by Kim Lawrence
At a loss for once in his life, the dog person swallowed and wondered if the entire community here were off their heads.
Chloe still bubbling, her face alight, stopped her daughter’s chair before it hit the desk. ‘You two made this happen…’ She took Zoe’s hand and then that of the man she considered benefactor and pressed them palm to palm before sealing them between her own.
Standing there with a frozen smile on her face, Zoe had to fight the urge to tear her hand free. The only comfort she found in the situation was that he had to be hating this as much as she was.
‘We made the target, so you won’t have to shave your head!’
Zoe, forgetting for a moment her own situation, smiled happily, without noticing the expression on the tall Spaniard’s face as he watched her light up with pleasure.
‘Oh, Chloe, that’s marvellous! Is there enough for John to come with you?’
‘Not quite,’ the older woman conceded. ‘But he wouldn’t be able to take that much time off work anyway. And we’ll have so much to tell Daddy when we come home, won’t we, Hannah?’ She released the two hands she held and ducked down to her daughter, leaving Zoe standing there with her fingers curled around the long brown fingers of Isandro Montero.
While Chloe was kissing her daughter, and the vicar was taking off his glasses to study one of the paintings on the wall, Zoe took the opportunity to wrench her hand free and sling a poisonous look up at his face.
‘Oh, Zoe, you’ve worked so hard. How will we ever be able to thank you? And don’t you worry—we’ll be here bright and early to clear away.’ She stretched up to kiss Zoe’s cheek. ‘I wanted you to know first. Now I think we should go and tell everyone else…Vicar?’
‘Yes, indeed. Mr Montero, you have a very impressive art collection here…amazing…’ He wrung the younger man’s hand with enthusiasm before following Chloe from the room. Zoe, who had tacked on behind them, was stopped by the sound of her name.
‘Miss Grace, if I could have a moment…?’
Half inclined to carry on walking but knowing if she did the likelihood would be that the story would come out, Zoe paused and turned back, promising Chloe she would catch up. She knew it was inevitable that her friend would feel in part responsible for her sacking, but she saw no need to cast a cloud over this happy moment for the family who had not had a lot to be happy about recently.
She held herself rigid as he walked past her and closed the door.
‘So?’
She shrugged and matched his tone. ‘What?’
‘Would you like to tell me what that was all about?’
Now he wants to know. ‘I was trying to explain.’
Isandro’s jaw tightened. He was furious to have been put in the position of being treated like some sort of hero and not having a clue why, and his anger was aimed at the person he held responsible for it.
‘Well, explain now.’
‘The fund-raiser was for Hannah.’
‘The child in the wheelchair?’
Zoe nodded. ‘Hannah had surgery for a spinal tumour. It was successful, they got all the tumour, but the pressure on the spinal cord caused damage and she can’t walk. The doctors can’t do anything, but Chloe, her mum, found a hospital in Boston that might be able to help. The treatment is experimental but so far the results have been really good.’
‘And all this today was for that cause?’
She nodded.
His dark brows drew together in a straight line above his hawkish nose. ‘Why on earth did you not tell me this straight away?’
She stared at him, staggered he could ask the question with a straight face…Priceless—the man was incredible. ‘Possibly because you didn’t give me a chance?’
Before he could respond there was a tap on the door and Chloe poked her head into the room.
‘I almost forgot—we’re having a party tomorrow at our house. Please come, Mr Montero.’
‘Isandro.’
‘Isandro,’ she said, smiling. ‘I’m sure Zoe will drive you if you want a drink,’ Zoe was mortified to hear her friend suggest warmly. ‘Her being the teetotaller she is.’
Zoe tensed, dreading the man would respond with a crushing refusal to the invitation, but to her surprise he simply nodded and said, ‘Most kind of you.’
‘Great—we’ll see you both at seven.’
