Читать книгу Modern Romance Books September Books 5-8 - Кэтти Уильямс, Annie West, Cathy Williams - Страница 12

‘NICE PLACE,’ RAFAEL said neutrally as they headed out of the house, swinging round to the back, away from the main lodgings.

Night had gathered around them and Rafael had morphed into a tall, dark shadow, his gait loose-limbed and oddly graceful for a man of his size.

Sofia was accustomed to the size of the mansion where she worked, as well as to the several acres of manicured lawns surrounding the house.

‘It’s very big,’ she agreed, breathing in the fragranced air and making sure to keep some distance between them. It was cooler now, with a whispery breeze that lifted her hair and blew tendrils away from her face.

‘Enjoy working here?’

‘That’s where you’ll be staying. Straight ahead. It’s entirely self-contained, so there will be no need for you to come to the main house.’

‘Unless I want to.’

Sofia shivered and hugged herself. She had picked up something in that low, lazy drawl but then, when she thought about it, she wondered whether it wasn’t her imagination playing tricks on her.

‘Have you been to this part of the world before?’

‘This particular country has passed me by,’ Rafael murmured.

‘In that case, I can tell you where you need to go to buy...err...food or whatever else you might need.’

‘Or you could show me.’

Sofia didn’t say anything. Was this a come-on? It sounded like one but it didn’t feel like one because his drawl was lazy and mildly amused. None of that skin-crawling invasion of her privacy and space that always alerted her to a man on the make.

She thought back to all those years ago and to one of those men on the make, but she had just been a kid of fifteen and he had been old enough to be her father—a friend of a friend of her mother’s, drunk at a house party, one of the few her mother had ever had. She remembered the terror of her bedroom door slowly being pushed open and the fear when she had worked out why he had crept into the room.

Sofia knew that she might not have had the strength to fight him off and that he had only scarpered because a couple had stumbled up the stairs, opening doors in search of the upstairs bathroom. They had spooked the guy out of the bedroom because, drunk as he was, he’d still known what the fallout would be if he were to be caught. She’d been saved by the bell but it had been a sharp learning curve for her. Be wary had become the motto branded at the back of her brain, and she had lived her life accordingly.

Four years later, when she had made the mistake of falling for a boy her own age—only to discover that she had been the object of a bet as to whether he could get the hot chick into bed inside a month—‘be wary’ had become ‘stay away’.

She was disturbed that these wayward memories had jumped out of her without warning because she’d always thought that they were buried and forgotten.

She slid her eyes sideways. He wasn’t looking at her. He was frowning and staring at the grand quarters they were approaching, usually used as guest quarters for overspill at parties. James had decided that it would do for the gardener, possibly because it would have been unthinkable to accommodate him in the main house. A gardener roaming through their luxury villa and making himself at home in their kitchen would never have done.

Sofia stuck the key in the lock and stood back so that he could precede her into the two-bedroomed dwelling. She switched on all the lights and watched as he strolled around for a few seconds before heading off in the direction of the kitchen, having tossed his battered hold-all on the ground by the staircase.

She followed. The housekeeper had tidied the place but it felt stuffy and airless.

‘Who usually uses this?’ He appeared in the doorway of the kitchen and lounged indolently against the doorframe, looking at her with his head tilted to one side.

‘Overnight guests. If the big house is full.’ He was so breathtakingly beautiful that she couldn’t help but stare at him. It was almost too much of a mammoth effort to look away.

‘I’m surprised they didn’t choose to stick you in here,’ he mused, spinning around and then heading straight for the kitchen cupboards, which he proceeded to open and close. ‘The very least they could have done was to equip me with a few essentials.’

Sofia gasped and then burst out laughing, surprising herself as much as it seemed to surprise Rafael. Laughing with a guy, any guy, wasn’t something she could remember having done in years.

‘Share the joke?’ He raised both eyebrows and her outburst of laughter subsided into a wicked grin.

