Maid for Montero

by Kim Lawrence

  She straightened up. ‘Sorry about that.’

  Now the child was gone some of the tension seemed to have left her slender shoulders, though a degree of caution remained in the blue eyes that studied him now with an undisguised curiosity mingled with a critical quality he was not accustomed to seeing when a woman looked at him.

  Isandro’s smile held a hint of self mockery…If she had not been beautiful would he have chosen to be amused…?

  His appreciation of beauty was not restricted to architecture. He put this woman somewhere in her early twenties, young enough at least to wear no make-up and look good. Her clear skin was flawless, pale tinged with the lightest of roses in her smooth, rounded cheeks. She was not just sexy, she was beautiful.

  Not in the classical sense perhaps, and absolutely nothing like the sort of woman he normally found attractive. For starters he dated women who worked hard at and took pride in their appearance. This woman’s grooming left a lot to be desired, but her oval face with wide-set, slanting blue eyes, delicate carved cheekbones and wide, full lips had an arresting quality that combined sexiness with a sense of vulnerability.

  Vulnerability was another thing he avoided in women. Needy was just too time-consuming, and time was a precious commodity.

  His response simply proved that sexual attraction was not an exact science. Her look was not even smart casual, more scruffy casual. Despite his unflattering assessment of her style he was conscious of a heaviness in his groin by the time his eyes had made the journey up the length of her lusciously long, denim-clad legs. Tall and slender but with feminine curves that the oversized white shirt she wore did not hide, she really did have a delicious body—and she would scrub up well, he decided, picturing her in something silky and insubstantial, and then in nothing at all.

  He found his mood mellowing some more. The day might not be a total washout after all. He found himself more attracted to her than he had to a woman in months…It was possible that part of the appeal was she was not his type, not a samey clone. That and the clear-eyed stare, plus the extraordinarily sexy mouth, and the fact he felt confident that he could slide his fingers into her hair and not come away with a handful of hair extensions. Now that had been a real mood killer!

  What had the kid called her…?

  Not Mum, and she wasn’t wearing a ring, but that didn’t mean anything, so he remained cautious.

  There were enough complications in life without inviting them, so Isandro kept his love life simple. He didn’t do long-term relationships and was upfront about it, and even so he had never had to work hard to get a woman into his bed.

  Married women, single parents, women who wanted commitment were not conducive to simplicity, so he ruled them out. He had learnt from his mistakes, and an expensive divorce that had lost him both a wife and a best friend provided a steep learning curve. Quite frankly there was no point in inviting problems when there were any number of attractive unattached women who did not come with baggage.

  He could fight for a prize when it was required, but it was not his style to fantasise over the unattainable. He had no problem walking away from temptation, however attractively packaged, so he was surprised to recognise that in this instance it was a struggle to adopt his normal take-it-or-leave-it attitude.

  Now that her niece was safely away from strangers she should have been able to relax slightly, but Zoe discovered she wasn’t.

  Obviously she had registered the fact he was not ugly the moment she entered the room, but she hadn’t noticed the ludicrously long eyelashes, the jet-black, deep set heavy-lidded eyes they framed, or the incredible sculpted structure of his patrician features. Each strong angle and plane of his face was perfect.

  He was her idea of a fallen angel—fatally beautiful and seductively dangerous—supposing angels were six-five and wore designer black from head to toe.

  He smiled. It was usually possible to tell when a woman felt a reciprocal tug of attraction, and in this case it definitely was…She either wasn’t attempting to hide her reaction or she didn’t know how, not that she was trying to flirt with him, which was actually refreshing. Even a perfect vintage could become pedestrian if a man drank it for breakfast, lunch and dinner; he enjoyed flirtation to a point, but once you knew the moves of the modern mating ritual it could on occasion become painfully predictable.

  A sense of expectation buzzing through his veins, he bit into the grapes. They were sour, as predicted, but he smiled.

