Never before had Cayo Garcia suffered from an inability to keep his mind on track. It was a first, and he knew who to blame.

Izzy Makepeace!

His lean, strong features hardened as the connecting door was flung open without ceremony and the object of his uncharacteristically muddled thoughts bounced in.

Even with her bright mane of hair tumbling around her flushed face, her startling blue eyes flashing like a cat’s, she was spectacularly sexy. His pulses quickened. He ignored them, deploring his body’s sexual reaction to her.

Deplorable if he’d been right about her in the first instance, and just as deplorable if she turned out to be a wronged innocent.

He didn’t bed innocents.

But he wanted to bed her.

Diana Hamilton is a true romantic, and fell in love with her husband at first sight. They still live in the fairytale Tudor house where they raised their three children. Now the idyll is shared with eight rescued cats and a puppy. But despite an often chaotic lifestyle, ever since she learned to read and write Diana has had her nose in a book—either reading or writing one—and plans to go on doing just that for a very long time to come.

Recent titles by the same author:

VIRGIN: BEDDED AT THE ITALIAN’S COMMAND

THE MEDITERRANEAN BILLIONAIRE’S SECRET BABY

THE KOUVARIS BRIDE

THE ITALIAN’S PRICE

THE SPANIARD’S VIRGIN HOUSEKEEPER

BY

DIANA HAMILTON

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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THE SPANIARD’S VIRGIN HOUSEKEEPER

CHAPTER ONE

ISABEL MAKEPEACE, mostly known as Izzy, sank down onto a bench beneath an arching tree that would shade her from the fierce midday Spanish sun and blinked furiously at the crystal-clear blue waters of the Atlantic. She would not cry. She would not!

Thrusting out her full lower lip, she huffed at the fall of gossamer-fine, silvery blond unmanageable hair that was obscuring her vision and wished she wasn’t such a monumental failure—wished her feet didn’t hurt so much when she could envisage having to walk miles and miles in search of somewhere dirt-cheap to stay while she looked for work.

Trouble was, being a scant five feet tall, she always wore killingly high heels, no matter what. Distinctly lacking stature, in the height department she needed all the help she could get.

Not that her family had ever commented on that—to her—vitally important lack. Lacking in brains, as her much older brilliant brother had cuttingly remarked on more occasions than she cared to remember. And lacking in common sense, as her father would sigh in exasperation while her mother merely shook her head sadly at the daughter who had been a surprise late arrival. An unpleasant surprise, Izzy sometimes feared, while vowing to try harder to live up to her brilliant brother, who was the golden apple of her parents’ eyes.

The phone line from New Zealand had crackled with her father’s displeasure when she’d told him she had left her job back in England—the job, moreover, that he had created for her amongst, as she strongly suspected, opposition from the other senior partners—and was taking another as an English-speaking mother’s help to a wealthy Spanish couple in Cadiz.

He’d forecast that it would end in tears and he’d been right. It had.

The difference being she was not going to shed them!

The advertisement she’d seen in one of the national dailies had seemed heaven-sent. The successful applicant’s duties would include looking after six-year-old twin girls and practising English with them, plus a little light housework. It had seemed like the answer to her prayers—the perfect way to start a new life.

That she’d actually landed the job had been a huge boost to her self-esteem—especially after the humiliation dealt her by the man she had adored with more romantic yearning than good old-fashioned common sense. Determined to forget Marcus and her broken heart, to prove herself to be the best ever mother’s help and to show big brother James and her long-suffering parents that she didn’t fail at everything she turned her hand to, she’d embarked on her new career with energy and goodwill.

She’d cheerfully swallowed the fact that although her new employers, Señor and Señora del Amo, occupied a large, opulent villa on the outskirts of the city, the room she’d been given was not much larger than a cupboard, with a small skylight, an iron-hard narrow bed, and a rickety chest of drawers that she’d banged her shins on every time she’d had to squirm past it to get into or out of bed.

The twins had been a nightmare, refusing to do a single thing she asked of them, and pretending they understood not a single word of English when their mother had proudly claimed the opposite. They had given her either blank stares or shrill giggles when she had attempted, with the help of a phrasebook, to speak to them in their own language.

It had soon dawned on Izzy that she was regarded as a low-paid skivvy. Her day off had been cancelled more often than not, and the ‘light housework’—piled onto her between taking the girls to school and escorting them home again—had translated into anything from sweltering over an Everest of ironing to scrubbing the marble paving of the immense entrance hall. But she’d got on with it because she’d been determined she wasn’t going to walk out and admit yet another failure.

She had quickly learned to keep out of Señor del Amo’s way as much as humanly possible because he—sixteen flabby stones of oiliness—had seemed to think that because he was a wealthy banker and paid her paltry wages he was entitled to paw her whenever he felt like it.

Izzy had made up her mind to save as much as she possibly could to fund her escape. She’d planned to save the means of paying her way on public transport to one of the busy holiday costas, where her poor grasp of Spanish wouldn’t be a problem, and finding somewhere cheap to stay while she looked for work in a hotel or bar. But it was a plan that had rapidly hit the dust this morning, when Señor del Amo had sneaked up on her while she’d been loading the washing machine.

Struggling to extricate herself from what had seemed to be an octopus’s complement of arms, she’d been unaware that the Señora had walked in on the torrid scene until a shrill stacatto of Spanish had brought merciful release. Rubbing her mouth with the back of her hand to rid it of the shudder-making assault of wet, blubbery lips, she hadn’t even tried to translate Señor del Amo’s response to his wife. But her pansy-blue eyes had sparked with outrage when the Señora had turned her hard black eyes on her and ordered, ‘Get out of our home immediately! How dare you try to seduce an honorable family man—a husband and the father of two innocent girls?’

