Since she began working as a personal chef five years earlier, Chloe had lived in some seriously beautiful homes, from her first job cooking for Lourdes and Alejandro Chavez in their charming Tribeca brownstone to Jack and Martin Ionesco’s Fifth Avenue mansion a few years later to Anabel Carlisle’s Park Avenue penthouse just weeks ago. All had been breathtaking in their own ways, and all of her employers had generously made clear she had the run of their homes in her off-time, be it their dens or their balconies or—in the case of the Ionescos—their home cinema. Hogan, too, had assured her she was welcome in any part of his house at any time.
But Chloe had never ventured out of her room in any of her previous postings unless it was to cook in her employers’ kitchens or to explore the culinary aspects of their various neighborhoods. She’d always been perfectly content to stay in her room reading books, watching movies or searching the internet for articles—but always something about cooking. She’d just never had the desire to involve herself any further in the homes or lives of her employers beyond cooking for them.
So why did she feel so restless in her room at Hogan’s house? she wondered a few nights after their excursion to the wine-tasting—which had ended up being surprisingly enjoyable. And not just because Hogan had been such an agreeable companion, either. He’d also proved to have a fairly sophisticated palate, something that had astonished him as much as it had Chloe, and he had discovered some wines he actually enjoyed, all of them labels she would have chosen for him. She would have put his until then unknown oenophilia down to his Amherst genes, but somehow she suspected that whatever made Hogan Hogan was the result of Hogan alone. In any event, Chloe had actually almost had fun that day. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d almost had fun.
Which was maybe why she suddenly felt so restless in her room. A part of her was itching to get out and almost have fun again. And no matter how sternly she told that part of herself to stop feeling that way, that part of herself refused to listen.
She looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was nearly midnight. Hogan, she knew, always turned in before eleven. She knew this because she often went to the kitchen to make a cup of Mariage Frères tea about that time before turning in herself, and the house was always locked up tight—dark and silent save a small lamp in the kitchen she required be kept on so that she could make late-night forages for things like Mariage Frères tea. She was confident enough he was in his own room by now that she didn’t worry about having already donned her pajamas. Or what passed for pajamas for her—a pair of plaid flannel pajama pants and a T-shirt for François and the Atlas Mountains, her latest favorite band.
Even so, she padded as silently as she could in her sock feet down the stairs to the third floor—slowing only long enough at the fourth to ensure that, yes, Hogan’s bedroom door was closed, and all the lights were off—where there was a library teeming with books, even though she was fairly sure they would be about things besides cooking. There might be a novel or two in the mix somewhere, and that would be acceptable.
The only light in the library was what spilled through the trio of arched floor-to-ceiling windows from a streetlamp outside—enough to tell her where the largest pieces of furniture lay, but not enough to distinguish any titles on book spines. So she switched on the first lamp she found, bathing the room in a pale, buttery glow.
She went to the set of shelves nearest her, pushing her glasses up on her nose so she could read the books’ spines. All the titles there seemed to have something to do with maritime history. The next grouping was mostly atlases. After that came biographies, predominantly featuring robber barons, autocrats and politicians. So much for fun.
She went to the other side of the room and began working her way backward. Toward the middle, she finally came across novels. Lots of them. To her surprise, she found a number of historicals by Anya Seton, whom her grandmother had adored. She plucked out a title from the mix she recognized as one of Mémée’s favorites, opened it to the first page, read a few lines and was immediately hooked. So hooked that she didn’t look where she was going when she turned around and stepped away from the shelf, so she inadvertently toppled a floor lamp.
It fell to the ground, hitting the marble with what seemed like a deafening crash in the otherwise silent room. Hastily, she stooped to right it. No harm done, she decided when it was upright again with its shade back in place. Just to make sure, she flicked it on to see if the bulb still worked—it did—then turned it off again. After that the room—and the house—were silent once more.
She opened the book and went back to her reading, making her way slowly across the library as she did, skirting the furniture until she arrived back at the lamp she had turned on when she first entered. She stood there and continued to read until she finished a few more paragraphs, then absently turned off the light, closed the book and began picking her way through the darkness toward the wide library entrance—which, since she wasn’t yet accustomed to the darkness, she had to struggle to make out, so her steps slowed even more. The moment she made her way through it and into the adjoining study, however, someone surged up behind her, wrapping an iron-hard arm around her waist to pull her back against himself—hard.
Chloe screamed at the top of her lungs and, simultaneously, elbowed him viciously in the gut and stomped down as hard as she could on his foot. When his grip on her loosened in response, she lurched away from him so fiercely that her glasses fell from her face and onto the floor. She barely noticed, though, because all of her attention went to hurling the heavy hardback as viciously as she could in the direction of her assailant—and hitting him square in the face with it if the expletive he yelled in response was any indication.
