Housekeeper at His Command: The Spaniard's Virgin Housekeeper / His Pregnant Housekeeper / The Maid and the Millionaire
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She was always putting her foot in it, Izzy thought wretchedly. Blindly charging in, all guns blazing, acting without thought—sensible or otherwise—making a great big fool of herself!
Small hands twisting in her lap, she wished she could become invisible. The unaccustomed intake of alcohol and the emotion of the day had heightened her crusading tendencies, and in the aftermath she could see that her wildly inappropriate response to the arrival of a load of horrendously expensive clothes that she would never have been able to afford for herself in a million years had been totally crass.
She should have done nothing, said nothing until the morning. And then informed Cayo—calmly and with dignity—that the gift was unacceptable. Left it at that, without all these diva-like histrionics.
There followed the prompt arrival of two uniformed members of staff—one bearing a loaded coffee tray and a plate of what looked like small crusty filled rolls, the other waiting for orders from Cayo, delivered in rapidfire Spanish. He lifted Benji from his basket, attaching the collar and lead to his scrawny neck.
‘What’s he doing?’ Snapped out of her miserable introspection, and forgetting her lecture to herself, Izzy scrambled to her feet as the puppy was borne away.
In receipt of that suspicious reaction Cayo lowered his brows in annoyance. ‘I think you should begin to trust me. The animal will be perfectly safe,’ he informed her, with an extreme dryness that brought a bright flush of colour to Izzy’s face. ‘It is to be walked in the gardens of the hotel, to avoid accidents, and then taken to the housekeeper’s room, where it is to be fed before being brought back.’
‘Oh!’ Izzy flushed uncomfortably and flopped back on the sofa. ‘Sorry.’
‘You jump to conclusions that do not flatter,’ he imparted wryly as he lowered his lithe frame beside her. ‘Why is that?’
‘Why do you think?’ He actually had the gall to look mystified, Izzy decided. It was enough to make a cat laugh! But then, in his opinion, he could do no wrong. ‘You said I should leave him where he was, and then you threatened to have him sent to a vet—probably to be put down. You didn’t exactly encourage me to bring Benji back here, did you?’
‘But I didn’t prevent you,’ he pointed out, the corners of his mouth twitching.
His statement floored Izzy, as she had to admit that since she’d refused to abandon the puppy he had done everything to ensure its comfort and wellbeing—even though he was clearly not a fan of small animals with mangy-looking hair and stubby legs.
‘Enough of that. We have other, more important things to discuss.’ A lean, tanned and beautifully crafted hand sliced dismissively. ‘The dog is yours.’
Izzy instinctively turned to thank him, to look directly at him, and her tummy flipped. He was so handsome he took her breath away. She wished quite desperately that he’d take himself off to his own suite, because she so wanted to move closer than the scant inch or two that separated them, to reach up and pull that handsome head down, to feel his beautiful mouth against hers … And if she wasn’t very careful she’d find herself doing just that, making a monumental fool of herself …
Cayo shifted uneasily, unable to take his eyes from her lovely face. The beautiful blue eyes no longer looked innocent and childlike but sultry, the dark, gold-tipped lashes lowered. Her soft full lips parted, pink and inviting. The ache at his groin intensified. His pulses went into overdrive. He raised an unsteady hand to brush aside the tendril of silky silver hair that had tumbled over her wide forehead but, appalled by the thoughtless impulse, swiftly dropped it again.
Getting sharply to his feet, he incised, ‘As the meal was not to your liking and is now cold you must help yourself to coffee and rolls. I’ll see you in the morning. As I said, there are things to discuss.’ And he left with as much haste as his condition would allow to seek a long cold shower.
She had her wish, Izzy acknowledged, stunned by his abrupt and curt departure. He was seeking his own suite and no doubt locking the door! So why did it feel as if she’d been drenched with a bucket of freezing water?
He’d probably legged it because she’d been looking at him as if he were a juicy steak and she was starving, she admitted with deep embarrassment. Around him, especially when he was being okay and not calling her names or threatening her with goodness knew what because he thought she was after his uncle’s money, she couldn’t help herself.
Feeling drained and ridiculous, she wandered over to pour herself a cup of coffee, and sat to await the puppy’s return.
