The Millionaire and the Maid

He shook his head. ‘With a border collie, though, you can expect somewhere between four and eight.’

Eight!

The vet handed her his bill. Mac stood beside her as they waved him goodbye.

‘Can Bandit stay here with me?’ Mac said without preamble. ‘I promise I’ll look after her.’

‘Yes.’

He plucked the bill from her fingers. ‘She’s my dog now, so I’ll take care of her bills.’ He strode back towards the house. ‘But those puppies, Jo...’ he called over his shoulder. ‘They’re all yours.’

Puppies? She smiled. Eight puppies? She groaned. What on earth would she do with eight puppies?

Maybe Russ would like one after he’d recovered from his surgery. Weren’t pets supposed to be good for people—a form of therapy?

She bit back a sigh. What Russ really needed was a visit from his brother.

* * *

Mac ostensibly studied the cheese soufflé that Jo had set on the table, but all the time his mind whirled. Tomorrow Jo would have been here for a week. What did she mean to tell Russ?

He glanced at her. She wiped her hands down the sides of her jeans. ‘Does it pass muster?’

He pulled his attention back to the soufflé. ‘On first glance, yes. It’s a nice colour.’

She folded her arms, narrowing her eyes.

‘Okay, okay.’ He raised his hands. ‘I’d want it higher and fluffier if you were one of my apprentices—but you’re not. This is the very first time you’ve made a soufflé, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Then in that case it definitely passes muster.’

She sat and motioned for him to serve it.

He drew the warm scent of the soufflé into his lungs. ‘It smells good.’

She leaned in closer to smell it too, her lips pursed in luscious plumpness. A beat started up inside him, making his hand clench around the serving spoon.

‘So this whole food-assessing thing...it’s a bit like wine-tasting? You check the colour of the thing, smell it and finally taste it?’

‘Though in this instance one hopes it doesn’t get spat back out.’

She sort of smiled. There hadn’t been too many smiles from her in the last day and a half.

What was she going to tell Russ?

‘I’m trying to get away from the demanding level of perfection that’s necessary in a top-notch restaurant. The people who buy my book aren’t cooking for royalty.’ Not like he had. They’d be cooking for their eighty-five-year-old grandmothers. ‘I’m correct in thinking, aren’t I, that they just want to have some fun?’

‘Fun.’ She nodded, but he could tell she held back a sigh.

He shook his head. How was he going to teach her the intricacies of a macaron when she didn’t even like cooking?

He pushed the thought from his mind and sampled a forkful of soufflé.

‘Well?’

He’d give it to her straight. Somehow she sensed it whenever he fudged. And she didn’t seem to mind the criticism. Because she wants to get better. Yes, but he wasn’t sure her reasons for wanting to get better were going to help her conquer the laborious process of making a macaron tower. He shook that thought away. If she left tomorrow there’d be no need to figure that out.

The thought of her leaving filled him with sudden darkness. He moistened his lips. He didn’t want her leaving because he wanted her to tell Russ that there was nothing to worry about. That was all.

He dragged his mind back to the soufflé. ‘An accomplished soufflé should be lighter. You probably needed to whip the egg whites a bit longer. But it’s very good for a first effort.’

‘You mean it’s passable?’

He needed to work on that whole giving-it-to-her-straight thing.

She sampled it too, and shrugged. ‘I don’t understand the difference between beating, whipping, creaming, mixing and all that nonsense.’

It wasn’t nonsense.

‘What’s all that about anyway?’

He stared at her. ‘Would it help if I put a glossary defining those terms in the book?’

‘Yes!’ She pushed her hair off her face. ‘I mean I’d welcome one.’

Done.

‘And could you also add a definite length of time for how long egg whites should be whipped?’

‘That depends on the size of the eggs, the temperature of the room in which you’re whipping them, the humidity in the air and any number of other factors.’

She stared at him. He wished he could ignore the intriguing shape of her mouth. He wished he could forget their softness and the spark they’d fired to life inside him.

‘Mac?’

He jumped. ‘What?’