He led the way out of his office. ‘I detect a trace of an English accent,’ he said as they walked along the hall. ‘Are you originally from the UK?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We moved out here when I was young. My father was Argentinian.’
‘Was?’
‘He died when I was three. I don’t remember him, so there’s no need to get all soppy and sentimental and feel sorry for me.’
Julius glanced down at her walking beside him. She barely came up to his shoulder. ‘Is your mother still alive?’
‘No.’
‘What happened?’
‘She died.’
‘How?’
Holly threw him a hardened look. ‘Didn’t Natalia show you my file?’
Julius was a little ashamed he hadn’t read it in more detail. But then he hadn’t planned on having anything to do with her. Apart from Sophia, he didn’t have much to do with his staff on a personal level. They did their job. He did his. He’d focussed on Holly’s rap sheet without looking at the story behind the miscreant behaviour. Some people were born bad, others had bad things happen to them and they turned bad as a result. Where did Holly fit on the spectrum? ‘I’d like you to tell me.’
‘She killed herself when I was seventeen.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She gave another careless shrug. ‘So what about your parents?’
‘They’re both alive and well.’ And driving him nuts as usual.
Holly stopped in front of a painting. It was a landscape he’d bought at an auction his sister, Miranda, had given him the heads-up on. Miranda was an art restorer, yet another Ravensdale sibling who had disappointed their parents by not treading the boards.
Holly resumed walking, idly picking up objects he had on display, turning them over in her hands and putting them down again. Julius hoped she wasn’t sizing them up for later theft.
‘You got any brothers or sisters?’ she asked after a long silence.
Julius was finding it a novel experience, meeting someone who knew nothing about his family. Didn’t the girl have a smartphone? Internet access? Read newspapers or gossip magazines? ‘I have a twin brother and a sister ten years younger.’
She stopped walking to look up at him. ‘Are you identical?’
‘Yes.’
Her eyes suddenly danced with impish mischief, dimples appearing either side of her mouth, completely transforming her features. ‘Ever swapped places with him?’
He put on what his kid sister called his ‘I’m too old for all that nonsense’ face. ‘Not for a very long time.’
‘Can your parents tell you apart?’
‘They can now but not when we were younger,’ he said. Mostly because they hadn’t been around enough. Their fame was far more important to them than their family. Not that he was bitter. Much. ‘What about you? Do you have any siblings?’
‘No.’ Her dimpled smile faded and the frown reinstated itself on her forehead as she resumed walking along the corridor. ‘There’s just me...’
Julius heard something in her tone that suggested a resigned sense of profound aloneness. He hadn’t expected to feel sorry for her. He had strong values on what constituted good and bad behaviour. The law was the law. Breaking it just because you’d had a difficult childhood wasn’t a good enough excuse, in his opinion. But something about her intrigued him. She was light and dark. Moon shadows and bright sunlight. She reminded him of a complicated puzzle that would need more than one attempt to solve it.
Maybe his housekeeper’s mission would prove far more interesting than he’d first thought.
Holly stopped in front of the windows overlooking the formal gardens. ‘Do you live here alone?’ she asked.
‘Apart from my staff, yes, but they have separate quarters. Sophia is the exception. She has a suite on the top floor.’
Holly turned and looked at him with a direct gaze. ‘Seems a pretty big place for a single guy.’
‘I like my own space.’
‘Must cost a ton to keep this place ticking over.’
‘I manage.’
‘Yeah, well, money and possessions don’t impress me,’ she said, turning to look at the gardens again.
‘What does?’
She swivelled to face him and tilted one of her hips, lowering one shoulder lower than the other so her thin chain-store sweater slipped to reveal the creamy cap of her shoulder. She looked at him through eyes half-shielded by the thick dark fans of her lashes. ‘Let’s see...’ She pursed her full lips in thought before releasing them on a breath of air. ‘I’m impressed by a man who knows his way around a woman’s body.’
