Shock Marriage For The Powerful Spaniard / The Greek's Virgin Temptation. Cathy Williams

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       CHAPTER TWO

      ‘NICE PLACE,’ RAFAEL said neutrally as they headed out of the house, swinging round to the back, away from the main lodgings.

      Night had gathered around them and Rafael had morphed into a tall, dark shadow, his gait loose-limbed and oddly graceful for a man of his size.

      Sofia was accustomed to the size of the mansion where she worked, as well as to the several acres of manicured lawns surrounding the house.

      ‘It’s very big,’ she agreed, breathing in the fragranced air and making sure to keep some distance between them. It was cooler now, with a whispery breeze that lifted her hair and blew tendrils away from her face.

      ‘Enjoy working here?’

      ‘That’s where you’ll be staying. Straight ahead. It’s entirely self-contained, so there will be no need for you to come to the main house.’

      ‘Unless I want to.’

      Sofia shivered and hugged herself. She had picked up something in that low, lazy drawl but then, when she thought about it, she wondered whether it wasn’t her imagination playing tricks on her.

      ‘Have you been to this part of the world before?’

      ‘This particular country has passed me by,’ Rafael murmured.

      ‘In that case, I can tell you where you need to go to buy…err…food or whatever else you might need.’

      ‘Or you could show me.’

      Sofia didn’t say anything. Was this a come-on? It sounded like one but it didn’t feel like one because his drawl was lazy and mildly amused. None of that skin-crawling invasion of her privacy and space that always alerted her to a man on the make.

      She thought back to all those years ago and to one of those men on the make, but she had just been a kid of fifteen and he had been old enough to be her father—a friend of a friend of her mother’s, drunk at a house party, one of the few her mother had ever had. She remembered the terror of her bedroom door slowly being pushed open and the fear when she had worked out why he had crept into the room.

      Sofia knew that she might not have had the strength to fight him off and that he had only scarpered because a couple had stumbled up the stairs, opening doors in search of the upstairs bathroom. They had spooked the guy out of the bedroom because, drunk as he was, he’d still known what the fallout would be if he were to be caught. She’d been saved by the bell but it had been a sharp learning curve for her. Be wary had become the motto branded at the back of her brain, and she had lived her life accordingly.

      Four years later, when she had made the mistake of falling for a boy her own age—only to discover that she had been the object of a bet as to whether he could get the hot chick into bed inside a month—‘be wary’ had become ‘stay away’.

      She was disturbed that these wayward memories had jumped out of her without warning because she’d always thought that they were buried and forgotten.

      She slid her eyes sideways. He wasn’t looking at her. He was frowning and staring at the grand quarters they were approaching, usually used as guest quarters for overspill at parties. James had decided that it would do for the gardener, possibly because it would have been unthinkable to accommodate him in the main house. A gardener roaming through their luxury villa and making himself at home in their kitchen would never have done.

      Sofia stuck the key in the lock and stood back so that he could precede her into the two-bedroomed dwelling. She switched on all the lights and watched as he strolled around for a few seconds before heading off in the direction of the kitchen, having tossed his battered hold-all on the ground by the staircase.

      She followed. The housekeeper had tidied the place but it felt stuffy and airless.