Stunned by the horrible injustice, Izzy had only been able to gasp with disbelief as her enraged employer had imparted with relish, ‘From me you will have no references, and any money owing to you will not be paid. Your name will be forever linked with lewd behaviour among the civilised circles we move in!’

To have sprung to her own defence would have been a waste of breath, Izzy knew. Señora del Amo would believe what she wanted to believe, what made her feel comfortable, and even without looking at him she had known the Señor would be looking smugly triumphant.

There had been nothing for it but to pack her bags and go.

Looking on the bright side, she was glad to be away from the Señor’s wandering hands and leery smiles, from the Señora’s bossy, unrelenting demands and the terrible twins.

Her dignity restored, she had turned pitying eyes on the Spanish woman and told her, ‘If you believe a word your husband says you’re a bigger fool than I took you for.’

As Izzy had clipped out she’d almost felt daggers in her back, and she knew she’d made herself an enemy for life.

So here she was: no roof over her head, no job, and little likelihood of landing one in Cadiz with her scant knowledge of Spanish and not enough money to get her to the nearest busy holiday resort, where the language barrier wouldn’t be such a problem, and where there would be plenty of bars and hotels looking for staff at the height of the season.

She wasn’t going to break into her pitifully few euros to phone her parents in New Zealand, where they’d moved to be with her brother on her father’s retirement, and ask to be rescued. To have to admit to yet another failure would be the final straw.

Her small chin firming, Izzy gathered her suitcase and slung her rucksack over her shoulders. Something would turn up. Maybe someone in the dockland area wanted someone to clean offices. It was worth consulting her phrasebook and asking, wasn’t it?

An hour later—still jobless, her feet killing her— Izzy left the fascinating commercial docks with their huge cargo vessels, busy tugs, gleaming cruise liners and little fishing boats behind her and headed towards the old town. She wandered through the maze of narrow shade-darkened streets, where projecting balconies almost met overhead, giving respite from the blazing heat, seeking a café where the price of a cold drink would be much lower than she could hope to find in the smarter, newer part of town.

The irritating mass of her hair was dragging in her eyes, and her cotton T-shirt and skirt were sticking to her overheated body. She wondered if she took her shoes off to give her poor feet a rest she’d ever get them back on again.

But her self-pity vanished as the only other occupant of the narrow street—a frail, shabbily dressed old man—tottered and collapsed. Concern tightening her soft mouth, Izzy dropped her luggage, ignored her protesting feet and sprinted forward to help.

His tough jaw set at a pugnacious angle, Cayo Angel Garcia descended from the penthouse suite he occupied when business demanded he spent time in Cadiz and exited the lift on the ground floor, instead of going down to the underground residents’ car park and collecting the Merc.

He would walk—burn off some of his anger.

Impatiently he ran long tanned fingers through his short, expertly cut midnight hair and lengthened his stride, his dark eyes narrowed against the white light of the morning sun.

Returning briefly to the castillo after two months out of the country on business, he’d found amongst his personal post a letter from Tio Miguel. Skimming it, he’d felt the usual mixture of deep affection and exasperation. The old guy was the nearest thing to a real father he’d ever had. Cayo’s own father, Roman, had wanted little to do with him, blaming him for the untimely death of his adored wife when his baby son had been barely two months old.

It had been Miguel who had shown him the only familial affection he had known—who had spent time with him, advised him. But when it came to taking advice Miguel closed his ears!

The elder of the two brothers, Miguel had inherited the vast family estates, while Roman had inherited the family-founded export empire—an empire Cayo had then inherited on his father’s death five years ago.

Cutting across the busy Avenida del Puerto, he entered the narrow, warren-like streets of the old city. He blamed himself for not putting his foot down. Firmly. His uncle, a lovable old eccentric, owned vast wealth, but he insisted on living like a pauper in a mean dwelling, uninterested in what he wore or the food he ate—if he remembered to eat. His whole life revolved around his books. Cayo loved the old man dearly, but his unnecessarily austere lifestyle exasperated and worried him. He should have had him removed—forcibly, if necessary—to the castillo, where he would be looked after properly.

But, believing that a man had the right to live his life as he saw fit, providing he did no harm—and no man was more harmless and gentle than his uncle—Cayo had done nothing.

And look what had happened! Strong white teeth ground together in an excess of self-castigation.

The letter that had been waiting for him hadn’t rung alarm bells. In fact he’d been pleased to learn that Tio Miguel had finally employed a new housekeeper. A young English girl, Izzy Makepeace, to take the place of the old crone who, it had always appeared to Cayo, had done little more than shuffle around the kitchen. And even there, he strongly suspected, she’d done nothing more energetic than lift a glass or six of manzanilla and spend time gossiping with the neighbours on the doorstep.

When Cayo had voiced a strong suggestion that the crone be given her marching orders it had brought the inevitable mild response. ‘Like me, Benita is old. She can’t be expected to leap around like a teenager. We manage well enough. Besides, she relies on me for a roof over her head.’

Therefore Cayo had been gratified to read that the crone had left, to be a burden on her probably unsuspecting grandson and his young wife, and that his uncle had managed to find a young woman to take over her duties.

Skipping over the neat copperplate paean praising the new paragon’s general excellence, Cayo had thankfully said goodbye to his growing unease over his uncle’s domestic arrangements.

Until.

Until last night.

Cayo had combined a visit to his offices in the commercial docks here in Cadiz with a tedious but necessary dinner with business associates, and had planned a long overdue and pleasurable visit to his uncle the following day.

