Page 1 of Mr. Dangerous

1

Naomi

If you already hate a man becausehe broke your heart, doing his laundry will not helphiscase.

Okay, I didn’t really know if these Egyptian cotton towels, mildewed and dried into stiff shapes at thedoorof the laundry room, had ever touched Rob Delaney’s chiseled body. It could have been any of the Delaney brothers visiting the family-mansion-turned-summer-house.

“Disgusting,” I said out loud. Even though none of them could hear me pronounce judgment. I was here to clean the house and open it before their next visit. I turned the washer onto hot and poured in a heaping cup ofdetergent.

I could probably just throw the towels out, but I balked at being so wasteful. With my sleeve pressed over my mouth and nose, I threw the towels into the steaming hot water and slammed thelidshut.

The Delaneys would probably never want these towels again if they knew what had happened to them. They would probably happily donate them to my kitten shelter forbedding.

If the Delaneys even likedkittens.

Well, I was almost out of here. The first two floors of the Delaney house were pristine. All I needed to do was run the vacuum across the basement floors and escape before whichever gorgeous, handsome, asshole Delaneyshowedup.

The floor above my headcreaked.

“Dad?” I called hopefully. I’d taken over most of the family cleaning business, including taking personal care of the Delaney house. There was no point in hiring on extra staff when the Delaneys were never here for very long. And, as I always reminded myself, these terrible people paid us well for catering to theirwhims.

The footsteps overhead faded away. Oh, of course I could hear everything from the laundry room; it wasn’t insulated like the rest of the house. The Delaneys would never come down and use their fancy laundry room, with its two side-by-side silver high capacity washers and the long Corian counter for folding clothes. They couldn’t be arsed to do more than throw their towels in the general direction of the laundry room on their way from thehottub.

I sighed. I really hoped it was my dad, not a burglar or worse, aDelaney.

I climbed the lushly carpeted stairs from the basement and emerged into the back hallway, between the kitchen and the garage. Everything up here was dark wood and Italian tile floors. Sunlight trickled down the hall from the expansivekitchen.

The garage door swung open, and I jumped, pressing my hand to my chest, even though I’d known someonewashere.

Rob Delaney stepped into the house. He was even taller than he'd been as a teenager, broad-shouldered, and strikingly handsome: short black hair, piercing blue eyes, high cheekbones. It wasn't fair that someone so rich was so gorgeous, too. Did they use their money to buy bettergenes?

"I'm sorry I startled you,"hesaid.

"It's you,” I blurted out. Then I bit my lip. Gosh, I sounded like anidiot.

No, worse. I soundedangry.

Rob gazed down at me with those tranquil, cool blue eyes. "Yes. It's me. Didn't your dad mention I was the one who asked for the house to beopened?"

I shook my head. "Doesn't matter to me. I justworkhere."

"Right," he said. "Well. I could have sworn the Suburban was an automatic. No? No auto in thegarage?"

"No auto in the garage," I repeated. "I guess you should keeptwounused cars on hand. In case you have a hankering to go for clam cakes, you wouldn't want a manual when you want auto, godforbid..."

He held up his hand as if waiting to be called on. There was a white cast on hiswrist.

"I can't drive an auto," he said. "We might need to add chauffeur to yourduties."

I smiled slightly at that, a smile of disbelief. After the accidental heat in my tone, he should have known what I thought of him – and his goddamn towels – but he was completely unaffected. He expected the help to hop to, whatever heneeded.

"I came here to recuperate," he said. "Can't get much work done with a broken wrist. Might as well eat some clam cakes. If I can getthere."

I crossed my arms over my chest. I would do his laundry and put his plates in the dishwasher, but being confined to an automobile with him? Just him standing there, with his big shoulders and his roguish little smirk, was too sexy for me to handle. I didn’t want to come anycloser.

"I'm sure you can hire a driverintown."

"Naomi," he said, his voice suddenly soft and familiar. "I need you to help me. I don't want to have a bunch of people trekking in and out of here, waiting on me. I want one person here I candependon."

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