She was opening her mouth to scream again and about to race for the stairs when her attacker cried out, “Whoa, Chloe! I’m sorry! I didn’t know it was you!”
Immediately, she closed her mouth. Hogan. Of course it was Hogan. Who else would it be? The house, she’d learned her first day on the job, had more security than Fort Knox, something she and Hogan both appeared to have forgotten. Realizing that now, however, did little to halt the flow of adrenaline to every cell in her body. Her heart was hammering, her breathing was ragged, her thoughts were scrambled and her body was trembling all over.
“I thought you were an intruder,” he said.
He, too, sounded more than a little rattled—she could hear him breathing as heavily as she was. But his eyes must have been better adjusted to the dark, because he made his way effortlessly across the study to switch on a desktop lamp that threw the room into the same kind of soft, golden light the library had enjoyed only moments ago. In fact, the study was pretty much a smaller version of the room she’d just left.
Hogan, too, was bathed in soft, golden light, something that made him seem softer and more golden himself. His nightwear wasn’t much different from hers, except that he was wearing sweatpants, and his T-shirt read “Vinnie’s House of Hubcaps.” And where her shirt hung loosely on her frame, Hogan’s was stretched taut across his, so that it hugged every bump and groove of muscle and sinew on his torso. And there was a lot of muscle and sinew on his torso. And on his arms, too. Holy cow. His shirtsleeves strained against salient biceps that tapered into a camber of muscles in his forearms in a way that made her mouth go dry.
The moment Chloe realized she was staring, she drove her gaze back up to his face. But that didn’t help at all, because his hair was adorably disheveled, his cheeks were shadowed by a day’s growth of beard and his bittersweet-chocolate eyes were darker and more compelling than ever. Something exploded in her belly and sent heat to every extremity, but not before much of it pooled deep in her chest and womb.
Why did he have to be so handsome? So magnetic? So damnably sexy? And why couldn’t she ignore all of that? She encountered handsome, magnetic, sexy men all the time, and she never gave any of them a second thought. What was it about Hogan that made that impossible to do?
He was gripping a baseball bat about a third of the way up, but he loosened his hold and let it slip to the knob as he lowered it to his side. With his free hand, he rubbed a spot on his forehead that was already turning red—the place where the book had hit him.
“I am so sorry,” she said. “I thought you were an intruder, too.”
He looked at his fingers, probably to check for blood, and when he saw that they were clean, hooked that hand on his hip. “Don’t apologize for defending yourself. It was a nice shot.”
She tried to smile at that, but she was so rusty at smiling these days, she wasn’t sure she succeeded. “Thanks.”
“I heard a loud noise,” he said. “I thought someone had broken in.”
“That was me. I knocked over a lamp in the library. I came down to look for a book, and then I got so caught up in my reading that I didn’t look where I was going. I didn’t realize it was that loud. I mean, it sounded loud when it went down, but I thought that was just because the room was so quiet. I mean this house must have walls like a mausoleum, and—”
And she made herself shut up before she started to sound like an idiot, even though it was probably too late for that.
“No worries,” he told her. “It’s fine.”
Oh, sure. Easy for him to say. He wasn’t staring at some luscious blond wondering what he looked like under that T-shirt. And those sweatpants. And socks. And anything else he might be wearing. Or not wearing.
Oh, she really wished she hadn’t thought that.
They stood there for another moment in silence, their gazes locked, their breathing still a little broken. Though hers was doubtless more a result of her thoughts than any lingering fear for her safety. Her physical safety anyway. Her mental and emotional safety were another matter at the moment.
Finally, Hogan said, “I think I need a drink.” One more look at her, and he added, “You look like you could use one, too.”
She told herself to say no. Then said, “I wouldn’t say no.”
He nodded once, leaned the bat against a wide, heavy desk then crossed to a cabinet on the opposite side of the study, opening it to reveal a fairly substantial bar. Without even having to look through the options, he pulled down a bottle of very nice bourbon, along with a cut-crystal tumbler—obviously, he’d spent some time in this room—then turned around to look at Chloe.
“What’s your poison?” he asked. “This is all bourbon. Something else my grandfather collected, I’ve discovered. If you’d rather have a glass of wine, I can go down to the cellar for some.”
But she’d already recognized a familiar favorite on the shelf and shook her head. “I’ll have a couple of fingers of the Angel’s Envy,” she told him.
His eyebrows shot up at that. “I never would have pegged you for a bourbon drinker.”
“We’re even, then,” she said. “I wouldn’t have guessed you’d be one, either.” She’d been surprised enough at how quickly he’d taken to wine.
