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The Argentinian's Baby Of Scandal
Sharon Kendrick
‘I’m…pregnant. ’ The consequence of his seduction! Housekeeper Tara Fitzpatrick is always as efficient and professional as possible. Until her billionaire boss, Lucas Conway looks at her with a fiery intensity she just can’t resist. Only now Tara has the mortifying task of flying to New York to tell him—a renowned bachelor whose least favourite word is family—that their electrifying night in his bed had the most scandalous of consequences!
“I’m...pregnant.”
The consequence of his seduction!
Housekeeper Tara Fitzpatrick is always as efficient and professional as possible. Until her billionaire boss, Lucas Conway, looks at her with a fiery intensity she just can’t resist. Only now Tara has the mortifying task of flying to New York to tell him—a renowned bachelor whose least favourite word is family—that their electrifying night in his bed had the most scandalous of consequences!
Follow Cinderella to glamorous New York!
SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition by describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, and her books feature often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…
Also by Sharon Kendrick (#ub481430e-9fb3-5ffd-8191-7b72f2479eba)
Secrets of a Billionaire’s Mistress
The Sheikh’s Bought Wife
The Pregnant Kavakos Bride
The Italian’s Christmas Secret
Di Sione’s Virgin Mistress
Bound to the Sicilian’s Bed
Crowned for the Sheikh’s Baby
The Greek’s Bought Bride
The Italian’s Christmas Housekeeper
The Sheikh’s Secret Baby
The Bond of Billionaires miniseries
Claimed for Makarov’s Baby
The Sheikh’s Christmas Conquest
The Legendary Argentinian Billionaires miniseries
Bought Bride for the Argentinian
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
The Argentinian’s Baby of Scandal
Sharon Kendrick
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08802-2
THE ARGENTINIAN’S BABY OF SCANDAL
© 2019 Sharon Kendrick
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Note to Readers (#ub481430e-9fb3-5ffd-8191-7b72f2479eba)
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This story is for Megan Crane,
with whom I shared an unforgettable trip
to the west of Ireland…
and for Abby Green—the diva of Dublin!
Contents
Cover (#u9c72a4d7-3241-5081-bcf0-9ed73fd37560)
Back Cover Text (#u27abc4be-3147-569d-92f8-cfc70216a23f)
About the Author (#u94aeab28-8720-5d02-900f-6b49a0187b16)
Booklist (#ubde4f793-67a9-5d4d-a825-1c535e76d506)
Title Page (#ub821f236-bfc1-5b09-befb-7a7ecd87edc0)
Copyright (#u8ec8ac89-df6c-5d28-9c9b-890b1daa009c)
Note to Readers
Dedication (#u404705ab-d605-5960-92f1-38e6e2a8d831)
CHAPTER ONE (#ubd2d547b-85f4-5cbb-b261-8f643e817a8a)
CHAPTER TWO (#u0d874c8d-008b-5aca-a191-696b8f4e879e)
CHAPTER THREE (#u643b2096-7710-5962-b1a9-f94fef42ea7c)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ub481430e-9fb3-5ffd-8191-7b72f2479eba)
LUCAS CONWAY SURVEYED the blonde who was standing in front of him and felt nothing, even though her eyes were red-rimmed and her cheeks wet with tears.
He felt a pulse beat at his temple.
Nothing at all.
‘Who let you in?’ he questioned coldly.
‘Y-your housekeeper,’ she said, her mouth working frantically as she tried to contain yet another sob. ‘The one with the messy hair.’
‘She had no right to let anyone in,’ Lucas returned, briefly wondering how the actress could be so spiteful about someone who’d supposedly done her a good turn. But that was women for you—they never lived up to the promise of how they appeared on the outside. They were all teeth and smiles and then, when you looked beneath the surface, they were as shallow as a spill of water. ‘I told her I didn’t want to be disturbed.’ His voice was cool. ‘Not by anyone. I’m sorry, Charlotte, but you’ll have to leave. You should never have come here.’
He rose to his feet, because now he felt something, and it felt like the fury which had been simmering inside him for days. Although maybe fury was the wrong word to use. It didn’t accurately describe the hot clench to his heart when he’d received the letter last week, did it? Nor the unaccustomed feeling of dread which had washed over him as he’d stared down at it. Memories of the past had swum into his mind. He remembered violence and discord. Things he didn’t want to remember. Things he’d schooled himself to forget. But sometimes you were powerless when the past came looking for you...
His mouth was tight as he moved out from behind his desk, easily dwarfing the fair-haired beauty who was staring up at him with beseeching eyes. ‘Come with me. I’ll see you out.’
‘Lucas—’
‘Please, Charlotte,’ he said, trying to inject his voice with the requisite amount of compassion he suspected was called for but failing—for he had no idea how to replicate this kind of emotion. Hadn’t he often been accused of being unable to show any kind of feeling for another person—unless you counted desire, which was only ever temporary? He held back his sigh. ‘Don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.’
Briefly, she closed her swollen eyelids and nodded and he could smell her expensive perfume as he ushered her out of his huge office, which overlooked the choppy waters of Dublin Bay. And when she’d followed him—sniffling—to the front door, she tried one last time.
‘Lucas.’ Her voice trembled. ‘I have to tell you this because it’s important and you need to know it. I know there isn’t anyone else on the scene and I’ve missed you. Missed being with you. What we had was good and I... I love you—’
‘No,’ he answered fiercely, cutting her short before she could humiliate herself any further. ‘You don’t. You can’t. You don’t really know me and if you did, you certainly wouldn’t love me. I’m sorry. I’m not the man for you. So do yourself a favour, Charlotte, and go and find someone who is. Someone who has the capacity to care for you in the way you deserve to be cared for.’
She opened her mouth as if to make one last appeal but maybe she read the futility of such a gesture in his eyes, because she nodded and began to stumble towards her sports car in her spindly and impractical heels. He stood at the door and watched her leave, a gesture which might have been interpreted as one of courtesy but in reality it was to ensure that she really did exit the premises in her zippy little silver car, which shattered the peace as it sped off in a cloud of gravel.
He glanced up at the heavy sky. The weather had been oppressive for days now and the dark and straining clouds were hinting at the storm to come. He wished it would. Maybe it would lighten the oppressive atmosphere, which was making his forehead slick with sweat and his clothes feel as if they were clinging to his body. He closed the door. And then he turned his attention to his growing vexation as he thought about his interfering housekeeper.
His temper mounting, Lucas went downstairs into the basement, to the kitchen—which several high-profile magazines were itching to feature in their lifestyle section—to find Tara Fitzpatrick whipping something furiously in a copper bowl. She looked up as he walked in and a lock of thick red hair fell into her eye, which she instantly blew away with a big upward gust of breath, without pausing in her whipping motion. Why the hell didn’t she get it cut so that it didn’t resemble a birds’ nest? he wondered testily. And why did she insist on wearing that horrible housecoat while she worked? A baggy garment made from some cheap, man-made fibre, which he’d once told her looked like a relic from the nineteen fifties and completely swamped her slender frame.
‘She’s gone, then?’ she questioned, her gaze fixed on his as he walked in.
‘Yes, she’s gone.’ He could feel the flicker of irritation growing inside him again and, suddenly, Tara seemed the ideal candidate to take it out on. ‘Why the hell did you let her in?’
She hesitated, the movement of her whisk stilling. ‘Because she was crying.’
‘Of course she was crying. She’s a spoiled woman who is used to getting her own way and that’s what women like her do when it doesn’t happen.’
She opened her mouth as if she was about to say something and then appeared to change her mind, so that her next comment came out as a mild observation. ‘You were the one who dated her, Lucas.’
‘And it was over,’ he said dangerously. ‘Months ago.’
Again, that hesitation—as if she was trying her hardest to be diplomatic—and Lucas thought, not for the first time, what a fey creature she was with her amber eyes and pale skin and that mass of fiery hair. And her slender body, which always looked as if it could do with a decent meal.
‘Perhaps you didn’t make it plain enough that it was over,’ she suggested cautiously, resting her whisk on the side of the bowl and shaking her wrist, as if it was aching.
‘I couldn’t have been more plain,’ he said. ‘I told her in person, in as kind a way as possible, and said that perhaps one day we could be friends.’
Tara made a clicking noise with her lips and shook her head. ‘That was your big mistake.’
‘My big mistake?’ he echoed dangerously.
‘Sure. Give a woman hope and she’ll cling to it like a chimp swinging from tree to tree. Maybe if you weren’t so devastatingly attractive,’ she added cheerfully, resuming her beating with a ferocity which sent the egg whites slapping against the sides of the bowl, ‘then your exes wouldn’t keep popping up around the place like lost puppy dogs.’
He heard the implicit criticism in his housekeeper’s voice and the tension which had been mounting inside him all week now snapped. ‘And maybe if you knew your place, instead of acting like the mistress of my damned house, then you wouldn’t have let her in in the first place,’ he flared as he stormed across the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee.
Know her place?
Tara stopped beating as her boss’s icy note of censure was replaced by the sound of grinding coffee beans and a lump rose in her throat, because he’d never spoken to her that way before—not in all the time she’d worked for him. Not with that air of impatient condemnation as if she were some troublesome minion who was more trouble than she was worth. As she returned his gaze she swallowed with confusion and, yes, with hurt—and how stupid was that? Had she thought she was safe from his legendary coldness and a tongue which could slice out sharp words like a knife cutting through a courgette? Well, yes. She had. She’d naively imagined that, because she served him meals and ironed his shirts and made sure that his garden was carefully weeded and bright with flowers, he would never treat her with the disdain he seemed to direct at most women. That she had a special kind of place in his heart—when it was clear that Lucas Conway had no heart at all. And wasn’t the fact of the matter that he’d been in a foul mood for this past week and growing snappier by the day? Ever since that official-looking letter had arrived from the United States and he’d disappeared into his office for a long time, before emerging with a haunted look darkening the spectacular verdant gleam of his eyes?
She ran a wooden spoon around the side of the bowl and then gave the mixture another half-hearted beat. She told herself she shouldn’t let his arrogance or bad mood bother her. Maybe that was how you should expect a man to behave when he was as rich as Lucas Conway—as well as being the hottest lover in all of Ireland, if you were to believe the things people whispered about him.
Yet nobody really knew very much about the Dublin-based billionaire, no matter how hard they tried to find out. Even the Internet provided little joy—and Tara knew this for a fact because she’d looked him up herself on her ancient laptop, soon after she’d started working for him. His accent was difficult to figure out, that was for sure. He definitely wasn’t Irish, and there was a faint hint of transatlantic drawl underpinning his sexy voice. He spoke many languages—French, Italian and Spanish as well as English—though, unlike Tara, he knew no Gaelic. He was rumoured to have been a bellhop, working in some fancy Swiss hotel, in the days before he’d arrived in Ireland to make his fortune but Tara had never quite been able to believe this particular rumour. As if someone like Lucas Conway would ever work as a bellhop! He was also reputed to have South American parentage—and with his tousled dark hair and the unusual green eyes which contrasted so vividly with his glowing olive skin, that was one rumour which would seem to be founded in truth.
She studied him as the machine dispensed a cup of his favoured industrial-strength brew of coffee. He’d had more girlfriends than most men had socks lined up in a top drawer of their bedroom, and was known for his exceptionally low boredom threshold. Which might explain why he’d dumped the seemingly perfect Charlotte when she—like so many others before her—had refused to get the message that he had no desire to be married. Yet that hadn’t stopped her sending him a Valentine’s card, had it—or arranging for a case of vintage champagne to be delivered on his birthday? ‘I don’t even particularly like champagne,’ had been his moody aside to Tara as he’d peered into the wooden case, and she remembered thinking how ungrateful he could be.
Yet it wasn’t just women of the sexy and supermodel variety who couldn’t seem to get enough of him. Men liked him, too—and old ladies practically swooned whenever he came into their vicinity. Yet through all the attention he received, Lucas Conway always remained slightly aloof to the adulation which swirled around him. As if he was observing the world with the objectivity of a scientist, and, although nobody would ever have described him as untouchable, he was certainly what you might call unknowable.
But up until now he’d always treated her with respect. As if she mattered. Not as if she were just some skivvy working in his kitchen, with no more than two brain cells to rub together. The lump in her throat got bigger. Someone who didn’t know her place.
Was that how he really saw her?
How others saw her?
She licked lips which had suddenly grown dry. Was that how she saw herself? The misfit from the country. The child who had grown up with the dark cloud of shame hanging over her. Who’d been terrified people were going to find her out, which was why she had fled to the city just as soon as she was able.
She told herself to leave it. To just nod politely and Lucas would vacate the kitchen and it would all be forgotten by the time she produced the feather-light cheese soufflé she was planning to serve for his dinner, because he wasn’t going out tonight. But for some reason she couldn’t leave it. Something was nagging away at her and she didn’t know what it was. Was it the strange atmosphere which had descended on the house ever since that letter had arrived for him, and she’d heard the sound of muffled swearing coming from his office? Or was it something to do with this weird weather they’d been having, which was making the air seem as heavy as lead? Her heart missed a beat, because maybe it was a lot more basic than that. Maybe it all stemmed from having seen someone from home walking down Grafton Street yesterday, when she’d been window-shopping on her afternoon off.
