No, not an angel—his instincts had been right from the start. A hellcat.
It would be wise to remind himself of that. He didn’t have to like this woman; he just had to pay her to keep his house running. He would keep his distance from Ellie Bond and he would not think of her in that way—even if there was something refreshingly different about her.
Insanity, he reminded himself. That’s what’s different about her. A woman like that is trouble. You never know what she’s going to do next.
A yawn crept up on him. He told himself it would be a bad idea to fall asleep again, but there was something very soothing about watching the logs in the fire crackle and spark. He pushed a cushion under his head and settled to watch the flames shimmer and dance.
When he opened his eyes again the flames had disappeared and the embers were just grey dust. Now and then a patch of orange would glow brightly, then fade away again. He pulled himself out of the comfortable dent he had created in the sofa.
From somewhere in the direction of the kitchen he could hear female voices. Was Charlie here already? He looked at his watch. He’d been asleep for more than three hours. He walked towards the dining room and met Charlie, coming to fetch him. His stomach gurgled. His sleep patterns might be sabotaged, but his appetite was clearly on Larkford time.
‘Now, don’t go upsetting my friend, Mark. She needs this job, and you are not allowed to mess it up for her.’
Hang on a second. He was the employer. Surely this was all supposed to be the other way round? Ellie was supposed to do a good job for him, try not to upset him. At the moment he was wondering whether his house would still be standing when he returned in a few weeks.
He opened his mouth to say as much, then decided not to bother. There was no arguing with his bossy cousin when she got like this. It had been the same when he’d tried to talk her out of taking a stray kitten home one summer, when he’d been fourteen and she’d been ten. Charlie had worshipped that cat, but he’d never quite forgotten the lattice of fine red marks the animal had left on his hands and forearms after he’d agreed to carry it back to the house for her.
Unfortunately it had taken another twenty years before he’d been cured of the habit of trying to rescue pathetic strays of all shapes and sizes.
Helena had been like that. Soft, fragile-looking, vulnerable. And he hadn’t been able to resist her. Something inside him swelled with protective instinct when he came across women like that. And Helena had been the neediest of them all. Not that he’d minded. He would have gladly spent all his days looking after her.
Three months after Charlie had found the kitten, when its tummy was round and its fur had a healthy sheen, it had disappeared and never come back. That was the problem with strays. It was in their nature to be selfish.
So he avoided strays altogether now, both feline and female.
Oh, women always wanted something from him. But he made them play by his rules, only mixing with women who wanted simpler things: money, fame by association, attention. Those things were easy to give and cost him nothing.
Mark was pulled back to the present by the aroma of exotic herbs and spices wafting his way. Charlie didn’t need to steer him any more. The smell was a homing beacon, leading him up the corridor and into the dining room. He dropped into a chair opposite Charlie and waited, all his taste buds on full alert.
There was a glimpse of an apron and blonde hair through the doorway as Ellie disappeared back into the kitchen to fetch the last in a succession of steaming dishes. Mark swallowed the pool of saliva that had collected in the bottom of his mouth. He hoped she wouldn’t be too long.
She finally appeared. At least he thought it was her. She was cool and collected and quiet, and set down the last dish in an array of lavish Thai recipes. Not a hint of growling or biting about her.
Good. He was glad she’d pulled herself together.
His stomach, however, didn’t care how the transformation had happened. It grumbled at him to just get over it and start shovelling food in its general direction. Which he did without delay.
CHAPTER FOUR
ELLIE dished up. Her heart jumped so hard in her chest she was sure the serving spoon must be pulsing in her fingers. What was happening to her? Mark Wilder had done nothing but walk into the room and sit down and her body had gone wild. She finished doling out the food and sat down, careful to keep her eyes on her plate lest her stampeding hormones concentrate themselves and get ready for another charge.
The man was insanely good-looking!
The TV cameras hadn’t done him justice at all. No longer did she want to scold the reporter for drooling; she wanted to congratulate her for forming a coherent sentence.
Last night she’d been too shocked to register the weird physiological response he provoked in her, and this afternoon she’d been too angry. At herself, mainly, but she’d vented at him instead. It was her stupid brain injury that was to blame. She’d never had problems with runaway emotions before that. Now, any little thing could trigger overwhelming frustration, or rage, or despair.
Of course! She’d inadvertently stumbled upon the answer.
Her sigh of relief drew glances from her dining companions. She caught Mark’s eye and quickly returned her gaze to the king prawn on the end of her fork while she waited for her heartbeat to settle.
How could she not have remembered?
The doctors had warned her that some people noticed a change to their sex drive after a traumatic head injury. This intense attraction, this wobbly feeling, it was all down to her head injury. She didn’t like him that way at all, really. It was just her stupid neurons getting themselves in knots because of the damage they’d suffered.
What a relief!
It explained everything. She could never normally be attracted to a man like him—a man so…well, she didn’t have words for what he was so…But she’d never seen the attraction of bad boys. Who needed the heartache? Give her a man like Sam—warm, dependable, faithful—any day. Not a charmer who thought everything with two X chromosomes ought to fall at his feet and worship.
Now she had that sorted out in her head she could relax a little and enjoy the food. But as she ate questions started to float to the surface.
Why now?
Why, after four years of seeming perfectly normal in that department—even completely uninterested at times—had this symptom decided to rear its ugly head?
It didn’t matter. Whatever the reason, she needed to get a handle on it. This job was important to her and she didn’t want to lose it. She’d just have to read up a bit on the subject, introduce measures to cope with it, just like she had with her other symptoms. By the time he got back from his next trip she’d have it completely under control.
She made the mistake of glancing up at that point, just as Mark smiled at something Charlie said. He wasn’t even looking at her, for goodness’ sake, but Ellie still felt her body straining at the