‘You. You’re so...so...brazen...’

‘Explain.’ But he was smiling crookedly back at her, his dark eyes unreadable.

‘You don’t seem at all grateful to be here.’

‘Why should I be grateful?’

‘Well, I gather from the Walters that they were more or less put in a position where they had to give you this gardening job for a month. It’s a really cushy number.’ She glanced around her at the luxurious accommodation. ‘And most people would be over the moon to have this place to stay.’

‘I’m not most people,’ Rafael said. ‘You’ll figure that out soon enough.’ He paused but kept his fabulous eyes pinned to her face, which made her colour rise further and made her heart flutter a little more furiously in her chest.

‘Well, upstairs is self-explanatory. Two bedrooms and there’s linen in the cupboard on the landing.’

‘You still haven’t told me why you don’t stay out here.’

‘I...the Walters... James and Elizabeth think it’s more convenient for me to be at hand. You know...close to the kids.’

‘Actually, I don’t know.’ He began heading up the stairs and for a few seconds Sofia wasn’t sure whether he actually expected her to traipse along in his wake or not. She had shown him the lodge, she’d done what she had to do, and in the morning she would show him the list of stuff she had been given for him to start on. Elizabeth kept a vigilant eye on the garden but messages were always relayed via her husband to the team that came weekly to prune, trim, plant and uproot. He was officious in his dealings with them. He wouldn’t be winning any popularity contests with his employees any time soon. He’d had no choice but to house this outrageous stranger but he had made sure to leave two A4 sheets of paper full of detailed instructions.

‘What do you mean?’ She roused herself from her ruminations and found herself following him up the stairs, stopping short as he pushed open one of the bedroom doors, before spinning around to look at her through narrowed eyes.

‘I mean,’ Rafael said slowly, ‘By having you on tap, well, does that mean that you don’t get any time off?’

‘No, well...’ Flustered, Sofia met his dark, speculative gaze, vibrant green eyes clashing with dark, fathomless ones. ‘They do go out quite a bit and it’s just more convenient for me to be there rather than having to decamp all the time when I need to babysit.’

‘And do you get paid extra for all this babysitting? Hefty price for being on permanent stand by?’

‘Why are you asking me all these questions?’ she threw at him, uncomfortable because he was voicing the very resentments that had piled up inside her over the months. The job was extremely well paid but in return...

She needed the money. That was the bottom line. She had debts and nothing had been left when her mother had died. She had returned to ground zero after a long spell away with not much to show for it. One child, one divorce, any number of relationships that had ended up nowhere and only just enough money made over the years to ensure that her mother had enough for tickets back to base camp and sufficient cash as a down payment on a rented condo on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, close to where her sister lived.

Sofia had not had the opportunity to do any saving of her own and this nanny job was well paid—their luck with nannies hadn’t been stellar, from what Elizabeth Walters had let slip, and Sofia wondered whether they’d set this sort of honey trap to ensure she wasn’t tempted to quit.

‘I’m a curious kind of guy,’ Rafael said mildly, watching her carefully. So carefully that she began to fidget. ‘Stay a while,’ he coaxed, strolling out of the room, his demeanour that of lord rather than serf. He glanced over his shoulder as she followed like a puppet, which was not like her at all. ‘I’m new to this country. I don’t know a soul. It would be nice for me to have some company this evening, if only to learn a little about the place, so that I can familiarise myself better with it when I get out there to explore.’

‘You’re here to pull up weeds and plant shrubs, not explore,’ Sofia reminded him, but she felt that tug of amusement again. He was so high-handed that it should have put her back up, but strangely it didn’t.

Where she had spent her life trying hard to stay under the radar—partly to deter the advances of lecherous men and partly because she was so focused on her future that she knew that, at least for her, diplomacy was definitely the better part of valour—he was the opposite. Oil to her water, chalk to her cheese, darkness to her light.

