Briefly, though, he thought about his late wife, Marisol. She had been dainty and, peculiarly for a Spanish girl, fair. Cesar, just eighteen at the time, had taken one look at her and had known, in that instant, that he had to have her. It had been a union blessed by both sets of parents and Marisol, for that brief window when she had been alive, had lived up to every expectation. She had been the sweetest woman he’d ever met. She had cooked amazing meals, had not once complained at the hours he kept. She had been a woman born to be protected, looked after, sheltered and he had been more than happy to oblige. What man wouldn’t, for a soothing domestic life?
And since Marisol, although he had never contemplated a replacement, he had always been attracted to the same kind of woman. Unbearably pretty and willing to be at his beck and call. As luck would have it, things usually deteriorated with them when his boredom levels were breached, but that never bothered him. He wasn’t in it for the long haul. Did that mean that he had never recovered? That he couldn’t live life fully after a tragedy that had happened more than ten years ago?
He frowned at the wide brown eyes staring back at him and thought, irritably, that he would have been hard pressed to find a less soothing woman than her. Didn’t she know that men weren’t attracted to women who approached life like a bull in a china shop? He was fast coming to the conclusion that if his brother was involved in any way with the woman, aside from platonically, he was a candidate for the loony-bin.
‘And you can stop oozing sympathy,’ he grated.
‘I’m not oozing sympathy. I was just wondering how come you never settled down with someone else.’
‘Why haven’t you?’ He returned to his task of making them something to eat. It was unusual to find him behind a stove and his repertoire of dishes was limited, but he had never taken advantage of the family fortune in the same way that his brother had and consequently was more than capable of fending for himself.
‘I believe in kissing a few frogs so that I can recognise the prince when he comes along.’
‘And how many frogs have you kissed?’
‘I lost count.’
Several kissed frogs but only one who had become close enough for her to be seduced into thinking that he might be the one. It had been three years ago and it had ended amicably enough when he had sat her down and gently broken it to her that she wasn’t the woman for him, that he hoped they could remain friends. Remaining friends, she had later concluded, was just the coward’s way of exiting a relationship with the minimum amount of fuss. If a guy didn’t want some woman crying all over him then he did that gentle smiley thing and carried on about remaining friends, but a let-down was still a let-down and in retrospect Jude could have kicked herself for not at least asking him why. Instead, she had stuck out her chin and saved her tears for after he’d gone.
She had no intention of telling any of that to Cesar, however, and she was thankful that he wasn’t looking at her because, when he did, he always gave her the impression that he had some kind of weird insight into what was going on in her head.
‘That many…’
‘Yes, that many.’
‘And why did none of these frogs turn out to be the prince in disguise?’ He put a plate in front of her, brimming with bacon and eggs, far more than she could have eaten in a month of Sundays.
‘How is it that you can cook a meal and make a bed and your brother is so hopeless?’
‘Is that your not so subtle way of changing the subject?’ Cesar sat down, fork in hand, and began tucking into his breakfast, which was roughly double the amount he had set in front of her. ‘I find that it pays to be able to do everything for myself, even if I might choose not to, and that includes cooking and cleaning.’
‘Fine. In that case you can make yourself useful around here if you can’t drive back for a couple of hours…’ Jude glanced outside at the unpromising sight of snow flurries, which seemed to be reminding her that the weather forecasters might have had their fingers on the button when they’d predicted more snowfall. ‘I’m pretty useless at both.’ Their eyes met for an instant and Jude flushed. ‘Or at least uninterested.’
Cesar grunted. It was a grunt, Jude decided, that was laced with criticism. She could just feel it. The man didn’t have to actually say anything to make his opinions clear. Poor Freddy, written off by his big brother because he didn’t like wearing a suit and going into an office every day to stare at charts and profit and loss columns, having his ideas greeted with those grunts of disapproval.
