Читать книгу A Spanish Passion - Carol Marinelli - Страница 5

‘MUST you leave us tomorrow, Javier? We don’t see nearly enough of you. Your father and I go to the coast in one week, as you know. Spend it here with us? Just one more week of your time; it’s not too much to ask?’

‘Sorry, Mama.’ Genuine regret darkened Javier Masters’ smoke-grey eyes as he accepted his mother’s huff of exasperation. In her mid-fifties Isabella Maria was still the dark-haired, proud-eyed Spanish beauty his English father had fallen fathoms-deep in love with thirty years ago when he had been in his mid-forties and, so he often said, had resigned himself to never finding a woman he could contemplate spending the rest of his life with.

Isabella Maria drew herself stiffly upright in her brocaded chair. ‘Hah! So much for your always saying how much you love being here!’

A log fell in the huge stone hearth, sending sparks flying. Javier unfolded his long legs, left the squashy confines of the sofa and went to tend the fire, a necessary indulgence now that the cold winds from the snow-capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada heralded the approach of winter. His father’s, ‘Don’t nag the boy, Izzy,’ brought a wry smile to his flattened mouth as he accepted the truth of what his mother had said.

He’d loved this place as soon as he’d set his fascinated eyes on it as a seven-year-old when his parents had bought it as a holiday home. A former Moorish caravanserai, it lay in the heart of the tiny Andalucian town behind a stout studded door, the building arcaded around a flagged courtyard, which in summer was filled with the heady scents of roses, myrtle and lilies.

Since his father’s retirement and health problems his parents had transferred the family home, Wakeham Lodge in Gloucestershire, to him and spent the summers here but left for their home on the coast when winter pressed down from the mountains, remaining there until after the Easter celebrations.

‘There’s nothing I’d like better than to stay on,’ he admitted as he straightened and took a straddle-legged position in front of the hearth, his wide shoulders lifting in a resigned shrug beneath the fine black cashmere that moulded his impressive torso. ‘But I have a problem.’

‘The business?’ Lionel Masters put in sharply. He had retired three years ago, handing over the reins to his only son, but he still took a keen interest in the construction business he and his one-time partner Martin Rothwell had founded and brought to impressive success, now a world beater in Javier’s more than capable hands.

‘Nothing like that,’ he quickly put his father’s mind at rest, adding drily, ‘Business problems I can handle. But this one goes by the name of Zoe Rothwell.’

Two simultaneous expressive ‘Aah!’ s were followed by a silence so intense Javier could hear his heart beating. Heavily.

He glanced at the slim gold-banded watch he wore on his flat wrist. In roughly fifteen minutes Solita, the resident housekeeper, would announce that dinner was served. Best spell it out, get it over with.

‘Yesterday, as I was leaving a meeting in Madrid I received a call from Alice Rothwell on my mobile. She sounded at the end of her tether and—to leave out the histrionics—it boils down to a blunt demand that I take over Zoe’s guardianship because Alice can’t and won’t cope any longer.’

‘And?’ Isabella Maria arched fine black brows and laid a dramatic hand on her silk-clad breast. ‘How could Alice think this is possible? I always thought she was a strange old woman—so cold and prim and proper—and now we add madness to the catalogue! Why should she think you can care for her little granddaughter? It would be different if you had a wife. But you do not.’

Registering the latent disapproval in that last statement, Javier caught his father’s grin and gave back a wry shrug. As an only child his confirmed bachelorhood had been Isabella Maria’s greatest anxiety since he had reached the age of twenty-five three years ago. His mother wanted grandchildren; there was the future generation to think of—well, wasn’t there?

But Javier was nowhere near ready to tie himself down; he enjoyed his male freedom far too much. He worked damned hard so he was entitled to play hard. He enjoyed women, lovely, sophisticated creatures who shared his view that only an immature fool could mistake old-fashioned lust for love.

‘Zoe can no longer be classed as a child,’ Javier pointed out at last, ignoring the barb about his wifeless state. ‘She’s sixteen. The worst kind of bolshie teenager, according to her grandmother. Apparently, she is now flatly refusing to return to boarding-school, skulking around the house, playing loud music at all hours of the day and night, giving Alice a load of grief. Which she wants to hand over to me,’ he ended drily.

