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Zoe smiled and looked ahead. No amount of shoulder hunching or wishful thinking was going to make her vanish so she might as well borrow some of Isandro’s attitude, even if she couldn’t carry it off with his style.
‘May I help you, sir?’ A man whose lapel badge identified him as the manager intercepted them when they were halfway across the lobby. He guided them towards the reception desk where the eager-to-please attentiveness continued.
The people behind the reception desk almost fell over themselves being helpful to the point of obsequiousness, but Isandro, who was firing off his list of requirements, didn’t appear to notice. This was probably his life, she mused, giving impossible orders and having people fall over themselves to deliver.
After a few moments he turned to a shivering Zoe. He hadn’t forgotten her after all. ‘I’ll be up presently. You go along.’
The manager reappeared holding a large blanket, which, on an approving nod from Isandro, he draped almost reverentially over Zoe’s shoulders. ‘Jeremy will show you the way, miss.’
Jeremy, neat in his uniform, nodded and motioned for her to precede him into the glass lift that he explained was for the exclusive use of the penthouse. Penthouse…Zoe almost laughed. She was well aware that if she hadn’t been Isandro’s satellite she wouldn’t have got through the front door, let alone been given this VIP treatment.
In the second before the doors closed Isandro turned, zeroing in on her like radar. His smile flickered as he caught her eye and tipped his dark head.
As the door swished closed her heart was still beating fast. The moment, a mere nothing in reality, felt strangely intimate to Zoe, as if they were exchanging some private secret.
‘I had a slight boating accident.’ A half-smile flickered across her face as she realised that if Isandro had been there he would have been mystified and probably irritated by her need to explain herself to a hotel employee. Jeremy made a sympathetic noise but did not volunteer an opinion.
As soon as the door to the suite was closed, Zoe explored her palatial surroundings only as far as the bathroom that adjoined one of the bedrooms, conscious that she was leaving a trail of wet, muddy footprints.
The place was…well, wow! She had only seen hotel rooms like this in films. It felt like the set of an old movie, and she ought to be wearing a long slinky gown.
Instead she was wearing…ugh! She glanced down at her ruined clothes, her lip curling in distaste. As she peeled off the soggy garments she made an active choice not to look at herself in the mirror. It wasn’t easy, as the room was full of them. Definitely a room for someone with no body issues, she thought, shedding her clothes with relief.
Free of her clothes, she did glance in passing at her reflection in a mirror. She saw long legs, a slightly rounded stomach…While she would have liked more inches up top and a bit more flesh to cover her prominent hipbones, Zoe was happy enough with her figure.
Would a man be so happy?
Her eyes half closed, her stomach muscles quivered faintly as she stroked a hand slowly down her flank. Would her first lover think her hips too narrow, or find her bottom too—she moved her hand over the curve and stopped. Her hand fell away. She was shocked—the man she saw in her mind as she imagined standing naked in front of her lover was Isandro!
Now that would be a tough audience!
The hollow-sounding laugh was not convincing and did not stop a wave of scalding shame heating her cold skin.
Refusing to dwell on the man who had now invaded, not just her life, but her subconscious, too, she walked briskly away from the sodden pile of clothes—leaving a widening pool of water on the mosaic-tiled floor—and past the massive bath set on a raised pedestal, copper and big enough to swim in. She would normally have loved to try out this opulent fantasy tub but at that moment she did not feel much like swimming, so instead she decided on the more practical option: the massive shower behind a glass wall.
As she stood under the warm spray, liberally applying the luxury bath products supplied by the hotel, she focused her thoughts on safer subjects. Just how much did it cost to spend a night here? Perhaps Isandro would take the cost from her pay?
‘No!’ Fear and anger bubbling inside her, she picked up a sponge and began to apply it roughly to her skin. Why was it that the wretched man managed to infiltrate her every thought? When she finally stopped rubbing and dropped the sponge, her skin was glowing and tingling pink, and her mind was a blissful, exfoliated blank.
Picking up the shampoo, she lathered her hair for a long time after it was squeaky clean. She stood still like an alabaster statue, her eyes closed, her face lifted to the warm spray, thinking nothing.
