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“Aye, right you would.” She wasn’t fooling anyone. “Did you get me a pie too?”
“It’s in the fridge,” she said mournfully, her eyes still on the mess covering the floor.
Of course, she got him some food. Donna would never have forgotten him. “Then eat my pie.”
“I can’t do that. What will you eat?” Her wide eyes stared at him. “It’s fine. Once I clean up this mess, I’ll make myself a sandwich from the stuff I bought. I cannot wait for the cook to get here.” She glanced at the kitchen clock. “Only twelve more hours.”
“Heat the other pie. It’s massive. We can share it. I’ll clean up the mess while you get the food.”
“We’ll share?” Her voice was a squeak. “You’ll clean?”
He wasn’t sure what upset her the most—sharing with him or watching him clean. “Aye,” was all he said as he flicked on the lights, grabbed the dustpan and brush, and headed for the mess.
Donna looked sceptical, but she didn’t argue. She took the remaining pie from the fridge and set about microwaving it, all the while keeping an eye on him in case his head exploded or something. Who knew what women thought?
As he swept up, Donna pulled an empty plate from the cupboard, presumably to divide up their food. For some reason that bothered him. They didn’t need another plate. They were perfectly capable of sharing. “Don’t dirty dishes needlessly, we can eat from the same plate.”
From the look she gave him, you would have thought he’d suggested they lick ice cream off each other’s bodies. An image of doing just that flashed in his mind and his jeans became perilously tight. After years of reacting to nothing, his body felt like it was out of control. And it was out of control over his housekeeper. Even he knew that was deeply unprofessional.
And yet, he couldn’t stop himself from crossing the line into personal territory, because his mouth opened and a question he shouldn’t have asked popped right out.
“Who’s this master guy?” he said.
She jerked, and the empty plate slipped from her hand to smash on the floor in front of him.
“What?” Her cheeks were red as she stared down at him.
“Go sit down before you trash all the dishes,” he told her. “I’ll bring the food over.”
“It was only two plates,” she muttered. “And you were the reason I broke both of them, with your random questions and your creepy sitting in the dark thing.”
She had a point, and he knew he should let the subject drop, but he couldn’t. What if she was in danger? What if she was involved in something she shouldn’t be? Wouldn’t a responsible employer look out for her? Aye. He owed it to her to be responsible.
He cleared his throat. “So, who’s this master guy you were talking about? A boyfriend? Is he treating you right?”
When she didn’t answer immediately, he looked up to find her staring at him open-mouthed.
“You think I call my boyfriends master?”
“You have more than one of them?” He felt his blood pressure rise.
“What? No! I don’t have any. Not right now, anyway.”
Did that mean she was calling some casual hook-up her master? He didn’t like that one bit. Did her sisters know what she was doing? Was anyone looking out for her? Anyone at all? It suddenly occurred to him that he had no idea what she did in her free time. Did she even have any free time? She was always available when he needed her. Except when she was off scheming with her sisters.
“Who were you talking to?” He assured himself it wasn’t nosiness that made him pry, it was a concern for her safety.
Anyone else would have told him to get lost, that it was none of his business. Not Donna. Instead, her cheeks burned even redder, and she told him what he wanted to know. “I was talking to Dobby.”
“Dobby? What the hell kind of name is that?”
Her eye
s hit his for a second, flashing with a fire she quickly snuffed out. “Dobby is the house-elf in Harry Potter. I was...um...imagining a conversation with the character.”
“You were imagining a conversation?”
“Yes.” She didn’t look at him.