She shivered, wondering whether the strange pull she felt tugging her towards him stemmed from the fascination she felt when confronted with her polar opposite or whether she wasn’t just lonely.

Rafael shrugged. ‘And I’m sure I’ll be doing just that but I don’t intend to come all the way out here and leave...empty-handed.’

‘What does that mean?’ Sofia questioned.

‘It means that this is a beautiful part of the world and I won’t be burying myself in somebody’s back garden pulling up weeds without taking some time out to surface.’

‘I don’t think James Walters is going to appreciate your sense of adventure.’

Rafael shrugged.

‘Don’t you care?’ Sofia asked curiously.

‘Why should I?’

‘Because you could end up with a poor reference. Mr Walters would enjoy nothing better.’ She blushed a bright red. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘But you did.’ He began heading out of the lodge and back towards the main house, and Sofia was struck yet again by the man’s arrogant assumption that he could do whatever he wanted, safe in the knowledge that no one was going to object. In this instance, the ‘no one’ just happened to be her. She’d already walked him to the lodge, and left him in no doubt that she wasn’t interested in his company, yet he had decided to ignore her completely. She belatedly remembered how keen she had been to be rid of him and how annoyed she’d been at his late arrival.

‘You don’t like the man, do you?’ he remarked casually without looking around, throwing it over his shoulder as an aside.

‘I never said that!’

‘I’m good at reading what people choose not to say. In fact...’ He stopped dead in his tracks and stared down at her thoughtfully. ‘I’d say a person can learn more about someone from what they choose to keep secret. If you don’t like working for these people, then why do you?’

‘Why do you think?’ Sofia asked tartly. ‘For the same reason you’re here! The money. Look, don’t you have stuff to do? Unpack? Touch base with your friends and relatives to tell them that you’ve arrived safe and sound?’

‘I don’t have much to unpack and notifying friends and relatives can wait. I’ll have that cup of coffee you offered earlier. If you feel guilty about doing something in the big house that doesn’t involve working for them and obeying orders even when they’re not around, then you can fill in some time by telling me what they want me to do around here. Although I’m sure there’s a helpful list as long as my arm.’

‘One coffee...’

‘I get it. Then you have things to do.’

This time, he spent a bit longer inspecting the house as they entered. He pushed open doors while Sofia watched, knowing that she should say something but not sure what, because she didn’t think he was going to make off with the family silver.

The guy was dressed in clean but worn clothes, but something about him, some instinct, told her that he was no thief and that he saw nothing wrong with checking out his surroundings.

She wondered whether his bone-deep confidence was born from the fact that he was so spectacularly good-looking, but then she thought about herself and the way her looks had the opposite effect on her, making her timid, cautious and always ready to bolt. Maybe when it came to the lottery of good looks it was different for guys—she didn’t imagine that Rafael would have been hounded by jealous peers and plagued by the wandering hands of women he didn’t want near him, fearful that they might take advantage.

She just knew that he sent shivers of awareness racing up and down her spine.

She made them both a mug of coffee and, because she was hungry again, she fixed herself something to eat, another sandwich, while he looked on, his dark eyes watching her with veiled, lazy interest.

‘Is it because you like kids?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The reason why you’re here, working for a couple you don’t respect.’

‘You’re jumping to all sorts of conclusions!’

‘Am I?’

‘I’m not asking you a load of questions.’

‘What would you like to know?’ Rafael murmured softly, leaning back into his chair and angling it so that he could hook his foot under another and scrape it towards him to use it as a footrest.

He folded his hands behind his head and stared at her.

‘How did you manage to wangle the job here?’

‘I have a few connections. Does it matter?’

‘I don’t suppose so...’

‘You never answered my question about whether you worked here because you liked kids. Do you have any siblings?’ Again, another question. Rafael already knew the answer but he had been tasked with finding out about the woman, and he intended to do so just whatever way he chose. An evasion here...a little white lie there...so many things could unlock the secret of a person’s personality, and when a fortune was at stake unlocking her personality was more than just a technicality.