He had sat through the dinner last night, hosted by the banker Augustin del Amo and his wife Carmela, wondering which of the city’s fine restaurants would be most to his uncle’s liking when he took him to lunch the following day—after Cayo had given the new housekeeper the once-over and made sure she knew her duties. First among these was the need to make sure the old gentleman ate regularly and well, of course. And then something said by the regrettably detestable Carmela del Amo had gained his full and riveted attention.

‘It is impossible to get decent domestic help—my poor children have been without a nanny for over a month now, ever since we had to tell the last one to leave. Izzy Makepeace—an English girl. Such a mistake to hire her in the first place!’ She had rolled her hard black eyes dramatically, managing to look martyred, and announced, ‘I overlooked her slovenly laziness. I am a realist, and one cannot expect perfection no matter how much one pays. But when it comes to contaminating my dear, innocent girls I draw the line. The creature was little better than a puta.’ Preening in the undivided attention of her guests, she had tipped her expertly coiffured head in her husband’s direction. ‘You know better than I, Augustin.’

The banker had looked smug as he’d leaned back in his chair, lifting his wine glass. ‘You know how it is. Money is an aphrodisiac. I didn’t dare be alone with her for one second—offered herself on a plate. For a financial consideration, naturally. If I’d been the type to take a mistress then I might have been tempted. A lush little package if ever I saw one!’

In receipt of a look that would have wilted an oak in the prime of life, he had added quickly, ‘But, as I’m a faithful family man, I—we—told her to pack her bags and leave.’

The anger that had been building ever since he’d received that unwelcome information made Cayo feel as if he were about to explode. The smallest amount of research would have given his uncle’s new housekeeper the information that Miguel Garcia—scholar and local eccentric—was, to use her probable terminology, filthy rotten rich.

Izzy Makepeace, with the morals of an alley cat, had successfully got her greedy claws in one of the kindest, most innocent old gentlemen ever to inhabit the planet. But he, Cayo Angel Garcia, was about to ensure that this situation was sorted out immediately!

Izzy Makepeace.

Make war was more like it!

CHAPTER TWO

‘I’M BACK from market, señor,’ Izzy announced cheerfully as she entered the cramped ground-floor room her new employer used as his study. A wayward strand of silky blond hair had escaped from the ribbon she’d used to anchor the unruly mass on top of her head, and she pushed it out of her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘We have fresh-caught pilchards for lunch, and green beans.’

Cheap, but nourishing.

The housekeeping allowance was astonishingly small, and most of her unremarkable weekly wage went on supplementing it—but she wasn’t complaining because her employer was so obviously poor and in no position to pay the going rate. It was immensely gratifying to see the old gentleman looking less frail than he had when she’d helped him when he’d fallen in the street, thankful that he spoke her language and had been able to direct her when she’d offered to see him to his home.

‘And peaches—they looked so scrummy I couldn’t resist!’

‘Scrummy?’ Miguel Garcia looked up from his seat at the desk that was half buried beneath tottering piles of books and papers, his lean, ascetic, once-handsome face breaking into a warm smile as he peered at her over the top of his spectacles, stuck together with sticky tape.

‘Delicious.’ Izzy grinned back at him, translating from the vernacular.

‘Ah. I understand!’ He leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers, his dark eyes kind. ‘Then I shall enjoy our lunch. While I think of it—I have asked you before, and as you’ve been with me for five weeks now I no longer ask. I insist you address me by my given name. Miguel. It will be more companionable.’

‘Okay,’ she agreed blithely. ‘But only if you drop what you’re doing and come out with me for a little fresh air and exercise.’

He was researching the life of some obscure saint or other, he’d told her, and it was her gladly embraced mission to ensure he remembered to eat and forgot his work long enough to take a short stroll each morning and evening.

‘You bully me!’ But his gentle smile as he laid down his pen told her he didn’t object in the least. ‘May I claim an old man’s privilege and say how pretty you look this morning?’

‘Oh!’ Izzy’s face was bright pink. He was good for her confidence—at one time flat on the floor! So good, in fact, that she no longer needed the boost of killingly high heels, and had bought flat sandals from the open-air market. She had to admit they made her feel as wide as she was high—but, hey, it made walking so much more comfortable!

And the old gentleman was so grateful for everything she did. She was sure he’d never noticed the squalor he lived in until she’d got rid of it—washing, scrubbing and polishing until the humble little house positively gleamed. The praises following his initial stunned surprise at the transformation had come thick and fast, making her head spin. Because she couldn’t remember being praised for anything before in the whole of her twenty-two years.

Their separate guardian angels must have put their heads together on the day the del Amos had thrown her out and Señor Garcia had collapsed on the street. Both being in the right place at the right time had been really fortunate. The old gentleman was now looking much better, and she was thankful to have found a new job and a roof over her head so quickly, happy to be doing something worthwhile.

Remembering the ear-bending she’d received when she’d phoned her parents to tell them she’d quit her first job and landed another as a mother’s help in Cadiz, she didn’t want to repeat the experience. She had got around to writing last week instead, giving them her new address. That done, she wasn’t going to think about the kind of nagging reply she’d get when she could enjoy being appreciated for once.

‘I’ll put the shopping away,’ she told her employer, ‘then we’ll go out and enjoy the air before it gets too hot.’

Closing the study door behind her, she headed for the kitchen, her cool, brightly patterned cotton skirt swirling around her bare legs. She swung round as the street door opened to reveal a tall, dark stranger.

An impressively handsome stranger.

Her pansy-blue eyes widened as she took in his height and the breadth of shoulder beneath a stone-coloured fine cotton shirt tucked into the narrow waistband of obviously designer chinos. They clothed long, athletic legs, and ended in shoes that, at a guess, had to have been hand-made from the finest, most supple leather.