The only sensible thing to do was to take herself off, out of his orbit, and find work, hopefully with accommodation thrown in. Some place where a small puppy would be tolerated.
He’d said there were things they had to discuss. Well, her departure, as soon as possible, would be top of the list.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE second of his two tiresome but apparently necessary business calls returned and completed, Cayo crossed to the bank of tall windows and flung them wide open. At this time of year Madrid sweltered beneath an unforgiving brassy sun, sending those Madrileños who could heading for cooler coastal or mountain climes.
But this early in the morning the temperature was bearable, and he filled his lungs with the last of the cool air he could expect to enjoy today, looking with wry affection out over the rooftops of the uncompromisingly modern city. Big and busy, it offered its fair share of culture in the form of museums, theatres and opera. And the rare treasures of the Royal Palace and its elegant parks, and sophisticated entertainment such as nightclubs and restaurants were second to none.
A consumer’s paradise, and a rich feeding ground for the likes of gold-diggers—as he’d first named his uncle’s housekeeper.
Unfairly blackening her character?
Maybe.
Almost certainly.
The thought did nothing to make him feel good about himself.
A few days—a week if he stretched it—of allowing Izzy Makepeace to wallow in the best the city had to offer, showing her that at his side the world was her oyster, or could be, was now unthinkable. At least not for the reasons that had led to his initial plan.
But as a way of making amends it was doable. Right. That was if he had anything to make amends for.
He couldn’t remember a single time in all of his thirty-three years when he had fallen prey to indecision. He weighed up known facts and made up his mind. And that was that. No ifs and buts.
But in Izzy’s case he damn well wasn’t sure. He’d lain awake half the night reviewing the known and conflicting facts, and still, to his chagrin, he hadn’t reached a rock-solid unarguable conclusion.
Was she, as the events of the last twenty-four hours would appear to suggest, innocent of all he had mentally and verbally accused her of being? Or was she just diabolically clever and a remarkably fine actress into the bargain?
Only time would tell.
Despising himself for what in others he would have named a deplorable weakness of character—an unprecedented and decidedly uncomfortable emotion, and one he wasn’t prepared to live with for much longer—he flung open the connecting doors to her suite. They would continue the discussion he’d aborted the previous evening, and he would winkle out as many facts about her as he could.
He stood, straddle-legged, on the threshold of her suite. Of what looked like her empty suite, he noted scowlingly.
He called her name. It hung, unanswered, on the still air.
Last night she had approached him with a warm and gorgeous smile that could prove to be an unwary man’s downfall, her hand outstretched in invitation. Inviting him to coo over her new pet! The naïve action of an innocent, or a calculated prelude to something far more earthy?
Madre de Dios! All he’d wanted to do, burned to do, was to sweep her into his arms and strip away the silky robe, revealing himself to be as excited as a kid tearing the wrappings from a wickedly tempting package on Christmas morning!
Recognising danger came instinctively to him. He’d made some brusque remark and left her. Likewise, earlier, when he’d escorted her back to her suite, he’d been drawn into the sudden sultry mystery of her eyes and felt himself to be drowning, wanting to explore the mystery, draw her to him, taste her, know her.
Thankfully he’d had the strength of mind to distance himself smartly from temptation, because on the one hand he didn’t make love to greedy tramps and on the other he didn’t seduce an innocent—especially an innocent he’d already wronged.
Either way, Izzy Makepeace was strictly out of bounds! And this morning they had things to discuss. She knew that. He’d made it plain. He vented an expletive beneath his breath. When he made arrangements he expected them to be adhered to—to the letter!
That had to be why this almost frantic sense of frustration was claiming him after a search of the entire suite revealed nothing. Apart from the empty dog bed, and the neatly stacked Fornier boxes that had the air of rejection about them, Izzy might never have been anywhere near these rooms.
He ran lean fingers through his midnight hair, his scowl deepening as he reached for the phone and dialed down to the manager—to learn that the Señorita had been seen walking the small dog in the grounds of the hotel. Early. About an hour ago, or maybe longer.
An hour!
The hotel grounds were beautifully tended, tranquil, but nowhere near extensive enough to hold her interest for an hour or possibly more. Had she grown bored and set off into the city with that ridiculous puppy? Totally forgetting that he would be expecting her to be in her suite, waiting for him to join her?
