"Making you some of my mammy's oatmeal pancakes,"

Chapter 6

Roisin spun round, spatula in hand, to find Nathaniel King standing on the other side of the kitchen counter, his bare chest—the planes of solid muscle and lean sinew, not to mention the array of scars gleaming in the daylight��dissolving her thigh muscles, while those arresting blue eyes glared at her as if he wanted to murder her.

Okay, that's not good.

She had hoped her new boss might have calmed down at least a bit since their meet-not-at-all-cute in his bedroom.

"Making you some of my mammy's oatmeal pancakes," she offered, trying to keep her voice even.

The tense muscle in his cheek started to twitch.

"By way of apology. For earlier," she added.

She couldn't lose this job. She needed it or she'd have to return to her family in Connemara an abject failure… But as he continued to glare at her, it wasn't the thought of her older brothers' superior looks that were causing her anxiety. It was the sight of the scars—nicks and cuts, white against the tanned skin. And the echo of the harrowing cries and shouts from his nightmares.

She'd always been a natural nurturer. Hadn't her mammy and her five older brothers despaired when she was little at all the injured creatures she'd brought home to tend—turning their already space-challenged, three-bedroom farmhouse into even more of a zoo?

She'd made a home for those poor, damaged wild things until they were well enough to leave again. Like them, Nathaniel King had wounds which needed tending.

"Let me say this in words of one syllable, so you'll understand me," he ground out, the flexing muscle in his cheek making her concerned he was about to crack a tooth. "I want you out of my place and out of my life. I don't need or want a Girl Friday. Or any other kind of 'girl' for that matter. Nor do I want breakfast."

Her skin heated, no doubt making the blush visible from space, as she recalled the sight of his arousal lifting the bed sheet. He might not need a Girl Friday, especially her, but to say he didn't want any kind of girl was an obvious lie.

She wasn't about to call him on it, though. Because that would send totally the wrong message—employee-wise—but when his stomach growled loudly, she said, "I think perhaps your tummy has other ideas, breakfast-wise."

"You're not listening to me…" he began again in that "he who shall be obeyed" tone, which she was sure struck fear into all his employees. "Get the hell out of—"

She cut him off. "At least let me serve you the pancakes before I go."

His dark brows lowered ominously over those startling blue eyes, and Roisin got the definite sense Nathaniel King wasn't used to being interrupted.

Way to go, Roisin. You've really outdone yourself this time, first impressions–wise.