Her heart thudded at the strangeness of this arrangement. She shouldn’t have agreed to come. He didn’t need her help at all—what had Jasper been worrying about?
‘I’m sorry if I’ve inconvenienced you,’ she said politely, still trying to get over the smarting hurt that he’d not remembered her.
‘I will ensure there is a room ready for you,’ he replied and left her.
She watched as he left. Not big on small talk, was he?
The kitchen was beautiful and scrupulously clean and she realised she needed food. She’d think better if she warmed up. She’d prepare something and then speak to Jasper.
She checked the cupboards. There were barely the staples in the pantry. She opened the freezer and found a stack of containers—single-serve portions—labelled with the dish and the date it had been made, but also the date for him to eat. Someone had prepared enough for him to last the next few days. Who had done that, when Jasper had insisted that Tomas’s housekeeper had walked out suddenly, leaving him in the lurch?
Someone had organised this for him. She frowned. So why had Jasper been so insistent she come then, if he’d already been taken care of?
Her frown deepened as she looked in the fridge. There was milk and another—uneaten—prepared whole meal, but no raw ingredients.
But the meal he was supposed to have eaten last night was still in there. So was the container labelled as his lunch. She glanced at the counter and the sink again; there wasn’t even a drop of water from the tap in the bottom of the sink. If he’d prepared anything for himself, he’d not left a single sign of it.
She shrugged, telling herself not to care. But she would make herself—and him—something to warm up.
She took off her jacket and scrabbled round in the bottom of her shoulder bag and found the bar of plain chocolate she had there. Thank goodness she’d not eaten it on the drive down. She found a copper pan and gently warmed the milk on the stovetop and grated the chocolate in. As she stirred it to melt the slivers she couldn’t stop the memories from tormenting her. She’d made him coffee that morning, served it with her special lemon-slice cake—that first recipe she’d ever tweaked.
‘He’s here to invest in the casino—don’t screw it up. Stay out of sight as much as possible.’
By then she’d got good at staying out of sight. Her uncle’s temper had been worsening by the day and she was the easiest person for him to vent it on. So she knew when to avoid him, but that day he’d needed her skills.
She’d been the only child of doting parents who’d died when she was just twelve. Her only living relative had flown in to console her. Uncle Charles had said he lived on a luxury yacht in Antigua and ran a casino. He’d sold her parents’ home and told her she’d love it on his boat, with his glamorous second wife.
But that wife had walked out ten months later, fed up with the chauvinistic abuse he served up twenty-four-seven. She’d left teenaged Zara there alone to witness the drinking and womanising and gambling and sleaze.
Her uncle had blamed her for his wife’s departure. In the end everything was her fault. That flashy ‘home’ had offered no relief from isolation and grief—it only exacerbated it, because she didn’t fit the mould.
She’d been nothing but a disappointment to her uncle and he’d let her know it. She’d been so scared and lonely she’d let him stomp all over her—had shut herself away like some sad Cinderella. She’d been so stupidly quiet and shy.
She’d never been able to live up to the expectations he had of her. He’d told her time and time again she was useless. He refused to send her to school and begrudged the correspondence-school paperwork she requested.
She’d retreated below deck. Len, the Scottish chef he employed, became her one true friend and mentor. Over the next few years he’d taught her everything he knew. But then Charles sacked Len and told Zara to take over the food prep full time. At the time she’d thought it had been to spite her, but in hindsight she realised it was one of several signs of the financial failure he was verging on.
By then she’d long since lost contact with her school friends. She was isolated, lonely and trapped; her uncle held her passport and was the sole trustee of her finances—and the money her parents had left her?
All gone. Didn’t she know how much it had cost her uncle to house her? Wasn’t she grateful for that?
Her uncle Charles had been embarrassed that she’d had to wait on his unexpected, important guests. She wasn’t decorative enough—not thin enough, not perfect enough. Not for investment guru, Tomas Gallo, and his lawyer, Jasper Danforth. She was the useless, mousy niece he’d inherited and had never wanted.
But for that business meeting she’d had to be the hostess as well as prepare the coffee and cakes. When she’d caught sight of Tomas Gallo as she’d carried the tea tray into the room, she’d nearly dropped everything.
He’d not appeared to notice when she spilt some of the coffee, but he’d eaten some of the lemon slice. Two pieces in fact.
She’d sat in the corner, mute, suffering silently as her uncle had made joke after joke at her expense. She’d been bowled over by Tomas’s appearance and the bottomless depths of his eyes. He was the most striking man she’d ever seen but he and Jasper had appeared amused, as if they’d agreed with every one of her uncle’s words. And she’d died that bit inside to see that someone so gorgeous could be so cruel.
Almost an hour had passed when Tomas had dropped the bombshell.
‘Sorry, Charles, I don’t think the casino is the right fit for us at this time.’
Her uncle had been beyond furious at losing the investment. He’d been unable to contain his rage, venting it on her down in the galley while the two guests upstairs were readying to leave. She’d stared at the floor as he’d berated her in a bitter hoarse whisper.
‘You’re worse than useless. If you were attractive you could have seduced him. But as if any man would ever want you. You’re a millstone, you ungrateful, lazy little cow. You can’t even pour a coffee properly.’
The blow had come sudden and hard. It had stung so much.
She’d run from the galley only to collide in the corridor with Tomas Gallo. She’d gasped, appalled that he was down there—that he might have heard...
* * *
Firm hands held her upper arms and she flinched when she looked into his thunderous face. He quickly stepped back into the side room, lifting her with him and swiftly closing the door behind them.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ he muttered harshly.
But the lethal anger in his eyes told her he was so very much more dangerous than her uncle. He visibly made himself relax and force a small smile. That was when she realised his fury was not for her.
‘He hit you.’ He tilted her chin and inspected the red of her upper cheek.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She wanted him to leave before her uncle found out he was down here and made everything worse.
‘It always matters,’ he replied curtly.
Her heart was his in that second.
Tomas released her and she dashed the tears away with the back of her hand, willing him to go back up to the deck and leave with his lawyer. But he didn’t.
‘You’ve lived here how long?’ he abruptly asked. ‘How long?’ he prompted when she didn’t answer.
‘Almost ten years,’ she whispered.
‘You have money?’
She shook her head.
‘Passport?’