“What is it?” she said softly.
“The roses.” His voice was hoarse, his eyes unfocused as he stared at her. “Did I damage the roses?”
“No. The roses are fine.”
As he sank back into the bed, his grip loosened, and his hand fell to his side. “Fiona loves the roses,” he muttered before he passed out again.
Keir gave him a pitying look. “Come on. We’ll help clean up before we leave. In his state, he wouldn’t notice if we drove a tank through here. You might want to get rid of the booze while we do it.”
“Good thinking.” Donna adjusted the pillow under Duncan’s head. “I hate seeing him this broken. He looks so strong on the outside.” His need called to her.
“Sweetheart,” Keir said softly. “Don’t go falling for this man.”
As she nodded, Donna wondered if Keir’s advice might be a little too late in coming.
Chapter 1
Present day, Kintyre Mansion, Scotland
It had been two long, painful weeks since Duncan had ordered Donna to fire their second cook—this time for whistling while he worked. Although, Donna thought the lord of the manor had been more annoyed by what the man had been whistling than by the noise itself. Apparently, ABBA wasn’t ‘proper music,’ according to her boss. When she’d explained to him that he might want to put up with the whistling because decent cooks were hard to come by, he’d upped her salary and told her she could do the job until she found a replacement.
Although Donna appreciated the extra cash, as her bank account was being drained dry paying off all the poor people Duncan fired, having her cook was a decision they’d both come to regret. Because Donna was famous for three things—her talent for killing plants, her non-existent cooking skills and her inability to say no. It was her non-existent cooking skills that were slowly killing them off. If it wasn’t a ready meal or a sandwich, then whatever she produced was inedible, and the frustration of trying to make it otherwise was driving her insane. If the new cook didn’t start the next day, as promised, she was going to snap and beat her boss to death with a spatula.
“What the hell is that racket?” Duncan stormed into the kitchen, because Duncan stormed everywhere. It was his default mode.
“What does it sound like?” Donna was standing on a chair, on top of the table, reaching for the smoke alarm over her head. If she stood on tiptoe, she just might make it.
“Are you trying to break your neck?” he growled at her.
“Shh,” she hissed. “I’ve nearly got it.”
Her fingertips skimmed the alarm, but she couldn’t get a grip. She stretched further. And lost her balance. Her arms windmilled. She squealed. And fell from the chair.
Straight into two strong arms.
Her fingers curled into the soft cotton of one of his many blue tartan shirts, and she held on tight. If he hadn’t been there, she would have broken something for sure. Possibly her neck.
“That was the stupidest thing I’ve seen in quite some time,” he said as he effortlessly cradled her against his chest. His broad, strong, muscular chest.
Ever since he’d stopped drinking, he’d been spending his time in the first-floor gym. All those hours working up a sweat had bulked him up, and he showed no sign of strain from holding her. He felt solid, strong—sexy. Her cheeks flushed at the thought. These were things she tried very hard not to notice about her boss. Along with the way his shoulders seemed to grow with every hour he spent working out, the way his jaw always had a hint of stubble on it, and how his eyes were so intensely black when he looked at her that she still hadn’t figured out their colour. Aye, things like that. Those were the things she didn’t dare notice. Instead, what she forced herself to notice, was that he was still very much in love with his dead wife.
“Put me down,” she said, a bit more forcefully than she’d intended.
With a reprimanding glare, he put her on her feet. While she steadied herself, he jumped up onto the table and removed the alarm. Of course, he didn’t need the chair for extra height. Sometimes being short sucked.
At last, blessed silence filled the house as Duncan frowned down at her. “Why didn’t you get the handyman to remove it?” He put the alarm box on the table and righted the chair that had toppled along with her.
“Because you fired him months ago and I haven’t found a replacement yet. Help me open these windows. We need to get the smoke out.”
“What happened?” He swung the back door wide open.
“What does it look like?” She pointed to the stove. “I was making breakfast.”
“Is that what you call it?”
Her eye twitched, and her fingers itched to reach for the knife block. “Nothing’s stopping you from feeding yourself.”
“I don’t have a talent for cooking.”
“And I do?”
Wisely, he didn’t answer. Instead, he stared at the smoking frying pan. “What were you trying to make?”
“Fish.”
“For breakfast?”
“There wasn’t any cereal.”
She looked at the charcoal lump and dared him to say anything more. How was she supposed to know that the heat should have been on low? She thought everything that went in a frying pan got cooked on high. Isn’t that what frying was all about? High heat? Cook it fast?
“Aren’t you a vegetarian?” he said.
“Sometimes,” she snapped. Was this the time for an inquisition? Really?
“Did you put oil in the pan first?”
“Why would I put oil in it? It’s non-stick.” Although, it had to be a cheap pan, as the Teflon coating had peeled from the sides and was curling up around the fish.
“Even I know you always oil a pan.”
“Well, maybe you should be the one cooking then.”