The nothing vanished the moment she emerged from the shower and heard sounds of activity in the sitting room. Immediately tension slid down her spine.
‘For goodness’ sake, Zoe, get over yourself!’ she told herself impatiently. ‘You fancy him. Big deal! Half the planet fancies him so what makes you so special, other than the fact he thinks you’re an incompetent idiot?’ She sniffed and reached for one of the gowns hanging from a hook. ‘And staff. He doesn’t kiss staff even when they kiss him.’ That mortifying memory was going to stay with her for a long time.
She wasn’t even a colleague. She was the help.
She took a deep breath as she tightened the belt on her robe and flicked her wet hair back from her face.
As she entered the sitting room cautiously it was immediately clear there had been considerable activity in her absence. The table beside the open doors that led to the Juliet balcony had been laid with silver cutlery and fancily folded Irish linen napkins, and the antique candelabra in the middle was lit. It looked like a classic stage set for seduction…She could only assume that the staff had got the wrong idea.
She didn’t immediately see Isandro, who had been sitting on a leather chesterfield in an alcove. She was alerted by the creak of leather before his throaty drawl.
‘Feeling better?’
She flinched and spun around just as he got to his feet. Her skin had tingled when she’d ruthlessly scrubbed it, but now the tingle went deeper…I was better, but I’m not any more, she thought as she pasted on a polite smile.
‘Yes, thank you. That smells good.’ She nodded towards the domed covered serving dish set on the console table before looking at him—or, rather, past him.
‘Clothes maketh the man’ was not a phrase that applied to Isandro. He looked good in clothes, but he looked equally good, actually much better, without them…well, almost without them. He was wearing a robe similar to her own but on him the superior hotel-issue garment reached his thigh and revealed more of his dark hair-roughened skin than she was comfortable with.
‘I almost came to look for you.’
It had taken all his willpower and the seemingly constant flow of waiters through the place not to follow the sound of the running water and his own instincts.
His own shower had been ice cold, which had given him a temporary partial relief from his agony, but the moment she’d walked into the room with a freshly scrubbed face and nothing more than an ankle on show he had been painfully aroused and unable to think about anything but throwing her on the bed. His desire had no subtlety; it was sheer primal hunger.
He wanted her so badly he could taste it.
‘I only need rescuing once a day.’ Her lips formed a smile but her eyes conspicuously avoided making contact with his. Isandro could feel her tension from where he stood. ‘Did you contact Alex?’ she asked, as businesslike as someone could be when bare-faced and barefoot. She ran her tongue across her dry lips. She didn’t even have any lipstick to hide behind, though it was doubtful if a slash of cherry red would have made her feel more confident.
‘Yes, he’s got Rowena to come over and babysit.’
‘Rowena.’ Zoe gave a sigh of relief, losing some of her stiff formality as she smiled. ‘Thank you.’
Isandro’s eyes travelled up from her bare feet to the top of her wet head. The section in between was covered in a thick layer of fluffy white bathrobe, but the suggestion of curves, the thought of the soft skin it hid, sent his imagination into overdrive.
‘What can I get you?’ He walked over to the table and lifted a lid on one of the dishes.
You on a sandwich, she thought, but bit her lip. ‘Thanks, but I can’t eat. I should get back.’ Before I make a total fool of myself.
‘Why?’ He looked irritated by her response. ‘The twins are being well cared for. Or don’t you think Rowena can cope?’
‘It’s not a matter of her coping.’ Rowena was totally capable. The young woman’s parents had been good friends of Dan and Laura, and the twins loved their daughter, who ran the local stables. ‘I don’t want to take advantage.’
Her sister and brother-in-law had had a lot of friends and it was good to know that in an emergency they were there. But it was important to her to stand on her own feet and not become reliant. Or infatuated, she thought, looking directly at him for the first time.
He arched a strongly delineated ebony brow. Everything about his face was strong. ‘Have you ever said no when someone asks a favour? No, you haven’t. But when they want to return the favour it becomes “taking advantage”?’
The mockery in his voice as he adopted a very shaky falsetto to mimic her brought a lump to Zoe’s throat.
