She gulped, came out of her trance, and snapped her hands off his chest and down to her sides. She took a giant step backward.
He raised his eyes from where her hands had been glued to him and tilted his head at her. “You’re still here,” he said.
His tone was laconic, but his eyes were narrowed with annoyance. There was a little muscle flicking in the uncompromising line of his unshaven jaw. It was fascinating.
“Um,” she said intelligently.
“Yes?”
“I just needed to know.”
“Know?”
“Nope to what?” Angie was trying very hard to regain her sense of equilibrium. She reminded herself to straighten her shoulders and lift her chin.
He seemed surprised that she would have the audacity to even question him. He regarded her piercingly.
“I mean, who answers their door like that? With a single word? Nope? When you don’t even know why I’m here.” Angie had to remind herself of her vow not to be a victim anymore. Still, she had to fight herself not to fidget, to hold her chin firmly in place and her shoulders square. He regarded her silently, with lowered brows and narrowed eyes. She was certain that he intended to let her stew, to see if he could make her squirm. She held her ground.
Finally, he sighed. The sound was one of pure exasperation, and yet she felt certain his expelled breath had touched her cheek, like a kiss. It was everything she could do to keep her hands at her sides and not touch her cheek.
“Nope to whatever you’re selling.” His voice was stern and annoyed, not the voice of a man who could kiss cheeks with his very breath.
“But you don’t even know what I’m selling!” she protested. Was that a quaver in her voice?
“Yes, I do.” His voice was like gravel.
“You don’t,” she said stubbornly.
“I do.”
I do. The words she had expected to be hearing from Harry. Even said out of context, they filled Angie with a longing that made her despise herself. How many kicks in the teeth did a gal have to endure before she got it? There was no knight in shining armor. There was no happily ever after. Those kind of illusions were what got people in trouble.
“Girl Guide cookies,” he said, his voice hard, “or your version of enlightenment, or tickets to the high school play. And to all of those, an emphatic nope.”
See? This man was the cynical type. He would never fall victim to illusions of any kind.
“As a matter of fact,” she said, stripping any trace of quaver—or illusions—from her voice, “you’re wrong on all counts. I am not selling anything.”
This man was not accustomed to being told he was wrong. She could see that instantly, when the dark slashes of his brows dropped dangerously.
Angie told herself she needed to be careful not to be off-putting. He was going to be her future boss, after all!
“I’ve come about your posting on the community board in Nelson,” she told him.
The firm line of his lips deepened into a frown. That, coupled with his lowered brows, made it inarguable. Her future boss was scowling at her. He had no idea what she was talking about.
“I’m here about the position you advertised for a housekeeper.”
His eyebrows shot up. His gaze swept her. “Oh,” he said, “that.”
“Yes, that.”
He gave her another long look, apparently contemplating her suitability for the position. She tried for her most housekeeperly expression.
“Especially nope to that,” he said.
When the door began to whisper shut, again, it was pure desperation that made Angie put one foot in to stop it.
The man—good God, was he Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights—glanced down at her foot with astonished irritation. And then he gave her a look so icily reserved it should have made her withdraw her foot and touch her forelock immediately. But it did not. Angie held her ground.
The master of the mansion glared back down at her foot with deep annoyance, but she refused to retreat. She couldn’t!
After a moment, he sighed again, and once more she felt the sensuous heat of his breath whisper across her cheek.
Then he opened the door wide and leaned the breadth of one of those amazing shoulders against the jamb, the seeming casualness of his stance not fooling her. Every fiber of his being was practically vibrating with displeasure. He folded his arms over the immenseness of his chest and tilted his head at her, waiting for an explanation for her audacity.
Really, all that icy remoteness should not have made him more attractive. But the impatient frown tugging at the edges of those too-stern lips made her think renegade thoughts of what was beyond the ice and what it would be like to know that.
These were crazy thoughts. This man was making her think crazy thoughts. She was a woman who had suffered so completely at the hands of love.
First, her Harry had decided all their dreams together were decidedly stodgy and had replaced her with insulting quickness with someone far more exotic and exciting.
And then, a coworker, Winston, had taken total advantage of her brokenhearted vulnerability. She had caved to his constant requests. Angie had said yes instead of no to a single cup of coffee. He had used that yes to force his way into her life.
With that kind of track record, it made her thoroughly annoyed with herself for even noticing what the master of the Stone House looked like. And what his voice sounded like. And what he smelled like. And what his breath had felt like grazing the tenderness of her cheek.
If she had a choice, she would have cut and run. But she was desperate. She had absolutely no choice.
With her foot against the door he was too polite to slam, she said, determined, “I need this job.”
He contemplated that, and her, in silence.
“Really,” she clarified when it seemed as if he was not going to say anything at all.
“Well, you don’t qualify.” His determination seemed to match her own. Or exceed it.
“In what way?”
“You’re obviously not mature.”
“I guess that would depend how you defined mature,” she said.
“Old.”
“How old?” she pressed. “Fifty? Sixty? Seventy? Eighty?” She hoped she was pointing out how ridiculous he was being. Old was not necessarily a great qualification in a housekeeper.
For a moment he said nothing, and then one corner