Just another aspect of her thoughtless behaviour.
His features set in grim lines. On the whole, Madrid was a relatively safe place, but there were areas of the city where it was definitely unsafe for a lone female to venture. And this lone, sexy female wouldn’t have a clue as to where she was going. She barely spoke half a dozen words of the language, and those in an accent so excruciating as to be unintelligible.
His heart was pumping fit to burst out of his chest as he brushed past a startled waiter and bounded through the wide French windows onto the terrace a scant four minutes later.
Nothing. A couple of early risers drinking coffee at one of the terrace tables. The sweep of emerald-green lawn beyond, empty of any strolling, lush little lady with a ragged, stumpy-legged dog on a lead.
Unless …
His long, loose-limbed stride took him over the immaculate grass in double-quick time, past a stand of oleanders towards the walled perimeter, where a deep belt of parasol pines cast welcome shade and filtered out the noise of traffic.
If she wasn’t down here he would have to scour the city streets, and when he found her he would take a great deal of pleasure in wringing her little neck for doling out such unacceptable measures of anxiety!
After the glare of the sunlight the shade was dark as Hades, and he allowed his eyes a few moments to adjust before he strode deeper, calling her name with growing irritation. He swallowed a full-throated, anger-filled roar as a small, sparsely-haired missile hurled itself at him, stubby legs working overtime, lead trailing, and fixed him with bright beady eyes, the tail wagging the body.
Gritting his teeth, Cayo bent to grab the lead. Where the mutt was, its owner wouldn’t be far away. Doing what? Wasting his time!
‘Find!’ he commanded, without much hope. Without any, actually. In his estimation the animal’s intelligence would be on a par with its looks. Zilch!
Hanging on to the lead for grim life as the little dog shot off like a greyhound out of a trap, Cayo wondered if once again he’d been mistaken. Did the animal have enough intelligence to be heading for his mistress, or was it careening off in any direction just for the heck of it? And then he saw her.
Sitting on the bone-dry earth, one leg tucked beneath her, rubbing the ankle of the other. Her washed-out denim skirt was rucked up to thigh level. She had lovely legs, firm rounded thighs—the sort of thighs a man could dream of moving between.
Anger at his entirely inappropriate line of thought made his voice sharp as he lashed out. ‘What do you think you’re doing? We had things to discuss this morning. Did you forget? Or were you born lacking in common courtesy? And what’s wrong with your ankle?’ he added after a beat of breath. Eyes narrowing, he moderated his tone—because he recognised that his harsh verbal onslaught stood in the stead of the more physical and metaphorical promised pleasure of wringing her dainty little neck!
He’d been worried about her—anxious on her behalf. The thought that she might have taken herself out of the hotel grounds and got herself lost in a city that could present danger to a solitary and unwary female had she wandered into one of the more unsavoury areas had made him taste fear for the first time in his life.
Over the top, he recognised with shaming hindsight. Totally. He didn’t feel that protective of her!
Did he?
Madre de Dios, he was losing his marbles! Ever since she’d been around he’d been losing his fabled cool! And now she was just sitting there, cuddling the ugly pup who was frantically licking her face, ignoring him!
Planting his feet apart, he bit out in his best boardroom-silencing tones, ‘I asked you a question. What is wrong with your ankle?’
Emerging from the excess of doggy devotion that had gone some way to compensate for His Lordship’s yelling at her, Izzy tossed back her head, setting the wild silky exuberance of her long hair flying, and answered as coolly as her crossness at being unfairly bawled out would permit.
‘Nothing much. I tripped, and twisted it a bit. But it’s much better now. Thank you for asking,’ she added with an injection of sharp sarcasm, setting Benji back on the ground and hoping she could get to her feet without any real lack of dignity. She paused to lob at him, ‘I thought it was more than early enough to get a walk in before you surfaced. I didn’t twist my ankle on purpose, and I didn’t ask you to inconvenience yourself and come to look for me. So don’t snap and snarl at me! I can’t think what we have to discuss anyway, although I hadn’t forgotten. But might I suggest you make a proper appointment in future? You know—state a time and place, for example!’
