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“Do you make a habit of thoughtlessness?” Conrad asked in that same low, steel-infused way. It shouldn’t have bothered her. It shouldn’t have registered with her at all.
But there was something about the way he asked those calm little questions that made her think her entire body might shake itself apart.
Right here and now, with her spray bottle hanging off her jeans, her hair in the work braids she preferred, and all thisshameshe couldn’t seem to jettison.
And shame wasn’t what was coursing through her, making everythingache.
“I don’t think you should fire me,” she threw at him, desperately. Or maybe she imagined she needed to challenge him?You want to challenge him,something in her whispered.You want to see what he’ll do.“I feel like that’s a pretty over-the-top response, all things considered.”
He studied her. It wasn’t as simple as holding her gaze. He saw too much, too deep.
And for the first time since Rory had looked up and seen him standing there, it dawned on her—really dawned on her—that she hadn’t thought any of this through. For one thing, she didn’t know anything about this man. Except that he was nothing like any man she knew. That was obvious at a glance. He was too...intense.
Too controlled, in a way that sent alarms ringing through her whole body, straight down into her toes.
Dangerous,that same something in her whispered.
Even though, in the very next moment, she felt the strangest certainty that, dangerous though he clearly was, she was perfectly safe.
It felt like whiplash.
And then Conrad made it worse.
He laughed.
CHAPTER TWO
CONRADVANDERBURGCOULDN’Tremember the last time he’d laughed spontaneously.
About anything. He wasn’t the laughing sort. He preferred his humor dry, his wit sharp, and if he was forced to suffer a fool, he preferred it to be in a business setting where he could at least make a profit on his exasperation.
This woman was something else.
Women normally did not look at him and mouth off, whatever their proclivities. Women did not have to actually practice sexual submission themselves to get a little silly in his presence. They usually blushed, fluttered, and were still.
Not this one.
He’d walked into his house, aware within two steps that someone else was on the premises. He had only just recalled that his secretary had found him a new cleaning service for this property when he’d seen that the door to what he liked to call his chapel was open.
And he almost never left it open.
He’d lived in this building since he’d renovated it a decade back and he’d left that door unlocked precisely twice.
Three times, apparently, he’d thought darkly as he’d approached the door, prepared to forcibly eject whoever had dared invade his sanctuary.
But he hadn’t.
Because the first thing that had crossed his mind when he’d seen her standing in the middle of the room, looking around with a speculative look on her face that made his cock hard—instantly—was that it was a pity he didn’t recognize her. Because that meant she couldn’t be one of his, come back for more.
Something he normally discouraged.
But she was breathtaking. She had liquid brown eyes, glossy dark hair in a braided coronet, and light brown skin. She looked supple, but not delicate, even though she wore a collection of garments that he could only assume she had chosen because they made her look frumpy.
A fashion choice he felt was an offense not only to his own gaze, but to the whole of France.
“You must think very highly of yourself,” he said, mildly, when he stopped laughing—still amazed he’d started. “If you truly imagine that after flagrantly disobeying my clear instructions, you can argue me into retaining your questionable services. Especially by attempting to convince me that it’s my reaction to your behavior that’s the problem.”
And much as his cock might have liked to imagine otherwise, it was clear that this woman—his cleaner, apparently, if the spray bottle hanging from her overly relaxed jeans and the mop and bucket he’d seen outside in the hall was any indication—had never spent any time inside a proper dungeon before. Even if she hadn’t mentioned that book, a clear indication that someone was a dilettante, if that, Conrad would have known she was vanilla at a glance.
