Hired by Her Husband (7 page)

“This one isn’t for you,” she told him. “This walk’s for me.”

She needed it to give herself some space—a little more breathing room and a little less George Savas and all the feelings he evoked.

She walked briskly—Gunnar was a good pacesetter—trying to regain her equilibrium, to put her mixed-up feelings in
a box and lock it up tight. This was a job. It was not a second chance. It was doing what needed to be done so she could walk away knowing that the scales were balanced, that she owed nothing more to the man who had married her.

She lectured herself all the way down to 72nd St. before she felt the adrenaline surge level off. Then they walked more sedately back while she told Gunnar all about Lily and how her daughter loved dogs. Focusing on Lily helped. And when she got back to George’s she felt calmer and steadier and as if she was in control again.

The minute she opened the door and unclipped his leash, Gunnar went shooting straight for the living room. Sophy followed at a more sedate, far less enthusiastic pace.

“So,” she said as she came down the hallway to enter the living room, “how’s the headache now?”

George wasn’t there.

“G
EORGE
?” S
OPHY BLINKED
at the sight of the empty couch, as if once she did so he would suddenly rematerialize there. But no matter how many times she blinked, no George appeared.

“George!” She raised her voice a little and she poked her head in the kitchen, expecting to see him standing there, leaning on his crutches, making a forbidden cup of coffee. When she found the kitchen empty, she checked the first floor bathroom. No George there, either.

She whirled out of the bathroom and back into the living room. “George!” She yelled his name now. “Damn it, where are you?”

His crutches were leaning beside the couch. But he hadn’t used them to get up the steps to the house earlier. So he’d probably taken advantage of her not being here to make his way on his own upstairs.

“Idiot,” she muttered under her breath.

He could have fallen. He was the one who’d said the world was tilting earlier. She pounded up the stairs two at a time, past her own room, up to the third floor, to George’s master bedroom, where she’d come to get his clothes earlier.

Then she had deliberately got in and out as fast as she could, refusing to allow herself time to look around, to imagine George in his surroundings. She’d deliberately rung Natalie
so she wouldn’t. And she’d barely done more than glance in the direction of his king-size bed.

Now Sophy stalked into the room and flicked on the light, hoping it made his head hurt just a little. She was glad he’d had the sense to go to bed, and at the same time annoyed that he had waited to do it until she was gone.

“Damn it, George! You can’t do things like this! You’ve got to—”

Be careful,
she was going to say.

Except there was no one to say it to. The bed was empty.

He wasn’t in the adjoining bathroom, either. Nothing had changed from when she’d come up the first time. Now she did feel a shaft of concern. Surely he couldn’t have had a relapse and called 911 in the half hour she had been gone, could he?

“George!” Back down the stairs she went, pausing to poke her head worriedly into the room she’d slept in just in case he’d only made it that far. But it was empty, too.

Maybe he had tried to get up, had fallen and was lying somewhere comatose.

“George!”
she bellowed again when she reached the main floor, heading back toward the living room to check again.

“For God’s sake, stop shouting.” The disembodied voice came floating up from the garden floor office.

Sophy’s teeth snapped together. She skidded to a halt, grabbed the newel post and spun around it to head down the stairs.

George was sprawled in his desk chair, staring at his oversize computer screen, reading an e-mail. Gunnar, who had obviously found him right away, looked up from where he lay at George’s feet and thumped his tail.

George didn’t even glance her way.

Sophy stared at him in silent fury, then stalked across the room and peered at the screen over his shoulder. “Is this all you’ve got open?”

“I don’t multitask.”

“Is it saved?”

“Of course.”

“Good.” She stepped around to the side of the desk and pulled the plug out of the wall. Instantly the screen went black.

“What the hell?”
At least he spun his chair a half turn to look at her then—even if the action did make him wince and grab his head. “What’d you do that for?”

“I should think that’s obvious. I’m saving you from yourself.”

“You could have just said, ‘turn off the computer.’”

“Oh? And that would have worked, would it? I don’t think so.” As she spoke she was methodically removing all the plugs from his surge protector, then looking around for some place to put it where he couldn’t just hook it up again. Her gaze lit on the file cabinet. She opened the top drawer, dropped in the surge protector, shut the drawer, locked it and pocketed the key.

George stared at her, dumbfounded. “Are you out of your mind? I need to work. That’s what I came home for.”

“Well, you’re not fit to work.”

