His Housekeeper Bride

He grinned down at his niece and pulled her ponytail, until she mock-shrieked and tugged hard at his nose. ‘It means really, really good.’

‘Okay,’ Shelby replied, her face thoughtful. She knew he’d covered the truth and was trying to work out what he’d been about to say. She was a Hannaford, all right.

Bren got to her feet, rubbing her very pregnant belly. ‘I’ll tell Sylvie to wait. You’ll pick me up tonight? Glenn felt so bad about asking, but since his trip is for Howlcat—’

He smiled, soft as he only ever was with his family, and handed Shelby to her mother. ‘Can it, Bren. I can handle a couple of Lamaze classes as long as you introduce me as—’

His sister rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, yeah—as if calling you George is going to fool anyone when your face is in the papers every week.’

‘Not every week,’ he retorted mildly. He liked being called George every now and then. It made him smile.

She’d been waiting almost an hour.

Sylvie Browning smiled to herself. If he expected her to be put off or storm off he’d be disappointed. In the initial interview his sister Brenda had warned her that meeting her prospective employer would be no picnic. Mark Hannaford was hard-edged and cold, and he didn’t like his routine or privacy challenged—he had no use for women, apart from the obvious.

That was why she was here. She had a fifteen-year-old promise to keep.

After ninety minutes, the fanatically neat secretary rose to her feet, and said, ‘Mr Hannaford will see you now.’

The older woman showed Sylvie in through the massive oak double doors, opulent without ostentation. ‘Ms Browning to see you, sir.’ Then she closed the doors behind her.

Feeling the nervous grin stretching her face—she always laughed or joked through stress, and this was a tremendous moment—Sylvie walked on low-polished floorboards and for a few moments looked anywhere but at the CEO of Howlcat Industries. There was a soft blue and grey scatter rug on the floor. Pictures of the harbour and the Blue Mountains lined the walls, comfortable in their places.

What a lovely office, she thought to herself. It suits—

‘No. No.’

She blinked, and focussed on the sole occupant of the office. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said softly, putting her hand out to him.

With the golden-brown hair and eyes, the lithe, athletic male body obvious even beneath the designer suit, she recognised him at once…But then, what Aussie wouldn’t knowhim? Hewas one of the most famous men in the country. He hadn’t inherited his empire, but pulled himself up by the bootstraps to this level of success by sheer brilliance. Inventor and lone wolf—tagged ‘Heart of Ice’ because no woman had ever come close to him.

Only his family—and she—knew better than that.

But at the moment he was living up to his reputation. He didn’t stand to shake her hand, didn’t touch her. His eyes were frozen as he said, with chilling clarity, ‘I said, no. If you’re Sylvia Browning, you are not being offered the position of housekeeper.’

Unfazed, she lifted her brows. This, too, she’d expected. She would change his attitude soon enough. She’d done it before, and she’d do it again. ‘I know I look young, but I’m twenty-eight.’

Eyes filled with scepticism roamed her face. ‘Twenty at the oldest. No.’

Since it was obvious he wasn’t going to observe the most basic of social niceties, she dropped her hand and sat in the chair facing his desk. She rummaged in her handbag, pulled out her wallet and handed him the driver’s licence and birth certificate from her CV packet.

He read them in silence, and handed them back without changing expression. ‘Your age changes nothing, Ms Browning.’

‘I was under the impression it changed everything.’

Her gently amused tone seemed to perturb him, for he frowned at her. ‘Don’t be impertinent.’

‘I beg your pardon, Mr Hannaford,’ she said gravely, but her telltale dimple quivered—she had only one, in her right cheek. Her brothers swore it gave her away when she was teasing. ‘But, since you are not employing me, I’m free to be as impertinent as I like.’

His face stilled, then his mouth moved in a half-smile, slow as a rusted gate. ‘Touché, Ms Browning.’

Sylvie grinned at him, rose to her feet, and again put her hand out to his. ‘It was nice meeting you, Mr Hannaford. I hope you find a housekeeper of the right age and appearance for you.’ Her heart raced so fast she could barely keep up to breathe. Would it work?

He stood, too, but was still frowning. ‘You’re not going to try and convince me to give you the position?’ he asked abruptly, again not taking her hand.

