She turned around, a line appearing between her eyebrows. “Do what?”

And now his choices were: either to say out loud Don’t move things with your body that belongs to you, or to pretend he’d made an involuntary noise as part of a concussion-related seizure. “Nothing,” he muttered, biting the inside of his cheek. “Look, I’m . . . glad things are going well down here. And that you started breakfast, and so on.”

Eve smiled, a real smile—the bright, sunshine one that lit up entire rooms, possibly entire worlds. He felt a bit dazed. As a concussed man who’d only just woken up, it probably wasn’t safe for him to be exposed to such things. “I’m sorry,” she said teasingly, “was that a compliment?”

His reply was automatic. “No.”

“A positive comment of some sort directed at me, then? Ah, ah.” She held up a finger to cut off his response. “Don’t bother to answer. I’m quite certain it was.” And then she was off, back to the stove again, leaving Jacob feeling . . . odd. Flushed. Perhaps he should go back to the hospital. His reactions were all wrong this morning, and he was becoming concerned.

“This conversation isn’t over,” he said, which made no sense, because it clearly should be. He was sliding backward down a very steep hill, and Eve was pushing him with one finger and laughing all the way. “The fact remains that I didn’t hire you, and—” He paused beside her, squinting at the flash of white hiding beneath the braids she’d pinned over her ears. “Bloody hell, are you still wearing that fucking earbud?”

She flicked him a cool look. “Language, Mr. Wayne. I’m sure the guests don’t want your foul mouth served with their tea.”

“I—you—” Jacob was pretty sure steam had just shot out of his ears.

“Trust me,” she went on, “you want me to wear the earbud. Music helps me concentrate on the order of things.”

That made not a lick of sense.

But then, Jacob supposed, his own methods of focusing had never made much sense to other people, either.

“And the alternative,” she went on, “is to let me sing to myself, which would probably disrupt the guests’ eggs something awful.”

“I can’t decide if you’re serious or if you’re just being a—”

“Returning to the subject at hand, I think I have a solution to your latest stick up the arse,” she said, briskly cutting him off. “Yesterday, before—well, before—you were blathering on about a trial, correct?”

“Incorrect,” he shot back. “I do not blather.”

She stared at him for a moment before murmuring, “Dear God, you are so much fun.”

He hadn’t picked up any of the usual indicators—excessive emphasis on unexpected words, for example—but that absolutely had to be sarcasm. Even if Eve was currently watching him with a gleam of amusement in her eye.

“Anyway,” she continued, “the point is, you wanted to trial me. So trial me.”

He frowned. “I beg your pardon?” A trial? Surely she didn’t mean—