Shock Marriage For The Powerful Spaniard. CATHY WILLIAMS

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      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.

      ‘Who usually uses this?’ He appeared in the doorway of the kitchen and lounged indolently against the doorframe, looking at her with his head tilted to one side.

      ‘Overnight guests. If the big house is full.’ He was so breathtakingly beautiful that she couldn’t help but stare at him. It was almost too much of a mammoth effort to look away.

      ‘I’m surprised they didn’t choose to stick you in here,’ he mused, spinning around and then heading straight for the kitchen cupboards, which he proceeded to open and close. ‘The very least they could have done was to equip me with a few essentials.’

      Sofia gasped and then burst out laughing, surprising herself as much as it seemed to surprise Rafael. Laughing with a guy, any guy, wasn’t something she could remember having done in years.

      ‘Share the joke?’ He raised both eyebrows and her outburst of laughter subsided into a wicked grin.

      ‘You. You’re so...so...brazen...’

      ‘Explain.’ But he was smiling crookedly back at her, his dark eyes unreadable.

      ‘You don’t seem at all grateful to be here.’

      ‘Why should I be grateful?’

      ‘Well, I gather from the Walters that they were more or less put in a position where they had to give you this gardening job for a month. It’s a really cushy number.’ She glanced around her at the luxurious accommodation. ‘And most people would be over the moon to have this place to stay.’

      ‘I’m not most people,’ Rafael said. ‘You’ll figure that out soon enough.’ He paused but kept his fabulous eyes pinned to her face, which made her colour rise further and made her heart flutter a little more furiously in her chest.

      ‘Well, upstairs is self-explanatory. Two bedrooms and there’s linen in the cupboard on the landing.’

      ‘You still haven’t told me why you don’t stay out here.’

      ‘I...the Walters... James and Elizabeth think it’s more convenient for me to be at hand. You know...close to the kids.’

      ‘Actually, I don’t know.’ He began heading up the stairs and for a few seconds Sofia wasn’t sure whether he actually expected her to traipse along in his wake or not. She had shown him the lodge, she’d done what she had to do, and in the morning she would show him the list of stuff she had been given for him to start on. Elizabeth kept a vigilant eye on the garden but messages were always relayed via her husband to the team that came weekly to prune, trim, plant and uproot. He was officious in his dealings with them. He wouldn’t be winning any popularity contests with his employees any time soon. He’d had no choice but to house this outrageous stranger but he had made sure to leave two A4 sheets of paper full of detailed instructions.

      ‘What do you mean?’ She roused herself from her ruminations and found herself following him up the stairs, stopping short as he pushed open one of the bedroom doors, before spinning around to look at her through narrowed eyes.

      ‘I mean,’ Rafael said slowly, ‘By having you on tap, well, does that mean that you don’t get any time off?’

      ‘No, well...’ Flustered, Sofia met his dark, speculative gaze, vibrant green eyes clashing with dark, fathomless ones. ‘They do go out quite a bit and it’s just more convenient for me to be there rather than having to decamp all the time when I need to babysit.’

      ‘And do you get paid extra for all this babysitting? Hefty price for being on permanent stand by?’

      ‘Why are you asking me all these questions?’ she threw at him, uncomfortable because he was voicing the very resentments that had piled up inside her over the months. The job was extremely well paid but in return...

      She needed the money. That was the bottom line. She had debts and nothing had been left when her mother had died. She had returned to ground zero after a long spell away with not much to show for it. One child, one divorce, any number of relationships that had ended up nowhere and only just enough money made over the years to ensure that her mother had enough for tickets back to base camp and sufficient cash as a down payment on a rented condo on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, close to where her sister lived.

      Sofia had not had the opportunity to do any saving of her own and this nanny job was well paid—their luck with nannies hadn’t been stellar, from what Elizabeth Walters had let slip, and Sofia wondered whether they’d set this sort of honey trap to ensure she wasn’t tempted to quit.

      ‘I’m a curious kind of guy,’ Rafael said mildly, watching her carefully. So carefully that she began to fidget. ‘Stay a while,’ he coaxed, strolling out of the room, his demeanour that of lord rather than serf. He glanced over his shoulder as she followed like a puppet, which was not like her at all. ‘I’m new to this country. I don’t know a soul. It would be nice for me to have some company this evening, if only to learn a little about the place, so that I can familiarise myself better with it when I get out there to explore.’

      ‘You’re here to pull up weeds and plant shrubs, not explore,’ Sofia reminded him, but she felt that tug of amusement again. He was so high-handed that it should have put her back up, but strangely it didn’t.

      Where she had spent her life trying hard to stay under the radar—partly to deter the advances of lecherous men and partly because she was so focused on her future that she knew that, at least for her, diplomacy was definitely the better part of valour—he was the opposite. Oil to her water, chalk to her cheese, darkness to her light.

      She shivered, wondering whether the strange pull she felt tugging her towards him stemmed from the fascination she felt when confronted with her polar opposite or whether she wasn’t just lonely.

      Rafael shrugged. ‘And I’m sure I’ll be doing just that but I don’t intend to come all the way out here and leave...empty-handed.’

      ‘What does that mean?’ Sofia questioned.

      ‘It means that this is a beautiful part of the world and I won’t be burying myself in somebody’s back garden pulling up weeds without taking some time out to surface.’

      ‘I don’t think James Walters is going to appreciate your sense of adventure.’

      Rafael shrugged.

      ‘Don’t you care?’ Sofia asked curiously.

      ‘Why should I?’

      ‘Because СКАЧАТЬ