Kept By The Spanish Billionaire
CATHY WILLIAMS
Multimillionaire businessman and playboy Rafael Vives is bedazzled by Amy's beauty - and instantly decides she must be his new mistress! Showered with jewels and gifts, Amy knows she should feel lucky. But she longs to be more than just the billionaire's playmate. Torn between her heart and her head, Amy leaves. And Rafael, determined to win her back, must choose between wanting her as his mistress, or making her his bride - for keeps!
Kept By The Spanish Billionaire
Cathy Williams
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ONE
RAFAEL VIVES wasn’t sure whether to be amused, irritated, bored or downright enraged at the situation in which he now found himself. For a man whose raison d’être was his work, the mistress without rival, to be trapped in paradise for ten days on a babysitting mission was enough to make his teeth snap together in frustration. Even his twenty-four-hour accessory, his faithful laptop computer without which he would have been truly lost, could not make him forget that his stay at his mother’s house in the Hamptons had not been of his choosing.
Fortunately, at the time, he had been on his New York stint, so the physical inconvenience had been lessened considerably, but, close though his office was, he had been asked, rather told, by his mother that he was to ‘stay put and keep an eye on his brother’. He suspected that she knew him well enough to know that the minute he set foot into his office, that massive glass monster in Lower Manhattan, his mission to ‘keep an eye on James, you know what he can be like’ would be completely forgotten.
Her original plan had been for him to join in James’s house party, a commendable reward to select employees in London and New York by way of celebrating one year’s worth of substantial profit for the company.
Rafael didn’t know if he or James had been more averse to the idea.
From James’s point of view, one which he shared with candid horror, the idea of Rafael, as he put it, ‘glowering in the corners and frightening the employees’ made his blood run cold.
And, as far as Rafael was concerned, the thought of mingling with a truckload of people all day and all night, without any remission for good behaviour, was beyond the pale. In the running of the conglomerate, James was the blond-haired, blue-eyed face of advertising campaigns, and he, Rafael, the brains and horsepower that drove the company.
The symbiotic relationship worked and Eva, their mother, was forced to concede to their reluctantly agreed concession.
James would host the party at the house, a sprawling beach mansion poised on three acres of land and overlooking the spectacular beauty of prime Hamptons beach.
Rafael, from the peace and seclusion of a guest cottage in the grounds, would oversee things, ensuring that neither the music nor the fun and frolics got out of hand.
The last time James had hosted a party at the house, neighbours had complained and that was quite something considering how far away the nearest neighbour lived.
Of course, as Rafael had pointed out to his mother in an attempt to divert her from her insistence on his presence at the event, that had been two years ago and the party had been laid on for James’s personal friends, all in their early to mid twenties, rather than employees of the company, but his objections had been in vain. Eva Lee still shuddered at the memory of the fiasco and the inevitable all round apologies to her friends at the East Hampton Improvement Society.
So here he was now, one day into his Big Brother role and already itching to get back to the cut and thrust of what he knew and loved.
But at least, he conceded, the scenery was magnificent, forced as he was to contemplate it. It briefly, though only briefly, occurred to him that he didn’t visit the place often enough. The idyllic days of youth spent at the then family home had gradually tapered off to the occasional visits in between his university studies and thirst for foreign travel. And then his working life had begun in earnest, first operating independently at one of the biggest broking houses in the world and thereafter at the helm of the family company, following the untimely death of his stepfather, and James’s dad.
From there on in, time and the years had galloped away, leaving him now to ruminate as he stared at the stunningly beautiful and dipping sunset at the possibility that he would wake up one day only to find himself a middle-aged man married to a company.
Rafael frowned grimly and sipped the whisky and soda he had prepared for himself. Introspection was not a pastime he indulged. He had always been goal-oriented and had seldom questioned the unutterable direction of his plans.
He wasn’t about to start now.
On the drift of the breeze, he could hear the faraway sounds of forty-odd people having a good time.
It wasn’t too hard to picture the scene. James, naturally, would be in the thick of it. Pre-dinner drinks would be on the go and, of course, with an army of staff requisitioned to ease the strain of actually having to do very much of a practical nature, there would be no headaches over what to cook for everyone to eat or even when to top up the empty glass. The finest wine would be accompanied by the finest food and everything would be served by the most reliable and efficient of staff that money could buy.
Spirits would be merry, indiscretions would doubtless abound, especially considering that employees on either side of the Atlantic would be meeting for the first time, without the annoying presence of spouses or partners to cramp the merriment. In the morning hangovers would probably be rampant, but at least for the while some very thorough guilt-free drinking would be done. Of that Rafael was utterly sure. And never mind the jet lag.
He downed his drink and breathed a hearty sigh of relief that he was to be spared the fun and games.
He really didn’t know any of the people who had been invited to the bash. James had told him that the accountants and the managers and the marketing crew, who always basked in the limelight when it came to credit and applause for company profits, would be given a bonus, but the ‘forgotten crew’ would glory in their once-in-a-lifetime experience of the East End of New York’s Long Island. Rafael’s mind had boggled at the speculation of what his brother meant by the ‘forgotten crew’, although he had to admit that the sentiment was in the right place. Rewards should not be confined to the obvious but should filter down the line into the pockets of those whose profiles were less highly visible.
As he stood on the small wooden porch, staring out to the ocean, Rafael mused on how vastly different he was to his half-brother. They might well have been strangers, so great was the chasm between them as far as their personal tastes in friends, women and lifestyles were concerned.
He was idly speculating on how two people who shared at least some of the same DNA code could be so wildly different when he spotted something out of the corner of his eye. Something or someone. A faint rustling amongst the lush, perfectly landscaped vegetation that signified a presence.
And a presence could only mean one thing. A party-goer, in the heat of the moment and with the wine flowing like a fountain, had failed to realise that he had strayed out of bounds.
Rafael carefully put his glass down and turned towards the direction of the rustling. The light might be fading, but he wasn’t blind and the bimbo trying to tiptoe away from the scene of the crime must have had all of one brain cell to imagine that he couldn’t see her. And he could. Blonde hair, of course. Faded cut-off jeans worn very tight. Naturally. Cropped top with obligatory slither of stomach exposed. In other words, just the sort of woman Rafael found deeply unappealing.
‘Hey, you!’
Lord, his voice ricocheted around Amy and she gave a little startled yelp as she turned tail to flee. One glance at the man, all shadow and substance at the same time, was enough to warn her that, whoever the hell he was, he wasn’t the sort to chuckle over the fact that she was probably trespassing on his property.
Not that it was easy to tell where James Lee’s property began and ended.
The place was just so big! Even with a severe case of jet lag kicking in, it was still impossible to miss the fact that ‘the family house’ stopped only a few polite centimetres short of being a hotel. And the grounds! Succulently tempting. Even with her body clock warning her that it might be time to head for her bedroom, the verdant lawns with their masterfully landscaped grounds had egged her on, tempting her to explore just for a little while.
Hence the fact that she was now trying to dodge a giant of a man who seemed to be rapidly closing ground between them.
She was barely aware of his stealthy movement towards her and was, in fact, breathing a sigh of relief that she had escaped, when a hand closed over her shoulder, yanking her to a sudden, painful halt, before swinging her around so that she was forced to look up…and up…until she was staring into the most forbidding face she had ever seen in her life. Black eyes glared down at her from a face that was all disturbing angles and shadows. His mouth was a thinly drawn line of suppressed anger. Amy’s breath caught in her throat as she stared up at him, her eyes widening as her brain rapidly went through the various possibilities for danger that were confronting her.