‘No.’ Sofia hesitated and her cut-glass green eyes clouded over. ‘I’m an only child. My mother...fell in love with some old guy when she was in her twenties.’

‘Some old guy?’

‘Well, my father, as it happens, who was much older than her.’ Sofia grimaced. ‘She didn’t like talking about it. In fact, she didn’t for most of my life, but then when she got ill she began opening up a bit more...’

Rafael was watching her carefully. ‘So where is he now?’

‘Who knows? It didn’t last.’

‘Why not?’

‘It doesn’t matter. It ended because that’s the way most relationships go. They end.’

‘You’re very jaded for someone as young as you are. Why? And did you ever want to find out about...the old guy?’

‘Why should I?’ Her eyes flashed sudden, blazing anger.

Rafael shrugged. ‘Curiosity?’

‘I’m too busy trying to get on with living my life to be curious about anyone or anything,’ Sofia muttered.

‘That’s a lie.’

‘What?’

‘You’re lying. You’re curious about me. I can see it on your face and hear it in your voice.’

‘You’re incredibly egotistic!’

‘I’m curious about you as well. You’re not travelling down a one-way street, Sofia...’

The suddenly charged silence that followed his remark stretched and stretched to breaking point. Rafael vaulted fluidly upright and proceeded to prowl through the kitchen, then he disappeared into the adjoining pantry to reappear with a bottle of wine. He raised both eyebrows at her horrified expression. ‘I’m sure your dictator employers won’t mind if we crack open this bottle of wine to make the time go quicker.’

‘You can’t!’ She released a long breath, confused and addled.

‘Are you going to stop me?’ He hunted down a corkscrew and a couple of crystal glasses and poured. He held out the glass and, after a moment’s hesitation, Sofia took it.

They hadn’t exactly locked the wine away but she’d known, without having to be told, that all alcohol was off-limits for her. She had never had a problem with that because she wasn’t much of a drinker, and she respected the boundaries they had laid down.

But that rebellious streak she hadn’t even known existed sparked into life again, filling her with a sense of wicked daring as she sipped some of the red wine.

‘Don’t worry,’ Rafael murmured, swirling his glass and breathing in the fragrant aroma for a few seconds, appreciating the quality of the grape. ‘I’ll make sure I replace it.’

‘If you plan on drinking any more of this stuff,’ Sofia grimaced, ‘Then you’re going to find that you’ve blown all your earnings before you’ve even done a day’s work in the garden! The Walters are very fussy when it comes to their wines. I have no idea how much this bottle cost but it won’t be cheap.’

‘Which is why you’re terrified of going near that wine fridge?’

‘Drinking isn’t appropriate when you’re looking after children.’

‘And, as you’ve said, you’re on call twenty-four hours a day, every day of the week...’ He strolled towards the huge double-fronted steel grey fridge and stared at drawings that had been attached by magnets to the front, oddly out of place in the vast, modern, clinically pristine surroundings. He un-tacked a photo and peered at it, then he looked at her.

‘This the family?’ He tilted his head to one side and Sofia knew that she was reddening. Her skin felt hot and prickly and there was a throbbing in her temples. Those dark, dark eyes of his were so intense, so penetrating.

‘Yes,’ she replied shortly.

‘Attractive couple. Attractive kids.’

‘Yes. They are.’

‘Younger than I’d imagined, if I’m honest.’

‘Why would you have imagined anything about them?’

‘Unlike you, I don’t pretend to be incurious. It’s natural to wonder about the sort of people you might be stuck with for a couple of weeks.’

‘You act as though you’re doing them a favour!’

‘The man...is very good-looking, wouldn’t you agree?’ Rafael murmured, glancing towards her, keeping his keen gaze pinned to her face.

Sofia tensed, her face tight, and just like that he replaced the photo from where it had been taken, seemingly losing all interest in the conversation.

In her.

