Scott lifted his cup and took a sip. The coffee was scalding. He took several big gulps, relishing the burn in his mouth and down his throat. Placing a cookie on a napkin, he slid it across the desk. “So, tell me. What do you do when you’re not temping?”

Emily turned out to be quite a talker. He found her to be sweet and quirky, both witty and unintentionally funny. Her chatter was birdlike, quick and bright, and she threw her thoughts around like paper airplanes. An anecdote here, a little joke there; a step back, then a crazy leap forward. She answered Scott’s questions frankly and with little forethought, there clearly being little filtration between what she thought and what she said; it was all out there, even as the thoughts themselves were formed. And then she volunteered an abundance of personal information without even being prompted. Quite predictably, she asked very few questions of him.

As she talked, his theories were confirmed; everything he’d gleaned from his research was proved in just a single conversation. With few solid friendships, no boyfriend, and what seemed to be a fragile relationship with her family, she was isolated and lonely. She was also transient, rarely staying at one address for long. Rather conveniently, she was about to be evicted from her current digs because she’d failed to pay the rent on time (information that she supplied herself, unabashed) and she had no alternative lined up. Her acting career was dead in the water, and the meeting with Lara had left her feeling humiliated and vulnerable, just as he’d hoped it would.

As the personality quiz had suggested, she was a dreamer, a storyteller, a “people person” who lived in the moment. Adventurous but lacking in confidence, she often looked to others for advice before making a decision. She was loyal, compassionate, and most importantly, very, very trusting.

Yes, he thought. She’s the one.

Twenty minutes later, Emily was still talking. There was a speck of chocolate on her cheek. Scott resisted an urge to reach over and wipe it away with his finger.

He checked his watch. Verity would be tapping on the door again soon. He waited for a lull in Emily’s recount of some absurd incident or other (something about an onion?) before interrupting. “Well, it certainly sounds as if you’ve been through the wringer. Just quickly, I wonder if we might be able to discuss the job.”

Emily’s hands flew to her face. “Oh god, I’ve been rambling.”

“No, not at all. I’m just a little short on time and want to make sure we’ve covered as much as possible.”

“Yes, of course. Sorry.” She stuffed the last of the cookie in her mouth.

“As you may already be aware,” said Scott, “I spend a lot of time in Europe. Much of that time is taken up with business, but some is spent at my house in France. I ought to be there more often, to be honest, but I do go whenever possible.” He felt his thoughts starting to split and wander. It always happened when he spoke of the estate, as if just talking about it conjured a portal through which he could reach and physically touch the pampas grass. The travertine. The floorboards and the furniture.

The soft, plump pillow …

The lone finger pointing up, up, up …

Scott took a breath, trying to clear his head. The place was sucking him in. Nina called it her bubble, and he could see why. The shape of the land, the trees overhead, the repetition of circles and curves in the design of the grounds … but to him it was something more solid than that, more impermeable. A snow globe. Sometimes, if it had been a long time between visits, he even started to picture the place covered in snow—delicate flakes spinning and floating out of the sky, settling on leaves and petals, piling up in great, fluffy drifts on the window ledges—which was ludicrous, because it almost never snowed there.

He focused. “It’s incredibly beautiful. Very remote, but no expense has been spared on setting it up. Everything you could ever wish for … it’s there.” His stomach contracted as his thoughts returned briefly to the bank statement. He cleared his throat. “It’s large, though, and difficult to maintain. There are many different features, each requiring a great deal of care, plus two separate houses to manage. My wife has plans to turn one into a guesthouse, so there’s a lot of work to be done. And we have a daughter.”

Emily erupted in a coughing fit. “God, sorry,” she managed. “A daughter? How lovely. How old is she?”

“She just turned six.”

Emily was banging on her chest, her eyes watering. “Sorry,” she said again. “Wow. Six. That’s … a nice age.”