Fortunately for Amy, danger, the unknown and certainly threatening oversized strangers were not things that could keep her exuberant nature suppressed for too long.
‘Who the hell are you?’
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing here?’
They spoke at the same time, glaring at each other with equal ferocity, until Amy slapped his hand off her shoulders and stepped back, her blue eyes spitting fire.
‘I asked you first!’ Amy decided to go on the immediate attack because, for once, her vocabulary was threatening to let her down when she needed it most. She rubbed her shoulder meaningfully, every inch of her five-foot-three frame emanating anger.
Rafael took a deep breath and summoned up the formidable self control that had made him such a powerful contender in the world of high finance. He turned his back and began walking away, towards the house, leaving the wretched blonde to stew in her own pathetic discomfort, even though every fibre in his being wanted to prolong the confrontation so that he could put her soundly in her place.
‘Hey! Where do you think you’re going, mister?’
Rafael turned around and stared at the diminutive figure that hadn’t budged from where he had left her. This time, her hands were planted firmly on her hips. The breeze, he could see, was wreaking havoc with the curly fair hair, blowing it this way and that. The cropped top had ridden up a little higher and there was slightly more of that slither of stomach visible.
In every way, shape and form, this woman conformed to his brother’s idea of the perfect woman, from the obvious clothing to the flyaway blonde hair. The only variation on the theme seemed to be that this particular model didn’t have the requisite big breasts.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Rafael said with icy politeness, hardly believing his ears.
‘You heard me!’ Amy took a couple of steps forward. ‘Who the heck are you and what do you think you’re doing on James Lee’s property?’
‘Oh, good God. A madwoman. I suppose you’re a member of his guest list up at the big house and you’re a little worse for wear.’ Rafael checked his watch. ‘Pretty good going considering you really haven’t been here that long.’ He gave a short, sarcastic little laugh that made the blood rush to Amy’s head.
‘How dare you?’
She had taken a few steps closer to him. Now, with the light from the porch spilling onto her, Rafael could see that the cute little figure, minus the large breasts, was accompanied by a face that might have passed for just another pretty one were it not for the lively expression on it. He had an idea that this woman was not backward when it came to self-expression. Loud mouthed and brash, he assumed, with distaste.
As if to cement the unfortunate impression, Amy glared at him. ‘Does James know that you’re here? Ha! I’ll bet he doesn’t! I know for a fact that he doesn’t use this place very often so I’m sure he’d be overjoyed to know that there’s a squatter on the grounds!’
‘Squatter?’ Rafael gave a roar of laughter.
‘You heard me. A squatter!’ Well, he didn’t exactly look like one, but, then again, he certainly didn’t look like one of the people James would normally mix with. Of which she was not exactly one, but she sure as heck knew what they were like because she saw them often enough in the director’s restaurant, where she worked behind the lines, providing high-quality food for the high-quality executives, and, sometimes after hours, for James’s personal entourage, glamorous women and playboy men who occasionally had a bite to eat in the boardroom before heading out to some trendy London night spot.
Of course, none of the directors knew that James was the unofficial recipient of Amy’s catering skills. For the past year and a half that had been their little secret and one that was so James with his winning, risqué ways, his charming disregard for convention except when it suited him.
Wasn’t that why she had taken to daydreaming shamelessly about him over time? Oh, he was so much more than just a good-looking face and a moneyed background!
Amy surfaced from her distracting thoughts to find the man, now recovered from his laughing fit, eyeing her coldly.
‘I am not a squatter. In fact, I’ve never heard such a ridiculous suggestion in my life.’
‘Then who are you?’
‘Someone who isn’t about to stand around here and have a pointless discussion with some woman who’s the worse for wear.’
‘I am not the worse for wear!’
‘Well, you’re certainly behaving like you are.’ Rafael’s voice dripped contempt. Some men liked shrieking women, but he wasn’t one of them. He liked them refined, elegant, composed. His expression hardened. ‘And I have no desire to conduct a conversation with a fishwife.’
Amy gasped. His lack of common courtesy was somehow shocking, especially, she thought belatedly, considering he was talking to a guest of the man on whose grounds he had apparently set up camp. Legally or illegally, she had yet to find out.
Yet again he had turned his back on her and was striding towards the house. He couldn’t possibly be oblivious to her presence because she was hardly trying to be silent, but he certainly wasn’t spinning round to continue the sparring match.
In fact, she hopped onto the covered wooden porch at roughly the same time as he swung through the front door and without a backward glance slammed it firmly in her face.
As expected, it wasn’t long before Rafael heard the woman banging on the door. At this rate, between her uncontrolled shrieking and the unholy racket she was now making, the neighbours would be reporting him!
He went very close to the door, close enough so that he didn’t actually have to raise his voice very much to be heard. ‘Go away. You’re making a fool of yourself. I don’t much give a damn whether you’re drunk or not but I don’t have time for women who think they can get their own way by screaming and yelling. So run along to where the fun is, stock up on a bit more booze and then collapse, like everyone else, into bed.’
‘If you don’t tell me who you are I’m going to have to report you to James.’ Amy lowered her voice to match his, although she wasn’t quite sure whether she sounded as cold and forbidding as he did. She just hoped that she didn’t sound like a petulant child who would resort to telling because the temper tantrum hadn’t worked.
‘I’m sober enough to know that you might not have permission to be on these grounds.’ In fact, she hadn’t drunk anything at all, despite the abundance of alcohol on offer. All manner of sightseeing tours had been laid on for them to enjoy and she wasn’t about to miss a single one of them because of a hangover. Nor was she about to squander any precious moments she could spend in James’s company by having unnecessary lie-ins.
It worked. To her astonishment. The man opened the door, glared at her and informed her that she could come inside.
For the first time, with the lights in the room switched on, she saw him properly. He was tall and she had been right about the raven-black hair. In fact the only thing she had missed and that was becoming patently clear was that he was incredibly, undeniably sexy. Not sexy in a magazine centrefold kind of way, but sexy in a powerful, brooding, rough-edged kind of way. It almost took her breath away, then she stared around her, curiosity temporarily silencing her.
The house might have been small but it was far from shabby. The rich patina of wooden flooring glistened, invited the eye to linger over the comfortable sitting area, which was dominated by a large, modern-style fireplace, coaxed it into straying just a bit further to glimpse a high-tech kitchen, then up a few short stairs to where, presumably, the bedrooms were.
‘Not bad for a squatter,’ she said, adding, ‘ha, ha,’ when he frowned at her. ‘Look, I’m sorry if you’re suffering a severe case of wounded pride because I called you a squatter, but I was a little shocked to find somebody out here, holed up miles away from the house.’
Rafael stared at her, fascinated against his will. Not only did she appear to have no braking mechanism controlling what came out of her mouth, but she was now wandering through the house as if she really were a guest, rather than an intruder who had managed to wrangle her way in by dint of threat.