Tara had nearly jumped out of her skin when she’d spotted her—and she was easy to spot. At school, Mona O’Sullivan had always been destined for great things and her high-heeled shoes and leather trench coat had borne out her teacher’s gushing prophesy as she’d sashayed down Dublin’s main street looking as if she didn’t have a care in the world. A diamond ring had glittered like a giant trophy on her engagement finger and her hair had been perfectly coiffed.
Tara had ducked into a shop doorway, terrified Mona would see her and stop, before asking those probing questions which always used to make her blush to the roots of her hair and wish the ground would open up and swallow her. Questions which reminded Tara why she was so ashamed of the past she’d tried so desperately to forget. But you could never forget the past, not really. It haunted you like a spectre—always ready to jump out at you when you were least expecting it. It waited for you in the sometimes sleepless hours of the night and it lurked behind the supposedly innocent questions people put to you, which were anything but innocent. Was that why she had settled for this safe, well-paid job tucked away on the affluent edge of the city, where nobody knew her?
She wondered if her gratitude for having found such a cushy job had blinded her to the fact that she was now working for a man who seemed to think he had the right to talk to her as if she were nothing, just because he was in a filthy mood.
She stilled her spoon and crashed the copper bowl down on the table, aware that already the air would be leaving those carefully beaten egg whites—but suddenly she didn’t care. Perhaps she’d been in danger of caring a bit too much what Lucas Conway had for his supper, instead of looking after herself. ‘Then maybe you should find yourself someone who does know their place,’ she declared.
Lucas turned round from the coffee machine with a slightly bemused look on his face. ‘I’m sorry?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s too late for an apology, Lucas.’
‘I wasn’t apologising,’ he ground out. ‘I was trying to work out what the hell you’re talking about.’
Now he was making her sound as if she were incapable of stringing a coherent sentence together! ‘I’m talking about knowing my place,’ Tara repeated, with an indignation which felt new and peculiar but oddly...liberating. ‘I was trying to be kind to Charlotte because she was crying, and because I’ve actually spent several months of my life trying to wash her lipstick out of your pillowcases—so it wasn’t like she was a complete stranger to me. And I once found one of her diamond studs when it was wedged into the floorboards of the dining room and she bought me a nice big bunch of flowers as a thank-you present. So what was I expected to do when she turned up today with mascara running all down her cheeks?’ She glared at him. ‘Turn her away?’
‘Tara—’
‘Do you think she was in any fit state to drive in that condition—with her eyes full of tears and her shoulders heaving?’
‘Tara. I seem to have missed something along the way.’ Lucas put his untouched coffee cup down on the table with as close an expression to incomprehension as she’d ever seen on those ruggedly handsome features. ‘What’s got into you all of a sudden?’
Tara still didn’t know. Was it something to do with the dismissive way her boss’s gaze had flicked over her admittedly disobedient hair when he’d walked into the kitchen? As if she were not a woman at all, but some odd-looking robot designed to cook and clean for him. She wondered if he would have looked like that if Mona O’Sullivan had been standing there whipping him up a cheese soufflé, with her high heels and her luscious curves accentuated by a tight belt.
But you dress like a frump deliberately, a small voice in her head reminded her. You always have done. You were taught that the safest way to be around men was to make yourself look invisible and you heeded that lesson well. So what do you expect?
And suddenly she saw exactly what she might expect. More of the same for the countless days which lay ahead of her. More of working her fingers to the bone for a man who didn’t really appreciate her—and that maybe it was time to break out and reach for something new. To find herself a job in a big, noisy house with lots of children running around—wouldn’t that be something which might fulfil her?
‘I’ve decided I need a change of direction,’ she said firmly.
‘What are you talking about?’
Tara hesitated. Lucas Conway might be the biggest pain in the world at times, but surely he would give her a glowing reference as she’d worked for him since she’d been eighteen years old—when she’d arrived in the big city, slightly daunted by all the traffic, and the noise. ‘A new job,’ she elaborated.
He narrowed his stunning eyes—eyes as green as the valleys of Connemara. ‘A new job?’
‘That’s right,’ she agreed, thinking how satisfying it was to see the normally unflappable billionaire looking so perplexed. ‘I’ve worked for you for almost six years, Lucas,’ she informed him coolly. ‘Surely you don’t expect me to still be cooking and cleaning for you when you reach retirement age?’
From the deepening of his frown, he was clearly having difficulty getting his head around the idea of retirement and, indeed, Tara herself couldn’t really imagine this very vital man ever stopping work for long enough to wind down.
‘I shouldn’t have spoken to you so rudely,’ he said slowly. ‘And that is an apology.’
‘No, you shouldn’t,’ she agreed. ‘But maybe you’ve done me a favour. It’s about time I started looking for a new job.’
He shook his head and gave a bland but determined smile. ‘You can’t do that.’
Tara stilled. It was a long time since anyone had said those words to her, but it was the refrain which had defined her childhood.
You can’t do that, Tara.
You mustn’t do that, Tara.
She had been the scapegoat—carrying the can for the sins of her mother and of her grandmother before her. She had been expected to nod and keep her head down, never to make waves. To be obedient and hard-working and do as she was told. To stay away from boys because they only brought trouble with them.
And she’d learned her lessons well. She’d never been in a relationship. There hadn’t been anyone to speak of since she’d arrived in Dublin and had gone on a few disastrous dates, encouraged by her friend Stella. She tried her best to forget the couple of encounters she’d shared with one of the farm hands back home, just before she’d left for the big city and landed the first job she’d been interviewed for. The agency had warned her that Lucas Conway was notoriously difficult to work for and she probably wouldn’t last longer than the month but somehow she had proved them wrong. She earned more money than she’d ever imagined just by keeping his house clean, his shirts ironed and by putting a hot meal in front of him, when he wasn’t gallivanting around the globe. It wasn’t exactly brain surgery, was it?
On that first morning she had slipped on her polyester housecoat and, apart from a foreign holiday every year, that was where she’d been ever since, in his beautiful home in Dalkey. She frowned. Why did Lucas even own a place this big when he lived in it all on his own, save for her, carefully hidden away at the top of the vast house like someone in a Gothic novel? It wasn’t as if he were showing any signs of settling down, was it? Why, she’d even seen him recoil in horror when his friend Finn Delaney had turned up one day with his wife Catherine and their brand-new baby.
‘You can’t stop me from leaving, Lucas,’ she said, with a touch of defiance. ‘I’ll work my month’s notice and you can find someone else. That won’t be a problem—people will be queuing up around the block for a job like this. You know they will.’
Lucas looked at her and told himself to just let her go, because she was right. There had been dozens of applicants for the job last time he’d advertised and nothing much had changed in the years since Tara had been working for him, except that his bank balance had become even more inflated and he could easily afford to hire a whole battalion of staff, should the need arise.
But the young redhead from the country did more than just act as his housekeeper—sometimes it felt as if she kept his whole life ticking over. She didn’t mind hard work and once he had asked her why she sometimes got down on her hands and knees to scrub the kitchen floor, when there was a perfectly serviceable mop to be had.
‘Because a mop won’t reach in the nooks and crannies,’ she’d answered, looking at him as if he should have known something as basic as that.
He frowned. She wasn’t just good at her job, she was also reliable, and no laundry could ever press a shirt as well as Tara Fitzpatrick did. It was true that sometimes she chattered too much—but on the plus side, she didn’t go out as often as other young women her age so she was always available when he needed her. If he asked her to cook when he had people over for dinner she happily obliged—and her culinary repertoire had greatly improved since he’d arranged for her to go on an upmarket cookery course, after pointing out there were other things you could eat, rather than meat pie. As far as he knew, she never gossiped about him and that was like gold to him.
He didn’t want her to leave.
Especially not now.
He felt the pound of his heart.
Not when he needed to go to the States to deal with the past, having been contacted by a lawyer hinting at something unusual, which had inexplicably filled him with dread. A trip he knew couldn’t be avoided, no matter how much he would have preferred to. But the attorney’s letter had been insistent. He swallowed. He hadn’t been back to New York for years and that had been a deliberate choice. It was too full of memories. Bitter memories. And why confront stuff which made you feel uncomfortable, when avoidance was relatively simple?
Lucas allowed his gaze to skim down over the old-fashioned denim jeans Tara wore beneath her housecoat. Baggy and slightly too short, they looked as if they’d be more appropriate for working on a farm. No wonder she’d never brought a man back in all the time she worked for him when injecting a little glamour into her appearance seemed to be an unknown concept to her. And wasn’t that another reason why he regarded her as the personification of rock-like reliability? She wasn’t surreptitiously texting when she should have been working, was she? Nor gazing into space vacantly, mooning over some heartbreaker who’d recently let her down. Despite her slender build, she was strong and fit and he couldn’t contemplate the thought of trying to find a replacement for her, not when he was focussed on that damned letter.
He wondered how much money it would take to get her to change her mind, and then frowned. Because in that way Tara seemed different from every other woman he’d ever had dealings with. She didn’t openly lust after expensive clothes or belongings—not if her appearance was anything to go by. She wore no jewellery at all and, as far as he knew, she must be saving most of the salary he paid her, since he’d seen no signs of conspicuous spending—unless you counted the second-hand bicycle she’d purchased within a fortnight of coming to live here. The one with the very loud and irritating bell.
Lucas wasn’t particularly interested in human nature but that didn’t mean he couldn’t recognise certain aspects of it, and it seemed to him that a woman who wasn’t particularly interested in money would be unlikely to allow a salary increase to change her mind.
And then he had an idea. An idea so audacious and yet so brilliant that he couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to him before. Sensing triumph, he felt the flicker of a smile curving the edges of his mouth.
‘Before you decide definitely to leave, Tara,’ he said, ‘why don’t we discuss a couple of alternative plans for your future?’
‘What are you talking about?’ she questioned suspiciously. ‘What sort of plans?’
His smile was slow and, deliberately, he made it reach his eyes. It was the smile he used when he was determined to get something and it was rare enough to stop people in their tracks. Women sometimes called it his killer smile. ‘Not here and not now—not when you’re working,’ he said—a wave of his hand indicating the rows of copper pans which she kept so carefully gleaming. ‘Why don’t we have dinner together tonight so we can talk about it in comfort?’
‘Dinner?’ she echoed, with the same kind of horrified uncertainty she might have used if he’d suggested they both dance naked in Phoenix Park. ‘You’re saying you want to have dinner with me?’
It wasn’t exactly the way he would have expressed it—but want and need were pretty interchangeable, weren’t they? Especially to a man like him. ‘Why not?’ he questioned softly. ‘You have to eat and so do I.’
Her gaze fell to the collapsing mixture in her bowl. ‘But I’m supposed to be making a cheese soufflé.’
‘Forget the soufflé,’ he gritted out. ‘We’ll go to a restaurant. Your choice,’ he added magnanimously, for he doubted she would ever have set foot inside one of Dublin’s finer establishments. ‘Why don’t you book somewhere for, say, seven-thirty?’
She was still blinking at him with disbelief, her pale lashes shuttering those strange amber eyes, until at last she nodded with a reluctance which somehow managed to be mildly insulting. Since when did someone take so long to deliberate about having dinner with him?
‘Okay,’ she said cautiously, with the air of someone feeling her way around in the dark. ‘I don’t see why not.’
CHAPTER TWO (#ub481430e-9fb3-5ffd-8191-7b72f2479eba)
THE AIR DOWN by the River Liffey offered no cooling respite against the muggy oppression of the evening and Lucas scowled as they walked along the quayside, unable to quite believe where he was. When he’d told Tara to choose a restaurant, he’d imagined she would immediately plump for one of Dublin’s many fine eating establishments. He’d envisaged drawing up outside a discreetly lit building in one of the city’s fancier streets with doormen springing to attention, instead of heading towards a distinctly edgy building which stood beside the dark gleam of the water.
‘What is this place?’ he demanded as at last they stopped beneath a red and white sign and she lifted her hand to open the door.
‘It’s a restaurant. A Polish restaurant,’ she supplied, adding defensively, ‘You told me to choose somewhere and so I did.’
He wanted to ask why but by then she had pushed the door open and a tinny bell was announcing their arrival. The place was surprisingly full of mainly young diners and an apple-cheeked woman in a white apron squealed her excitement before approaching and flinging her arms around Tara as if she were her long-lost daughter. A couple of interminable minutes followed, during which Lucas heard Tara hiss, ‘My boss...’ which was when the man behind the bar stopped pouring some frothy golden beer to pierce him with a suspicious look which was almost challenging.
Lucas felt like going straight back out the way he had come in but he was hungry and they were being shown to a table which was like a throwback to the last century—with its red and white checked tablecloth and a dripping candle jammed into the neck of an empty wine bottle. He waited until they were seated before he leaned across the table, his voice low.
‘Would you mind telling me why you chose to come and eat here out of all places in Dublin?’ he bit out.
‘Because Maria and her husband were very kind to me when I first came to the city and didn’t know many people. And I happen to like it here—there’s life and bustle and colour on the banks of the river. Plus it’s cheap.’
