Maid for Montero

Chapter SEVEN



HER LIPS TWITCHED faintly. ‘The man who has everything.’

‘You read the article.’

Two weeks earlier a Sunday paper had decided to dedicate half their glossy supplement to him. The Man with the Midas Touch was to his mind shockingly unoriginal and a perfect example of the dumbing-down of the press…ten pages that said nothing new.

He had everything? He supposed he did. But to Isandro his wealth represented not luxury or self-indulgence but the freedom to live his life just as he wanted. Did that make him selfish? Did it make him happy…? Was anyone happy?

He shook his head. Dios, this was not the time for a philosophical debate. This was definitely a time for action, decisive action, and the priority was warming up Zoe before she became hypothermic.

It did not take him long to weigh the options. Decision-making was, as the article author had suggested, Isandro’s area of expertise.

‘Chloe gave me her copy,’ she admitted between chattering teeth. ‘The entire village bought the paper. They were sold out. You’re a local hero…for real now…’

‘Even if you didn’t need my help.’

Her lips twisted into a grimace. ‘I really am grateful…Stop! You can’t—!’

Isandro took no notice of her protests as he began to stride up the path from the river.

‘I can walk! Put me down…please put me down.’

He flashed her a look. ‘You won’t jump back in the river?’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘Seriously, though, you’re chilled through. You need to dry off and warm up.’

‘I need to see the twins.’

‘You think that’s a good idea, looking this way? You’ll scare the life out of them,’ he predicted. ‘Which in Georgie’s case might not be such a bad thing. But seeing you like that is likely to give Harry nightmares for a month.’ He arched a brow. ‘What, no “you know nothing about children, so butt out”?’

Zoe shook her head, biting her lower lip to stop it quivering. He had summed up the twins pretty accurately.

‘You’re right. It’s me who knows nothing about bringing up children,’ she wailed.

A hissing sound of exasperation left his lips as he hefted her a little higher with apparent ease. On another occasion when she wasn’t busy contemplating her failure at parenting, Zoe might have been impressed. She was not exactly petite. ‘I find it infinitely preferable when you are defensive and rude. This self-flagellation is boring.’

Finding herself unexpectedly placed on her feet, Zoe waited a moment for her head to stop spinning before she raised her swimming eyes to him, her quivering lips tightening. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry I bored you.’

He smiled. ‘Better,’ he approved. ‘Now, come on. What you need is a hot bath, a brandy—or maybe not brandy, you might kiss the concierge—and a change of clothes before you return to your niece and nephew.’ Placing a hand on her elbow, he guided her past the selection of gleaming top-of-the-range cars parked in front of the hotel whose gardens went down to the river.

‘Nice thought, but unless you have them in your pocket…’ She tried a smile but her teeth were chattering too hard. Every squelchy footstep was uncomfortable. ‘Where are you parked?’

‘I’m not. Alex took the twins back to Ravenwood. I’ll ring him, and he’ll tell the twins we’ll be back later.’

Belatedly Zoe realised his intention.

‘You’re kidding—no way!’ She shook her head and shrugged off the guiding hand on her shoulder as she stared up at the recently restored art deco façade of the five-star hotel with a reputation that drew a lot of people to the area.

She’d often thought it would be nice to sample the food there—but not looking like this!

‘Why would I be kidding?’

‘You can’t just walk in there looking like this.’ She glanced at him and made the mental adjustment that while he could, she couldn’t. Isandro’s clothes might be sodden, but he had not been swimming, and even if he had, she acknowledged reluctantly, he would still have the presence to make any door open for him.

‘Why not?’

‘Well, I don’t know what the dress code is but I’m pretty sure this isn’t it.’ She held her hands wide to reveal her sodden muddy clothes. ‘They’ll throw me out. They won’t even let me walk across the hallowed threshold.’ She took a step backwards, shaking her head in response to the gleam in his eyes. ‘And before you suggest it, being carried won’t change anything.’

Except possibly her pulse rate. She knew that later that night she was going to remember every little detail of being carried in his arms, which would have made her a disgrace to modern liberated womanhood had she not suspected that inside most modern independent women lurked a secret desire to be swept off her feet. And if a man like Isandro was doing the sweeping, she suspected that few would find the experience objectionable.

