Mr. Smithfield Read online

  Mr. Smithfield

  Louise Bay

  Published by Louise Bay 2021

  Copyright © 2021 Louise Bay. All rights reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  ISBN – 978-1-910747-65-0

  Contents

  Books by Louise Bay

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Epilogue

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  Private Player - Chapter One

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  One

  Autumn

  He was a thirty-three-year-old single father of an adorable four-year-old, and just happened to be the only man I’d ever met who made my insides actually quiver when he looked at me. Where would he keep his spatulas?

  I’d looked in every single drawer and cabinet in the kitchen and found nothing. All I wanted was an omelet. I’d been looking for about thirty minutes and had found Tupperware, an old Good Housekeeping recipe book from the seventies, and even what looked like a shrunken version of one of those tools to plane wood. But no freaking spatulas. Perhaps the British had a habit of storing vital kitchen equipment in their bathrooms or something? I pulled out my phone and called my sister. Hollie understood the British better than I did.

  “Where do Brits keep their flippers?” I asked.

  “Like diving equipment?” Hollie responded.

  “Yes, Hollie, my stomach’s rumbling, it’s almost nine o’clock at night, and I’m searching the kitchen for diving equipment.” I collapsed onto the soft, navy cushions that covered the long wooden bench that ran the length of the kitchen table. “I just want an omelet.”

  “Well first of all, they call that kind of spatula a fish slice,” Hollie said in her typical no-nonsense tone.

  I was pretty sure English was still the language of both England and the United States, but since moving to London a few weeks ago, sometimes I had to check out Wikipedia to make sure nothing had changed. Just being in the kitchen required a translator. I’d discovered that burners were hobs. Kitchen counters were work surfaces or sides. Sides of what? According to a Google deep-dive I wasn’t entirely proud of, a “side” could mean any raised, horizontal surface in any room—so precisely not a side of anything. And now spatulas were fish slices. “What if I don’t want to prepare fish with it? Or slice anything?”

  I could almost hear Hollie shrug. “Still a fish slice.”

  “Well, do you know where I might find . . . that in an average kitchen?”

  “As far as I’m aware, they keep them in the same place as Americans do. Kitchen, drawer, pot on the counter—that kind of thing.”

  Maybe Gabriel didn’t have kitchen utensils, or maybe he hid them behind that locked door at the back of the kitchen. It was the only room in the house outside of the bathrooms that had a lock on it. Gabriel’s clear, unspoken message to me, the hired help, was Do Not Enter. And therefore, of course, I desperately wanted to get inside.

  “Are you okay?” Hollie asked.

  “Well, I’m a little hungry,” I said, standing and heading to the fridge. Omelets were off the menu, so I’d have to find something else.

  “Gabriel’s still at work?”

  “Yes.” No wonder he needed a live-in nanny for Bethany. He’d left the house just after six this morning and still wasn’t back. Everyone had tried to convince me not to take this job. Even Gabriel had tried to discourage me by telling me he needed a nanny who would work long hours for the next few months, as he was going through a particularly busy stretch at work. I’d be working weekends and overnights, too. Still, I wasn’t put off. How could I be? Bethany was adorable and Gabriel lived in a mansion that looked like it was something straight out of a Dickens novel, right in the center of London. I could never have afforded to live in Smithfield on a graduate paycheck. Which was another reason why my program being delayed until September wasn’t the end of the world. This way, I’d get to enjoy London without the pressure of starting a career at the same time. It was a silver lining I didn’t even have to squint to see.

  At first it wasn’t easy to see a bright side to my program being delayed by six months. The recession that started at the end of last year had thrown so many businesses into a tailspin, even the Fortune 500 company that was going to employ me. I’d been so excited to start, especially since the first assignment was in London. By now I’d thought I’d be having cocktails with my coworkers and laughing about photocopier jams, or whatever it was people in offices laughed about at happy hour. I was supposed to have one foot on the career ladder, rather than one hand wiping a four-year-old bottom.

