Читать книгу A Mistress, A Scandal, A Ring - Angela Bissell, Angela Bissell - Страница 11

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS CLOSE to one-thirty p.m. on Saturday when Xav arrived home—a couple of hours earlier than he’d anticipated. He grabbed his briefcase, dismissed his driver for the remainder of the weekend and strode into the villa.

He should be dead on his feet. He was operating on little more than two hours’ sleep and a gallon of caffeine. But he wasn’t exhausted. He was wired. It was how he always felt in the midst of a major business deal. Focused. Determined. Ruthless.

It put him in the perfect frame of mind to deal with a certain redhead—a problem he would have tackled sooner, had Peter Reynaud’s bloodsucking lawyers not waited until six p.m. last night to return their marked-up version of the one-hundred-and-fifty-page contract. Either they were tearing every damn clause and sub-clause apart to eke out their billable hours, or Reynaud himself was hindering the process.

Furious, Xav had made his commercial and legal teams pull an all-nighter—which meant he’d had no choice but to stay as well. He never demanded anything of his people he wasn’t willing to demand of himself.

At least he’d been able to focus one hundred percent on work, secure in the knowledge that his other ‘problem’ was safely contained for now. Offering up his villa had been a stroke of genius, and she’d played into his hands just as he’d thought she would. Few women could resist the lure of luxury—especially when the luxury was free.

All he needed now was her signature on the paperwork in his briefcase. Once executed, the confidentiality agreement would prohibit her from disclosing any information about the biological relationship between her late stepmother and himself to any third party. In return she would receive a handsome one-off payment—a sum Xav considered a small price to pay for peace of mind. The last thing he wanted was some tabloid journalist digging up the answers to questions he had decided a long time ago he didn’t want to ask.

As for that one minor glitch yesterday—that fleeting moment of hot, naked lust that had struck him unawares in the car, when he’d leaned across her to belt her in and her light, feminine scent had curled around him... He’d glanced down, away from those entrancing hazel eyes and soft, full lips—away from temptation—only to be transfixed instead by pert breasts and hard, pointed nipples poking shamelessly against the fabric of her T-shirt, just begging for his attention.

Lust and fury had collided. Fury at her for tempting him; fury at himself for being tempted.

Subsequently, his having to stay overnight in the city had been a blessing in disguise. For a few hours he’d been able to cast her out of his head, shrugging off the incident as nothing more than the base reaction of a neglected libido.

Pausing now in the villa’s double-height entry hall, he pulled off his sunglasses and waited, listening for Rosa’s approach.

Nothing.

Which was unusual.

His housekeeper of ten years had an uncanny radar for people arriving at the villa—particularly her employer.

He moved deeper into the house and then stopped, canting his head.

He could hear music.

More specifically, the jaunty strains of the gaita—the Galician bagpipes that Rosa’s husband, Alfonso, had a talent for playing. He heard voices, too. And laughter.

Frowning, he set his briefcase and sunglasses down, followed the sounds through the house and ended up standing outside the kitchen, looking across Rosa’s meticulously tended herb and vegetable gardens to the staff cottage where she and her husband lived.

Xav recognised the music now—an old folk song—and it was indeed Alfonso on the gaita. He sat in the shade of a massive orange tree at a wooden table littered with the detritus of a group meal, his wiry chest puffing in and out as he breathed life into the old instrument. Rosa sat beside him, smiling and clapping, but it wasn’t the housekeeper who held Xav’s attention—it was the couple on their feet.

Alfonso’s twenty-something nephew, Delmar, who helped his uncle with the odd stint of landscaping on the estate, was performing the steps of a traditional folk dance, while opposite him Jordan Walsh attempted to mirror his moves.

Xav couldn’t tear his gaze off her—and it was no wonder, given the clingy tank top and denim cut-offs she wore. The latter left bare the long, slender thighs he’d caught a tantalising glimpse of in the car yesterday, before she’d closed her skirt in that prim display of modesty.

She laughed, the sound surprisingly throaty and appealing, and tossed her head, drawing his gaze to that magnificent mane of copper-red hair with its streaks of glinting gold. She wore it down today, and it flowed over her bare shoulders, thick and wavy, the ends softly curling against the pale upper slopes of her breasts.

Heat punched into his groin, swift and brutal in its intensity, and he gritted his teeth against the unwanted surge. Dios. His libido had lain dormant for too many months to count and it was springing to life now? In response to this woman?

She messed up her steps and laughed that husky laugh again, and then she stumbled and Delmar’s big hands wrapped around her waist to stop her falling.

Xav wasn’t fully aware that he’d moved—that he’d stalked between the neat borders of the vegetable patches and crossed to the cottage—until suddenly he was standing in the yard, the music had stopped and four startled faces were staring at him.

‘Senyor!’ His housekeeper leapt to her feet with remarkable agility for a woman of her age. ‘We were not expecting you so soon.’

‘Clearly.’ His response came out sharper than he’d intended, but the way they were all staring at him made him feel like an interloper—an outsider in his own home. He didn’t like it.

