Promoted to Wife (Destiny Bay) Read Online Free PDF Page A

kept her cool. “All right. Six.” She found her paper. “Here's a partial list, then. I'll have to find the other one for you a little later.”
    The chimney sweep went on his way and she looked at Rick. “A wonderful character, isn't he?” she asked, but her heart wasn't in it. She knew the time of reckoning was at hand. Was he going to agree to let her stay? This meant so much to her—and to her father.
    “Most of the servants are still on leave,” Rick said. “The cook won't be back until tomorrow.”
    “I know.” Did that mean that, once the sweep left, they were going to be alone in the house until the next day? Her pulse began to quicken at the thought, but he quickly put a damper on that.  
    “My kids are coming this evening. Charles, the chauffeur, will be picking them up at their school in Santa Barbara.”
    The children. She'd forgotten all about them until he’d mentioned them a few minutes ago. She remembered having read of Rick's marriage. It had filled the society pages for weeks. He'd married a Southern heiress and they'd had two children, a girl and a boy. But hadn't she read something about a divorce?
    How was she going to deal with children? She'd never had much contact with kids. But then, kids were people, younger and shorter, maybe, but people just like anyone else. She imagined she'd do just fine.
    “Are they with their mother during the week?” she asked without thinking, then immediately regretted it. She didn't want to pry into things he'd rather she stayed out of.
    “Their mother is dead,” he said shortly, and she was sorry she'd brought it up. He looked at her struggling for words of sympathy and seemed to take pity on her. “She died of leukemia last year . It's been hard on the children.”
    “I'm sure it has been,” she said quietly.
    He was eyeing her again, looking like a man in the throes of indecision. She smiled brightly, hoping to tilt the scales.
    “Can you handle children?” he asked.
    She hesitated, but not for long. “Of course.”
    “And you're sure you can run a house like this?” he asked. “How much do you know about it?”
    “I'm fully qualified,” she said quickly, not really saying what she was fully qualified for. “I've run houses before.”
    Sure, her dorm room at college, the apartment she and her girlfriends had shared after school, the apartment in Hollywood where she lived alone. And the house she’d shared with Craig Annison for the last year or so. But thinking of that one made her wince.  
    Not much experience, really, but Rick didn't need to know that. Let him think she'd been butling for years.
    “You really do know what you're doing?”
    Now, that she could answer sincerely, because she had the number one butler in the country on twenty-four-hour call. She couldn't fail! “Absolutely,” she promised.
    He stared at her for another long moment, then shook his head as though amazed at his own foolishness. “Go ahead. I'll give you one day, then we'll have a conference and see how things are going. Meet me back here tomorrow at 10 am. We’ll see how it looks from there.” The touch of steel was back in his voice. “But I won't hesitate to fire you if you don't measure up. You understand that?”
    “Of course!” Flushed with elation, she had an urge to throw her arms around his neck, but she stifled it. “I won't disappoint you.”
    She'd never have the chance to disappoint him , he thought grimly. He couldn't let her stay for longer than a day. It would never work out, he knew that. But she would be useful until he found someone else.
    All of which wasn't very fair to her. Maybe he would think of something else for her before he had to fire her. But he doubted it.
    Terry met his gaze and frowned, slightly puzzled. His eyes were dark and unreadable. Suddenly he seemed remote. Without another word, he turned and walked away, and as she watched him go she felt a quiver of unease dashing a bit of her triumph.

CHAPTER THREE:  
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