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Walking out through the open French windows, she sniffed it warily before picking out a floating strawberry to taste. The overwhelming flavour over and above the fruit was pineapple. It seemed innocuous enough, and a tentative sip reinforced this analysis. Satisfied it was one of the delicious mocktails that Chloe had made, she took a swallow.
She passed a group of men chatting, then wandered out onto the steep sloped lawn shaded by a row of tall oak trees in the field beyond. She sat down on the stump of a recently felled tree and swallowed some more of the fruit concoction. It was actually so delicious it made you wonder why people bothered with alcohol.
Tipping her head back to look at the starry sky, she thought that a person really should stop occasionally and just enjoy being alive. Lie on the grass and feel the earth…and why not?
Lying flat on her back, staring up at the stars, she began to hum a little tune softly to herself before she closed her eyes. Did she drift off?
‘I can’t, I really can’t take this…’ She half lifted her head at the sound of John’s voice. Why was he ignoring her? She let out a small giggle and thought, Because he can’t see me! I’m lying down.
‘Yes, you can. Just think how much better it will be for Chloe and Hannah if they have you there to support them.’
This deeper voice with the sexy accent—she recognised that, too!
John and Isandro.
‘I don’t know what to say.’ There was the sound of crinkling paper and a gasp. ‘Hell, that’s too much…no…I couldn’t.’
‘All tax-deductible. The only thing is that I’d prefer this was private between you and Chloe and me. I’m not comfortable with…’
‘Understood. We won’t forget this.’
Zoe lay there turning the conversation over in her head. It took her foggy brain a little while to process what she had overheard, but when she did tears of emotion sprang to her eyes. Isandro had just given John the money he needed to join his family in Boston—and more than enough, by the sound of it.
‘That is so, so incredibly lovely!’
Isandro turned in time to see a figure rise from the mist, hovering over the grass at ground level like some sort of spectral vision.
‘Zoe, what were you—?’ The glorious goddess-like figure flew towards him like a heat-seeking missile. Madre di Dios, she was plastered!
‘I heard everything, and I think you’re w…won…marvellous,’ she declared earnestly.
‘I think you should sit down.’
‘I will, but first…’ Standing on her tiptoes, she reached up and took his face between her hands. ‘You’re a very beautiful man and I’ve been mean to you, very very very mean. I’m so ashamed! But that’s all over. You’re a hero.’ She leaned in closer, her soft breasts crushing against the barrier of his chest as she fitted her mouth to his.
The warm, soft mouth that pressed against his tasted of booze. Standing rigid, his hands wide, he knew if he touched that body, drunk or not, he would not be able to stop himself having her right there on the grass. He somehow managed to resist the blandishments of those luscious lips.
The effort brought a sheen of sweat to his skin and a great deal of pain to his groin, but he held out. Though the throaty little mewling sound of complaint she made in her throat when he didn’t respond almost broke him.
‘I think…I think I might sit down.’ Clutching her head, and without warning, she sank gracefully to the grass and sat there cross-legged.
Isandro sighed and picked up the almost empty glass he saw there. He dipped his finger in the contents and licked it. A lot of fruit juices and vodka. Not a lot, but it was there.
Behind him he heard Chloe and John approach.
‘Is that Zoe?’
‘Hi, guys…yes, it’s Zoe,’ Zoe said, waving her hand. ‘Chloe, you musht give me the recipe for that mocktail.’
‘Oh, God!’ Chloe gasped.
‘He’s not a monster, Chloe, he’s a hero—did you know that? A real-life hero. He doesn’t like me, though…sad.’
Isandro handed John the glass. ‘It’s pretty innocuous.’
‘It doesn’t matter. It’s a metabolic thing with Zoe—she couldn’t have known. What are we going to do with her? We’ve got a full house tonight, not even a spare sofa.’
Isandro saw them both looking at him.
Isandro, who never did anything he did not want to, heard himself say, ‘I’ll take her home. Don’t worry, I’ve not been drinking.’
Once they got her in the car she immediately went to sleep curled up like a kitten, her mouth slightly open.
‘Will she remember when she sobers up?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Chloe, a wave of sadness crossing her face. ‘Or that’s what Laura always said.’
