Falling for the Heiress. Christine Flynn

rest. It didn’t matter. She was just hoping that Mikey’s hour-long nap before dinner wouldn’t keep him up past a bedtime story when her search for his pajamas was interrupted by three short raps on the door.

      Leaving her son and the open suitcases on the daybed in her sitting room, she hurried past the king bed that had replaced her old twin, tossed a throw pillow from the floor onto the piles of powder-blue and cream pillows already covering it and pulled open the door.

      Parker filled her doorway. Even with his white shirt open at the collar and his sleeves rolled to just below his elbows, he looked much as he had when she’d seen him a while ago. Just as staid. Just as professional.

      He held something small and black out to her.

      “Use this if you need me at night. Just flip back this guard, punch this key and I’ll be here.”

      She took what looked like a small pager.

      “The doors are all locked and the alarm set. I’ll be in my room,” he continued, glancing to where Mikey peeked around the corner. A smile tugged at the sensual line of his mouth as he winked at her son. That smile and the ease in it was gone by the time he looked back to her. “I think that’s everything,” he concluded, “so I’ll say good night.”

      Her hand shot out as he started to turn. “Wait,” she said, pulling back before she could overstep the employee-employer line and grab his muscular forearm. “Thank you for helping me tonight. With dinner,” she murmured, because she didn’t want him to think she hadn’t appreciated what he’d done. He hadn’t had to offer the assist.

      Though his smile had died, she offered a weary one of her own. “And thanks for this.” She held up the device that would keep her linked to him while she slept. Peace of mind in the palm of her hand. “Rest well.”

      For a moment he simply looked at her. Then, incredibly, she saw his facade crack. That fissure was pathetically slight. Yet, as his glance slowly skimmed her tired features, it was enough to allow a bit of warmth back into the cool blue of his eyes. “You rest well, too,” he said, sounding as if he knew how badly she needed sleep. With a nod he added, “See you in the morning,” and left her staring at his back.

      The burgundy carpet with its Persian runner absorbed the sound of his footfall as he walked down the hall, past her brothers’ and sister’s old rooms, and headed down the curving stairs. Moments later the crystal chandelier lighting the foyer, the stairway and the first few yards of the long, wide hall went out.

      Across from her, the buttery glow from the brass lamp on the credenza provided the hall’s only light. From below came the muffled sound of footsteps on marble and the click of the butler’s door as it closed.

      Tess didn’t move. She just stood there, clutching what he’d given her and listening to the silence.

      The enormous house suddenly felt as empty and lifeless as Tut’s tomb. Yet it wasn’t just the house that felt that way. Something about glimpsing a bit of warmth from a man who was a virtual stranger had somehow magnified what she’d felt for a long time now. Empty. Drained. And more lost than she would ever have thought possible.

      She pulled a deep breath, pushed back her hair and turned to the room and the little boy now helping her by unpacking his suitcase himself.

      She was just tired, she told herself, setting the pager on her nightstand before picking up the T-shirts that had fallen to the carpet. That was the only possible explanation for why she’d felt abandoned all over again when Parker had turned his back on her. He was her bodyguard. His job was to keep her from being harassed. It made no difference that he disturbed her in ways she couldn’t explain. It didn’t even matter that she’d sensed the disapproval he was so careful to mask. All that mattered was that with him around she felt…safe.

      Mikey had no problem falling asleep. He awoke, however, at four o’clock the next morning. Since Tess was awake by then, too, she had him crawl into bed with her, where they cuddled and read their respective books until he complained of being hungry. By then it was five-fifteen and light outside, so she dressed herself, dressed him, and they both headed through the quiet house to the kitchen where she poured him a bowl of granola and a glass of milk and tried to figure out the coffeemaker.

      At the palace, she could have rung for coffee and had it brought to her room or been served a cup from a silver pot on a terrace. Under normal circumstances at her parents’ home, in another hour or so she would have found a carafe of it on the sideboard in the family breakfast room. When she’d been married, the live-in help had made it or she’d gotten it from the Starbucks on the first floor of the building she’d lived in.

      Never again would she take her morning coffee for granted.

      Since staring at the machine with its levers and buttons provided few clues to its use, she searched the drawers in the hope of finding some sort of manual.

      That exercise proved just as futile.

      She knew she needed water and coffee, so she filled the glass carafe, found a bag of beans in the refrigerator and decided that she’d have to wait until Parker woke and ask him how to get the thing to work. In the meantime, with Mikey occupied on the kitchen floor with his robot that transformed into a tank, she would use the kitchen computer to check out the local real-estate market.

      By six-thirty she’d found three houses she wanted Parker to call about, but even if he’d been up, it was too early for him to make an appointment with the Realtor.

      By six thirty-five she’d entered the back hall to listen for some sign of life from the room he was using.

      Mikey scrambled past her on his hands and knees, making motor noises as he pushed his tank. Turning around a few feet past Parker’s closed door, he stood up.

      “What are you doing?” he wanted to know.

      She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Listening to see if Mr. Parker is up yet.”

      “Why?”

      “Because I need his help with something.”

      “Why?

      “Because I can’t do it myself.”

      At three, he had no trouble comprehending that rationale. “I’ll look,” he announced and reached for the door.

      Tess’s eyes widened, but she’d barely opened her mouth to tell him that checking wasn’t necessary before he’d pulled down on the handle and pushed the door open.

      Parker wasn’t there.

      She dropped to her knees in front of her too-helpful little boy. “Honey, we don’t do that.” Relief at not having found her bodyguard in bed collided with puzzlement over where he might be. She knew she hadn’t heard him leave. She’d been listening for him. “This is Mr. Parker’s private space. We don’t open closed doors. Okay?”

      “Then how do we get back in our bedroom?”

      “That door is all right. We don’t open doors to other people’s rooms. Not without permission.” Rising, she took his hand. “Let’s see if we can find him.”

      If there was anything she knew about the guards she’d encountered, body or otherwise, it was that they were incredibly fit. They didn’t get or stay that way without work. Considering the amount of muscle Parker needed to keep in condition, she figured he might be in one of three places: out jogging or running, in the pool doing laps or in the workout room her mom had had equipped for her dad and his trainer after his doctor told him to get more exercise or deal with rehab after he had a heart attack.

      If Parker was running, she’d just have to wait until he returned. If he was swimming or working out, he could tell her how to make the coffee machine work and they could each get on with their morning.

      He wasn’t in the pool.

      He was, however, in the mirrored exercise room off the sauna—wearing nothing but baggy athletic shorts and running shoes.

      The