Mercy faltered slightly then pressed on. He wasn’t supposed to see her. According to Trisha she wasn’t a sight that would make a man glad to be home, brighten his spirits. But he was in a good mood. He was leaning back against the door, his superb frame relaxed, the smile that made her feel all wobbly blindingly in evidence.
‘Still working, Howard?’ Should he broach the subject now? Perhaps not. She looked tired and not what he’d call receptive. The morning would be better.
There was a wealth of warm concern in those honeyed tones but Mercy ignored it. She wished he wouldn’t call her by her surname. It made her feel completely sexless, light years away from the blonde sprawled out on that sinfully opulent bed, waiting for him.
‘Just finishing, sir.’ Mercy gathered her senses. What did it matter what he called her? As far as he was concerned she was sexless. An object hired to keep his home clean and his laundry under control. Then, discounting Trisha’s final cutting remark because the woman was plainly upset and nervous, she descended the final steps and confided, ‘Your girlfriend arrived a short while ago.’ And, greatly daring, ‘She’s in your bedroom and very upset over your falling out,’ and watched his dark eyes fill with outrage.
‘Trisha?’ Anger flamed in the look he trained on her.
‘Of course.’ Unable to keep the censure from her voice—how many girlfriends did he have?—she advised, ‘It’s no use getting cross. I don’t know what caused the lovers’ tiff and I don’t want to, but you should talk it through calmly then kiss and make up. She’s still the woman you wanted to marry and she’s crazy about you and—’
‘Just shut up!’ Lean fingers fastened around her slender wrist. ‘Upstairs. I need a witness.’
Hauled back upstairs at what felt like the speed of light, Mercy gasped, ‘Have you gone crazy?’ fell over her feet and gasped some more as a strong supporting arm whipped round her, forcing her on.
‘No,’ he gritted. ‘Just furious! You will never let that woman into my home again, and that’s an order.’
No reply was possible. The effect of being held against that lean hard body had taken her breath away, turned her legs to water and brought on that peculiar and rather shaming squirmy feeling deep inside her.
This was what being caught in a hurricane must feel like, Mercy decided wildly as she was abandoned just inside his bedroom door, staring at the inviting tableau on the bed. Trisha’s big hair was artfully arranged against the pillows, the hem of her dress hiked indecently high. Her reaction when Andreo loomed over her was one of a purring kitten having its tummy tickled, turning to spitting fury as her sultry eyes landed on Mercy, who was still breathless and oddly shaky.
The hurricane had now been transformed into an iceberg. The chillingly sculpted features looked merciless as he used his mobile phone, his voice an arctic blast as he informed, ‘A cab will be here in five minutes to take you home. I suggest you wait for it outside. The affair is dead, as you very well know. It could have ended amicably. You know the rules. As it is, if you try to contact me, come within a hundred yards, I shall slap a restraining order on you so fast you won’t know what hit you.’
As the other woman headed for the door, her lovely face a mask of vindictive anger, Mercy plopped down on the linen press at the foot of the bed, not trusting her legs to hold her upright a moment longer. ‘That was so cruel!’ she gasped, her huge eyes wide with pained condemnation.
His frown pleating his brow, he turned glinting, incredulous pewter eyes on her as if, Mercy thought edgily, a speck of dust beneath his feet had suddenly flown up and bitten him on the nose. But she soldiered on regardless because she had never been able to abide injustice. ‘The poor woman is plainly in love with you. She didn’t deserve that sort of treatment.’
Bang went her job, she decided sickly as icy silence fell around her, making her skin prickle. Her castigation might have been excused had she been an old and valued retainer, looking after him since he’d been two days old.
She’d been with him two days and already she was lecturing him on his bad behaviour! Why couldn’t she learn to keep her thoughts to herself? Her hands twisted nervously in her lap.
Santo cielo! How dared she call his actions into question, moralise, spout such nonsense? Andreo questioned with grim incredulity. Opening his mouth to tell her to get out of his sight and watch her tongue in future if she wanted to hang on to her cushy job, he reminded himself of the favour he wanted of her and smartly closed it again.
A woman of her strait-laced and probably sheltered background wouldn’t have a clue, he told himself tersely, relaxing his shoulders. He wouldn’t have involved her in this unpleasantness but he’d needed a witness in case he had to go for a restraining order.
‘I’m sorry you think that,’ he ground out. He never explained himself to anyone but now, in fairness, he supposed he had to bite the bullet. The righteous fire had left her eyes—stunning eyes, he noted with a stab of surprise—and she was now looking downtrodden and dejected.
Smothering a huff of impatience, he wheeled away. He had no reason to feel sorry for her. She was more than capable of standing up for herself. He’d been on the receiving end of more lectures in the short time she’d been working for him than he’d had to endure during the whole of his thirty-one years!
Pouring wine into the unused glass—clearly part of the kiss and make up scenario Trisha had had in mind—he handed it to her and said with a gentleness that further surprised him, ‘Don’t tell me that alcohol never passes your lips, Howard. It will help you recover from the unpleasant scene I forced you to witness.’
Stung, her fingers closed around the stem of the glass. What did he think she was? Some kind of hopelessly pious prude? Just because her father had been a man of the cloth!
‘I do take the occasional drink, signor.’ A barefaced lie. She had never been able to afford the stuff. ‘And I don’t wear a hair shirt, either!’
‘Touché!’ Andreo’s sensual mouth quirked as he watched her drain the glass in two reckless gulps. ‘And to put the record straight, I never had any intention of marrying Trisha Lomax—or tying myself down to any woman, come to that. She knew it. She knew exactly what to expect, I promise you. While the affair lasted—and it turned out to be of short duration—she would enjoy my complete fidelity, and when it was over there would be no hard feelings and a handsome gift as a token of my regard and respect.’
Wondering if she had the remotest idea of how these things worked, and further wondering why he should care, Andreo sat beside her on the press, prising the empty glass from her fingers and setting it on the floor, informing her drily, ‘Such arrangements aren’t unheard of.’
Mercy’s head was swimming. This close to him she felt light-headed, hot and bothered all over. ‘It sounds immoral to me,’ she muttered. Her mouth felt numb and peculiar. She really should have fought the nervous tension that had led her to swallow all that wine like that. ‘Have you thought that the poor woman might have fallen in love with you?’ As any woman with eyes to see and a spark of life left in her body would.
Dio mio! Give me patience! Andreo stemmed the impulse to tell her not to talk such juvenile rubbish. For the time being he needed her on side. ‘A woman whose feelings were deeply engaged would have returned the suite of diamonds—the parting gift, remember?’ he enforced through gritted teeth. ‘Neither would she have hung on to the numerous costly trinkets she batted her eyes at during our time together. The only thing Trisha Lomax loved, apart from herself, was the size of my bank account, which goes a long way to explaining why she was misguided enough to believe she could change my mind about marriage.’
About to inform him that that was a highly selfish and jaundiced view, Mercy fell silent when he went on to tell her without a hint of self-pity, ‘Since I reached my late teens women have been throwing themselves at me. As a testosterone-fired young man I thought I was in heaven until my grandfather, the wisest