The Maid's Daughter

“But she wouldn’t move.”

“No. And now she’s glad she didn’t. But that still leaves me in a tough spot, because I want to look after her, but I can’t even take care of myself at the moment.”

“Something will come up.” He had an idea or two, but now was not the time. “Would you like another cookie?”

Her lips quirked. “I’m not stupid, Devlyn. I answered your questions. Don’t you owe me the same courtesy?”

That amazing, adorably boyish smile flashed briefly. “I’m a stubborn SOB. Don’t try to analyze me. What you see is what you get.”

Her eyes widened as she caught the deliberately flirtatious innuendo. As he watched, her cheeks turned pink. And about the same time, a little frown line appeared between her brows. “I don’t think you’re a very nice man,” she said slowly.

“Nice guys finish last. Don’t you know?” He stood and messed with the fire again, irritated as hell that she put him on edge. She was a nobody. An unemployed elementary schoolteacher. A starchy, prissy, sexually repressed female.

Perhaps if he told himself often enough, he would believe it.

Gillian yawned suddenly, and he felt a lick of remorse. She’d been through a hell of a lot. It was long past time for her to be in bed. But not in his.

He stood up and held out his hand. “C’mon, little lady. You’re drooping.”

She stood and began stacking their dirty dishes.

“Leave them,” he said, a hand on her arm. “The staff will get it in the morning.”

Gillian froze, and immediately, he heard how his words must have sounded to her. Heat stained his throat. “I’m sorry,” he said gruffly. “That was insensitive.”

Gillian shrugged, causing the fabric of her top to mold to her bare, small, perfect breasts. He swallowed hard, caught unawares by a sudden driving urge to unbutton that top and look his fill.

She smiled wryly. “Don’t be stupid. Your family provides a lot of great jobs for working-class people. That’s not a bad thing.”

But she didn’t say it was good, either. He sensed her ambivalence and her fatigue. “Go to bed, Gillian. You’re beat. We can talk in the morning, but if you need me during the night, don’t play the martyr. I’m right next door.”

Gillian tossed and turned for an hour, unable to sleep in a strange house. The medicine had taken the edge off her various pains, but her body still ached. At last, she climbed out of bed and went to the French doors, drawing the thick draperies aside and peering out into the dark.

A tiny crescent moon cast a dim light that filtered down like fairy dust among the trees that surrounded the house. When Wolff Castle was built, Devlyn’s father and his uncle had been insistent that as little of the woods as possible be cut down. Consequently, the forest cloaked the enormous house like a security blanket, maintaining the privacy for which the Wolffs were famed.

The late-night scene was serene. Gillian’s emotions were anything but. She felt trapped, claustrophobic. Even if she had the energy and the will to do so, she couldn’t leave. Her car was crumpled at the bottom of the mountain.

Her mother’s voice had been hard to read when Gillian called her to explain what had happened. Doreen Carlyle was well acquainted with all the members of the Wolff family, including Devlyn. And Devlyn’s reputation with the opposite sex was no secret.

Women loved him. And he loved women. But never for more than a season, at best. Though he seemed like an open book, dark currents ran beneath his easy charm and his outrageous sex appeal.

Gillian curled her fist in a fold of cloth and shivered as her bare toes chilled on the flagstones that edged the doorway. Dare she go outside? Would anyone know?

Without another thought, she pulled her thick sweater over the fancy pajamas and shoved her feet into her boots. Even without a mirror, she knew she looked ludicrous. But she had to escape, had to prove to herself that she wasn’t a prisoner. A small, spiral, wrought-iron staircase at the end of her balcony offered easy access to the level below.

The air was colder than she had anticipated. Rain had finally moved on, and indigo skies overhead were clear, allowing the temperature to plummet. Fall would soon give way to winter, especially at this elevation. She followed a pathway at random, not at all worried about being alone in the dark.

