The Best Next Thing Read online

  “Look, Gracie’s birthday is coming up, and I want you here.”

  Charity was well aware that her niece was turning six next month but had hoped she could get away with sending a gift and making a phone call.

  “Faith, things are crazy here. My boss showed up unannounced and…”

  “We’re having a party,” Faith interjected. “And she’s asked if you’ll be here.”

  “The timing is—”

  “I told her you would be here,” her sister interrupted again.

  “My boss has been ill. I can’t simply up and leave without warning.”

  “Charity, it’s been three years.” Her sister’s voice—gentle and laden with empathy—undid her. So much sympathy, love, and understanding.

  But Faith didn’t understand, not really. None of them did.

  “I won’t pretend to know why you’ve felt the need to uproot and move to the middle of nowhere. I thought after Blaine…you’d want to pick up where you left off with your career. Instead you put your life on hold to become a frikken housekeeper. I recognize that you needed the space, and we thought we were doing the right thing in giving it to you. But we shouldn’t have done that. You need us. You need your family. We should never have allowed you to grieve alone. Because you haven’t healed at all, have you? You can’t move past this. We all miss Blaine, Cherry. We all loved him as much as you did, and we’re all grieving his loss. But when you left, it felt like we lost you too.”

  They thought that she grieved for him. Missed him, loved him…that man. Her husband, Blaine Thomas Davenport. The man who had beaten her, kicked her, raped her, abused her almost every day of their three-year marriage. The man who had tried to kill on her that last horrific night.

  Her family thought he had been a good man, and they mourned his loss.

  Watching them cry over him had proven impossible to do, and Charity had begged her attorney, the only person on this earth who knew her truth, to help her find a place to hide. To lick her wounds in private. Mr. Lanscombe had found this position for her…he’d practically had it created for her. He had known Miles’s family attorney and had called in a favor.

  And Charity had fled.

  Something that she should have done during those three long years of abuse. She hated herself for not leaving him. For making every excuse under the sun until she had run out of excuses and instead found herself acknowledging that she was weak, stupid, and powerless. It had been her lowest point. He had owned her after that.

  Body and soul.

  “Cherry?” She snapped back to the present at the sound of her sister’s voice and realized that her face was wet with tears. She stared blindly out of the kitchen window and was alarmed to see Miles coming up the path. He caught her gaze and his brow lowered, but she turned away and scrubbed the edge of her sleeve over her damp cheeks.

  “Faith, I can’t come. I have responsibilities here,” she said, hoping her sister wouldn’t hear the betraying husk in her voice.

  “Cherry, you have a family who loves you, please come home.”

  A familiar refrain.

  “I’ll consider it. If I…if I can find a way to…” Her voice tapered off when the backdoor opened, and she kept her face averted, not wanting Miles’s perceptive gaze to spot any trace of tears on her cheeks.

  “Everybody would love to see you. Sandra and Paul will be there too. They’ve been so lost since…since it happened. It would be wonderful if they could spend time with you again.”

  Charity knew that, and it was the main reason she did not want to go to her niece’s party. Sandra and Paul Davenport, her husband’s parents. She had stopped thinking of them as her parents-in-law around the same time she had comprehended that they knew about Blaine’s abuse of her.

  They were her parents’ best friends. Of course, they would be at the party. Beloved Aunt Sandra and Uncle Paul.

  Maybe if you’d stop making him so angry, Charity. Her mother-in-law’s gentle suggestion, offered in an oh-so-helpful tone of voice, drifted through her mind. This after a particularly bad beating. He had broken her ribs that time, and Sandra had taken her to the hospital, offering some explanation or excuse for the injury that the doctors hadn’t questioned.

  “Faith, I have to go,” Charity said, knowing she sounded abrupt but unable to do anything about that. She hated having Miles here to witness any part of this call. It felt like an intrusion. “I love you. Hugs to Gracie.”

  She disconnected the call before her sister had the opportunity to say anything more. She cleared her throat and took a moment to compose herself before turning to face her boss.

  He wasn’t paying her any attention. Instead, he was guzzling down a bottle of mineral water while Stormy enthusiastically did the same at her water bowl. After finishing half of the bottle in one go, he lowered it to wipe his forearm across his lip. The move was so unlike the fastidious Miles Hollingsworth that Charity couldn’t help but stare.

  He caught the stare and lifted his shoulders.

  “I’ll have to remember to take some water along next time.”

  “You look…” She paused and considered her words. Hot, sweaty, wrung out, and not at all like his usual self. In fact, she would go so far as to say he looked really, really good. Despite his thinness and his sick bed pallor. His black hair—so much longer than she was used to seeing it—was wild and damp. The thick, unkempt mane framed his face attractively.

  He was tallish, five nine or ten, and sparely built. Some would probably be generous in their use of the word “average” when describing Miles Hollingsworth. Charity would be the first to admit that perhaps he was beautifully, boringly average at first glance. In fact, the only thing about him that wasn’t average was a hawkish nose that dominated his narrow face and would have most people struggling to call him even passably handsome.