‘Why you?’ Lionel Masters regarded his son over steepled fingers. ‘You’re already a corporate legend,’ he commented proudly. ‘A tough operator but fair, the original iron fist in a velvet glove. The responsibility of a tricky teenage girl wouldn’t cause you to lose a second’s worth of sleep, so I can see the way Alice’s mind would be working. But there is no blood relationship, no family duty Alice Rothwell has a right to call on.’

Javier’s handsome mouth tightened. ‘There’s a moral duty. Dating from when Zoe’s father sold his share in the business to you and then died with her mother, Grace, in that house fire six weeks later,’ he reminded coolly. ‘Thankfully, Zoe was staying with a school friend and was spared, but that night she lost both her parents, her home, all the security an eight-year-old girl had ever known. I felt deeply sorry for both Alice and Zoe and I thought someone from our family should take an interest,’ he emphasised bluntly.

‘Alice Rothwell’s not the easiest woman to like.’ He spread his hands dismissively. ‘That aside, her husband had died the year before, she’d lost her son and was landed with a granddaughter she found impossible to handle. She is constitutionally lacking the warmth and sensitivity required for the care of a needy child. I knew that and made a point of keeping in touch over the years. So I guess you could say that Alice sees me as the likeliest person to take over.’

Moral issues aside, ignoring the implication that she and Lionel should have offered practical help for an ex-business partner’s orphaned child, Isabella Maria’s mind was walking an entirely different path. ‘Zoe Rothwell was such a pretty child, as I remember. Such a happy little thing. She and her parents spent that Christmas with us at Wakeham Lodge. You remember, Lionel—you and her father spent most of the time finalising the details about buying him out of the business. Weeks later both her parents were dead, so there must be a mass of money sloshing about. Little Zoe might have turned into a handful but she must be worth a great deal. Surely that’s right, Javier?’

‘So?’ Javier bit back his impatience. ‘Zoe will inherit a considerable amount when she reaches twenty-one. In the meantime the money’s in trust.’ He answered the question, even though it had no relevance to the present situation, only to receive another from the same off-beat direction.

‘Is she still pretty? I recall she had the loveliest long pale blonde hair—and such huge golden eyes!’

As he expelled an I-don’t-believe-this hiss Javier’s dark brows met. What had Zoe’s looks got to do with the problem he was faced with? Tips on how to persuade a reluctant teenager to finish her education would have been more to the point! ‘How should I know?’ he grouched. ‘I visit a couple of times a year to make sure things are ticking over as well as can be expected, only to be regaled with tales of temper tantrums, nannies disappearing at the speed of light.’

In those days Zoe had been clingy around him on his visits, he recalled. Still at university himself, he’d found fun things to do with the orphaned scrap, given her a few hours of the type of childish fun not permitted by her starchy grandmother or her ancient housekeeper, both of whom repeatedly spouted the principle that children should be seen but not heard.

Later, when Zoe had been packed off to boarding-school, she’d become sulky, her mouth in a perpetual pout, her hair plaited in a tight braid that fell down her back to her waist.

It must have been almost a year since he’d seen her. Pressure of work had kept him out of England. His frown deepened to a scowl. She’d spent the whole of his two-hour visit staring at him, he recalled, remembering how oddly uncomfortable she’d made him feel.

‘You should marry her. She has her own fortune so she wouldn’t be spending yours—which is a huge consideration when one never knows if a woman thinks more of the size of a man’s wallet than the extent of his happiness,’ Isabella Maria pronounced lightly. ‘In two years, when she’s eighteen. Provided she has child-bearing hips, of course. What could be more convenient? And if anyone could cure her of her apparent habit of bad behaviour then it would be my handsome, strong-minded son!’

‘Dream on, Mama!’ His mocking laughter was a release for his irritation. He could never stay annoyed with his outrageous, adored parent for more than two minutes at a time. And as for the state of Zoe’s hips, he had no idea whether they were as wide as a barn door or as narrow as a snake’s.

