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The double doors open wide, revealing a plump redheaded woman with the most adorable dimples.
“Grace,” Jen says, ushering me inside, “this is Mrs. Cline, head of housekeeping.”
“So nice to meet you, Grace,” Mrs. Cline says, shaking my hand. “I’ve set you up in our most comfortable room.”
As I thank her, my gaze is gradually drawn up, up, up to the foyer’s impossibly high ceilings.
“I’d say you get used to it,” Mrs. Cline says, “but you never really do.”
Benjamin skirts around us with my bags and disappears around a corner. Mrs. Cline takes my coat, and I follow Jen down a wide corridor, pausing to peer into elegantly furnished sitting rooms and studies. We pop into the impressive chef’s kitchen to ask Paolo, the cook, about making up a fruit plate, and then head upstairs.
“This is your room.” Jen opens a door to a gorgeous bedroom suite, complete with a fireplace and a sitting area, decorated in creams and golds. I spot my bags laid out on the cushioned bench at the foot of the bed. “Your closet and private bath are through there,” Jen says, pointing to another doorway.
My body tenses. I hold my breath as I peek inside the walk-in closet leading into the lavish bath.
It could be worse, I tell myself. At least there are two ways in and out. Plus, I can always prop the chair from the vanity against the door to make sure it doesn’t close on me.
“Would you like a moment to settle in before I take you to meet your uncle?” Jen asks.
Honestly, I would like nothing more than to crawl into bed for the next six months and not have to interact with another living soul. All these people, this place... It’s newness overload. A newness that only serves to remind me how much my life has changed. How nothing will ever be the same.
Unshed tears burn my eyes as I fight to quell the sinking feeling in my chest. Everyone I’ve met so far has been so sweet and understanding. I don’t want to be rude to the generous host who opened his home to me, sight unseen.
“I’d like to meet him now,” I tell her.
Jen guides me to a home office at the opposite end of the house. I hear his voice before I see him, deep and resonant. The sound makes my arms break out in gooseflesh. He must be on a phone call.
As soon as Jen knocks on the doorframe, he tells the person on the other end that he has to go. The high-backed leather chair turns, and I meet Aidan O’Rourke’s gaze for the first time.
It nearly knocks the breath from me.
“Hello Grace.” The man’s eyes are so blue they put mine to shame.
He stands and I’m suddenly called by some internal force to meet him at the center of the room.
His stride is long. I’m tall for a girl, at five-foot-eight, and I still have to tilt my head back to continue looking at his face—and his is a good face. A chiseled face, with small lines on his forehead and around his eyes. If he and my father were close in age, that puts Aidan in his mid-to-late thirties. Somehow the lines on his face that would make other men look old have given him character instead.
When he offers me his hand, I give him mine.
“I’m very sorry we couldn’t have met under more pleasant circumstances,” he says.
“It’s all right,” I say, realizing what a stupid response that is as soon as the words leave my mouth. But I can’t help it; I’m stupefied. “Me, too.”
He gestures to a small sitting area by a big bay window. “Have a seat.”
I move as if my feet are under a spell. His presence is quietly commanding, even as he’s made no specific demands beyond asking me to sit down. We sit across from one another, and it’s only then that I notice Jen has left us.
“This must be strange for you,” he says, his gaze direct and assessing as he takes in my pale-blue eyes and fair complexion, my soft blonde curls cascading past my shoulders. “I take it your father didn’t tell you about me.”
I chew on my tongue, considering my words carefully.
“He may have mentioned you once or twice,” I say.
“I would have preferred he hadn’t.” His mouth tips into a humorless smile. “Your father and I were stepbrothers, but that didn’t make us family. I don’t expect you to call me Uncle.”
“What should I call you then?”
“You can call me Aidan,” he says. I note the thatch of brown on his head is slightly darker than the hair peppering his jaw and the skin around his mouth. He wets his bottom lip, and a shiver runs through me. “I have some work to finish up here, but I hoped you might join me for dinner. Assuming you’re up for it.”