She was a country girl, born and raised in these mountains. Travelers came from across the globe to see the mystical and beautiful Blue Ridge, but for Gillian they were more like an old, comfortable friend.

As she meandered, she thought about the last time she had visited Wolff Mountain. She’d been a sophomore in high school, and in her economics class, they’d been doing projects about starting a business. Doreen Carlyle had asked Victor Wolff, Devlyn’s uncle, if her daughter could interview him.

Gillian remembered how nervous she had been that day, but Victor Wolff, despite his gruff demeanor, had put her at ease. By the end of the conversation, they had been old buddies. He had a keen intellect and a knack for making money.

As she was leaving the house, preparing to negotiate the long, winding driveway in her fifteen-year-old Volkswagen Beetle, Gillian had come face-to-face with Devlyn Wolff. She remembered how her throat closed up, how hot color flooded her face. Neither of them spoke a word.

Devlyn seemed on the cusp of saying something urgent, but before he could tell her again that she didn’t belong, she fled. And until tonight, that was the last time she had ever seen him in the flesh.

The press, however, was another story. Devlyn’s exploits both in and out of the boardroom were legendary. He’d bought baseball teams, had at one time even dabbled with driving his own race car. The two Wolff patriarchs had put a quick stop to that, but even so, Devlyn deserved his reputation as a billionaire playboy … an out-of-date term, perhaps, but one that fit.

His wilder party days had tempered as he approached thirty, perhaps because he was being groomed to take over the reins of the family business.

Victor and Vincent Wolff started their families late in life, both of them at least fifteen years older than the beautiful wives they eventually lost.

Now, they were at a point where they wanted to enjoy retirement. So Devlyn was in control of everything. Nothing short of brilliant, he worked as hard as he partied.

Gillian was not immune to his appeal. But he was way out of her league. She preferred bookish, intellectual men, guys who were more like house-trained pets than wild, night-roaming creatures.

Devlyn was incredibly dangerous and yet so very attractive.

She hugged her arms around her body and decided she had had enough. Her limbs trembled with fatigue, and it was time for another dose of painkiller. Things always seemed so much worse at this hour … her bleak employment future, the lack of male companionship in her nunlike life … the hole in her emotions left by her father’s passing.

Blinking back tears of self-pity that she refused to let fall, she turned and immediately tripped over a root, stumbling to her knees on the cold and muddy ground.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Devlyn’s outraged voice startled her as much as the fall. In an instant, his hands were under her arms, lifting her effortlessly to her feet. Seeing the state she was in, he cursed beneath his breath and shrugged out of the thick, fleece-lined jacket he wore. He wrapped it around her and scooped her into his arms.

“You can’t spend all your time carrying me around,” she muttered. But it was a token protest at best. His warmth surrounded her even as his strength filled her with an odd contentment.

It was a false sense of security. She knew that. But for this one moment, this single, unlikely and unsettling reunion, she decided to pretend that she had a right to be here in Devlyn Wolff’s embrace.

She had left the double, glass-paned doors to her room unlatched. After negotiating the narrow stairs, Devlyn deposited her on her feet long enough to remove her muddy boots and his shoes, before urging her inside, locking the doors and drawing the drapes.

Gillian had left a single lamp burning. The confusion in Devlyn’s eyes mirrored her own. “I’m sorry I disturbed you,” she said, the words stiff. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Same here.” Still he stared at her. “Sit down on the bed, Gillian.”

He stepped past her, and moments later she heard water running in the bathroom. When he returned, he had a damp washcloth in his hands. “I said sit down.”

She sat.

Why was she enabling his bossiness? She was a mature woman with a life that clicked along quite well. She didn’t need a man to take care of her.

He took her fingers in his and gently wiped away the mud where she had landed, hands down. His touch was gentle but firm, removing the bits of leaves and grass that clung to her skin.

Next he removed his coat, the one he had wrapped around her. His eyes went to the muddy knees of her pajamas, and her stomach clenched. Surely he wouldn’t—

“Lift your hips.”