Zoe’s heart was beating so rapidly she felt sick. The carriage clock on the mantelpiece ticked the interminably slow waiting minutes. Javier was coming for her! Her head was spinning; her whole body felt out of control.

She shifted restlessly on the upright chair in the window enclosure, staring out over the dull November garden, over the top of the low neatly clipped privet hedge where she would see his car as it turned off the village main street and onto the driveway, her eyes stinging with the effort of not allowing herself the smallest blink in case she missed his arrival.

For the first time in her sixteen and a half years she actually believed in her own guardian angel, something or someone who did care about her, nudge her in the right direction. What else could explain her sudden decision to walk out of school, hitch a lift back here and state she was never going back?

She’d hated that school ever since she’d been sent there at the age of eleven. Surrounded by strangers who hadn’t known her from Adam and hadn’t wanted to—because by that time Zoe had learned that the only way to dull the pain of not being loved by a single living soul was to act as if she didn’t care.

The other sixty-odd pupils were meek little swots and Zoe soon discovered why. The guiding principle of The Blenchley Private Academy For Girls was strict discipline. Severe punishments were handed out for anyone who stepped out of line, no mitigating circumstances considered.

The threat of punishment meant nothing to Zoe. Whatever the grim-eyed tutors dealt out—for answering back, bad attitude, inattention, whatever—meant next to nothing because it was a pale shadow of the punishment she’d been dealt on the night she’d lost both her loving parents, her home, everything. The only survivor from her happy past had been Misty, her darling Shetland pony, safe in his stable. But Grandmother Alice had flatly refused to allow her to keep him. Misty had been sold.

So she’d loathed Grandmother Alice, too. Truth to tell, when the grandmother she’d seen only rarely had taken her in she’d been scared by the way the old lady had recoiled and pushed her away whenever she’d tried to climb on her knee for a cuddle. Zoe had never before encountered an emotional rebuff or been treated as if she were an inconsiderate nuisance. She hadn’t liked being scared so she’d turned that fear and bewilderment into anger, a stubborn refusal to do as she was told, ever.

When she’d woken that morning, just over a week ago, and decided she wouldn’t stay at school one moment longer, she’d had no idea how events would unfold. Twenty-four hours ago Grandmother Alice had announced, ‘Javier Masters has agreed to take you into his care for the remainder of your minority.’ Her thin mouth had pursed. ‘I have performed my duty thus far, but am unwilling to continue. My only hope is that Javier can instil some common sense into you and exact at least some good behaviour. He will collect you tomorrow afternoon. Make sure you are packed and ready.’

Since then she’d been in a state bordering on delirium. Her guardian angel had been working overtime! She’d always adored Javier.

In the beginning he had given her treats every time he’d visited. Trips to the zoo, ice creams and burgers, a day at the seaside where they’d built the biggest sandcastle known to mankind, a magical few hours watching a pantomime, lots of fun but, more importantly, his time and attention. All that had more or less stopped once she’d been packed away to boarding-school. He’d still visited a couple of times a year when she’d been back on holiday but Grandmother Alice had vetoed any outings, telling Javier that, because of consistently bad reports from school, treats of any kind were out of the question.

The visits she’d so much looked forward to had become torture. The three of them taking tea, served by the grumpy old housekeeper, Grandmother Alice’s strictures to ‘Sit up straight’, ‘Don’t fidget so’, ‘Answer the question.’

Javier’s gentle questions about school, the friends she’d made, nothing she’d wanted to answer because nobody must know how unhappy she was. It would have made her seem weak and she wasn’t, she was tough!

But his smile had always been kind even though she’d known she was behaving like a sulky brat. And when he’d left he’d always given her a big hug and that had always made her want to cry because he’d seemed the only person in the world able to like her, and she’d known it would be months before she would see him again.

Then, around a year ago, on his last visit, something amazing had happened. She’d fallen for him with a resounding crash. Not only because of his fantastic looks—that soft black hair, sexy, black-fringed smoky eyes, the hard slash of his high cheekbones, tough jawline and wide, beautiful male mouth—but because of that intrinsic kindness, coupled with the aura of supreme self-assurance that told her that he was a man who would fight to the death for anything or anyone he cared about.