Slowly raising her eyes, she was stunned by the impact of sculpted high cheekbones, an aristocratic blade of a nose, and dark-as-night eyes fringed by lashes that were as soft and black as his expensively styled hair—eyes that were looking at her with blatant hostility.

‘Izzy Makepeace?’

The beautiful, sensual male mouth curved with what she could only translate as derision. Her heart thumped a warning.

Who was he? Surely not a plain-clothes policeman, sent to arrest her because Señora del Amo had reported her alleged lewd behaviour, calling her a danger to all innocent children and middle-aged married millionaires in Cadiz—if not the whole of Spain? But police-men couldn’t afford to dress in designer clothes that would have cost them the equivalent of a year’s wages. Nor would they wear anything like the slim gold watch that banded his angular wrist—that would have cost them their pension!

Stifling hysteria—she mustn’t let herself get paranoid over the gross injustice done her by the powerful del Amos—Izzy crossed her arms defensively over her midriff, lifted her neat chin and demanded, ‘Who wants to know?’

And she cringed with helpless inadequacy as he swept her a look of chilling contempt, making her feel several centimetres short of two inches tall.

‘Cayo!’

At the sound of her employer’s voice Izzy let her tautly held spine relax just a little. Señor Garcia—or Miguel, as she must now get used to calling him—knew this person. The sensation of threat that had been present ever since the stranger had spoken dissipated just a little, too. Perhaps, being so impressive in every detectable department, this haughty creature found it normal to look at lesser beings as if they were beneath his lofty contempt.

Her mouth softening with relief at having sorted out the less than flattering vibes winging in her direction from what had to be the most spectacularly handsome guy she’d ever seen, she moved closer to the old gentleman, as if for protection, as he proclaimed with enthusiasm, ‘It’s so good to see you—it’s been a long time! How long are you staying in Cadiz?’

‘Long enough to take you to lunch, Tio.’ Long enough to warn him of the type of creature he had taken into his home, to redouble his efforts to persuade him to move into the family country home, or at the very least to move into his luxurious apartment here in Cadiz.

Studiously ignoring the new ‘housekeeper’, Cayo extended a lean, tanned hand. ‘Shall we go?’ To his amazed annoyance he received a decisive shake of his uncle’s head. Until now Tio Miguel had always pandered to his every request or suggestion—except, of course, over the vexed question of his lifestyle.

‘We shall lunch here,’ Miguel stated with firm good humour. ‘Izzy shall cook for us. We have pilchards, I’m told. And peaches.’ He smiled down at her and laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘Izzy, may I introduce my workaholic nephew, Cayo?’

His nephew! Not in the least impressed now, Izzy shot the poor old gentleman’s uncaring relative a withering glance. If he could afford to dress himself in designer gear and sport a watch that must have cost thousands—and she knew about that sort of stuff because her brilliant, well-heeled big brother always dressed in the best, proclaiming that his position demanded it and that quality always counted—then surely he could alleviate his uncle’s hand-to-mouth existence and visit more often to check on his welfare? As Miguel had said, it had been a long time.

Barely registering Cayo’s response to the introduction, she drew herself up to her unspectacular height and stated, ‘I’ll start preparing lunch, Miguel.’

She headed for the kitchen, hoping the pilchards would stretch to feed three and not much caring for the idea of cooking for someone who had looked at her as if she were dirt. And how had he known her name? She should have asked—would have done if his chilling look hadn’t frozen her vocal cords. It was an omission she would rectify over lunch. Unless he refused to share a table with a mere menial.

Watching her go through narrowed eyes, Cayo recalled how Augustin del Amo had described her. A lush little package. Very apt indeed.

The top of her silvery blond head might reach the top of his chest—or almost. And the descriptive ‘lush’ perfectly suited the ripe curves, full lips and eyes like bruised pansies. She found money an aphrodisiac and despite outward appearances she would know Miguel was rolling in the stuff. After all, she was already intimate enough to call Miguel by his given name!

Reining back the fiery impulse to go after her, take her by the scruff of her neck and tip her into the gutter where she clearly belonged, he turned to his uncle. ‘I need to talk to you.’

The sight of the tiny kitchen, with its old-fashioned iron range, arrays of gleaming copper pans hanging from hooks on roughly plastered walls, earthenware platters and bowls perched on shelves, and the chunky wooden table that served as the only work surface always cheered Izzy, and today went some way to smooth her ruffled feathers.

Five weeks ago, when she’d walked in here for the first time to fetch the frail old gentleman a glass of water, she’d been horrified. Evidence of neglect had hit her from every side. Grease and dust had covered every surface, and the copper pans had been green with verdigris. Empty sherry bottles had been piled in one corner, and the heel of a mouldy loaf had rested in a bucket beneath the grimy stone sink.

‘You live alone?’ she’d asked as she’d watched him drink the water and set the mug aside, on top of a cluttered desk.

‘Since my housekeeper left two days ago,’ he supplied with a weak smile. ‘I thought I should make myself something to eat, and I got the range going, but there was nothing to cook. I was on my way to market when I became light-headed. And I thank you,’ he added with courtesy, ‘for assisting me to my home.’

Definitely not ready to bow out with a Think nothing of it, Izzy asked, ‘Do you have family I could contact for you?’

‘Just a nephew, who I think at the moment is in Britain.’ He spread his thin, fine-boned hands. ‘In any case, it is not necessary to trouble anyone. Already I am recovered from my giddiness and feel better.’

He certainly didn’t look it. Remembering that he’d been on his way to market to buy food, she asked, ‘When did you last eat?’