  But there was something about him…about those plain features. A sharpness to his cheekbones and an edge to his jawline. Something in the piercing and aloof chill of his striking steel gray eyes. That penetrating stare, combined with that overbearing nose, was what made him seem so unapproachable.

  That reticence was the very reason Charity should stay as far away from the man as possible. Yet something about him appealed to her in ways that she found unsettling and tried to keep suppressed. And while it had always been there, this tiny tug of attraction, she had never truly admitted it to herself before this moment.

  But that terrifying acknowledgment had her keen to slam the lid on this simmering attraction that could boil over if she didn’t maintain her vigilance and her distance.

  “The Ice Man”, that’s what the media called him. Cold, calculated, and cutthroat. He was pretty much the antithesis of her late husband.

  Blaine had been almost godlike in his beauty. Tall, with a perfect body, perfect face, pale green eyes, and perfectly coiffed sandy hair. He had been so warm and approachable. Everybody’s favorite guy.

  Just perfect.

  And rotten to the core.

  “I look?” Miles prompted her softly, and she blinked. She hated that she had noticed how good he looked. She didn’t want to notice that about him, or about any man for that matter. She didn’t think she was ready for that. For sexual awareness. Especially not awareness of someone who had so much power over her life and immediate future.

  “Uhm…cold. You look cold. And wet.”

  “It started drizzling about five minutes ago. Light and annoying but pretty effective at soaking us through.”

  “That can’t be good for you.”

  “Probably not, but I feel fantastic. It was an invigorating walk. We both enjoyed it.”

  He took another thirsty gulp from his bottle, this time keeping his perceptive, unsettling gaze on her face. “You have something on your cheek.”

  He brushed his long, slender index finger over his own cheekbone.

  Charity self-consciously lifted her hands and scrubbed them over her face. The corners of his lips lifted when he met her
inquiring gaze, and he shook his head.

  “Despite just about rubbing your skin raw, you still missed it.”

  “What is it?”

  “White powder. You been snorting coke while I was gone?” The words were so deadpan, Charity’s jaw dropped in shock at the question. His lips kicked up even more at the edges, revealing the shallow dimple in his right cheek.

  “No, of course not,” she gasped, and this time he snorted. The sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh.

  “Relax, Mrs. Cole, I was joking. I can see that it’s flour.” He indicated toward the island behind her, where the overworked dough lay forgotten on the counter.

  “Oh,” she said, feeling like a complete idiot. He stepped toward her and lifted his hand. She froze and then flinched when his thumb touched her skin for a millisecond.

  “There,” he said, not seeming to notice her reaction. “It’s gone.”

  He took a deliberate step back, his movement telling her that he had most certainly noticed her reaction.

  “I’m sorry.” The apology stunned her. “I shouldn’t have done that. It was uncalled for.”

  Fuck!

  He shouldn’t have touched her. He wasn’t sure why he had. It had been improper behavior. But the gesture had been unconscious and not intended to do anything more than remove the smudge of flour from her cheek.

  But it had shocked and…frightened her. And the very last thing he wanted was for her to feel unsafe around him.

  She had looked so fucking sad when he had first walked into the kitchen, and Miles had teased her to get that tragic look out of her eyes. It was the first time he had ever seen the usually stalwart Mrs. Cole so vulnerable, and he didn’t like it. Not one bit. The depth of sadness and despair he had glimpsed on her face had made her seem young and completely defenseless.

  He hated it, and he wanted to know what had caused it.

  “Was that your family? On the phone?” he asked, and then could have kicked himself for opening his damned mouth. It was none of his business.

  She didn’t say anything, merely patted her hair—checking for errant strands that were never there—and turned back to her work station at the island.

  “Do they live close by?”

  Fucking hell, shut up, Hollingsworth!

  He was about to change the subject by asking about dinner, when she replied, “No. They don’t.”

  “Where do they live?” Now that she’d responded, the topic was fair game as far as he was concerned.

  “Nowhere near here.”

  “Do you see them often?”

  “No.” Her response was cold and delivered with an air of finality that encouraged no further questions.

  Miles watched her closely for a second, her smooth, clinical mask of indifference was back in place, but there were fine cracks forming. He could tell from the slight tremble of her long, elegant fingers as she cleaned sticky dough off the marble counter. And from the white line forming around the tight press of her full lips. If he pushed her, she would break…

  But he found that—despite his curiosity—he didn’t want her to break. He wanted to know more. But only if she was willing to tell him.

  And why should she ever want to confide in him? He was nothing but a paycheck to her. And his current curiosity and boredom, and frustration did not entitle him to know her secrets.

  He cleared his throat, not sure what to say next. He should leave her to her privacy. But what if she cried again? He didn’t like the thought of leaving her alone to cry.

  In the end, she was the one who broke the silence. “How was your walk?”

  He latched on to the question gratefully.

  “We didn’t get very far. It took us fifteen minutes to get to the bushwillow tree”—a feat that usually took him under ten minutes—“and because we were both already flagging at that point, I thought it best to turn around. Didn’t want to give you the opportunity to say ‘I told you so’.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t have…”

  “I was joking, Mrs. Cole.” Again—as with his off-color comment about the flour earlier—she looked so confounded at the notion of him having a sense of humor, that Miles found his amusement fizzling.