‘I’m glad I give you something to laugh about.’
‘I’m not laughing. I admire independence but not when it becomes bloody-minded stubbornness.’ Sometimes he wondered when she slept, or if. His critical glance moved to the violet smudges beneath her spectacular eyes. She was struggling to fit into a job she was unsuited for, and struggling to be the perfect parent. It was admirable but impossible. Why couldn’t the woman embrace her imperfections? He had!
The insight sent a stab of shock through Isandro. She roused feelings that he flatly refused to recognise as protective tenderness. He refused because he associated the emotions with weakness. It made him angry. She made him angry!
‘What are you trying to prove, Zoe?’ he asked, his voice hard.
‘I’m not trying to prove anything!’
Glaring, her eyes slid down his body as he sat down and leaned back on the leather sofa. Stretching his long legs out, he folded one ankle across the other. The hair-roughened skin of his muscular calves looked very dark against the white of the hotel robes. She was wearing nothing underneath. Was he…?
Shivering, she stopped the speculation from progressing into dangerous territory and dragged her gaze back to his face.
‘In that case take five minutes off from being a martyr and give us all a break.’
She sucked in a gulping breath, embracing the rush of anger as she clenched her fists. ‘There’s nobody here but you and me.’
‘Exactly, and I won’t tell if you fall off your perfect parent pedestal. Just you and me…what could be cosier?’
The question drew a gurgle from her throat. ‘Oh, I don’t know—how about hang gliding over an active volcano?’
And there was something combustible about him, even when he was still and silent like now, his long, lean body relaxed. She had the impression that he could explode into action at any moment.
He let out a low chuckle, his expression sobering as he added, ‘Are you planning to put your life on hold for the next ten or fifteen years?’
‘Fifteen years!’ She snorted. ‘I’m not thinking any farther ahead than next month’s bills.’ She found his anger inexplicable. ‘I’m a single parent. My priority has to be the twins.’
‘Single parents have been known to have sex.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
ZOE BLINKED, THE COLOUR flying to her cheeks as she lost any fragile illusion of composure. ‘Since when were we talking about sex?’
‘It’s part of a healthy, well-balanced life. We’re always talking about sex, even when we’re talking about the weather. It’s the subtext.’
She flushed and snapped in protest, ‘I was drunk when that happened before.’
‘You’re not drunk now.’ So there was zero reason for gentlemanly behaviour. ‘And I’m not a teenager. I’m tired of the game.’ And the frustration was killing him.
He had come up with a workable solution. Now all he had to do was sell it. Isandro did not doubt his ability to do so. That was what he was good at: selling ideas; producing packages that made everyone think they had a good deal.
Zoe had anticipated his anger. After all, from his point of view she was a grade A nuisance. But she had not imagined this level of simmering fury. Even while he had been yelling at her over capsizing the boat, there had been an underlying gentleness, almost a tenderness, in his manner.
Searching his lean, handsome face now Zoe could see no trace of the tenderness. The gleam in his deep-set dark eyes was hard and calculating…She shivered.
‘I don’t play games,’ she protested. ‘And I happen to think that someone who changes his girlfriends like socks and never sees them during daylight hours is not qualified to preach to me on what constitutes a healthy, well-balanced life!’
Having said her piece, she sat down with a bump on the sofa opposite him, her cheeks burning. She drew the folds of the robe around her like a tent and pulled her knees up to her chest.
‘Obviously, how you live your life is none of my business, but that goes both ways. I work for you, but that doesn’t give you a right to criticise my lifestyle unless it impinges on my ability to do my work.’
‘Pardon me for stepping over the line,’ he drawled, tipping his head in mock apology. ‘But I think that line has been blurred from day one with us.’
Eyes trained on the gaping neckline of her robe and the exposed curve of one smooth shoulder, he exhaled through flared nostrils, combating the stab of lust by focusing on the disruption this woman had caused in his life, and not the fact he wanted to touch her skin.
This situation was of his own making. He had broken a fundamental rule. He had allowed the lines to become blurred, and he needed a strict demarcation between his personal and professional lives.