Flooded with new and heady sensations, butterflies in her tummy, a melting, softening feeling that had sprung from her rapidly beating heart and flooded through every inch of her body, a strange, awe-struck breathlessness, she hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him, following every move he’d made, soaking in every word he’d said.

The wonder of falling in love had armoured her against Grandmother Alice’s coldness and her return to school at the start of the new year had been accepted blithely. She’d even got her head down and worked hard, toed the line. If she could go home with a good report then her grandmother would have no grounds to veto any outing he might suggest.

She’d felt as if she were floating on a rosy cloud, counting off the days until his next visit, hopefully during the Easter holidays, but if not then definitely some time during the summer. She’d known there wasn’t an earthly chance of him falling in love with her—the very idea was insane—but that hadn’t stopped her fantasising, or stopped her longing for his next visit.

But it hadn’t happened and she’d faced the fact that he had better things to do with his time than check up on her. Why should he? She was no longer a child whose welfare was of some concern to him; she was nearly adult and could look out for herself.

Guessing that she would probably never see him again, experience the luxury of feasting her eyes on him, see him smile for her, receive his goodbye hug had hurt so much she couldn’t bear it. So she’d smartly convinced herself that she didn’t care. And if she didn’t care and no one cared about her then she could go ahead and do her own thing, be whatever she wanted to be.

But Grandmother Alice’s news had changed all that, shattered the spiky carapace of indifference she’d built around her heart—a relatively easy exercise since she’d been forced to manage it somehow after the death of her parents.

How much longer would he be?

Restlessness drove her from her chair. From information tartly given she knew he’d flown in from Spain yesterday, had intended to spend the night at his London apartment, get through some business, then drive here to Berkshire. What was taking him so long? She couldn’t wait to see him again, be with him. The thought of being in his care for the next two years made her knees go weak.

She grabbed for the heavy velvet curtains to steady herself, her heart racing giddily just as her grandmother entered the room. A small bird-like figure, stiffly postured in her usual black, her face set in the customary lines of long-suffering displeasure, she said sharply, ‘If you won’t change out of those dreadful things you’ve taken to wearing then be good enough to cover yourself up with a decent coat. And put a scarf on your head. Javier Masters will take one look at you and wash his hands of you altogether.’

Bristling at the criticism, Zoe swept out of the room, across the black and white paved hall, banging the front door behind her.

When she’d walked out of school she’d vowed never to wear the despised uniform again, or the dreary skirts and cardigans Grandmother Alice ordered from a fuddy-duddy mail-order catalogue whose only customers, Zoe was sure, were housebound ninety-year-olds.

The monthly allowance paid by the trustees was fairly generous and she’d had little opportunity to spend it. It had mounted up. So, her defiance of stultifying authority had reached new heights one day last week when she’d taken the bus to town and spent the lot. Forbidden make-up, hair dye, lots and lots of cheap and cheerful clothes.

Trying on stuff in the communal changing room of the town’s trendiest store, she’d felt part of the young happy-go-lucky scene for the first time in her life. Really cool. It had been a great feeling.

Grandmother Alice belonged firmly in the Victorian era, she told herself as she settled herself on the front step to wait.

Javier was later than he’d expected. Apart from a couple of urgent business calls he’d found that making arrangements for the care of a teenage girl was more daunting than he’d expected it to be.

The picture-perfect Queen Anne house stood back from the village street. He indicated and turned the Jaguar into the drive and stamped on the brakes as a blur of violent colour exploded from the front step.

Zoe?

His startled gaze took in the wild transformation. Gone were the heavy grey tweed skirts and shapeless twinsets, replaced by black leather boots with six-inch heels, a frilled scarlet miniskirt with a weird asymmetric hem, a lacy gypsy top in vivid orange—and what in heaven’s name had she done to her hair?

It was bright red, looking as if it had been hacked off by a drunk wielding a pair of garden shears, gelled into tortuous spikes!