‘But I’m paying, Tara,’ he objected softly. ‘And budget isn’t an option. You know that.’
Tara pursed her lips and didn’t pass comment even though she wanted to suggest that maybe budget should be an option. That it might do the crazily rich Lucas Conway good to have to eat in restaurants which didn’t involve remortgaging your house in order to pay the bill—that was if you were lucky enough to actually have a mortgage, which, naturally, she didn’t. She felt like telling him she’d been terrified of choosing the kind of place she knew he usually frequented because she simply didn’t have the kind of wardrobe—or the confidence—which would have fitted into such an upmarket venue. But instead she just pursed her lips together and smiled as she hung her handbag over the back of her chair, still pinching herself to think she was here.
With him.
Her boss.
Her boss who had turned the head of everyone in the restaurant the moment he’d walked in, with his striking good looks and a powerful aura which spoke of wealth and privilege.
She shook her hair, which she’d left loose, and realised that for once he was staring at her as if she were a real person, rather than just part of the fixtures and fittings. And how ironic it should be that this state of affairs had only come about because she’d told him she was leaving, which had led to him bizarrely inviting her to dinner. Did he find it as strange as she did for them to be together in a restaurant like this? she wondered. Just as she wondered if he would be as shocked as she was to discover that, for once. she was far from immune to his physical appeal.
So why was that? Why—after nearly six years of working for him when her most common reaction towards him had been one of exasperation—should she suddenly start displaying all the signs of being attracted to him? Because she prided herself on not being like all those other women who stared at him lustfully whenever he swam into view. It might have had something to do with the fact that he had very few secrets from her. She did his laundry. She even ironed his underpants and she’d always done it with an unfeigned impartiality. At home it had been easy to stick him in the categories marked ‘boss’ and ‘off-limits’, because arrogant billionaires were way above her pay grade, but tonight he seemed like neither of these things. He seemed deliciously and dangerously accessible. Was it because they were sitting facing each other across a small table, which meant she was noticing things about him which didn’t normally register on her radar?
Like his body, for example. Had she ever properly registered just how broad his shoulders were? She didn’t think so. Just as the sight of two buttons undone on his denim shirt didn’t normally have the power to bring her out in a rash of goosebumps. She swallowed. In the candlelight, his olive skin was glowing like dark gold and casting entrancing shadows over his high cheekbones and ruggedly handsome face. She could feel her throat growing dry and her breasts tightening and wondered what had possessed her to agree to have dinner with him tonight, almost as if the two of them were on a date.
Because he had been determined to have a meal with her and he was a difficult man to shift once he’d set his mind on something.
She guessed his agenda would be to offer her a big salary increase in an attempt to get her to stay. He probably thought she’d spoken rashly when she’d told him she was leaving, which to some extent was true. But while she’d been getting ready—in a recently purchased and discounted dress, which was a lovely pale blue colour, even if it was a bit big on the bust—she’d decided she wasn’t going to let him change her mind. And that his patronising attitude towards her had been the jolt she needed to shake her out of her comfort zone. She needed to leave Lucas Conway’s employment and do something different with her life. To get out of the rut in which she found herself, even though it was a very comfortable rut. She couldn’t keep letting the past define her—making her too scared to do anything else. Because otherwise wouldn’t she run the risk of getting to the end of her days, only to realise she hadn’t lived at all? That she’d just followed a predictable path of service and duty?
‘What would you like to drink?’ she questioned. ‘They do a very good vodka here.’
‘Vodka?’ he echoed.
‘Why not? It’s a tradition. I only ever have one glass before dinner and then I switch to water. And it’s not as if you’re driving, is it?’ Not with his driver sitting in a nearby parking lot in that vast and shiny limousine, waiting for the signal that the billionaire was ready to leave.
‘Okay, Tara, you’ve sold it to me,’ he answered tonelessly. ‘Vodka it is.’
Two doll-sized glasses filled with clear liquor were placed on the tablecloth in front of them and Tara raised hers to his—watching the tiny vessel gleam in the candlelight before lifting it to her lips. ‘Na zdrowie!’ she declared before tossing it back in one and Lucas gave a faint smile before drinking his own.
‘What do you think?’ she questioned, her eyes bright.
‘I think one is quite enough,’ he said. ‘And since you seem to know so much about Polish customs, why don’t you choose some food for us both?’
‘Really?’ she questioned.
‘Really,’ he agreed drily.
Lucas watched as she scrolled through the menu. She seemed to be enjoying showing off her knowledge and he recognised it was in his best interests to keep her mood elevated. He wanted her as compliant as possible and so he ate a livid-coloured beetroot soup, which was surprisingly good, and it wasn’t until they were halfway through the main course that he put his fork down.
‘Do you like it?’ she questioned anxiously.
He gave a shrug. ‘It’s interesting. I’ve never eaten stuffed cabbage leaves before.’
‘No, I suppose you wouldn’t have done.’ In the flickering light from the candle, her freckle-brushed face grew thoughtful. ‘It’s peasant food, really. And I suppose you’ve only ever had the best.’
The best? Lucas only just managed to bite back a bitter laugh as he stared into her amber eyes. It was funny the assumptions people made. He’d certainly tried most of the fanciest foods the world had to offer—white pearl caviar from the Caspian Sea and matsutake mushrooms from Japan. He’d eaten highly prized duck in one of Paris’s most famous restaurants and been offered rare and costly moose cheese on one of his business trips to Sweden. Even at his expensive boarding school, the food had been good—he guessed when people were paying those kinds of fees, it didn’t dare be anything but good. But the best meals he’d ever eaten had been home-made and cooked by Tara, he realised suddenly.
Which was why he was here, he reminded himself.
The only reason he was here.
So why were his thoughts full of other stuff? Dangerous stuff, which made him glad he’d only had a single vodka?
He stared at her. Unusually, she’d left her hair loose so that it flowed down over her narrow shoulders and the candlelight had transformed the wild curls into bright spirals of orange flame. Tonight she seemed to have a particularly fragile air of femininity about her, which he’d never noticed before. Was that something to do with the fact that for once she was wearing a dress, instead of her habitual jeans or leggings? Not a particularly flattering dress, it was true—but a dress all the same. Pale blue and very simple, it suited her naturally slim figure, though it could have done with being a little more fitted. But the scooped neck showed a faint golden dusting of freckles on her skin and drew his attention to the neatness of her small breasts and, inexplicably, he found himself wondering what kind of nipples she had. Tiny beads of sweat prickled on his brow and, not for the first time, he wished that the impending storm would break. Or that this damned restaurant would run to a little air conditioning. With an effort he dragged his attention back to the matter in hand, gulping down some water to ease the sudden dryness in his throat.
‘The thing is,’ he said slowly, putting his glass down and leaning back in his seat, ‘that I don’t want you to leave.’
‘I appreciate that and it’s very nice of you to say so, but—’
‘No, wait.’ He cut through her words with customary impatience. ‘Before you start objecting, why don’t you at least listen to what I’m offering you first?’
She trailed her fork through a small mound of rice on her plate so it created a narrow valley, before looking up at him, a frown creasing her brow. ‘You can’t just throw more money at the problem and hope that it’ll go away.’
‘So we have a problem, do we, Tara?’
‘I shouldn’t have said that. It’s nothing to do with you, not really. It’s me.’ She hesitated. ‘I need a change, that’s all.’
‘And a change is exactly what I’m offering you.’
Her amber eyes became shuttered with suspicion. ‘What do you mean?’
He took another sip of water. ‘What if I told you that I’m going to be leaving Dublin for a while, because I have to go to the States?’
‘You mean on business?’
‘Partly,’ he answered obliquely. ‘I’m thinking of investing in some property there. I need to spread my money around—at least, that’s what my financial advisors are telling me.’
‘This wouldn’t have anything to do with that letter, would it?’ she questioned curiously.
He grew still. ‘What letter?’
‘The one...’ The words came out in a rush, as if she’d been waiting for a chance to say them. ‘The one which arrived from America last week.’
Lucas wondered if she’d noticed his reaction at the time. If she’d seen the shock which had blindsided him. It suddenly occurred to him how much of his life she must have witnessed over the years—a silent observer of all the things which had happened to him. And wasn’t that another reason for keeping her onside? Bringing another stranger into his home would involve getting to know a new person and having to learn to trust them and that was something to be avoided, because he didn’t give his trust easily. His mouth hardened and his jaw firmed. And it wasn’t going to happen. No way. Not when there was a much simpler solution.
‘I’m planning a minimum six-month stay and I’m thinking of renting an apartment because the idea of spending that long living in a hotel isn’t what you’d call appealing.’ He slanted her his rare, slow smile. ‘And that’s where you come in, Tara.’
‘Where?’ she questioned blankly.
‘I want you to come to New York with me.’ He paused. ‘Be my housekeeper there and I’ll increase your salary—’
‘You pay me very generously at the moment.’
He shook his head with a trace of impatience. Who in their right mind ever pointed out that kind of thing to their employer? ‘The cost of living is higher there,’ he said. ‘And this will give you the opportunity to try living in a brand-new city. This could be a win-win situation for both of us, Tara.’
He thought she might show excitement and more than a little gratitude, not a look of sudden suspicion, which hooded her eyes. Inexplicably, he found his gaze drawn to the delicate bowed outline of her lips, which he’d never really noticed before. Well, of course he hadn’t. He’d never been this close to her before, had he? Close enough to detect her faint scent, which was like no other perfume he’d ever encountered. Nor realised that her clear skin was porcelain-pale apart from those few freckles which dusted the upturn of her nose. He shook his head, perplexed by the observation and by the inexplicable rise of heat in his blood.
‘New York,’ she said slowly.
‘You said you wanted a change. Well, what greater change from Dublin town than living in the buzzing metropolis of Manhattan? Didn’t you go on a trip there last Christmas?’
She nodded.
‘And didn’t you have a good time?’
Once again, Tara nodded. She’d saved up and gone with her friend Stella, who was a nanny in nearby Dun Laoghaire, and they’d done the whole New York holiday thing together. A fun-packed snow and shopping trip, marred only by the fact that Tara had fallen over on the ice rink outside the Rockefeller building and grazed both her knees. ‘We had a very good time.’
‘So what’s stopping you from saying yes?’ he probed.
Tara nibbled on the inside of her lip, reminding herself that her plan had been to get away from Lucas—not to sign up for more of the same. She needed to remove herself from the influence of a powerful man who was selfishly pursuing his own interests. He certainly wasn’t thinking about what was best for her at the moment, was he? Only what was best for him.
And yet.
She ran her fingertip over the frosted surface of her water glass. If she looked at it objectively couldn’t this be the best of all possible outcomes? A trip to a glamorous city she was already familiar with, without all the uncertainty of having to fix herself up with a job? Wouldn’t a spell in America provide the inspiration she needed to turn her life around and decide what she wanted to do next?
But still she held back from saying yes because something seemed to have changed between her and Lucas tonight. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on because she had no experience of this sort of thing. Was she imagining the tension which was stoking up between the two of them, like when you threw a handful of kindling on the fire? She certainly wasn’t imagining the heart-racing feeling she was getting whenever she stared into his gorgeous green eyes—not to mention the fact that her body was behaving in a way which wasn’t normal. At least, not normal for her. Her nipples were aching and there was a delicious syrupy feeling deep in the very core of her. She could feel a weird kind of restlessness she’d never experienced before, which was making her want to squirm uncomfortably on the wooden seat, and she was having to concentrate very hard not to keep wondering what it would be like to be kissed by him.
Was it because they were in the falsely intimate setting of a candlelit restaurant, making her wish she’d chosen somewhere brighter? Or because she’d stupidly decided to wear a dress and wash her hair—as if this were a real date or something? And now she was left feeling almost vulnerable—as if she’d lost the protective barrier which surrounded her when she was working at his house and cleaning up after him.
He was still studying her with an impatient question in his eyes, as if he wasn’t used to being kept waiting. Come to think of it—he wasn’t.
‘Well?’ he demanded.
‘Can I have some time to think about it?’ she said.
He looked surprised and Tara guessed that most women wouldn’t have thought twice about accompanying their billionaire boss to a glamorous foreign city with the offer of a pay-rise.
‘How long do you want?’ he demanded.
Tara chewed on her lip. Should she ask her friend Stella’s advice? She certainly didn’t have anyone else to ask. She’d been so young when her mother died that she hardly remembered her and her grandmother had passed away just before she’d come to work for Lucas. ‘A few days?’ she suggested and gave a little shrug. ‘Maybe you’ll change your mind in the meantime?’
‘If you continue to prevaricate like this, then maybe I will,’ he retorted, not bothering to hide his displeasure. ‘Let’s just get the bill and go, shall we?’
‘Okay.’ She rose to her feet. ‘But I need to use the washroom first.’
Still unable to believe she wasn’t grabbing at his job offer with eager hands, Lucas watched as she walked through the restaurant, his gaze mesmerised by the curve of her calves, which led down to the slenderest ankles he’d ever seen. Suddenly he could understand why men living in the Victorian age had found them highly arousing.