Her eyes lowered. ‘I know I made a bad first impression, but I hoped that by now you’d see that I really am capable of—’
‘Drowning yourself?’ An image of her vanishing under the water began to play on a loop in his head, the images accompanied by the dull bass soundtrack of his blood pumping in his ears.
She flashed him a reproachful look. ‘No. Being a good housekeeper.’
He laughed, and it sounded cruel to Zoe, who sat hunched watching him. ‘You’re a terrible housekeeper.’
A part of her despised wanting to cry. She held the tears back by sniffing and concentrating on the part of her that wanted to throw something at him.
‘I’ve made a few mistakes,’ she conceded.
His brows hit his hairline. ‘A few! You can’t give the most basic instruction, you fall for any sob story and you invite people to take advantage of you.’
‘I think more of people than you do. I trust them.’
‘I know—that’s why you’re sacked.’
He hadn’t intended to deliver the news quite so brutally, but a combination of need and frustration bypassed his subtlety circuits. And diplomacy did not come easy when you had a slow-motion nightmare playing on a loop in your head. He prided himself on his ability to apply cool logic to all situations, but for a moment back there on the water, even though he’d known the boat would get him to her quicker, he had been within a whisper of following his instincts and diving in.
If he had, who knew what the outcome might have been? She called herself a strong swimmer but he knew what he had seen. Though he actually was a strong swimmer, there remained a question mark—could he have reached her in time?
It was possible they might both have perished.
She stiffened as she shot to her feet, every muscle in her body clenched and defensive, refusing to acknowledge the cold fear in her belly. Clasping her hands together, she blew out her breath slowly and flicked back her wet hair.
‘What did you say?’ Her tone was conversational. She had obviously misheard him—nobody would be that brutal, that totally…totally vile.
‘You’re sacked.’
Desperation overcame her anger and she crumbled. ‘I’m really trying—’
‘Do not beg, Zoe. This is not open for discussion.’ She bit her lip.
‘It doesn’t matter how much you try. You’re uniquely unsuited to the role of housekeeper. I think it’ll be easier all around if we cut our losses rather than drag this out. You are not the sort of housekeeper I need.’ You’re the sort of sex I need.
Panic made her voice shrill as she came back, ‘I could be. It’s just I can’t relax around you…’ She caught his look and added quickly, ‘Because you’re my employer.’
Quite suddenly he was tired of this pretence. Sensual mouth compressed, his chiselled cheekbones jutting hard against his golden skin, he silenced her with a sharp jerk of his head as he rose to his feet. ‘That situation has got nothing to do with the fact I pay your wages. A strong sexual connection makes all our encounters less than relaxing, especially when you work so hard trying to pretend it doesn’t exist.’
Zoe turned her head, her mouth open to produce a strong rebuttal, her eyes connected with his glowing dark gaze. Her biggest fear had been him guessing the way she felt, and now he had. So what, she thought despairingly, was the point denying it?
‘Don’t you find it exhausting, Zoe?’ he asked softly.
She stood there mutely staring at him. Inside she was dying of sheer mortification. This was her boss saying he knew she secretly lusted after him. What was she meant to say to that?
For a split second his resolve wavered. She looked so pale, so vulnerable. But it only wavered briefly. Another month like this one and he’d be a basket case.
‘I can only assume you’ve had some problems in the past with female staff and…crushes, but I promise you’re safe from me.’
He didn’t want to be safe from her.
‘Good to know, but you’re still sacked.’
She flinched. The bastard had said it the way someone remarked on the weather. Somewhere deep inside her, rage stirred. ‘Because I don’t fancy you.’
‘If that were true, there would be no problem.’
Her chest swelled as she flung him a look of withering contempt. ‘Even if you were right I have my own rules, too. And the first one is that I never have sex with a man I don’t respect. Believe you me, that rules you out, you contemptuous little snake!’
He gave a low throaty chuckle.
‘Why didn’t you just sack me on that first day?’ That would have been bad but this was worse. Thinking her job was secure, she’d allowed herself to relax, she’d allowed herself to sit here thinking stupid ridiculous thoughts about him, imagining that they might even…Stupid…stupid…stupid! She was so angry with herself she wanted to scream. She took a deep breath and slung a look of loathing his way.