The fact of the matter was that Rafael did not want his presence on the grounds to be an open secret. He genuinely didn’t want to be a dampener on proceedings, nor did he want to feel obliged to join in the fun. He had his own idea of fun. Dinner with friends, intimate jazz clubs with like-minded women. Certainly not drinking till dawn around a pool at the family mansion in the Hamptons with a random selection of people he didn’t know from Adam but was pretty sure he wouldn’t particularly like. Just as he didn’t particularly care for the woman standing in front of him, making no pretence at covering up her nosiness.
‘So if you’re not a squatter, then who are you?’
I just own the company you work for, Rafael was tempted to inform her. It didn’t surprise him that the woman had failed to recognise him. As she was a member of the ‘forgotten crew’, he suspected that whatever job she did would be fairly low profile and definitely out of sight. It had to be said that he was also rarely in London, choosing to oversee things from New York, and judging from her accent she was definitely one hundred per cent Londoner.
‘I’m the…gardener,’ Rafael improvised.
‘And you live here?’
‘Where else would you expect me to live?’
‘In a small, average house on a small, average estate somewhere fairly close by…like any other normal gardener…’
‘In case it missed you, this isn’t exactly a small, normal garden. It’s a full-time job, hence my residence on the grounds.’
‘And your staff come in every day to mow the lawns…’ That made a bit more sense because she couldn’t really picture him pushing a mower himself. He didn’t look the type, although if his body was anything to go by he had no end of muscular brawn at his disposal. No, he definitely looked more the sort to give orders and, furthermore, to enjoy giving orders. She felt immediate sympathy for his absent staff.
‘Mow the lawns…keep the gardens in check…do whatever needs doing…’
‘And you control the whip.’ It was said in a light-hearted tone of voice, but of course he refused to crack a smile, prompting her to enquire whether a lack of a sense of humour was part of his job description.
Amy liked people with a sense of fun. She came from a sprawling family of six children and, like most children from large families, she had never had much experience with the concept of privacy. She enjoyed sharing. She laughed easily. She liked to have a good time. It was one of the many things about James that she found so attractive. His wicked sense of fun.
This man on the other hand was the epitome of grim-faced seriousness.
‘Are you always so…serious?’ she asked, looking at him, but not for too long because he really was very sexy indeed, if you went for the brooding kind of man. Which she didn’t.
Rafael, unaccustomed as he was to being spoken to like this, was temporarily lost for words and in the brief silence Amy carried on blithely.
‘I mean…what have you got to be grim about? You live in a fantastic place, paid for by your employer. And I bet you also have lots of other perks that go with the house.’
‘Perks?’
‘Sure.’ She tabulated them on her fingers, one at a time. ‘Car. Hiding in a garage somewhere, I expect, and probably not any old banger. Pension plan. End-of-year bonuses. Am I right?’ The tiredness that had seen her stepping out of the house for a breath of fresh air, then wandering much further than she had intended, seemed to have disappeared.
‘I can tell from your silence that I’m right!’ she said triumphantly. ‘Lucky old you.’
Rafael did not intend to be drawn into any conversation with a dippy blonde who had managed to stray out of her depth. He opened his mouth to tell her politely, but firmly, that it was time for her to leave.
‘Why do you say that?’ he heard himself ask and she shot him a wide, infectious grin.
‘Because I do a similar sort of thing and I certainly don’t have the great perks that you do.’
‘You’re a…gardener?’
‘Caterer.’
‘And catering is similar to gardening?’
‘Well, we both work with our hands and are creative with it…so, yes…pretty much, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘I can’t say that there’s anything creative about gardening.’
Amy looked at him in surprise. Again, she was struck by the force of his physical presence, which, she told herself with a little inner laugh, was just silly. ‘Then why do you do it?’
Rafael gave an impatient shrug and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Look. I’ve humoured you by letting you in and you now know why I’m here. So time for you to go and I’d appreciate it if you could keep my presence here to yourself.’
‘Because…?’
‘Because I don’t want to be overrun by James’s house guests when I’m trying to do my job.’
‘You’re on first names with your boss? Hmm.’ She thought about it for a few seconds, then her face softened. ‘Not surprising really.’
‘What’s not surprising?’ Rafael frowned. ‘No. Forget I said that. Have a good time here. I’m sure you will. It’s a beautiful place. Lots to do and explore if you choose to leave the house and pool.’
He began walking towards the door, not giving her time to continue with her relentless chatter.
‘Do you realise we haven’t even exchanged names?’ Amy said, sticking out her hand. ‘I’m Amy.’
‘Why should we have exchanged names?’ He pulled open the door and stood back, sticking one hand in the pocket of his cream Bermuda shorts.
Even at night, the temperatures meant that shorts and tee shirts could be comfortably worn. For Rafael, who lived most of his life in his tailored, handmade suits, a pair of shorts and a faded tee shirt constituted the highest form of luxury.
‘That’s very rude.’ Amy withdrew her hand and pulled herself up so that she could fix him with a gimlet eye.
‘What’s very rude? You know what? I’m not really all that interested anyway.’ Outside, in the balmy air, a very gentle breeze lifted the breathtakingly blonde curls and made them dance.
‘I don’t care whether you’re interested or not! I’m going to tell you anyway! It’s rude to look at someone as though they’ve got a contagious disease when they’re doing nothing more than attempting to introduce themselves! If you don’t want to tell me your name, then that’s fine! It’s no skin off my nose! It’s not as though I’m—’
‘Rafael.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Rafael. My name is Rafael Vives.’ He held out his hand and as Amy took it she felt a strange quiver of awareness dart its way through her body like a sudden, unexpected jolt of electricity, then the feeling was gone.
‘I’m Amy.’ As quickly as her temper had surfaced, it was gone. Anger was something she had never been able to hold onto for very long. ‘Rafael…unusual name…Is it…what? Italian?’
‘Spanish,’ Rafael said abruptly. ‘Will you be able to find your way back to the house?’
‘Oh, yes? How did a Spanish gardener come to be working in America?’ She fished into a pocket, pulled out an elastic band and expertly tied her hair back into a loose pony tail.
‘Buy yourself a potted history guide book, speed read it and you’ll discover how we Spaniards managed to find our way over here. Now off you go.’
‘You’re very arrogant, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. Yes, I am, and now that we’ve cleared that up you can be on your way.’
To his relief she took the hint and for a few seconds he watched her head off, pause, glance around her, head off, but this time in a different direction. Her antics would have been amusing had he not known that sooner or later he would have to point her in the right direction. The grounds to the house were extensive and the verdant lawns were interspersed with grassy dunes and dense trees. There was even a tiered pond with a waterfall set in richly colourful gardens. When you knew the property, you knew easily how to find your way around, but to the uninitiated it could be bewildering, especially in the dark. And the guest cottage, which had been indeed built to house the head of the domestic staff when the house had been fully utilised, was not easy to find.
With a deeply impatient sigh, Rafael fetched the key, slammed the door behind him and caught up with her as she veered off on her fourth aborted attempt to locate the right way back.
He circled his hand around her arm and ushered her in the opposite direction.
‘Good God, woman! Where’s your sense of direction?’
‘I would have found my way eventually! And do you mind letting me go? You’re not a policeman and I’m not under arrest!’
‘I’m just making sure that I get you off my property!’
‘Your property? That’s a bit rich considering you’re only the gardener! I know the gardens are unusually big so you must be an unusually important gardener, but hey! You’re just still a gardener!’
‘Do you ever shut up?’ Rafael muttered under his breath.
