in the child’s eyes bordered on panic. ‘Yes. But there’s something I need to—’
‘Alfie?’ A deep male voice came from behind him and a man strolled towards the door, a little girl in his arms. ‘Is it the lady who rang about the advert?’
‘Sort of.’ Throwing Hayley a desperate look, Alfie shrank to one side and Hayley frowned slightly, disturbed that he seemed to be afraid of his father.
Hoping that she wasn’t about to spend Christmas with a family even more dysfunctional than her own, she turned to introduce herself and gave a gasp of shock.
It was him!
Here. And every bit as good looking as she remembered in a rough, male I-can-kill-a-lion-with-my-bare-hands sort of way.
The smile started inside her and spread to her lips. What a fantastic coincidence! She wouldn’t even have to take the trouble to track him down. He lived right here, in this beautiful barn with two beautiful children, and—
Her thoughts came crashing to a halt.
He lived with two beautiful children?
His two beautiful children?
Oh, God, he had children.
He wasn’t an indecently handsome sex god, he was a faithless rat.
The shock was like a fist punching her hard in the stomach. Hayley gave a whimper of disbelief. Please let it be a mistake. Please. Don’t let them be his children. Let him be looking after them for someone else.
No, no no…
But even as she stared in horror at her fantasy man, the little girl burrowed sleepily into his shoulder.
‘Want to go back inside, Daddy,’ she mumbled, and Hayley felt her happiness evaporate in an instant.
All that was left of her bright, shiny new life was the bitter, grey sludge of melted dreams.
So much for her fantasy man.
So much for imagining that he’d been thinking about her.
No wonder he hadn’t contacted her.
He had another life. A family.
What now? How on earth was she going to get out of this mess she’d made for herself?
Hi, there, I came to find you but you’re not the man I thought you were, so I’m going home now. And, by the way, I hope you trip and bash your head on something really hard.
A cold sweat of panic drenched her skin. What if his wife was in the house? Dear God, how was she going to face the woman? There was no way she’d ever threaten anyone’s family.
Horrified, Hayley started to back away but her feet shot in different directions and she ended up flat on her back in the snow.
‘Ow.’ Pain mingled with humiliation as she stared up at the grey winter sky. And then she was being hauled to her feet—easily, as if she weighed nothing, the strength in his muscular grip making her feel light and feminine.
‘Hayley?’ His tone was guarded and his sexy blue eyes held a glimmer of disbelief. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Well, obviously it isn’t that easy to walk in the snow,’ she said defensively, and he frowned slightly.
‘I meant—what are you doing here?’ he said gently, and Hayley realised that he hadn’t yet worked out that she was the one who had answered his advert for a housekeeper.
What a nightmare.
How was he going to react when he discovered that his dirty little secret was supposed to be spending Christmas with them?
Looking at the two vulnerable children clinging to him, she felt a flicker of anger. It would serve him right to have a moment of panic. It might make him think twice before he did the same thing again.
He reached out a hand and touched her hair and all her violent thoughts faded away. Hayley gazed up at him for a moment, completely disorientated by his touch, oblivious to the snow that had managed to find its way inside her clothes. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Removing a pine cone from your hair.’ He held up the small brown cone that was dusted with snow. ‘I thought it might be uncomfortable.’
Nowhere near as uncomfortable as realising that your dream of the future had just crashed and burned.
‘Dad? What’s going on?’ Alfie’s puzzled enquiry drew nothing more than a lift of an eyebrow from his father.
He showed no sign of guilt. His handsome face wasn’t shifting into a sheepish look. He wasn’t sending her silent messages. He was as relaxed as if he’d just opened the door to a carol singer.
Maybe he had affairs all the time. Maybe that was why he’d been so good at it—lots of practice.
The thought made her want to stuff a handful of freezing snow down the front of his trousers. She was sure that Diana, her stepsister, would have slapped his face at this point and then turned and stalked away. But Hayley had never hit anyone in her life and really effective stalking required good balance so that was out of the question.
But the thing that was really keeping her rooted to the spot were the two children hovering close to Patrick—was that his name or had he lied about that, too? It wasn’t their fault that their father was fuelled by high-octane testosterone levels and a superstud sex drive. They shouldn’t have to suffer. She wasn’t going to be responsible for breaking two little hearts on Christmas Eve. And if he had any sort of decency he’d help her find a polite excuse and leave, otherwise she had a fairly good idea of what she was going to do with the carving knife and her plan didn’t require a turkey.
‘I told your dad my name on the phone.’ Proud of her improvisation, she locked gazes with Patrick, giving him her best I-know-what-you’re-up-to-but-I’m-not-going-to-drop-you-in-it-yet look but his features remained impassive.
She envied his composure. His face revealed nothing. Nothing. Not a glimmer. Definitely not the sort of man who would reveal his bra size to a taxi driver.
‘You’re the woman who phoned? It was you?’
‘Yes.’ And she was wondering why she hadn’t recognised his voice. Presumably because she hadn’t expected to hear it. It hadn’t occurred to her that he had anything to do with the advert she’d answered.
The coincidence was ridiculously unfair.
It couldn’t happen to anyone but her.
And now she had to work out a way to unravel the mess, but she couldn’t concentrate on anything while he was staring at her. Those deep blue eyes made her mouth dry and her heart bumped against her chest. At one point during their fantasy night she’d even felt pleased that he’d left the light on because it had meant she could stare at him and marvel that such an indecently handsome man was in bed with her.
She