“I wasn’t before,” he admitted. “But after exploring my grandfather’s study and discovering the bar, I realized cars weren’t his only passion. I wanted to see if maybe we had this—” he gestured toward the spirits behind him “—in common, too.” He grinned. “Turns out we do.”
He withdrew her chosen label and a second tumbler for her and splashed a generous portion from each bottle into their respective glasses. Then he made his way back to her and handed her her drink, which she accepted gratefully.
He lifted his glass in a toast. “Here’s to nonexistent intruders.”
She lifted hers in response. “I’ll drink to that.”
They clinked their glasses and did so with enthusiasm, but after one taste, both seemed to lose track of where the conversation should go next. Chloe tried to focus on the heat of the bourbon as it warmed her stomach, but the heat in Hogan’s eyes kept distracting her. He was looking at her differently from what she was used to, as if he were seeing something in her face that wasn’t there before.
She realized what that was when he said, “You’re not wearing your glasses. Or any lipstick. You’re cute in them, but without them...”
It was only his mention of her glasses that made her remember she’d lost them in the scuffle. She really didn’t need them that badly—only for up-close work—and mostly wore them because they were another way to keep distance between herself and others.
“I lost them when you, uh...when you, um...” When you pulled me back against your rock-hard abs and made me want to crawl under your shirt to see them for myself was the thought that tumbled through her mind, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t a good idea to say that out loud. Especially since, at the time, what she’d really been thinking was that she needed to run for her life.
Then again, maybe the two thoughts had something in common after all.
He must have realized what she was trying to say—and thankfully not what she was actually thinking—because he glanced over toward the door where the two of them had been embraced a few minutes ago. Uh, she meant embattled, not embraced. Of course that was what she meant. Then he strode to the entryway, looked around on the floor and found them with little trouble. He picked up the book on his way back to Chloe and brought them both to her.
“Thanks,” she said as she took her glasses from him. She started to put them back on then instead settled them on top of her head. She told herself it was only because she was sure they needed cleaning after what they’d just been through. It wasn’t to get rid of any distance that might linger between Hogan and herself.
He looked at the spine of the book before handing it to her, eyeing her thoughtfully when he saw the unmistakably romantic title.
“It was Mémée’s favorite,” she said. Then, when she realized he would have no idea who Mémée was, clarified, “My grandmother. Anya Seton was her favorite author, and when I saw all the books in the library by her, it made me think of Mémée, and I just—”
She’d just felt kind of lonely, she remembered, when she saw all the books that reminded her of the grandmother who passed away when she was in college. She thought about Mémée often—nearly every time she cooked—but somehow, seeing all those novels had roused feelings Chloe hadn’t felt for a very long time. Or maybe it was something else that had done that. Since coming to work for Hogan, nothing in her life had felt normal.
“I thought reading it might make me feel closer to her,” she said halfheartedly. Then, because she couldn’t quite stop herself, she added, “I just miss her.”
Hogan nodded. “I lost my folks young, too,” he said. “How old were you when your grandmother died?”
“Nineteen.”
“Which means you were even younger when you lost your parents.”
“I never actually knew my parents,” Chloe said, again without thinking. Wondering why she offered the information to Hogan when it was something she never discussed with anyone. She really must be frazzled by the whole intruder thing. Because even though she told her brain to stop talking, her mouth just kept it up. “My father was never in the picture—I’m not even sure my mother knew who he was—and not long after my mother had me, she sort of...disappeared.”
Which was something Chloe really never talked about. Only one other person besides her grandmother knew about her origins. And that person was gone, too. What was possessing her to say all this to Hogan?
Whatever it was, it had such a hold on her that she continued, “My mother was…troubled. Mémée did her best, but you can only do so much for a person who refuses to get help.”
Hogan said nothing for a moment, then, softly, he told her, “I’m sorry.” Probably because he didn’t know what else to say. Not that Chloe blamed him. She wasn’t sure what to say about her origins, either. Other than that they had made her what she was, so she couldn’t—wouldn’t—regret them.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Mémée was a wonderful parent. I had a nice childhood, thanks to her. I loved her very much, and she loved me.”
Hogan gazed down into his drink. “So I guess you and I have something in common with the biological mother, what-if-things-had-been-different, kind of stuff, huh?”
Chloe started to deny it, started to tell him that her own upbringing would have been virtually the same if her mother had been healthy, then realized there was no way she could know that was true. Maybe her upbringing would have been better, maybe not. Who knew? But her mother would have been the one to mold her, not Mémée, and there was no way of even speculating about what shape Chloe would have taken. Would she have ever discovered her love of cooking under her mother’s care? Or would she be passionate about something else now? Had her childhood been different, she might never have come to New York. She might never have met Hogan. Or anyone else.