‘I don’t recall.’ He looked as if the question really puzzled him, and explained earnestly, with a frail hand indicating the mass of books and papers on the desk, ‘When I’m working I forget time.’

‘Then how about I save you the trouble and pop out for some food?’ Izzy was back on her tortured feet, not prepared to leave this poor old man to his own ineffectual devices—at least not until he’d been fed and persuaded to give her the name and address of his doctor.

Heading for the nearest shop, she had found her outraged thoughts kept her from dwelling on her burningly painful feet. Deserted by a housekeeper who, from what she’d seen, hadn’t been too keen on doing any work, with his only relative obviously not keeping in touch because the old gentleman wasn’t sure where he was. She was already feeling anxious and even slightly cross on his behalf.

Raiding her precious euros, she bought eggs, oil and crusty rolls and tottered back. Half an hour later, watching the colour return to his ashen cheeks as he ate the scrambled eggs and one of the rolls, she chatted away. She was concerned that he absolutely refused to see his doctor, but happy to answer his questions because his curiosity must surely mean he was feeling more himself. So she told him exactly how she’d landed up in Spain, and regaled him with her family history. She glossed over the humiliation she’d suffered at Marcus’s hands, and when she came to her present unenviable jobless and homeless situation she gave the half-truth that being a mother’s help hadn’t suited.

‘So what will you do now?’ Miguel asked.

Izzy twisted her hands together in her lap, her huge eyes clouding. Since helping the old gentleman to his feet she’d actually forgotten her own misery. Deflatedly, she confessed, ‘I don’t know. I hoped I would find something here in Cadiz to tide me over. But so far—nothing.’

‘Couldn’t your parents help?’

Izzy shuddered. And then, because his interest was obviously kindly, she admitted, ‘They could—and they would. But I can’t face telling them I’ve failed again. When I left school my dad—like I told you, he was a solicitor—sort of made a job for me in his practice. Being senior partner, he swung it. Then when he retired my parents went out to New Zealand to be with James—my brother. They wanted me to go with them but I wouldn’t,’ she confided earnestly.

She was relieved to be unburdening herself because usually her family and the people she worked with didn’t think she had anything worth listening to, and this old gentleman was hanging on every word she said.

‘James is so clever, you see. He sailed through every exam he ever took, and now he’s a highly regarded surgeon. My parents are hugely proud of him, of course. Not being anything special, I’ve always been a disappointment to them. To make it worse James married a brainy woman—a top lawyer. Being around them always makes me feel squashed. So I stayed back in England. They weren’t at all pleased when I gave up my job in the practice and came to Spain. So I want to get back on my feet by my own efforts and not go crawling to them for help.’

He nodded understandingly and asked, ‘And you left your work in England because you had a falling-out with a young man? From what you told me earlier you were very fond of him. If you returned to England do you think you could patch things up?’

Izzy went bright pink. She’d been so humiliated she didn’t like to think about it. But maybe she should get it out of her system—and it was certainly much easier to talk to a stranger.

‘It wasn’t like that.’ She sighed. ‘I feel a real fool. But I had this huge crush on him—Marcus. He’s a legal executive in Dad’s old practice, really good-looking—good at making a girl feel special. I thought we were close, you know. He asked me to do little things for him—stuff like collecting his dry cleaning in my lunch hour, doing bits of shopping. He took me out once, and bought me a glass of wine. That’s when he told me his housekeeper had thrown a wobbly and walked out and left him without a cleaner. When I volunteered to help him out he called me his treasure and held my hand. Said I was special. He made me feel valued for a change. How stupid can a girl get?’

Surreptitiously she eased her shoes off and allowed her agonised toes the freedom to curl with embarrassment. Then she took a deep breath and confided, ‘I heard him talking to Molly, one of the secretaries, obviously responding to something she’d said. “Sure, she can’t take those big googly eyes off me—but long live the crush if it means I get a free errand girl, laundry service and cleaner! All I have to do is turn on the charm, call her my treasure and she’ll walk backwards over hot coals for me!” And Molly just laughed and said, “Not in those scary high heels she wears, she won’t!” I felt like the world’s biggest idiot.’

His weary eyes on her flushed, embarrassed features, Miguel Garcia said, ‘So you need work and I, it would appear, need a housekeeper. The position’s yours if you want it—until you get back on your feet. There will be a weekly housekeeping allowance, and you will receive the same wage as Benita did.’ He named a sum that was slightly less than the pittance the del Amos had paid her, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, and if she was really careful she could save enough over time to fund a transfer to another destination.

In the meantime she could sort the poor old gentleman out, make sure he ate regularly and that his home was clean, and later contact the Spanish equivalent of the British Social Services to keep an eye on him after she’d left.

‘Thanks!’ she beamed. ‘I’d love to work for you!’

And she was loving it, Izzy thought now as she reached for a heavy-bottomed copper pan and the olive oil. Already she was fond of her poor old gentleman, as she always thought of him. The owner of a soft heart, she’d always been on the side of the underdog, and seeing her employer grow stronger and sprightlier every day was, to her, better than winning the Lottery.

‘I don’t believe a word of it!’ Miguel stated with cold fury. ‘Izzy is no more an immoral gold-digger than I am! And if you mix with the type of person who would stoop to spread such a calumny then I am disappointed in you.’

‘Of necessity, Tio.’ Cayo received the reprimand with a slight upward shift of one wide shoulder. ‘Augustin del Amo is a highly respected banker. I occasionally do business with him.’ Unsurprised by his uncle’s defence of Miss Sweetness and Light—as the older man innocently claimed her to be—Cayo leaned back in the chair on the other side of the cluttered desk, the tips of his steepled fingers resting against the hard line of his mouth.

