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‘Sev has everything organised,’ Amy responded with a rather tight smile as she lifted her toasted pancake.
‘He’s the most efficient man,’ Martha assured her as she departed again.
Oh, don’t I know it?Amy reflected ruefully, sipping her coffee. It was obvious that he didn’t want her to flex more than a finger physically, much as though a pregnancy only a handful of weeks along was a seriously heavy burden for a young able-bodied woman. On the upside, though, she supposed it was a good sign for the future and the baby’s benefit that he was so keen to ensure that she didn’t injure herself or overdo anything.
‘Sorry, I had the estate manager with me when you arrived...’ Sev announced from the doorway, almost startling Amy into dropping her cup as she swivelled to look at him with wide violet eyes of surprise.
‘What are you doing here?’ she almost whispered.
‘For the moment, I’m staying here too,’ Sev admitted, gorgeous dark golden eyes dancing with what might have been amusement at her astonishment.
Amy set down her cup with a clatter on the tray, cursing herself simultaneously for not having immediately noticed that the tray was set fortwoand not one. She jumped up, an angry flush mantling her cheeks. ‘Well, that’s not going to work, is it?’ she snapped. ‘We can’t live in the same house!’
Sev closed the door and lounged back against it, a tall, commanding figure even in jeans and a sweater, his darkly handsome arresting features clenching hard. ‘Why not?’ he asked quietly.
CHAPTER TEN
AMYOPENEDHERmouth and after a couple of seconds closed it again because, of course, it washishouse and he was entitled to stay there whenever he liked. ‘I didn’t realise that you’d be here too when I agreed to move in,’ she confessed tightly. ‘I assumed you’d be remaining in London.’
‘I’m not planning to harass you. It’s a very big house,’ Sev reminded her gently as he helped himself to the coffee on the tray, as cool as a cucumber in the face of her discomfiture, which only annoyed her more. ‘When you’re ready, I’ll take you out and show you the kennels that have been set up in the barn.’
Amy nodded vigorously, still struggling to adapt to the idea of Sev inhabiting the hall at the same time as she did.
‘And then I thought you could choose a tree for the main hall.’
‘A tree?’ she repeated blankly.
‘Christmas tree?’ he extended with a slanting, utterly dazzling smile. ‘You seem to be in a daze,cara mia.’
To avoid further embarrassing conversation, Amy carried her coffee round the room while she scrutinised the furniture. ‘I believe you have labels for me to use.’
‘You don’t need to start work immediately.’
‘I like to keep busy,’ Amy told him, her heart still pounding from that smile of his, which infuriated her.
Ten minutes later, he was showing her the barn where a long line of sectional metal cages had been set up for the dogs. An outhouse had been turned into a cattery. The only thing left for Amy to decide was where the two rabbits were to go, and she got the impression that Sev would have preferred to decide that for her as well. On her last visit she had given him a list of all the necessities of feed, bedding and basic medication that were required, and those items were already stored in readiness. The animals would be arriving the following day because Harold’s son, George, could not wait to make a start on his expansion plans. Her former boss had presented her with a gift card and had urged her to stay in touch while trying to control his curiosity about the exact nature of her relationship with Sev. She had ducked the awkward questions and stayed silent about the baby she was carrying.
Sev tucked her into an SUV and drove her to the other end of the estate where an elderly tenant had a Christmas tree farm. Sev took the axe from the old man and assured him that he could manage to fell the tree on his own. By that stage, Amy was already feeling that she had been exposed more to Sev than was good for her. Getting every scrap of feeling she had acquired for him back out of her head and her heart was her biggest ambition.
‘You know, you never talk about your time in foster care,’ Sev remarked, disconcerting her with the intimacy of that comment.
‘There’s not much to say,’ Amy said uncomfortably. ‘At the time I was hurting so much from my mother turning her back on me. I was in three different foster homes, all short term. Nobody was bad to me, but nobody really cared about me either. Of course, I wasn’t willing to let anyone in back then, so I really didn’t give anyone a fair chance until Cordy came back into my life and offered me a home. And she wanted me for me, not for the pay cheque that came with fostering me. I was able to talk to her and forgive myself for the mistakes I had made.’
‘Do you think you can forgive me enough to talk to me yet?’ Sev asked as she trudged behind him over the rough grass separating the trees, choosing to walk to one side below the natural woodland that bounded the field, which meant she was less close to him.
‘It would help if you would stop trying to flirt with me or compliment me,’ Amy responded tightly.
‘Not going to do either,’ Sev breathed without remorse. ‘I did wrong. I apologised but you won’t listen.’
In a sudden rage that came out of nowhere at her, Amy stopped dead and shouted, ‘Why would Iwantto listen?’
Sev swung round, his lean, hard features set in tough lines. ‘Because I’m trying and you’re not trying at all.’
Amy rolled her eyes back at him. ‘What is there to try for?’ she demanded in frustration. ‘Even if you’d told me the truth from the beginning, we weren’t going to go anywhere anyway. At heart, you’re cold. You don’t think of anyone but yourself or someone like your sister, who’s part of the charmed circle you live in. You don’t live in my world and I’m just a novelty to you. We’ve got nothing in common.’
‘I wasn’t expecting Little Miss Sunshine to be this unforgiving...’ Sev husked.
And that was that. Amy’s arm came up as though she was about to slap him, and he grabbed her off her feet and settled her back against the trunk of an enormous tree. ‘Fight with me, then,’ he invited provocatively. ‘It’s better than the sulky silence.’