“Maybe,” she finally said. “But things happen to people every day that change their lives, many of them events that are out of their hands. Or by the smallest choices they make. Even opting to cross the street in one place instead of another could have devastating results if you get hit by a bus.”
He smiled at that. “Yeah, well, I was thinking more in terms of our quality of life.”
“You don’t think you had quality of life growing up in Queens?”
“I had great quality of life growing up in Queens. The best. I’m kind of getting the impression that growing up here with the Amhersts would have left me at a disadvantage.”
His response puzzled her. “Growing up in a breathtaking, multimillion-dollar home with unlimited funds at your disposal would have left you at a disadvantage?”
This time he nodded. “Sure. If no one here loved me.”
Her heart turned over at the matter-of-fact way he said it. As if it was a given that he wouldn’t have been loved here in this world of excess.
“You don’t think your mother would have loved you?” she asked.
He expelled an errant breath and moved to sit in one of the leather chairs. Chloe followed, seating herself in the one next to it. She wasn’t sure why—she really should be going back to her room and making the effort to get into bed—but something in his demeanor prohibited her from abandoning him just yet.
“I don’t know,” he said. “She was awfully young when she had me. She might have started looking at me as a liability who kept her from living the kind of life her friends did. She might have started resenting me. But I know my grandfather wouldn’t have cared for me. His letter to me was—” he inhaled deeply and released the breath slowly “—not the warmest thing in the world. I mean, he wasn’t mean or anything, but it was pretty clear he was only leaving his estate to me because the Amhersts dating all the way back to the time of knights and castles considered bloodline to be more important than anything else. He obviously wasn’t happy about doing it.”
He looked at something above the door. Chloe followed his gaze and saw an ornate coat of arms hanging there.
“The Amherst crest,” he said. “There’s one of those hanging in nearly every room in this house. Have you noticed?”
In truth, she hadn’t. But when it came to physical surroundings, Chloe deliberately wasn’t the most observant person in the world.
“No,” she told him. “I suppose if there are that many, then bloodlines did indeed mean a lot to him.”
“In his letter, he even asked that I consider legally changing my last name to Amherst so the direct line to the family name wouldn’t die out with him. I guess he always figured Susan would forget about me and go on with her life. Get married and have other kids whose names she could hyphenate or something. Kids he could proudly call his progeny. His legacy. Instead of some grease monkey whose blue collar was stained with sweat.”
“I’m sure Susan never forgot you, Hogan,” Chloe said with absolute conviction. “And I’m sure she loved you very much. In a way, you were probably her first love. No one ever forgets or stops loving their first love.”
He gave her another one of those thoughtful looks, the kind where the workings of his brain fairly shone in his eyes. His dark, beautiful, expressive eyes. “You sound like you’re talking from experience.”
She said nothing in response to that. She’d said too much already.
But her response must have shown on her face, too, because Hogan grinned a melancholy grin. “So there’s some guy back there in your past you’re still pining for, huh? The same way I’ve been pining for Anabel all these years? Is that something else you and I have in common?”
Maybe it was the bourbon. Maybe it was the pale, otherworldly light. Maybe it was the last lingering traces of mind-scrambling adrenaline. Maybe it was just the way Hogan was looking at her. Whatever it was, Chloe couldn’t resist it.
“I’m not pining for him,” she said. “I’ll never get him back. He’s gone.”
Hogan’s grin fell. He met her gaze levelly, and whatever he saw in her eyes made his eyebrows arrow downward and his jaw clench tight. “Gone,” he repeated. “Gone like...he moved to another country?”
Chloe shook her head. It wasn’t the bourbon. It wasn’t the light. It wasn’t the adrenaline. It was definitely Hogan this time and the way he was looking at her that made her say the rest.
“Samuel was my husband. He was a chef, too. We were going to open our own restaurant. We were going to have kids and teach them to cook, too. We were going to have a long life together, full of family and food. We were going to retire fat and happy in Lyon, and we were going to have our ashes scattered together in the Pyrenees. Instead, his ashes were scattered in Brown County State Park, where he and I had our first date when we were in ninth grade.”
Hogan was looking kind of horrified now, confirming what Chloe already suspected—she had made her biggest mess yet. So she gripped her glass and downed what was left of its contents. Then she rose and carried it back to the cabinet from which Hogan had taken it. She started to leave it there for him to take to the kitchen with his own glass when he was ready. Instead, she picked up the bottle of bourbon that was still sitting on the bar and left with both it and the glass. It was definitely time to go back to her room and make the effort to get into bed. Somehow, though, she knew it was going to be a while before she actually made it to sleep.