‘Are you ever polite?’ He still had his hand wrapped around her arm like a steel clamp and Amy had given up on trying to shake him off. ‘It’s not my fault these grounds are so big! Well, actually, it is kind of my fault. I suppose I could have stayed put at the house with everyone else.’
‘Yes. That you could have done. Why didn’t you?’ She was very slight. Her arm felt fragile in his hand. He imagined that if he were to ever pick her up, she wouldn’t weigh a thing. He released her and shoved his hands in his pockets.
‘I was tired.’ She shrugged. ‘Normally I’m up for any party but I just fancied a little bit of time on my own.’
‘There was a party going on when you left?’ Rafael’s ears pricked up. ‘What kind of party?’
‘Oh, the usual. Loud music. People passing out in the flower beds. Skinny-dipping in the pool.’
Rafael spun her around to face him. ‘You’re kidding, aren’t you? I would have heard if there was loud music. It’s a still night.’
Amy looked up at him in astonishment and then burst out laughing. ‘Of course there was no party, Mr Gardener! I just meant that, after the “getting to know you” over the cocktails, I decided that a little walk in the garden might wake me up! It was all perfectly civilised. The flower beds are all still intact, in case that was what you were worried about.’
‘Of course I wasn’t worried about the damned flower beds!’
‘Then you don’t take your job as seriously as you should!’ Amy chided teasingly. ‘Anyway, why on earth should you care whether James has a party up at the house or not? It’s not really your business, is it?’
‘If you peer into the distance you can see the lights of the house. Follow them.’
‘You mean you won’t do the gentlemanly thing and walk me to the front door? And before you start glowering, it was just a joke. Do you ever get lonely?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Do you ever get lonely? You know…stuck up there on your own from dawn to dusk…’
‘What makes you think that I’m stuck there on my own?’ Rafael couldn’t resist asking. Even without benefit of light, he could see the embarrassed surprise on her face. ‘Don’t you think that there’s a woman who wouldn’t mind helping while away the occasional lonely night?’ he drawled.
Amy could feel hot colour flood her cheeks as she struggled to find a suitably composed reply. Eventually she stammered, clearing her throat, ‘Well, you just seemed to overreact to the idea of a party, so I thought that maybe…perhaps you…’
‘Perhaps I was a complete bore who enjoyed nothing more than pruning the rose bushes while pouring scorn on other people’s good times?’
‘No, of course not!’
‘I know how to enjoy myself, little Amy.’
The way he said that sent shivers running up and down her spine. From somewhere, she managed to dredge up the image of James, smiling, blond-haired James with his teasing blue eyes and ready grin, and just about managed to ward off the more disturbing one of Rafael the arrogant gardener in bed with a woman who wanted to help him while away a lonely night.
‘I just don’t happen to be a party animal. Drinking myself into a stupor has never held much appeal.’
Rescued from her sudden, acute embarrassment and over-active imagination, Amy was happy to be diverted back to her healthy opinion of him as an arrogant bore.
‘No, I could tell.’ His body language was letting her know in no uncertain terms that he couldn’t particularly care less what she thought of him, but Amy couldn’t seem to let it go. Arrogant bore or not, there was something curiously fascinating about him. ‘You’ve probably never been to a really good party’ she said, consolingly. ‘It’s not all about drinking yourself into a stupor. It’s about good company and good music and lots of dancing.’
She grinned at him, amused at his expression of distaste. ‘Which bit of that do you find off-putting?’
‘The bit that reeks of excess,’ Rafael told her coolly.
‘Which is where you’re in danger of going unless you clear off. I’m sure, as the party animal that you are, you don’t set much store on privacy, but I do and I would appreciate it if you respected that and stayed away from my property. Think you can understand that?’
Amy felt sudden tears of hurt prick the backs of her eyes and she nodded. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a small voice, which made him feel like a monster.
Rafael gave her a curt nod and turned away. It was bad enough having to take time out when there were a million things that urgently needed doing without finding his precious time further usurped by a trail of unwanted explorers making the most of their bonus week off.
When he eventually turned around to make sure that she was walking in the right direction, she had disappeared.
CHAPTER TWO
THINGS had been laid on.
Amy woke early the following morning, drifted downstairs and discovered, to her surprise considering James’s casual personality, that their days had been mapped out and planned with military efficiency.
Several others were likewise up and in the dining room, which had been laid out for breakfast buffet style.
On one wall was a large notice board indicating the activities in store for them that day, should they wish to avail themselves of it.
From behind her, Claire, her closest friend at the house, tapped her on the shoulder and giggled something about how the other half lived and that they should tuck into breakfast because not having to prepare it themselves was a luxury that wouldn’t rear its head again in a hurry.
‘Darn right!’ Amy laughed back, easily slipping into the fun-loving girl her friends all knew and appreciated. It wasn’t long before she had joined some of the others, happily allowing herself to be swept up in the excitement of planning which events they were going to try out later on.
Of course, there was always the option of staying put, which some of them intended to do, but there would also be an opportunity to go kayaking and canoeing. For the lazier of them, fishing was an option, as well as a chance to explore some of the beaches, which would involve picnics and swimming.
Amy wondered which, if any, James would be going to. He was nowhere to be seen, but when he did appear she intended to get herself noticed in a way she had yet to do.
Thus far, she had always been the very good caterer at work, always decked out in her boring white outfit and caterer’s hat. It was the least sexy outfit possible to don. Not that Amy considered herself to be the centrefold of a magazine, but she had a friendly personality and many people had told her that she was quite cute.
Well, cute could work. She had tied her hair back into two braids that reached just past her shoulders, a touch-and-go hairstyle as far as attracting the opposite sex went but very practical in hot weather. Her blue and white top was jaunty and her jeans were, she thought, just the right side of trendy. Very skinny-fitting and just right with the flat, beaded silver shoes that she could kick off if need be or walk a hundred miles if she had to.
‘Which tour do you think he’s going to be on?’ she whispered to Claire, as soon as they had sat down in front of plates that were groaning with a ridiculous amount of food. ‘I’ve dressed the part.’ She thought, briefly and unexpectedly, of the arrogant gardener she had bumped into the previous night. She imagined he would give her one of those ice-cold looks were he to see her in her get-up. For a second she was tempted to let Claire into the little secret, but she held her tongue, remembering the way he had told her to keep his presence on the ground to herself.
‘What part?’ Claire grinned. She was as plump and dark as Amy was fair and slender, but they had hit it off the minute they had met two years previously and were still the best of friends.
‘The part that’s not covered up in a white uniform with neat white plimsolls and a hairnet. A hairnet! Do you think he’ll notice me?’
‘He always notices you,’ Claire said, prompted into automatic support.
‘Yes, well. He chats and laughs but he does that with everyone!’ She skewered a piece of fresh pineapple on her fork, inspected it and popped it into her mouth. ‘I wonder which exciting little tour he’ll be on.’
Claire watched her friend drift off into some pleasant daydream land and bit back the instinct to protect her from hurt by telling her how she really felt—that James liked her well enough but that was as far as it went. She was pretty sure that he really would never actually have a relationship with someone who worked for him anyway, because wouldn’t that be against some company law? But even if he could have, he joked with her the way a guy joked with a woman he thought of as a mate. She should know. That had been her fate for long enough!
‘Just enjoy yourself, Ames, and forget about James. He’ll be at the barbecue tonight anyway!’
