Kitabı oku: «Modern Romance Books September Books 5-8», sayfa 5

CHAPTER THREE

SOFIA EYED THE crystal-clear swimming pool with a mixture of headiness and apprehension.

Under a dazzlingly bright-blue sky, the flat turquoise water glittered and shimmered and beckoned on a day of soaring temperatures.

Of course, she’d used the pool before, but only when the children had been around, splashing and yelling, with the little one clinging to her while she did her best to make sure Josh wasn’t going to do himself permanent damage by flinging himself into the water from the side of the pool while helping his younger sister to keep afloat without arm bands.

This time round...

Sofia closed her eyes and took a few steadying breaths while she mentally confronted the position she now found herself in.

‘Out of her comfort zone’ summed it up.

More than out, she thought giddily. More like teetering on the edge of a precipice with the comfort zone no longer in sight.

Amazing what a week could do!

First of all, she had let herself be talked into a sightseeing tour of Buenos Aires.

‘Live a little,’ he had whispered in a dangerously soft voice and even more dangerous glint in his dark eyes.

Then, in quick succession, there had followed various little jaunts in and around the city, while she had relaxed more and more and found herself dropping her guard and laughing, her curiosity about the stranger who had landed on the Walters’ doorstep growing with each passing second.

A stranger who had not bothered to go near the long list of must-dos that her employer had meticulously and maliciously printed off.

A stranger who had not, in fact, been near the tool shed, the ride-on mower, the green house or any implement connected to gardening.

His audacity thrilled her.

She wasn’t going to lose her head, because he wasn’t ‘settling down’ material, and he would be gone in the blink of an eye. But where was the harm in having a bit of fun, as he had cleverly suggested to her?

And she was having fun. Lots of it.

Even her aunt had noticed.

The evening before, she had gone to visit Misa, who lived on the other side of the city where the tall, shiny towers of the city and the exclusive retreats of the wealthy were as out of reach as the moon—even though, from the bedroom window of the derelict house in which she lived, Misa could spy them in the distance.

‘You’re glowing,’ her aunt had announced, pleased. ‘It’s the first time you’ve actually looked like a young girl since you returned to Buenos Aires. There must be a man in your life. Someone special, Sofia?’

‘I’m not glowing,’ Sofia had protested, but she knew that she was somehow different.

She had hardly been able to focus on Miguel, her cousin, who as always was in his room, immobile and frustrated, facing certain physical disabilities after a motorcycle accident at the age of sixteen.

For once, instead of sitting back and listening to his despair, Sofia had talked about the stranger who had landed on the doorstep like a breath of fresh air.

She’d been full of it.

Her head had been giddy with thoughts of Rafael when she’d left, whereas normally she would be in her usual funk, thinking about her aunt and Miguel stuck in one of the poorer barrios where block upon block of unsightly apartments jostled against one another like little card houses, unsubstantial and ready to topple over into the chaotic, cluttered little streets below. Thinking, as she always did, of how much Misa had been there for her much younger sister when Maria had returned ill and with time no longer on her side. Thinking of how vital was the money she earned as a nanny when it came to helping them both.

Now, with her towel in one hand, clad in the only swimsuit she possessed—an extremely unadventurous black one-piece—Sofia waited with shameful eagerness for Rafael to appear.

He had gone to the city ‘to see what was going on’ as though, somehow, people in high places might be clamouring for his involvement.

‘But meet me at the pool,’ he’d said in that way he had of voicing the daringly unacceptable as though she would be an idiot not to concede. ‘I’ll bring lunch.’

‘You don’t have to do that,’ Sofia had laughed, captivated by the intensity of his gaze. ‘Save what money you have! James and Elizabeth have left sufficient food in the larder for me to rustle something up.’

But he would have none of it and now here she was, waiting for him to appear with food, generous to a fault even though he was no higher up the pecking order than was she.

Her head was filled with dangerous, exciting possibilities.

He’d been the perfect gentleman so far, although his manner was amused, flirtatious, sexy, and his dark eyes lazily, thrillingly speculative. She wasn’t sure whether he fancied her or not and that was a first.

Lust was only something she’d read about in magazine articles but now...

Now it was something that called to her, the ultimate adventure waiting to happen. When she thought about being the one to make the first move, her whole body burned and tingled, but more and more in the space of a handful of days she had been contemplating just that.

She wasn’t entirely sure about the technicalities of such an event, but she was willing to give it a go, and that was such alien territory for her that her nervous system went into meltdown when she thought about it.

Her head was in the clouds when she became aware of Rafael, who had paused just by the pool, face shadowed by the overhang of the tree he was standing beneath.

Her eyes roamed appreciatively over him. So tall, so powerfully built, so commanding. He was in a pair of low-slung, khaki shorts, a T-shirt that originally would have been black but was now an off-grey, and a pair of loafers that looked as though they cost the earth but which, Sofia knew, would have been as cheap as chips.

Something about the way he was put together made everything he wore look stupidly expensive.

She began walking towards him and her heart beat just a little faster, the closer she got.

He didn’t move a muscle.

It was curious but there was something about him that was as wary as she was, even though he was crazily sexy and extremely forthcoming with conversation, able to reduce her to hysterics in just a few witty sentences, or have her hanging on his every word with anecdotes that beggared belief.

She was vaguely aware that there was a part of him that was very contained, so automatically she had responded like for like, confiding but only just so much, never letting him get too close.

He knew a lot about her experiences of travelling around with her mother but nothing at all about her life here, when she had finally returned to her home town.

