Quite the opposite.
“This guest room will be yours.” Declan opens a door and gives me space to enter first.
I feel his eyes on the back of my head as I step inside. But I soon forget when I see the size of the bed which is slap-bang in the center of the room. It’s huge. Like Wraith-executive-suite-huge. With half-wooden posts, and a thick comforter in swirling peacock colors. The walls are ivory, there’s a tall free-standing wardrobe, and another door that leads to an ensuite bathroom.
“I have my own bathroom?”
I turn around to face Declan who quickly looks away as if I caught him stealing something from my luggage, which hasn’t even been brought upstairs yet.
“I want you to be comfortable, Amelia.” He clears his throat. “I want this to feel like your home.”
“Thank you.”
He must know about my background, only daughter of a single mom, average grades, and college scholarship to study history—he wouldn’t have hired me without doing all the usual background checks. But there’s nothing pretentious about him. No aloofness. No ‘I’m the boss and you’re here to serve me’ kind of attitude. He’s wearing pressed khaki pants and a polo shirt; he isn’t dressed to impress.
“Take your time. I’ll be downstairs in the kitchen whenever you’re ready. Turn left at the bottom of the stairs and keep going through the double doors.”
His eyes linger on me as if there’s a whole load more he wants to say. Then, he turns around and leaves me alone in my room.
I cross to the window and peer outside. The land seems to stretch as far as I can see. From here, I can see the cool blue of the sea in the distance, white foam like frosting waves on the water’s surface. There are stables. A barn. Cows munching grass in a nearby field that may or may not belong to Declan Byrne.
Something is still niggling away at me about his response on the stairs when I asked him if we’d met before, but I shove it away.
“Cannot,mustnot, fancy my boss!” I warn myself. “It’ll be a disaster waiting to happen.”
Smiling widely, I flop backwards onto the bed, arms and legs forming a starfish shape. I release a small, excited squeal before sitting up and snapping some pictures on my phone to send to my mom and Carol.
2
DECLAN
Amelia York isn’twhat I expected.
The recruitment agency included a photograph with her application file, but it didn’t do her justice. It was a head-on, passport-style image. Amelia’s hair was tied back into a ponytail, she wasn’t smiling, and the lighting was so stark that it made her cheeks look gaunt and her skin sallow.
The real Amelia York is quite a different story.
Her caramel skin is flawless. Her long curly hair is deep brown with honey tones, and she has a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. She didn’t say much, but she didn’t need to. Her aura spoke for her. It’s full of life, and color, and the kind of vitality that we haven’t seen in this house in a long while.
Heading back downstairs, I feel like the villain of my own story, trapping the fresh young heroine in the gloomy home in the middle of nowhere.
This house has never been the same since my wife Niamh died. She was the light that kept our home glowing. Without her, I saw only the emptiness. The giant hole through which I let her go,
With two young sons, it should’ve been easy to keep the light burning. But a part of me flickered out and died with her, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t rekindle that flame. The boys kept me going, of course they did. They’re my flesh and blood. My greatest achievements. My reason to get out of bed in the morning and keep the family business going.
But I guess I just continued to exist in this house. I stopped seeing it as our home, the home that my wife and I created for our sons and allowed it to become a shrine to her. Because everything in it reminds me of Niamh. Still.
Will Amelia last as our housekeeper?
I guess only time will tell. There must be a reason why she came to Ireland to get a job, and maybe that will be incentive enough for her to stay.
I don’t know why, but I get the feeling that she might be good for us. Good for this home, for my sons, perhaps even for me. Maybe it’s time for me to hand over to Ruairi, my eldest son, and take a step away from the business.
Who knows, perhaps Amelia is the catalyst that will set in motion a whole load of changes that have been a long time coming.
Once I’ve filled the coffee machine in the kitchen, I find Orla, my mother-in-law, in the conservatory.
“The new housekeeper has arrived,” I say, poking my head around the door.