He told himself to look away but somehow he couldn’t. Somehow Tara Fitzpatrick’s back view seemed to be the most beautiful thing he’d looked at in a long time, with those red curls spilling wildly over her shoulders. Her dress was slightly creased from where she’d been sitting but it was brushing against a bottom firmed by hard work and regular cycling—a realisation which was rewarded by an unwanted hardening at his groin. What the hell was happening to him? he wondered irritably. Was it simple physical frustration? Had Charlotte’s unexpected appearance at his house this afternoon reminded him just how long it had been since he’d had sex? He remembered their split, when he’d grown bored with her and bored with bedding her. Because despite the actress’s undeniable beauty and sexual experience, hadn’t making love to her sometimes felt as if he were making love to a mannequin? And there hadn’t been anyone since, had there? Not even a flicker of interest had stirred in his blood, despite the many come-ons which regularly came his way.
With an impatient shake of his head, he glanced at his cell-phone to see what the markets were doing, but for once his attention was stubbornly refusing to focus and when he looked up, Tara was back. She must have attempted to brush the fiery curls into some kind of submission, because they looked half-tamed. Her eyes were bright and her air of youthful vitality made his heart clench with something he didn’t recognise. Was it cynicism? He shook his head, confused now and slightly resentful because he’d come out tonight thinking this was going to be a straightforward exercise and it was turning into anything but.
‘The bill, Tara,’ he said impatiently. ‘Have you asked for it?’
‘I’ve done more than that.’ She gave a wide smile. ‘I’ve paid it.’
‘You’ve paid it?’ he repeated slowly.
‘It’s very reasonably priced in here,’ she said. ‘And it’s the least I can do, since we came here in your car.’
As he followed her out of the restaurant—after a farewell even more ecstatic than their greeting—Lucas found himself trying to remember the last time a woman had offered to pay for a meal. Not recently, that was for sure. Not since those days when he’d had nothing and heiresses had sniffed around him like dogs surrounding a piece of fresh meat. When he’d been forced to leave his fancy school because there had been no money—or so he’d been told. But pride had made him refuse to accept the charity of women who had been hungry for his virile body. He’d fed himself. Sometimes he’d eaten the food left lying around after a meal in the directors’ dining room. And sometimes he just used to go without. Tara had been wrong when she’d suggested he’d never eaten peasant food, he thought, the harsh reminder of those days making his jaw clench as his car purred smoothly down the quayside towards them.
But when he joined her on the back seat the bitter memories were dissolved by a rush of something far more potent. Lucas felt a beat of promise and of heady desire. Flaring his nostrils, he inhaled her subtle scent, which was more like soap than perfume. Half turning his head, he saw the brightness of her hair and suddenly he wanted to tangle his fingers in it. One slender thigh was placed tantalisingly close to his—a gesture he suspected was completely lacking in provocation—yet right now it seemed the sexiest thing he’d ever encountered. He swallowed as desire beat through him like an insistent flame and if it had been anyone else he might have reached out and caressed her. Touched her leg until she was squirming with pleasure and widening her thighs and whispering for him to touch her some more.
But this was Tara and he couldn’t do that because she worked for him. She worked for him. She made his bed and cooked his meals. Ironed his shirts and kept his garden bright. She was an employee he wanted to accompany him to America. She wasn’t a prospective lover—not by any stretch of the imagination. He stared straight ahead, attempting to compose himself as the traffic lights turned red.
Her heart pounding and her shoulders tense, Tara told herself to stop feeling so nervous as the powerful car purred through the city streets because none of this was a big deal. She’d just had dinner with her boss—that was all—and he’d just offered her a job in America, which was a massive compliment, wasn’t it? She’d never been in his chauffeur-driven car before either, and travelling home in such luxury should have been a real treat. Yet she was finding it difficult to appreciate the soft leather or incredibly smooth suspension as they travelled through Dublin. All she could think about was how different Lucas seemed tonight and how her reaction towards him seemed to have undergone a dangerous and fundamental shift. From being a demanding employer, he seemed to have morphed into a man she was having difficulty tearing her eyes away from. For the first time ever, she could understand why he inspired such a devoted following among women. Suddenly, she got why someone as beautiful as Charlotte would be prepared to humiliate herself in order to wheedle herself a way back into his life.
And I don’t want to feel this way, she thought. I want to go back to the way it was before, when I tolerated him more than idolised him and was often infuriated by him.
The car pulled into the driveway of his Dalkey house but instead of being relieved that the journey was over, all Tara could feel was a peculiar sense of disappointment. Blindly, she reached for the door handle, her usually dextrous fingers flailing miserably as she failed to locate it in the semi-darkness.
‘Here,’ said Lucas, sounding suddenly amused as he leaned across her to click a button. ‘Let me.’
Of course. The door slid noiselessly open because it was an electronic door and didn’t actually have a handle! What a stupid country girl she must seem. But Tara’s embarrassment at her lack of savvy was exacerbated by a heart-stopping awareness as Lucas’s arm brushed against hers. She swallowed. He’d touched her. He’d actually touched her. He might not have meant to but his fingers had made contact and where they had it felt like fire flickering against her skin.
Scrambling out of the car into an atmosphere even stickier than earlier, she cast a longing look towards the heavy sky, wishing it would rain and shatter this strange tension which seemed to be building inside her, as well as in the atmosphere. She scrabbled around in her handbag to fish out her key but her fingers were trembling as she heard a footfall behind her and Lucas’s shadow loomed over her as she inserted it tremblingly into the lock.
‘You’re shaking, Tara,’ he observed as she opened the door and stepped into the house.
‘It’s a cold night,’ she said automatically, even though that wasn’t true. But he didn’t correct her with a caustic comment as he might normally have done.
And the strange thing was that neither of them moved to put on the main light once the heavy front door had swung shut behind them, and the gloom of the vast hallway seemed to increase the sense of unreality which had been building between them all evening.
There was something in the air. Something indefinable. Tara felt acutely aware of just how close Lucas was. His eyes were dark and gleaming as he stared down at her and she held her breath as, for one heart-stopping moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. She felt as if he was going to pull her into his arms and crush his lips down on hers.
But he didn’t.
Of course he didn’t.
Had she taken complete leave of her senses? He simply clicked the switch so that they were flooded with a golden light, which felt like a torch being shone straight into her eyes, and the atmosphere shattered as dramatically as a bubble being burst. A hard smile was playing at the edges of his lips and he nodded, as if her reaction was very familiar to him.
‘Goodnight, Tara,’ he said in an odd kind of voice. And as he turned away from her, she could hear the distant rumble of thunder.
CHAPTER THREE (#ub481430e-9fb3-5ffd-8191-7b72f2479eba)
THE NEXT FEW days were an agony of indecision as Tara tried to make up her mind whether or not to accept Lucas’s job offer. She tried drawing up a list of pros and cons—which came up firmly weighted in favour of an unexpected trip to America with her boss. Next she canvassed her friend Stella, who told her she’d be mad not to jump at the chance of joining Lucas in New York.
‘Why wouldn’t you go?’ Stella demanded as she folded up one of the tiny smocked dresses belonging to the twin baby girls she nannied for. ‘You loved New York when we went last Christmas. Apart from the ice-rink incident, of course,’ she added hastily. ‘And that man really should have been looking where he was going. It’s a no-brainer as far as I can see, so why the hesitation?’
Tara didn’t answer. She thought how lame it would sound if she confessed that something felt different between her and Lucas and that something unspoken and sexual seemed to have flowered between them that night. Or would it simply seem deluded and possibly arrogant to imply that Dublin’s sexiest billionaire might be interested in someone like her?
But something had changed. She wasn’t imagining it. The new awkwardness between them. The shadowed look around his eyes when she’d brought in his breakfast the morning after that crazy dinner, which had made her wonder if his night had been as sleepless as hers. The flickering glance he’d given her when she’d put the coffee pot down with trembling fingers before he’d announced that he was flying to Berlin later that morning and would be back in a couple of days—and could she possibly give him her answer about accompanying him to America by then?
‘Yes, of course,’ she’d answered stiffly, wondering why she was dragging her feet so much when she knew what she ought to say. She practised saying it over and over in her head.
It’s a very kind offer, Lucas—but I’m going to have to say no.
Why?
Because... Because I’ve fallen in lust with you.
How ridiculous would that sound, even if it weren’t coming from someone who could measure her sexual experience on the little finger of one hand?
But it was easier to shelve the decision and even easier when he wasn’t around So Tara just carried on working and when she wasn’t working, she did the kind of things she always did when Lucas was away. She swam in his basement pool and began to tidy up the garden for winter. She made cupcakes for a local charity coffee morning and went to Phoenix Park with Stella and her young charges. She listened to Lucas’s voicemail telling her he’d be late back on Thursday night and not to bother making dinner for him.
And still the wretched weather wouldn’t break. It was so heavy and sticky that you felt you couldn’t breathe properly. As if it was pressing against your throat like an invisible pair of hands. Sweat kept trickling down the back of her neck and despite piling her rampant curls on top of her head, nothing she did seemed to make her cool.
On Thursday evening she washed her hair and went to bed, listening out for the sound of Lucas’s chauffeur, who had gone to collect him from the airport. It wasn’t even that late, but several days of accumulated sleeplessness demanded respite and Tara immediately fell into a deep sleep, from which she was woken by a sudden loud crack, followed by a booming bang. Sitting bolt upright in bed, she tried to orientate herself, before the monochrome firework display taking place outside her bedroom window began to make sense. Of course. It was the storm. The long-awaited storm which had been building for days. Thank heavens. At least now the atmosphere might get a bit lighter.
Another flash of lightning illuminated her bedroom so that it looked like an old-fashioned horror film and almost immediately a clap of thunder echoed through the big house. The storm must be right overhead, she thought, just as heavy rain began to teem down outside the window. It sounded loud and rhythmical and oddly soothing and Tara sank back down onto the pillows and lay there with her eyes wide open, when she heard another crash. But this time it didn’t sound like thunder. Her body tensed. This time it sounded distinctly like the sound of breaking glass.
Quickly, she got out of bed, her heart pounding and her bare toes gripping the floorboards. What if it was a burglar? This was a big house in a wealthy area and didn’t they say thieves always chose opportunistic moments to break in? What better time than amid the dramatic chaos of a wild thunderstorm?
Pulling on her dressing gown, she knotted the belt tightly around her waist and wondered if she should go and wake Lucas. Of course she should—if he was back. Yet she was dreading knocking on his bedroom door in a way she would never have done before she’d agreed to have dinner with him. Back then—in that unenlightened and innocent time before she’d started to fantasise about him—she wouldn’t have been in an angsty state of excitement, wondering what she’d find. She knew he didn’t wear pyjamas because she did his laundry for him. And that was the trouble. She knew so much about him and yet not nearly enough.
Quietly, she pushed open her bedroom door and crept along the corridor, her head buzzing. At least she’d made up her mind about how to deal with his job offer—because no way could she join Lucas in America now, not if she was harbouring stupid ideas about what it would be like to...to...
She cocked her head and listened. Was that the creak of a footstep on the stairwell she could hear, or just the normal sounds of the big house settling down for the night? It was difficult to tell above the sound of the drumming rain. Peering over the bannister, she could see light streaming from Lucas’s room on the floor below and she crept downstairs towards it.
She had just reached his door when a figure appeared at the top of the stairs and Tara nearly jumped out of her skin when she realised that Lucas was standing there wearing nothing but a pair of faded denims, which he had clearly just slung on, because the top button was undone. And his chest was bare. Gloriously and deliciously bare—his washboard abs as beautifully defined as the powerful curves of his forearms. Tara felt the sudden flip of her heart and was furious with herself—because wasn’t it shocking to be noticing something like that at a time like this? She was supposed to be investigating a night-time disturbance, not eying up her half-naked boss like some kind of man-hungry desperado.
‘Lucas!’ she breathed. ‘It’s you.’
‘Of course it’s me—who else did you think it would be? Father Christmas?’ he snapped. ‘And what the hell are you doing, creeping around the place like a damned wraith?’
She was still flustered by the sight of him wearing so few clothes, and her reply came blurting out, the words tumbling over themselves in their eagerness to be said. ‘I... I heard a crash from downstairs and I thought it might be...’ she shrugged ‘...a burglar!’
‘And you thought the best way to deal with some potentially violent nutter was to confront him with nothing more effective than an indignant look in your eyes?’ His gaze bored into her. ‘Are you out of your mind, Tara?’
Tara licked her bone-dry lips. Yes, that was a pretty accurate description of the way she was feeling right now. But she could hardly tell him the reason why, could she? She could hardly explain that her fixation about him had been so great that it hadn’t left room in her head for anything else, and certainly not common sense. ‘So what was the crash?’ she questioned. ‘Did you find out?’
Lucas scowled, aware that his body was hardening in a way which was not what he wanted to happen. And the reason for his suddenly urgent desire was the most perplexing thing of all. Tara was standing there in some passion-killer of a dressing gown, which looked as if it had been made from an old bedspread, and yet a powerful sexual hunger was pumping through his veins. It defied all logic, he thought—just as his behaviour had done in the few days since they’d been apart. He’d been busy in Berlin, buying fleets of electric cars and planning to lease them out to businesses at a highly profitable rate. He’d had several high-powered meetings with the German transport minister and had been taken to an entrancing Schloss
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Sharon Kendrick
‘I’m…pregnant. ’ The consequence of his seduction! Housekeeper Tara Fitzpatrick is always as efficient and professional as possible. Until her billionaire boss, Lucas Conway looks at her with a fiery intensity she just can’t resist. Only now Tara has the mortifying task of flying to New York to tell him—a renowned bachelor whose least favourite word is family—that their electrifying night in his bed had the most scandalous of consequences!