Julius was doing his darnedest not even to think about her luscious little body. Or that full-lipped mouth and the mayhem it could cause if it came too close to his. He had a feeling she was testing him. Testing his motives. Seeing if he was going to exploit her. Had she been exploited before? Was that how she viewed all men? As manipulators and bullies who forced their will on her?
He might be a man who liked his own way but there was no way he would ever describe himself as a bully. He could be arrogant at times—stubborn, even—but he was a firm believer in treating women with respect. Having a shy and reserved much younger sister had instilled in him the importance of men taking a stand against all forms of violence against women and girls.
‘That’s it?’ he said. ‘Just whether he can perform?’
‘Sure,’ she said, eyes gleaming with pertness. ‘How a man has sex tells you a lot about them as a person. Whether they’re selfish or not. Whether they’re uptight or casual.’ She tapped two of her fingertips against her mouth in a musing manner. ‘Let’s take you, for instance.’
Let’s not, he thought. ‘This theory of yours is imminently fascinating but I think—’
‘You’re a man who likes to be in control,’ she said. ‘You like order and predictability. You don’t do things on impulse. Your life is planned, timetabled, scheduled to the nth degree. Am I right?’
Julius didn’t feel too comfortable at being so rapidly written off as a boring stereotype, as nothing more than a cliché. He liked to think he wasn’t that predictable. He had nuances; sure he did. Layers to his personality that were there if you took the time to find them. He might spend a lot of time in the land of logic and reason but it didn’t mean he couldn’t use the right side of his brain. Well...occasionally.
He stepped towards the nearest door. ‘This is the library,’ he said. ‘You’re welcome to help yourself to books as long as you don’t dog-ear them or leave them outside.’
‘See?’ She gave a bell-like laugh. ‘I was spot-on.’
He gave her a look before he moved to the next door farther down the corridor. ‘This is the music room.’
‘Let me guess,’ she said with another one of her impish smiles. ‘You don’t mind if I play the piano as long as my fingers aren’t sticky or I don’t drop crumbs between the keys. Correct?’
Julius found the picture she was painting of him increasingly annoying. What gave her the right to sum him up in such disparaging terms? She made him sound like some sort of house-proud obsessive. ‘Do you play an instrument?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Would you like to learn?’ Music was supposed to tame wild things, wasn’t it? He could engage a tutor for her. What was that saying about the devil and idle hands? Piano lessons would at least keep her out of his way.
‘What?’ she said, the cynical glint back in her gaze. ‘You think you can teach me the piano in a month?’
‘I have other instruments.’
‘I just bet you do.’
He gave her a droll look. ‘Flute. Tenor recorder. Saxophone.’
She looked at him, one side of her plump mouth curved in a mocking arc. ‘Impressive. Gotta lo
ve a man who’s good with his mouth and his hands.’
Julius put his hands deep in his trouser pockets in case he was tempted to show her just how good he was. Why was she being so damn brazen? Winding him up for what reason? To prove he was as predictable as all the other men she’d dealt with? What did she hope to gain? Would he be just another male trophy for her to gloat over? Another man she had slayed with her sensual allure? He wasn’t going to fall for it. He had no time for vacuous game playing. She might think him predictable and a walking, talking cliché but he was not when it came to this. She could flirt and tease and taunt him as much as she wanted but he wasn’t going to fall into her honey trap. He might be his father’s son by blood, name and looks but he wasn’t like him by nature.
‘I’ll leave Sophia to show you around the rest of the house,’ he said, his tone formal, clipped. Dismissive.
Her mischievous gaze danced. ‘Aren’t you going to show me where I’ll be sleeping?’
‘I’m not sure where Sophia has put you.’
But I hope to God it’s nowhere near me, Julius thought as he turned and strode briskly away.
Copyright © 2015 by Melanie Milburne
ISBN-13: 9781460386576
The Price of His Redemption
Copyright © 2015 by Carol Marinelli
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