Izzy Makepeace was smart. Smart enough to know she had to tread carefully. Because the stakes were higher this time. She wasn’t angling to be a wealthy married man’s paid mistress but something else entirely. An indispensable treasure, caring for an even wealthier man as his age advanced. A wife!

The thought made his blood run cold! No way would he stand by and see his beloved, innocently naïve relative walk into that trap!

‘How much do you pay her?’ he asked with deceptive smoothness. Receiving the information that she earned the same as Benita had done, he dipped his dark head in understanding.

As long as the unlamented Benita had had enough to buy cheap sherry and didn’t have to exert herself by so much as an extra intake of breath in the non-commission of her duties she would have been happy enough to receive wages that hadn’t increased in the last twenty years. Even she would have known that her so-called services weren’t worth any more, and his uncle, unaware of the cost of living because he lived firmly in the past, in the company of long-dead saints, and rarely read a newspaper or listened to a radio, wouldn’t know he was paying what amounted to peanuts. He would have been horrified if the fact had been pointed out to him.

But no sane young working woman would accept such low payment. Not unless she had an ulterior motive. If he’d had doubts before—and he hadn’t—that would have clinched it. She had her motive!

‘Do you realise that what you’re paying her is a fraction of the going rate?’ Seeing his uncle’s brows draw together, Cayo pressed on with barely concealed exasperation. ‘Of course you don’t. You don’t live in the real world—never have done. Since leaving the university where you taught medieval history twenty years ago you’ve buried yourself in research. You have no idea what goes on in the world. So why would a young healthy woman accept such low pay? Think about it.’

Leaving the older man looking every one of his seventy-six years and more, Cayo strode from the study and flung open the door to the kitchen.

He had to admit that the room had scrubbed up well. But then it would be in her best interests to work her socks off, present herself as an angel of mercy, indispensable, when the glittering prize was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, he rationalised with an ingrained cynicism born of having to fight off greedy little gold-diggers ever since he’d reached his late teens.

She had her back to him, was removing a heavy pan from the stove with both hands.

‘I’m just about to dish up, Miguel. If you and your nephew would go up to the dining room I’ll be with you in a tick.’

Her cheerful words set his teeth on edge.

She turned then, her smile fading fast when she saw him. He noted the way she banged the pan down on the tabletop and hauled her shoulders back, her eyes very bright.

‘Right, mister!’ she spluttered. ‘I’ve got something to say to you—’

He cut across her, having no interest in hearing anything from her beyond a meekly compliant goodbye.

‘How much will it take to make yourself scarce, be out of this house before nightfall and never come near my uncle again?’ Cayo demanded, gazing steadily at her, his black-as-midnight eyes as cold as charity, his feet planted firmly apart, his fists pushed into the pockets of his chinos. ‘Name your price.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘WHAT did you say?’

Momentarily stunned, Izzy released a disbelieving gasp. She planted her hands on the table, leaning forward, and searched his dark eyes for any sign that he could be joking. Finding none, she added at full outraged volume, ‘You’re offering me money to walk out of my job and leave Miguel in the lurch? I don’t believe this!’ She huffed out a breath and imparted, ‘I’ll have you know he’s as good at looking after himself as a two-year-old.’ Then, introducing a note of scorn, ‘You wouldn’t know, of course, because it seems you’re rarely around, but your uncle collapsed in the street. It took me three weeks to persuade him to go for a checkup. He’s got a heart murmur, not helped by borderline malnutrition, so you’re off your rocker if you think I’d leave him to fend for himself for a pocketful of euros! What sort of nephew are you?’

‘One who wasn’t born yesterday.’

Smooth as silk, he slid into the rough grit of her attack. Stopped in her tracks by that weird statement, Izzy connected with the silver gleam of cynicism in those compelling eyes.

She suppressed a sudden unwelcome shiver as he added, almost purring, ‘You have a saying, I believe? A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. So, I say again, name your price.’

She tossed her silvery blond head high, and her normally water-clear blue eyes were shadowed by a bewildered frown as she demanded tersely, ‘Why?’

‘Because I know your sort,’ Cayo supplied drily. ‘And I have confirmation via Augustin del Amo. Remember him?’ His own arrogantly held head was high, too. Brilliant eyes narrowed, he reminded her with harsh conviction, ‘Instead of looking after his children as you were paid to—highly paid, by all accounts—you spent all your time trying to tempt him into changing your job description to that of paid and pampered mistress.’

Her stomach swooping, looping and finally knotting, her cheeks flaming, Izzy gulped back a yelp of outrage and finally vented, ‘That creep!’

Señora del Amo had promised her name would be mud! And she hadn’t wasted any time spreading the lies she’d chosen to believe rather than accept that her husband was a real slimeball. She could just about understand that. But this horrible man—neglecter of frail, impoverished old uncles—was choosing to believe the worst of her without doing her the courtesy of asking to hear her side of the story!

As if that wasn’t enough, worse was to come. He pointed out with icy cool, ‘Get it into your mercenary little head that there’s nothing here for you. You may be able to fool an unworldly old man, but you don’t fool me. Take cash in hand and leave—or I’ll make sure you regret the day you were born.’

He was a maniac! Izzy decided, feeling as if she’d landed in a parallel universe. Okay, so he’d taken the wealthy banker’s words at face value and decided she was a mercenary little scrubber, out for all she could get from the male of the species. So why tell her there was nothing for her here, when anyone could see that Miguel barely had two pennies to rub together?

This man might be prime contender in a competition to find the world’s most gorgeous male, but the handsome exterior clothed a nasty mind, she decided, straightening her spine. She wasn’t going to even begin to plead her case, because she’d be wasting her breath, nor go on to explain that she already got plenty out of working for Miguel. Like making his living conditions more comfortable, seeing his health improve.