And as it turned out the tight-fitting jeans and the jaunty top had been in vain. James had gone off fishing for the day, bonding with some of the junior lads in the marketing department. The outfit, furthermore, had been a serious impediment when it came to kayaking and by the time four o’clock rolled round and they were all trooping wearily back to the house Amy was more than a little disconsolate.
What was she doing? She was twenty-four years old and was committing the unforgivable sin of throwing herself at someone with the desperation of an ageing spinster under threat of being left on the shelf! It was ridiculous. She was ridiculous!
She almost believed it, almost figured that she had got her emotions under control, when she spotted him later that night, standing outside in the garden, drink in one hand, laughing with a little group of people around him, and then her heart fluttered a bit and she drew in her breath and headed in his direction.
The barbecue was kicking off in jolly style. Wine was being served and a selection of exquisite canapés, just substantial enough to take the edge off the alcohol before food, was brought out.
James spotted her weaving her way in his direction and for a second or two he hesitated, then there he was, breaking away from the group and coming towards her.
Actually, Amy could scarcely believe her eyes. In fact, she turned around to see if there was anyone behind her towards whom he could be heading.
When she looked back round he was right there, in front of her, his blond hair rumpled, his whole look adorably preppie. He gave her a crooked smile and she smiled back happily.
‘I didn’t recognise you.’ He held her hand, stepped back and made her do an impromptu twirl, then he gave a long, low wolf-whistle.
‘Is that a good thing or a bad thing?’ Amy said, cheeks pink. She couldn’t quite make her voice sound husky, but she gave him the best flirty look at her disposal, all fluttering eyelashes and coy smile.
‘A very good thing!’ He laughed. ‘The skirt suits you. In fact, your legs suit you. Very nice legs.’
‘Hmm. All two of them!’ She felt rather pleased now that she had made the effort to wear the red and black floaty skirt she had brought over, even though the barbecue was being held in the garden so dressing up wasn’t de rigueur. The strappy red top made her feel wonderfully feminine.
‘Tell me what you did today,’ he said, eyes on her as he polished off his drink and signalled to a waiter for a refill without actually turning around.
Amy told him, skipping out certain unfortunate details, such as nearly tipping over their kayak in an attempt to swap places with Justin and getting her jeans soaked to the thighs because she should have worn shorts like everyone else, not to mention the little fact that her glorious bead shoes were now drying on her window ledge and would probably never be the same again. He seemed amused enough at her rendition of the day’s events.
The one thing she omitted to tell him was about her encounter with his gardener. Why spoil the moment? From feeling a little downbeat, she had bounced right back to her cheerful self, basking in the once-in-a-lifetime experience of being the centre of James’s attention.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Claire grinning like a hyena, and Amy made sure to angle her body away from her friend. She might be crazy about James, but she would die a thousand deaths if he ever discovered that, and Claire with her antics was hardly being the soul of subtle discretion.
But already she could sense that James was ready to move on, to circulate, and she looked wistfully at his departing back as he reached for another glass of wine and headed off, always solicitous when it came to involving each and every one of his guests.
For a few seconds, it dawned on her that those few moments of snatched time during which he had complimented her, actually looked at her, really amounted to not very much, but she quickly brushed aside that pessimistic train of thought.
‘I think,’ she told Claire later, when food had been eaten and the assembled crowd had moved on to the sort of abandoned dancing that only alcohol could induce, ‘that I’m making headway.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Ames…’ James seemed to have disappeared from the scene, although it was hard to tell because it was dark and there were so many people all over the place.
‘He asked me what I thought of the food.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Told him it wasn’t a patch on mine.’
‘You never!’
‘Yup.’
‘Bad move. Maybe he’ll sack his caterers here and rope you in to do the cooking.’
They giggled, enjoying the novelty of being far from familiar shores in a setting they would never again experience.
Amy drained her glass of wine and decided that she would try and locate the errant James.
It had gone eleven and the party, subdued considered the amount of alcohol on offer, was still going strong. No one, in fact, had gone to bed yet as far as she could see, and Amy wasn’t going to be the first. The American crowd, who were either staying at a local hotel or else returning to their own homes, would be the first to go. She imagined that, with the crowd diminished, she might yet find another opportunity to chat to James, to let him see her in a different light. Hopefully not a sozzled light. However much Amy enjoyed having a good time, she knew when to stop drinking. Despite, and she thought once again of the gardener and his high-handed, self-righteous, priggish judgements, what certain people might think.
But still…It was fun mingling and fun being asked to dance, and if her glass continued to be topped up despite her feeble attempts at shaking her head whenever one of the waiters poled along, then why shouldn’t she get into the spirit of things?
Besides, as the evening wore on the wine was doing a very good job of keeping her maudlin thoughts at bay. Having a crush on the boss was the oldest, saddest story in the book. If her brothers ever found out, she didn’t know which of the three of them would die laughing first, and she didn’t think her sisters would be too full of tea and sympathy either. She was a pretty outgoing sort and had had her fair share of boyfriends yet here she was, in the most impossibly stunning location in the world, surrounded by lots of lively people roughly her own age, and what was she doing? Ferreting around to see if she could spot a man who didn’t give her the time of day.
When she thought like that, her spirits dipped once more. Yet again, her outfit was going to be wasted. She had visions of thousands of outfits being bought and wasted in her attempts to steal James’s attention.
On that thought, she set down her wineglass and drifted away from the party and the house. Away from the crowds, the glaring realisation that she wasn’t having the good time she should have been hit her and Amy began to feel a little more upbeat. In a minute she knew that her instinct to make the best out of any situation would surface and she would be fine. She would sit a while and let Nature and her naturally buoyant personality take their course.
She quietly hived off towards the expertly landscaped wooded area, moving steadily away from the noise of the party.
It was late but not particularly cool and the fresh air was doing wonders for her fuzzy head. Indeed, her spirits were on the up when she was aware of movement in a little clearing in the trees. Goodness only knew how they had managed to do it, but the copse was cleverly interspersed with small benches that had been fashioned roughly out of gnarled tree trunks, so that at first glance they looked like part of the natural scenery. Amy went into immediate stealthy mode and didn’t even bother to try and fight her curiosity.
She peered, eventually making out who the two people on the bench were. It was dark, but not completely. Moonlight cast a dull, ephemeral light and as the couple moved apart for a few seconds she saw them clearly. The woman she didn’t recognise. Long, poker-straight hair, very fair skin and a body that was in a state of semi undress.
The man…well, the man…
She felt a tide of nausea rise up her throat and she took a couple of steps backwards, standing perfectly still when a twig snapped under her foot, but the couple were too engrossed in one another to hear the snapping of any twig. In fact, they would probably have been deaf to an approaching intercity train. When he pulled the woman so that she could straddle him, Amy fled.
Her heart was pounding. She tried hard to be quiet, but after five minutes the need to get as far away from the sight of James wrapped around a woman was so great that she stopped giving a damn how much noise she made.
She hit some part of the gardens but she wasn’t sure which part because she could no longer see the house, nor could she hear the strains of the music.
She was sharing a bedroom with Claire, who had turned in a while before. Who was going to miss her?
Amy willed herself to stop running and to get her breathing under control. Okay, here were the facts. The man she was mad about was involved with someone else. She was also lost. The first she would have to put on hold until she could cry about it later. The second she would have to sort out right away or else risk spending the night somewhere in the acres of estate with only her thoughts for company.