His movements slow, he unclasped his seat belt and turned off the ignition. Seeing the way she’d chosen to dress, Alice would have thrown a fit, and he didn’t blame her. Had this, coupled with her rebellious granddaughter walking out of school, been the straw that broke the unwilling camel’s back?

She was hopping from one booted foot to the other, her skinny arms clasped around her naked midriff. She had to be freezing. Venting a heavy sigh at what he appeared to be taking on, he swung out of the car and straightened his butter-soft charcoal leather jacket. He had accepted the responsibility of guiding Zoe Rothwell through the next two years and he never went back on his word.

As he approached over the immaculate length of the brick-paved drive a huge grin split Zoe’s inexpertly cosmetically enhanced features. She’s just a kid, a needy kid, he told himself, the warmth of his answering smile instinctive. All teenagers experimented, trying to find out who they were, and he had to be thankful she’d chosen wacky clothes and a violent hairstyle rather than drugs or alcohol! Knowing Alice, he guessed she would have subjected Zoe to tirades of horror and the sort of cold ridicule that would have shattered the girl’s confidence. Best keep his mouth shut right now and introduce the subject gently at a later date.

But his good intentions crumpled when he got close enough to see the butterfly tattoo on her left cheekbone. His black brows drawn into a frown, he touched the offending insect with the tip of a long finger.

‘Did you have to permanently disfigure yourself?’

She had, he noted abstractedly, an exquisitely pretty face beneath that heavy make-up, and her huge golden eyes danced with amusement. Suddenly, Javier’s lungs felt strangely constricted. He stepped back a pace.

‘It’s a transfer, silly! Don’t you know anything?’ she came back pertly as soon as she’d found her breath. Heat throbbed the spot he’d touched and spread through her entire body. Her skin might be covered with goose-bumps but she was glowing inside. Life with this gorgeous man was going to be just wonderful! He hadn’t made scathing comments about her cool new clothes or thrown a fit when her wild hairstyle had hit him in the eye. With him, away from the rigid discipline doled out by her grandmother and her teachers, she would be able to be herself and do exactly as she pleased for once. She’d always known Javier was the greatest, even when she was a small kid, he’d come through for her, and now he’d rescued her. She had never loved him more!

Half an hour into the journey to Gloucestershire Javier’s mouth was getting grimmer. Zoe’s parting from her grandmother had wrenched at his heart. The elderly lady couldn’t have made it plainer that she was glad to wash her hands of the poor kid. But the perfume she’d obviously drenched herself in was really getting to him. He’d open all the car windows to get rid of the overpowering smell but she’d freeze to death. She’d dropped the school gaberdine the ancient housekeeper had handed her and flounced out to the car, her silly skirt swinging, showing an inordinate amount of smooth thigh, tottering on those wicked spiky heels.

And he’d stopped listening to her prattles of gratitude. From what he could gather she believed she was in for the time of her life. And he’d stopped glancing at her. That lace top thing she was wearing ought to be X-rated. And she wasn’t wearing a damn thing underneath. A mixture of anger and concern impacted on his hard features. He could understand why Zoe had so wholeheartedly rebelled against the dreary school uniform and dowdy garments her grandmother had insisted she wear. But she’d gone too far the other way. She might think she looked cool and cutting edge, but in everyone else’s eyes she looked tarty.

Time to spell out a few ground rules, show her he had the upper hand and meant business.

‘There are a couple of things you ought to know before you get too hooked on the idea that your time with me is going to be a bed of roses. Firstly, I contacted your trustees to put them in the picture about the change of guardianship, only to hear that you’ve been pestering them to release large sums of money. It’s not going to happen, Zoe, so it has to stop. You need anything, you tell me, and if it’s reasonable I’ll approach the trustees. Understood?’

Reddening at the memory of the response to her request, Zoe shot Javier a fulminating sideways look. ‘I don’t want a single thing—that was the point. I made a sensible request and got treated like a silly child!’ she bristled.

Javier’s hands relaxed slightly on the steering wheel. She sounded about ten years old! ‘So run the sensible request by me,’ he invited lightly.