Isandro nodded. He was pleased with the reply. It only seemed fair that she would remember, because he surely would. It was hard to forget the extremely painful cost of being a hero; he was pretty sure that the resulting frustration would cost him a night’s sleep.
Zoe continued to sleep like a baby all the way back to the hall, which was good because he wasn’t sure his response would be quite so noble if she made another attempt to jump him.
When he opened the passenger door the cool night air woke her. He was amazed and relieved that she had recovered enough to make it up the stone steps to the flat without any assistance from him, but he followed behind just in case.
‘You’ll be all right?’
She looked at him blearily. ‘I think there was something in my drink.’
‘Vodka.’
‘Oh, God! I thought it…Sorry…’ She had no idea what she was apologising for, but it seemed safe to assume that there was something. ‘Goodnight, Mr Montero.’
Isandro watched the door close. He was quite pleased with his demotion back to monster. Monsters were not obliged to behave with honour—they could take what they wanted.
CHAPTER SIX
ROBBED OF HIS early morning ride after discovering his horse had pulled a shoe, Isandro returned to the house, leaving the stallion in the capable hands of his groom. An hour on a cross-trainer in the gym did not really touch his frustration levels.
Heading downstairs after his shower, he reached the galleried landing when he almost fell over her.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ If she appeared at all this morning he had imagined she would be nursing a hangover, not on her knees singing to herself.
Seemingly oblivious to his presence, she continued to bang the hand-held vacuum into a crevice under a console table, still humming along to the music playing in her ears. Her singing voice was totally flat but her behind was not. Isandro, who had opened his mouth to deliver his demand again, closed it as she reached further forward, the action causing her delightful bottom to tighten against the pair of jeans she was wearing.
Lust hit him like a hammer blow to the chest. Beside his sensual mouth a nerve quivered, beating out an erratic tattoo as in his head he saw himself dropping down beside her, tipping her onto her back…His chest lifted as he sucked in a deep breath and swore through gritted teeth. He had never experienced this degree of blind, relentless lust before. Not even in his teens had he felt so obsessed.
He swore under his breath and bellowed, ‘What the hell are you doing?’
One hand on the floor to steady herself, Zoe turned her head, a questioning furrow in her smooth brow. She saw Isandro and her half-smile faded with a speed that under other circumstances he might have found amusing.
‘It is always nice when people are glad to see me,’ he muttered under his breath.
‘Pardon…’ Zoe lowered her voice, murmuring a self-conscious, ‘Sorry.’ She pulled the earphones out of her ears and looked up at the figure who towered over her. ‘I didn’t see you there.’ She stopped herself from asking whether there was anything she could do for him, afraid that he might tell her—and even more afraid that she might deliver his request.
She was probably worrying over nothing. Last night he hadn’t even kissed her back.
It was the ultimate humiliation. She had offered herself up on a platter and he had said no, thank you, and she remembered every mortifying, cringeworthy detail. It had been about three a.m. when she’d sat bolt upright in bed and it had all come rushing back to her.
Unable to resist the masochistic compulsion to relive the scene over and over, by this morning she didn’t see how she could face him. And now it felt just as awful as she had imagined.
Should she mention last night? Wait for him to? Or should she pretend it never happened?
‘I said what the hell are you doing?’
‘I’m vacuuming the carpet.’ She held out the hand-held vacuum she was using to reach the crevices, flicking the switch into the on position to demonstrate as she got up from her knees.
‘I can see what you’re doing.’ He reached over and flicked the switch off. ‘What I want to know is why?’
‘Susie couldn’t come in this morning.’
‘That does not answer my question, and who the hell is Susie?’
‘Susie is one of the cleaning staff. She lives in the village.’
He folded his arms across his chest and looked unimpressed by her explanation. ‘Will you stop waving that thing at me?’
Zoe lowered the vacuum, but lifted her free hand to shade her eyes from the shaft of strong morning sun that shone in from the tall floor-length window behind Isandro, framing his tall figure in a golden haze of light. As if he needed any help to look as though he’d just stepped down from Mount Olympus! It was like a massive conspiracy to turn her into some sex-starved bimbo.
