dry lips. This would have to stop since no good could come of it. Nicholas was already spoken for. She had the evidence right here in her hands.
She held out the filmy white blouse. “I didn’t think this should go in with the other clothes. It’s obviously delicate. When your friend comes home, she may prefer to have it dry-cleaned.”
A shadow darkened his features. “Lana’s unlikely to care either way. Country life didn’t suit her. She went home to Melbourne and she isn’t coming back.”
Bethany let the blouse fall back into the basket. “I’m sorry.” She was making a habit of apologizing to him, but this time she didn’t feel in the least sorry. She felt curiously elated to discover that the mysterious Lana had left, apparently for good. It was hardly a charitable response but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.
“These things happen,” he said dismissively, but the tension in his neck and shoulders wasn’t lost on her. He cared more than he wanted to admit. Well it was none of her business. She had already entangled herself in his domestic affairs far more than was wise. She had come here to do a job, not to get involved in his private life.
All the same it was difficult to respond with a casual nod, when she knew firsthand how painful it felt to be left nursing a wounded heart. “Shouldn’t you look in on Maree?” she made herself ask pointedly.
His piercing gaze rested on her for a long moment before he said, “Of course. You can leave the rest of the laundry for me. You’ve done more than enough already. I don’t know how I can possibly repay you.”
This was the opening she’d waited for, but she balked at taking advantage of it. “I’ll be happy with the interview I requested,” she said lightly, knowing she should use this chance to persuade him to give her the story. She couldn’t do it, she found to her dismay. If this was to work, he had to agree of his own volition. She couldn’t bring herself to blackmail him into it in exchange for the few chores she’d undertaken of her own accord.
He gave another crooked grin and held out his hand to help her step over the laundry baskets. “I could finish this,” she said with a backward look at the clothes, but his grip tightened and he towed her into the kitchen where Maree played happily in her playpen.
“Are you always this helpful to your interview subjects?” he asked, a lilt of wry humor in his tone. “If I’d known, you could have arrived earlier and worked your way through the rest of the housework.”
Thinking of the state of the bedroom she’d walked through on her way in, she shook her head. “No thanks. My life isn’t long enough.”
He pretended to be offended. “My housekeeping isn’t that bad. All right, maybe it is. But I have a consultancy to run as well as taking care of Maree. Editing a baby care magazine, you of all people should know how much time a toddler takes up.”
His hand in hers was warm, his strong fingers curling into her palm as if he had forgotten to release her now they were back in the kitchen. Slowly, aware of a feeling of reluctance, she untangled her hand. “Nicholas, we have to talk. I know my journal is called The Baby House but it isn’t what you think.”
“It isn’t about babies?”
“Not really.” She took a steadying breath. The truth had to come out sometime, and she had already postponed it far longer than was wise. “The Baby House is a specialized journal for collectors of miniatures and...dollhouses.”
The slow burn of his anger was evident from the rigidity of his stance and the way his hands curled into fists at his sides. “Dollhouses?”
Miserably, she nodded. “They were known as baby houses in Victorian times when furniture makers and decorators used them to show off their skills, and women displayed collections of valuable miniatures in them, long before they became children’s toys.”
“Now I understand why you didn’t know about Maree from the story in the local paper,” he said coldly. “This isn’t about her, or about any kind of family history, is it?”
Bethany’s look went to the baby playing with a set of brightly colored plastic cups, oblivious of the storm breaking around her. “In a way, what I want to write does concern your family history. I want to do a story about the Frakes Baby House.”
His breath escaped in a whistling sound of annoyance. “If you know about that, then you must know I’m not interested in having it on public show. So your little scheme to get around me by pretending to be something you’re not was a waste of time.”
She had been prepared for the switch from friendliness to hostility as soon as he found out what she wanted, but his callous attack on her integrity made her see red. She didn’t stop to consider whether she would be less angry if he hadn’t charmed her so completely to begin with. “Now just a minute. I wrote to you on my business letterhead, asking for an interview. You were the one who jumped to the wrong conclusions.”
“And it never crossed your mind that I would?”
“Of course it did. But I hoped once we met and I explained to you what I wanted, you would see reason.”
He crossed his arms, towering over her in a blatant invasion of her space. “So you think it’s unreasonable of me to want to maintain my privacy?”
She stood her ground, determined not to back away and reveal how disturbing she found his closeness. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all. But my story doesn’t have to be an invasion of your privacy. If you don’t want me to, I won’t even mention your name.”
His eyes glittered ferally. “You’ll just refer to it as the Brand X Baby House?”
She couldn’t and he knew it. All she could do was retreat as gracefully as possible. She only wished it didn’t hurt so much. He hadn’t even given her a chance to explain what she wanted to do, and she still had no idea why he hated the idea of giving any publicity to the dollhouse that had been in his family for generations.
Nor did she understand why it mattered so much to her—not the story, although without it she had almost no chance of saving her journal—but why his good opinion was so important to her that it hurt to be on the receiving end of his derision. She had enjoyed being called a miracle worker and a fairy godmother, but there was more. She had enjoyed the appreciative way he looked at her, even the enthusiasm with which he ate the one thing she cooked well.
Pity help her, she had even enjoyed doing his cleaning and laundry.
For a couple of hours she had felt like a normal, functioning woman, she realized with a heavy heart. After the way Alexander had dumped her because she couldn’t have his children, it had felt good to be appreciated by a man, even one who didn’t really know her. In the guise of helping Nicholas out, she had been playing house, and now it had to stop.
“Thanks for your time. I’ll see myself out,” she said, picking up her bag. This time he didn’t try to stop her, and she was thankful the security door opened easily from the inside. She didn’t fancy having to retrace her steps past the kitchen and out through his bedroom. As she made her way slowly back to her car, which was parked in the shade of a golden wattle tree, she heard Maree start to cry. Bethany’s footsteps faltered but she made herself keep walking.
“Women. You can’t trust ‘em as far as you can throw ’em,” Nicholas seethed,
