He scowls at me, and God how I love the way that scowl sends shivers straight between my thighs. Seriously, what’s wrong with me that his stern disapproval affects me so? It’s like skydiving or something, dangerous as hell but utterly fucking delicious.
“Why are you lying?”
I look at him sharply. “How can you tell I’m lying?”
“Because you’ve had your hand to your head every second you think I’m not looking, and there’s visible pain on your face.”
I don’t reply. I suppose being a mobster makes him very aware of pain.
Oh, I like that thought.
Crazy!
“How’s your arm?”
I tuck it, in its sling, against my chest.
“Also fine.”
He makes a grunty sound of disapproval.
Also hot.
Maybe I’m ovulating.
I feel like utter crap. I want to fall asleep and wake up when this is all over, when my arm’s right again and my head doesn’t hurt so badly. I want to wake up back in my own home, without Tate’s scorching displeasure sending vibes to my knickers.
He opens the door for me, and as we exit a member of the staff comes outside. She's wearing a maid’s apron, and looks about ten years younger than I am.
"Where do you guys hire your help?" I ask him. "She looks as if she's barely old enough to drive. Honestly?"
He grunts again. Apparently, this is the way that he communicates?
“I have nothing to do with the household,” he mutters. “That’s all Mum.”
Oh, that’s total crap! I’ve researched this heavily. Liar!
“Oh, I see. You don’t know anything about the house help, hmm?”
How about Aisla, I ask mentally, smart enough to at least not say her name out loud.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, if I don’t shut up I’m going to bloody muzzle myself. It’s the meds, it’s got to be the bloody meds.
Did I really just say that out loud? Why?
“You’ve got something to criticize?” He frowns.
I scowl right back at him, but I imagine it looks like a little baby kitten with her fierce wee claws compared to a mountain lion. One roar and swipe of his paw and he’ll knock me straight on my arse.
“No, all good.” I need to let this go before I say something stupid.
Too late.
Of course I had nothing to do with letting Aisla out, and have no idea who did, though I suspect it was Paisley or Islan. Based on what they've told me with a little wink and giggle. They didn't want to see their housemate in trouble, or questioned, whatever the fuck they do for questioning. I know that. And I was grateful when they told me, because I’d feel bloody awful if I knew Aisla got herself in some sort of trouble because of me.
She sent me a quick email a day or two after she’d been let out of the house.
“So sorry I have to go. I don’t want them to know I’ve had anything to do with this, and the masters of the house are not to be crossed. Please keep that in mind, miss. I very much appreciate working with you. But I’m off to my cousins in Wales, and need to no longer work with you.”
I tried to reply to her email but it was returned to me. She’d deleted her account.
I still feel guilty about that. So fucking guilty.
It’s a chilly day, though the sky is brilliant and clear. I feel if I could stand on the front step to the house, I’d be able to see for miles. There isn’t a cloud in the sky, and the mountains look as if a painter brushed them onto the landscape with magical strokes of his brush. It’s gorgeous.
“Wow,” I breathe, wrapping my coat around myself when a brisk wind makes me shiver. “This view. It never gets old.”
Tate pauses, standing next to me, his own eyes fixed ahead of him on the snowcapped mountains. Sunlight beams down, so warm in sharp contrast to the biting wind, little flecks of golden light illuminating everything around us. Even the slate-colored flagstones that lead to the main house look brilliant and vivid under the brilliant sun.
For one brief moment, the seriousness fades from his eyes, and they twinkle a bit. “I love coming out here of a morning with a cuppa, sitting down and watching that sunrise.”
“Oh, lovely,” I breathe. “How early is sunrise, though? I’m not much of an early riser. Could you still catch it at, say… ten?”
He snorts. “Maybe in Norway.”
“Norway?”
“Och, aye. You didn’t know?”
He goes on a tangent about Norway, their location and proximity to the sun, and how they have unusual variations in daylight. "People do things in the middle of the night, with the sun up overhead. They sleep in, and the sun doesn't rise until much later the next day." It's the calmest I've seen him, talking about facts and interesting things like this. He's lost some of the detached anger that he had earlier, and I wonder why.