‘You’re really not a morning person, are you?’
A gleam flashed in his dark eyes. ‘I’ve never had any complaints.’
It took a few seconds, but when the penny dropped her face flamed. She brought down her lashes in a protective sweep to shield her eyes. Head down, she swept off the scarf she had tied over her hair. Ruffling it with her hand as it slipped down her back, she struggled to maintain a professional attitude given the reel of lurid images now playing in her head.
Isandro felt the hunger flare, his body hardening as he watched the river of glossy silk settle down her narrow back. The sexy little black outfit was gone and she was back in jeans, complete with a tear in one knee and belt loops he could have hooked his fingers into and jerked her…The effort to suppress his lustful imagination drew a short harsh rasp from his throat.
‘This still doesn’t tell me why I find you down on your hands and knees like some…’
Her head lifted; her blue eyes shone with anger. ‘Servant?’ she bit back. ‘Maybe because I am.’
‘You are the housekeeper.’
She shrugged, not sure why he was making such a big thing of this. It wasn’t as if the workings of a vacuum cleaner were alien to her. ‘Call it multitasking…’
‘I call it inappropriate. What sort of first impression would it give if I had walked in with a group of important guests and the first thing they see is the housekeeper down on her knees?’ He shook his head.
‘You didn’t walk in with…’
Isandro’s expression made her wish she had held her tongue.
‘It is totally inappropriate to your position here.’
‘What was I meant to do? Drag poor Susie in with her abscessed tooth? Her mother says the poor girl is in agony.’
‘You were meant to delegate.’ It amazed him that she had not grasped this basic precept.
‘I don’t like telling people what to do.’ Zoe found it was easier and less stressful to do things herself.
‘Delegation is part of your job. Scrubbing floors is not.’
His coldness hit her like a slap in the face. ‘I wasn’t…’ She bit her tongue and bowed her head.
The show of humility did not fool Isandro for one second. He knew full well it was an act. She was about as humble as a battle cruiser.
‘Part of your job is also learning the difference between showing sympathy and being a soft touch.’
Zoe’s head lifted at the suggestion. ‘I’m not a soft touch!’ she protested indignantly.
‘People take advantage of you.’ His annoyance that she was either unable or unwilling to see this was etched on his hard features.
‘You didn’t!’ She closed her eyes and lifted a hand to her head, let her chin fall to her chest and thought, Please let me die now. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. It just sort of slipped out.’
‘Not because I did not want to, if that is what is bothering you. Did you get any sleep?’ The violet smudges under her eyes showed up clear against her translucent skin, as did the handful of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
She nodded. ‘And I woke with a bit of a headache.’ His mobile lips twitched. ‘Called a hangover.’
Zoe shuddered as she got to her feet. ‘I can’t imagine why people drink.’
‘Not everyone has your zero tolerance. For some people it’s their drug of choice, and it’s legal.’
‘What’s yours, or don’t you need one? Sorry…I keep forgetting…Can I take your order for dinner, sir?’
‘You can’t go from trying to kiss my face off to calling me sir. Neither are what I expect of my housekeeper. I will settle for a happy medium.’
The mortified colour rushed to her cheeks as she pressed her teeth into her full lower lip. ‘I am sorry for last night. I really am. But what you did for Chloe and John, that was…very kind.’
His features froze. ‘That stays within these walls. Is that understood?’
Before she could reply to this terse warning, the front door swung open and the twins rushed in. At least Georgie rushed. Harry walked with his nose in a book.
‘No, not here. I’ve told you, the flat—’
‘We know. You forgot to put the key under the mat.’ Georgie looked at Isandro and grinned. ‘We have to keep out of your way.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Don’t you like kids?’
‘It depends on the kid.’ He strolled across to the boy, a skinny child with strawberry-blond hair. ‘You’re Harry.’
Harry nodded.
‘Run along, children.’ She pulled the key fob out of her pocket and tossed it to Georgie. ‘I’ve left you some sandwiches for eleven. I’ll be over at lunchtime.’
‘What’s that you’re reading?’ Isandro looked at the title on the spine. ‘You like the stars?’