Disappointment warred with relief. She looked at the glass of wine in her hand and wondered how she’d ended up straying from the straight and narrow.

‘So what’s keeping you here?’ he asked. ‘Aside from two kids and a pay packet at the end of the month.’

The question temporarily threw her and she looked at him with sudden bewilderment.

‘Isn’t that enough? We all have to earn a living. You’re here, earning a living.’ She cleared her throat, finished her wine and stood up, hot, bothered and so, so conscious of his eyes trained on her face. ‘Anyway, you should...be thinking about heading back to your lodge. You’ll be busy tomorrow.’ She stood up while he remained sitting where he was, long legs stretched out in front of him, lightly holding his glass of wine and idly twirling it before taking a sip.

‘Sit, why don’t you?’ He motioned to the chair and drawled with a ghost of a wry smile, ‘I promise that I’ll leave you in peace when this glass of wine is finished.’

Sofia thought of the empty evening stretching ahead of her and was ashamed to find herself wanting him to hang around. She’d always enjoyed her own company, especially since she’d been working here, because her time was so seldom her own. However, he’d sparked a curious restlessness inside her and the prospect of studying, which had been top of the agenda, seemed dull and boring.

Disobedient eyes slid across to him, to the lazy, ‘Lord of the Manor’ way he sat there, sprawled in the kitchen chair, dominating the space around him.

Fearless. What sort of gardener was he anyway?

She tried to picture him weeding, scrutinising bottles of fertiliser, mowing the lawn and talking to the plants but she couldn’t.

‘Is there someone significant lurking in the background, making all this drudgery worthwhile? He must be very understanding to put up with you being on call twenty-four-seven.’

‘Drudgery? Drudgery? Who do you think you are?’

‘Figure of speech,’ Rafael said unapologetically.

‘I resent that figure of speech!’

‘You’re very attractive but I don’t suppose I’m telling you anything you don’t already know.’

‘That doesn’t mean...it doesn’t mean...’ She was breathless and had to breathe in deeply to stop herself from shaking. ‘That there’s a significant anyone lurking in the background, and even if there was I fail to see what business it might be of yours!’

Rafael didn’t say anything for a few seconds and she found the silence oppressive, like a dense weight pushing down on her, making her want to justify herself.

She thought of her experiences with the opposite sex, the hungry eyes and groping hands that she had always had to bat away. She thought of being the object of a bet, mortified and humiliated at a time when she had been so open to handing over her heart to someone.

Was it any wonder that she felt safest when she was buried behind books, studying and dreaming about an uncomplicated future?

Other girls her age dreamt of guys, dating, engagements and getting married.

She dreamt of being able to take care of herself. When she thought about men, she vaguely had in her head someone unthreatening—dull, even. Someone who would be able to see past the sexy image that was so unlike the girl she was inside and appreciate her for the qualities that weren’t on show.

‘So no boyfriend?’

‘No,’ she said sharply. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’ She abruptly got to her feet and made a beeline for the folder she had been given with all the detailed instructions for the gardener whom had been foisted upon the Walters.

‘And what about the master of the house?’ Rafael quizzed softly, feeling her out.

Sofia stiffened. It was barely noticeable but he noticed it.

‘What,’ Sofia asked coldly, ‘are you implying?’

‘Sometimes masters of the house can have expectations beyond the call of duty. Sometimes those expectations are met...’

Sofia clenched her fists and took a deep, steadying breath, which didn’t do the trick. He was being provocative. She had no idea why but it wasn’t going to get her anywhere if she allowed her temper to get the better of her. Letting your emotions get the better of you never paid off. Her mother had let her emotions get the better of her. First when she had fallen for a guy who had dumped her, and afterwards when she had let her heart rule her head, always looking for salvation in someone else, always thinking that she could escape disappointment by throwing herself headlong into relationships that had never gone anywhere.

Sofia had adored her fallible mother but had seen the failings and had determined never to be afflicted in the same way.