Her heart kicked up yet another notch—yes, there was the faintest tone of challenge there, as well as surprise. She made herself shrug. ‘What’s the point? I can cook and clean—but you don’t care about that. I can make a home for you—but that isn’t why you rejected me. I can only grow older in time, and I can’t change the way I look.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with the way you look.’

His tone was still abrupt, but again something faint beneath it made her breath catch and her pulse move up a touch. ‘Thank you,’ she said as she turned towards the doors. ‘I like to think I’m not totally repulsive.’

‘You have to know you’re a pretty woman.’ But the comment was so far removed from a compliment—almost an insult in the hardness of his voice—that she didn’t thank him.

‘Are the curls natural?’ he asked as he followed her to the door—he was actually coming with her. She wanted to rejoice. Yes, she’d intrigued him.

‘Yes, they are.’ The answer was rueful. She touched the tumbling dark auburn curls escaping from her attempt at a chignon and looked up at him…really up. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder. ‘Any attempt to straighten them only makes them frizz. Combine that with freckles, being only five-one and size eight, and I have to put up with everyone thinking I’m sixteen.’

She’d used the number deliberately, to see how he’d react. It was why she was here—why she’d come on this particular day—and she might as well start now.

His mouth tightened, but he only nodded. Then he frowned again, as if the number had triggered something inside him. ‘Pardon me, Ms Browning, but I’m having the strangest sense of déjà-vu. Have we met?’

He’d remembered! She nodded, with a grin that felt silly on her face. He remembered her…‘For years I’ve wanted to thank you for all you did for my family. You’ll never know what it meant to us—giving us the house, setting up the trust fund to send Simon to medical school, Joel to university, Drew to engineering college. When I found out this job was for you, it seemed a good chance to meet you again and thank you.’

For the first time he looked in her eyes, and she saw the change as he took in the face, the curls, and emotion dawned in him—recognition. ‘Shirley Temple?’ With his low growl, it was as if deep winter broke, giving way to a reluctant spring, and the warm-hearted boy she’d known when she was a girl peeked at her from beneath the frozen heart of the famous man.

‘I go by Sylvie now.’ For the third time she put her hand out, hoping he’d take it. She needed to know if the illusion she’d held for so many years would crumble under the force of reality—if she’d shrink or find him as terrifying as every other man she’d met since she turned fifteen.

‘Sylvie?’ His voice was deeper, rougher than she remembered it, but a warm shiver still ran through her. ‘But your name’s Mary Brown.’

‘It’s Mary Sylvia, actually, and we—the boys and I—liked Browning better. It was less common—especially for me, with a name like Mary.’ Feeling embarrassed by the admission, she shrugged. ‘I changed my name by deed poll, and the boys did the same.’ She’d never tell him why she’d done it, or why the boys had followed her lead without hesitation. Although none of them had changed their first names, as well, as she had….

‘Then Joel must have changed his only a few months ago.’

He knows how old we all are. He’s kept up with us. The knowledge that he cared enough to know them, even from a physical and emotional distance, made her feel—feel—

Just feel. He hadn’t forgotten her—as she’d never forgotten him.

Looking dazed, he put his hand in hers just as she was about to drop it. ‘Look at you. You’re all grown up.’

‘So are you.’ Her voice was breathless—but how could she help it? He was touching her again…and for the first time since she was fifteen a man’s touch didn’t repulse or terrify her. She felt warm and safe—and, given what her life had been, those feelings were as precious as gold to her.

From the first time she’d seen him at the hospital, when she’d been only eight, the prince of her fairytale dreams had changed from blackhaired to dark blonde, from blue-eyed to golden-brown. Every time she’d met him after that, though months had passed, she’d felt the connection deepen, and when he’d held her in his arms and let her sleep the day her mother had died she’d known that, though it was the last day she’d see him for a very long time, no other boy would ever take his place.

Quiet lightning still strikes once—and never in the same spot. But he had lovers in abundance—all far more beautiful than she’d ever be—and they didn’t come with her issues. Years ago she’d accepted that he was her impossible dream. That wasn’t why she was here.

‘So you really are twenty-eight?’ He shook his head, as if trying to clear it.

