A Tempting Engagement

“No,” Emily replied truthfully. Probably too truthfully, seeing as Chantal would now go digging for another explanation. She was very much like her brother in that way.

“What are you making?”

“This soup.” Emily pointed to the recipe card on the bench. “Is that all right?”

Chantal laughed. “Anything I don’t have to prepare is fine by me.”

Emily continued chopping vegetables. What-are-you-making-for-dinner had been a diversion, to settle her down. Questioning would resume shortly.

“I was talking to my brother earlier,” the inquisitor continued with a deceptive casualness that didn’t deceive Emily.

Her knife skidded off the side of a carrot. She didn’t dare look up, to see the smug satisfaction on Chantal’s face at finding the answer to her why-is-Emily-jumpy riddle so easily. Her brother, as always.

“He’s concerned about Joshua.”

Emily’s gaze flew up. “What’s wrong? He seemed fine on Sunday.”

“He is…and he isn’t.”

Keep dicing and slicing, Emily. Don’t prompt… “Because I won’t take my job back?” she blurted, unable to help herself.

Chantal’s pause was measured. “Have you almost finished there?”

“For now.”

“Great. Get yourself a drink and we’ll sit somewhere comfortable. This stool is not big enough for the pregnant version of my butt.”

With shaky hands Emily poured two glasses of apple cider and followed Chantal—with crackers and Brie—into the lounge. Easier to hide behind a glass than a knife, she reasoned, should her hostess’s cross-examination prove too savvy.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” Chantal mumbled around her first bite of cheese. “Which, I guess, is back when Annabelle fired you.”

“She didn’t fire—”

“She didn’t find fault with everything you did? She didn’t suggest you’d be happier somewhere else?” Chantal waved a dismissive hand at Emily’s how-the-heck-did-you-know? look. “Not so clever of me. She was impossible to please.”

Emily’s heart thudded hard as she wondered where Chantal was going with the history lesson, but she couldn’t not listen. Like a moth to the flame.

“Anyway, Mitch took an in-studio job so he could be home more regular hours, and Joshua went to day care, and they didn’t need a live-in nanny.”

“Until Annabelle left.”

“And while Mitch chased around the world trying to talk her into coming home, Joshua was shuffled around between grandparents and aunts.” Chantal looked up as she reached for another cracker. “You know how that feels, don’t you?”

Throat tight with compassion, Emily nodded. Oh, yes, she knew all about shuffling. From mother to stepfather to mother to the next stepfather with only Gramps making her feel as though she had a secure home and a modicum of love.

“Which is when you came back into the picture, Emily.”

Oh yes, this part she knew all about. The day after his other sister, Julia’s, wedding to Zane O’Sullivan, Mitch had come to see her. Less than a week after Gramps’s funeral, lost and alone and at her most vulnerable, she’d taken her old job back and prayed that her infatuation with her boss would die…or at least not live long enough to humiliate her.

“What happened after I left?” she asked, eager to skip the humiliation part. Hoping Chantal couldn’t hear the skittery beat of her heart.

“Oh, we talked him into getting another nanny. She was hopeless. The next one—”

“There were more?”

“Two more.” Smiling wryly, Chantal shook her head. “I suppose you’ve noticed that my brother is somewhat attractive?”

Somewhat? Emily made a noncommittal sound, sort of a cross between an uh-huh and clearing her throat. Now seemed like the perfect time to hide behind her glass.

“Nanny number two…” Gaze narrowed in concentration, Chantal tapped a nail on her chin. “Her name was Monique, from memory, and she misinterpreted the live-in part of the clause.”

While Emily choked on her juice, Chantal laughed with genuine amusement. She reached across and touched Emily’s arm, compatriots in gossip.

“Can you imagine Mitch when he found her in his bed?”

“Um…not really.”

Liar. She didn’t have to imagine, she knew. He’d look stunned, then so uncomfortable he couldn’t meet her eyes. There’d be a softly muttered expletive, some stony-faced silence, and, finally, with her nerves stretched to snap point, he would start asking questions.

She wondered if Monique had handled them any better than she had done.

“The third nanny is the one Joshua ran away from at the mall?”

