‘You need to sit and listen to what I have to say. Sofia, I didn’t come over here from London to play at being a gardener.’
‘Then why have you come?’ She sat back down, very slowly, riveted to his beautiful face, chilled by the cold containment of his expression. This was certainly not the warm, teasing guy she had begun losing her head over. This was a stranger on a mission and it was dawning on her that the mission might not be to her liking.
But confusion rendered her speechless while her thoughts buzzed in her head like a swarm of angry wasps.
‘David Dunmore is my godfather and I was tasked with coming over here to personally check you out. Not check out the veracity of your identity, but to check out what sort of person you are.’
Sofia stared at him sickly as pieces of the jigsaw puzzle began meshing together, revealing a picture she didn’t want to acknowledge.
‘There must be some mistake,’ she whispered. ‘And even if there isn’t…even if that man happens to be my father…why would he send someone over here to check and see what I might be like?’
‘That man happens to be an extremely wealthy person,’ Rafael told her flatly. ‘Wealthy people take the necessary precautions.’
‘And you…? If you’re not a gardener, are you wealthy as well?’
‘I am beyond wealthy.’
That statement of fact dimly registered in a part of her brain that was already recognising that this was no joke. This man—the man she’d thought she was getting to know, the one man to have broken through her defences—was not the person she had thought him to be. In short, he was a spy sent over to get the measure of her for reasons he hadn’t fully disclosed, but which he was about to.
‘I should have guessed,’ she said bitterly.
‘How so?’
‘Just the way you were. Arrogant. Dismissive. How did you manage to wangle a job here as a gardener?’
‘David managed that feat and, believe me, I was dubious about the validity of this…fishing expedition but…’ He paused, expression thoughtful as he mulled over the direction the conversation should take.
Sofia watched. What else could she do? Watched, and waited and cursed herself for letting her trusted instinct to keep all men at arm’s length go to pot.
She should have known that all that charm, those sinful good looks, that mesmerising personality came at a price. She was paying the price now as she accepted how far she had been sucked into the magical aura he exuded.
She’d been ready to fall into his arms and sleep with him!
‘But…?’ she questioned coldly.
‘But, firstly, I should explain that he has no other natural children of his own. He’s been married twice, and both marriages ended in divorce, and extremely acrimonious divorce at that. And neither of those marriages yielded any children, although he did inherit a stepson who now owns a substantial amount of shares in his company.’
‘What does that have to do with me?’
‘Ostensibly, it should have nothing to do with you whatsoever, but in point of fact you, by virtue of your blood line, are in line to naturally inherit the rest of the shares held by your father.’
‘I have no idea where you’re going with this.’
‘Surely you’re beginning to join the dots, Sofia?’
‘Why would someone I’ve never met, someone who never knew I existed until a handful of months ago, care one way or another about blood lines?’ She laughed scornfully.
‘David’s stepson,’ Rafael informed her heavily, ‘has been proving to be something of a problem ever since he came of age.’ Rafael lapsed into temporary silence, his dark brows knitted in a frown. Without warning, he vaulted upright and began pacing the room, a vision of such superb grace and elegance that the breath caught in her throat and she had to look away to stop the treacherous pounding of her heart.
He came to rest directly in front of her, staring down into her upturned face.
‘He was given shares courtesy of my godfather’s extremely cunning ex-wife and her very efficient divorce lawyer. Not enough to take over the company but enough to be a nuisance. Under normal circumstances, David would be able to contain the situation, as he has done in the past, but his health has not been good.’ Rafael’s face shadowed. ‘He has lost the desire and no longer has the energy to exert some much-needed control.’
‘I still have no idea where you’re going with this.’
‘I was sent here to see whether you were a worthy heir.’
Silence settled between them. She looked away, sick to her stomach, because she knew now that all that flirting, those dangerously seductive glances, that lazy banter that had made her squirm with crazy, stupid excitement and lust, had all been part of a bigger plan. While she’d been busy letting her heart rule her head, he’d been busy keeping tabs to see what sort of person she was.
‘A worthy heir,’ she said woodenly. ‘A worthy heir to do what, exactly? Bond with someone I don’t know from Adam and have no desire to meet?’
‘A worthy heir to take over from David…at the very least in name.’ He resumed sitting but this time there was a tension in his posture that hadn’t been there before.
Sofia noted it without even realising that she was doing so. Her mind was too full of other things to pay attention to what was happening on the periphery of her consciousness.
She burst out laughing, genuine, unrestrained laughter, because the whole situation was beginning to feel a little preposterous. If it weren’t for the deadly serious expression on Rafael’s face, she would almost have expected a camera crew to jump out from behind the sofa, yelling that she’d been tricked.
‘Share the joke?’ Rafael asked coolly.
‘What’s funny is the thought of me being checked out to see if I fit the bill as a company director! I hate to break the bad news, but nannies don’t really have that level of experience. Sure, I’m doing my accountancy exams in my own time, but somehow I don’t think that’s going to be sufficient, do you?’
‘No. You could no more run my godfather’s company than you could harness a horse and ride to the moon.’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence, Rafael,’ Sofia said acidly.
‘I’m being realistic. You’re not equipped to go near a billion-dollar business. But here’s where it gets interesting, Sofia.’ His eyes locked to hers and a shiver ran up and down her spine, a fast, cold, tickling sensation that suddenly made her pulses race. ‘I’m not just here to check your suitability as an heir. I’m here to check your suitability as a wife.’
For a few seconds she thought that she had misheard him. Her mouth fell open, her eyes widened, but whatever she wanted to stay remained stuck firmly in her throat.
‘You’re in shock,’ Rafael told her calmly. He stood up, vanished for a couple of minutes while she remained sitting as frozen as a statue, then returned with a glass of something strong and golden and told her to drink it.
She obeyed and the fiery liquid coursed a burning path down her throat. It did the trick. She felt the tension ease out of her as she dared to meet his opaque, speculative gaze.
‘Before you tell me that you may have heard incorrectly, let me assure you that you haven’t. Not only was I asked to search you out and verify your personality, but dangling at the end of the request was a very tempting titbit. I marry you and I get ownership of vital sections of my godfather’s companies. Vital shares in certain areas would remain within your control. It’s complicated, because of the size of the concern, but suffice