  Jesus, he knew he could be a crabby bastard at times, but he wasn’t that bad, was he?

  She had removed the raw dough from the counter and was meticulously wiping the surface with a damp cloth.

  “You’re not going to finish the bread?” he asked. A topic change seemed prudent, and it might as well be about something mundane.

  “I ruined the dough, I’ll have to start over.”

  “Do you—” He slammed the brakes on the question he couldn’t believe he had almost asked and swallowed audibly. Her eyes swung up to his; uncharacteristic curiosity lighting the dark, dark depths of that beautiful limpid gaze.

  “Do I what?”

  He considered his options for the rest of the day. It was still too early for television, Stormy would soon pass out and sleep for a few hours after her walk, he had no more audiobooks, the Internet was down, work was off limits…he could grab a book from the extensive library, but he usually needed to be in the right frame of mind to do any reading.

  That left sleeping, exercise—not the ideal option after his walk—or staying here. With a woman who clearly preferred her own company to his.

  Nothing else to it, he might as well complete the question, “Do you need a hand?”

  She looked confused, as if she couldn’t quite comprehend what he had asked.

  “I know I’d probably be as useful as tits on a bull, but I’ve always wanted to try my hand at baking bread.”

  Her gaze shifted from confused to assessing, as if she were trying to gauge his level of sincerity.

  “Have you really?”

  The complete lack of anything resembling credulity in the question made him wince, and he shook his head, “Okay, not really. But it would be interesting to try.”

  Another long stare, and Miles was proud of himself for not squirming beneath her intense scrutiny.

  “You’re bored, aren’t you?”

  Her astute question nearly made him smile, but he kept a poker face and maintained unflinching eye contact. “Out. Of. My. Fucking. Mind.”

  It wasn’t a good idea. It would be best if he stayed out of her way, and the lines between them as employer and employee remained clearly defined. But the power had been out for three days. The weather had kept him confined mostly indoors. And she could tell that the restrictions were starting to chafe at him. Miles Hollingsworth was a workaholic, she knew that, she had seen it whenever he had come on “vacation” with his family. His siblings always had a blast, but Miles tended to remain glued to his phone, or his laptop, earphones practically a permanent fixture on his head, studying headlines and staying abreast of stock market trends.

  His idea of relaxing appeared to involve sipping the occasional brandy while listening to what she assumed were financial podcasts. He was a workhorse whose only apparent passion was finding and fixing broken things. And then selling them at immense profit.

  Sure, that was a gross oversimplification but how else did one explain what he did?

  And now he was the broken thing in need of fixing. And he didn’t seem to have the first notion of how to go about that. Then again, neither did Charity. She had been broken for so long, it was hard to remember being whole and undamaged.

  Her teeth raked over her lower lip as she considered his request. This was his house, his kitchen, and she was his employee. He would have been well within his rights to demand instead of ask.

  But he hadn’t. He had offered her a choice.

  She exhaled softly and nodded. “Fine, get cleaned up, and we’ll get started on the bread.”

  His eyes smiled at her. And it was remarkable. His expression didn’t change at all, but his steel gray eyes lit up and crinkled at the corners. She had never seen him do that before and she found it disturbingly appealing. Flustered, she shifted her
attention to the puppy standing at their feet. Stormy was patiently waiting to take her cues from Miles.

  His gaze followed hers and this time, the smile traveled to his lips. They quirked, showing off that dimple, and the dog’s tail thumped slowly at the change in his expression.

  “But first I have to feed and crate this one, she’s bound to be exhausted after our walk.”

  “You can bring her basket here and leave it there”—she pointed to the doorway separating the kitchen from the hallway— “that way she won’t get anxious.”

  “I will, thank you.”

  He turned away and left the kitchen, Stormy close behind him, and Charity released the breath that she had been holding.

  She didn’t like the idea of him being underfoot, but she could imagine how frustrating the entire experience had to be for him and part of her job was to ensure that he was content and enjoying his stay here.

  That was the only reason she had agreed to his absurd request. Part of the job, really.

  Nothing at all to do with the gentle look in his eyes when he had caught her crying. Even less to do with the appealing cant of his head and the almost puppy dog pleading in his eyes when he had asked her if he could help.

  This was Miles Henry Hollingsworth. Modern age marauder. Present day pirate. He didn’t do puppy dog eyes. She must have imagined it.

  Miles loved the squidgy feeling of the raw dough between his fingers. Kneading bread wasn’t something he had ever imagined himself doing, or even liking, but this was ridiculously enjoyable. He had followed Mrs. Cole’s careful instructions to the letter. She hadn’t touched anything but had told him which ingredients to get, how to mix them, and then how to knead the lump of gooey dough until it was “springy”—her word—to the touch.

  “Stop poking at it,” Mrs. Cole rebuked, when he stuck his finger into the soft, elasticky stuff...

  Again.

  He liked watching the dent he had made disappear as the dough swelled back into shape.

  “Just testing the springiness,” he said.