It was difficult work, and it required much nuance. Rose insisted that she was helping, but Christopher highly doubted it.
I do not make mistakes. And if I did, she certainly isn’t the one who is going to find them.
“You have been bored,” he said, still through gritted teeth. “I understand that. You are trying to find ways to fill in your time.”
“I have found ways.”
“Ways that, and allow me to be perfectly clear.” He leaned over her, his stare a rueful one, and brimming with warning. “Ways that will not see you enter my personal office again. Nor will it see you touch my work, or anything remotely linked to my work. Do I make myself clear?” He added a growl to the last part, needing to hammer it home.
Rose looked away, but it was done with a sharp exhale and a curled lip. “Very clear.”
“Good.” Christopher pushed himself off the desk so that he was standing straight. Then he adjusted the collar on his jacket andbrushed off some dust that had somehow found its way onto the corner of his desk. “We are done here.”
“As you say,” Rose’s expression was still abjectly stubborn, but she stood up, nonetheless. “If I might suggest that next time, when you plan on leaving, you tell me beforehand. Save me from having to take matters into my own hands.”
“Noted.”
Christopher kept his expression flat and his tone even. She glared back, but he did not so much as blink. That saw the fire behind her eyes dim, and she skulked around the desk before crossing the room.
When she reached the doorway, she paused and looked back, which had Christopher bracing himself for what he was sure would be one last piece of abuse. He cocked an eyebrow, and she shook her head with apathy and looked away.
A second later, and she was gone.
Christopher exhaled as a weight was lifted from his body, and he could finally breathe again. Not happy with how he lost his temper, but content with the fact that it needed to be done, Christopher decided that things could have gone a lot worse than they had.
This time.
He walked around the desk and sat down, sparing a final glance for the open doorway through which Rose had just vanished. She was not done with him yet, and Christopher understood that if he wasn’t careful, the next time would be far worse.
Then he forced her from his mind for all of five seconds, because his gaze fell on the work that Rose had been doing, and once again, that boiling anger rose inside of him so that he thought he might explode.
That was until he took notice of the specifics of Rose’s changes. He scanned the top page quickly, paused at what he saw, frowned, and bit into his lip as he did the additions in his head, and then very nearly fell out of his chair.
No… there. There is no way. How did she know to? What did she do here? She fixed it? Impossible.
Christopher hated making mistakes. For that reason, he should have felt white-hot fury to see what his wife had done. Strangely, what he felt instead was impressed.
He looked at the doorway again, and this time, it was done with a coy smile. His wife, as vexing as she was, as infuriating, was unlike any woman he had met before. A fact that was as enticing as it was terrifying.
CHAPTER TEN
“… a
nd then she told the staff that she does not like pork and asked that all meals be cooked without it from now on. Can you believe it?” Christopher scoffed and took a deep sip of his brandy.
“The horror!” Theodore cried mockingly.
“Why does she not like pork?” Alistair asked.
Christopher groaned. “The point is not the pork, Alistair. It is my wife and her insistence on sticking her nose into everything.”
“Like what to have for dinner?” Alistair asked, sounding like he was genuinely curious, not at all understanding why Christopher was acting so irate.
“Everything!” Christopher exclaimed. “She has adjusted the schedules of the staff. She has had rooms redecorated. She is…”He shuddered. “Changing things. Things that do not need to be changed.”
What he did not tell them about were the taxation ledgers that Rose had correctly fixed for him. No need for his friends to know about that. He did have a reputation to consider, after all.
Theodore snorted. “I think you need help, man.”