With typical pluckiness, Amy drew in a deep breath and did what every good Girl Guide book would suggest at a time like this. She looked for a tall tree. Not too hard. Actually, they all looked pretty tall. Enormous, in fact, to someone pretty short, but, drawing in a deep breath, she kicked off her useless strappy sandals, and yet again wished she were decked out in something more suitable—talk about getting her dress code all wrong—and began to climb.
She got high enough to panic but not nearly high enough to see where the house was, at which point she threw caution to the winds and began yelling her head off.
When she next got up the courage to look down, it was to see the unmistakable shape of the gardener staring up at her. Of course, it would be the gardener.
‘I’m stuck!’
‘Why are you up a tree?’ Rafael felt his lips twitch. That blonde tangle of hair announced its owner with a glaring lack of subtlety.
‘Never mind that! You need to get me down!’
‘Sorry, but I don’t hear you using that special little word.’
‘Now’s not the time for games!’
‘Always time to be polite.’
‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ Amy yelled down, ‘considering your rudeness the last time we met!’ She felt her grip on the tree branch get precariously unsteady and ordered him to go and fetch a ladder instantly! Please!
‘There’s no ladder at the cottage. Hang on and I’ll get you down!’
Amy closed her eyes. She was aware of him climbing up the tree, skilfully manoeuvring the trunk and the branches. She had never felt more of an idiot in her life. Her skirt was everywhere. Floaty was fine at a party but not so fine when it came to shinning up a tree and having to be ignominiously fetched down like a stray cat.
And Lord only knew what it was doing as he coaxed and aided her down, holding onto her when necessary until he could lever her gently to the ground, then he jumped down and landed softly next to her.
‘Thank you.’ Amy dusted down her skirt and avoided looking at him.
‘So. Care to tell me what you were doing up a tree at…’ he looked at his watch ‘…twelve thirty in the morning?’
‘What were you doing awake?’
‘I was up plotting my next attack on the bugs destroying the rose bushes. What do you think? I heard someone screaming like a banshee and thought that I’d better investigate.’
Rafael glanced sideways at the dishevelled figure next to him. He felt utterly bemused by her random behaviour. Like most men, he had certain preferences when it came to women, and was accustomed to certain codes of behaviour. Not even by the wildest stretch of imagination did climbing trees at midnight fit the bill. He tried to picture any one of his erudite, contained and eminently respectable girlfriends up a tree and failed.
‘You haven’t answered my question and, considering you’ve put me through a lot of unnecessary hassle, I think I’m owed an explanation. What the hell did you think you were doing?’
Amy gave him her best look of defiance and folded her arms, but he wasn’t buying it and eventually she shrugged and looked away. ‘Oh, the usual.’
‘Which would be…?’
‘Girl meets boy, girl likes boy, girl…’ she glanced down at her now dirty, creased skirt ‘…dons new outfit to impress boy only to find that boy has scuttled off to the woods so that he can be with another girl.’
‘And in frustration you decided to climb a tree…’
Amy remembered just how obnoxious the man was. She glared at him and told him, sounding to even her own ears like a broken record, to point her in the right direction. At this rate, the infernal man would start thinking that she was stalking him.
‘The house is a stiff walk away, at least if you take the direct route, and I certainly won’t be sending you back through the deep, dark woods. God knows where you might end up.’
He turned on his heel and started walking away and, with a mixture of frustration and resentment, Amy half ran behind him, struggling to keep up with his long strides.
‘I think I can manage!’
Was it possible to read someone’s expression from the inclination of their fast-disappearing back? She thought so!
‘Please wait!’ she yelled. ‘These sandals weren’t designed for sprinting!’
Rafael stopped and turned around, waiting for her to catch up with him. The woman was truly off her rocker. How many sane human beings climbed trees at midnight in an attempt to deal with a broken heart? In fact, how many sane adults climbed trees? He hadn’t climbed a tree since he was a kid!
‘You should have thought of that before you decided to hike your way across the estate,’ Rafael pointed out in the sort of calm voice that someone might use when dealing with the village idiot.
‘I wasn’t “hiking” my way across the estate,’ Amy said icily, ‘I was…’
‘I’m all ears.’ He carried on walking, thankfully at a less ridiculous pace, and she reluctantly fell into step with him.
‘Taking a bit of time out to get a breath of fresh air.’
‘You seem to do quite a bit of that, don’t you? Breathing in the fresh air and covering great distances in the process?’
‘Yes, I like walking!’
They had reached his house. Actually just a few more minutes of running would have seen her safely to his front door instead of up a tree, not that that option was particularly appealing either, but at least her expensive skirt would still have been intact. Now it was fit only to join the beaded silver shoes in that great wardrobe in the sky.
‘You’ll have to get out of those things. You’re filthy.’
‘I want to go back to the house. I have to go back there. My clothes are all there.’
‘I’m not taking you. You’ve put me out already.’
‘I know it’s quite a walk, but you can drive me there, can’t you? I mean, you must have a car tucked away somewhere.’ Amy suddenly felt close to breaking-point. She wrapped her arms tightly around her body and kept herself very still so that she didn’t burst into tears.
‘I’ll run you a bath.’
‘Please take me back to the house. Please.’
‘You’re in no fit state,’ Rafael told her without preamble. ‘Never mind the state of your clothes, you look as though you’re about to collapse. You need to get yourself together. Now sit down. I’ll run you a bath and, while it’s running, I’ll make you something hot to drink.’
The woman was a nuisance but Rafael felt a twinge of concern if only because the same tiring feistiness that got on his nerves was so obviously missing in action.
Before she could launch into another round of pleading to be taken back to the house, he was heading up the stairs so that he could run her a bath. Then he fetched a clean towel from the cupboard and one of his shirts, which she would have to wear whether she liked it or not. He would stick her clothes in the wash and they would be clean in time for her in the morning. After that, he would send her on her way so that she could, presumably, continue to ruin her life by falling in love with inappropriate men.
He returned to find her slumped on the ground in the sitting room.
‘I didn’t want to get your nice clean furniture dirty,’ she said, meeting his questioning eyes. ‘I’m disgusting.’ She stood up. ‘I give you yet another pair of ruined shoes. Two in one day. A record even for me,’ she told him gloomily, dangling her sorry sandals in one hand.
‘What happened to pair one?’ Rafael found himself asking.
‘Waterlogged in a kayaking incident this morning.’
‘Right. What else? The bathroom is upstairs. Leave your clothes outside the door and I’ll stick them in the wash. They’ll be ready by morning.’
‘I can’t spend the night here.’ She hovered, tapping one bare foot behind her.
‘Have a bath. We’ll discuss it when you come out. I’ve left one of my shirts for you to put on.’
Well, there was nothing to discuss. Amy emerged twenty minutes later, feeling refreshed and wearing only her underwear and his white shirt, which reached a respectable mid-thigh level. It might seem odd to whoever happened to still be up that she was returning to the house in a man’s shirt and not much else, but with any luck the place would be dead. Probably aside from James, who would still be gambolling somewhere in the woods with his lady friend. She felt another attack of self-pity threaten and willed it away.
Rafael, looking disgustingly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, was waiting for her in the sitting room with a cup of hot chocolate on the table, which he pointed at as soon as he saw her.