Of course he did. Skinny, undersized boys with books and no friends always did. Isandro knew because he had been one himself. In his case he had grown twelve inches at sixteen and gone from being the despised wimp to the jock that everybody wanted to know.
Harry nodded, his face suffused with pink.
‘On the wall on my desk I have a photo of the Horse-head nebula. Have you seen it?’
‘We’re not allowed in the house. Especially your office.’ So Harry was not a rule-breaker. ‘I like looking at the night sky, but I want to be an astrophysicist when I grow up.’
Zoe blinked. This was news to her.
‘Cool,’ Isandro said.
‘Run along, children.’ She was both pleased and relieved when they both did as she asked—with Georgie, you never knew.
‘You, too,’ Isandro said when they had left. ‘Ring the agency first and get a replacement for…whatever her name is.’
‘Susie.’
‘Then take the rest of the day off. I’m off to London.’
She assumed when he left that they would not see him for some time. She had understood that this was the norm. But over the next few weeks he kept arriving unexpectedly, sometimes spending a night, sometimes not even that long.
At first mystified by his behaviour, she realised that he was hoping to catch her out, though it did seem a lot of trouble to go to. Never knowing when he would turn up made it difficult to relax…and though trying to catch her out made sense, it didn’t explain the occasion he brought Harry a book full of photos of galaxies and nebulae.
The little boy looked forward to his visits…but was he the only one? Why would anyone look forward to a visit from someone who blew hot and cold? Who was cold and remote one moment and relaxed and friendly the next?
As they approached the crossroad Alex slowed for a red light. Isandro shut down the tablet and looked through the window, dragging a hand through his dark hair. He had planned to spend the weekend in London, but at the last moment had decided to drive down to Ravenwood, reasoning he could spend the weekend reading the report without distractions. Sure, no distractions at all, mocked the voice in his head.
‘Is that…?’
Pushing away the thought, Isandro followed the direction of his driver’s nod. ‘Yes, it is, Alex,’ he confirmed.
‘Are they alone?’
Isandro, who had been looking for that glossy dark head attached to a body he had spent some time thinking about, nodded. All right, not just some time—a lot of time. He was finding it pretty much impossible to think about anything but his housekeeper, who did not know the meaning of ‘unobtrusive’.
‘It looks like it.’
Which in itself was strange. While Zoe Grace might not be about to win any prizes for her housekeeping skills, when it came to her youthful charges she took the role extremely seriously. He could not imagine her allowing the twins to wander around town unaccompanied.
‘Shall I pull over?’
Isandro nodded and unclipped his seat belt as the car drew to a halt on a double yellow. When he reached the twins they were still on the pavement. They appeared to be arguing—and more significantly there was still no sign of their aunt.
It was Harry who saw him first. Seeing the relief on his freckled face, Isandro experienced an emotional tightening in his chest.
Isandro controlled his strong inclination to hug him, aware that the boy had already measured him up as an unlikely male role model. It would be nothing short of cruel to allow the boy to become reliant and then fade out of his life.
Instead he gave the boy a manly pat on his painfully skinny shoulder. The kid could do a lot better than him for a father substitute. Did his aunt’s determination to sacrifice her own needs for her charges extend to her choice of partner? Would she choose the ‘good father’ material over a good lover? The woman was probably determined to be a martyr. She’d probably end up alone or with some boring loser whom she deemed solid and responsible.
‘We’ve lost Aunty Zoe. Actually, we ran away and now we’re lost, too.’
For which Isandro correctly read his sister had run and he had followed. There was no doubting who the dominant and reckless twin in this equation was.
‘We’re not lost,’ his sister interrupted. ‘And if you hadn’t made me come back…’
‘It was stealing!’
‘It was not stealing. We were bringing it back, and that’s borrowing, isn’t it?’ she appealed to Isandro for support.
‘Borrowing without permission is stealing. And running away from your aunt is…Have you any idea how worried she will be?’ An image of a terrified Zoe flashed into his head and he hardened his heart against their stricken expressions. ‘She will be frantic!’
The twins exchanged worried glances.
‘We didn’t think,’ Georgie admitted.
Isandro steeled himself against the quiver in her voice and struggled to maintain his stern expression as he ushered them towards the car. The sniff was too much for the ruthless captain of industry to withstand.