‘I guess you’re one of those ultra-traditional men who think that all women should either be chained to a stove or else whistling a merry tune as they push a vacuum cleaner up and down the stairs,’ she said tetchily.
‘I admit that when it comes to the opposite sex I have pretty traditional views—am I letting myself in for a feminist lecture now? Because you seem to be very sensitive on the subject.’
‘Of course I’m not sensitive on the subject,’ Jude scoffed, stabbing a piece of bacon with her fork. She thought of James, the disappearing ex-boyfriend who had left smiling and apologising and wittering on about remaining friends. Eight months ago she had heard through a mutual acquaintance that he had since married a sweet blonde thing who had instantly become pregnant and they were both busily doing up a house somewhere in Wiltshire in preparation for the new arrival.
‘Most men are…’ he said provocatively. ‘Fernando included.’
‘Is that your way of warning me off him, should I have ideas above my station lurking at the back of my mind?’ She stood up, plate in hand, and went across to the sink, from which she had a spectacular view of increasing snow.
When she looked around, it was to find him clearing the rest of the table. In an ideal world he would have remained sitting, she supposed, having enjoyed a lavish breakfast prepared by his woman, who would tidy the kitchen without asking for help and then make him comfortable in the sitting room with a newspaper and a roaring fire. Curiosity reared its unwelcome head again and she caught herself wondering what these women of his looked like. Freddy had told her that he apparently had killer appeal when it came to the opposite sex.
‘Maybe—’ she smirked ‘—Freddy isn’t quite as traditional as you think.’
Cesar looked at her sharply and Jude shot him a mysterious smile. In actual fact, traditional-hearted Freddy had found his perfect match in Imogen because, never mind her past occupation, she was as conventional and feminine as they came and always had been. Barbie dolls had been her favourite toys at the age of seven, pink her favourite colour at the age of fourteen and she was a dream in the kitchen. While Jude had been playing football with the boys, her best friend had been experimenting with make-up and, for every botched meal Jude had scraped into the rubbish bin in Home Economics class, Imogen had produced its faultless equivalent. And enjoyed it!
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning you don’t give your brother enough credit.’ Well, that was certainly true enough. She had worked with Freddy from every angle when it came to the jazz club, had heard him explain his ideas lucidly and persuasively to accountants, had seen his fledgling plans slowly come to fruition without hitches…
‘I know Fernando better than you think.’ Did he, though? Would Fernando be attracted to a fiery, opinionated, mutinous, downright exasperating woman like this one? A woman who said whatever was on her mind and hang the consequences? Fernando, Cesar thought, would never be able to handle a woman like her! She had said that there was no romantic involvement between them. Was there? It annoyed him that his usual unerring accuracy at reading women seemed to be letting him down now.
‘Even though you never see him?’ Jude asked sweetly. She began washing the dishes.
‘I don’t see my brother because I literally don’t get the time.’ Cesar walked towards the kitchen door, thought better of leaving and turned back to look at her with a disgruntled, exasperated expression. ‘Yes, I work damn long hours. When I took over the company, it was i
n the throes of internal warfare. I stabilised it and hauled it into the twenty-first century, selling off what I had to and sinking money into speculative investments that paid off. None of that gets done sipping cocktails on a beach in the Caribbean or hitting the slopes in Aspen!’ He raked his fingers through his hair and glowered at her as she continued to pile the dishes haphazardly on the dish rack. ‘I’ve never known my brother to rise to the challenge of anything,’ Cesar heard himself saying. ‘And that includes his choice of women.’
‘And you do?’ Jude turned to look at him. He was leaning against the door frame and the strength of his personality seemed to fill the kitchen, unseen but powerful and suffocating.
His lack of an immediate answer supplied the information she wanted.
‘My choice of women is not the issue here.’
‘You should give Freddy a chance. He feels…’
‘Feels what…? I’m all ears.’
‘Inadequate compared to you. He feels that you’ll shoot him down in flames because he hasn’t followed in your footsteps. At the snap of your fingers, his trust fund will go up in smoke and I don’t suppose that’s the nicest feeling in the world.’