She glared up into his lean, darkly handsome face and immediately wished she hadn’t. He did things to her that should be prohibited by law. And he was trying not to smile. That made it worse—made hot tears of anger well into her eyes. She was telling him off, being serious, and he thought she was funny!
Desperate to hide her reaction—the pulse-racing physical desire that flooded her whenever she was around him, or even thought about him, come to that—she scrabbled awkwardly to her feet, biting her lip and clumsily hopping on one foot. Because her wretched ankle did still hurt. She hoped he didn’t see the way her colour came and went. She couldn’t control the way heat exploded deep in her pelvis and made her feel weak and fluttery all over. It was a source of shame to her and she’d just die if he guessed what he did to her.
‘Here—’ Strong hands reached out to steady her, spanning her small waist. Her head was lowered, the silvery blond curls all over the place. He had the finger-itching impulse to run his hands through the shimmering strands, to lift swathes of it to his face and breathe in the faint flowery perfume of it. Instead he asked with commendable, drawling cool, ‘Can you put all your weight on that foot?’
Beast! Izzy’s head shot up, angry tears once more flooding her eyes. Did he have to state the obvious? That she was overweight! She’d never be a size zero, but did he have to rub her nose in it?
‘It really hurts?’ Cayo supplied softly. The sight of her tears was making his heart clench, and he surprised himself with a genuine wish that he could take whatever pain she was feeling away from her and bear it himself.
Suddenly his heart felt like marshmallow. Just because there were genuine tears sparkling in her beautiful eyes? Could a man of his age go senile?
‘Don’t cry.’ Where had that husky note come from? A frown darkened his brow. Stamping hard on the pressing urge to drop his head, close her eyelids with his lips, kiss the tears away, then trail a route down to her lush pink mouth, feel her lips parting for him, inviting him, to touch her with his hands, all of her, he gritted his teeth. He ignored the insistent ache in his groin and lifted her into his arms, striding back through the trees, the little dog trotting in his wake.
Izzy gasped as her whole body melted into his strong arms, her breathing shallow and erratic. The huffy disclaimer that her angry tears had nothing to do with the discomfort in her ankle and everything to do with his obliquely pointing out that she was a stranger to any regime of dieting and strenuous work-outs had disappeared at the speed of light.
Held by him, this close to him, their combined body heat seemed to ignite into a violent sexual conflagration, turning her mind to mush and her body to a quivering, needy wreck. She expelled a shaky moan, wound her arms around his neck and snuggled her head into his hard-muscled shoulder, wallowing in illicit sensational excitement, almost exploding with it as they reached the sun-drenched lawns.
He said, with an intensity that scorched what little was left of her brain, ‘I’ll get someone to look at that ankle.’ And then, coming out of nowhere, ‘And then I’ll kiss it better myself. Would you like that?’
Kiss it better? Would she like that?
Would she like to win the Lottery and as a bonus discover the secret of eternal youth?
She knew to her everlasting shame that she would like him—absolutely love him—to kiss every inch of her body. Her face flamed with acute mental discomfort. She who had never had any trouble holding on to her virginity, never given that state a thought, wanted him, this gorgeous man, to take it from her.
So what did that make her?
Incredibly stupid, she supplied with self-loathing. ‘Kiss it better’? Get real, girl! He’d said the sort of thing people the world over said to humour any child suffering some minor hurt.
So he was treating her like a child now, was he? An overweight child! He had the knack of making her so angry she wanted to throw things—straight at his arrogant, too-handsome head, preferably! He was the only person in the whole world who could turn her normally good-natured placid self into a seething, emotional wreck! Reduce her to wanting to boil him in oil and make mad, passionate love to him at the same time!
As far as she was concerned he was incredibly dangerous. How long would it be before she made a monumental fool of herself? Letting him know that she was so in lust with him she didn’t know what to do with herself?
He’d either laugh till his head dropped off or shoot her one look of grim distaste and make sure he never came within a hundred miles of her ever again!
True, he seemed to have changed his mind about her being a gold-digger without a moral worth mentioning. But that didn’t mean he’d be over the moon if he realised an overweight, poorly dressed domestic servant wanted to get up close and personal with an elevated being such as he.