She couldn’t help but wonder what it would have felt like if his motivation had not been totally practical—a scenario that would have required her not looking like a drowned rat and for him to not be her boss…

But this is the real world. And once more, as far as he’s concerned, you’ve shown yourself to be a pain in the backside.

‘I was not about to offer. The fact is you’re not as light as you look, especially wet.’ His grin widened in response to her indignant squeak. ‘Who exactly do you think is going to stop us?’

Zoe, who felt oddly light-headed, didn’t react to the question. ‘Just take me home, Isandro.’ She clutched her spinning head, suddenly feeling nauseous as frames of the past hour flashed before her eyes. ‘I turned around and they weren’t there, and I…’

Observing the blue discoloration of her beautiful lips, Isandro released a hissed imprecation from between clenched teeth before taking her chin firmly between his thumb and forefinger. He turned her face up to his. The problem was not so much her imminent collapse or her stubborn refusal to enter the hotel as his struggle to maintain the necessary level of objectivity.

‘Look, adrenaline was the only thing that kept you on your feet, and it’s crashed.’ So had she.

‘I do feel a bit…’

‘You look a bit, too.’ His glance drifted over the curve of her cheek, delineated by classic high cheekbones. Her perfect skin was marble pale, the only colour in her face was supplied by her eyes, which stood out as a flash of startling colour in a monochrome film.

‘You didn’t succeed in drowning yourself, so now you are inviting hypothermia.’ The effort to conceal the concern her fragility evoked in him made Isandro’s voice cold and flat. ‘We need to warm you up, get you out of those wet clothes.’

The words had barely left his lips before a stream of images that Isandro could have done without flashed through his head. He was regaining his shattered control when a sly voice reminded him that skin-to-skin contact was a well-known treatment for hypothermia His control went out of the window!

Even a sub-zero body temperature was not going to save him from the spike of lust that hardened his already half-aroused body. Madre di Dios, he was turning into a sad adult version of some sex-starved teenager! For a man who prided himself on his self-control it was…not tolerable. The only thing that was going to restore him to sanity was spending a week in bed with Zoe Grace.

He exhaled. The first step to solving a problem was admitting it existed. This he had already done. The next step was to work out a strategy. He needed to treat this problem like any other and apply logic and cool objectivity. The problem was that where his housekeeper was concerned he struggled to think objectively, and as for logic—he’d just stolen a boat, for God’s sake!

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Zoe said, looking at him over the soggy tissue she had produced and was now sniffing loudly into.

The prosaic action was rather touching, but not touching enough to hold his attention when the competition was the heaving contours of her breasts under the thin layer of drenched cotton through which her peaked nipples were clearly outlined.

‘I rather doubt that, querida.’ His thoughts were pretty rampant.

‘You think I’m not fit to look after a cat, let alone two children,’ she wailed, in full self-pity mode.

He did not respond with any comforting denials, but glanced rather pointedly at his watch.

This callous behaviour drew a hiss of annoyance from between her chattering teeth. ‘So sorry—am I keeping you?’ she said, wondering why she had thought for a second that her problems would do anything but bore the pants off him.

Her eyes dropped, running the length of his long legs, then making the journey back once she had reached his now muddy boots. She could see that, for some women, getting his pants off by whatever method would be considered a good result but she…Who was she kidding? Even on the brink of what felt like imminent hypothermia she could not stop lusting after him.

‘Not at all. Feel free to go ahead and beat yourself up,’ he encouraged. Zoe tried to bear her teeth in a snarl but she was shaking too hard and she bit her lip instead, drawing a pinprick of blood and his disturbing dark stare. ‘But do you mind if we continue this conversation indoors?’

Zoe glanced at the hotel entrance. The golden light shining through the doors looked warm and inviting…and she was very cold. She lifted a hand to the hair that was plastered to her skull. His was, too, but in his case the effect was not drowned rat.

‘I can’t.’ It was an invitation for him to contradict her, and he accepted it.