  But taking care of Bethany was a job in London, period. And any job in London was bound to be more exciting than every job back in Oregon, especially since Hollie and her soon-to-be husband lived here. My sister wanted me to wait tables, be her assistant, or do basically anything other than move into Gabriel’s house. But I had pediatric first aid training from summers as a lifeguard at the community pool, plus plenty of babysitting experience. This job came with rent-free accommodation, which meant I didn’t need to rely on my sister at all. Hollie had been putting a roof over my head for twenty-three years, and I was desperate to set her free and
stand on my own two feet.

  Nannying wasn’t my first choice, but it could have been a lot worse. I was in London. I wasn’t relying on my sister. And my boss was as hot as holy hell. Life wasn’t shaping up to be exactly what I’d planned, but it was good.

  “Well, maybe you should have an early night,” Hollie said.

  “I need something to eat,” I replied, pulling out ham and cheese from the refrigerator. Gabriel even paid for my food, so everything I earned I could save and spend on travelling next summer. I made a mental note to spend some of my paycheck on a spatula. “And anyway, I’m not tired.”

  “Of course you’re tired. You’ve been running around after a four-year-old all day.”

  The truth was, nannying was hard work. I wasn’t about to tell Hollie that—I didn’t want her to worry. Bethany had an infectious giggle, loved to be tickled, and her curiosity knew no bounds . . . but she had the energy of a cocker spaniel on crack. At the end of every day, I felt like I’d been run over by a Mack truck.

  “Gabriel will probably want you out of his hair when he comes in,” Hollie said. She was trying to sound breezy, like she wasn’t suggesting I keep as far away from Gabriel as possible. Even if I wanted to keep my distance—which I didn’t—it was impossible. We lived under the same roof, and he was frequently the only other adult I saw throughout the day. “He’ll have worked really hard and will want to decompress. But he’ll be far too polite to say so. You should go to bed.”

  I glanced over at the locked door at the far end of the kitchen. Last night was my first night living with Gabriel and Bethany, and we were all still learning each other’s habits. When Gabriel had gotten home, he’d disappeared upstairs and changed out of his beautiful, navy blue suit—the one that made his green eyes light up like he was some kind of god. He’d looked so delicious. So powerful. So like a man who would kiss me out of my shoes. He’d returned in faded jeans that clung to his strong thighs and an old t-shirt that lifted up just slightly when he reached for a wine glass, so I got a glimmer of his muscular stomach. And the hole on the seam of the shoulder was begging for me to push my finger through and find out exactly how hot, how smooth, how touchable his skin was. I wanted to beg him never to wear anything else again. I’d felt my mouth go dry as I tried to find something to say to such a serious, commanding, beautiful man before he abruptly excused himself, and disappeared through that locked door without explanation.

  Did he decompress behind that door?

  And if so, what did decompressing involve when it came to a man like Gabriel Chase?

  I could think of a few suggestions that didn’t involve him wearing either the suit or the jeans. In fact, esteemed decompress-ologist Doctor Autumn Lumen suggested a shower for two and kissing the nanny for optimal relaxation.

  “We should have a talk about Gabriel,” Hollie said, her tone shifting when she realized I wasn’t taking her trying-to-be-subtle bait. She was using her Sensible Sister voice—the same one she’d used when we’d talked about me dating Darren from Eagle Creek and Stuart from Portland. “He’s a father and a very serious lawyer. And he’s—”

  “You know that we’re not dating, right?”

  “I know. But I also know that you just moved into his house and you’re going to be around each other and—”

  “You’re worried that I’m going to seduce him and take advantage?” I wasn’t quite sure what her problem was. I got it with Darren and Stuart. Back home, she’d been trying to protect me. She didn’t want me ending up pregnant by some guy who would never amount to anything, which would lead to me dropping out of college and ruining my life. But I was different now. Gabriel was different. He’d already amounted to something. We were in London, not Oregon. And I was pretty sure I’d have to be having sex with him to get pregnant.

  “Hardly. I’m not sure Gabriel ever does anything that he doesn’t want to do.”

  Interesting. I hadn’t seen that side of him yet, but I hadn’t known him that long. I liked the idea that he had steel-like resolve.

  “I’m just concerned because he’s . . . you know . . . He’s handsome.” Putting it mildly, sis. “I’m concerned you might develop a crush.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, I can remove any ambiguity for you. My crush is fully developed. But that just means I’m human. I’m sure every woman in London has a crush on Gabriel Chase.”