He had guessed, shrewdly, at her experiences of being a nanny and working for James, but she had wisely held back from saying anything that could jeopardise the job which she badly needed, at least for the time being.

She had become close enough to want him in a very, very physical way, but had remained distant enough to protect herself, conscious of the temporary nature of his visit and the unsuitability of his personality.

‘Hi.’ She smiled and stared up at him, uneasily aware that he wasn’t smiling back with his usual easy charm. ‘I wondered whether you’d become lost in the city!’ She chatted away, keeping some distance between them and wishing she had covered herself a little more, because the unreadable remoteness of his expression was making her feel vulnerable and exposed.

‘Is it possible to become lost anywhere in the world if you’re in possession of a smart phone?’ he murmured.

‘So true.’ The smile was still there. ‘Have you brought lunch? I’m ravenous.’

‘Didn’t have time in the end.’ He raked his fingers through his hair and shifted on his feet before settling his dark eyes on her face. ‘Sofia, we need to talk.’

‘Sure.’ The smile faltered and her defences slammed into place, and she stepped back, shielding her eyes to look up at him. ‘I expect you’ve finally got round to realising that the Walters are going to be back pretty soon and you have to get down to actually doing some gardening.’

‘I’d forgotten their existence, in point of fact. So, no, that realisation hasn’t come home to roost.’

‘Shall I make us something to eat? Er...we could talk in the kitchen. Or out here. Although, it’s really hot, and anyway I shouldn’t really be swimming in this pool. It’s not what I’m being paid to do while my employers are away.’

‘Going inside might be a good idea, Sofia. You’re going to have to sit down to hear me out.’

‘Really?’ Her voice cooled because she could smell a warning a mile off. Had he noticed the way she had gradually thawed? Maybe he’d sensed her increasing desire and was politely about to tell her that he wasn’t up for grabs.

She had no idea whether he was involved with anyone, or even married! She’d made assumptions and was now mortified that she might have got those assumptions wrong.

‘Really.’

Rafael began walking towards the sprawling villa, and after a few seconds of hesitation Sofia followed in his wake.

He didn’t swerve towards the kitchen. Instead, he headed towards the sitting room and then turned, waiting as she entered and then stopped dead in her tracks, hovering just inside the door.

‘What’s going on, Rafael?’

‘Sit.’

‘Thanks, but I’m fine standing right here.’

‘I’m not entirely sure where to begin.’ He paused. ‘Maybe you should just take a look at this.’ He flicked open his wallet and pulled out an article on his godfather that he had printed off before he had left London, knowing that when the story emerged the online entry might explain more than he would be able to. He handed her the paper and then stepped back to watch her face as she scanned it before returning it to him.

‘So?’ she flung challengingly at him.

‘Recognise the name?’

‘I haven’t got a clue who that person is.’

‘You mother never mentioned names when she was talking about your father?’

Colour leeched out of her face as she stared at him wordlessly for a few seconds. ‘No.’

‘The man you’ve just read about is your father.’

‘I don’t believe you.’ She stumbled into the room and fell into one of the chairs, then promptly sat forward, horribly conscious of her state of undress. Primly, she draped the towel she had been carrying across her thighs and watched as he drew a chair to sit directly facing her.

Was this some sort of interrogation? Surely he couldn’t be right? She tried frantically to remember what her mother had said about her father aside from, in her last few days, when she had repeatedly told her that he had broken her heart. Had she described the guy at all? No. He’d been much older than her at the time, but she had shied away from details. Sofia had never bothered to pry, because what would have been the use?

‘Why wouldn’t you? What reason would I have to lie?’

‘Look, I don’t know what’s going on but—’

‘Hear me out, Sofia, and you will. David Dunmore is your father. Your mother contacted him shortly before she died. Her conscience, it would seem, got the better of her. She told him that he had a daughter. You. He had people check you out as soon as he received that letter from your mother.’

‘Had people check me out?’

‘These things happen.’ Rafael shrugged.

‘No. Not in my world, they don’t happen.’ She stared at him stonily. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded, leaping to her feet. ‘I don’t want to be having this conversation. I need to... I need to...’

‘You need to sit and listen to what I have to say. Sofia, I didn’t come over here from London to play at being a gardener.’

‘Then why have you come?’ She sat back down, very slowly, riveted to his beautiful face, chilled by the cold containment of his expression. This was certainly not the warm, teasing guy she had begun losing her head over. This was a stranger on a mission and it was dawning on her that the mission might not be to her liking.

But confusion rendered her speechless while her thoughts buzzed in her head like a swarm of angry wasps.

‘David Dunmore is my godfather and I was tasked with coming over here to personally check you out. Not check out the veracity of your identity, but to check out what sort of person you are.’

Sofia stared at him sickly as pieces of the jigsaw puzzle began meshing together, revealing a picture she didn’t want to acknowledge.

‘There must be some mistake,’ she whispered. ‘And even if there isn’t...even if that man happens to be my father...why would he send someone over here to check and see what I might be like?’

‘That man happens to be an extremely wealthy person,’ Rafael told her flatly. ‘Wealthy people take the necessary precautions.’

‘And you...? If you’re not a gardener, are you wealthy as well?’

‘I am beyond wealthy.’

That statement of fact dimly registered in a part of her brain that was already recognising that this was no joke. This man—the man she’d thought she was getting to know, the one man to have broken through her defences—was not the person she had thought him to be. In short, he was a spy sent over to get the measure of her for reasons he hadn’t fully disclosed, but which he was about to.

‘I should have guessed,’ she said bitterly.

‘How so?’

‘Just the way you were. Arrogant. Dismissive. How did you manage to wangle a job here as a gardener?’