‘Can and will,’ he said, catching hold of her hand. ‘We need a room.’ On so many levels they needed a room!

‘You can’t walk in and book a room for a few hours,’ she said, pointing out the obvious. At least it seemed obvious to her.

‘Why not? People do. Oh, I see.’ He laughed. ‘You’re afraid your reputation will be ruined if you’re seen going into a hotel room with a man.’

‘Of course not. And nobody is going to think that you…me…we…unless you normally have to half drown a woman before she’ll have sex with you.’

‘Not so far.’

Before she could interpret the odd inflection in his voice he had tightened his grip and virtually dragged her up the shallow flight of steps.

The warmth inside the hotel foyer hit her like a wall. So did the stares. It seemed to Zoe that a thousand eyes followed their progress.

But, as he predicted, nobody attempted to stop them, though it would have taken a very brave person to approach Isandro, who had adopted what she privately called his ‘to hell with the lot of you’ expression. His antagonism was probably aimed at her. This couldn’t have been the way he had intended to spend his day, but the people who cleared a path for him weren’t to know that.

It was amazing, she reflected enviously, as at her side Isandro gave every appearance of being genuinely oblivious to the stares and hushed comments that followed their progress across the lobby. But then he was probably used to people staring. And who could blame them? she thought as she directed a covert sideways look through her lashes at his stern profile, dishevelled but beautiful.

Even as someone who had previously not been totally sold on the dark brooding aura, she was willing to admit he was a fantastically good-looking man, who didn’t just have the perfect face and body but also the indefinable extra factor. Confidence, sheer arrogance—whatever it was, he had it, and being extremely damp with his clothes spattered with mud and badly in need of a shave did not lessen it. The liberal sprinkling of stubble on his jaw lent an extra layer of air of danger, and did not exactly diminish his appeal.

So who could blame people for staring? she thought, making a conscious effort to emulate some of his attitude. And promptly tripping over the sodden hem of her jeans. It would happen when one stared at a man and not where one was going!

The ripple of laughter at her near pratfall brought her chin up. Trotting now to keep up with Isandro, Zoe suddenly thought, To hell with this! and gave the person who had laughed an enquiring look, even managing to inject a little hauteur into it. The culprit looked away before she did.

Zoe smiled and looked ahead. No amount of shoulder hunching or wishful thinking was going to make her vanish so she might as well borrow some of Isandro’s attitude, even if she couldn’t carry it off with his style.

‘May I help you, sir?’ A man whose lapel badge identified him as the manager intercepted them when they were halfway across the lobby. He guided them towards the reception desk where the eager-to-please attentiveness continued.

The people behind the reception desk almost fell over themselves being helpful to the point of obsequiousness, but Isandro, who was firing off his list of requirements, didn’t appear to notice. This was probably his life, she mused, giving impossible orders and having people fall over themselves to deliver.

After a few moments he turned to a shivering Zoe. He hadn’t forgotten her after all. ‘I’ll be up presently. You go along.’

The manager reappeared holding a large blanket, which, on an approving nod from Isandro, he draped almost reverentially over Zoe’s shoulders. ‘Jeremy will show you the way, miss.’

Jeremy, neat in his uniform, nodded and motioned for her to precede him into the glass lift that he explained was for the exclusive use of the penthouse. Penthouse…Zoe almost laughed. She was well aware that if she hadn’t been Isandro’s satellite she wouldn’t have got through the front door, let alone been given this VIP treatment.

In the second before the doors closed Isandro turned, zeroing in on her like radar. His smile flickered as he caught her eye and tipped his dark head.

As the door swished closed her heart was still beating fast. The moment, a mere nothing in reality, felt strangely intimate to Zoe, as if they were exchanging some private secret.

‘I had a slight boating accident.’ A half-smile flickered across her face as she realised that if Isandro had been there he would have been mystified and probably irritated by her need to explain herself to a hotel employee. Jeremy made a sympathetic noise but did not volunteer an opinion.

As soon as the door to the suite was closed, Zoe explored her palatial surroundings only as far as the bathroom that adjoined one of the bedrooms, conscious that she was leaving a trail of wet, muddy footprints.