‘Yes.’ As the juxtaposed longings to reach out and touch his face and to jerk her hand out of his and run all but overwhelmed her, she had to force her hand to stay where it was. Though she’d never been to counselling, she’d learned to conquer her fear to a manageable degree, by dint of the simple need to eat. If an employer thought she was crazy, he wouldn’t employ her, and she couldn’t always work with women.

His gaze swept her again. ‘Your hair grew darker.’

‘Red hair quite often does that.’

He was still holding her hand. Looking at his expression as they touched, she sensed that it had been a long time since he’d truly touched anyone. ‘Strawberry blonde.’ He was smiling. ‘You looked like a china doll.’

‘According to some people I still do,’ she said, sighing. ‘Sometimes I’d give anything to be a few inches taller, if nothing else.’

‘People don’t take you seriously?’ His voice held sympathy.

‘You didn’t,’ she retorted, disliking the tone that seemed too close to pity, too close to how she’d been treated for so many years of her life. She pulled her hand from his.

‘You’re right.’ He was looking at the broken connection, a strange expression in those frozen dreamer’s eyes. ‘Why do you want this position—or did you only come to thank me?’

His tone had lost the gentle warmth that made her glow. He wanted to be thanked even less than he’d appreciated her pointing out when he’d been in the wrong. By the look in his eyes, he also didn’t want to hear any personal reasons for her answering his advertisement, on this of all days.

‘I need the job,’ she said abruptly. ‘I’m in the final year of my nursing degree. I need somewhere to live and I need to pay the bills.’

‘Why now?’

The simple question drew her out—the not-quite-cynical tone, the weary implication of there must be a catch in this. She stiffened her spine. It was all she could do not to walk out—but even her unconquerable pride was less important than keeping her word. But, oh, if she’d known it would be so hard to come back into his life this way, to stand before him and ask, she would never have made that promise to Chloe.

She heard the flat curtness in her voice as she finally answered. ‘My flatmate Scott’s getting married in a few weeks, and Sarah, his fiancée, wants to move her stuff in. I could live on campus, but I’d still need a job.’

‘You still have the house?’ It wasn’t quite a question, more of an interrogation.

‘Drew married his long-time girlfriend a while back—they had a baby boy five months after. They needed the house. He’s in his third year of mechanical engineering, and with his study workload he can only work long enough hours to keep the family. Simon, Joel and I can get out there and pay rent.’ She smiled at him, as if it was no big deal.

‘I see.’ And the tone, though restrained, told her he really did.

Mark looked down at the face of memory, an echo of sweetness long submerged. He saw in the pretty face of Sylvie Browning the girl she’d been. She didn’t look as he’d expected except for her eyes—eyes still ancient in a young face—and her smile. The sweet, defiant smile of a girl who’d had to go to school while caring for her father and brothers, taking on a mother’s role long before her mother had died.

Yes, he did understand her—too well. She’d accepted his money for her family. The one person he’d wanted to help through the years probably hadn’t taken a cent for herself.

He shut himself off from the world with ice. Sylvie did it with a smile.

Behind the shutters he could make of his eyes, his famous brain raced. If she was desperate enough to play on a past so painful and intensely private, then she truly needed help—but she wouldn’t accept his charity.

‘Do you have references from past positions?’

As he’d judged, his cool detachment reassured her. Her shoulders relaxed and she breathed in deeply before she replied. ‘Here’s a reference from my boss at Dial-An-Angel, and some from many of my regular customers.’

She thrust a plastic sleeve at him, filled with letters.

His brows lifted as he read one glowing referral after another.

Honest, hard-working, discreet.

She made our house a home.

She became part of our family.

We offered her double to stay. We’re so sorry to lose her.

‘Impressive.’ He noted she’d updated the references that stretched back a dozen years to fit her name change. She obviously wanted to leave her past behind for some reason—a reason he’d have to find out. He hadn’t come this far in life by trusting anyone.

A wave of colour filled those soft-freckled cheeks. ‘I didn’t ask them to say it.’

The ‘Heart of Ice’ was famed for never descending to argument or reassurance on minor points. ‘I have a contract all employees sign—including a confidentiality clause. If you sell a story or steal anything from me I’ll sue you out of all human existence.’