The door closed. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll make your excuses. I’m assuming that as you know I’m not some sort of con artist you’ll allow me to work my notice. I’m not asking for myself, but the children—’
Frowning, he cut across her. ‘They all seem to be under the impression that I gave the go-ahead for this…this…’
‘Fund-raising Fun Day.’
‘Fun?’
‘It started out as a coffee morning and then it just…’
He produced the sarcastic smile that made her want to stick a pin in him.
She clenched her teeth. ‘Got out of hand.’
‘It would seem you have a problem saying no.’ He looked at her mouth and imagined her saying yes to a lot of things…yes and please. ‘Did it not occur to you to tell me what this was about?’
She lifted her chin in response to his daunting disapproval and countered, ‘Did it not occur to you to tell me who you were?’
The retort drew a frown. ‘You have placed me in an impossible situation,’ he brooded darkly.
Logic told him his hands were tied.
Sack her now and he would go from being the hero of the hour to the villain in a breath, and while he did not care overly for his standing in the local community, what bothered him was the press getting a sniff and running with it.
With the Fitzgerald deal in the balance the timing was as bad as it could be and this was the sort of story that the tabloids loved. The wheelchair-bound child, the rich landowner…He could see the headlines now, closely followed by the deal he had spent the last six months pulling together going down the drain along with all the jobs it would bring.
As tempting as it was to let the dismissal stand—every instinct he had was telling him she was nothing but trouble—Isandro knew the more sensible alternative was letting her stay. He had no doubt whatever that he would not have long to wait before she provided him with ample legitimate reasons to dismiss her.
An image of the pale freckled face flashed into his head. ‘The child could not be treated in this country?’
Zoe smiled—the day had done some good. ‘No, the surgery is ground-breaking.’
‘And shaving your head?’ He directed a curious glance at her glossy head, the light shining from the window highlighting natural-looking glossy chestnut streaks in the rich brown. ‘A joke?’
Zoe lifted a self-conscious hand and flicked her plait over shoulder. ‘Not really. Chloe has bad days sometimes and to make her laugh I said if the day didn’t raise the money she needed I’d shave off my hair to raise more.’
‘No!’ The strength of his spontaneous rebuttal startled Isandro as much as it appeared to the owner of the hair.
She blinked, startled. ‘Pardon?’
‘It would not be appropriate for my housekeeper to go around with a shaved head.’
For a moment Zoe stared at him, her hope soaring despite the voice in her head that counselled caution. ‘Housekeeper. Does that mean…?’
‘I will be back tomorrow and I expect—’ He broke off as a great roar went up from outside. ‘I will expect things to be back to normal.’
‘So you’re not sacking me?’ Zoe lowered her gaze, appalled to find her eyes filling with weak tears of relief.
‘I will give you a trial period.’ He gave her a month.
‘You won’t regret it.’
He probably would. ‘The child…?’ He touched the back of the chair she had been spinning around in. ‘The one with the ginger hair.’
‘Auburn. That was Georgie…Georgina.’
‘She is…?’ he prompted impatiently. It was like getting blood out of a stone.
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‘My niece.’ She beamed happily. He could look down his aristocratic nose at her as much as he liked—she was no longer homeless, jobless and virtually destitute.
‘She is staying long?’
‘She lives with me and her twin brother, Harry.’ In her head she could hear Laura on the phone when the scan had revealed she was carrying twins…One of each, Zoe, how lucky are we?
In the act of opening a diary on his desk, he stopped, his hands flat on the desk as he lifted his head. ‘You have two children living here? No, that is not acceptable. You will have to make other arrangements.’
Zoe stared at him, breathing deeply to distract herself from the rush of anger. ‘Arrangements? What,’ she asked, ‘did you have in mind?’
His eyes narrowed at the edge of sarcasm in her voice. ‘I know nothing about children.’
‘Except that you have no room in your twenty-bedroom house for two small ones.’
