Sofia had adored her fallible mother but had seen the failings and had determined never to be afflicted in the same way.
Letting this complete stranger get to her wasn’t going to work.
‘Not in this case,’ she said through gritted teeth.
‘I didn’t think so,’ Rafael murmured honestly. ‘But there’s something there, isn’t there? What?’
‘Let’s get something straight.’ Sofia was holding on to her temper with difficulty and he wasn’t making it any easier by that all-knowing look on his face, a look which implied that he could read her mind, which of course he couldn’t.
‘What’s that?’
‘You’re here to do a job. I have stuff to do and I won’t be fraternising with you.’
‘Because I ask too many questions?’
‘My personal life is none of your business. Now, I’ll show you to the door. Take the instructions. You might want to read them over before you go to bed. There will be a lot to busy yourself with until James and Elizabeth get back. They’ll expect you to have done everything laid out, right down to pulling up the very last weed in the flower beds.’ She thrust the paper into his hand, and he glanced at it as though only really mildly curious as to the content.
‘Later.’
‘Later? Later?’
Rafael rose to his feet unhurriedly. ‘I’ll be settling in before I start doing any work in someone’s garden.’
‘Settling in?’ she parroted, staggered and still seething at his outrageous implications. For all that, though, she was furiously aware of the keen beating of her heart and the way, for the first time in living memory, she felt alive to someone else, all her senses heightened, her pulses racing, her skin tingling.
Rafael burst out laughing. ‘Oh yes,’ he said in a low, velvety undertone, moving towards the door and dumping the unopened pages of instructions on the kitchen counter en route. ‘I intend to familiarise myself with the place before I go anywhere near a bottle of weed killer or a lawn mower.’
‘You can’t do that.’
‘Will you be trying to stop me?’
‘James... Mr Walters...he can be very short-tempered.’
‘Really?’
Sofia nodded, but she was mesmerised by the arrogant lack of interest in Rafael’s dark gaze.
‘Interesting.’
‘What is?’ she breathed, hovering, unable to keep still.
‘Interesting how incredibly unadventurous you are for someone of your age. Why is that? No, I can guess why. Your mother dragged you from pillar to post and your response was to batten down the hatches and pray for a time when the storm would pass.’
‘Stop,’ Sofia hissed, shaken. ‘Stop making assumptions about my personal life!’
Rafael didn’t say anything for a few seconds but he looked at her, a long, leisurely look that made her breath hitch in her throat.
‘A little adventure can go a long way,’ Rafael murmured.
‘Maybe for you,’ she was stung into responding, ‘but not for me. So maybe you’re right—maybe a life of never quite staying anywhere long enough to put down real roots has made me a bit wary when it comes to all that nonsense about adventure. But I don’t need a complete stranger to start lecturing to me on my life choices.’
‘Who better than a complete stranger to lecture on life choices? Isn’t that how therapy works?’
‘You’re a gardener, not a therapist, so I’m not seeing the relevance.’
Rafael adroitly swerved around the interruption. ‘Life is meant to be lived,’ he mused, eyes pinned to her face, noting every change of expression, every fleeting shadow, the flare of her nostrils, the dilation of her pupils, the way her breathing was shallow and breathless. ‘Sometimes, things happen that can’t be predicted...’ He shrugged and grinned. ‘All I’m saying is that I won’t be spending every hour of the day obeying what’s on those pieces of paper el señor de la casa has thoughtfully printed for me.’
Adventure...
Never before had one word dangled before her eyes, beckoning with the seductive allure of a banquet spread before a starving person.
She had made all the right noises about adventure being the last thing she wanted in her life. She’d meant every word of it! It was an ideology long ingrained inside her.
And yet...he stood there and the urge to be swept away by that low, sexy voice was overwhelming. She physically had to take a step back but her heart was beating like a sledgehammer inside her.
‘I intend to see a bit of this beautiful place, Sofia, and you’re going to be my guide,’ he murmured. ‘While the cat’s away the mouse, I’m suggesting, should definitely play...’
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