“I’m...pregnant.”
The consequence of his seduction!
Housekeeper Tara Fitzpatrick is always as efficient and professional as possible. Until her billionaire boss, Lucas Conway, looks at her with a fiery intensity she just can’t resist. Only now Tara has the mortifying task of flying to New York to tell him—a renowned bachelor whose least favourite word is family—that their electrifying night in his bed had the most scandalous of consequences!
Follow Cinderella to glamorous New York!
SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition by describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, and her books feature often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…
Also by Sharon Kendrick (#ub481430e-9fb3-5ffd-8191-7b72f2479eba)
Secrets of a Billionaire’s Mistress
The Sheikh’s Bought Wife
The Pregnant Kavakos Bride
The Italian’s Christmas Secret
Di Sione’s Virgin Mistress
Bound to the Sicilian’s Bed
Crowned for the Sheikh’s Baby
The Greek’s Bought Bride
The Italian’s Christmas Housekeeper
The Sheikh’s Secret Baby
The Bond of Billionaires miniseries
Claimed for Makarov’s Baby
The Sheikh’s Christmas Conquest
The Legendary Argentinian Billionaires miniseries
Bought Bride for the Argentinian
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
The Argentinian’s Baby of Scandal
Sharon Kendrick
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08802-2
THE ARGENTINIAN’S BABY OF SCANDAL
© 2019 Sharon Kendrick
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Note to Readers (#ub481430e-9fb3-5ffd-8191-7b72f2479eba)
This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:
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This story is for Megan Crane,
with whom I shared an unforgettable trip
to the west of Ireland…
and for Abby Green—the diva of Dublin!
Contents
Cover (#u9c72a4d7-3241-5081-bcf0-9ed73fd37560)
Back Cover Text (#u27abc4be-3147-569d-92f8-cfc70216a23f)
About the Author (#u94aeab28-8720-5d02-900f-6b49a0187b16)
Booklist (#ubde4f793-67a9-5d4d-a825-1c535e76d506)
Title Page (#ub821f236-bfc1-5b09-befb-7a7ecd87edc0)
Copyright (#u8ec8ac89-df6c-5d28-9c9b-890b1daa009c)
Note to Readers
Dedication (#u404705ab-d605-5960-92f1-38e6e2a8d831)
CHAPTER ONE (#ubd2d547b-85f4-5cbb-b261-8f643e817a8a)
CHAPTER TWO (#u0d874c8d-008b-5aca-a191-696b8f4e879e)
CHAPTER THREE (#u643b2096-7710-5962-b1a9-f94fef42ea7c)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ub481430e-9fb3-5ffd-8191-7b72f2479eba)
LUCAS CONWAY SURVEYED the blonde who was standing in front of him and felt nothing, even though her eyes were red-rimmed and her cheeks wet with tears.
He felt a pulse beat at his temple.
Nothing at all.
‘Who let you in?’ he questioned coldly.
‘Y-your housekeeper,’ she said, her mouth working frantically as she tried to contain yet another sob. ‘The one with the messy hair.’
‘She had no right to let anyone in,’ Lucas returned, briefly wondering how the actress could be so spiteful about someone who’d supposedly done her a good turn. But that was women for you—they never lived up to the promise of how they appeared on the outside. They were all teeth and smiles and then, when you looked beneath the surface, they were as shallow as a spill of water. ‘I told her I didn’t want to be disturbed.’ His voice was cool. ‘Not by anyone. I’m sorry, Charlotte, but you’ll have to leave. You should never have come here.’
He rose to his feet, because now he felt something, and it felt like the fury which had been simmering inside him for days. Although maybe fury was the wrong word to use. It didn’t accurately describe the hot clench to his heart when he’d received the letter last week, did it? Nor the unaccustomed feeling of dread which had washed over him as he’d stared down at it. Memories of the past had swum into his mind. He remembered violence and discord. Things he didn’t want to remember. Things he’d schooled himself to forget. But sometimes you were powerless when the past came looking for you...
His mouth was tight as he moved out from behind his desk, easily dwarfing the fair-haired beauty who was staring up at him with beseeching eyes. ‘Come with me. I’ll see you out.’
‘Lucas—’
‘Please, Charlotte,’ he said, trying to inject his voice with the requisite amount of compassion he suspected was called for but failing—for he had no idea how to replicate this kind of emotion. Hadn’t he often been accused of being unable to show any kind of feeling for another person—unless you counted desire, which was only ever temporary? He held back his sigh. ‘Don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.’
Briefly, she closed her swollen eyelids and nodded and he could smell her expensive perfume as he ushered her out of his huge office, which overlooked the choppy waters of Dublin Bay. And when she’d followed him—sniffling—to the front door, she tried one last time.
‘Lucas.’ Her voice trembled. ‘I have to tell you this because it’s important and you need to know it. I know there isn’t anyone else on the scene and I’ve missed you. Missed being with you. What we had was good and I... I love you—’
‘No,’ he answered fiercely, cutting her short before she could humiliate herself any further. ‘You don’t. You can’t. You don’t really know me and if you did, you certainly wouldn’t love me. I’m sorry. I’m not the man for you. So do yourself a favour, Charlotte, and go and find someone who is. Someone who has the capacity to care for you in the way you deserve to be cared for.’
She opened her mouth as if to make one last appeal but maybe she read the futility of such a gesture in his eyes, because she nodded and began to stumble towards her sports car in her spindly and impractical heels. He stood at the door and watched her leave, a gesture which might have been interpreted as one of courtesy but in reality it was to ensure that she really did exit the premises in her zippy little silver car, which shattered the peace as it sped off in a cloud of gravel.
He glanced up at the heavy sky. The weather had been oppressive for days now and the dark and straining clouds were hinting at the storm to come. He wished it would. Maybe it would lighten the oppressive atmosphere, which was making his forehead slick with sweat and his clothes feel as if they were clinging to his body. He closed the door. And then he turned his attention to his growing vexation as he thought about his interfering housekeeper.
His temper mounting, Lucas went downstairs into the basement, to the kitchen—which several high-profile magazines were itching to feature in their lifestyle section—to find Tara Fitzpatrick whipping something furiously in a copper bowl. She looked up as he walked in and a lock of thick red hair fell into her eye, which she instantly blew away with a big upward gust of breath, without pausing in her whipping motion. Why the hell didn’t she get it cut so that it didn’t resemble a birds’ nest? he wondered testily. And why did she insist on wearing that horrible housecoat while she worked? A baggy garment made from some cheap, man-made fibre, which he’d once told her looked like a relic from the nineteen fifties and completely swamped her slender frame.
‘She’s gone, then?’ she questioned, her gaze fixed on his as he walked in.
‘Yes, she’s gone.’ He could feel the flicker of irritation growing inside him again and, suddenly, Tara seemed the ideal candidate to take it out on. ‘Why the hell did you let her in?’
She hesitated, the movement of her whisk stilling. ‘Because she was crying.’
‘Of course she was crying. She’s a spoiled woman who is used to getting her own way and that’s what women like her do when it doesn’t happen.’
She opened her mouth as if she was about to say something and then appeared to change her mind, so that her next comment came out as a mild observation. ‘You were the one who dated her, Lucas.’
‘And it was over,’ he said dangerously. ‘Months ago.’
Again, that hesitation—as if she was trying her hardest to be diplomatic—and Lucas thought, not for the first time, what a fey creature she was with her amber eyes and pale skin and that mass of fiery hair. And her slender body, which always looked as if it could do with a decent meal.
‘Perhaps you didn’t make it plain enough that it was over,’ she suggested cautiously, resting her whisk on the side of the bowl and shaking her wrist, as if it was aching.
‘I couldn’t have been more plain,’ he said. ‘I told her in person, in as kind a way as possible, and said that perhaps one day we could be friends.’
Tara made a clicking noise with her lips and shook her head. ‘That was your big mistake.’
‘My big mistake?’ he echoed dangerously.
‘Sure. Give a woman hope and she’ll cling to it like a chimp swinging from tree to tree. Maybe if you weren’t so devastatingly attractive,’ she added cheerfully, resuming her beating with a ferocity which sent the egg whites slapping against the sides of the bowl, ‘then your exes wouldn’t keep popping up around the place like lost puppy dogs.’
He heard the implicit criticism in his housekeeper’s voice and the tension which had been mounting inside him all week now snapped. ‘And maybe if you knew your place, instead of acting like the mistress of my damned house, then you wouldn’t have let her in in the first place,’ he flared as he stormed across the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee.
Know her place?
Tara stopped beating as her boss’s icy note of censure was replaced by the sound of grinding coffee beans and a lump rose in her throat, because he’d never spoken to her that way before—not in all the time she’d worked for him. Not with that air of impatient condemnation as if she were some troublesome minion who was more trouble than she was worth. As she returned his gaze she swallowed with confusion and, yes, with hurt—and how stupid was that? Had she thought she was safe from his legendary coldness and a tongue which could slice out sharp words like a knife cutting through a courgette? Well, yes. She had. She’d naively imagined that, because she served him meals and ironed his shirts and made sure that his garden was carefully weeded and bright with flowers, he would never treat her with the disdain he seemed to direct at most women. That she had a special kind of place in his heart—when it was clear that Lucas Conway had no heart at all. And wasn’t the fact of the matter that he’d been in a foul mood for this past week and growing snappier by the day? Ever since that official-looking letter had arrived from the United States and he’d disappeared into his office for a long time, before emerging with a haunted look darkening the spectacular verdant gleam of his eyes?
She ran a wooden spoon around the side of the bowl and then gave the mixture another half-hearted beat. She told herself she shouldn’t let his arrogance or bad mood bother her. Maybe that was how you should expect a man to behave when he was as rich as Lucas Conway—as well as being the hottest lover in all of Ireland, if you were to believe the things people whispered about him.
Yet nobody really knew very much about the Dublin-based billionaire, no matter how hard they tried to find out. Even the Internet provided little joy—and Tara knew this for a fact because she’d looked him up herself on her ancient laptop, soon after she’d started working for him. His accent was difficult to figure out, that was for sure. He definitely wasn’t Irish, and there was a faint hint of transatlantic drawl underpinning his sexy voice. He spoke many languages—French, Italian and Spanish as well as English—though, unlike Tara, he knew no Gaelic. He was rumoured to have been a bellhop, working in some fancy Swiss hotel, in the days before he’d arrived in Ireland to make his fortune but Tara had never quite been able to believe this particular rumour. As if someone like Lucas Conway would ever work as a bellhop! He was also reputed to have South American parentage—and with his tousled dark hair and the unusual green eyes which contrasted so vividly with his glowing olive skin, that was one rumour which would seem to be founded in truth.
She studied him as the machine dispensed a cup of his favoured industrial-strength brew of coffee. He’d had more girlfriends than most men had socks lined up in a top drawer of their bedroom, and was known for his exceptionally low boredom threshold. Which might explain why he’d dumped the seemingly perfect Charlotte when she—like so many others before her—had refused to get the message that he had no desire to be married. Yet that hadn’t stopped her sending him a Valentine’s card, had it—or arranging for a case of vintage champagne to be delivered on his birthday? ‘I don’t even particularly like champagne,’ had been his moody aside to Tara as he’d peered into the wooden case, and she remembered thinking how ungrateful he could be.
Yet it wasn’t just women of the sexy and supermodel variety who couldn’t seem to get enough of him. Men liked him, too—and old ladies practically swooned whenever he came into their vicinity. Yet through all the attention he received, Lucas Conway always remained slightly aloof to the adulation which swirled around him. As if he was observing the world with the objectivity of a scientist, and, although nobody would ever have described him as untouchable, he was certainly what you might call unknowable.
But up until now he’d always treated her with respect. As if she mattered. Not as if she were just some skivvy working in his kitchen, with no more than two brain cells to rub together. The lump in her throat got bigger. Someone who didn’t know her place.
Was that how he really saw her?
How others saw her?
She licked lips which had suddenly grown dry. Was that how she saw herself? The misfit from the country. The child who had grown up with the dark cloud of shame hanging over her. Who’d been terrified people were going to find her out, which was why she had fled to the city just as soon as she was able.
She told herself to leave it. To just nod politely and Lucas would vacate the kitchen and it would all be forgotten by the time she produced the feather-light cheese soufflé she was planning to serve for his dinner, because he wasn’t going out tonight. But for some reason she couldn’t leave it. Something was nagging away at her and she didn’t know what it was. Was it the strange atmosphere which had descended on the house ever since that letter had arrived for him, and she’d heard the sound of muffled swearing coming from his office? Or was it something to do with this weird weather they’d been having, which was making the air seem as heavy as lead? Her heart missed a beat, because maybe it was a lot more basic than that. Maybe it all stemmed from having seen someone from home walking down Grafton Street yesterday, when she’d been window-shopping on her afternoon off.