“Says who?”

“Says me,” Sophy told him. “And Sam. You hired me to take care of you and that’s what I’m doing.”

“Then you’re sacked.”

“Throw me out. Try it,” Sophy goaded him. “You can’t. And I’m not leaving. I gave my word. And I keep it.”

“Do you?” George said quietly.

And all of a sudden, Sophy knew they were talking about something entirely different. She swallowed and wrapped her arms across her chest. For a moment her gaze wavered, but then it steadied. She did keep her word. Always. No matter what he thought. She lifted her chin and met his gaze firmly. “Yes.”

He looked as if he might argue with her. But finally he shrugged. “Maybe you do,” he said enigmatically.

She didn’t know what he meant by that, wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She kept her arms folded, her gaze steady.

“I have to get some work done sometime, Sophy.”

“Not tonight.”

“My head feels better.”

“Good. Not tonight.”

He looked almost amused now. “Are you going to stand there and say that until tomorrow?”

“If that’s what it takes.” She didn’t move.

George sighed and shook his head. “You’re a bully.”

And there was the pot calling the kettle black. She remembered so many times when she’d been expecting Lily that he had gently bullied her into taking extra good care of herself. But that was not a memory she wanted to dig into right now. Sophy just shrugged. “It’s time to go to bed.”

“Is that an invitation?” George’s brow lifted. He grinned faintly.

“No, it’s an order.”

He laughed, then winced at the effect it had on his head. But finally he pushed himself slowly up out of his chair and started to hobble slowly toward the stairs. He had to pass within inches of her to get there.

She wanted to step back, to give him plenty of space, to keep her distance while he passed. Yet she sensed that if she did, he’d see it as a retreat. And Sophy was damned if she was retreating.

She stayed where she was, even looked up to meet his gaze when he reached her and stopped to loom over her, so close that if she’d leaned in an inch or two she could have pressed her lips to his stubbled jaw.

He didn’t say anything, just stood there and looked down at her for a long moment. She could see each individual whisker on his jaw, trace the outline of his lips. She flicked her gaze
higher to meet his eyes. He didn’t speak, but the air seemed to crackle with some weird electricity between them. Sophy didn’t blink.

Finally he limped slowly on toward the stairs. “Coming?” he said over his shoulder, with just a hint of sardonic challenge in his voice. “Or are you going to stay down here and set fire to my office?”

Sophy drew a breath and said with far more lightness than she felt, “Of course. I’m right behind you—ready to catch you if you fall.”

It was like climbing Everest.

And he couldn’t complain because if he did, Sophy would just say, “Told you so,” or something equally annoying.

He couldn’t even just go lie down on the couch again because when he finally got to the first floor she said, “Might as well go all the way up since you’re feeling so much better. I’ll get your crutches.”

At least the thirty seconds it took her to do that gave him a half a minute’s respite before she was standing there, holding them, saying brightly, “After you.”

Serve her right if he fell on her.

He didn’t. But not for lack of opportunity. Ordinarily he didn’t even think about all the times he clattered up and down the flights of stairs in his house. Tonight he counted every single blasted one of them.

There were twenty per floor. It felt like a hell of a lot more. The crutches didn’t help, which he already knew from his experience outside. And going down to his office hadn’t been a problem. He’d eased his way down by sliding carefully on the bannister. Not that he intended to tell Sophy that!

She stayed behind him the whole way, wordlessly watching while he made the laborious climb. She never said a word, but he could sense her eyes on him.

“Don’t feel you have to wait. Go right on up,” he said through his teeth.

“No hurry,” she replied. “I don’t mind.”

He did, but he wasn’t telling her that, either. So he just kept on going, aware as he did so that sweat was breaking out on the back of his neck and the palms of his hands. He hoped Sophy didn’t notice.

He thought she might have, though, because when they got to the second floor, she said, “Would it help if you leaned on me?”

“No, it would not.” Then, realizing he’d snapped, he gritted his teeth and added, “Thank you,” as lightly as he could.

Not that he wouldn’t like to put an arm—hell, both arms!—around Sophy, but not now. Not this way. Not under these circumstances. He used the railing for support as he hobbled down the hall toward the next flight of the twenty thousand steps that would take him to his bedroom.

“Maybe you should just spend the night here.” Sophy hovered behind him, sounding worried. “You could have this bed and—”

“You offering to share it with me?”

“No.”