The place was…well, wow! She had only seen hotel rooms like this in films. It felt like the set of an old movie, and she ought to be wearing a long slinky gown.

Instead she was wearing…ugh! She glanced down at her ruined clothes, her lip curling in distaste. As she peeled off the soggy garments she made an active choice not to look at herself in the mirror. It wasn’t easy, as the room was full of them. Definitely a room for someone with no body issues, she thought, shedding her clothes with relief.

Free of her clothes, she did glance in passing at her reflection in a mirror. She saw long legs, a slightly rounded stomach…While she would have liked more inches up top and a bit more flesh to cover her prominent hipbones, Zoe was happy enough with her figure.

Would a man be so happy?

Her eyes half closed, her stomach muscles quivered faintly as she stroked a hand slowly down her flank. Would her first lover think her hips too narrow, or find her bottom too—she moved her hand over the curve and stopped. Her hand fell away. She was shocked—the man she saw in her mind as she imagined standing naked in front of her lover was Isandro!

Now that would be a tough audience!

The hollow-sounding laugh was not convincing and did not stop a wave of scalding shame heating her cold skin.

Refusing to dwell on the man who had now invaded, not just her life, but her subconscious, too, she walked briskly away from the sodden pile of clothes—leaving a widening pool of water on the mosaic-tiled floor—and past the massive bath set on a raised pedestal, copper and big enough to swim in. She would normally have loved to try out this opulent fantasy tub but at that moment she did not feel much like swimming, so instead she decided on the more practical option: the massive shower behind a glass wall.

As she stood under the warm spray, liberally applying the luxury bath products supplied by the hotel, she focused her thoughts on safer subjects. Just how much did it cost to spend a night here? Perhaps Isandro would take the cost from her pay?

‘No!’ Fear and anger bubbling inside her, she picked up a sponge and began to apply it roughly to her skin. Why was it that the wretched man managed to infiltrate her every thought? When she finally stopped rubbing and dropped the sponge, her skin was glowing and tingling pink, and her mind was a blissful, exfoliated blank.

Picking up the shampoo, she lathered her hair for a long time after it was squeaky clean. She stood still like an alabaster statue, her eyes closed, her face lifted to the warm spray, thinking nothing.

The nothing vanished the moment she emerged from the shower and heard sounds of activity in the sitting room. Immediately tension slid down her spine.

‘For goodness’ sake, Zoe, get over yourself!’ she told herself impatiently. ‘You fancy him. Big deal! Half the planet fancies him so what makes you so special, other than the fact he thinks you’re an incompetent idiot?’ She sniffed and reached for one of the gowns hanging from a hook. ‘And staff. He doesn’t kiss staff even when they kiss him.’ That mortifying memory was going to stay with her for a long time.

She wasn’t even a colleague. She was the help.

She took a deep breath as she tightened the belt on her robe and flicked her wet hair back from her face.

As she entered the sitting room cautiously it was immediately clear there had been considerable activity in her absence. The table beside the open doors that led to the Juliet balcony had been laid with silver cutlery and fancily folded Irish linen napkins, and the antique candelabra in the middle was lit. It looked like a classic stage set for seduction…She could only assume that the staff had got the wrong idea.

She didn’t immediately see Isandro, who had been sitting on a leather chesterfield in an alcove. She was alerted by the creak of leather before his throaty drawl.

‘Feeling better?’

She flinched and spun around just as he got to his feet. Her skin had tingled when she’d ruthlessly scrubbed it, but now the tingle went deeper…I was better, but I’m not any more, she thought as she pasted on a polite smile.

‘Yes, thank you. That smells good.’ She nodded towards the domed covered serving dish set on the console table before looking at him—or, rather, past him.

‘Clothes maketh the man’ was not a phrase that applied to Isandro. He looked good in clothes, but he looked equally good, actually much better, without them…well, almost without them. He was wearing a robe similar to her own but on him the superior hotel-issue garment reached his thigh and revealed more of his dark hair-roughened skin than she was comfortable with.

‘I almost came to look for you.’

It had taken all his willpower and the seemingly constant flow of waiters through the place not to follow the sound of the running water and his own instincts.

