‘There’s a third difference between you and the homeless, Zoe,’ Javier said, sympathy for the poor scrap softening his voice. ‘You do have people who care about you. Your grandmother for starters. She may not be much good at showing it, but if she didn’t care she wouldn’t have tried so hard to mould you to her idea of what a young lady should be. She’s simply a throwback to the beginning of the last century.’
Ignoring her snort of disbelief, he swung into the appropriate lane for the exit to Cirencester and said firmly, ‘And I care. If I didn’t I’d have told Alice to take a running jump when she suggested handing you over to me. And getting back to your commendable concern for the homeless, there are better ways of helping than throwing handfuls of cash at every street beggar. If you’re still of the same mind when you come into your inheritance we’ll discuss it further. Agreed?’
Zoe simply nodded. She couldn’t speak without giving herself away. Tears blurred her eyes and clogged her throat. Javier had said he cared about her. He was the only person in the world who could touch her so deeply she wanted to cry!
But her bout of sentimentality took a nosedive when he announced, ‘And because I care about your future I insist you finish your education.’
Waiting at traffic lights he glanced across at her. Mutiny writ large on her expressive features, she said on a note of triumph, ‘I ran away. They won’t take me back!’
‘You’re enrolled in a sixth-form college in Gloucester. Joe Ramsay will drive you in and collect you daily. You may remember Mrs Ramsay, my housekeeper? Joe’s her husband and looks after the grounds. Mrs Ramsay will look after you when I’m not at the lodge.’
Of course she remembered Ethel Ramsay. She had let her help make the mince pies. She remembered everything about the last happy Christmas with her parents, but rarely looked back because it still hurt too much and made her feel weepy when she wanted to be tough.
‘And another thing.’ Javier hardened his heart. Someone had to tell her she looked like the trollop she wasn’t. ‘The way you’re dressed gives the wrong impression.’ How to get the message through without making her feel cheap? ‘Besides, it doesn’t do you justice. You’re a pretty kid and, as I recall, your hair was beautiful.’
Discounting the iffy ‘kid’ bit, ‘Pretty and Beautiful’ were like manna from heaven. She shot him a wide-eyed look.
‘And?’ she asked, scarcely daring to breathe, wondering if his caring was beginning to get a bit more personal.
‘You wash that ghastly colour out and let it grow again, and you and I will go shopping for clothes that strike a happy medium between someone’s ancient aunt and a slapper. Do we have a bargain?’
It wasn’t nearly as personal as she’d have liked, nothing like a declaration that he fancied her. As if! But it was all a darn sight better than being stuck with Grandmother Alice. And who knew? Living with each other for the next year and a half or so—and maybe even longer, until she was twenty-one, say—he might come to look on her as a young woman instead of a kid. And she’d do anything he asked of her but she wasn’t going to let him know that. So. ‘Let me get this straight. I go back to school.’ A theatrical groan. ‘You dictate how I look instead of Grandmother Alice. What’s in it for me?’
Javier smothered a grin. He could recognise manipulation when he saw it. The poor kid would have had a miserable eight years with Alice Rothwell and wasn’t about to agree to more of the same. ‘You do as I want and in term breaks you get grown-up treats. Winter skiing, holidays in Spain. Paris, maybe—whatever you fancy. A deal?’
Happiness threatened to choke her. All that—with him! Heaven had arrived on earth!
‘Done!’
CHAPTER ONE
Two and a half years later…
‘I’M EVER so sorry for bothering you, Mr Masters,’ Ethel Ramsay ventured as Javier slammed the car door behind him with force and strode over the gravel to where she had the main door of Wakeham Lodge open. With a quiver of apprehension the housekeeper noted the tension in his wide mouth, the rigid set of his shoulders beneath the white cotton shirt he wore.
Smouldering with anger, that was what he was, anyone could see that! And she could understand it because making sure the construction empire that straddled the world ran on oiled wheels kept him flat out, so he wouldn’t exactly thank her for dragging him back here, but she’d been so concerned, so had Joe—
‘You did exactly right, Ethel,’ Javier said, making a conscious effort to keep his tone moderate in view of the trepidation in her mild brown eyes. ‘If anyone should apologise it is I. I should have kept a closer eye on things.’
His fault entirely. He’d kept actual face-to-face contact with Zoe to a minimum for the last fourteen months, ever since that episode beside the swimming pool behind his parents’ winter home in Southern Andalucia. He’d thought it best. He now feared he’d been wrong. His lack of judgement in this case made him furious with himself.
‘So where is she?’ he questioned as something that looked like a cross between a small hairy hearthrug and a jack-in-the-box shot between his straddled legs and out onto the drive, where it sat, panting in the hot June sun, its head tipped expectantly. ‘What the hell is that?’
‘Boysie.’ Ethel relaxed a little. It would seem that the letter she’d written wasn’t responsible for that obvious annoyance, and she felt easier already. Her employer rarely lost his temper but when he did it was spectacular. She hadn’t wanted to bring his wrath down on her own head.
She gave a resigned shrug but her eyes smiled as they rested on the small dog. ‘Miss Zoe’s stray. They’re devoted to each other. He’d been wandering the village street for days so she took him in. He leaves hairs all over, I’m afraid, but we have rid him of fleas.’
Javier vented a sigh. So the menagerie had increased by one very ugly dog. At the last count she’d collected three cats from the local rescue centre and an abandoned fox cub, now thankfully half grown, fit and healthy and released back into the wild.
Emotionally starved for most of her formative years, Zoe needed something to love, so her menagerie was fine by him. At least he was no longer the recipient—
‘Where is she now?’ He repeated his query, walking further into the coolness of the wide hallway.
‘On a driving lesson.’ Ethel’s kindly face puckered with a concern Javier didn’t then understand. A few weeks ago Zoe had phoned him with the perfectly reasonable request that she have her own car. After all, she was pushing nineteen. The trustees had agreed and had coughed up. So a driving lesson gave him no problems and allowed him more time to delve deeper into his housekeeper’s worrying written request, faxed through to him on a construction site in northern France by his senior PA. ‘You are needed here,’ it had informed him. ‘Miss Zoe’s got mixed up with a wild crowd. Me and Joe do our best but it isn’t enough.’
He needed to know far more before he confronted Zoe.
‘Then you’ve time to paint a clearer picture.’ One hand cupping her plump elbow, he drew her into the sunlit drawing room, where she refused to sit, just stated with breathy agitation, ‘The driving’s part of the bigger problem. She—Miss Zoe, bless her, insisted on buying one of those flashy sports cars. Joe tried to persuade her to go for something more suited to a learner but she wouldn’t listen, she’d rather listen