A week later Rose was walking home from doing some shopping with her fast-dwindling savings. Luckily she’d got a job working a few hours a week in a local health food store, but she would need other work—and fast—if she was to try and add to their health insurance so her father would be in with a shot to get on a waiting list for the operation he needed.
But that will take months, a small voice reminded her. Months he doesn’t have.
Rose willed down the panic. She could do this. She was young, healthy. Relatively strong. She would work five jobs if she could find them.
She didn’t regret walking away from her job in the Lyndon-Holt house. No way could she face that woman again. She felt tarnished even knowing what she’d agreed to, knowing what she’d almost done.
She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she barely noticed the sleek black car crawling beside her and coming to a stop at the same time as she did when she went to cross the road.
A prickling sensation stopped her in her tracks, though, and she looked to see an all too familiar figure emerging from the back of the car, where the door was being held open by a driver.
As if conjured straight out of her thoughts by some nefarious alchemy, Mrs Lyndon-Holt stood resplendent in her designer clothes against the backdrop of the tired Queens street and said superciliously, ‘Won’t you join me in the car, Rose? I think we have some things to discuss.’
Hours later, dressed in a white shirt, black bow tie and knee-length black skirt, with her unruly hair in a neat bun on the top of her head, Rose held a tray of hors d’oeuvres aloft so that guests could help themselves.
Mrs Lyndon-Holt’s cold voice still rang in her head. ‘Do I need to remind you that you signed a legal document? I could sue you for breach of contract if you give up now.’
Rose had protested vociferously in the back of the car, to no avail. She’d even tried to convince the woman that Zac had asked her to leave.
The response to that had been, ‘If Zachary isn’t interested in you then why has he spent the week looking for you?’
Rose’s heart had palpitated, and she’d asked shakily, ‘How can you even know that?’
The other woman had waved a hand dismissively. ‘I know everything my son is involved in. Believe me. And he wants you.’
Stupidly, Rose had given herself away by saying, ‘He does?’
Mrs Lyndon-Holt had snapped impatiently, ‘Of course he’s interested, you stupid girl. By running away from him you’ve ensured his interest. Women do not evade Zachary Lyndon-Holt, and my son seems to have found your particular brand of unsophistication intriguing.’
As if Rose needed that reminder.
Her protests that she hadn’t run away as part of an attempt to entice him had fallen on deaf ears. And Mrs Lyndon-Holt had reminded Rose cruelly of her other concerns when she’d said, ‘Don’t forget who you’re doing this for, Rose. Your father. He doesn’t deserve to suffer for your lack of action, does he?’
In the end, the not so subtle threat of legal action and a reminder of why she’d signed the contract in the first place had had Rose reluctantly accepting a note with an address on it and terse instructions from Mrs Lyndon-Holt as to what to wear.
So that was why she was now serving at a buffet luncheon inside one of Manhattan’s most exclusive addresses, which housed one of the world’s most famous private art collections, only on view to a very select few on occasions like this, once or twice a year.
Rose prayed that Zac wouldn’t appear, and assured herself that even if he did he probably wouldn’t even remember her, in spite of what his mother claimed.
But just as she was thinking that a very perceptible hush went around the room and she looked up to see him entering through the main salon door.
The tray nearly tipped out of her hands and she had to cling on for dear life. Her nerves went haywire and her blood sizzled. He was dressed in a dark grey three-piece suit and listening attentively to something the host was saying as he greeted him.
Rose couldn’t breathe. She was suddenly filled with sheer dread that he would turn his head and see her.
On a panicky reflex, she swung around to try and stay out of his line of vision—and crashed straight into another server who was right behind her. Her tray was already unstable in her hands, and Rose watched helplessly as it collided with the other silver platter and they both tipped up and turned end over end, spraying horrified guests nearby with slivers of exotic hors d’oeuvre fillings before crashing to the undoubtedly priceless oriental carpet on the floor.
A deathly silence filled the air.
Zac was trying to appear interested in what the host was saying, but as per usual his mind was elsewhere. Specifically fixated on about five foot seven of elsewhere. A woman with slim curves and strawberry blonde hair. And the face of an angel that inspired distinctly un-angelic thoughts and desires.
He still couldn’t believe she’d actually left that night. After looking at him with those wide green eyes and saying okay. He shouldn’t have taken the call. She’d slipped through his fingers like shimmering quicksilver, impossible to hold onto.
No woman had walked away from Zac. Ever. And while that admittedly did add to the intrigue, the insatiable desire she’d roused inside him was unprecedented. And the need to know more about her. And why the hell hadn’t his team found her yet?
Suddenly there was a loud metallic clatter, and Zac jerked his head around to see two trays spewing their contents and crashing to the floor. At the same moment that he was sending up silent thanks for being released from the attention of his host he was also noticing a very distinctive reddish blonde head of hair near the area of sudden carnage. Tucked up into a bun. Above a long neck.
His insides clenched—hard. It couldn’t be her. But then she turned her head ever so slightly in his direction and he saw a familiar profile. Paler than pale skin…
It was her. Recognition washed over him in a dizzying sweep of heat and relief. Zac was not letting her slip through his fingers again.
Rose had gone cold and clammy, all fingers and thumbs as she tried to gather up the detritus of expensive canapés. The other server hissed at her. ‘What is wrong with you? You’ve probably cost us both our jobs and I need this work.’
Rose’s gut lurched and she looked at the other girl’s blazingly angry expression. ‘I’m so sorry. I don’t know—’
‘Now,’ an assured and deep voice cut in, ‘I don’t think anyone is going to lose their jobs over a simple accident—are they, Mr Wakefield?’
Rose went still. That voice. Right above her head. His voice. She looked to her left and saw expensively shod feet.
Someone else was saying something brightly—‘Not at all. Please, let’s just move aside and get this cleared up.’—and then Rose felt a hand under her upper arm, curling around it, and she was being urged upwards.
All the way up until she was standing in front of a familiar broad chest. She couldn’t find enough breath to suck into her lungs. She was barely aware of people cleaning up and Zac leading her away from the site of the accident. She was surprised her legs were working; she couldn’t feel them.
He was opening a door and urging her through, into a dark-panelled room full of books. Rose felt as if she was in a dream, and put it down to the fact that she was probably hyperventilating.
‘Are