Tara had nearly jumped out of her skin when she’d spotted her—and she was easy to spot. At school, Mona O’Sullivan had always been destined for great things and her high-heeled shoes and leather trench coat had borne out her teacher’s gushing prophesy as she’d sashayed down Dublin’s main street looking as if she didn’t have a care in the world. A diamond ring had glittered like a giant trophy on her engagement finger and her hair had been perfectly coiffed.
Tara had ducked into a shop doorway, terrified Mona would see her and stop, before asking those probing questions which always used to make her blush to the roots of her hair and wish the ground would open up and swallow her. Questions which reminded Tara why she was so ashamed of the past she’d tried so desperately to forget. But you could never forget the past, not really. It haunted you like a spectre—always ready to jump out at you when you were least expecting it. It waited for you in the sometimes sleepless hours of the night and it lurked behind the supposedly innocent questions people put to you, which were anything but innocent. Was that why she had settled for this safe, well-paid job tucked away on the affluent edge of the city, where nobody knew her?
She wondered if her gratitude for having found such a cushy job had blinded her to the fact that she was now working for a man who seemed to think he had the right to talk to her as if she were nothing, just because he was in a filthy mood.
She stilled her spoon and crashed the copper bowl down on the table, aware that already the air would be leaving those carefully beaten egg whites—but suddenly she didn’t care. Perhaps she’d been in danger of caring a bit too much what Lucas Conway had for his supper, instead of looking after herself. ‘Then maybe you should find yourself someone who does know their place,’ she declared.
Lucas turned round from the coffee machine with a slightly bemused look on his face. ‘I’m sorry?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s too late for an apology, Lucas.’
‘I wasn’t apologising,’ he ground out. ‘I was trying to work out what the hell you’re talking about.’
Now he was making her sound as if she were incapable of stringing a coherent sentence together! ‘I’m talking about knowing my place,’ Tara repeated, with an indignation which felt new and peculiar but oddly...liberating. ‘I was trying to be kind to Charlotte because she was crying, and because I’ve actually spent several months of my life trying to wash her lipstick out of your pillowcases—so it wasn’t like she was a complete stranger to me. And I once found one of her diamond studs when it was wedged into the floorboards of the dining room and she bought me a nice big bunch of flowers as a thank-you present. So what was I expected to do when she turned up today with mascara running all down her cheeks?’ She glared at him. ‘Turn her away?’
‘Tara—’
‘Do you think she was in any fit state to drive in that condition—with her eyes full of tears and her shoulders heaving?’
‘Tara. I seem to have missed something along the way.’ Lucas put his untouched coffee cup down on the table with as close an expression to incomprehension as she’d ever seen on those ruggedly handsome features. ‘What’s got into you all of a sudden?’
Tara still didn’t know. Was it something to do with the dismissive way her boss’s gaze had flicked over her admittedly disobedient hair when he’d walked into the kitchen? As if she were not a woman at all, but some odd-looking robot designed to cook and clean for him. She wondered if he would have looked like that if Mona O’Sullivan had been standing there whipping him up a cheese soufflé, with her high heels and her luscious curves accentuated by a tight belt.
But you dress like a frump deliberately, a small voice in her head reminded her. You always have done. You were taught that the safest way to be around men was to make yourself look invisible and you heeded that lesson well. So what do you expect?
And suddenly she saw exactly what she might expect. More of the same for the countless days which lay ahead of her. More of working her fingers to the bone for a man who didn’t really appreciate her—and that maybe it was time to break out and reach for something new. To find herself a job in a big, noisy house with lots of children running around—wouldn’t that be something which might fulfil her?
‘I’ve decided I need a change of direction,’ she said firmly.
‘What are you talking about?’
Tara hesitated. Lucas Conway might be the biggest pain in the world at times, but surely he would give her a glowing reference as she’d worked for him since she’d been eighteen years old—when she’d arrived in the big city, slightly daunted by all the traffic, and the noise. ‘A new job,’ she elaborated.
He narrowed his stunning eyes—eyes as green as the valleys of Connemara. ‘A new job?’
‘That’s right,’ she agreed, thinking how satisfying it was to see the normally unflappable billionaire looking so perplexed. ‘I’ve worked for you for almost six years, Lucas,’ she informed him coolly. ‘Surely you don’t expect me to still be cooking and cleaning for you when you reach retirement age?’
From the deepening of his frown, he was clearly having difficulty getting his head around the idea of retirement and, indeed, Tara herself couldn’t really imagine this very vital man ever stopping work for long enough to wind down.
‘I shouldn’t have spoken to you so rudely,’ he said slowly. ‘And that is an apology.’
‘No, you shouldn’t,’ she agreed. ‘But maybe you’ve done me a favour. It’s about time I started looking for a new job.’
He shook his head and gave a bland but determined smile. ‘You can’t do that.’
Tara stilled. It was a long time since anyone had said those words to her, but it was the refrain which had defined her childhood.
You can’t do that, Tara.
You mustn’t do that, Tara.
She had been the scapegoat—carrying the can for the sins of her mother and of her grandmother before her. She had been expected to nod and keep her head down, never to make waves. To be obedient and hard-working and do as she was told. To stay away from boys because they only brought trouble with them.
And she’d learned her lessons well. She’d never been in a relationship. There hadn’t been anyone to speak of since she’d arrived in Dublin and had gone on a few disastrous dates, encouraged by her friend Stella. She tried her best to forget the couple of encounters she’d shared with one of the farm hands back home, just before she’d left for the big city and landed the first job she’d been interviewed for. The agency had warned her that Lucas Conway was notoriously difficult to work for and she probably wouldn’t last longer than the month but somehow she had proved them wrong. She earned more money than she’d ever imagined just by keeping his house clean, his shirts ironed and by putting a hot meal in front of him, when he wasn’t gallivanting around the globe. It wasn’t exactly brain surgery, was it?
On that first morning she had slipped on her polyester housecoat and, apart from a foreign holiday every year, that was where she’d been ever since, in his beautiful home in Dalkey. She frowned. Why did Lucas even own a place this big when he lived in it all on his own, save for her, carefully hidden away at the top of the vast house like someone in a Gothic novel? It wasn’t as if he were showing any signs of settling down, was it? Why, she’d even seen him recoil in horror when his friend Finn Delaney had turned up one day with his wife Catherine and their brand-new baby.
‘You can’t stop me from leaving, Lucas,’ she said, with a touch of defiance. ‘I’ll work my month’s notice and you can find someone else. That won’t be a problem—people will be queuing up around the block for a job like this. You know they will.’
Lucas looked at her and told himself to just let her go, because she was right. There had been dozens of applicants for the job last time he’d advertised and nothing much had changed in the years since Tara had been working for him, except that his bank balance had become even more inflated and he could easily afford to hire a whole battalion of staff, should the need arise.
But the young redhead from the country did more than just act as his housekeeper—sometimes it felt as if she kept his whole life ticking over. She didn’t mind hard work and once he had asked her why she sometimes got down on her hands and knees to scrub the kitchen floor, when there was a perfectly serviceable mop to be had.
‘Because a mop won’t reach in the nooks and crannies,’ she’d answered, looking at him as if he should have known something as basic as that.
He frowned. She wasn’t just good at her job, she was also reliable, and no laundry could ever press a shirt as well as Tara Fitzpatrick did. It was true that sometimes she chattered too much—but on the plus side, she didn’t go out as often as other young women her age so she was always available when he needed her. If he asked her to cook when he had people over for dinner she happily obliged—and her culinary repertoire had greatly improved since he’d arranged for her to go on an upmarket cookery course, after pointing out there were other things you could eat, rather than meat pie. As far as he knew, she never gossiped about him and that was like gold to him.
He didn’t want her to leave.
Especially not now.
He felt the pound of his heart.
Not when he needed to go to the States to deal with the past, having been contacted by a lawyer hinting at something unusual, which had inexplicably filled him with dread. A trip he knew couldn’t be avoided, no matter how much he would have preferred to. But the attorney’s letter had been insistent. He swallowed. He hadn’t been back to New York for years and that had been a deliberate choice. It was too full of memories. Bitter memories. And why confront stuff which made you feel uncomfortable, when avoidance was relatively simple?
Lucas allowed his gaze to skim down over the old-fashioned denim jeans Tara wore beneath her housecoat. Baggy and slightly too short, they looked as if they’d be more appropriate for working on a farm. No wonder she’d never brought a man back in all the time she worked for him when injecting a little glamour into her appearance seemed to be an unknown concept to her. And wasn’t that another reason why he regarded her as the personification of rock-like reliability? She wasn’t surreptitiously texting when she should have been working, was she? Nor gazing into space vacantly, mooning over some heartbreaker who’d recently let her down. Despite her slender build, she was strong and fit and he couldn’t contemplate the thought of trying to find a replacement for her, not when he was focussed on that damned letter.
He wondered how much money it would take to get her to change her mind, and then frowned. Because in that way Tara seemed different from every other woman he’d ever had dealings with. She didn’t openly lust after expensive clothes or belongings—not if her appearance was anything to go by. She wore no jewellery at all and, as far as he knew, she must be saving most of the salary he paid her, since he’d seen no signs of conspicuous spending—unless you counted the second-hand bicycle she’d purchased within a fortnight of coming to live here. The one with the very loud and irritating bell.
Lucas wasn’t particularly interested in human nature but that didn’t mean he couldn’t recognise certain aspects of it, and it seemed to him that a woman who wasn’t particularly interested in money would be unlikely to allow a salary increase to change her mind.
And then he had an idea. An idea so audacious and yet so brilliant that he couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to him before. Sensing triumph, he felt the flicker of a smile curving the edges of his mouth.
‘Before you decide definitely to leave, Tara,’ he said, ‘why don’t we discuss a couple of alternative plans for your future?’
‘What are you talking about?’ she questioned suspiciously. ‘What sort of plans?’
His smile was slow and, deliberately, he made it reach his eyes. It was the smile he used when he was determined to get something and it was rare enough to stop people in their tracks. Women sometimes called it his killer smile. ‘Not here and not now—not when you’re working,’ he said—a wave of his hand indicating the rows of copper pans which she kept so carefully gleaming. ‘Why don’t we have dinner together tonight so we can talk about it in comfort?’
‘Dinner?’ she echoed, with the same kind of horrified uncertainty she might have used if he’d suggested they both dance naked in Phoenix Park. ‘You’re saying you want to have dinner with me?’
It wasn’t exactly the way he would have expressed it—but want and need were pretty interchangeable, weren’t they? Especially to a man like him. ‘Why not?’ he questioned softly. ‘You have to eat and so do I.’
Her gaze fell to the collapsing mixture in her bowl. ‘But I’m supposed to be making a cheese soufflé.’
‘Forget the soufflé,’ he gritted out. ‘We’ll go to a restaurant. Your choice,’ he added magnanimously, for he doubted she would ever have set foot inside one of Dublin’s finer establishments. ‘Why don’t you book somewhere for, say, seven-thirty?’
She was still blinking at him with disbelief, her pale lashes shuttering those strange amber eyes, until at last she nodded with a reluctance which somehow managed to be mildly insulting. Since when did someone take so long to deliberate about having dinner with him?
‘Okay,’ she said cautiously, with the air of someone feeling her way around in the dark. ‘I don’t see why not.’
CHAPTER TWO (#ub481430e-9fb3-5ffd-8191-7b72f2479eba)
THE AIR DOWN by the River Liffey offered no cooling respite against the muggy oppression of the evening and Lucas scowled as they walked along the quayside, unable to quite believe where he was. When he’d told Tara to choose a restaurant, he’d imagined she would immediately plump for one of Dublin’s many fine eating establishments. He’d envisaged drawing up outside a discreetly lit building in one of the city’s fancier streets with doormen springing to attention, instead of heading towards a distinctly edgy building which stood beside the dark gleam of the water.
‘What is this place?’ he demanded as at last they stopped beneath a red and white sign and she lifted her hand to open the door.
‘It’s a restaurant. A Polish restaurant,’ she supplied, adding defensively, ‘You told me to choose somewhere and so I did.’
He wanted to ask why but by then she had pushed the door open and a tinny bell was announcing their arrival. The place was surprisingly full of mainly young diners and an apple-cheeked woman in a white apron squealed her excitement before approaching and flinging her arms around Tara as if she were her long-lost daughter. A couple of interminable minutes followed, during which Lucas heard Tara hiss, ‘My boss...’ which was when the man behind the bar stopped pouring some frothy golden beer to pierce him with a suspicious look which was almost challenging.
Lucas felt like going straight back out the way he had come in but he was hungry and they were being shown to a table which was like a throwback to the last century—with its red and white checked tablecloth and a dripping candle jammed into the neck of an empty wine bottle. He waited until they were seated before he leaned across the table, his voice low.
‘Would you mind telling me why you chose to come and eat here out of all places in Dublin?’ he bit out.
‘Because Maria and her husband were very kind to me when I first came to the city and didn’t know many people. And I happen to like it here—there’s life and bustle and colour on the banks of the river. Plus it’s cheap.’
‘But I’m paying, Tara,’ he objected softly. ‘And budget isn’t an option. You know that.’