Duncan ran a hand through his hair, drawing her attention to the fact it was overgrown again. It fell over his forehead in a tousled mess that made her think of cool sheets and warm nights. She shook her head to clear it. That wasn’t what she’d intended to think. She wasn’t even sure where the thought had come from. No, all she’d meant to think was that it was time for another trip to the barber. Something he would no doubt complain about. It generally took a crowbar to get him out of the mansion. She was sure his self-imprisonment was part of the reason he was so bad-tempered—he was going stir crazy and taking them all down with him.
“Maybe you should offer the new cook more money to get her here today,” he said.
The tension building in her chest felt like it was going to explode through the top of her head, and those knives looked more attractive every second. It had taken her days of negotiation to get Grace Blain to come cook at the mansion. She hadn’t cooked for anyone since she and her husband had closed their restaurant. Donna had begged the woman to come out of retirement, promising her a salary she hadn’t even cleared with Duncan. If it wasn’t for the fact she’d known Donna her whole life and felt some affection for her, she doubted Grace would have been swayed for all the money in the world.
“Are you okay?” Duncan took a step towards her, caught sight of her face and wisely retreated. “Do you need to sit down?”
“What I need,” she said evenly, squeezing the words from between clenched teeth. “Is a boss who doesn’t keep firing the staff. Do you realise how hard it is to find people who want to work in the mansion?”
“Maybe if you hired people who didn’t annoy the hell out of me, they would stay longer, and you wouldn’t have to find replacements.”
“This is my fault?”
He took another step back. “I didn’t say that.” His phone rang, and a look of relief swept over his face. “I need to take this.”
“Since when? You never answer your phone.” She dragged a fan out of the pantry and turned it on.
“Since now,” he said. “Duncan here.”
Donna unashamedly listened in. If he wanted privacy, he could storm back out again. She mentally went over the contents of the f
reezer. It was pointless. Unless there was a ready meal in there that she’d missed, there wasn’t anything else she could cook. She’d picked the fish because she thought it would be easy. Damn fish had lulled her into a false sense of security. Now the house stank, and she was still starving.
There was no other option but to go into Campbeltown to eat. While she was there, she could bring back some Chinese food to reheat for dinner. She would have had it delivered hot, and at the right time, but Duncan had screwed that up too. They’d been put on a town-wide food delivery ban after he got into a fight with the pizza guy over a cold pie. The pizza guy was in his forties, built like a truck and hadn’t appreciated being taken to task. She wasn’t sure who’d swung the first punch, but she had been the one who’d turned the hose on them and broken up the fight.
This was her life. She hosed down her boss, the famous artist, to get him off the beer-bellied pizza guy. Really, the only way to go from here was up.
“No, I don’t want to do a lecture for your students,” Duncan snapped, bringing her attention back to him. “I’ve told you this before, Zoe.” A pause. “No, I won’t be in a better mood next month.” He swiped the screen and then slammed his phone down on the kitchen table, no doubt damaging the screen.
He could order his own damn replacement this time.
“I thought you were dealing with this crap,” he said.
“And by crap, you mean?”
“The begging emails and phone calls. So-and-so wants a lecturer, that one wants a new exhibition, this one wants to interview me about my work. I’ve had it up to here with all these stupid demands.” He held up a hand to jaw height.
“How dare they show an interest in you or your work? What on earth are they thinking? Don’t they know that artists don’t want attention? The cheek of it.”
He pinned her with a look. “I could do without the sarcasm.”
“I could do with a boss who doesn’t fire people for stupid reasons.”
“Are you about done?”
He folded his arms again, drawing her attention to biceps she really didn’t want to notice. Suddenly, she couldn’t stop from seeing the way his shoulders filled his shirt and the way his thighs strained against the denim of his jeans. She was losing her mind. It had to be from food deprivation. Starvation. That’s what it was. Because it couldn’t be attraction. She’d trained herself not to be attracted to him because she had the good sense to realise that any attraction she felt would only lead to heartbreak. Unfortunately, sometimes her sensible brain and her horny body weren’t on the same page.
“Yes.” She waved a hand. “Carry on.”
“I thought we agreed that you would tell these people I’m done with the art world and that all requests were going through you now.”
“How can I stop people from calling you on your personal number, Duncan? I deal with your email and the mansion phone, but the iPhone is yours. If they want to call you on that to ask about your work, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“I need to change my number. That phase of my life is over.”
“You might change your mind,” she pointed out. “You might start painting again. It would be stupid to burn bridges now when you could need them later.” Although, she knew he hadn’t even set foot in his studio in the past two years, and it didn’t look like that would change any time soon.
“Tell them to back off,” he said with a steely glare. “And get me a new number.” He looked at the trashed phone. “And a new phone, this one’s screen is cracked.”
“Fine.” Honestly, she was too hungry to argue.
“Good. I need you to fire the gardener as well.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Please tell me he wasn’t whistling?”
“No.” Duncan’s face darkened. “He butchered Fiona’s roses.”
“Oh.” The wind went out of her sails. “I’m so sorry. I told him not to touch the rose bushes.”
