A Duke by Default (Reluctant Royals #2)(8)

He hadn’t planned on firing her, and he wished he’d made that clear earlier because the pleading look in her eyes gutted him. He felt an illogical need to soothe her, and despite all the swords and armor, chivalry was most certainly not his thing.

He scrubbed a hand over his stubble.

“Aye. Jamie will be back this evening to teach a class and he can talk over all the administrative shite with ye. Enough with this puppy dog face.” He waved a hand dismissively in the air between them. “I prefer the ‘I’m about to burn your fucking eyeballs out, ye creepy bastard’ look you gave me earlier.”

He schooled his expression into a scowl and reached his hand across the desk, holding it in front of her. “Welcome to Bodotria Armory.”

She let out a sigh of relief and took his hand, giving it a good, firm, professional handshake. Tav touched women all the damn time during training and demonstrations without feeling a thing, but the feel of Portia’s slim fingers curling against his sent something bright and electric zipping through his veins.

Bloody hell, it’s going to be a long few months.

He noticed her gaze had slipped past his face, over his shoulder to where the framed photos lined his bookshelf next to souvenirs from trips to his parents’ respective homelands; a Moai statue from Chile and a small Jamaican flag. There was a photo of him and Jamie and their parents, a spectrum of browns with Tav’s face the only pale one. Portia was a smart woman—she’d figure it out.

He released her hand. “Come on, I’ll show you to your room.”

He’d doled out cash he didn’t have for a new mattress, bedding, and towels for her, and Cheryl had decorated the room for him. He wasn’t sure the New York skyline duvet cover and matching lamp from Tesco would be to Portia’s taste, but she’d deal with it.

He maneuvered around her giant suitcase and rolling bag. He couldn’t imagine how much the set had cost. “What’ve you got in there, an elephant?”

“No, I’ve got several folding chairs for men who act like fitting your entire life into two bags is some kind of diva move.”

It seemed she’d tucked vulnerable Portia away again. Good. He didn’t need her giving him calf eyes when he was in the mood for veal.

He hefted the larger bag and headed into the hallway, stowing his complaints, and the only sound behind him was the wheels of her rolling suitcase on the thin runner that covered the old hardwood floor. His office and room were on the topmost floor, and he tried to manage some sense of dignity and grace as he lugged her bag down the stairs to the next landing.

“This is a beautiful building,” she said, as they walked down the corridor toward the guest room. Her room. In Tav’s home.

Fucking hell.

“It looks imposing on the outside, but up here feels homey,” she said. Homey was a nice way of saying “run down,” he figured. He could tell she was trying to be friendly, but his eyes still burned and the bloody bag was heavier than he’d anticipated; he refused to give in and roll it.

“How old is this place? The exterior looks Georgian but I’m guessing it’s been renovated more recently than the seventeen hundreds.”

“It’s old,” he said.

Beads of sweat were breaking out on his hairline and her room was still a few meters away. Dammit. How had she carried this on a train? He imagined men had fallen over themselves to help her with the luggage. After all, Kevyn was the one who had dragged it up to his office unnecessarily.

“When did you move in?” she asked.

“Almost twenty years ago,” he said. “Let out the extra rooms to my uni friends for a few years, and then I got married and moved and rented out all the rooms. When we separated and I started the business, I moved back in and stopped renting.”

And he regretted it every time he saw a moving truck carrying away one of the neighborhood’s residents and replacing them with people escaping the even higher rent of the tonier Edinburgh neighborhoods. He knew time stood still for no man, and he couldn’t run a boarding house, but sometimes he felt like an alien on the streets he’d walked since he was a wean.

“Twenty years?” The sound of her luggage wheels grew louder and then she was beside him, peering up into his face with her bloodshot eyes. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-eight.” Just a few more steps to her room.

“Whoa. That’s . . .”

He shot her an annoyed look.

“Not old at all!”

She was near thirty herself, according to what Jamie had told him, but Tav had never felt older—huffing as he carried a suitcase with a bright young thing chirping up at him.

“Wait, so you bought this place when you were eighteen?”

They reached the door and he dropped the suitcase in front of it with a thud and took a controlled breath through his nose. He opened the door and ushered her in ahead of him, mostly so he could have a second to wipe the sheen of sweat that had gathered on his forehead.

“One of the benefits of having a rich shite for a biological father. They leave you their extra properties. Was probably a write-off for the codger.”

Tav wouldn’t know. He’d never met his bio dad and had never sought him out either—he’d never cared to meet the type of man who’d impregnate a refugee who’d lost everything, then abandon her and their child.