  Hollie laughed. “Okay, well that’s probably true. I just don’t want you to get into a situation you might regret.”

  I sighed. “Look, Gabriel’s not going to be interested in some chick from the wrong side of the tracks who’s looking after his kid. I’m well aware of that.” I may have resisted changing into my favorite flannel pajamas, and lately my messy bun came with a side of mascara and blush, but I wasn’t kidding myself. I wasn’t a sophisticated woman of the world who wore five-inch pencil heels, smelled of expensive fragrance even when she wasn’t wearing any, and had a weekly manicure at her favorite spa, like most of the women Gabriel was sure to encounter at his law firm. His gaze might light a fire in me that I needed a trip to the arctic to douse, but I wasn’t stupid. I was the hired help. My crush was, and would remain, a one-sided fantasy.

  Down the hall, the clunk of the three front door locks caught my attention.

  My crush was home.

  Two

  Autumn

  The air shifted when Gabriel came through the door at night. He seemed to carry with him the grey drizzle of the April weather. The constant frown across his brow and the tense line of his mouth suggested a storm constantly raged inside him.

  “Hello,” I called out. Last night and tonight, I’d spent the hours after Bethany had gone to bed unpacking, getting to know the layout of the house, and studying maps of London’s public transportation system.

  “Good evening.” His voice was almost a growl, and it sent a sensuous shiver up my spine.

  I spun around from where I was standing in the kitchen and came face-to-face with my deliciously handsome employer. I didn’t know how it was possible but every time I saw him, I wasn’t expecting him to be so tall. Or his jaw to be quite so sharp. Or his glossy, black curls quite so touchable. It was as if my memory couldn’t handle someone so attractive, so dialed it down until I was faced with reality again. Tonight his glare was a little more intense than usual. “What’s this noise?” he barked, shaking the ever-present London rain from his hair and then toeing off his shoes, which I found to be an adorable habit. Who couldn’t appreciate a man in a hand-made suit who didn’t like to wear shoes?

  I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by noise and then I realized he must be referring to my phone. I grabbed it and turned down the volume. “A musicals mash-up,” I said, wiggling my cell at him. “Sometimes I like to deep dive into the entire soundtrack but sometimes you just want to hear the greats. Am I right?”

  He tilted his head as if he was looking at an animal he didn’t recognize in a zoo.

  “Musicals,” I repeated. “You know, like Showboat. West Side Story. The King and I.” He still looked blank. There was only one thing for it. I had to sing. “‘The hills are alive with the sound of music’.” Surely that was the one musical everyone in the northern hemisphere had heard of?

  He winced. “You’re singing.”

  “Of course I’m singing. Everyone should sing. ‘I feel pretty. Oh so pretty. I feel pretty and witty and bright’.” I stopped partly because he didn’t look amused but mainly because I couldn’t sing a West Side Story song without dancing, and I’d learned from experience that I couldn’t dance in socks on this floor without falling flat on my face. I shrugged. “I don’t know what it is about that song, but I can’t be anything but happy when I sing it. Musicals have that effect on people. You should try it.”

  “I don’t think so,” he said, moving toward the fridge. “And honestly, with your voice, I’m not sure you should be singing either.” He peered inside and then pulled out a beer.

  “Well, that was rude. Granted, I’m
no Idina Menzel, but few of us are.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said and set his beer onto the kitchen table while he shrugged off his jacket.

  “Never mind,” I said, determined not to take offense at his terse manner and his less-than-favorable assessment of my singing ability. “Have you eaten? I was going to make myself an omelet. Can I fix you something?”

  “I’ve got stuff to do.”

  I glanced toward the locked door at the back of the kitchen. What was behind that door? A dungeon? A man-spa? Perhaps he was an amateur taxidermist. But why did he have to lock it? Was it to keep what was in there from getting out, or anyone else from getting in?

  “So, Bethany had a wonderful day. We went to a sing-a-long, as it happens. Presumably, it’s okay for your daughter to sing?”

  “Well, yes, she’s four. And she has rather a good voice, I think. For her age.” His eyes widened as if he was waiting for me to agree. The only time his manner lightened was when it came to Bethany. Just talking about her seemed to lift him out of his brooding darkness for a few minutes.