Outbid by the Boss by Stephanie Browning Read Free Book Online

a week to get the massive job of cataloguing everything from books to portraits to porcelain underway. The detritus of generations past.
    He risked another glance at the woman beside him as they entered the gates of Burton Park. She rewarded him with a luminous smile, her eyes sparkling with pleasure. Even the setting sun was on her side, spinning her hair into strands of copper and gold as they flitted in and out of the rippling shadows along the oak-lined drive.
    The house had long since been swept clean of the wrangling demands of his father’s last girlfriend and his mother’s reappearance and demands for more money. It had been three months since he'd been here. And even then he had only stayed a couple of nights despite Mrs. Weekes' roast lamb and the promise of curry to come.
    Story of his life.
    Just popped in to collect my hiking gear, he would say, kissing Mrs. Weekes on the cheek and vowing to return very, very soon. For her. Never for his family, such as it was.
    He hadn't intended to come today, but Sam’s courage in the face of the candlestick disaster had prodded him to see how he could face the demons of his past and the practicalities of his inheritance. And if she could stand there with her chin up, like David taunting Goliath, he could certainly do the same.
    He was very glad of Sam's company even if he had forced it upon her in a most unusual way. She hadn’t been kidnapped, he told himself with a twinge of guilt, simply redeployed. And of course, he had been amply repaid for his misdeeds by the ruin of his car. Yet as they emerged from the trees, and the wide expanse of parkland unfolded before them, he knew that whatever lay ahead of him, he wouldn't regret it.
    "What is this place?" breathed Sam.
    "Wait. Just another minute or two."
    He drew up in front of the manor house and shut off the ignition.
    They sat in silence, listening to the metallic tick of the engine as it settled and cooled. For a moment Chas watched Sam’s wide eyes dance over the beauty of the old house. Then as the comfortable silence continued, he turned his attention from her to the manor. The copper gutters on the far wing of the stable needed tending, Chas noted. Last autumn’s leaves had gathered in the corners, left to form small pyramids of brown and russet compost.
    His estate manager was getting older, still trying to do everything single-handedly, and not quite achieving it.
    Yet another in a long list of issues Chas knew he must resolve.
    He fought against the echoes in his head that plagued him every time he returned; the shouting, the recriminations, the furious arguments as his parents' marriage disintegrated into a slogging match of who did what to whom. Boarding school had been a sanctuary. And then there was peace, peace cloaked in desolation for him when his mother had left and started another family without him.
    He had to tell Sam the truth and he had to tell her quickly, before the tide of bitter emotion washed over him. "Welcome to Porter Hall," he said softly.
    Sam stiffened in the seat beside him.
    "Porter Hall..." she whispered.
    Chas could almost feel her turning it over in her mind. "I don't understand. You said we were going to catalogue an estate sale." Her eyes flashed her anger.
    "We are,” snapped Chas, “And while we’re at it, you are going to work off your debt to Burton-Porter.”
    "But Porter Hall is your home, isn't it?"
    “It is.”
    "And Mrs. Weekes?" Sam demanded. "What about her?"
    "My housekeeper." Chas yanked on the hand brake. "But you needn't worry. We'll be well-chaperoned. The Weekes have a flat above the coach house."
    But Sam was having none of it. "What kind of game are you playing at?" Her voice was steady but the accusation was loud and clear.
    He was the worst kind of lowlife.
    Just another in a long line of Burton-Porter males who manipulated everyone around them.
    Sam reached for the door handle.
    Chas grabbed her other arm. "Wait." His heart was hammering in his chest.