The roses were a living memorial—left to grow wild—the way Duncan’s young wife had never had a chance to. In the two and a half years since Fiona’s death, no one had touched the roses, although their unkempt appearance was at odds with the pristine symmetry of the Georgian mansion and grounds.
“I want him gone,” Duncan said.
Donna reached for what little patience she had left, aware that his ire meant he was upset, and he just didn’t know how else to express it. “We’ve talked about this. More than once. There are other ways to deal with staff who annoy you. You don’t have to go straight to firing people.”
It would also be cheaper for her if he didn’t. Every time she had to let someone go, she ended up writing a severance cheque from her own bank account because she couldn’t cope with upsetting them.
“I said I would consider other options, but not in this case. The gardener has overstayed his welcome here.”
For once, she could understand why he was firing someone. But she didn’t have to like it. “I’ll deal with it,” she said.
She grabbed her overstuffed messenger bag from the counter and slung it over her shoulder, making sure the copy of The Hobbit she’d been sketching in was tucked safely inside. The last thing she wanted was for a world-famous artist to see her amateur doodles.
“Where are you going?” Duncan demanded.
“Town.”
“What about the gardener?”
“I’ll deal with him as soon as I get back. But if I don’t eat soon, I may kill someone.”
He considered her. “You mean me, don’t you?”
She thought it wise not to answer.
He frowned as he looked her up and down as though seeing her for the first time. Donna felt self-conscious. With her curves, she wasn’t exactly a poster child for hunger. In fact, most men thought she could stand to lose a few pounds, and they weren’t shy about telling her either.
“Did I specify a uniform when I hired you?”
She looked down at her clothes but couldn’t see what had snagged his attention. She was dressed for work: in smart trousers and a shirt. Today, the trousers were grey, and the shirt was black. She might be the world’s worst housekeeper, and she might have no authority over the staff, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her from looking the part—damn it.
“You want me to wear a uniform?” Her voice rose to a screech at the thought of wearing a French maid outfit.
“No. I was wondering if I’d specified one because you seem to dress like we’ve got a dress code.”
“All you specified when you hired me was that I wasn’t to have any parties.”
“Huh.” He rubbed his chin. “That was it?”
It was clear he had no recollection of hiring her. Mainly because it’d happened during his alcohol-sodden days.
“That was it,” she confirmed. “You opened the door, told me you’d fired the housekeeper and the job was mine. Then you left.”
“Well”—he folded his arms—“I’m telling you now. There’s no uniform with the job. Wear what you like.”
She tucked a strand of her dirty blonde hair, which wouldn’t curl but wouldn’t lie straight either, behind her ear and considered her boss. “I do wear what I like.”
“What I mean is you can wear more relaxed clothes, if you want. I want you to be comfortable here. This isn’t just your job. It’s your home too.”
“And it only took you two years to notice,” she muttered before smiling at him. “Thanks. I’ll take that into consideration.” She headed for the door.
“Don’t forget to fire the gardener. I want it done today.”
She tugged open the door, and in her haste to get away from her annoying boss, promptly fell down the steps and into the garden. Humiliated, she jumped to her feet, dusted herself off and shouted, “I’m all right.” Before running for her car, which she kept parked at the back of the house.
Food. That’s what she needed. And caffeine. Everything would look better with both firmly in her stomach.
Chapte
r 2
Duncan watched his housekeeper trip down the back steps. She righted herself before he could rush to the rescue and then hurried away before he could say anything more to her. The woman was as graceful as a ballet dancer until she got flustered. It was one of her more endearing quirks. And she had many quirks. He might not have been paying attention to her in the first year or so after she started working at the mansion, but she’d become increasingly fascinating to him over the past few months. From watching her, he got the feeling that there was a whole lot more to Donna Sinclair than she let people see.
As he followed her out of the back door and watched her disappear in a cloud of dust, he heard whistling and turned to find the gardener, Bill, wheeling a barrow from the front of the house. He hated whistling. But he hated what this guy had done to his wife’s roses even more.
The sight of the stalky stubs, where flowers once bloomed, had made his fingers itch to reach for the whisky. It had been eighteen months since he’d last tasted a good dram. And he instinctively knew it would be many more before he could trust himself to taste it again. He’d come to that realisation the morning he’d woken with a vague recollection of what had transpired the night before, to find that strangers had cleaned up around him. It had been the humiliating kick up the backside he’d needed. Even now, the main thing he could remember from the night he’d set out to drink himself to death, was that he’d been overly concerned about protecting Fiona’s roses.
And now this bastard had trashed them.
“Morning, Mr Stewart,” the man said. “Another fine day in paradise.”
Duncan had only met the gardener once before, when Donna had introduced them, and he hadn’t warmed to him then. And he definitely didn’t feel any warmer now. He’d met his type before, he was one of those men who couldn’t take orders from a woman, no matter how much smarter and more capable she might be. His blatant disregard for Donna’s instructions was another mark against him. Only Duncan got to ignore his housekeeper, everyone else had bloody well better toe her line.
Can't Stop the Feeling: Romantic Comedy (Sinclair Sisters Trilogy Book 2) Page 2