She’d leave only when she was sure outside help was forthcoming. So this handsome devil could take his threats and swallow them. And she hoped they choked him!

A saccharine smile hiding her internal boiling fury, she forced herself to unclench her small fists and slid the fish onto the waiting platter. ‘Take this up while I tell Miguel lunch is ready,’ she instructed snippily. ‘And since you ask me to name my price for making myself scarce, then try this for size.’ She squared her narrow shoulders and gave him exactly what he deserved. ‘Ten billion. Pounds sterling. In cash. All neat and tidy in a gigantic diamond-studded gold crate. And while we’re at it, a nice villa in the hills to put it in!’

Mentally adding, So put that in your pipe and smoke it, señor! she made a speedy exit.

Lunch was a dismal affair. Izzy was too angry to eat more than a mouthful and Miguel, usually so talkative even if the subject matter was so rarefied it went straight over her head, was preoccupied, barely uttering a word. She had the horrible feeling that Cayo had poured his poison into his elderly relative’s ears and that—even worse—the poor old gentleman had believed him!

Only Cayo seemed at ease. The only sign of his deeply unflattering opinion of her, and his stated intent to make her regret the day she’d been born if she didn’t do as he’d ordered, was the slight twisting of his sexy mouth whenever she tried to break the uncomfortable silence with some admittedly inane comment or other.

And then he put down his fruit knife, wiped fastidious fingers on one of the fine linen napkins she’d discovered at the bottom of a drawer and carefully laundered, leaned back in his chair and drawled, ‘I hear, Tio, that you are unwell?’ He raised an imperious silencing hand as Miguel, startled back into the here and now by that unwelcome reminder, opened his mouth to deny any such thing. ‘I intend to get all the facts from your doctor this afternoon. So any blustering denials you are preparing will be neither here nor there.’

Catching sight of Miguel’s quizzical glance, one brow raised in her direction above deep-set dark eyes, Izzy pinkened and confessed, ‘I thought I should mention it.’ She aimed an accusing stare at Cayo’s tough expression. ‘After all, you’ve been neglected for too long. Someone should take care of you and make sure you eat and rest properly.’

‘Something you do to perfection.’

The gentleness of her employer’s tone, the warmth of his smile made Izzy feel faint with relief. If his nephew had relayed the del Amos’ lies then he clearly hadn’t believed them.

She would have felt wretched if he had. She had grown fond of her old gentleman, impractical dreamer that he was; looking after him was like looking after an extra clever elderly babe in arms, and this time she hadn’t failed—in fact she’d made a success of her current job.

That empowering thought gave her the confidence to stand up from the table and address the brute sitting opposite. ‘I insist Miguel rests for an hour in the afternoon. Thank you for dropping by. I’ll see you out.’

The older man’s low, delighted chuckle had brought a dark, angry flush to his nephew’s fiercely handsome features, Izzy noted with immense satisfaction as he got to his feet, towering over her. Neatly sidestepping him, she led the way down the dingy staircase and through a narrow door that led into the tiny cobbled courtyard she longed to brighten with tubs of flowers. But she knew such a luxury was out of the question when money was so obviously tight. Which glaring fact gave her the resolution to turn and face the man as she reached the street door.

My, he was tall! Wishing she had the advantage of a pair of her highest high heels, now stowed away in the bottom of a cupboard in her small bedroom, she tipped back her head to meet his lethally contemptuous black eyes. She absolutely refused to let herself be intimidated by those powerfully muscled shoulders and chest, or wonder why the eye contact took her breath away and sent a frisson of unwelcome physical awareness shooting deep into her pelvis.

‘You obviously believe the worst of everyone,’ she stated, doing her best to get her breathing back on an even keel. ‘But ask yourself this—if I’m a greedy little scrubber, out for all I can get, why would I be wasting my time here with a man who’s as poor as a church mouse? What do you think I’m going to do? Steal his spoons? And, while we’re on the subject, you offered me money to make myself scarce, so you’ve obviously got some to spare. I suggest you use it to give your uncle an allowance—enough to make his existence a little less hand-to-mouth.’

In receipt of his abrupt, tight-lipped, non-verbal departure, Izzy banged the street door shut behind him and jumped up and down, hugging herself. She’d sent him packing with a flea in his ear! She couldn’t remember when she’d last felt so alive!

The arrogant so-and-so had walked in, looking oh-so superior, and tried to make her leave because he believed lies. Naturally his sort would take the word of a wealthy banker over any denial that might come from a mere menial!

But she had refused to go. Just thinking of the utterly ridiculous payment she had demanded made her giggle. And—the icing on the cake—she had lectured him about his neglect of his uncle. With a bit of luck his conscience, if he had one—which was debatable, she conceded—just might move him in the direction of helping the poor old gentleman financially.

She had won the battle!

The fight was well and truly on, Cayo thought grimly as he left the doctor’s office, crossed Calle San Francisco Nueva and headed through the maze of narrow streets back towards Miguel’s humble dwelling. On two fronts.

Izzy Makepeace might think she was clever, pretending she was unaware that Miguel was an extremely wealthy man, but it was common knowledge that the absent-minded scholar was loaded. He had no interest in material comforts or possessions, and lived only for his painstaking work—information that would have been easy to pick up working for Señora del Amo, who was a notorious gossip and claimed to know everyone who was anyone and exactly what they were worth. A wealthy eccentric, a descendant of one of Spain’s oldest and most respected families, would certainly be worth talking about—even boasting, perhaps, of the business connection.