Chantal nodded. “After that episode, Mitch accepted my offer to take over the lease on Korringal. We all thought he’d have more luck finding reliable child care here.”

Emily rolled her cold glass across one warm cheek and then the other. Finally Chantal was getting to the point. Not a cross-examination, after all, but a sales pitch. She wondered if that’s what her brother had been talking to her about earlier, enlisting her help.

“Mitch needs someone he trusts, someone Joshua loves. I know he can be a giant pain in the neck, but if anyone can put up with him, it’s you, Emily.”

For no particular reason—except the sentiment behind those words, the faith, the trust—Emily’s eyes misted with tears. She heard Chantal cluck with sympathy, although she watched with her shrewd lawyer’s eyes as Emily battled for composure.

“So far—” she continued quietly “—we’ve only talked about what Mitch and Joshua want. What about you, Emily? What do you want?”

What did she want? Apart from the impossible. “I’m not sure,” she whispered in true, hesitant, Emily Jane Warner style. Oh, how she hated that tremulous voice and the tears that still prickled the back of her throat. How she wished for the courage to either go after what she wanted, or to tell it—him, them—to go take a flying leap off Mount Tibaroo.

After a long, intense silence Chantal spoke slowly, thoughtfully. “You know what I think? You’ve just lost your job and your home, you’ve been bodily shifted out here and you feel pressured. You’re not seeing a lot of choices.”

Oh, yes. That pretty much described her life.

“There’s no need to make a decision right off. You can stay here as long as you like—” She lifted a hand to silence Emily’s attempted objection. “And if you decide you don’t want to work for Mitch—and he’ll kill me if he finds out I’m saying this!—then that’s your choice.”

Choices. What a tempting notion except— “I can’t stay here indefinitely. I need to work, to find another job.”

“I know a lot of people.” Chantal hitched a shoulder nonchalantly. “If I ask around, I’m sure I can scare up another nannying job, although it may not be close to Plenty. Does that matter?”

“Only if they need a nanny who drives.” Her first, tentative flutter of hope took a swan dive. Which parents chose a caregiver who couldn’t ferry their kids to school or kindy or the park? Who couldn’t, in an emergency, get them to a doctor quickly?

“You didn’t sell your car, did you?” Chantal asked, eyes narrowing with uncanny perception. “Did you crash it while you were in Sydney? That’s it, isn’t it? I recognize a fellow victim when I see one.”

“But you’re driving again,” Emily said, remembering Chantal’s bad wreck. “Wasn’t that hard, getting back behind the wheel?”

“It took some discipline and practice, but I conquered my fear.” Chantal reached out again, her touch warm and supportive. “We’ll have you ready for Le Mans before you leave here, Emily.”

“You’re seven months pregnant.”

“Quade will do it if I ask nicely.” Chantal winked. “If I ask really nicely, he might let you drive the sports car.”

The tears returned, this time more a pea-souper fog than a mist. Emily wiped them with the back of her hand, sniffed, smiled shakily. “Thank you. I don’t know why you’re doing all this.”

Chantal shrugged. “Remnant guilt, maybe.”

“What?”

“I wanted your case so badly I encouraged you to fight your grandfather’s will. I didn’t do you any favors, huh?”

“It was my choice, I wanted to do something proactive for a change. You didn’t influence my decision.” Emily paused, remembering Mitch’s heated challenge on her porch that first night. “Do you think I gave up too easily? That I should have appealed?”

“That was your choice to make,” Chantal said firmly.

“Your brother thinks I did.”

“Thinks what?”

At that deep-voiced question they both started and turned. Mitch’s height and width filled much of the doorway; his black sweater and dark-stubbled jaw lent him an air of danger, and that awareness swamped Emily in a slow rolling wave.

Mitch noticed that unguarded response, exactly the same as when she had opened her door Sunday morning, pale hair spilling over her shoulders, all pink-faced surprise and soft-eyed temptation. And Mitch reacted in the exact same way now, with sudden, insistent heat.

Damn.

Now wasn’t the time to remember that glimpse of pale skin when her robe gaped, the curve of her full breasts or the knowledge that she slept with satin next to her skin. He needed to concentrate on the purpose of his visit. He leaned over the back of the couch and kissed his sister’s proffered cheek.

