Page 21 of The Amber House

Thirty minutes later, Victoria descended the narrow back staircase. She had bypassed the warm, practical sweaters in her suitcase, reaching instead for the only kind of armor she understood. She wore a charcoal-grey blouse, wool trousers, and a pair of pristine leather loafers. Her hair was brushed into a sleek, dark curtain.

It was a completely absurd outfit for a freezing country kitchen at six in the morning, which was exactly the point. She refused to look like she was adapting to Emma’s world. She was going to freeze before she ever admitted to being out of her element.

She pushed open the kitchen door. The room was a wall of heat and chaos. The radio on the windowsill was blaring. Emma stood at the central island, wearing faded jeans and a white cotton tank top that had clearly lost a fight with a bag of flour. Her hair was twisted up with a wooden chopstick, and she was kneading a mound of dough, bumping her hips against the counter in time with the music.

Victoria leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms. She waited. It took Emma another ten seconds to turn around to grab a scraper. When she saw Victoria standing there, perfectly composed amidst the flying flour, she actually jumped, dropping the metal tool on the floor with a clatter.

"Jesus!" Emma slapped a hand over her chest, leaving a white handprint on her collarbone. She let out a breath that blew a stray curl out of her eyes, glaring across the room. "Are you lost on your way to a funeral, or do you always wear silk to bake bread?"

"I dress for the day, Emma," Victoria replied flatly, her voice cutting easily through the music. "And my day requires caffeine. Point me to the espresso machine."

Emma let out a breathy laugh, bending down to retrieve the scraper. "This is a bed and breakfast in the English countryside, Victoria. Not a Tribeca café. There’s a drip machine by the sink. If you want it stronger, there's instant coffee in the cupboard. Help yourself."

Victoria stared at the plastic coffee maker. It looked like a relic from the nineties. Then she looked at the tin of instant coffee. She felt a genuine, physical wave of revulsion.

"You serve this to paying guests?" Victoria asked, her tone flat.

"The guests get the French press," Emma corrected, a smug little smile playing on her lips. "The owners get what they make themselves. And since you’re half-owner, you can figure out how a filter works."

Victoria’s eyes narrowed. She refused to give Emma the satisfaction of a complaint. She walked over to the counter, her movements deliberate, and began the infuriating process of coaxing a decent cup of coffee out of the archaic machine. While she waited, she turned her attention back to the room. Emma was reaching up to grab a large metal mixing bowl from a high shelf.

The motion pulled the thin cotton of her tank top up, exposing a strip of soft pale skin at her waist. Victoria’s eyes snagged on the flex of muscle in Emma’s back, the graceful, powerful line of her shoulders as she brought the heavy bowl down.

Without warning, a visceral memory crashed into Victoria’s brain. The heat of that skin under her hands. The way those shoulders had felt pinned beneath her in the dark of the hotel room. The breathy, desperate sounds Emma had made against her throat.

The thought was so sudden, so violently intrusive, that Victoria actually felt her chest tighten. Her fingers gripped the edge of the countertop.

Absolutely not, she told herself, genuinely annoyed. It is six in the morning, you haven’t had your coffee yet and she is listening to Shania Twain. Pull it together.

Emma glanced over her shoulder, catching Victoria staring directly at her waist. Victoria immediately snapped her gaze to the dripping coffee maker, her pulse jumping erratically at the hollow of her throat. She picked up her empty mug with stiff fingers, praying her face wasn't as flushed as it felt.

She turned around, holding the mug in both hands. "So," Victoria said, clearing her throat. "Since I’m a fifty-percent stakeholder, I assume there is a chore roster."

Emma dumped a bag of sugar into the bowl. She looked up, her deep green eyes locking onto Victoria’s with a dangerous, challenging glint.

"Oh, we have a roster," Emma said. She wiped her hands on a towel, walked over to a corkboard by the fridge, and pulled down a clipboard.

Instead of handing it over, Emma closed the distance between them. She stepped uncomfortably close, slapping the clipboard down on the counter right next to Victoria’s hand. Victoria caught the scent of vanilla on her skin, cut with the clean smell of soap. Every instinct Victoria possessed screamed at her to step back, but she forced her feet to stay rooted to the floor.

"Since you’re so eager to optimize the business," Emma murmured, leaning closer. "You can start with the cellar inventory. I need an exact count of the preserves and the flour. Then, the Galloways in room four are checking out. You can handle their bill. And their bags."

Victoria looked at the clipboard, then up at Emma. "You want me to count jam jars in a basement."

"I want you to pull your weight," Emma countered. "Or is the executive too good for manual labor?"

It was a blatant trap. If Victoria refused, Emma won. Victoria took a sip of the terrible coffee, ignoring the way it burned her tongue. She set the mug down and offered a smile that was purely teeth.

"I look forward to it, Ms. Hayes."

The root cellar looked like a medieval torture chamber disguised as storage. It was freezing, lit by a single bulb that cast long shadows against the damp stone walls. Victoria stood in the center of the cramped space, her blouse providing zero insulation, methodically tallying jars of strawberry preserves and blackberry jam.

She worked quickly, her handwriting neat and viciously precise. She grouped the jars by date, noted three separate counting errors Emma had left behind, and found a slow leak behind a stack of spare blankets. Her toes were numb in her loafers, but she felt a petty, vindictive satisfaction tightening in her chest. She was going to hand Emma an inventory so thoroughly documented there wouldn't be a single thing left to criticize.

By the time she emerged back onto the ground floor, the smell of bacon and eggs had joined the baking bread. The B&B was waking up. Victoria walked to the small mahogany desk near the front door that served as reception. She smoothed her hair, checked her cuffs, and waited.

Ten minutes later, the Galloways descended the stairs. Mr. Galloway had the pinched expression of a man who wrote complaint letters as a hobby.

"Good morning," Victoria said, stepping out from behind the desk. Her voice was pitched to the exact frequency of high-end corporate hospitality—warm enough to be polite, cold enough to establish immediate dominance. "I trust your stay in room four was satisfactory."