Therese Beharrie - Tempted By The Billionaire Next Door

‘You look better,’ he said when he saw Jess walk into the kitchen. He plated the muffins his housekeeper had made.

‘You mean better than the horror show I was this morning?’

‘Not at all. I just meant—’ He broke off when he saw her smile, and felt his stomach flip. He ignored it.

‘Do you want something to drink?’

‘Tea, please.’ She settled onto the bar stool at the counter.

‘I have more comfortable chairs in the living room.’

‘I know. But I won’t let this baby rob me of the opportunity to eat while I watch you cook.’

She gave him a cheeky grin, and he laughed. She did look better than before. Not only because now she wore a long-sleeved black dress that stretched down to her feet with a belt tied under her breasts accentuating her bump, but because she didn’t look quite as tired, as restless, as she had when she’d first got there.

He wondered if that meant he could convince her to stay with him while the work on Anja’s house was being done. The thought was as surprising as it was sudden, but when he thought about it he realised it wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

Unless he thought about how things sparked between them. And how badly he wanted to kiss her lips, to taste her mouth and feel the fullness of her body against his again...

Which, of course, he wouldn’t think about.

He told himself to wait until breakfast was over before he mentioned it, and slid the tea and muffins in front of her. ‘Your wish is my command.’

‘You’re such a good man,’ she breathed as she picked up a chocolate muffin.

He bit back a grin. ‘Those are the first ones I go for, too.’

‘They’re delicious. Where did you get them?’

‘My housekeeper made them for me.’

‘They’re homemade ? You need to ask her for the recipe.’

‘You cook?’ he asked, and started cutting fruit. He didn’t know what was in a pregnant woman’s diet, but he figured he’d cover all his bases.

‘That’s baking , Dylan.’

‘You bake?’

‘No.’

His lips curved. ‘So you cook, then?’

‘Nope.’

‘Then why did you correct me?’

‘It seemed like a fun thing to do,’ she said with a smile, and then sobered. ‘I’ve been learning how to do both over the last few years. I’m not quite at the level of being able to say that I can cook or bake well , but I can feed myself. And these—’ she lifted the muffin ‘—are definitely the kind of food I’d like to learn how to make.’

‘What happened a few years ago? That made you want to learn how to cook and bake, I mean.’ He set the fruit he’d been cutting up to the side, and began preparing the bacon and eggs.

‘I... I moved out of my parents’ house.’

He frowned. ‘How old are you?’

‘Old enough to have been out of my parents’ house by then,’ she said with a laugh, but it sounded forced. ‘We used to have a cook, so there was never really a need for me to learn how to feed myself.’

‘You had a cook?’

‘Yes.’ He glanced over to see the hesitation in her eyes. ‘Extravagant, isn’t it?’

‘I wasn’t thinking that.’

‘I wouldn’t blame you if you did.’

He turned to her and watched as she avoided his eyes. And suddenly he thought that perhaps he’d attributed the hurt he saw in her to someone who hadn’t deserved it.

‘So you had an...extravagant childhood?’

‘I guess you could say that.’

‘What would you say?’

‘I...was always well provided for.’ He could hear the care she’d taken with those words.

‘Your parents are wealthy?’

‘Yes.’

‘So why—’ He broke off, knowing that his question would veer into territory she might not be comfortable with. But she finished his sentence for him.

‘Why am I working as a PA?’ He nodded. ‘Well, I wasn’t...well cared for. Or cared for at all,’ she added softly, and Dylan felt his heart throb. ‘So, when I moved out, I stopped talking to them. Which meant I had to take care of myself, hence this job.’

Seconds passed as he digested this new information. ‘When you didn’t want my help this morning, were you...thinking about them?’

‘Only about how they used to throw it in my face whenever I asked them for help.’ She paused. ‘I remember when I was younger, I started saving for a new laptop. I didn’t want to use my dad’s old one any more, so I got a job and put away every cent of it so I could buy myself a new one. But my dad’s laptop broke before I had enough money to replace it, so I asked them to help me buy a new one.’ She lifted a hand, brushed at something on her cheek that he couldn’t see. ‘I thought that having half of the money for it—that working for it—would make them proud, but—’ she cleared her throat ‘—but it didn’t. They helped me buy the laptop, and reminded me of it whenever I acted in a way they didn’t approve of.’

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