Sofia had not had the opportunity to do any saving of her own and this nanny job was well paid—their luck with nannies hadn’t been stellar, from what Elizabeth Walters had let slip, and Sofia wondered whether they’d set this sort of honey trap to ensure she wasn’t tempted to quit.
‘I’m a curious kind of guy,’ Rafael said mildly, watching her carefully. So carefully that she began to fidget. ‘Stay a while,’ he coaxed, strolling out of the room, his demeanour that of lord rather than serf. He glanced over his shoulder as she followed like a puppet, which was not like her at all. ‘I’m new to this country. I don’t know a soul. It would be nice for me to have some company this evening, if only to learn a little about the place, so that I can familiarise myself better with it when I get out there to explore.’
‘You’re here to pull up weeds and plant shrubs, not explore,’ Sofia reminded him, but she felt that tug of amusement again. He was so high-handed that it should have put her back up, but strangely it didn’t.
Where she had spent her life trying hard to stay under the radar—partly to deter the advances of lecherous men and partly because she was so focused on her future that she knew that, at least for her, diplomacy was definitely the better part of valour—he was the opposite. Oil to her water, chalk to her cheese, darkness to her light.
She shivered, wondering whether the strange pull she felt tugging her towards him stemmed from the fascination she felt when confronted with her polar opposite or whether she wasn’t just lonely.
Rafael shrugged. ‘And I’m sure I’ll be doing just that but I don’t intend to come all the way out here and leave...empty-handed.’
‘What does that mean?’ Sofia questioned.
‘It means that this is a beautiful part of the world and I won’t be burying myself in somebody’s back garden pulling up weeds without taking some time out to surface.’
‘I don’t think James Walters is going to appreciate your sense of adventure.’
Rafael shrugged.
‘Don’t you care?’ Sofia asked curiously.
‘Why should I?’
‘Because you could end up with a poor reference. Mr Walters would enjoy nothing better.’ She blushed a bright red. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘But you did.’ He began heading out of the lodge and back towards the main house, and Sofia was struck yet again by the man’s arrogant assumption that he could do whatever he wanted, safe in the knowledge that no one was going to object. In this instance, the ‘no one’ just happened to be her. She’d already walked him to the lodge, and left him in no doubt that she wasn’t interested in his company, yet he had decided to ignore her completely. She belatedly remembered how keen she had been to be rid of him and how annoyed she’d been at his late arrival.
‘You don’t like the man, do you?’ he remarked casually without looking around, throwing it over his shoulder as an aside.
‘I never said that!’
‘I’m good at reading what people choose not to say. In fact...’ He stopped dead in his tracks and stared down at her thoughtfully. ‘I’d say a person can learn more about someone from what they choose to keep secret. If you don’t like working for these people, then why do you?’
‘Why do you think?’ Sofia asked tartly. ‘For the same reason you’re here! The money. Look, don’t you have stuff to do? Unpack? Touch base with your friends and relatives to tell them that you’ve arrived safe and sound?’
‘I don’t have much to unpack and notifying friends and relatives can wait. I’ll have that cup of coffee you offered earlier. If you feel guilty about doing something in the big house that doesn’t involve working for them and obeying orders even when they’re not around, then you can fill in some time by telling me what they want me to do around here. Although I’m sure there’s a helpful list as long as my arm.’
‘One coffee...’
‘I get it. Then you have things to do.’
This time, he spent a bit longer inspecting the house as they entered. He pushed open doors while Sofia watched, knowing that she should say something but not sure what, because she didn’t think he was going to make off with the family silver.
The guy was dressed in clean but worn clothes, but something about him, some instinct, told her that he was no thief and that he saw nothing wrong with checking out his surroundings.
She wondered whether his bone-deep confidence was born from the fact that he was so spectacularly good-looking, but then she thought about herself and the way her looks had the opposite effect on her, making her timid, cautious and always ready to bolt. Maybe when it came to the lottery of good looks it was different for guys—she didn’t imagine that Rafael would have been hounded by jealous peers and plagued by the wandering hands of women he didn’t want near him, fearful that they might take advantage.
She just knew that he sent shivers of awareness racing up and down her spine.
She made them both a mug of coffee and, because she was hungry again, she fixed herself something to eat, another sandwich, while he looked on, his dark eyes watching her with veiled, lazy interest.
‘Is it because you like kids?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The reason why you’re here, working for a couple you don’t respect.’
‘You’re jumping to all sorts of conclusions!’
‘Am I?’
‘I’m not asking you a load of questions.’
‘What would you like to know?’ Rafael murmured softly, leaning back into his chair and angling it so that he could hook his foot under another and scrape it towards him to use it as a footrest.
He folded his hands behind his head and stared at her.
‘How did you manage to wangle the job here?’
‘I have a few connections. Does it matter?’
‘I don’t suppose so...’
‘You never answered my question about whether you worked here because you liked kids. Do you have any siblings?’ Again, another question. Rafael already knew the answer but he had been tasked with finding out about the woman, and he intended to do so just whatever way he chose. An evasion here...a little white lie there...so many things could unlock the secret of a person’s personality, and when a fortune was at stake unlocking her personality was more than just a technicality.
‘No.’ Sofia hesitated and her cut-glass green eyes clouded over. ‘I’m an only child. My mother...fell in love with some old guy when she was in her twenties.’
‘Some old guy?’
‘Well, my father, as it happens, who was much older than her.’ Sofia grimaced. ‘She didn’t like talking about it. In fact, she didn’t for most of my life, but then when she got ill she began opening up a bit more...’
Rafael was watching her carefully. ‘So where is he now?’
‘Who knows? It didn’t last.’
‘Why not?’
‘It doesn’t matter. It ended because that’s the way most relationships go. They end.’
‘You’re very jaded for someone as young as you are. Why? And did you ever want to find out about...the old guy?’
‘Why