  The flash of white teeth and the intensity of the stranger’s hard dark eyes sent a shiver through Zoe’s body unravelling like a silken ribbon of desire. It was a relief when she finally discovered a flaw, which should have made him less attractive but had quite the reverse effect. The imperfection was relatively minor—a scar, a thin white line that began to the right of one eye and traced the curve of one chiselled cheekbone.

  Zoe swallowed and plucked at the neckline of her shirt as the palpable silence in the room stretched. Her tingling awareness of him was so strong that there was a delay for several seconds before her body responded to the desperate commands of her brain. She was close to applauding with sheer relief when she managed to gather up the shreds of her self-control and lower her gaze.

  ‘I’m afraid you shouldn’t be here, either.’ She pitched her tone at friendly but firm, it came out as breathy. Nonetheless, she was happy—breathy was a big step up from open-mouthed drooling!

  Isandro’s gaze lifted from the logo plastered across the T-shirt she was wearing—not that he had read a word of the inscription, but mingled in with the mental image of him peeling the shirt over her head an astonishing idea had occurred to him, making the pleasurable picture fuzz and fade.

  Surely not…She couldn’t be…could she?

  Had Tom lost his mind?

  If she was, he definitely had!

  Or had his normally super-reliable assistant been thinking with a different part of his anatomy when he appointed this woman to the post of housekeeper?

  No, she couldn’t be, he decided, clinging to his mental image of the perfect housekeeper—a woman of a certain age with an immovable iron-grey helmet of hair and a brisk manner. He didn’t expect the new housekeeper to possess all the attributes of her predecessor but this woman—girl!—couldn’t be…?

  ‘This part of the house isn’t open to the public, actually,’ she admitted, softening the gentle remonstrance with a smile.

  Madre di Dios, she was! Tom actually had lost his mind.

  ‘None of it is but people keep wandering…’ She heard the sharp note of anxiety that had crept into her own voice and closed her mouth, shaking her head as she smiled brightly and concluded in her best ‘fasten your seat belt’ tone, ‘So if you’d like to follow me…?’

  The irony of being asked to leave his own study was not lost on Isandro, but instead of putting this person in her place he found himself considering the question.

  Would he like to follow her…? Yes, up the sweeping staircase and into his bedroom, which was not possible as he didn’t date employees. It was a no-exception rule. But he was about to sack her, which would make her not his employee…?

  Maybe Tom had been having similar thoughts when he had decided this woman fulfilled the brief of experienced and efficient. Maybe she possessed both these qualities in the bedroom? Maybe his assistant already knew…?

  The possibility that his assistant had given his girlfriend a job she was patently unsuited to because of her skills in the bedroom sent a rush of rage through Isandro.

  Was he mad because Tom had broken the rules, or mad that Tom had broken them before Isandro had got the chance?

  Responding to the voice in his head with a heavy frown that drew his dark brows into a single disapproving line over the bridge of his nose, Isandro gave a frustrated grunt of tension.

  When the tall, unsmiling stranger with his film-star looks and smoky eyes didn’t react to her invitation to leave, Zoe felt the panic she had been struggling to keep at bay all day
surface before she ruthlessly subdued it.

  She could panic when this day was over, even though right now it felt as if it never would be.

  How could anything that had started so innocently become this monster? she asked herself despairingly.

  The answer was quite simple: she’d lost the ability to say no…She’d agreed to so many things she’d forgotten or more likely blocked half of them; by this point if the Red Arrows did a fly past she wouldn’t have been surprised.

  CHAPTER TWO

  IT WAS A total nightmare. In the past five days, she had lied more—by omission, which amounted to the same thing—than she had done in her entire life!

  It was that first lie that had kicked it off and started the snowball effect, but the snowball was now the size of an apartment block.

  It had seemed so innocent and she had been so desperate to help when poor Chloe, her dead sister’s best friend—Chloe who always put on a brave face—had broken down in tears after inviting Zoe to a coffee morning.