‘So you’re suggesting you move into my home.’ He arched a sardonic brow and watched her flush. ‘Or perhaps you already have?’ It struck him that this might not be so far from the truth—the child had looked very comfortable in his chair.
Zoe flushed and bit her lip. ‘Of course not.’
‘So you would agree that the accommodation that comes with the job is not suitable.’
‘It’s fine.’ It was free and in the catchment area of the twins’ school, which made it not just fine but incredible!
His dark eyes sealed to hers as in interrogation mode he ran a hand across his jaw, shadowed with a day’s growth of stubble. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong…’
Oh, sure, I bet that happens a lot, she thought, struggling to keep her placid, perfect housekeeper smile pasted in place. She could see him now surrounded by little yes men falling over themselves to tell him how wonderful he was.
‘But I was under the impression that the housekeeper’s apartment had one bedroom?’
‘A very big bedroom, and it has a perfectly comfortable sofa bed in the living room.’
‘You sleep on a sofa bed?’
He could not have looked more appalled had she just announced she dossed down on a park bench or in a shop doorway.
‘The arrangement works very well.’ She smiled brightly in the face of his undisguised scepticism. If he was looking for an excuse to give her the push, she wasn’t going to give him any. ‘I’m always up before the twins, and they are in bed before me.’ It wasn’t a room of her own that kept Zoe awake at night, it was balancing her budget.
‘In other words it is a perfect arrangement.’
Zoe pretended not to recognise the dry sarcasm. ‘Not perfect,’ she conceded calmly. ‘But a workable compromise.’ Like he knew a lot about compromise, she thought, but, smothering the prickle of antagonism, she continued serenely, ‘And if you’re thinking that the twins have a negative impact on my work, actually the reverse is true.’
‘Indeed?’
‘Having a family and responsibilities makes me ultra-reliable.’ And totally lacking in pride, suggested the scornful voice in her head.
‘You mean you need this job so you’ll bite back the insult hovering even now on the tip of your tongue.’ His hooded dark eyes slid to the soft full outline of her quite spectacularly sexy lips.
The words hovering on the tip of Zoe’s tongue involved telling him to stop staring at her mouth.
She found herself thinking with nostalgia of the days when her temporary cash shortages had been dealt with by not buying the pair of shoes she’d been drooling over, or cutting back on the number of coffees she bought in a week. Things were no longer so simple. She was still reeling over the cost of new school uniforms for the twins, who had both shot up the previous term.
‘You are speaking as if this arrangement is permanent. I assumed the children were spending their holiday with you.’
And I could have let him continue assuming that—the man is here so rarely he wouldn’t have known the difference—but no, I had to go open my big mouth.
‘No. They are my sister’s children.’ She swallowed. She didn’t discuss the details of the accident that had killed her sister and her husband or mention the underage drunk driver going the wrong way on the motorway who had been responsible for the simple fact that she was afraid if she did she would start shouting. ‘She and her husband died. I’m the children’s guardian.’
‘I am sorry.’
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
According to the grief counsellor anger was normal…It would pass, she said. There might be a time when she would stop being angry, but six months after that terrible day Zoe could not imagine a time when she would come to terms with it, stop wanting to beat her bare fists against a brick wall at the sheer terrible waste.
‘You are very young to have such responsibilities.’
‘That’s relative, isn’t it?’ Only last week Zoe had watched a programme that followed a week in the life of children who were the main carers for their disabled parents. It had made her feel ashamed—compared to them she had it easy.
‘Surely there is someone more suitable who could take care of these children?’ He scanned her up and down and shook his head.
‘My sister was my only family and Dan didn’t have any family. It’s me or social services.’ She’d do what it took to stop that happening. The children would enjoy the sort of childhood she’d had…It was far too short as it was.
Zoe closed her eyes, remembering Laura’s face the day she met Dan, and swallowed, concentrating on the anger, not the pain, as the same old question followed—why? Why Laura of all people in the world? Why did it have to be her?
