His to Command: the Housekeeper: The Prince's Chambermaid / The Billionaire's Housekeeper Mistress / The Tuscan Tycoon's Pregnant Housekeeper

CHAPTER TWO

STANDING in the small bedroom of her cottage, Cathy stared into the mirror and shook her head in mute horror. How could she possibly go to work, looking like this? Like…one of those women you sometimes saw falling out of the pub late on a Friday and Saturday night. The kind of woman who poured herself into her clothes without stopping to consider whether they might be the right size. Yet surely the dressmaker couldn’t have got her measurements wrong when she’d been for, not one, but two fittings?

She did a little swivel to regard her back view, and shuddered—because from the back it looked even worse, if that were possible. The material clung to her bottom and seemed to draw cruel attention to its over-generous curves.

Her nerves were already shot to pieces and picking up her new uniform from the dressmaker’s had only made her precarious mental state seem a million times worse. She’d put it on with trembling fingers but it seemed unsuitable no matter what angle she came at it from. Too small and too tight—the man-made fabric strained over the lush lines of her breasts and made them look absolutely enormous.

She didn’t want to wear clothes which made her feel self-conscious about her curvy figure, nor to plaster her face in make-up—which she hadn’t a clue how to apply properly. But Rupert had read her the Riot Act and so she had reluctantly complied—just as she had agreed to jettison her normal comfy flat shoes and replace them with a pair of heels so high she could barely walk in them. Beneath the mascara and lip gloss, she felt like a fraud, but one who was not in any position to object—because how could she possibly do that when she had placed herself in such an unwise situation?

Her boss was ignorant of the fact that she had behaved like a complete fool who had allowed a complete stranger to kiss her in a way that still made her cheeks burn when she remembered it. Only in this case, the complete stranger had turned out to be a royal prince.A guest of honour who would shortly be arriving with all his royal entourage.

A lying and duplicitous prince, she reminded herself bitterly—and one who clearly found it funny to unleash his potent sex appeal and to amuse himself with a naïve and stupid woman who had fallen completely under his spell. Playing games with commoners—was that how he got his kicks?

After he had walked out of the hotel last week it had taken only minutes for Cathy to work out that the man with the golden eyes had not been a humble decorator—but Prince Xaviero himself. A fact which had been confirmed by her subsequent heart-sinking search on the Internet, where his official portrait had flashed up in front of her disbelieving eyes. Yet the sternly handsome face which had stared back at her from the computer screen had seemed worlds away from the denim-clad man who had kissed her with such careless sensuality.

On the official website of Zaffirinthos Xaviero had been pictured dressed in some sort of formal uniform—wearing a dark jacket with several medals pinned to the front of it. His black hair had looked tamed instead of ruffled and his lips had been hard and unsmiling. And try as she did to resist, Cathy hadn’t been able to help drinking in his remarkable beauty—before reminding herself that he had deliberately deceived her.

Dragging her eyes away from his portrait, she’d clicked onto the history of the island instead. Zaffirinthos. A beautiful, crescent-shaped paradise set in the Ionian Sea—close to Greece and at no great distance from the southernmost tip of Italy. It was rich in gold and other precious minerals, and the di Cesere family was fabulously wealthy—with property and business interests in just about every part of the globe.

With one final fraught glance at the unfamiliar image gazing back at her from the mirror, Cathy realised that she couldn’t keep delaying the inevitable. It was time to go and face the man she had kissed so impetuously and who, for one stupid and unedifying moment, had made her heart sing. And then what? Pray that he wouldn’t inform her boss that she had behaved so unprofessionally—and leave her to fade into the background with her embarrassing memories.

It was a sunny summer’s day and a pretty walk through green and golden lanes to the hotel. Although it was still early, she could see a big shiny black limousine parked in front of the entrance and a burly-looking man standing sentry at the doors.

‘I work here,’ she said in reply to the rather hostile gaze which was levelled at her as she approached.

‘Identification?’ he clipped out.

Fishing around in her handbag, Cathy produced her driving licence and gave it to him and stood while a pair of emotionless black eyes slowly compared her face to the photograph. Eventually, he nodded and stepped back to allow her through.

Bodyguards clearly didn’t need much in the way of people skills, Cathy thought wryly as she made her way inside. But once she’d substituted her trainers for the dreaded high-heeled shoes and locked away her handbag she looked around—marvelling at what a transforming effect a little care and attention could have.

All the walls had been painted a pale sienna colour—so that the whole place looked bigger and cleaner. Cobwebs and dust had been removed from the chandeliers, which now cascaded from the ceilings like floating showers of diamonds. Huge bowls of flowers were dotted around the place, and they seemed to make the biggest difference of all. Blue irises and white roses added scent, beauty and focus to the downstairs rooms.

Yesterday, she’d made up the bed in the Prince’s suite with the pristine Egyptian cotton sheets which had been sent down specially from London. Smoothing her fingers over their crisp surface, she had marvelled at how much money Rupert must have spent on his revered guest. Soft new velvet drapes hanging from the four-poster bed had completely changed the look of the room and all the lighting had been updated. Even the ancient old bathroom had been ripped out and replaced by a spanking new top-of-the-range version.

She was just tugging down at the too-short uniform when Rupert walked into Reception, a look of immense satisfaction on his face.

‘Has the Prince arrived?’ asked Cathy nervously.

‘He’s on his way. One of his people has just rung me.’

She felt the quickening of her heart in alarm. She didn’t want to see him. Liar. You’ve thought of nothing else other than his golden eyes and the soft promise of his lips. ‘I’d… I’d better go—’

‘Wait a minute.’

