Royal Bastard (Instantly Royal 1)

“Give me a little credit.” She didn’t have to see Nick to know he’d rolled his eyes at her. “I’m not a total perv.”

Okay, maybe that had just been her. The dreams she’d had last night. Heat flamed against her cheeks. Thank God she couldn’t be held accountable for her subconsciousness. Unless she’d made noise? Her heart clanged against her ribs. Please not that. “What made you think I might be awake?”

“You stopped snoring.”

Her pulse slowed and she released a pent-up breath. Then she processed what he’d said. “I don’t snore.”

“Think again, Lady Lemons.” He chuckled. “You have an adorable sigh-whistle-snore thing.”

She opened her mouth to argue but realized half a second later that she did, in fact, snore. Usually only when she was stressed, which was almost always o

f course, but that didn’t mean he should have heard it. Embarrassment threatened to sizzle the skin off her cheeks, negating her ability to come up with anything to say in response.

“And not to push you out of bed or anything,” he continued from his side of the closed door. “But we’ve got to swap rooms back. I can’t imagine it would do to have someone find you in my bed.”

Shit! How had she not thought of that? The man discombobulated her. The doorknob turned.

“I’m not decent,” she said, jumping up from the bed and sprinting over to the door to hold it shut. Before she got there, though, the handle stopped and went back to its original position. She let out a relieved breath.

“So how do you want to do this?” he asked.

She scooped up her clothes and hurried over to the door so she’d be in position to scoot into her room as soon as he came in. Her pajamas covered everything, but that didn’t mean she wanted him to know what she wore to sleep.

“You can come in.”

He opened the door and, of course, he was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt while she was in a worn tank and shorts. Unlike her, his hair wasn’t going every which way but how it should. Not to mention he didn’t look like his brain was still a fuzzy, tea-free mess. No, his gaze was sharp and focused totally on her. She clutched her bundle of clothes a little closer to her chest.

“What time is it?” And why was she asking when what she needed was to just get her arse into her room?

He turned one of his wrists, highlighting the muscles of his forearm. “Six thirty.”

“And you’ve been up for hours, haven’t you?” Yes. Focus on that and not the muscles in his forearm. Anything but that.

“I don’t usually sleep a lot.”

It was a perfectly normal thing to say. There was nothing cheeky in his words, and yet her pulse picked up and she forgot how to breathe for a second. Snap out of it, Brooke. He’s the earl’s heir. She was the earl’s secretary. She’d overstepped her station before and been slapped down. It wasn’t a mistake she was going to ever make again.

“We have work to do.”

The easygoing amusement evaporated from his face. “Time for Earl School, huh?”

She stepped forward, brushing past him on her way through the door. “You did agree to give it your every effort.”

“That’s not exactly what I said.” He let out a grumpy sigh that reminded her almost exactly of the old earl.

“But it should have been what you said, so I sorted that for you,” she said, taking another step into her room but keeping her focus on him. “You’re welcome.”

And on that triumphant correction, she shut the door between their rooms with a speedy flick of her wrist before he could get more than a glance of her in her threadbare tank top and sleep shorts.

Mentally congratulating herself, she turned and prepped herself for the attack of the allergies that never came. Instead of highlighting all the dust floating in the air, the sun streaming in from the windows landed on newly uncovered dust-free furniture. The bed had been made. Even the window that had been stuck closed as long as she’d been working at Dallinger Park was open to let in the sound of birds chirping. It was as if in the middle of the night, an entire cleaning crew had attacked her temporary room. But no one had. It was too early for Kate the housekeeper to have made it to the big house, let alone to have done this. That left only one person. She turned and marched to the door, not quite believing what logic dictated.

Keeping herself behind the door, she opened it enough to peek her head out. “Did you do this?”

Nick picked up yesterday’s copy of the Financial Times that was lying on the coffee table. “Do what?”

“Tidy up my room.”

He shrugged his broad shoulders and adjusted the newspaper so she couldn’t see his face below his unlined forehead. “I was bored.”