  ‘Who am I kidding? A coffee morning!’ She shook her head in teary disgust. ‘Do you know how much Hannah’s operation costs?’

  Zoe shook her head, guessing that such ground-breaking medical care in the States did not come cheap.

  ‘And that’s without the cost of travel to America. And time’s running out, Zoe, while I’m organising coffee mornings and treasure. Baking isn’t going to get Hannah to that hospital—it’ll take a miracle!’ she sobbed. ‘In three months’ time the disease might have progressed too far and the treatment might not work…They might not even agree to try and she’ll be stuck in a wheelchair for life!’

  Her heart bleeding for the other woman, Zoe hugged her, feeling utterly helpless.

  ‘This isn’t you, Chloe. You’re a fighter. You’re tired, that’s all.’ And small wonder. God knew when she had had a break; she commuted almost daily for Hannah’s hospital appointments. ‘Everyone’s behind you, so involve us! We all want to help.’

  She shook her head, wishing she had more than platitudes to offer the other woman. Then it came—the inspired idea—and she didn’t pause to think it through, just blurted it out.

  ‘Have your coffee morning at the hall. You know what people are like—they’ll come just to have a nosy. We could put up some trestle tables in the garden and I’m sure Mrs Whittaker would bake some of her scones.’ She knew that the entire community were gagging to see the changes made by the enigmatic new owner of the hall almost as much as they were gagging to see the man himself!

  ‘Really?’ Chloe had taken the tissue Zoe offered and dried her eyes. ‘Won’t Mr Montero mind? I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble. I know when we asked if we could use the cricket pavilion for the charity match we got the thumbs down, though he did provide a nice shiny new cup for the winners,’ she conceded with a sniff.

  Wasn’t hindsight grand? Of course it was easy now to recognise that this had been the moment to admit she’d have to run it past him, but she hadn’t and neither had she run it past him afterwards because she knew what the reply would be. Chloe had been right: her new employer did not want to continue any old traditions or start any new ones of his own. He wanted, as Tom had explained, to keep the village the other side of the ten-foot wall.

  ‘Not that he’s not a great guy,’ the loyal assistant had assured Zoe when he saw her expression. ‘He’s just private and he doesn’t like getting personally involved. He’s very generous, does heaps of stuff you don’t hear about, but any charitable donations he makes are through the Montero Trust.’

  The Montero Trust was apparently involved itself in such diverse projects as adult literacy programmes and providing clean water to remote Third World villages. It seemed worthy, but a solution loaded with red tape, and Chloe needed help now; she didn’t have time to be at the bottom of a pile of worthy causes.

  ‘Let me worry about that.’

  And she’d been worrying ever since, but her reward had been Chloe’s smile. She thought about that smile every time she got a fresh attack of guilt, which was often.

  What had Tom said at her interview? ‘He’ll expect you to work without supervision, show initiative.’ She suspected that today might be classed as too much initiative, but it wasn’t as if the man would ever know. And his standing in the local community had been massively raised without any effort on his part. It was a win/win…or lose/lose for her if he found out!

  No matter how hard she tried to rationalise what she’d done, Zoe knew that she had overstepped her authority big time and, as she was still working her trial period, if her actions were discovered the ‘inspiration’ could well lose her her job!

  Her job…which meant her home and a roof over the twins’ heads.

  Small wonder she’d not had a decent night’s sleep for the past week. And that was even before it had all got horribly out of hand. For some reason, once she had started saying yes she couldn’t stop! Everyone had been so enthusiastic and generous, contributing their time and talents, that it had seemed churlish to be the one dissenting voice. The tipping point was probably the bouncy castle. After that Zoe had stopped even trying!

  The only thing she could do today was stay on top of things and make damned sure that the grounds were returned to pristine condition once the day was over. She had an army of volunteers lined up for the task.