She stared at him, and her flashing eyes—eyes the colour of old sherry, enormous, their curling lashes made thicker with mascara—held insult. The colour grew in her face. Sweet indignation and adorable anger. Yet she was so much a woman at that moment the image of little brave Shirley Temple wavered and fell in his mind, shattering like glass on a tile floor.

‘You’ll sign it?’ he pressed, fighting the ridiculous urge to take it back, to say he knew he could trust her. He hadn’t seen her in fifteen years. He knew nothing about the woman apart from her stiff-necked refusal to accept help. That much about her hadn’t changed a bit.

She nodded. ‘I have one condition.’

He lifted a brow. None of his housekeepers had ever tried to bargain with him before; he made sure they didn’t need to. ‘Well?’

‘I want to live in the cottage that comes with the job, but—’ her eyes held the smiling defiance he’d seen in her as a girl, setting boundaries as well as he did, with all his cold control ‘—you don’t come inside. Ever.’

He almost laughed in her face. What did she think? He hobnobbed with the help? He hadn’t been in that place since he’d had it renovated years ago. ‘Done. Now, please wait outside. If your references check out, the job’s yours.’

‘Thank you.’ The words were cool, reserved, but he felt relief inside. Oh, yeah, he understood that desperation and that pride, the need for personal space and dignity.

She walked out, her little feet in low-heeled sandals making no sound on his wooden flooring. He watched the sway of her gently flaring hips beneath the swishing skirt, saw the way her fists curled, her head held high, and didn’t bother to call her former employers.

He was neither stupid nor blind. He knew inevitability when he saw it. Sylvie had the job, and she would live in the housekeeper’s cottage behind his house for as long as she needed. If warning signs were flashing, if he felt as if he was standing in quicksand, he still couldn’t do anything but hire her. If he let her down for the sake of his own security she’d haunt him for life: he’d be wondering where she was, what job she had, if they were good to her. He’d taken care of her by proxy for too many years to stop now.

Suddenly he wondered. Did Bren know how he’d cared for the Brown family? Did she know it was Shirley Temple when she brought her here?

Anger flooded his soul. Oh, yeah, Bren must have recognised Sylvie. By now the whole family must know that the child Sylvie had been made her the only woman who could break his defences on this day of all days. Why she’d come to him he didn’t know, but he knew his family—still trying to rescue him from a life they abhorred, trying to break the ice around his heart. They were always trying to find him a woman like—

Didn’t they know if he ever found another woman like Chloe he’d only run like hell? People like Chloe weren’t meant to live long lives with guys like him. Just as Chloe had done, as little Mary had done, they touched your life and then left you—bereft, empty.

As empty as his heart and soul had become in the past fifteen years.

It was too late for redemption. None of his success changed what he’d done. No amount of money could take away the damage he’d inflicted on others—and Shirley Temple had come fifteen years too late.

Her name’s Sylvie, and she’s not a kid anymore, his mind taunted him. Small, delicate, haunting, but she’s a woman, head to foot.

He clenched his fists, hating that just by telling him who she was she’d breached his defences. Her gentle face with its freckled prettiness was vulnerable and genuine, and it made him feel warm in a place he’d forgotten existed. But he couldn’t let her get too close or she’d destroy him—and, worse, he’d destroy her.

He shuddered. Never, never again. No. It was time to erect a few barriers.

With cold deliberation he reached for the phone and, instead of calling Dial-An-Angel, he called a woman he’d dated once or twice—a model-actress as callous and uncaring as he’d been for years, who wanted only fun and a few minutes of fame.

If Sylvie was in the cottage behind his waterfront mansion tonight, she’d be alone. He’d be out on the town with Toni, doing what he did best: forgetting there had ever been someone who loved him just as he was, and who pushed him to be his best.

On this day he had two choices: drink, or take a woman to a hotel.

As usual, he chose the latter.

Balmain

Sylvie wandered through the house, wide-eyed, whispering, ‘Oh,’ every few moments. Built in 1849 by a ship’s captain, right on Sydney Harbour, Mark’s house was a fascinating waterfront blend of colonial, naval and Victorian, with open beams, leadlight windows and wide-planked flooring; the outside was sandstone blocks.