His own shower had been ice cold, which had given him a temporary partial relief from his agony, but the moment she’d walked into the room with a freshly scrubbed face and nothing more than an ankle on show he had been painfully aroused and unable to think about anything but throwing her on the bed. His desire had no subtlety; it was sheer primal hunger.

He wanted her so badly he could taste it.

‘I only need rescuing once a day.’ Her lips formed a smile but her eyes conspicuously avoided making contact with his. Isandro could feel her tension from where he stood. ‘Did you contact Alex?’ she asked, as businesslike as someone could be when bare-faced and barefoot. She ran her tongue across her dry lips. She didn’t even have any lipstick to hide behind, though it was doubtful if a slash of cherry red would have made her feel more confident.

‘Yes, he’s got Rowena to come over and babysit.’

‘Rowena.’ Zoe gave a sigh of relief, losing some of her stiff formality as she smiled. ‘Thank you.’

Isandro’s eyes travelled up from her bare feet to the top of her wet head. The section in between was covered in a thick layer of fluffy white bathrobe, but the suggestion of curves, the thought of the soft skin it hid, sent his imagination into overdrive.

‘What can I get you?’ He walked over to the table and lifted a lid on one of the dishes.

You on a sandwich, she thought, but bit her lip. ‘Thanks, but I can’t eat. I should get back.’ Before I make a total fool of myself.

‘Why?’ He looked irritated by her response. ‘The twins are being well cared for. Or don’t you think Rowena can cope?’

‘It’s not a matter of her coping.’ Rowena was totally capable. The young woman’s parents had been good friends of Dan and Laura, and the twins loved their daughter, who ran the local stables. ‘I don’t want to take advantage.’

Her sister and brother-in-law had had a lot of friends and it was good to know that in an emergency they were there. But it was important to her to stand on her own feet and not become reliant. Or infatuated, she thought, looking directly at him for the first time.

He arched a strongly delineated ebony brow. Everything about his face was strong. ‘Have you ever said no when someone asks a favour? No, you haven’t. But when they want to return the favour it becomes “taking advantage”?’

The mockery in his voice as he adopted a very shaky falsetto to mimic her brought a lump to Zoe’s throat.

‘I’m glad I give you something to laugh about.’

‘I’m not laughing. I admire independence but not when it becomes bloody-minded stubbornness.’ Sometimes he wondered when she slept, or if. His critical glance moved to the violet smudges beneath her spectacular eyes. She was struggling to fit into a job she was unsuited for, and struggling to be the perfect parent. It was admirable but impossible. Why couldn’t the woman embrace her imperfections? He had!

The insight sent a stab of shock through Isandro. She roused feelings that he flatly refused to recognise as protective tenderness. He refused because he associated the emotions with weakness. It made him angry. She made him angry!

‘What are you trying to prove, Zoe?’ he asked, his voice hard.

‘I’m not trying to prove anything!’

Glaring, her eyes slid down his body as he sat down and leaned back on the leather sofa. Stretching his long legs out, he folded one ankle across the other. The hair-roughened skin of his muscular calves looked very dark against the white of the hotel robes. She was wearing nothing underneath. Was he…?

Shivering, she stopped the speculation from progressing into dangerous territory and dragged her gaze back to his face.

‘In that case take five minutes off from being a martyr and give us all a break.’

She sucked in a gulping breath, embracing the rush of anger as she clenched her fists. ‘There’s nobody here but you and me.’

‘Exactly, and I won’t tell if you fall off your perfect parent pedestal. Just you and me…what could be cosier?’

The question drew a gurgle from her throat. ‘Oh, I don’t know—how about hang gliding over an active volcano?’

And there was something combustible about him, even when he was still and silent like now, his long, lean body relaxed. She had the impression that he could explode into action at any moment.

He let out a low chuckle, his expression sobering as he added, ‘Are you planning to put your life on hold for the next ten or fifteen years?’

‘Fifteen years!’ She snorted. ‘I’m not thinking any farther ahead than next month’s bills.’ She found his anger inexplicable. ‘I’m a single parent. My priority has to be the twins.’

‘Single parents have been known to have sex.’