“We were talking about Owen’s estate,” she explained. “Emily says you think she should have appealed.”

“I think she should fight harder for her rights…in some instances.” He tilted his head toward the kitchen. “Shouldn’t you be making dinner?”

“Nope. Emily’s cooking.”

He fixed his sister with a meaningful look and her eyes widened in acknowledgment, her lips forming an okay as she rose to her feet. “I do have to get you a drink, though.”

“Make it a long one.”

She winked as she walked by, leaned down to turn on the stereo—so she couldn’t inadvertently eavesdrop—and then left them alone. Sometimes his littlest sister was okay. Although…

“Marriage hasn’t improved her taste in music,” he said as a popular boy-band crooned from the speakers. He crossed the room and turned the volume down a couple of notches before asking, “Have you heard from Bob Foley?”

The hotel owner had been taken aback by Mitch’s visit but most helpful. A high-media profile—not to mention a lawyer sister—garnered respect.

Emily looked up, surprised, then not. “I wondered why he rang.”

“I assume he rang to apologize.”

“I now assume he rang because you told him to.” She did not sound happy about his intervention. He didn’t care.

“I suggested he show a little faith in his staff.”

She exhaled softly, the breath lifting a loose strand of her white-blond hair. “He apologized rather nicely.”

“And I didn’t?”

Hell. Mitch raked a hand through his hair. Two minutes alone and they were on the brink of another clash. He could all but hear the crackle of tension in the air, and he didn’t need to ask if she got his point. The past swirled, dark with shadowy secrets, in her eyes.

“You had no need to apologize.” Her voice sounded about as tight as her pale-knuckled grip on the empty glass. “I told you nothing happened.”

“Hell, Emily, you were in my bed, and I can’t remember anything after kissing you. If that’s all that happened—”

“It is.” She put the glass down with a decisive clunk. “You were drunk and grieving and, yes, you kissed me, and we somehow ended up in your bed. You passed out and that’s all that happened.”

The rushed telling brought a flush to her face, the same sweet, pink color he’d seen all over her body that next morning. “We also, somehow, ended up naked,” he pointed out.

The color in her cheeks flared, hotter, darker, but she met his eyes. “You didn’t have a clue what you were doing. Or who with.”

“I knew who I was with, Emily,” he said emphatically. “Now I need to know what I did.”

“Nothing, Mitch.” Temper sparked in her eyes, charging Mitch with the same fiery frustration.

“It’s not ‘nothing’ if it sent you packing and if it’s still preventing you taking your job back. Damn it, Emily, I’ve given you the freedom to name your price and conditions. I’ve given you thinking time. Joshua loves you and I’m pretty sure you feel the same way. If it’s not me—if it’s not about that night—then what’s the problem?”

With the music suddenly shut down, that last question sounded far too loud, aggressive, abrasive. Obviously, his sister thought so, too, because from beside the stereo she insisted, “Stop bullying her.”

“Butt out, Chantal.” His focus switched back to Emily, needing her response, her answer. “Tell me why you won’t come and work for me.”

“How about because you’re obnoxious,” Chantal said, putting herself between them, arms folded, expression determined.

“She needs a job, sis.”

“We’re working on that.”

Everything inside him ground to a halt. “Care to explain?”

“Good grief, Mitch, you can’t force Emily to work for you. And when she makes up her mind—which won’t be with you standing over her—it will be because she has choices. Now, was there anything else you wanted?” his sister, the turncoat, asked sweetly. “Besides the chance to browbeat my houseguest?”

Seething, Mitch gritted his teeth. “If it’s still all right with your houseguest, I’d like to buy her grandfather’s dog for Joshua.”

Through an agency in Cliffton, Mitch found temporary child care in the form of a middle-aged cleanliness guru with the unlikely name of Mrs. Grubb. More interested in keeping the house free of dust and lint than keeping Joshua entertained and happy, she wasn’t working out.

As if to punctuate that thought, her vacuum cleaner started up, its high-pitched whine eating through the last of his concentration. Earmuffs, industrial strength. He started a mental shopping list, then wondered if Mrs. Grubb did shopping. It would get her out of the house, even if it did defeat the child care purpose of her employment, because he was not, no way, sending Joshua to any shopping center.

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