Inez stopped just inside the kitchen door, her head turning sharply to find the man seated at the breakfast table. Her eyes widened with surprise as she spotted Bastien Argeneau, seated at the table looking thoughtful. He wore jeans and a T-shirt that made him look no more than twenty-six or -seven. She’d never seen the big boss of Argeneau Enterprises look so casual. It made her feel slightly uncomfortable in the dark slacks and red blouse she’d donned on waking. Inez didn’t usually wear bright colors, but she’d dressed in the dark to avoid waking Thomas and had chosen her clothes by feel rather than color.
“Good morning, Bas—Mr. Argeneau,” she corrected herself quickly. While Thomas, and now Etienne and Rachel, kept referring to him as Bastien, and she’d started to think of him that way, he was still her boss and as such was Mr. Argeneau to her.
“You can call me Bastien,” he said with a smile. “From what I hear, we’re to be in-laws.”
Inez blushed, but didn’t know what to say. No one had said anything about marriage to her. All Thomas had said was that he wanted to turn her and that she was his lifemate. Marriage hadn’t come into it.
Forcing a smile for Bastien, she shuffled her feet, and then asked, “Would you like some tea?”
“Thank you,” Bastien murmured and then added, “I see you still have a bit of a scratchy throat. Did the honey not help?”
Inez’s eyes went round with mortification at the question and she scrambled quickly to the teakettle on the counter, her mind racing. What had Rachel and Etienne told the man? She wondered as she retrieved the jug, removed the lid, and set it on the counter, and then moved to the sink to fill it with water.
“Is there something wrong?” Bastien asked, sounding concerned.
“No,” she squeaked out as she shut off the water. Inez then turned to move back to the kettle, coming to an abrupt halt when she found Bastien there. They both gasped as the water in the jug sloshed over the lip and down his front.
“Oh!” Inez cried in alarm and hurriedly put the jug on the counter to snatch up a dish towel and mop up the liquid. Jabbering away in Portuguese, she pressed the cloth to his chest, patting him with it and following the large wet spot downward.
“Good morning.”
Inez glanced, red-faced, to the door to see a lovely woman with long chestnut hair, an impish smile and wide, amused eyes. Bastien’s fiancée, Terri Simpson. She was dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt that said, “I vant to suck your blooood,” Inez noted, and she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. She’d met the woman in New York and liked her then. Knowing about their kind and seeing the T-shirt she now wore just made her like her more.
Continuing to mop at Bastien, Inez smiled and said, “Hello, Ms. Simpson, I was just—Oh!” Inez snatched away the hand holding the towel as she glanced back and saw that she’d continued blindly mopping at the water all the way to the man’s groin.
Flushing with mortification, she stared down at the towel in her hand, afraid to lift her head and see the expression on her boss’s face…or his fiancée’s for that matter. Stupid hand, Inez thought with despair. How could she be so competent in business and so incompetent in social situations? For heaven’s sake! She’d never done anything so foolish at work. Thank God for that. Surely, Bastien never would have agreed to her becoming vice president if he’d known what a twit she was when away from work. She was forever tripping over her own feet. He was probably going to fire her now that he knew what an idiot she was. He’d—
“Inez?” Bastien said gently, taking the towel from her hand. “It’s all right. I don’t think you’re an idiot.”
She glanced up warily to see amusement twinkling in his eyes as he peered down at her.
“No. He wouldn’t ever think that,” Terri assured her, suddenly at her side, slipping her arm around her to steer her toward the breakfast table. “And we know you aren’t a twit. Bastien has been ranting for days about your being the best damned employee he has in England and cursing Thomas for taking you away from him.”
“He has?” she asked with surprise.
Terri nodded. “Now, you just sit down and relax. You had enough excitement last night. I’ll make the tea while Bastien mops himself up.”
“Thank you,” Inez murmured as she sat down. She then sat watching the couple putter around the kitchen, moving in what almost seemed a choreographed dance around and near each other in the kitchen.
They worked together well, Inez noted. Terri refilled the jug while Bastien finished mopping himself up, then Terri slid by him, their bodies brushing and smiles exchanged as she set the jug back on the electric kettle’s base while he spread the dish towel on the counter to dry. They then encountered each other again exchanging smiles and brushing against each other as she moved to retrieve cups and Bastien found the tea bags. He had the container open by the time Terri set the cups down, and then dropped the bags in each cup and resealed the container while she fetched sugar from the cupboard. And, finally, they brushed bodies again in passing as she headed to the drawer to retrieve spoons and he walked to the refrigerator to retrieve a carton of milk