His shirt drowned her and she was slight enough to begin with. She had scrubbed off all the warpaint and her skin was satin-smooth with a faint golden tan that must have accumulated over the summer. Her eyebrows, in contrast to the vanilla-coloured, unruly hair, were dark. He wondered whether it was this unlikely contrast that lent her face such animation, even when she wasn’t speaking. Such as now.
‘Feel better?’
‘Not much. Thanks for asking.’ Amy curled her legs under her and reached forward for the mug, enjoying the creaminess of the drink. She hadn’t had hot chocolate for ages. It reminded her of her childhood.
Rafael frowned, a little disconcerted by the bluntness of the reply to a perfectly polite question.
‘Your clothes are in the wash,’ he informed her, skirting around his reluctant curiosity. ‘So, I suppose I could drive you back but the car is parked a walk away.’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why is your car parked a walk away? Don’t your employers think that you might want to go out now and again? You might be a very diligent gardener, but don’t they think that you might want a bit of time out now occasionally?’
‘Easier to park it behind the copse on the lane out of the grounds. The alternative would be to drive over the lawns or, of course, through the trees. The grounds were designed with aesthetics in mind and, believe it or not, a strip of tarmac winding across the manicured gardens wasn’t considered particularly fetching.’
‘Do you ever stop being sarcastic?’ She sniffed, aware that her composure was very fragile and the gardener was not the sort to make a sympathetic listener.
Amy looked at him. He was leaning forwards, elbows on knees, his hands dangling lightly between his legs. For someone who had been unexpectedly dragged out of a deep sleep, he seemed very well dressed, in a pair of khaki shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, with some worn tan loafers.
‘You weren’t sleeping, were you?’ she asked, to distract herself from thinking about her reasons for being in his house. ‘I didn’t drag you out of bed with my yelling, did I? You don’t look like someone who’s been interrupted in the middle of a deep sleep.’
‘I was…working, as a matter of fact…’
‘You were working?’ She grinned, forgetting the trauma of her evening for a few minutes. She noticed the sprinkling of dark hair visible just where his collar was open and hurriedly averted her eyes. She wasn’t sure why exactly she was aware of the man, but she was. She put it down to his barefaced arrogance, which would get under anyone’s skin. ‘Working on what?’ she asked, still grinning. ‘No, don’t tell me…that plot of yours to get rid of the bugs in the rose bushes! Why did you tell me that I’d woken you up? Did you want to make me feel even more guilty than I already felt?’
‘There are two bedrooms but one’s not made up. I’ll take that one and you can have my bed.’
‘No way. I’m not sleeping in your bed!’
‘Why not?’ Rafael asked wearily. ‘Come on. Drink that up and go upstairs.’
Amy flushed. He had used that tone of voice with her before. In fact, he seemed to have made a habit of using it since she had made his unfortunate acquaintance. It was the tone of voice of an adult addressing a child. Was that, she wondered, what he thought of her? A kid who got into scrapes?
More to the point, was that, she wondered miserably, what James had thought of her? No more than a kid he could have a joke with?
She quietly placed the mug on the table and stood up, not looking at him, waiting for him to lead her up the stairs, acutely aware that she talked too much, asked too many questions, laughed too loudly. This man might be arrogant and standoffish, but she was in his territory and if he wanted her to shut up, then she would shut up.
Had James wanted her to shut up now and again as well? She had thought he was interested in her but had he been or had he really only been responding to her chattiness, rolling his eyes to the ceiling the minute her back had been turned?
‘Okay. Spit it out.’
Amy, staring down as she followed him to the bedroom, almost collided into his huge, immovable frame where he had stopped outside the bedroom door.
‘Spit what out?’
‘Whatever’s eating you up. We might as well forget about getting any sleep tonight.’
Rafael leaned against the doorframe and stared down at her. And this, he thought, was precisely why he didn’t go for the emotional types. They poured their hearts out, they sobbed, they lacked restraint.
Amy’s blue eyes tangled with his deep, deep, almost black ones and she felt momentarily giddy.
‘I need to sit down,’ she said shakily.
Rafael stood aside and made a sweeping gesture in the direction of his bed, which, to Amy, looked unbelievably tempting. To hell with prudish, maidenly qualms. She was suddenly exhausted.
His bed smelt of him, a clean, masculine smell that made her want to close her eyes and inhale deeply because it was a weirdly comforting smell. And why pretend? She had grown up bunking down and sharing beds. Her mother had sworn that it did the immune system a world of good. She slipped under the luxurious, silky soft quilt and yawned.
‘I just can’t believe it,’ Amy said, just as Rafael was about to leave the room and head back downstairs so that he could resume the conference call to Australia that had been so rudely interrupted. He turned around and narrowed his eyes on the small figure now propped up against the pillows. She looked ridiculously fragile, he thought, which seemed incongruous considering the size of her mouth.
‘Can’t believe what?’ Rafael was not a man who was accustomed to the emotional complexities of women. He had always listened to James’s tales of woe with a certain amount of amusement and privately congratulated himself on his wisdom in going for women who didn’t play games or have moods or weren’t, in short, a mess. He didn’t sleep around and his breakups had never been messy. At thirty-four, which didn’t exactly qualify him as The Old Man of the Sea, he nevertheless considered himself pretty much together emotionally. A man who knew what he wanted in life, and that included women.
‘Can’t believe how I could ever have been so stupid. I mean…’ Amy’s voice wobbled as she considered the depth of her stupidity ‘…just because he looked at me once or twice and chatted now and again…how could I have got it into my head? I mean…has that ever happened to you? Has it? You just completely misread someone else’s signals and then fabricate a whole fairy tale in your head that’s just way, way off target?’ ‘No.’
‘What…never?’ Amy asked, temporarily disconcerted.
‘Never.’
‘Oh. So I guess you wouldn’t really know what it’s like to be…to be…’ ‘No. I wouldn’t.’ He was fairly sure he was about to find out, unless, of course, he put a stop to this nonsense, shut the bedroom door firmly and only resurfaced when she was about to leave in the morning. ‘But I can tell you that he’s not worth it.’
Amy tried to focus on James, his charming, boyish face, his blond hair that always managed to look ever so slightly tousled, though out of the corner of her eye she couldn’t help but notice Rafael’s brooding presence by the door. He was probably sick to death of her, she couldn’t help thinking, but for some reason she didn’t want to be on her own. She felt too vulnerable.
‘You can’t say that. You don’t know him.’
‘I know that no one is worth shedding tears over.’
‘Oh!’ Reluctantly she abandoned the temptation to wallow and frowned at Rafael curiously. ‘I guess you’ve never been in love…’
Rafael was fast regretting his impulse to listen to the woman because he had momentarily felt sorry for her.
‘I’m not entirely sure I believe in the concept,’ he told her abruptly. ‘Romantics hang onto the idea for dear life because they think it makes sense of life, but for me…no. I think I’ll avoid it like the plague if the net result is what I’m looking at right now.’
Amy got up the energy to glare but it didn’t last long. ‘At least we Romantics have fun!’
‘If fun is lying on a stranger’s bed at one-thirty in the morning blubbing…’ Rafael said dryly and Amy was forced to concede defeat.
