Hired: Cinderella Chef. Myrna Mackenzie

      

       “I don’t want your gratitude.”

      Patrick’s voice was low and husky.

      “But you have it,” Darcy told him. “I can’t stop that.”

      He was close now. So very close.

      He stared into her eyes for so long that she was afraid she would lean toward him, show him how drawn to him she was.

      Instead, he looked down to where she clasped his wrist. He covered her hand with his, turning her hand so that her palm was up. Then he brought her hand to his lips and kissed that most sensitive center of her palm.

      Desire shot through her so fast she couldn’t contain it.

      “I want to kiss you,” he said. “But if you tell me no, I won’t.”

      She reached up and threaded her fingers through his hair. “No,” she said, as she pulled him down to her and touched her lips to his.

      Myrna Mackenzie is a self-proclaimed ‘student of all things that concern women and their relationships’. An award-winning author of over 30 novels, Myrna was born in a small town in Dunklin County, Missouri, grew up just outside Chicago, and now divides her time between two lake areas—both very different and both very beautiful. She loves coffee, hiking, cruising the internet for interesting websites and ‘attempting’ gardening, cooking and knitting. Readers (and other potential gardeners, cooks, knitters, writers, etc…) can visit Myrna online at www.myrnamackenzie.com, or write to her at PO Box 225, La Grange, IL 60525, USA.

      Don’t miss Myrna Mackenzie’s

      next Mills & Boon Romance

      The Frenchman’s Plain-Jane Project October 2009

       Dear Reader

      When Darcy Parrish first came into my imagination in her wheelchair, I did a double-take. Darcy could do the tango in her chair, and bake a soufflé with one hand tied behind her back. Those things are outside the bounds of my experience. I wasn’t sure I could write her and do her justice. Then she opened her mouth and told me that it was okay, because she was totally unwilling to be a romance heroine, anyway.

      In the meantime, Patrick Judson was hanging around at the edge of my thoughts. He thought he knew women. He’d raised three sisters. He had been running the family business for years. He was rich and powerful and there wasn’t much he couldn’t handle.

      Somehow (don’t ask how), these two managed to collide in my mind one day. I swear I never meant for them to cross paths. There was really no hope for them. But meet they did, and Darcy realised that—okay—maybe Patrick was handsome and intriguing, but she was still not going to go along with this heroine business.

      As for Patrick, he realised that there were things he didn’t know about women, and some things he just couldn’t control. Darcy was, apparently, one of them. She perplexed him, intrigued him, and drove him nuts. But nothing was going to keep him from getting to know her better, even if a happy ending wasn’t written in the stars.

      Sigh. Sometimes characters just won’t behave. And sometimes that’s an unexpectedly good thing. In this case, Darcy and Patrick turned out to be a writer’s blessing. I loved getting to know them, and I hope you enjoy their story.

      Best wishes

       Myrna Mackenzie

      HIRED: CINDERELLA CHEF

      BY

      MYRNA MACKENZIE

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      CHAPTER ONE

      “MR. JUDSON said that his guests want to meet the cook.”

      “Excuse me?” Darcy Parrish’s throat nearly closed up with dread as she addressed the young serving girl who had delivered the message.

      “I said that Mr. Judson’s dinner guests want to meet the cook.”

      Such simple words. Such a simple request. Why then were Darcy’s hands shaking? No question.

      “That’s impossible,” Darcy said. “Tell him no.”

      She looked at the young woman’s astonished and horrified face. To tell the truth she was a little horrified at her audacity, too. She had only been at Judson House a week. She’d been hired by the housekeeper while Mr. Judson was out of town and had never actually met her boss. But she knew about him. She knew a lot about him.

      More than that, she knew that he didn’t know about her. At least not some important details.

      “I’m sorry, I can’t do that,” the young woman, Olivia, said. “It would be my job. Unlike some people, I need this work. I don’t have charity to fall back on.”

      Anger burned within Darcy even as she conceded that Olivia was right. It wasn’t fair to hurt another person to keep from hurting herself.

      “I’m sorry, Liv,” she told the girl. “Really, but…I can’t go out there. You don’t know how it feels to be on display, to be like a bug under a microscope …I just can’t.”

      Olivia sighed. “I’m sorry, too, but he asked, Darcy. What can I say?”

      “Say that I’m covered in flour.”

      “But you’re not.”

      Darcy wanted to groan. Olivia was so young and so honest. She hadn’t learned the convenient little lies that helped protect a person from life’s blows. And being paraded out in front of a millionaire’s guests like a pet performer would be a blow, especially once they realized her situation. Pity always followed. She wasn’t going through that.

      “Well then, say that I’m in the midst of making dessert.” That wasn’t completely true, either. The dessert only needed whipped cream on the top.

      “Dar-cy,” Olivia drawled.

      “O-liv-i-a, please. I can’t. I won’t,” Darcy said.

      “Is there a problem of some sort?” The deep, male voice echoed through the huge kitchen, and Darcy spun in her wheelchair to face Patrick Judson, her new boss, the man who had financed the group home where she was staying.

      To be honest, having been assigned this job by his housekeeper, Darcy had never actually seen her boss, but who else could it be? Entering through the door nearest the dining area, he was dressed formally for dinner in stark black and white and he looked a lot like the pictures she’d seen in the newspaper. With those broad shoulders, dark, longish hair, green eyes and a granite jaw, he might have stepped right out of a magazine or a romance novel. He was definitely the kind of man that women made fools of themselves over, even beautiful, women with working appendages, serious pedigrees, money and no flaws. He was Heathcliff in twenty-first century clothing, and he was also…very tall.

      Darcy had always been slightly shorter than average. Tall, imposing men had always made her feel squat even when she’d been able to get around well on two legs. Now, in a wheelchair, she felt even shorter, more at a disadvantage. But she’d been a fighter all her life and she’d never been one to let her fears show.

      “Mr. Judson, I appreciate the offer to meet your guests, but I’m afraid that’s not possible. I have to finish the dessert.” Okay, that was her story and she was sticking to it.

      Patrick’s gaze passed around the room, and Darcy wished she could rush over and cover the obviously finished crystal glasses of chocolate mousse. But he said nothing about that. Instead he turned to Olivia. “If the coffee is ready, why don’t you serve that, Olivia?”

      The young woman nodded, gathered the