‘Don’t worry,’ he soothed. ‘I’ll ring your aunt and let her know—’
‘You can’t,’ they said in unison.
He shook his head. ‘Why can’t I?’
‘Her phone wasn’t charged. It died on her when Aunt Chloe was talking.’
He exhaled. If he had been in Zoe’s position—which was unlikely, because not only would he not have let his phone battery run down, he certainly wouldn’t have taken on responsibility for this pair of demons—he would now be retracing his footsteps.
The demons regarded him with the expressions that said they had total faith that he would come up with a solution.
‘Right, then, where were you when you ran away, and where were you before that?’
The terrible clawing panic in her stomach when she had turned to tell the twins to get a wriggle or the car would be clamped would stay with Zoe for ever. When she found them she would never let them out of her sight again…always supposing she didn’t throttle them.
She jogged along the pavements, retracing her footsteps, stopping occasionally to ask people if they had seen two children, oblivious to the stares that followed her progress. She kept telling herself over and over like a mantra, Tomorrow this will just be a memory. I’ll laugh about it with Chloe.
Tomorrow seemed a hell of a long way away, though, and Chloe was still in Boston!
By the time Zoe had worked her way to the boat-hire booth her heart was thudding so hard she felt as if it would crack her ribs. She was only kept going by the strong conviction that had gradually taken hold that the twins were out there on the river.
It was so obvious. Why hadn’t she smelt a rat when the wilful youngster who would never take no for an answer had not argued or even tried to cajole when she’d refused to take them out in a kayak. Now of course it made sense. Georgie hadn’t suddenly become malleable, she’d simply cut out the arguing, and she’d dragged Harry with her.
The ticket booth was closed, but before a frantic Zoe could think of what to do next a boy came around the corner carrying a padlock and a large bunch of keys. He removed the earphones from his ears when he saw her.
‘Sorry, we’re closed.’
‘I’m looking for my niece and nephew,’ she said before he could put the earphones back in. ‘They’re seven years old. I think they might have gone out in one of your kayaks.’ The effort to stay calm and not sound like an unbalanced lunatic made her voice shake, but she was pretty proud of her effort.
‘Sorry, we’re closed.’
She watched, her pent-up fear tipping over into rage, as he began to insert the earphones.
Her eyes narrowed, she stepped forward and snatched them out, drawing a yelp from the boy. ‘My niece and nephew—they wanted to go out in a kayak. Have you seen them?’ she yelled, fighting the impulse to shake the information from the stupid boy who was backing away from her.
‘I don’t know what your problem is, miss, but the public are not allowed here. There’s a sign. It’s health and safety.’ He pointed to a no-entry sign on the wall of the booth.
Give me strength! ‘I’ve been trying to tell you what the problem is. I’m looking for two children, a boy and girl. So high…’ She held her palm at the appropriate height. ‘They wanted to go out…’ She closed her eyes, seeing Georgie’s expression when she had refused their request. God, but she really should have seen this coming. ‘I think they might be out there.’ She swallowed as her eyes moved to the horizon where the grey water of the river met the darker grey sky. ‘In one of your canoes.’
‘No children allowed in the kayaks without a responsible adult. Besides, we’re closing early—there’s a storm coming.’ His phone rang and he wandered away with it pressed to his ear.
When Zoe took the situation into her own hands the youth was close enough for her to hear him say, ‘No way…outside the pub at five.’ But not close enough, thanks to a tree, for him to see her wade into the shallow water and push out a stray canoe that had not yet been dragged onto the artificial beach.
She’d been kayaking before, she reminded herself as she managed on the third try to clamber into the swaying boat. Of course on that occasion Laura had been paddling, and she’d been only five years old, but this was a detail. How hard could it be?
Five minutes later Zoe had gone several hundred yards. But she had no idea whether she was heading in the right direction. She didn’t have the faintest idea where they were! She was acting on intuition, but wasn’t that another name for blind panic?
She squared her shoulders and dipped her oar into the water. She had to stay positive.
The obvious sensible thing to do would have been to go to the police…so why was she just realising that now when she was literally up the creek? Then the rain started.