Cathy realised that Rupert’s attention was focused solely on her, his gaze slowly trailing from the top of her head to the tip of her toes. And she found herself thinking that when the Prince had looked at her—no matter how much her conscience had protested that it was wrong—she had felt an unexpectedly hot kick of awareness. As if his gaze had lit something deep inside her and she wanted it to keep burning. As if he had brought her to sudden life.

Yet when Rupert looked at her, all she was aware of was a faint sense of nausea and a slow creeping of her flesh.

‘You look fabulous,’ he said thickly.

She made to turn away, but he caught her by the arm.

‘No. Don’t move, Cathy. Let me look at you properly.’

‘Rupert—’

‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘Ve-ry nice indeed. What amazing legs you’ve got! Who’s been hiding her light under a bushel all this time?’

She was saved from having to answer by the sound of footsteps ringing out—and Cathy sprang away from the contamination of Rupert’s touch. But not before she whirled round to see the look in the golden eyes of the man who was coming through the doors towards them. A look as hard and as cold as metal itself and she felt a shiver of apprehension shimmering its way down her spine as his eyes iced over her.

She had mentally been preparing for this encounter ever since the Internet had confirmed his identity—but nothing could have cushioned her against the shock of seeing him in his true guise for the first time.

Today there was not a shred of denim or mud-spattered clothing in evidence. Today he could never have been mistaken for anything other than a prince as he arrogantly swept in. His towering height and awesome presence were both imposing and autocratic, with power and privilege radiating from every atom of his being.

And no matter how much she told herself not to stare, Cathy couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. The dark grey suit fitted his body closely—its luxurious fabric skating over every hard contour and drawing attention to the muscular physique beneath. A snowy shirt emphasised the soft olive glow of his skin and the jet-dark ruffle of his hair. But it was the golden eyes which dominated everything—gleaming and dangerous as they raked over her with predatory recollection.

Cathy’s heart raced with fear and self-consciousness. Should she curtsey to him? She had only ever seen people curtsey in films and her attempt to replicate the crossed-leg little bob was a hopeless parody of the movement. She saw the Prince’s lips curve in disdain and instantly regretted having made it.

‘Don’t curtsey—I don’t want formalities,’ Xaviero clipped out—but the quiet fury which was simmering inside him was not because she had breached some unspoken code of conduct. No, it had its root in something far more fundamental than etiquette. The inexplicable had happened and Xaviero did not like it.

Because the tiny blonde had haunted him when he had not wanted nor expected to be haunted by such a woman. A chambermaid! A humble, low-paid worker whom he should have forgotten in an instant.

So how was it that ever since he had taken her in his arms last week for that laughably brief kiss, she had disturbed his nights and his dreams. Was it because she was the first woman he’d ever kissed under the guise of total anonymity? And, by responding to him so passionately, hadn’t she somehow managed to explode one of his tightly held beliefs? That despite his undeniable physical characteristics it was the cachet of royal blood which provided his major attraction to the opposite sex. Yet the chambermaid had not known about his royal status and neither had she seemed to care. She had seemed to want him, and only him.

The memory of her hungry reaction had taunted him with tantalising images of how that pale curved body might respond if it were naked and gasping and pinned beneath him. And all too vividly he had imagined plunging deep and hard into her body. Night after night he had awoken, bathed in slick sweat and inexplicably aching to make love to her.

Was it simply a case of her having been in the right place at the right time to excite his interest? His jaded sexual appetite returning with an inexplicably fierce hunger and swinging at him with all the weight and momentum of a giant ball bearing crashing against him? How else could he possibly explain his sustained interest in her?

Hadn’t there been a part of him which had felt the whisper of anticipation as his plane had dipped down over the English Channel this morning, knowing that he was going to see her again? Knowing that he only had to snap his fingers for the little blonde to give him exactly what he wanted? He had fantasised about her lips on his aching hardness. The plunge of that hardness into her molten softness. The idea of losing himself in a woman’s body after such a long sexual drought had been almost too sweet to contemplate.

And yet all he was aware of was a crushing sense of disappointment because the woman who looked at him today was merely a caricature of the one he had held in his arms. Gone was her scrubbed and fresh-faced appeal—for she had changed completely. From being like a sweet, native flower plucked on impulse from the meadow, she was now the manufactured and forced bloom of the hothouse.

The lush breasts at which the ill-fitting blouse had merely hinted so alluringly were now displayed in a tight-fitting and too-short overall, which only just stopped short of vulgarity. Likewise, her petite charms had been vanquished by the wearing of heels as high as a skyscraper. And her eyes! He had thought them mesmerising in their natural state. But now they were ringed with make-up—their sooty outline somehow diminishing the effect of their clear, aquamarine hue.

She looked like a tramp!

He felt the dulling edge of disillusionment and yet surely he should have been used to it by now. Because this kind of thing happened all the time. People were never truly themselves in the presence of a royal personage. They dressed to get themselves noticed. They said things they thought you wanted to hear. They were puppets in awe of his powerful position and sometimes he tired of knowing he could jerk their strings whichever way he chose.

‘Your Serene Highness,’ said Rupert. ‘May I suggest—?’

‘You may not,’ snapped Xaviero as his disdainful scrutiny continued, ‘suggest anything.’ He recalled the familiar way the Englishman had just been admiring her as he had walked in. Was she his? he wondered. Xaviero felt the steady beat of his heart, remembering how, on more than one occasion, men had offered him their women in their pathetic attempts to ingratiate themselves with him. Would this man do likewise?