His eyes widened slightly. To her fascination, ruddy color tinged his cheekbones.
“I meant that as a gift not payment in kind,” he muttered. “If I’d had some other token of appreciation on hand—a trinket or the like—I would have left that instead.” He dragged his fingers through his hair, leaving the dark waves in sensual disarray. “I’m not usually ham-handed. I wasn’t prepared for a rendezvous that night; I certainly meant no offense.”
His obvious discomfort and explanation helped to soothe her injured pride. But they didn’t change the consequences of that night. The life-altering choice that she’d made.
“Regardless, I am not the woman you believe me to be,” she said.
“And what sort of woman is that?”
Because it felt good to air the thoughts that had long been festering inside her, she told him.
“A trollop. Ignorant. Slatternly…and stupid.”
Like my mother and sister. A No Goode through and through.
He stared at her. “Ithink that?”
She gave a prim nod.
He swore. The ungentlemanly word jarred her, made her blink.
“This is going to be more complicated than I realized,” he said grimly.
“What is?”
“Convincing you to work for me because it is in both our best interests.” He narrowed his eyes, his fingers drumming on the table. “And convincing you to go to bed with me for the same reason.”
Her heart catapulted into her ribs. “I already told you I’m not that kind of woman—”
“I know what kind of woman you are.” He cut her off with a look. “Passionate. Honest and hard-working. Responsible to a fault.”
Her jaw slackened.
“What Idon’tunderstand is why you’ve allowed your family’s behavior to taint your image of yourself,” he went on. “Why you’ve complicated things to such a degree that it will take a miracle to solve the Gordian knot of your mind.”
She had no idea what a Gordian knot was, but it didn’t sound flattering.
“If I’m so complicated,” she retorted, “why don’t you leave me be?”
“I can’t.” Before she could make sense of her surging hope, he said, “I need you to search my cave.” He paused as she struggled to sort out her jumbled emotions. “We’ll have to take this one problem at a time,” he said decisively. “Business first, pleasure later.”
His arrogance was unbelievable. “Now listen here—”
“You don’t want to feel cornered, to work for me because you have no choice. I appreciate that. We’ll have to work around it,” he said. “Make sure you do have options.”
“How, pray tell?” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm from her voice. “I’ve been trying for months to improve business, to no avail. People won’t hire a business headed by a woman.”
“Leave it to me.”
She exhaled, trying to hold onto her patience. “You cannot just command people to patronize my shop. You may be lord of the manor in whatever world you live in, Rhys, but here, you’re no…why are you smiling at me like that?”
“You just called me Rhys.” His smile deepened, his strong, white teeth flashing against his beard. “I take it we’re back to first-name terms…Maggie?”
Blooming hell.
Before she could think of some way to salvage her pride, the door opened, and Glory flew in with Hypatia at her heels.
“This has been the best day!” she crowed, clambering into the chair next to Rhys. “Thank you for the cheese, Mr. Jones. I chose some ofeachkind!”