‘Can I fix you some lunch?’ Rosa offered.

‘Sí. A sandwich will do. I’ll take it in my study.’ He turned to Jordan and noted with a stab of satisfaction that Delmar had removed his hands from her body and stepped away. ‘Ms Walsh,’ he said evenly, and she looked at him with what he thought might be a touch of defiance in her hazel eyes. ‘A word in private, please—if you can spare a moment from your dancing lesson.’

Giving her no chance to reply, he turned on his heel and strode back to the villa, detouring to where he’d left his briefcase and collecting it before heading to his study. Assuming she was trailing somewhere not far behind, he didn’t slow his pace or glance over his shoulder until he reached the doorway, where he finally paused and looked back—only to see she was nowhere in sight.

His mouth flattened.

Infernal woman.

He dumped his briefcase on the desk, returned to the hallway and cast an impatient look down its vast, empty length.

Finally, just as he was beginning to consider the possibility that she’d decided to defy him, she emerged around a corner at the far end of the hallway and, spotting him waiting, hurried towards him on those long, shapely legs. She stopped in front of him, panting a little, each breath moving her firm, high breasts up and down.

He gritted his teeth. Don’t look.

‘Did you get lost?’ he said dryly.

‘Of course I got lost.’

Her snapped response made him draw back a fraction. ‘I was being sarcastic.’

She gave him a droll look. ‘Were you? I would never have guessed.’

She jammed her hands on her hips and huffed out a breath, blowing an errant strand of hair out of her face.

‘If you actually care to know, I did get lost. You stormed off so quickly I couldn’t catch up and I took a wrong turn at the kitchen. I didn’t know which way you’d gone and this place is...is ridiculously huge.’

Xav took in her flushed cheeks, the cross look on her face and her generally flustered demeanour. A sudden flash of amusement drew the sting out of his temper.

He cocked an eyebrow. ‘You think my home is ridiculous?’

Her eyes widened, her expressive features morphing into a look of dismay. ‘Of course not!’ she blurted, her blush turning a deeper shade of pink. ‘I only meant... I meant I wasn’t...’

She bit her lip, which had the dual effect of halting her stammered response and drawing his attention to the lushness of her mouth—which in turn fired a pulse of heat into his groin and hampered his ability to concentrate when she took a deep breath and spoke again.

‘You have a very beautiful home,’ she said, enunciating her words slowly this time, as if selecting each one with care. ‘An amazing home, actually. It’s just that my sense of direction is hopeless and...well, the villa is rather...’

She fluttered her hand in the air, searching, he assumed, for a suitably inoffensive word.

‘Big?’ he supplied helpfully.

She cleared her throat, her cheeks glowing like hot embers now. ‘Yes.’

A crueller man would have let her squirm for a bit longer, but he wasn’t quite that merciless. Plus, he had no idea where this urge to tease and provoke had sprung from—or, more dangerously, where it might lead—so he was better off shutting it down. The fact that she’d already had him lurching from arousal to anger to amusement and back to arousal again in the space of mere minutes, when usually he was so adept at governing his emotions, was disturbing enough.

He motioned her into the room, followed her in and then closed the door and crossed to his desk.

‘I hope you’re not angry with Rosa and Alfonso and Delmar,’ she said.

He turned and looked at her. She stood in the middle of the room, her colour still high, her arms folded tightly over her breasts.

‘Do I have reason to be?’

She frowned at him. ‘I don’t know. Why are you asking me? You’re the one who marched in looking as if you wanted to throttle someone.’

He had wanted to throttle someone. Delmar. An urge for which he could offer no reasonable explanation. All he knew was that he hadn’t liked seeing the younger man’s hands on her. The familiarity between them. What else besides dancing had they got up to over the last twenty-four hours?

Had she encouraged him?

Pain arced through his jaw and he realised his teeth were clenched. Relaxing his expression, he sat against the edge of his desk and crossed his ankles. Good manners would normally dictate that he offer the lady a chair, but he wasn’t feeling especially chivalrous just then.

And he rather liked having her standing there in the centre of his antique Persian rug where he could see her.

All of her.

He could tell it made her uncomfortable and he enjoyed that—perhaps a little too much.

Maybe he was that cruel.

He folded his arms loosely over his chest. ‘I’m not accustomed to finding my house guests fraternising with the staff.’

Her chin came up. ‘Perhaps your staff wouldn’t have had to entertain your house guest if their employer hadn’t been an absentee host. If anything, you should be thanking them. Rosa has been wonderful—and Alfonso. They’ve very generously shown me some of that Catalan hospitality you promised.’

‘And Delmar?’ he couldn’t resist asking.

Just how generous had his hospitality been?

Her brow scrunched. ‘Of course. Delmar, too. They’ve all been exceptionally kind. I hope you know how lucky you are to have them,’ she added, her tone implying that she considered him entirely unworthy of his employees’ services.

Well, well... It seemed his little nurse from Down Under was a zealous defender of others.

Xav stilled.

His