Didn’t know what it was like to have everything hinge on one deal. Not like Sean did. And that was just the monetary aspect of it. Never mind that his sense of self-worth was tied up in pulling this off. That he’d be the least successful Manley sibling if he couldn’t.

Sean didn’t go there. All his life he’d had to work harder than his brothers. He was used to it. But this . . . This was out of his control unless he could figure out the stipulations and beat Livvy at them.

He didn’t understand it. Mrs. Martinson had been on board with his plans for the last three years, always taking a look at the plans and suggesting other changes. She’d liked the idea of keeping the historic beauty of the place—as well as the continuing legacy of the family name. She’d even signed paperwork to that effect, but his attorney said legal maneuverings with her new will could make the battle tricky. And costly. So costly, he’d never be able to do what he wanted with the property
if
he eventually prevailed.

It’d been a calculated risk, but calculated risk was all part of his business.

All he had to do was convince Livvy to give it up.