The Best Next Thing ((Un)Professionally Yours 1)

“Charity, if you stay, it won’t be as the housekeeper.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I would want you to share meals with us, go on outings with us. I’d want you to get to know my mother and sister on a personal level. I don’t want you picking up after us. Cleaning up…organizing our lives. Fucking getting emergency whatever-the-hells at all hours of the day or night. You would be staying as my partner, my lover…the woman I—”

He swallowed the words. He couldn’t say them. She needed to make a clean getaway. And telling her how he felt would place an unfair emotional burden on her.

The woman he what? Charity longed for him to complete that sentence. She couldn’t remember anything she had craved more than to hear the rest of what she was certain he had been about to say. But she knew the words were better left unspoken.

For the sake of her sanity…and his.

“Be nicer to your sister,” she advised softly. “Don’t push them away, Miles. They love you.”

“What do you care? Why are you telling me this?” he asked bitterly, then immediately felt petty.

“We’re still friends, aren’t we? That was our deal, right? Friends…possibly lovers. But always friends.”

“Charity,” his voice was hoarse with suppressed emotion, and his eyes glittered when he forced himself to look at her. “I don’t know how to be your friend.”

“You’ve been my friend all along, Miles. And I…thank you for that.”

“Don’t. Just…” He swallowed loudly, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the motion. “You don’t have to thank me for anything, Charity. Ever. Okay? That infers a debt that simply isn’t owed.”

Her lips quivered, and she brought them under strict control, drawing them between her teeth to prevent the movement.

“I have to get breakfast started,” she said, hoping the change in subject would bring everything back into perspective. But the man was ever unpredictable, and she stared at him in astonishment, when he lifted her spare frilly pinafore apron from a hook next to the back door and tied it around his waist. He looked ridiculously adorable. “Whoa…what are you doing?”

“I said we would be fixing breakfast, and I meant it. You no longer work for me. But if you insist on doing things like cooking and cleaning during your last few days here, I’m for damned sure going to help you with everything.”

“You’re the strangest millionaire I know.” She huffed, infuriated and—damn him—hopelessly charmed by his insistence on helping her.

“Know a lot of millionaires, do you?” he asked, with a sardonic twist of his lips. He didn’t wait for her reply, instead he rubbed his palms together and gave her a manic grin. “Let’s get cracking, Mrs. Cole…you know how my sister gets when she’s hangry.”

Relieved that he seemed in better spirts, Charity tentatively returned the smile. “By the way, I think your mother and George are totally crushing on each other.”

He shuddered and shook his head. “There’s a thought I do not want to entertain right now. My Mum a

lways had a soft spot for the scoundrels.”

“Scoundrels?” she repeated gleefully. This man constantly gave her reason to smile. Even with their situation so irredeemably tragic. “Have you shifted your focus from fantasy novels to historical romances?”

“The description is apropos, and you know it.”

“And are you going to warn said scoundrel away from your mummy?” she asked, on a teasing note.

He snorted. “Far be it from me to dictate my mother’s love life. She can take care of herself. If she likes George, and he likes her, I’m guessing there’ll be a holiday romance blooming in no time, and I’m just going to have to deal with it. Besides, George may be a scoundrel, but he’s also a gentleman. He won’t hurt her.”

“You’re a great guy, you know that?”

He looked pained by her words and shadows drifted back into his eyes. “Sometimes I wish I weren’t. Sometimes I wish I were an arsehole who made unreasonable demands and selfishly took what he wanted. Being a great guy doesn’t always work out so well.” The bitterness in his voice was palpable, it tainted the air, and she could practically taste it on her tongue.

“Being that guy would make you miserable, Miles. It’s not in your DNA to make others unhappy.”

“Stop making me sound like a fucking saint, Charity. I’m not. I don’t know how to deal with any of this. I’m trying to do the right thing. I’m trying to be graceful about losing you and I…” He shook his head. “I fucking hate it! I hate every moment of this. It’s like a painful, lingering death.”

He ran a shaky hand through his already disheveled hair and inhaled deeply. Once. Twice…a third time.

It reminded her of her counting.