came forward, dressed in a faded checked shirt, two fingers of his left hand bound up with gauze. ‘You don’t seem to have got very far.’
‘No.’ Making a conscious effort to steady her breathing, she lifted her chin and met his eye. ‘I’m still clearing up. And I’m afraid I have no idea where to start with this. I’ve never cooked anything in my life, I don’t know how to—’
He cut her off with a sharp, scornful sound. ‘Then it’s high time you learned.’
Rachel swallowed hard. Reaching for a cloth, she briskly wiped up the blood from the chopping board and shook her head. ‘No. I’m no good at things like that….practical things.’
He gave a curse of pure, undisguised exasperation. OK, so Arabella might have been something of an über-achiever, but this girl seemed to take the word incompetent to a whole new level.
‘What on earth makes you say that?’ he said scathingly.
‘How about twenty-three years of experience?’ she retorted hotly. ‘Or should that be twenty-three years of inexperience? I’ve never done anything remotely domesticated!’
He couldn’t see her toss her head, but he could certainly imagine it from the indignant tone of her voice, and maybe a little from the rustle of her heavy hair. Turning his mind resolutely from the mental images that instantly flared into life, he smothered a sneer.
‘So now’s your chance.’ He picked up the knife. ‘Come here.’
‘No!’
Orlando froze. There was no mistaking the genuine anguish in her voice. For a long moment neither of them moved. He suddenly felt very, very tired.
‘What are you afraid of?’ he asked heavily, and then he remembered he was still holding the knife. ‘Jeez, Rachel, I’m not going to hurt you for God’s sake…!’
‘I didn’t think you were,’ she whispered. ‘It’s just…’ How could she explain that it wasn’t that kind of fear, the fear of harm, that was causing her to tremble so violently, but fear of losing control. How could she explain that when she could hardly understand it herself?
He sighed. ‘Come and stand here…’
Tentatively she took a step towards him, stopping a few feet away so he had to take her hand and draw her forwards. Gently, firmly, he positioned her in front of the marble chopping board and replaced the pepper he’d started to slice. She wondered if he could feel the frantic beat of her heart throbbing through her body, vibrating in the tiny space that separated them.
‘Now…take hold of the pepper,’ he said tonelessly. He was standing right behind her, and his voice close to her ear made a shiver run through her. She picked up the pepper in one shaking hand, holding onto it as if it was her last connection with reality.
‘Good. Now, in the other hand pick up the knife.’ His tone was carefully blank, but she could sense the tightly controlled frustration behind his words. Biting her lip in shame, she picked up the knife, watching the blade quiver in her uncertain grip until Orlando’s hand closed over hers.
She gasped.
His arms encircled her, safe, strong, and she had to muster every inch of self-control she had to prevent her from leaning back into his embrace and letting her head fall on to his chest.
‘No, I can’t!’
She dropped the knife with a clatter and clenched her fists. Instantly he stepped backwards, and she turned round in time to see his uninjured hand go to his head, his fingers raking through his hair in a gesture of wordless exasperation.
‘I’m sorry…’ she said lamely. ‘It’s just…it’s my hands. I have to be careful. They’re…precious…’
He suddenly went very still.
‘Precious?’
For a moment she watched as he half-raised his own hands, gazing downwards at them, at the fingers of the left one held rigidly in place by the bloodstained gauze. And then he turned away.
Precious. God, her shallowness took his breath away. Her hands were precious. Jeez.
She was unreal. His hands… His hands weren’t just precious, they were his lifeline. This spoiled little girl would never understand that.
Not that he had any intention of her finding out.
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