The Millionaire and the Maid

He glanced up and froze when he saw what she was doing.

Her chin shot up. Well, bad luck, buddy! She’d been making his recipes for seven days now. Seven days of cooking.

He turned to leave. ‘Don’t even think about it.’ Her voice came out on a snarl. He turned back and raised an eyebrow. ‘Sit!’ She pointed to a chair. She could see he was about to refuse. ‘I will tie you to it if I have to.’

He blinked. His eyes turned dark and lazy. Deliberately his gaze lowered to her lips, all but caressing them. ‘I’m almost tempted to put that to the test.’

She had to swallow. Wrestling with him would be so very intriguing.

And foolhardy.

She backed up one step and then another. She seized the tray of macarons. ‘Look at these.’

He did, and then grimaced.

She dropped the tray to the table and swung away to pour him a mug of tea. She pushed it across the table towards him. ‘Would you like a macaron to go with that?’ she asked drily

His lips twitched, but he didn’t sit. ‘No, thanks.’

‘Of course you don’t. No rational person would touch one of those with a twenty-foot pole. Have you seen anything less appetising in your life?’

He took a hasty slug of his tea.

She glared. Why did this cooking gig have to be so hard? ‘If you say one more thing against my béarnaise sauce I’ll...’

‘Tie me up?’

Images pounded at her. ‘Pelt you with my macarons.’

He laughed. It seemed like an age since he’d laughed. ‘A fate worse than death.’

She tilted her chin at the tray. ‘Those suckers would probably knock you out. Please, Mac, I need your help. Can you please, please, please tell me what I did wrong?’

He sat and pulled the tray towards him and something inside her chest started to flutter and thrash. Two birds. One stone. If she could get him to do something that was halfway related to cooking it would teach her a technique she obviously needed and maybe—just maybe—it would help him overcome his resistance to preparing food again. Maybe he would find his way back to his passion and find some comfort in losing himself in it for a while.

‘I suspect you didn’t beat the egg whites for long enough.’

There seemed to be a theme emerging there.

‘Or perhaps you didn’t use enough confectioners’ sugar. Or you cooked them at too high a temperature.’

There were too many variables. With a growl she finished separating the eggs—a full dozen—and shoved the bowl and a whisk at him. ‘Show me how it’s done,’ she demanded. ‘There must be something wrong with my technique.’

His face closed up and his body drew in on itself, tight and unbending. ‘You know I—’

‘I’m ready to beg. And it’s not real cooking, Mac. It’s just whisking.’

And then it hit her—how she could keep him in the kitchen with her. She moistened her lips. ‘I haven’t really told you why it’s so important that I master this stupid macaron tower, have I?’

‘You mentioned the bet between your grandmother and great-aunt.’

She snorted. ‘Ah, the bet. It wasn’t our finest hour I’m afraid. My grandmother had been flicking through a magazine and came across a picture of one and made some throwaway comment. I said it was pretty. Great-Aunt Edith then said there was no way on God’s green earth—her words—that I could make one for my grandmother’s next birthday. Grandma, thinking she was standing up for me, said I could do it standing on my head.’

He winced.

‘Naturally, of course, I said it’d be a piece of cake.’ What an idiot.

‘And then the pearls were put up as a stake...?’

‘It’s like something from a bad comedy.’ And she was caught squarely in the middle.

‘Why did you let yourself get drawn in?’

‘Habit. But lately I’ve been thinking it’s a bad habit all round—this adversarial bent we’ve developed.’

‘It must’ve been there before you came along.’

‘I guess so, but I want to do something to change it. I want to mend it.’

He leaned in towards her and her heart did some more of that fluttering and thrashing.

‘You know the whole “Russ having a heart attack and me suddenly re-evaluating my life” stuff. I know they love each other. So...’

‘How are you going to change it?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

‘Isn’t making a macaron tower just falling in with their continued rivalry?’

She shrugged. ‘My plan so far is that I make the best damn macaron tower that’s ever been seen and then I take the pearls and claim them for my own.’