Zoe’s painted mouth twisted with suspicion. Was her darling Javier patronising her? Was she about to get more outright derisive rejection of her ideas? Probably. But knowing that Javier was the one person in the world who could criticise her without getting his head bitten off had her pronouncing with prickly defensiveness, ‘There’s a load of money in my name doing nothing. And there are loads of people sleeping in doorways or cardboard boxes, people with no one to care about them. The only difference between them and me is I’ve got a bed to sleep in and obscene amounts of money. I wanted to spread it around to do some good.’ She shot him a ‘so there!’ look and scrunched herself back against the leather seat, waiting for a lecture entitled Immature Profligacy.

‘There’s a third difference between you and the homeless, Zoe,’ Javier said, sympathy for the poor scrap softening his voice. ‘You do have people who care about you. Your grandmother for starters. She may not be much good at showing it, but if she didn’t care she wouldn’t have tried so hard to mould you to her idea of what a young lady should be. She’s simply a throwback to the beginning of the last century.’

Ignoring her snort of disbelief, he swung into the appropriate lane for the exit to Cirencester and said firmly, ‘And I care. If I didn’t I’d have told Alice to take a running jump when she suggested handing you over to me. And getting back to your commendable concern for the homeless, there are better ways of helping than throwing handfuls of cash at every street beggar. If you’re still of the same mind when you come into your inheritance we’ll discuss it further. Agreed?’

Zoe simply nodded. She couldn’t speak without giving herself away. Tears blurred her eyes and clogged her throat. Javier had said he cared about her. He was the only person in the world who could touch her so deeply she wanted to cry!

But her bout of sentimentality took a nosedive when he announced, ‘And because I care about your future I insist you finish your education.’

Waiting at traffic lights he glanced across at her. Mutiny writ large on her expressive features, she said on a note of triumph, ‘I ran away. They won’t take me back!’

‘You’re enrolled in a sixth-form college in Gloucester. Joe Ramsay will drive you in and collect you daily. You may remember Mrs Ramsay, my housekeeper? Joe’s her husband and looks after the grounds. Mrs Ramsay will look after you when I’m not at the lodge.’

Of course she remembered Ethel Ramsay. She had let her help make the mince pies. She remembered everything about the last happy Christmas with her parents, but rarely looked back because it still hurt too much and made her feel weepy when she wanted to be tough.

‘And another thing.’ Javier hardened his heart. Someone had to tell her she looked like the trollop she wasn’t. ‘The way you’re dressed gives the wrong impression.’ How to get the message through without making her feel cheap? ‘Besides, it doesn’t do you justice. You’re a pretty kid and, as I recall, your hair was beautiful.’

Discounting the iffy ‘kid’ bit, ‘Pretty and Beautiful’ were like manna from heaven. She shot him a wide-eyed look.

‘And?’ she asked, scarcely daring to breathe, wondering if his caring was beginning to get a bit more personal.

‘You wash that ghastly colour out and let it grow again, and you and I will go shopping for clothes that strike a happy medium between someone’s ancient aunt and a slapper. Do we have a bargain?’

It wasn’t nearly as personal as she’d have liked, nothing like a declaration that he fancied her. As if! But it was all a darn sight better than being stuck with Grandmother Alice. And who knew? Living with each other for the next year and a half or so—and maybe even longer, until she was twenty-one, say—he might come to look on her as a young woman instead of a kid. And she’d do anything he asked of her but she wasn’t going to let him know that. So. ‘Let me get this straight. I go back to school.’ A theatrical groan. ‘You dictate how I look instead of Grandmother Alice. What’s in it for me?’

Javier smothered a grin. He could recognise manipulation when he saw it. The poor kid would have had a miserable eight years with Alice Rothwell and wasn’t about to agree to more of the same. ‘You do as I want and in term breaks you get grown-up treats. Winter skiing, holidays in Spain. Paris, maybe—whatever you fancy. A deal?’

Happiness threatened to choke her. All that—with him! Heaven had arrived on earth!

‘Done!’