It was a dream come true—the kind of dream she’d have had if she’d known this wonderful, eclectic, homey house existed. It was almost perfect…almost.

She grinned. So he had a date tonight? So what? Because of him, she now had a home, and a job that would pay the bills and allow her to save while she finished college. She was so deeply in his debt she doubted she’d ever be able to climb out—and she’d promised Chloe she’d take care of him. It was time for her to do some giving…and she knew where to start: the Friday night markets at The Rocks.

By running all the way to the ferry stop on the harbour, she just made the next ferry.

CHAPTER TWO

Later that night

MARK had to hold back from slamming the door.

What was wrong with him?

After the Lamaze classes, where he hadn’t missed a single opportunity to get the message across to Bren, he’d dropped her home and taken Toni, a stunning woman, for a late dinner and dancing at the best clubs. And he’d made sure his sister knew where he was going.

He’d fulfilled his part, given Toni the exposure she needed. She was currently between jobs, and being photographed with him would make all the tabloids. It was a guarantee that producers and casting agencies would remember to call her. In return, she’d have been happy to spend the rest of the night with him at a hotel—she didn’t want the intimacy of spending the night at her place or his, either—and yet he’d still said, ‘Another time…’

Toni’s amused acceptance of his being so able to keep his hands off her perfect tanned body hadn’t helped things, either. ‘So, what’s her name?’

He’d had a ridiculous urge to snap back, Shirley Temple.

And it was the truth. Oh, not sexually—it was guilt. After she’d signed the contract, he’d tossed his spare keys at a bemused Sylvie, scrawled the address on a piece of paper for her, and told her the housekeeper’s cottage was out at the back and to move in over the weekend. He’d said he expected breakfast at six twenty-five Monday morning, and he wouldn’t be home tonight.

All she’d said was, ‘Of course. Thank you for everything.’

Her good manners in the face of his rudeness had made him all the more appalled that he’d lost his manners with the wrong person. She’d come to thank him—to answer a job advertisement. He’d taken out his anger with Bren on Sylvie.

He owed her an apology, and he didn’t like its effect on him. She’d stayed on his mind, haunting him with her brave, defiant smile and her acceptance of his bad temper, until he hadn’t even felt Toni when she’d kissed him.

So now he was home alone, thinking of his housekeeper when he could have been naked with a gorgeous blonde, forgetting the past for an hour. And now he probably wouldn’t sleep because he felt totally screwed up, screwed over, angry and ashamed. And Sylvie was bound to be sleeping so he couldn’t offload his conscience until morning—

And then every thought vanished.

He flicked on the lights and stood in the middle of the entryway, breathing. What was that amazing smell? Inhaling again, he felt the turbulence inside his soul vanish, leaving only traces of its memory behind. He felt uplifted, energised, inventive…

The house was different, too—wasn’t it?

He went into one room after another, flicking on lights. He’d never seen that stained-glass sailing ship on the living room wall before, or that chart beside the entry to the ballroom—a print of Captain Cook’s pencilled route to Botany Bay. Funny, he had to look at them twice to notice, but now he looked there seemed to be little changes everywhere.

Even the lights weren’t the same—the lights themselves were softer, lending a gentle night radiance to every room it hadn’t had before.

What had Sylvie done to his house?

Breathing in the amazing scent, he wandered from room to room, seeing the touches so sweet and subtle he still had to look twice to find them. It was as if they’d grown here while he’d been gone. A funny little scarecrow doll sat proudly on his kitchen windowsill, bearing the legend ‘Housework Makes You Ugly’. A plain grey river stone sat on his study desk in front of his monitor, with a single word on it: Believe. Two of his stupid origami pieces sat either side of the stone, as if to say Your creations.

Dried herbs hung from the edges of curtains. There was a bright flowered tablecloth on his grandma’s dining table, a vase filled with purple flowers from his garden. Tiny pictures hung on the kitchen walls, old soap and butterscotch ads in wooden frames. A distressed wooden hanging was on the dining room wall, proudly bearing a kookaburra in military get-up, proclaiming the efficacy of Diggaburra Tea. Another faced it, this time a teddy bear saluting him, telling him to drink Teddy Beer.