“Didn’t think so. I’m fine.” He wasn’t going to admit he couldn’t make it because, damn it, he could make it. He took the first step. Only nineteen thousand more to go.

In the end it probably didn’t take him as long as he thought it had. All George knew was that his bed had never looked so good.

Sophy had darted around him as he’d reached the door to his room, going in ahead of him and turning down the duvet and plumping the pillows. By the time she’d finished and stepped back, he was able to ease himself down onto the mattress, all the while trying not to make it look as welcome as it was.

“Shirt,” Sophy said before he could lie down.

He stared up at her and blinked. She was holding out a hand expectantly.

“You can’t sleep in your clothes,” she said patiently.

Of course he could. He’d done it often enough after working far into the night. But Sophy was having none of it. She knelt between his legs and unbuttoned his shirt as if he were four years old. Then she stood again and gently eased it off his shoulder, making sure she didn’t hurt it any more than he’d already done hauling himself up three flights of stairs.

“Lie down,” she directed.

“I thought you said I couldn’t sleep in my clothes.”

“You won’t be.” She put a hand against his chest and gave him a soft push so that he lay back against the pillows. Then she lifted his legs onto the bed and took off the orthopedic boot, his single shoe and his sock. Then she started to unbuckle his belt.

He suddenly took a much greater interest in the proceedings.

“Don’t,” Sophy said briskly, “think this is going anywhere.”

With the disinterested efficiency of a hospital nurse, she made quick work of the belt buckle, the button and the zip.

“Lift,” she commanded. And he barely had time to react before she was dragging his khakis over his hips and down his legs. She gave the duvet a shake and spread it over him, then stepped back. “There,” she said, sounding satisfied. “I’ll get you a glass of water. You can take one of those pills Sam sent, then you can get some sleep.”

She disappeared briefly into the bathroom and returned with a glass of water and the requisite pill, which she handed to him.

“What’s it for?”

“Pain.”

“You didn’t think to give it to me before I climbed three flights of stairs?”

“You could have asked for it,” she told him. “If I’d offered, you’d have said no, wouldn’t you?”

He frowned and didn’t reply because, damn it, she was probably right.

Sophy grinned at him. “I thought so. You wanted to impress on me how tough you were. Besides, it might have made you dopey and I thought you would probably need all your strength to get up here.”

“I could’ve slept on the couch,” he pointed out grumpily.

“But your bed is much more comfortable.”

He raised a brow. “You know that, do you?”

Sophy’s cheeks reddened. “I’m speaking generically,” she told him primly. “Beds are generally thought to be more comfortable than couches.”

“Ah.” He shifted his shoulders against the pillow. It was true. He shut his eyes and felt like he didn’t quite want to open them again.

“Go to sleep,” Sophy said, and for once made it sound more like a suggestion than a command. “Good night.”

She started toward the door.

“Sophy.”

She turned. “What?”

“Don’t I get a kiss good-night?”

He was just trying to provoke her. Sophy knew that.

Because she had stood there and watched as he’d battled his way up the stairs, not going away to let him do it alone. Because she’d kept her distance and her equilibrium—barely—while taking his shirt and trousers off. Because she had almost escaped with her sanity intact.

But George wasn’t going to let that happen.

“What?” she countered. “And raise your blood pressure? Sam wouldn’t approve.”

If anything was designed to raise his blood pressure, apparently mention of Sam was it.

The faint teasing grin instantly evaporated. George’s bandaged head dropped back against the pillows and he stared at the ceiling.

“And God knows, we wouldn’t want to do that,” he said bitterly.

She stared at him surprised. Sam wouldn’t approve. But she meant Sam in his neurologist suit. That Sam would not want his patient overdoing things. A kiss might not exactly qualify as “hot sex,” but after three flights of stairs, who knew what George’s blood pressure might be.

George, however, didn’t seem to be thinking of Sam the neurologist, but of Sam the hypothetical womanizer.

Now it was Sophy’s turn to frown. “What is it with you and Sam?” she demanded.

He turned his head slightly to look at her. “
Me
and Sam? Not a damn thing.”

“Then what are you suggesting?”

“Nothing. I’m not suggesting anything.”

But clearly he was. And just as clearly he wasn’t going to talk about it. Sophy shook her head. “Fine. Be that way.”

Then, because she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d rattled her, she said, “And for what it’s worth, here’s your good-night kiss.”