‘I didn’t sack you at that point because my company is in the middle of some sensitive negotiations which could mean a lot of…’ He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘You are not interested in the whys, but the success of this deal will mean something in the region of a thousand jobs over a five-year period.’
‘What’s that got to do with me?’
‘It’s about protecting my company’s brand. Any negative publicity would send the clients running for the hills, and the story of me sacking a woman because she used my property to host a charity fund-raiser would be the worst-possible PR.’
Trying to think beyond the static buzz in her head, a combination of anger and panic, she only really processed one word in two of what he was saying. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Because you are an innocent.’
How long would her savings last…a month, two…? After that what was she going to do?
‘I really hate you.’ Her snarl was shaky but filled with venom and her eyes gleamed with loathing as she glared up at him. She grabbed at a side table, afraid that her shaking knees were about to give way. This body blow on top of the events of that afternoon had taken a physical as well as mental toll.
‘Calm down. There’s no need to react this way. It’s not as though you enjoy the job.’
Calm down? What planet did this man live on?
‘We can’t all do jobs we enjoy. Some of us do jobs because we need to survive.’ This job had been her plan A, and she didn’t have a plan B. She wiped her brow as she felt the panic crowding in on her again.
‘Will you stop acting as though you’re a heroine in a Victorian melodrama and I’m the villain?’
She flashed him a look of sheer incredulity and shook her head. He made it sound as though she was overreacting. ‘If the black hat fits…?’
With an exaggerated roll of his eyes he placed his hands on her shoulders, exerting enough pressure to force her back down onto the sofa. ‘If you’d stop for a minute and let me explain. I’m not throwing you out anywhere. I’m suggesting that you move to the end of the drive, that’s all.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The gatehouse.’ The solution had been staring him in the face all along! Now that he had had his eureka moment, he couldn’t understand why he hadn’t thought about it earlier.
‘The one you’ve just decorated?’
The building in question had not been included in the initial refurbishment of the estate because there had apparently been some planning dispute over a proposed extension, but this had recently been resolved. Zoe had not been involved with the renovation but the builders had packed up and left a couple of weeks ago and the team of decorators had literally finished the previous day.
‘If I’m not working for you how can—?’
‘I’m suggesting you and the children move into the gatehouse, pay a nominal rent…’
‘With what?’ No job meant no money, which meant…Oh, God, she couldn’t think what it meant. She was no longer in a position to sleep on a friend’s couch until she sorted things. The twins needed a home and stability—they needed a guardian who didn’t go around losing her job!
I am such a loser.
Well, if she was a loser, he was a total bastard!
‘I have a friend who has bought an art gallery. She is looking for someone to front it. I have spoken to her about you…’
Polly’s astonished response when he had explained that his unsuitable housekeeper’s domestic situation meant he couldn’t simply let her go without providing some sort of safety net was still fresh in his mind.
‘Since when did you worry about dismissing someone who wasn’t up to the job, Isandro? And why are you going to so much trouble to help find the girl a job?’
She had accepted his explanation without question.
‘So this is about avoiding bad PR. What a relief. For a moment there—’ she laughed ‘—I thought you’d become a bleeding heart!’
‘She is happy to offer you a trial,’ Isandro told Zoe.
‘What makes you think I’d be any less terrible at running an art gallery than I am running a house?’ Zoe asked bitterly.
‘You are artistic.’
‘How would you know?’
‘Had you not been accepted on a fine arts degree course before your sister and her husband died?’
In the middle of a miserable sniff, Zoe lifted her incredulous glance to his face. ‘How did you know that?’
He shrugged and dropped his gaze. ‘Tom might have mentioned it.’
‘But why would your friend give me this job?’
‘I asked her.’
‘A permanent job?’
‘Very few things in life are permanent, but there would be a very good severance package,’ he told her smoothly. ‘Enough for you to pay your way through art college as you planned and employ childcare in the meantime. I understand they run an excellent foundation fine arts course on an evening basis at the local college.’