The only thing to do was take herself off, pronto. She would insist Cayo took her back to his lofty luxurious castle and then explain to Miguel that she didn’t want to be a companion. If he decided to return to Cadiz at the end of the summer he’d have to find another housekeeper. It would, of course, mean failing at yet another job, she thought disconsolately as she stared at her bound ankle on the footstool.
At least there was no real damage there. Cayo had magicked a doctor out of thin air, seemingly. No surprise there, then. People jumped when he told them to, pausing only to tug at their forelocks and ask, Please, sir, how high, sir?
A slight sprain, that was all. The doctor had deftly bound the offending ankle, given instructions that she was to stay off it as much as possible for the remainder of the day, and then Cayo had slid the footstool beneath her foot and left with the elderly medic. Leaving her to stew in her self-declared mania. And fume.
Until: ‘We both missed breakfast.’
Izzy’s heart thumped wildly as Cayo entered the room, complete with loaded tray, and the simmering, sexy smile that increased her inner turmoil by rocket-propelled miles produced a self-protective snipe. ‘Do-it-yourself time, is it? No platoon of waiters and managers and fanfares—?’
‘Shut up.’
His dark eyes were liquid. Warm. Dressed now in a fresh, startlingly white shirt, and hip-hugging dark trousers that made his legs look endless, he was a menace to the female sex, Izzy accused mentally as she watched his lithe movements. He placed the tray on a low table by her side and swung a delicate gilded chair to place it within touching distance. There was a trite phrase, wasn’t there? ‘Poetry in motion’? Trite or not, it just about cut it.
She expelled a long sigh. One minute she’d been a bundle of fuming disgruntlement because he’d left her alone, and the moment he showed his face she went all unnecessary!
Pouring dark, fragrant coffee, Cayo handed her a cup. It rattled on the saucer as she took it. Poor scrap!
Leaving with the doctor, he’d done what he should have done days ago. Put through a call to Augustin del Amo. His tone had held threats that hadn’t needed to be voiced—because no one who had a thought for his future peace of mind refused to co-operate when Cayo Angel Garcia demanded it. He had quickly obtained the truth that lay behind Izzy’s summary dismissal from the household.
A truth he had been increasingly convinced of himself.
Now all he had to do was try to make amends.
He hooked a chair closer to the one she was using. Sat.
‘I have something to tell you, Izzy. And something to ask you.’
CHAPTER NINE
GRITTILY determined not to let him get his word in first, to sidetrack her, Izzy gulped down her coffee without tasting it. One second in his company was enough to knock her common sense clear over the boundary and scatter her resolve to the four winds, so the sooner she made her intentions known the better.
‘I’m leaving—can you get me back to Las Palomas, please?’ She practically babbled in her haste to get her self-protective, set-in-concrete decision voiced.
She didn’t look at him in case she turned to jelly, as she always did. She kept her eyes glued to the puppy, who was lying on his back, snoring, hoping the gods would be kind and help her find a job and a place to live where pets would be welcome.
‘So soon?’ Cayo disposed of his empty cup with care, one flaring ebony eyebrow lifting. ‘But you’ve seen nothing of the city,’ he pointed out mildly, wondering what had brought this on. ‘Madrid has much to offer.’
His narrowed dark-as-midnight eyes searched what he could see of her averted features. He learned nothing beyond the obvious: something had rattled her cage. It was the first time he had encountered a female he couldn’t immediately read like a tediously boring book.
Unless, of course, her ankle was still painful. That might explain her grouchy mood. Though he had been assured that the sprain was slight. Or maybe she thought—wrongly—that she was to be incarcerated in this room, with her foot stuck on a stool, for the duration of her visit to the capital.
Satisfied that he had found the answer with his usual incisiveness, he imparted, with the smoothness of silk, ‘You don’t have to spend all your time cooped up in a hotel room. We’ll hit the town later. You won’t be up to sightseeing or dancing the night away—not for twenty-four hours, anyway—but a superb meal and a glass or two of fine champagne in one of the city’s premier restaurants might put a smile back on your face. And it will give you the opportunity to try out something from your new Fornier wardrobe.’ It was the least he could do after what he had learned from the sleazy apology for a man Augustin del Amo.