  But right now what she had to do was get rid of this man—not as easy as it sounded because he made no effort to move as she stood back to let him pass—then check nobody else had wandered into the house.

  ‘If you were looking for the toilets, go past the tombola and the refreshment tent and follow your nose.’ In his case the nose, narrow and aquiline, was just as impressive as the rest of him. As she made a conscious effort not to stare their glances connected, only briefly but long enough to make all her deep stomach muscles contract viciously.

  Seriously shaken by the extent of her physical response to this man, she huffed out a tiny breath from between her clenched teeth to steady her nerves and focused on a point over his left shoulder.

  ‘You can’t miss it.’

  He still didn’t take the hint. Instead he set his broad shoulders against the panelled wall and looked around the room.

  ‘You have a beautiful home.’

  Zoe folded her arms, hugging tight to hide her involuntary shiver. He had the sexiest voice she had ever heard and the faint accent only added another fascinating layer to it.

  ‘No, yes…I mean it isn’t mine.’ It crossed her mind that he was being sarcastic. ‘As I’m sure you can tell,’ she murmured, flashing him an ironic grimace before extending a trainer-clad foot and laughing.

  His hooded stare made a slow sweeping survey from her extended foot to her face. ‘I try not to judge by appearances,’ he drawled.

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘That’s not always easy.’

  Like now it was hard not to judge this man by the faint sneer and the innate air of superiority he exuded. She supposed arrogance was natural for someone who looked in the mirror each morning and saw that face looking back…and his body, from what she could see, was not exactly going to give the owner any major insecurities! Her gaze moved down the lean, hard length of his long body. Not only did he look fit in every sense of the word, he was supremely elegant in an unstudied, casual sort of way.

  Her smooth cheeks highlighted by a rose tinge, she brought her lashes down in a protective sweep. If there was a time to be caught mentally undressing a stranger, this was not it.

  ‘Actually I just work here…’ The sweep of her hand encompassed the elegant room with its warm panelled walls and antiques. ‘It is beautiful, though, isn’t it?’ A cross between a museum and a very expensive interior designer’s heaven, the place, in her view, lacked a lived-in-look. There were no discarded newspapers, open books or sweaters draped over the backs of chairs, no sign at all that anyone lived there—it was just too perfect.

  But then essentially no one did live here. It amazed her that anyone
could own such a beautiful place and barely spend any time here at all.

  The staff had been more than happy to fill her in on the many houses owned by their elusive boss, and the many cars and private jets…Isandro Montero obviously liked to buy things whether he needed them or not. Zoe had always suspected that people who needed status symbols were secretly insecure. Mind you, having a bank account that hovered constantly just above the red made a person feel insecure too. Zoe knew all about that sort of insecurity!

  His mobile ebony brows lifted in response to the information. ‘So the owner has allowed his home to be used for this…event?’

  Zoe felt her cheeks heat.

  ‘How generous and trusting.’

  If he had been trying he couldn’t have said anything that made her feel more terribly guilty. Her eyes fell. ‘He’s very community minded.’

  If he could hear me now, she thought, swallowing a bubble of hysteria as she imagined the expression on the face of the billionaire who didn’t want to rub shoulders with the locals.

  Her blue eyes slid to the wall lined with valuable books. Did he spend his time here reading the first editions on the shelves or were they, like the cricket pavilion, just for show…part of the entire perfect English Country Home?

  What was the point in restoring a cricket pavilion if you never intended to use it? What was the point in buying books you were never going to read?

  ‘The house is out of bounds today.’

  He did not comment on the information. He was staring with what seemed to her far too much interest at a painting on the wall.

  She went pale as for the first time she realised how vulnerable the house was. If he could just walk in here, how easy it would have been for someone to wander in—still was, and…not just someone! Her blue eyes suspicious, she turned to look at the tall stranger who continued to stare at the painting. God, she had been so sidetracked by physical awareness of him that it hadn’t even crossed her mind that his presence here might not be accidental!