“Mmm. She has some health issues, though, the management of which can be a bit tricky, so we need to keep her back from school until she’s well enough. She needs homeschooling, constant medical attention … all in all, my wife is finding it extremely difficult to cope all by herself.”

“Of course. It must be very challenging.”

“Challenging. Yes.” Scott looked at his bandaged hand. “So, she has tasked me with finding her some help. She needs a housekeeper slash au pair slash personal assistant. I’m aware that sounds vague but I—we—haven’t yet had anyone working at the house in quite this capacity, so the details are a little hazy. You’d probably find that you’d be making many of the rules up as you go along. You’d receive a wage, of course, plus a car, food, and accommodation. Any extra expenses would be covered. And considering your current living situation, I’d be more than happy for you to start immediately.”

Emily’s mouth had fallen open. “Wow,” she said at last. “I don’t know what to say. Did you say France?”

“Yes. The midwest coast.”

“Wow,” she said again.

“Don’t feel like you have to make a decision right away. I mean, it would be a big change for you. The job would be flexible in many ways, but the isolation might be difficult. The way my wife lives … it’s not for everyone.” Scott looked Emily square in the eyes and forced himself to smile.

“Okay,” said Emily, but her own smile faltered a little. She looked, quite rightly, as though she’d just been handed a briefcase full of cash by a hooded stranger. He could almost see the cogs whirring inside her head.

“Please,” he said, “take some time to think about it. We can talk again later in the week.” He would call her tomorrow. She would accept, he was sure of it.

“Okay,” she said again. “And thanks for having me. Sorry, that sounded weird—for inviting me, I mean. For seeing me. You know what I mean.” Blushing hard, she stood up. Scott stood with her, intending to see her out, but halfway to the door she stopped. “Sorry, but can I ask a quick question?”

“Of course, fire away.”

“Why me?”

He looked at her, momentarily confused.

“I’m so grateful for the offer, don’t get me wrong. It’s just … it seems a bit random. I get that you want to make amends for accidentally firing me—which you don’t have to do, by the way, it’s fine—but I don’t exactly have much experience with housekeeping. Or with kids. There must be hundreds of professionals to choose from, so why me?”

For a split second, Scott felt his resolve crack. “You’re in a fix,” he said after a brief but dangerous pause. “You need help.”

“Who doesn’t?” Emily laughed. “Seriously, though. Why?”

Scott sighed. He had not yet done enough, had not been sufficiently convincing. Fleetingly, he considered telling the truth. Walking out from behind his desk, he placed his hands on his hips and flashed his best smile. “Honestly? I don’t want to send just anyone. It has to be someone I can trust, someone I know will fit in with my family, but the position needs to be filled immediately and I don’t have time to go through the proper channels. The interviews and paperwork would take forever, and formal qualifications aren’t necessary anyway. A personal connection is what’s important. I think you can offer something we just wouldn’t get from an agency.…” He trailed off. Not one word was a lie, and yet it wasn’t quite the truth either. He laughed to cover his nerves. “I don’t know. I guess I just have this feeling about you. Is that so strange?”

Emily looked at him, and a hundred hidden meanings crackled between them like a current.

There was a knock, and Verity pushed the office door open. “Sorry to interrupt, Scott, but Karen Lomax has been held up and was hoping we might be able to push the meeting back a couple of hours.”

Scott frowned. “A couple of hours?”

Verity rolled her eyes. “I know, it’s annoying. Do you want me to say no?”

Reflexively, he ran through the rest of the day in his head, rethinking, rescheduling … but then he stopped, looked at his watch, glanced at Emily.

“You know what?” he said. “It’s fine. Go ahead and tell Karen two thirty, but no more changes.” Verity nodded her assent and disappeared again.

Scott returned to his side of the desk. He became aware of a chill at the nape of his neck as beads of moisture soaked into his collar. “Well, Emily,” he said, slipping his jacket from the back of his chair. “It seems I have some time to kill. How do you feel about lunch?”