‘He’s told you all this, has he? Or are these loose interpretations based on a one-year relationship?’
‘He’s told me.’
‘Have you had sex with him?’
‘What?’
‘You heard me. You are clearly sleeping with Fernando, because your conversations seem pretty meaningful.’
‘Our conversations are normal.’ Jude was bright red, her hands clenched at her sides. ‘Normal people discuss how they feel about things, what their hopes and dreams are…’ And these had been with Imogen present, just random, casual conversations over spaghetti bolognese at his flat, with some music playing in the background and the three of them all having one too many glasses of wine and putting the world to rights. Cesar might invest something meaningful into her last statement but Jude wasn’t going to supply him with a blow-by-blow description of who said what and where and how and when.
‘You’ve vaguely answered part two of my question but what about part one?’
‘No, I haven’t slept with your brother, not that it’s any of your business.’
Cesar looked at her carefully. ‘Tell me something… If you’re so close to Fernando and you spend hours spilling your hearts out to each other and bonding, why is he so desperate to get his hands on his trust fund at this precise moment in time? He’s been more than happy to lead a carefree lifestyle on the allowance he gets for doing no work whatsoever, yet the last time I spoke to him he sounded desperate… Bit of a puzzle, that…’
‘His project,’ Jude stammered uneasily. And the fact that, while he did indeed get an allowance, he had always funded his lifestyle by sending his bills to Cesar to be paid. Cesar had, through devious means, known pretty much where his money went and could practically track the progress of his relationships by the gifts he had bought for whatever girlfriend he’d happened to be seeing at the time. In short, he had always been accountable. Silk dresses and diamonds, weekend breaks in exotic countries, hotel bills for two—his personal life vetted to a large extent by Cesar, who would step in if he deemed it necessary. Cesar, he had confided in Jude, was very hot on protecting the family fortune from unsuitable women but that had never bothered Freddy because he had never had any intention of getting too wrapped up with anyone. If bills for nursery equipment and baby gear began appearing on the statements, then Cesar would descend with frightening speed and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what his reaction would be when he saw Imogen. The trust fund would give him independence.
‘If I approve whatever scheme he has in mind, then I would be more than happy to invest in it and set aside the headache of putting Fernando in charge of staggering wealth when he has yet to prove that he would know what to do with it. So did he mention why the hurry?’
Jude tried to look as though she might be searching her memory bank for any helpful information on that front, then she shook her head and shrugged. ‘I guess he just wants to take control of his life. I mean, he is nearly twenty-five…’
‘Ancient.’
‘You were younger than that when you took charge of your empire, or whatever you want to call it.’
‘I was responsible.’
‘Of course. Silly me. Crazy to think that you might have had a trace of recklessness in your body.’
‘If by reckless you mean a healthy, active sex life with an interesting variety of women, then, I assure you, you couldn’t be further from the truth. If, on the other hand, you mean an ability to squander money on passing pleasures without any thought to the future, then you’re spot on. I’ll willingly confess to being ridiculously cautious…’
Jude blinked as her active mind hived off on the same unwelcome tangent that had kept her tossing and turning the night before.
Her breasts felt heavy and tender and the brush of her lacy bra over her nipples was almost painful.
‘I think…we should think about what we’re going to do with the day,’ she said hastily, folding her arms squarely in front of her. ‘I agree it would be silly for you to try to dig that car of yours out of the snow when there’s more falling, but there’s no point getting under each other’s feet.’
‘You should give lessons on how to be the perfect hostess.’
‘I’ve got some work I can be getting on with. In my office. Well, I have a little room off the sitting room that I use as an office, anyway. You can…’
‘Make myself scarce?’ He pushed himself away from the door frame, his sharp mind tallying their conversation and replaying it. She had been sincere in her denial that there was anything sexual between herself and Fernando but, that being the case, why her unease the minute his questions became too probing? Why did she behave like a cat on a hot tin roof in his presence?
