So darkly, dangerously sexy...
For a fleeting second she wondered... What is he really doing here...?
‘NICE PLACE,’ RAFAEL said neutrally as they headed out of the house, swinging round to the back, away from the main lodgings.
Night had gathered around them and Rafael had morphed into a tall, dark shadow, his gait loose-limbed and oddly graceful for a man of his size.
Sofia was accustomed to the size of the mansion where she worked, as well as to the several acres of manicured lawns surrounding the house.
‘It’s very big,’ she agreed, breathing in the fragranced air and making sure to keep some distance between them. It was cooler now, with a whispery breeze that lifted her hair and blew tendrils away from her face.
‘Enjoy working here?’
‘That’s where you’ll be staying. Straight ahead. It’s entirely self-contained, so there will be no need for you to come to the main house.’
‘Unless I want to.’
Sofia shivered and hugged herself. She had picked up something in that low, lazy drawl but then, when she thought about it, she wondered whether it wasn’t her imagination playing tricks on her.
‘Have you been to this part of the world before?’
‘This particular country has passed me by,’ Rafael murmured.
‘In that case, I can tell you where you need to go to buy...err...food or whatever else you might need.’
‘Or you could show me.’
Sofia didn’t say anything. Was this a come-on? It sounded like one but it didn’t feel like one because his drawl was lazy and mildly amused. None of that skin-crawling invasion of her privacy and space that always alerted her to a man on the make.
She thought back to all those years ago and to one of those men on the make, but she had just been a kid of fifteen and he had been old enough to be her father—a friend of a friend of her mother’s, drunk at a house party, one of the few her mother had ever had. She remembered the terror of her bedroom door slowly being pushed open and the fear when she had worked out why he had crept into the room.
Sofia knew that she might not have had the strength to fight him off and that he had only scarpered because a couple had stumbled up the stairs, opening doors in search of the upstairs bathroom. They had spooked the guy out of the bedroom because, drunk as he was, he’d still known what the fallout would be if he were to be caught. She’d been saved by the bell but it had been a sharp learning curve for her. Be wary had become the motto branded at the back of her brain, and she had lived her life accordingly.
Four years later, when she had made the mistake of falling for a boy her own age—only to discover that she had been the object of a bet as to whether he could get the hot chick into bed inside a month—‘be wary’ had become ‘stay away’.
She was disturbed that these wayward memories had jumped out of her without warning because she’d always thought that they were buried and forgotten.
She slid her eyes sideways. He wasn’t looking at her. He was frowning and staring at the grand quarters they were approaching, usually used as guest quarters for overspill at parties. James had decided that it would do for the gardener, possibly because it would have been unthinkable to accommodate him in the main house. A gardener roaming through their luxury villa and making himself at home in their kitchen would never have done.
Sofia stuck the key in the lock and stood back so that he could precede her into the two-bedroomed dwelling. She switched on all the lights and watched as he strolled around for a few seconds before heading off in the direction of the kitchen, having tossed his battered hold-all on the ground by the staircase.
She followed. The housekeeper had tidied the place but it felt stuffy and airless.
‘Who usually uses this?’ He appeared in the doorway of the kitchen and lounged indolently against the doorframe, looking at her with his head tilted to one side.
‘Overnight guests. If the big house is full.’ He was so breathtakingly beautiful that she couldn’t help but stare at him. It was almost too much of a mammoth effort to look away.
‘I’m surprised they didn’t choose to stick you in here,’ he mused, spinning around and then heading straight for the kitchen cupboards, which he proceeded to open and close. ‘The very least they could have done was to equip me with a few essentials.’
Sofia gasped and then burst out laughing, surprising herself as much as it seemed to surprise Rafael. Laughing with a guy, any guy, wasn’t something she could remember having done in years.
‘Share the joke?’ He raised both eyebrows and her outburst of laughter subsided into a wicked grin.
‘You. You’re so...so...brazen...’
‘Explain.’ But he was smiling crookedly back at her, his dark eyes unreadable.
‘You don’t seem at all grateful to be here.’
‘Why should I be grateful?’
‘Well, I gather from the Walters that they were more or less put in a position where they had to give you this gardening job for a month. It’s a really cushy number.’ She glanced around her at the luxurious accommodation. ‘And most people would be over the moon to have this place to stay.’
‘I’m not most people,’ Rafael said. ‘You’ll figure that out soon enough.’ He paused but kept his fabulous eyes pinned to her face, which made her colour rise further and made her heart flutter a little more furiously in her chest.
‘Well, upstairs is self-explanatory. Two bedrooms and there’s linen in the cupboard on the landing.’
‘You still haven’t told me why you don’t stay out here.’
‘I...the Walters... James and Elizabeth think it’s more convenient for me to be at hand. You know...close to the kids.’
‘Actually, I don’t know.’ He began heading up the stairs and for a few seconds Sofia wasn’t sure whether he actually expected her to traipse along in his wake or not. She had shown him the lodge, she’d done what she had to do, and in the morning she would show him the list of stuff she had been given for him to start on. Elizabeth kept a vigilant eye on the garden but messages were always relayed via her husband to the team that came weekly to prune, trim, plant and uproot. He was officious in his dealings with them. He wouldn’t be winning any popularity contests with his employees any time soon. He’d had no choice but to house this outrageous stranger but he had made sure to leave two A4 sheets of paper full of detailed instructions.
‘What do you mean?’ She roused herself from her ruminations and found herself following him up the stairs, stopping short as he pushed open one of the bedroom doors, before spinning around to look at her through narrowed eyes.
‘I mean,’ Rafael said slowly, ‘By having you on tap, well, does that mean that you don’t get any time off?’
‘No, well...’ Flustered, Sofia met his dark, speculative gaze, vibrant green eyes clashing with dark, fathomless ones. ‘They do go out quite a bit and it’s just more convenient for me to be there rather than having to decamp all the time when I need to babysit.’
‘And do you get paid extra for all this babysitting? Hefty price for being on permanent stand by?’
‘Why are you asking me all these questions?’ she threw at him, uncomfortable because