Tara pursed her lips and didn’t pass comment even though she wanted to suggest that maybe budget should be an option. That it might do the crazily rich Lucas Conway good to have to eat in restaurants which didn’t involve remortgaging your house in order to pay the bill—that was if you were lucky enough to actually have a mortgage, which, naturally, she didn’t. She felt like telling him she’d been terrified of choosing the kind of place she knew he usually frequented because she simply didn’t have the kind of wardrobe—or the confidence—which would have fitted into such an upmarket venue. But instead she just pursed her lips together and smiled as she hung her handbag over the back of her chair, still pinching herself to think she was here.
With him.
Her boss.
Her boss who had turned the head of everyone in the restaurant the moment he’d walked in, with his striking good looks and a powerful aura which spoke of wealth and privilege.
She shook her hair, which she’d left loose, and realised that for once he was staring at her as if she were a real person, rather than just part of the fixtures and fittings. And how ironic it should be that this state of affairs had only come about because she’d told him she was leaving, which had led to him bizarrely inviting her to dinner. Did he find it as strange as she did for them to be together in a restaurant like this? she wondered. Just as she wondered if he would be as shocked as she was to discover that, for once. she was far from immune to his physical appeal.
So why was that? Why—after nearly six years of working for him when her most common reaction towards him had been one of exasperation—should she suddenly start displaying all the signs of being attracted to him? Because she prided herself on not being like all those other women who stared at him lustfully whenever he swam into view. It might have had something to do with the fact that he had very few secrets from her. She did his laundry. She even ironed his underpants and she’d always done it with an unfeigned impartiality. At home it had been easy to stick him in the categories marked ‘boss’ and ‘off-limits’, because arrogant billionaires were way above her pay grade, but tonight he seemed like neither of these things. He seemed deliciously and dangerously accessible. Was it because they were sitting facing each other across a small table, which meant she was noticing things about him which didn’t normally register on her radar?
Like his body, for example. Had she ever properly registered just how broad his shoulders were? She didn’t think so. Just as the sight of two buttons undone on his denim shirt didn’t normally have the power to bring her out in a rash of goosebumps. She swallowed. In the candlelight, his olive skin was glowing like dark gold and casting entrancing shadows over his high cheekbones and ruggedly handsome face. She could feel her throat growing dry and her breasts tightening and wondered what had possessed her to agree to have dinner with him tonight, almost as if the two of them were on a date.
Because he had been determined to have a meal with her and he was a difficult man to shift once he’d set his mind on something.
She guessed his agenda would be to offer her a big salary increase in an attempt to get her to stay. He probably thought she’d spoken rashly when she’d told him she was leaving, which to some extent was true. But while she’d been getting ready—in a recently purchased and discounted dress, which was a lovely pale blue colour, even if it was a bit big on the bust—she’d decided she wasn’t going to let him change her mind. And that his patronising attitude towards her had been the jolt she needed to shake her out of her comfort zone. She needed to leave Lucas Conway’s employment and do something different with her life. To get out of the rut in which she found herself, even though it was a very comfortable rut. She couldn’t keep letting the past define her—making her too scared to do anything else. Because otherwise wouldn’t she run the risk of getting to the end of her days, only to realise she hadn’t lived at all? That she’d just followed a predictable path of service and duty?
‘What would you like to drink?’ she questioned. ‘They do a very good vodka here.’
‘Vodka?’ he echoed.
‘Why not? It’s a tradition. I only ever have one glass before dinner and then I switch to water. And it’s not as if you’re driving, is it?’ Not with his driver sitting in a nearby parking lot in that vast and shiny limousine, waiting for the signal that the billionaire was ready to leave.
‘Okay, Tara, you’ve sold it to me,’ he answered tonelessly. ‘Vodka it is.’
Two doll-sized glasses filled with clear liquor were placed on the tablecloth in front of them and Tara raised hers to his—watching the tiny vessel gleam in the candlelight before lifting it to her lips. ‘Na zdrowie!’ she declared before tossing it back in one and Lucas gave a faint smile before drinking his own.
‘What do you think?’ she questioned, her eyes bright.
‘I think one is quite enough,’ he said. ‘And since you seem to know so much about Polish customs, why don’t you choose some food for us both?’
‘Really?’ she questioned.
‘Really,’ he agreed drily.
Lucas watched as she scrolled through the menu. She seemed to be enjoying showing off her knowledge and he recognised it was in his best interests to keep her mood elevated. He wanted her as compliant as possible and so he ate a livid-coloured beetroot soup, which was surprisingly good, and it wasn’t until they were halfway through the main course that he put his fork down.
‘Do you like it?’ she questioned anxiously.
He gave a shrug. ‘It’s interesting. I’ve never eaten stuffed cabbage leaves before.’
‘No, I suppose you wouldn’t have done.’ In the flickering light from the candle, her freckle-brushed face grew thoughtful. ‘It’s peasant food, really. And I suppose you’ve only ever had the best.’
The best? Lucas only just managed to bite back a bitter laugh as he stared into her amber eyes. It was funny the assumptions people made. He’d certainly tried most of the fanciest foods the world had to offer—white pearl caviar from the Caspian Sea and matsutake mushrooms from Japan. He’d eaten highly prized duck in one of Paris’s most famous restaurants and been offered rare and costly moose cheese on one of his business trips to Sweden. Even at his expensive boarding school, the food had been good—he guessed when people were paying those kinds of fees, it didn’t dare be anything but good. But the best meals he’d ever eaten had been home-made and cooked by Tara, he realised suddenly.
Which was why he was here, he reminded himself.
The only reason he was here.
So why were his thoughts full of other stuff? Dangerous stuff, which made him glad he’d only had a single vodka?
He stared at her. Unusually, she’d left her hair loose so that it flowed down over her narrow shoulders and the candlelight had transformed the wild curls into bright spirals of orange flame. Tonight she seemed to have a particularly fragile air of femininity about her, which he’d never noticed before. Was that something to do with the fact that for once she was wearing a dress, instead of her habitual jeans or leggings? Not a particularly flattering dress, it was true—but a dress all the same. Pale blue and very simple, it suited her naturally slim figure, though it could have done with being a little more fitted. But the scooped neck showed a faint golden dusting of freckles on her skin and drew his attention to the neatness of her small breasts and, inexplicably, he found himself wondering what kind of nipples she had. Tiny beads of sweat prickled on his brow and, not for the first time, he wished that the impending storm would break. Or that this damned restaurant would run to a little air conditioning. With an effort he dragged his attention back to the matter in hand, gulping down some water to ease the sudden dryness in his throat.
‘The thing is,’ he said slowly, putting his glass down and leaning back in his seat, ‘that I don’t want you to leave.’
‘I appreciate that and it’s very nice of you to say so, but—’
‘No, wait.’ He cut through her words with customary impatience. ‘Before you start objecting, why don’t you at least listen to what I’m offering you first?’
She trailed her fork through a small mound of rice on her plate so it created a narrow valley, before looking up at him, a frown creasing her brow. ‘You can’t just throw more money at the problem and hope that it’ll go away.’
‘So we have a problem, do we, Tara?’
‘I shouldn’t have said that. It’s nothing to do with you, not really. It’s me.’ She hesitated. ‘I need a change, that’s all.’
‘And a change is exactly what I’m offering you.’
Her amber eyes became shuttered with suspicion. ‘What do you mean?’
He took another sip of water. ‘What if I told you that I’m going to be leaving Dublin for a while, because I have to go to the States?’
‘You mean on business?’
‘Partly,’ he answered obliquely. ‘I’m thinking of investing in some property there. I need to spread my money around—at least, that’s what my financial advisors are telling me.’
‘This wouldn’t have anything to do with that letter, would it?’ she questioned curiously.
He grew still. ‘What letter?’
‘The one...’ The words came out in a rush, as if she’d been waiting for a chance to say them. ‘The one which arrived from America last week.’
Lucas wondered if she’d noticed his reaction at the time. If she’d seen the shock which had blindsided him. It suddenly occurred to him how much of his life she must have witnessed over the years—a silent observer of all the things which had happened to him. And wasn’t that another reason for keeping her onside? Bringing another stranger into his home would involve getting to know a new person and having to learn to trust them and that was something to be avoided, because he didn’t give his trust easily. His mouth hardened and his jaw firmed. And it wasn’t going to happen. No way. Not when there was a much simpler solution.
‘I’m planning a minimum six-month stay and I’m thinking of renting an apartment because the idea of spending that long living in a hotel isn’t what you’d call appealing.’ He slanted her his rare, slow smile. ‘And that’s where you come in, Tara.’
‘Where?’ she questioned blankly.
‘I want you to come to New York with me.’ He paused. ‘Be my housekeeper there and I’ll increase your salary—’
‘You pay me very generously at the moment.’
He shook his head with a trace of impatience. Who in their right mind ever pointed out that kind of thing to their employer? ‘The cost of living is higher there,’ he said. ‘And this will give you the opportunity to try living in a brand-new city. This could be a win-win situation for both of us, Tara.’
He thought she might show excitement and more than a little gratitude, not a look of sudden suspicion, which hooded her eyes. Inexplicably, he found his gaze drawn to the delicate bowed outline of her lips, which he’d never really noticed before. Well, of course he hadn’t. He’d never been this close to her before, had he? Close enough to detect her faint scent, which was like no other perfume he’d ever encountered. Nor realised that her clear skin was porcelain-pale apart from those few freckles which dusted the upturn of her nose. He shook his head, perplexed by the observation and by the inexplicable rise of heat in his blood.
‘New York,’ she said slowly.
‘You said you wanted a change. Well, what greater change from Dublin town than living in the buzzing metropolis of Manhattan? Didn’t you go on a trip there last Christmas?’
She nodded.
‘And didn’t you have a good time?’
Once again, Tara nodded. She’d saved up and gone with her friend Stella, who was a nanny in nearby Dun Laoghaire, and they’d done the whole New York holiday thing together. A fun-packed snow and shopping trip, marred only by the fact that Tara had fallen over on the ice rink outside the Rockefeller building and grazed both her knees. ‘We had a very good time.’
‘So what’s stopping you from saying yes?’ he probed.
Tara nibbled on the inside of her lip, reminding herself that her plan had been to get away from Lucas—not to sign up for more of the same. She needed to remove herself from the influence of a powerful man who was selfishly pursuing his own interests. He certainly wasn’t thinking about what was best for her at the moment, was he? Only what was best for him.
And yet.
She ran her fingertip over the frosted surface of her water glass. If she looked at it objectively couldn’t this be the best of all possible outcomes? A trip to a glamorous city she was already familiar with, without all the uncertainty of having to fix herself up with a job? Wouldn’t a spell in America provide the inspiration she needed to turn her life around and decide what she wanted to do next?
But still she held back from saying yes because something seemed to have changed between her and Lucas tonight. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on because she had no experience of this sort of thing. Was she imagining the tension which was stoking up between the two of them, like when you threw a handful of kindling on the fire? She certainly wasn’t imagining the heart-racing feeling she was getting whenever she stared into his gorgeous green eyes—not to mention the fact that her body was behaving in a way which wasn’t normal. At least, not normal for her. Her nipples were aching and there was a delicious syrupy feeling deep in the very core of her. She could feel a weird kind of restlessness she’d never experienced before, which was making her want to squirm uncomfortably on the wooden seat, and she was having to concentrate very hard not to keep wondering what it would be like to be kissed by him.
Was it because they were in the falsely intimate setting of a candlelit restaurant, making her wish she’d chosen somewhere brighter? Or because she’d stupidly decided to wear a dress and wash her hair—as if this were a real date or something? And now she was left feeling almost vulnerable—as if she’d lost the protective barrier which surrounded her when she was working at his house and cleaning up after him.
He was still studying her with an impatient question in his eyes, as if he wasn’t used to being kept waiting. Come to think of it—he wasn’t.
‘Well?’ he demanded.
‘Can I have some time to think about it?’ she said.
He looked surprised and Tara guessed that most women wouldn’t have thought twice about accompanying their billionaire boss to a glamorous foreign city with the offer of a pay-rise.
‘How long do you want?’ he demanded.
Tara chewed on her lip. Should she ask her friend Stella’s advice? She certainly didn’t have anyone else to ask. She’d been so young when her mother died that she hardly remembered her and her grandmother had passed away just before she’d come to work for Lucas. ‘A few days?’ she suggested and gave a little shrug. ‘Maybe you’ll change your mind in the meantime?’
‘If you continue to prevaricate like this, then maybe I will,’ he retorted, not bothering to hide his displeasure. ‘Let’s just get the bill and go, shall we?’
‘Okay.’ She rose to her feet. ‘But I need to use the washroom first.’
Still unable to believe she wasn’t grabbing at his job offer with eager hands, Lucas watched as she walked through the restaurant, his gaze mesmerised by the curve of her calves, which led down to the slenderest ankles he’d ever seen. Suddenly he could understand why men living in the Victorian age had found them highly arousing.