Letting this complete stranger get to her wasn’t going to work.

‘Not in this case,’ she said through gritted teeth.

‘I didn’t think so,’ Rafael murmured honestly. ‘But there’s something there, isn’t there? What?’

‘Let’s get something straight.’ Sofia was holding on to her temper with difficulty and he wasn’t making it any easier by that all-knowing look on his face, a look which implied that he could read her mind, which of course he couldn’t.

‘What’s that?’

‘You’re here to do a job. I have stuff to do and I won’t be fraternising with you.’

‘Because I ask too many questions?’

‘My personal life is none of your business. Now, I’ll show you to the door. Take the instructions. You might want to read them over before you go to bed. There will be a lot to busy yourself with until James and Elizabeth get back. They’ll expect you to have done everything laid out, right down to pulling up the very last weed in the flower beds.’ She thrust the paper into his hand, and he glanced at it as though only really mildly curious as to the content.

‘Later.’

‘Later? Later?’

Rafael rose to his feet unhurriedly. ‘I’ll be settling in before I start doing any work in someone’s garden.’

‘Settling in?’ she parroted, staggered and still seething at his outrageous implications. For all that, though, she was furiously aware of the keen beating of her heart and the way, for the first time in living memory, she felt alive to someone else, all her senses heightened, her pulses racing, her skin tingling.

Rafael burst out laughing. ‘Oh yes,’ he said in a low, velvety undertone, moving towards the door and dumping the unopened pages of instructions on the kitchen counter en route. ‘I intend to familiarise myself with the place before I go anywhere near a bottle of weed killer or a lawn mower.’

‘You can’t do that.’

‘Will you be trying to stop me?’

‘James... Mr Walters...he can be very short-tempered.’

‘Really?’

Sofia nodded, but she was mesmerised by the arrogant lack of interest in Rafael’s dark gaze.

‘Interesting.’

‘What is?’ she breathed, hovering, unable to keep still.

‘Interesting how incredibly unadventurous you are for someone of your age. Why is that? No, I can guess why. Your mother dragged you from pillar to post and your response was to batten down the hatches and pray for a time when the storm would pass.’

‘Stop,’ Sofia hissed, shaken. ‘Stop making assumptions about my personal life!’

Rafael didn’t say anything for a few seconds but he looked at her, a long, leisurely look that made her breath hitch in her throat.

‘A little adventure can go a long way,’ Rafael murmured.

‘Maybe for you,’ she was stung into responding, ‘but not for me. So maybe you’re right—maybe a life of never quite staying anywhere long enough to put down real roots has made me a bit wary when it comes to all that nonsense about adventure. But I don’t need a complete stranger to start lecturing to me on my life choices.’

‘Who better than a complete stranger to lecture on life choices? Isn’t that how therapy works?’

‘You’re a gardener, not a therapist, so I’m not seeing the relevance.’

Rafael adroitly swerved around the interruption. ‘Life is meant to be lived,’ he mused, eyes pinned to her face, noting every change of expression, every fleeting shadow, the flare of her nostrils, the dilation of her pupils, the way her breathing was shallow and breathless. ‘Sometimes, things happen that can’t be predicted...’ He shrugged and grinned. ‘All I’m saying is that I won’t be spending every hour of the day obeying what’s on those pieces of paper el señor de la casa has thoughtfully printed for me.’

Adventure...

Never before had one word dangled before her eyes, beckoning with the seductive allure of a banquet spread before a starving person.

She had made all the right noises about adventure being the last thing she wanted in her life. She’d meant every word of it! It was an ideology long ingrained inside her.

And yet...he stood there and the urge to be swept away by that low, sexy voice was overwhelming. She physically had to take a step back but her heart was beating like a sledgehammer inside her.

‘I intend to see a bit of this beautiful place, Sofia, and you’re going to be my guide,’ he murmured. ‘While the cat’s away the mouse, I’m suggesting, should definitely play...’