He looked narrowly at her and the heightened colour in her cheeks, then his eyes drifted to those arms tightly folded over her chest. A very protective gesture, he thought. He knew that he could be intimidating. He liked that. It often helped to keep people at a distance, especially for a man like him, someone at the very pinnacle of his field, which was a situation that encouraged on the one hand sycophants, on the other predatory sharks who wouldn’t hesitate to cosy up to him while clutching knives behind their backs. It also helped as a silent reminder to any woman that, however physically close they got, he was not up for grabs.
Maybe that was it. Maybe she got jittery in his presence and, face it, he was an intruder in her house, snowbound and with zero means of transport out. Or maybe those whispered conversations he had noticed between his brother and her pointed to something going on under the surface, something that made her nervous around him.
Or maybe—and he mulled this last option over with a little kick of satisfaction—just maybe he made her nervous for a perfectly understandable reason. He was a red-blooded man and she, if he wasn’t mistaken, was a woman who was all fire where it mattered if only she knew it. Couldn’t pretty much everything in life go right back to the elemental?
CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS LUNCH time before Jude emerged from her office, where she had spent her time redoing her sketches for a loft conversion which, according to the couple who had employed her, had to make them feel as though they were somewhere by the sea. It was a tall order for a Victorian house on the outskirts of a city.
The first thing that greeted her was the sight of Cesar, bare-backed, with a stack of freshly cut logs next to the open fire, which was in full swing.
‘Just in case the power goes,’ he explained. ‘If it can snow like this out here, then anything’s possible.’
Jude nodded. The sight of his bare skin flickering in the glow from the open fire seemed flagrantly intimate, although he looked at her innocently enough before walking across to the bay window and nodding at the leaden yellow-grey skies outside, barely visible through the now heavy snowfall
. ‘The internet connection’s still AWOL so I figured I might as well make myself useful. Manage to get much work done?’
‘Work?’
‘You’ve been cooped up in there for four hours!’
She thought of the discarded drawings tossed into the waste-paper bin because her thoughts wouldn’t leave her alone. ‘Yes. It was very useful.’ She made a big effort to stop gaping and actually walked into the sitting room, which was wonderfully warm.
‘I’ve switched off the central heating in the room,’ he told her. ‘Hope you don’t mind.’ Cesar had been stared at before. Many times. But never like this, never by a woman who so obviously didn’t want to look at him and yet couldn’t help herself. It was fiercely erotic. He had, and he hadn’t mentioned this, also hand-washed his socks, his boxers and his shirt. At the moment his nakedness against the zipper of his trousers was threatening to need adjustment.
‘How did you know where to find the wood?’
‘Little shed at the back of the house. Not that tricky, really.’ He prodded the fire with the poker, making sure that his back was towards her so that he could give his body time to cool down. Eventually, when he had himself under control, he strolled towards the chair and wiped his face on one of her T-shirts—the very one she had thrown at him the night before.
‘Well, thank you. There was no need. The central heating’s very efficient in this house. I make sure of that. Shall I get you something to put on? One of my T-shirts?’
‘I’m not sure they would fit,’ Cesar drawled, ‘unless it’s one of those baggy ones you seem to like sleeping in.’
Jude refused to be goaded by his remark. Instead, she hurried upstairs and snatched the biggest of her T-shirts out of the chest of drawers because the sooner he covered himself up the better. He obviously hadn’t stripped on purpose. He had stripped because chopping logs and starting a fire was a sweat-inducing job, especially once the fire really got going. He wasn’t to know that his semi-nudity was just fuelling all sorts of unwanted thoughts in her head. She could swear that her eyesight had gone bionic because she had even been able to make out a trickle of perspiration along his ribcage.
The Notorious Gabriel DiazRuthless Tycoon, Inexperienced Mistress Page 20