‘Okay. You win. I’m a fool. Maybe next time lucky.’ She gave him a watery grin and it was such a brave pretence of a smile that Rafael found himself reluctantly smiling back. ‘Maybe,’ she mused, ‘next time I won’t fall for the boss…’
CHAPTER THREE
OKAY. Rafael was man enough to admit it to himself the following morning. He was curious. He could only assume that that was what enforced solitude did to a person, because his contact with the outside world, for the past three days, had been limited to telephone conversations or, more often than not, communication via e-mail.
At the time, he had not envisaged this as a problem. Work could be done as easily via computers and fax machines as it could be done face to face and he had made damned sure that he had total access to the outside world thanks to the telephone people who had installed everything he could possibly need for speedy connection to the Internet. At the click of a button he had been able to give his secretary all the instructions she needed to ensure that the numerous tentacles of his highly profitable companies were operating perfectly.
He had even, in the deepest corners of his mind, used the uninvited situation to his own advantage.
He paused for a few seconds, frowning into the distance as he thought about Elizabeth, the eminently suitable Elizabeth, and their very civilised parting. One that he had instigated although, when he thought about it logically, he couldn’t quite understand what had prompted his decision because she was everything he wanted, at least on paper.
He had met her when she had been heading the team of lawyers they had used eight months previously to sort out some complex legal problems on a takeover he had been finalising. He had been impressed, first, by her immense competence and her cool, self-assured manner. Later, by the many things they had in common, ranging from opera to theatre, from jazz music to fine wines.
And to complete the perfect picture, she was just the sort of leggy brunette he favoured, with short, tailored hair and an elegant appreciation of everything cultured.
It had been a little unnerving that his mother had taken an instant dislike to the woman, but Rafael had not allowed that to trouble the very real ideas he had been nurturing about taking the inevitable plunge into matrimony. As arrangements went, it would have been perfect simply because they were so alike in so many ways.
He wasn’t quite sure when doubts had set in, but eventually the very perfect nature of their relationship had started to feel just a little dull. Three weeks ago he had been visited by an unsettling vision of Elizabeth and himself twenty years down the road, an elegant but essentially boring middle-aged couple still frequenting the opera, having raised their very perfect but essentially boring children to do exactly the same.
He had withdrawn from the relationship and finally broken it off knowing that ten days in the Hamptons, away from any company dos that they might mutually attend, would be beneficial for both of them.
Which brought him back to his curiosity about the creature still lying upstairs in his bed, having fallen asleep on him just when she had revealed the object of her unrequited passion.
He filled a mug with steaming fresh coffee and headed up the stairs, pausing in the doorway to his bedroom so that he could look, dispassionately, at the woman lying on his bed.
Everything about her was in a state of disarray. Her blonde hair was all over the place, the covers had obviously been tossed aside then yanked back on several times during the course of the past few hours and were now half off the bed. One very slim foot hung over one side, affording him the sight of toenails painted a very unconservative shade of purple. Her hands were flung out over her head. A trusting person, he thought absent-mindedly, hence the way she was sleeping on her back. No wonder James had been able to hook her without trying.
‘Time to get up, Sleeping Beauty.’ He strolled over to the curtains and yanked them open so that Amy sat up with an indignant cry, shielding her eyes from the sudden, horrible, intrusive glare.
‘I’ve brought you up some coffee.’ No, he was not going to get into any heart-to-heart conversations about what had happened the night before. He didn’t want to invite any confidences. Never mind the curiosity. ‘And your clothes are all laundered.’
‘There was no need for you to pull open the curtains like that!’ Amy groaned, subsiding back onto the bed and stuffing a pillow over her face.
Rafael calmly walked towards her and jerked the pillow away, holding it out of reach while she tried to scrabble uselessly for it, finally giving up and propping herself up on the palms of her hands, all the better to deliver her best glare.
‘What time is it?’ she asked, shoving herself further up the bed and helping herself to the extremely welcome mug of coffee that he had placed on the table next to her. She groaned louder when he told her and reached for her mobile phone. Naturally it wasn’t there as she had left the party the night before and headed to shores unknown without thinking that she might finish up the evening up a tree. She would have to say that the Girl Guide organisation did not prepare you for every eventuality despite what they might like to promise!
‘Oh, God.’ She looked at him despairingly. ‘What’s Claire going to be thinking?’
‘Who’s Claire?’
‘Not to mention everyone else! I was supposed to be on the beach, picnic, barbecue thing with them today…I even brought a special outfit…’ She gritted her teeth in frustration and looked at Rafael accusingly. It was all right for him to stand there, all fresh as a daisy, with only lawnmowers and gardens on his mind, while she was in a state of emotional agony!
‘No need to worry. I phoned the house.’
‘You did what?’
‘Phoned the house.’ Rafael raised his eyebrows in a question. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘What’s the problem?’ Amy digested the image of her best friend chortling at her high jinks with all their friends. ‘What did you say?’ she asked, with less panic in her voice, hoping that he had not seen fit to share each and every detail of the sorry situation that had landed her sleeping in his bed.
‘I said you went out to get some air, lost your way and by the time you showed up at my front door it was too late to send you back and you were exhausted. So I very kindly allowed you to stay the night and would be sending you back to base first thing. Does that meet with your approval?’
‘I can see it doesn’t meet with yours, judging from that tone of voice.’
‘Are you forgetting that you should be grateful to me for getting you out of that tree…?’ He watched as her face blanched.
‘Who did you speak to?’
‘Oh, your boss, of course.’
Horrible man, he turned his back on her and was now staring through the window at what promised to be a dream of a day as far as the weather went.
‘You spoke to James…’
‘Who else?’
‘What did you tell him?’ Amy asked in a small voice.
‘Oh, just that you spent the night roaming the woods with lovelorn heart only to find your beloved in a clinch with another woman, at which point you decided to climb a tree, from whence I was forced to rescue you…’
‘You didn’t!’
‘Of course I didn’t!’ Rafael turned around just in time to catch the pillow that was winging its way in the direction of his head. He patted it back into shape and tossed it on the chair by the window, where it joined all the other assorted bits of paraphernalia that were slowly building up to a veritable mountain of odds and ends.
‘Who do you think she was?’ Amy mused aloud, resting her face thoughtfully in the palm of her hand and gently tapping her front tooth with one absent-minded finger. ‘I mean, she wasn’t one of us…’
‘Your clothes are downstairs. As is breakfast if you want anything to eat. Then you can be on your way.’ Rafael was disconcerted to find his eyes straying to the pointed tips of her breasts nudging the thin fabric of his cotton shirt. He frowned, irritated with himself, and looked at her face. ‘So come on. Up.’
‘Yes, all right. I won’t be in your hair for any longer than is necessary!’
‘I’ll leave your clothes outside the bedroom door. You can have a shower if you want.’ It was already ten in the morning. The woman had wreaked havoc with his working day. He had no intention of prolonging the unwelcome situation. Mind made up, Rafael left her to her own devices, making sure that the clothes were outside the door as promised, just in case she decided to lounge around in his house all day in an attempt to recover from her broken heart, wearing only his shirt. What ever happened to female modesty? He was no prude but he did expect a certain amount of decorum from women. His mind drifted away from the report flickering on the screen in front of him. He imagined her stripping off that shirt in one easy, fluid movement, letting it drop to the floor while she casually walked over it en route to the bathroom.
He frowned and pushed the intrusive thoughts out of his mind, focusing one hundred per cent on his work and only looking up when she padded into the room, fully dressed although barefoot.
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