He eyed her beautiful face cynically. ‘I am assuming that housekeeping was not a career choice for you.’
Zoe moistened her lips, trying to decide what the right answer to this question was. In the end she kept it simple and honest.
‘I never really knew what I wanted to do with my life.’
There had never seemed any hurry to make up her mind. She liked to travel; she liked new experiences and meeting new people.
Well, now it was her turn to step up to the mark and, yes, she would beg and be tearfully grateful to this awful man. She would grovel if necessary, even if it killed her. She would do whatever it took to keep her family together.
She gave a quietly confident smile. ‘But I never give any less than a hundred per cent, and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep this job…Anything,’ she added fiercely.
‘Anything…?’
Something in the way he said it made her feel less secure, but she wouldn’t back down—she couldn’t. She nodded.
‘Absolutely.’
Expression impassive, he brushed an invisible speck off his dark top with long brown fingers.
‘“Anything” covers a lot of territory so if you’re offering sexual favours I should tell you I normally get it for free.’
Zoe’s hands curled into tight fists at her sides as she breathed through the energising rush of anger. He was taunting her, but he knew full well she couldn’t respond and in her book that made the man a bully. She rubbed the hand that tingled to slap the expression of amused disdain off his smug, impossibly handsome face, and tilted her chin to an enquiring angle.
But would she…?
She pushed away the question and willed herself not to blush, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of seeing her squirm. At least she was safe from any unwanted attentions—the man was obviously too much of a snob to consider sleeping with the help.
But if he did?
Her body reacted to the unspoken question and Zoe had no more chance of halting the visceral chain reaction than she did stopping her fingers jerking back from a hot object.
Taking a deep breath, she brought her lashes down in a protective sweep and wrapped her arms across her middle in a hugging gesture, glad that she was wearing a loose-fitting top. She was saved the added embarrassment of having her shamefully engorged nipples on view, b
ut it didn’t stop her being painfully conscious of the chafing discomfort of her bra or the heavy liquid ache low in her pelvis.
Closing down this internal dialogue as her temperature rose, Zoe managed to break contact with his disturbing steely stare and lifted her shoulders in a tiny shrug.
‘Jokes aside, I can promise you I shall be totally professional.’
He arched a brow and didn’t look convinced by her claim. She felt panic trickle down her spine and thought, God, please don’t let him change his mind.
‘You won’t be sorry.’ Her fingernails gouged crescents into the soft flesh of her palms as she held her breath awaiting his response, feeling like a prisoner in the dock waiting to hear his sentence read out.
His tall figure framed in the doorway, Isandro turned. He already was regretting it.
‘I am sorry for your loss, but I have to tell you I do not allow sentiment to sway my judgement, so do not expect any special favours here.’
Just how well would his judgement withstand the pressure of great legs and a stupendous mouth?
Her smile was cold and proud. ‘I won’t expect any.’
‘We’ll see. I judge by results, not promises.’ Or lips, he thought as his gaze made an unscheduled traverse of the lush pink curve of her wide mouth before he could think better of it.
‘I never had any complaints.’ The unintentional innuendo after his previous comment brought a flush to her cheeks. ‘In any of the jobs I’ve had,’ she added hastily.
‘That cannot be many. How old are you?’
‘Twenty-two, and actually—’ She lifted a hand, about to list the jobs she had done, and dropped it again, not wanting to give the impression that she didn’t have staying power. As it happened, it was too late, as his next disturbingly perceptive remark revealed.
‘What is the longest time you have remained in one job?’
Outwardly cool, inwardly thinking, Why, oh, why can I never keep my big mouth shut? she furrowed her smooth brow. ‘Is that relevant?’
‘It is if you walk after a week.’
‘I have done a number of jobs, it’s true, but who hasn’t in this job market?’ As if he knows such a lot about this job market. He may employ a lot of people in his various empires, but to him they are statistics on a chart. ‘I’ve never left anyone in the lurch. I’m totally reliable.’
