her lipstick was an unflattering shade of pale pink.
He dragged a comb through his hair. While her hair wasn’t a bad color, sort of a reddish-brown, how could a man appreciate it when it was skewered to her scalp? Her ankles weren’t bad, though.
He’d noticed every detail, he thought wryly. But hadn’t he been hoping, subconsciously, that the rest of her would interest him as much as her voice? That she might relieve the tedium of three days stuck in a place he didn’t want to be?
Not a hope.
Luke pulled on a pair of shoes, ran downstairs, then followed his nose to the kitchen. “Coffee,” he said. “Will you marry me?”
Kelsey blinked. “You’d better taste it first.”
“I don’t need to. Name the date.”
She said, with complete truth, “Marriage isn’t on my list, Mr. Griffin.”
“List? Ah, of course. Organize Your Home—you’d have to be a maker of lists. Are they arranged alphabetically?” He poured himself a mug of coffee, added a liberal dollop of cream and raised it to his lips. “You can file this under H for heaven.”
“I’d file you under C for charm,” she said, more tartly than she’d intended.
“Why do I think that’s not a compliment?”
“Because it isn’t. Charm’s not to be trusted.” She poured her own coffee. “I’ve opened a couple of the boxes. What exactly are you hoping to find?”
Taking his time, Luke looked her up and down, from the sagging hem of her skirt to the pencil stuck in her hair. “B for business…I get the message.”
“At two hundred and fifty dollars an hour, that might be advisable.”
“Your tongue doesn’t match your outfit,” he said. “You’re clearly intelligent—so why do you dress like that?”
She flushed, and for the first time he noticed the delicate rise of her cheekbones under the thick rims of her glasses. She said tightly, “The way I dress is nothing to do with you.”
“I don’t require all the women in my life to be beautiful, or even pretty,” he said thoughtfully. “But I do require character—the confidence, the flair to dress like a beautiful woman.”
“All the women?” Kelsey repeated ironically. “I’m sure they mob you.”
“Money’s a powerful aphrodisiac.”
“Money is why I’m here,” she said crisply. “Would you please tell me what we’re looking for in all those boxes?”
Luke wished he knew the answer to that question. It was a very obvious question, and one he should have anticipated. He took another big gulp of coffee, feeling it course down his throat. “My mother was Sylvia Griffin’s daughter,” he said curtly. “We’re looking for anything at all relating to Rosemary Griffin. You’re to put any papers bearing her name aside without reading them.”
Kelsey’s flush deepened. “There’s no need to be insulting.”
“I’m just stating the parameters of the job.”
She should quit. Right now. But for six thousand dollars, surely she could swallow an insult or two? “Very well,” she said, with rather overdone politeness. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get started.”
As Luke watched her march out of the kitchen, he couldn’t even tell if her hips were swinging under that extraordinarily unsexy skirt. Her ankles, however, were indeed very shapely.
With an impatient sigh he drained his mug, then refilled it. He should have thought this whole venture through. By calling Kelsey in to help, he’d invited a virtual stranger to look for papers relating to his mother. How was she going to earmark them without at least partially reading them?
He was known worldwide for his strong sense of privacy; it drove the media crazy. Yet he’d just directed a lippy woman to go through files whose contents could be highly personal.
Well done, Luke. Grimacing, he poured cream in his coffee and left the kitchen. Kelsey was already set up on a table by the window, the first box open, papers neatly piled on the table. Luke brought another table in from the parlor, and followed suit. For the space of three hours, they worked in silence.
Kelsey was the first to stop. She stood up, stretching the tension from her neck. Tension which had more to do with sitting ten feet from Luke Griffin all morning than her futile search. His focus had been formidable, his face grim, nothing in his demeanor encouraging conversation.
“I haven’t found anything,” she said. “What about you?”
“Inventories of furniture, stock certificates and a grocery list.”
She looked over at the pile of boxes. “It’s a huge job.”
Luke wasn’t enjoying searching through the details of Sylvia Griffin’s life. Standing up, he said brusquely, “I’ll double your pay.”
Kelsey’s chin jerked up. “You will not.”
“When I make an offer like that, most people say Thank you very much, Mr. Griffin.”
“I’m not most people.”
“I’ll damn well pay you what I want.”
“Fine. I’ll donate the excess to a home for stray dogs. Or to a fund for elderly women who live alone and whose grandsons don’t even bother to visit them.”
He stepped closer, noticing with part of his brain how she stood her ground, even though panic was flaring in her eyes. “Until I got the message in Hong Kong three days ago that she’d died, I didn’t even know I had a grandmother,” he said, clipping off every word. “So don’t lay guilt trips on me, Kelsey North—I won’t wear ’em.”
“You didn’t know?” she repeated stupidly.
“Right.”
For reasons she couldn’t have articulated, Kelsey believed him instantly. “So that’s why you never visited her…and you got the message too late to attend her funeral.”
“On the day she was buried I was in the wilds of Cambodia.”
“Why didn’t your mother tell you about her?”
He winced; unerringly, Kelsey had asked the question that had been tormenting him for the last few days. He said evasively, “I can only assume my mother left this house before I was born. Don’t tell me gossip hasn’t been rampant in the village since Sylvia died—I’m sure you can fill in the details.”
Kelsey said quietly, “All I’ve ever heard is that your mother left home when she was seventeen.”
“Was she pregnant?” he flashed, the words out before he could censor them.
“People speculated that she was. But it was only speculation.”