When Isabel Makepeace had failed to establish herself as a wealthy banker’s mistress she would have hung around the Topete area, where Miguel had his home. No believer in coincidence, he knew she must have planned on doing her best to get to meet the man she knew as a better-than-well-heeled elderly bachelor, grasping her opportunity when the poor old guy had collapsed virtually under her nose.

That she fully intended to get her claws into his naïve uncle and not let go had been proved a rock-solid fact when she’d answered his invitation to name her price with that ludicrously greedy demand.

She was after a lifetime of financial security. Make herself indispensable, Miss Sweetness and Light, then wheedle an offer of marriage from the wealthy old man and embark on the sort of high living that would leave his uncle floundering and hurt. He could think of no other reason for a mercenary harpie to work so hard for a pittance—and the evidence of the much improved state of his uncle’s home suggested that she did work hard.

His jaw hardened with steely determination. Tio Miguel could be exasperating, but he loved him. Far too much to stand by and see that scheming, greedy little blond pocket Venus ruin the years remaining to him and make him a laughing stock. He, Cayo Angel Garcia, would not stand by and see that happen.

And the news from Miguel’s doctor had been a wake-up call. The heart murmur of itself wasn’t too serious. But coupled with his neglected physical condition…

Guilt scored a line between winging black brows. True, he had lost count of the times he’d tried to persuade the elderly man to make his home at the castillo, where he could be well looked after. But after continuous polite refusal to take advantage of his nephew’s hospitality or to dismiss Benita, who’d been with him for years, Cayo had backed off, believing that every man had the right to live his life as he felt fit.

A mistake he deeply regretted.

One that wouldn’t be repeated. Liberal tolerance was now a thing of the past where his uncle’s wellbeing was concerned.

‘You work too hard,’ Miguel chided gently, finding Izzy in the kitchen ironing his shirts after rising from his siesta. ‘And, as Cayo pointed out, I pay you far too little.’ He shook his grey head, annoyed with himself. ‘I was unaware. I should think of things outside my narrow field of interest. I apologise. Cayo can be shortsighted and stubborn in some respects, I fear, but in this instance he is right. You must allow me to make amends. Will you tell me how excellent housekeepers should be financially rewarded? And by the same token tell me the modern-day cost of keeping a modest household such as ours running?’

Her soft mouth open, Izzy stared at her employer in shock. Not because he’d actually woken up to the fact that the cost of living had risen in the last twenty or so years, but because his brute of a nephew had actually pointed it out.

If he was so keen to rid his uncle of her contaminating presence, why had he asked what she was earning and given his opinion that it was far too little?

Unless, of course—her smooth brow furrowed—the information gained from his uncle had cemented his distrust of her into rock-hard certainty. He thought she was working for next to nothing because she had some ulterior motive, had something to gain. But what?

‘Well?’ Miguel broke gently into her puzzled train of thought just as Cayo sauntered into the room, giving her no time to assemble her wits and make a reply, or give her old gentleman information that would make him feel really uncomfortable and put him in a spot—because it was obvious that he wouldn’t be able to pay the going rate.

Suddenly the room seemed airless. Cayo’s formidable presence dominated the space with the unmistakable aura of the alpha male—born to lead, to take on all comers without batting an eyelid. For some unknown reason it made her feel decidedly dizzy, and she felt herself flush with some strange emotion she couldn’t put a name to. She turned away to take another shirt from the laundry basket, with the image of the way he looked—six foot plus of prime Spanish manhood, from the commanding width of his shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist, slinky hips and impressively long, elegantly trousered legs—indelibly printed on her retina.

‘I have spoken at length with Dr Menendez, who gave me the results of the tests you underwent, Tio,’ he announced, his tone so authoritative she could have smacked him.

Wandering farther into the room, he absorbed the cosy domestic scene. Miguel in the battered old armchair that had stood just inside the door for as long as he could remember, watching the Angel of Mercy ironing his shirts.

She was working to a different agenda from the one she had employed with Augustin del Amo, for sure. A real Miss Goody-Two-Shoes—caring and competent, catering to an elderly man’s domestic comforts, delectable, with enticing strands of the spun-silver-gilt hair escaping the ribbon arrangement she’d pinned it back with. Her luscious curves were clad in a bog-standard T-shirt and cotton skirt, not overtly flaunting her steamy sexuality as her clothes would have done when she’d attempted to snare a rich banker, because those tactics wouldn’t work with the elderly scholar.

Clever.

But he was smarter. By a cartload he was smarter!

Kill two birds with one stone. First get Tio Miguel to agree to move to the luxurious Castillo de las Palomas, where he could continue his work and be looked after by attentive staff who would cater to his every need. Cayo would suggest he took his housekeeper with him as companion because, judging by what he’d seen and heard, his uncle was already fond of the little tramp. He felt comfortable with her, and in all likelihood would dig his heels in and refuse to go anywhere if it meant his housekeeper was to be cast out on the street.

Then he would seduce Izzy Makepeace away from her intention to get her claws into the older man—no hardship, because the sultry, passionate fullness of her lips belied the wide, childlike innocence of those big blue eyes, and he had never suffered difficulties in that direction. Quite the opposite. The ease with which he seemed to attract simpering females anxious to do anything to please him had bored him since his hormones had run riot in his teens.

He would seduce her, make sure his uncle knew what was happening, and then make sure she was well and truly finished with.

His mouth tightened. He didn’t like it. It felt uncomfortably like cruelty, and he had always prided himself on being straightforward in both personal and business dealings. But if he had to fight dirty he would. For his uncle’s sake, he would.

Swinging round to face them, he stated, ‘In view of what I learned from Menendez, I have a proposition to make.’

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