He told himself to look away but somehow he couldn’t. Somehow Tara Fitzpatrick’s back view seemed to be the most beautiful thing he’d looked at in a long time, with those red curls spilling wildly over her shoulders. Her dress was slightly creased from where she’d been sitting but it was brushing against a bottom firmed by hard work and regular cycling—a realisation which was rewarded by an unwanted hardening at his groin. What the hell was happening to him? he wondered irritably. Was it simple physical frustration? Had Charlotte’s unexpected appearance at his house this afternoon reminded him just how long it had been since he’d had sex? He remembered their split, when he’d grown bored with her and bored with bedding her. Because despite the actress’s undeniable beauty and sexual experience, hadn’t making love to her sometimes felt as if he were making love to a mannequin? And there hadn’t been anyone since, had there? Not even a flicker of interest had stirred in his blood, despite the many come-ons which regularly came his way.
With an impatient shake of his head, he glanced at his cell-phone to see what the markets were doing, but for once his attention was stubbornly refusing to focus and when he looked up, Tara was back. She must have attempted to brush the fiery curls into some kind of submission, because they looked half-tamed. Her eyes were bright and her air of youthful vitality made his heart clench with something he didn’t recognise. Was it cynicism? He shook his head, confused now and slightly resentful because he’d come out tonight thinking this was going to be a straightforward exercise and it was turning into anything but.
‘The bill, Tara,’ he said impatiently. ‘Have you asked for it?’
‘I’ve done more than that.’ She gave a wide smile. ‘I’ve paid it.’
‘You’ve paid it?’ he repeated slowly.
‘It’s very reasonably priced in here,’ she said. ‘And it’s the least I can do, since we came here in your car.’
As he followed her out of the restaurant—after a farewell even more ecstatic than their greeting—Lucas found himself trying to remember the last time a woman had offered to pay for a meal. Not recently, that was for sure. Not since those days when he’d had nothing and heiresses had sniffed around him like dogs surrounding a piece of fresh meat. When he’d been forced to leave his fancy school because there had been no money—or so he’d been told. But pride had made him refuse to accept the charity of women who had been hungry for his virile body. He’d fed himself. Sometimes he’d eaten the food left lying around after a meal in the directors’ dining room. And sometimes he just used to go without. Tara had been wrong when she’d suggested he’d never eaten peasant food, he thought, the harsh reminder of those days making his jaw clench as his car purred smoothly down the quayside towards them.
But when he joined her on the back seat the bitter memories were dissolved by a rush of something far more potent. Lucas felt a beat of promise and of heady desire. Flaring his nostrils, he inhaled her subtle scent, which was more like soap than perfume. Half turning his head, he saw the brightness of her hair and suddenly he wanted to tangle his fingers in it. One slender thigh was placed tantalisingly close to his—a gesture he suspected was completely lacking in provocation—yet right now it seemed the sexiest thing he’d ever encountered. He swallowed as desire beat through him like an insistent flame and if it had been anyone else he might have reached out and caressed her. Touched her leg until she was squirming with pleasure and widening her thighs and whispering for him to touch her some more.
But this was Tara and he couldn’t do that because she worked for him. She worked for him. She made his bed and cooked his meals. Ironed his shirts and kept his garden bright. She was an employee he wanted to accompany him to America. She wasn’t a prospective lover—not by any stretch of the imagination. He stared straight ahead, attempting to compose himself as the traffic lights turned red.
Her heart pounding and her shoulders tense, Tara told herself to stop feeling so nervous as the powerful car purred through the city streets because none of this was a big deal. She’d just had dinner with her boss—that was all—and he’d just offered her a job in America, which was a massive compliment, wasn’t it? She’d never been in his chauffeur-driven car before either, and travelling home in such luxury should have been a real treat. Yet she was finding it difficult to appreciate the soft leather or incredibly smooth suspension as they travelled through Dublin. All she could think about was how different Lucas seemed tonight and how her reaction towards him seemed to have undergone a dangerous and fundamental shift. From being a demanding employer, he seemed to have morphed into a man she was having difficulty tearing her eyes away from. For the first time ever, she could understand why he inspired such a devoted following among women. Suddenly, she got why someone as beautiful as Charlotte would be prepared to humiliate herself in order to wheedle herself a way back into his life.
And I don’t want to feel this way, she thought. I want to go back to the way it was before, when I tolerated him more than idolised him and was often infuriated by him.
The car pulled into the driveway of his Dalkey house but instead of being relieved that the journey was over, all Tara could feel was a peculiar sense of disappointment. Blindly, she reached for the door handle, her usually dextrous fingers flailing miserably as she failed to locate it in the semi-darkness.
‘Here,’ said Lucas, sounding suddenly amused as he leaned across her to click a button. ‘Let me.’
Of course. The door slid noiselessly open because it was an electronic door and didn’t actually have a handle! What a stupid country girl she must seem. But Tara’s embarrassment at her lack of savvy was exacerbated by a heart-stopping awareness as Lucas’s arm brushed against hers. She swallowed. He’d touched her. He’d actually touched her. He might not have meant to but his fingers had made contact and where they had it felt like fire flickering against her skin.
Scrambling out of the car into an atmosphere even stickier than earlier, she cast a longing look towards the heavy sky, wishing it would rain and shatter this strange tension which seemed to be building inside her, as well as in the atmosphere. She scrabbled around in her handbag to fish out her key but her fingers were trembling as she heard a footfall behind her and Lucas’s shadow loomed over her as she inserted it tremblingly into the lock.
‘You’re shaking, Tara,’ he observed as she opened the door and stepped into the house.
‘It’s a cold night,’ she said automatically, even though that wasn’t true. But he didn’t correct her with a caustic comment as he might normally have done.
And the strange thing was that neither of them moved to put on the main light once the heavy front door had swung shut behind them, and the gloom of the vast hallway seemed to increase the sense of unreality which had been building between them all evening.
There was something in the air. Something indefinable. Tara felt acutely aware of just how close Lucas was. His eyes were dark and gleaming as he stared down at her and she held her breath as, for one heart-stopping moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. She felt as if he was going to pull her into his arms and crush his lips down on hers.
But he didn’t.
Of course he didn’t.
Had she taken complete leave of her senses? He simply clicked the switch so that they were flooded with a golden light, which felt like a torch being shone straight into her eyes, and the atmosphere shattered as dramatically as a bubble being burst. A hard smile was playing at the edges of his lips and he nodded, as if her reaction was very familiar to him.
‘Goodnight, Tara,’ he said in an odd kind of voice. And as he turned away from her, she could hear the distant rumble of thunder.
CHAPTER THREE (#ub481430e-9fb3-5ffd-8191-7b72f2479eba)
THE NEXT FEW days were an agony of indecision as Tara tried to make up her mind whether or not to accept Lucas’s job offer. She tried drawing up a list of pros and cons—which came up firmly weighted in favour of an unexpected trip to America with her boss. Next she canvassed her friend Stella, who told her she’d be mad not to jump at the chance of joining Lucas in New York.
‘Why wouldn’t you go?’ Stella demanded as she folded up one of the tiny smocked dresses belonging to the twin baby girls she nannied for. ‘You loved New York when we went last Christmas. Apart from the ice-rink incident, of course,’ she added hastily. ‘And that man really should have been looking where he was going. It’s a no-brainer as far as I can see, so why the hesitation?’
Tara didn’t answer. She thought how lame it would sound if she confessed that something felt different between her and Lucas and that something unspoken and sexual seemed to have flowered between them that night. Or would it simply seem deluded and possibly arrogant to imply that Dublin’s sexiest billionaire might be interested in someone like her?
But something had changed. She wasn’t imagining it. The new awkwardness between them. The shadowed look around his eyes when she’d brought in his breakfast the morning after that crazy dinner, which had made her wonder if his night had been as sleepless as hers. The flickering glance he’d given her when she’d put the coffee pot down with trembling fingers before he’d announced that he was flying to Berlin later that morning and would be back in a couple of days—and could she possibly give him her answer about accompanying him to America by then?
‘Yes, of course,’ she’d answered stiffly, wondering why she was dragging her feet so much when she knew what she ought to say. She practised saying it over and over in her head.
It’s a very kind offer, Lucas—but I’m going to have to say no.
Why?
Because... Because I’ve fallen in lust with you.
How ridiculous would that sound, even if it weren’t coming from someone who could measure her sexual experience on the little finger of one hand?
But it was easier to shelve the decision and even easier when he wasn’t around So Tara just carried on working and when she wasn’t working, she did the kind of things she always did when Lucas was away. She swam in his basement pool and began to tidy up the garden for winter. She made cupcakes for a local charity coffee morning and went to Phoenix Park with Stella and her young charges. She listened to Lucas’s voicemail telling her he’d be late back on Thursday night and not to bother making dinner for him.
And still the wretched weather wouldn’t break. It was so heavy and sticky that you felt you couldn’t breathe properly. As if it was pressing against your throat like an invisible pair of hands. Sweat kept trickling down the back of her neck and despite piling her rampant curls on top of her head, nothing she did seemed to make her cool.
On Thursday evening she washed her hair and went to bed, listening out for the sound of Lucas’s chauffeur, who had gone to collect him from the airport. It wasn’t even that late, but several days of accumulated sleeplessness demanded respite and Tara immediately fell into a deep sleep, from which she was woken by a sudden loud crack, followed by a booming bang. Sitting bolt upright in bed, she tried to orientate herself, before the monochrome firework display taking place outside her bedroom window began to make sense. Of course. It was the storm. The long-awaited storm which had been building for days. Thank heavens. At least now the atmosphere might get a bit lighter.
Another flash of lightning illuminated her bedroom so that it looked like an old-fashioned horror film and almost immediately a clap of thunder echoed through the big house. The storm must be right overhead, she thought, just as heavy rain began to teem down outside the window. It sounded loud and rhythmical and oddly soothing and Tara sank back down onto the pillows and lay there with her eyes wide open, when she heard another crash. But this time it didn’t sound like thunder. Her body tensed. This time it sounded distinctly like the sound of breaking glass.
Quickly, she got out of bed, her heart pounding and her bare toes gripping the floorboards. What if it was a burglar? This was a big house in a wealthy area and didn’t they say thieves always chose opportunistic moments to break in? What better time than amid the dramatic chaos of a wild thunderstorm?
Pulling on her dressing gown, she knotted the belt tightly around her waist and wondered if she should go and wake Lucas. Of course she should—if he was back. Yet she was dreading knocking on his bedroom door in a way she would never have done before she’d agreed to have dinner with him. Back then—in that unenlightened and innocent time before she’d started to fantasise about him—she wouldn’t have been in an angsty state of excitement, wondering what she’d find. She knew he didn’t wear pyjamas because she did his laundry for him. And that was the trouble. She knew so much about him and yet not nearly enough.
Quietly, she pushed open her bedroom door and crept along the corridor, her head buzzing. At least she’d made up her mind about how to deal with his job offer—because no way could she join Lucas in America now, not if she was harbouring stupid ideas about what it would be like to...to...
She cocked her head and listened. Was that the creak of a footstep on the stairwell she could hear, or just the normal sounds of the big house settling down for the night? It was difficult to tell above the sound of the drumming rain. Peering over the bannister, she could see light streaming from Lucas’s room on the floor below and she crept downstairs towards it.
She had just reached his door when a figure appeared at the top of the stairs and Tara nearly jumped out of her skin when she realised that Lucas was standing there wearing nothing but a pair of faded denims, which he had clearly just slung on, because the top button was undone. And his chest was bare. Gloriously and deliciously bare—his washboard abs as beautifully defined as the powerful curves of his forearms. Tara felt the sudden flip of her heart and was furious with herself—because wasn’t it shocking to be noticing something like that at a time like this? She was supposed to be investigating a night-time disturbance, not eying up her half-naked boss like some kind of man-hungry desperado.
‘Lucas!’ she breathed. ‘It’s you.’
‘Of course it’s me—who else did you think it would be? Father Christmas?’ he snapped. ‘And what the hell are you doing, creeping around the place like a damned wraith?’
She was still flustered by the sight of him wearing so few clothes, and her reply came blurting out, the words tumbling over themselves in their eagerness to be said. ‘I... I heard a crash from downstairs and I thought it might be...’ she shrugged ‘...a burglar!’
‘And you thought the best way to deal with some potentially violent nutter was to confront him with nothing more effective than an indignant look in your eyes?’ His gaze bored into her. ‘Are you out of your mind, Tara?’
Tara licked her bone-dry lips. Yes, that was a pretty accurate description of the way she was feeling right now. But she could hardly tell him the reason why, could she? She could hardly explain that her fixation about him had been so great that it hadn’t left room in her head for anything else, and certainly not common sense. ‘So what was the crash?’ she questioned. ‘Did you find out?’
Lucas scowled, aware that his body was hardening in a way which was not what he wanted to happen. And the reason for his suddenly urgent desire was the most perplexing thing of all. Tara was standing there in some passion-killer of a dressing gown, which looked as if it had been made from an old bedspread, and yet a powerful sexual hunger was pumping through his veins. It defied all logic, he thought—just as his behaviour had done in the few days since they’d been apart. He’d been busy in Berlin, buying fleets of electric cars and planning to lease them out to businesses at a highly profitable rate. He’d had several high-powered meetings with the German transport minister and had been taken to an entrancing Schloss
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