Around the house, he lived in shorts and jeans. Like now. Of course, he would change for Christmas lunch into a smart pair of trousers and an open-necked shirt, its length of sleeve depending on the weather. Today the forecast was for twenty-eight degrees, a very pleasant temperature for this time of year.
Sarah was glad it wasn’t going to be cool, or rainy, as she would have frozen in her outfit.
‘OK, folks,’ Nick said, and abruptly stood up. ‘Time to clean up the mess we’ve made here and shake a leg. Jim, I’ll need your help getting everything ready outside. But Flora, you’re not to rush around working yourself into a lather like you usually do. The caterers are due here at ten. All they require is a clean kitchen. They’re providing everything, right down to the crockery, cutlery and glasses. Though not the wine. I bought that last week and stored it in the cellar. Jim, we’ll need to bring that up as well. I’ll put my presents away first, then meet you on the back terrace in five minutes. The guests are due to arrive from midday on, so, Sarah, leave plenty of time to dress and be back downstairs by five to twelve, ready to help me greet people at the door as they arrive.’
‘How many are coming this year?’ she asked.
‘Twenty, if they all show up. Twenty-four, including us. OK?’
‘Fine.’
They all rose to do as they were told, Sarah’s heart beating faster when she thought of what lay ahead. Ok, so maybe it had been foolhardy of her to go along with Derek’s plan without thinking it fully through, but now that the moment was at hand, it was still better than facing Christmas lunch alone. If nothing else, Derek wouldn’t let her eat everything in sight.
But would he be able to withstand Nick’s scrutiny?
Flora had told her yesterday that Nick took his job as her guardian very seriously indeed. Which in the past had obviously included vetting her boyfriends and making sure they weren’t fortune-hunters.
Bringing Derek home so close to her inheriting her father’s estate—not to mention telling Nick that they were very much in love—would only make him extra-protective. And paranoid.
She’d feel more confident if Derek weren’t gay. And if she’d met this Chloe before. The unknown made her nervous. And she didn’t want to be nervous. She wanted to swan downstairs just before midday, the epitome of cool composure and worldly sophistication. She wanted Nick to take one look at her and think to himself that she was the most beautiful and desirable woman that he had ever seen!
CHAPTER SIX
BY ELEVEN, Nick had done everything that needed to be done downstairs. The tables and shady blinds had been set up, and the wine brought up from the cellar and delivered to the family-room bar. The caterers had arrived right on ten, the staff consisting of three females and two males, a highly efficient group of people whose job it was to take the stress out of Christmas Day dinners.
Nick smiled ruefully to himself as he went upstairs. He had no doubt that they did a very good job with the food, the serving and the clearing up afterwards. But nothing—and no one—was going to take the stress out of this Christmas dinner. Not for him, anyway.
He’d thought he’d finally got a handle on the unwanted desires Sarah had been evoking in him since she turned sixteen. But no, he’d just been deluding himself. Her staying away from home for most of this year had lulled him into a false sense of security. That, and meeting Chloe, whose sexy body and entertaining company had banished his secret lust for Sarah into the dungeon of his mind; that dark, dank place in which Nick imprisoned memories and emotions that were best forgotten. Or, at least, ignored.
He’d honestly thought he was prepared for Sarah’s presence at Christmas. Thought he’d taken every precaution to keep the door to that mental dungeon firmly locked.
It had been Flora’s news over breakfast yesterday that Sarah was bringing a boyfriend to the Christmas Day lunch which had shattered his illusion of iron self-control, stirring up a hornet’s nest of jealousy within him. Next thing Nick knew, he was staying home from golf, just so that he could be here when she arrived. He’d made the excuse that he needed to talk to her about her inheritance, when in fact what he’d wanted most was to question her about the new man in her life.
Finding out that she was madly in love with this Derek didn’t do his jealousy any good. OK, so on the surface he’d managed to control himself around Sarah. He gave himself full marks for not kissing her when he’d had the chance yesterday afternoon.
But he’d given in to temptation over those diamond earrings, hadn’t he? Spent a small fortune on them, with the full intention of letting dear Derek know who’d bought them for her.
The truth was Nick had behaved badly every time Sarah brought home a boyfriend. He’d always pretended to himself that he was only doing what Ray had asked him to do, justifying his actions with the excuse that he was protecting her from fortune-hunters.
But that was actually far from the truth. None of those poor boys in the past had been gold-diggers. How could they be, when Sarah had never told anyone she was an heiress? They’d just been young men who’d had the good fortune—or was it misfortune?—to be where Nick had always wanted to be.
With Sarah.
The savage satisfaction he’d experienced every time he broke up one of her relationships showed just what kind of man he was: rotten to the core and wickedly selfish.
What would he do this time? he wondered grimly as he mounted the top landing and gazed down the hallway towards Sarah’s bedroom.
Nothing, he hoped. The same way he’d done nothing yesterday when she’d been in his arms. He’d wanted to kiss her. Hell, he’d ached to kiss her.
But what would that have achieved, except make her look at him not with adoration as she’d once done, but with disgust? Sarah had finally fallen in love; possibly she was on the verge of having what she’d always wanted: marriage and children.
If this Derek was a decent fellow, then it would be cruel and callous to try to put doubts in Sarah’s head about him.
Yet he wanted to …
Still, wanting to do something and actually doing it were two entirely different things. He’d wanted to seduce Sarah for years, but he hadn’t, had he?
Nick shook his head agitatedly as he forged on across the carpeted landing into the master bedroom. It wasn’t till he shut the door behind him that his mind shifted from his immediate problem with Sarah to another problem he would have to face in the near future.
Come February, he had to leave this house.
It would be a terrible wrench, Nick knew. He’d grown very attached to the place, and the people in it. He could not imagine coming home to any other house, or any other bedroom.
Strange, really. Eight years ago, after Ray died and Nick moved into the house, he hadn’t much liked this bedroom.
Ray had gone Japanese-mad after his trip to Tokyo; the gardens hadn’t been the only thing around Goldmine to be changed: the master-bedroom suite had been totally gutted, its walls painted white, the plush gold carpet ripped out and polished floorboards laid. The heavy mahogany bedroom suite had been given to charity, to be replaced by black lacquered Japanese-style furniture. The king-sized bed was now large and low, the duvet and pillows covered in scarlet silk with sprays of flowers at their corners.
Other than two matching black lacquered bedside tables, there’d been no furniture in the room, the walk-in wardrobe being spacious enough to accommodate all Ray’s clothes.
The bathroom had been changed with an all-white suite during this refurbishment, enlarged as well to accommodate a huge spa bath that you could