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She narrowed her gaze on him, and although irritated, he couldn’t ignore the awareness that skimmed through him at her look.
A flush settled on her cheeks and she cleared her throat. “Fine. I’ll take care of it.”
“Wonderful. If only that solved my current problem,” he muttered, turning away.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that it’s going to take you a long time to clean this up and make it suitable for Margery to use. And I haven’t eaten.”
“Couldn’t you just order something in? Get it delivered?”
He was surprised he hadn’t burst a blood vessel. “No, I can’t just have something delivered. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not in the middle of London! We’re out in the country.”
In solitude, which he’d always loved.
Before now.
“I was just asking,” she said, flicking her gaze upward.
“Quit playing, Dani. It’s enough,” Nyla said. “Your Royal Highness, your housekeeper left you a plate in the refrigerator.”
Bless you, Margery. And Nyla.
Scowling, he crossed the room, staring at the charred mess through the oven door in distaste. Opening the refrigerator, he spied a plate on the shelf with a sandwich and a side of his favorites, truffle chips.
Grabbing it, he nodded his thanks to Nyla. He couldn’t resist aglance at Dani, who was looking at him with a pained expression, but the moment she caught him staring, her back straightened and her mouth twisted.
She toasted him with her champagne. “Enjoy.”
His jaw tightened and he left the kitchen, the sound of her sultry laughter following him.
“WHY WOULD YOUdo that?” Nyla asked, an incredulous look on her face.
“I don’t know,” Dani said, her posture slumping as soon as it was clear he wasn’t coming back.
She exhaled, the rush of breath actually blowing a curl off her forehead and distributing a puff of flour. She looked around at the mess. Nana would kick her ass. This man had allowed her to stay in his home, albeit begrudgingly, and she’d destroyed his kitchen.
She hadn’t done it on purpose. Not that it was an accident. One didn’t make this type of wreckage by accident. Rather, she hadn’t done it maliciously.
It had taken Dani approximately three hours to run out of things to do.
She’d had good intentions. She’d taken a self-guided tour of the castle and marveled at the beautifully decorated rooms with their gorgeous furniture and museum-quality art and the number of staff she spied, both in the house and in the elaborate gardens.
Finding a lovely room filled with sunlight, she’d planned to while away the morning hours diving into the new memoir of one of the hottest pop divas in the game. Everyone had been raving about its realness and how the superstar finally answered the many questions about her infamous 2015 pool party, where it wasalleged that all four members of her girl group had gotten pregnant.
By their personal trainer!
She’d given up after the first three chapters.
She’d tried to watch a few of the movies she’d downloaded, but they couldn’t hold her attention, either. Why did men insist on writing women either as vapid boob carriers, constantly getting into trouble and requiring saving, or manipulative boob carriers out to break men’s hearts or double-cross them? That’s, of course, when they chose to write them at all.
She’d played some games on her phone, applied a face mask, even downloaded an app that promised to teach her Italian in fourteen days—!—but by lunchtime she was seriously considering a walk to the nearby village.
A walk!
What was she, sixty?
Around the time she began to ponder asking Margery for some cards or a puzzle, it had occurred to her that maybe the reason she hadn’t taken a vacation wasn’t that she was too busy but that she didn’t knowhow. She’d been working, in some capacity, since she was thirteen years old. To save up money for herself or to lessen the time she spent feeling unwelcome in others’ houses. Her work ethic was her one constant. It was all she knew.
