A Diamond For Del Rio's Housekeeper. Susan Stephens

Чтение книги онлайн.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      THE KITCHEN DOOR was open so he walked straight in. It smelled clean, but looked shabby. He leaned over the pristine sink to see if the window really was in as much danger of falling out as he’d first thought. He heard a faint noise behind him—just a breath, a slight shift in the air. He turned and she was there.

      His good intentions counted for nothing. His body responded instantly to the sight of Rosie Clifton, his groin tightening as blood ripped through his veins. She was so young, so innocent—and so not his type, but it seemed that no argument he could put up could take anything away from her appeal. The low-slanting sun was shining straight into her face. She looked like an angel waiting to fall, in shades of white and gold—and yellow? As she came deeper into the kitchen he took more notice of the dress. It was a hideous dress that must have hung unloved in a thrift shop for years, but on Señorita Clifton it served a very definite purpose, which was to cling to her shapely form with loving attention to detail.

      ‘Don Xavier,’ she exclaimed in a calm, clear voice, walking forward to greet him.

      ‘Señorita Clifton.’ His tone was cool.

      ‘Rosie, please,’ she insisted, forming the words with the kissable lips he hadn’t been able to get out of his mind.

      ‘Rosie.’ He inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement of her arrival, and then he remained still, waiting for her to come to him.

      He could try every trick in the book, but she was never dismayed. The power of her easy-going personality was undeniable. As she extended her tiny hand for him to shake, she tipped up her chin to look him in the eyes, and he felt the force of that stare in his groin, which didn’t just tighten now, but ached with the most urgent need.

      ‘Welcome to Hacienda de Rio,’ she said with a smile, as if he were the interloper. And then, having realised her mistake, instead of blushing or showing how awkward she surely must feel at the blunder, she put her hand over her mouth and giggled before exclaiming, ‘That was a bit of a clanger, wasn’t it?’

      He stared coolly into her eyes, trying to read her. He could read every woman he’d ever met, from the mother who had barely made eye contact with him, to Doña Anna’s scathing and ironic stare, and, after them, the legions of women who knew very well how to flirt with their eyes; they were all transparent to him, but Rosie Clifton was an enigma, and she intrigued him. She was also extremely self-possessed for a girl from nowhere, who had owned nothing but the clothes she stood up in until a few weeks ago.

      Seeing the cold suspicion in his eyes, she had taken a step back. Feeling the table behind her legs, she reached behind her to rest her palms on the scrubbed pine surface, making her breasts appear more prominent than ever. Had any other woman done the same thing, he might have wondered if it was an invitation, but Rosie Clifton only succeeded in making herself look younger and more vulnerable than ever. Perhaps that too was a ploy of sorts, he reflected.

      ‘So, you got here at last?’ she challenged him lightly.

      He shrugged. ‘I came as soon as I could.’

      She pressed her lips together in a wry, accepting smile. ‘Your aunt mentioned that you’re a workaholic.’

      He had forgotten how self-possessed she was. But now there was a faint blush on her face, and her amethyst eyes had darkened. He watched her breathing quicken, displaying the shape of her full breasts quite graphically in the close-fitting dress.

      ‘This is, of course, as much your home as mine,’ she said candidly.

      ‘How kind of you to say so.’ He resisted the temptation to state the obvious: that his claim went back a thousand years.

      ‘You haven’t forgotten the ice cream I promised, have you? I made two flavours.’

      Rosie wasn’t sure when she had decided to treat Don Xavier as a normal human being, rather than as an aristocrat with centuries of breeding behind him. They were wildly unequal in every sense, but, as nothing could change that, she had decided to be herself.

      Maybe it was the Doña Anna effect, Rosie reflected as she reached for two bowls. In this one precious inheritance Doña Anna had made sure they were equals. The Spanish Grandee and the orphan housekeeper shared a huge responsibility thanks to the way that Doña Anna had drafted her will, but the more Rosie thought about it, the more it seemed to her that Don Xavier’s need for an heir gave her some leverage over him. She had no other power to wield, but he had a schedule to meet, or he would forfeit his fifty per cent of the island to her. Of course, she could just wait him out and hope he couldn’t produce an heir in the time specified, but she had no intention of wasting two years of her life hanging around for that. She wanted to get things moving on the island for the sake of the islanders as soon as she could.

      Which, ideally, would mean working together, she thought, deflating somewhat when she caught sight of Don Xavier’s unsmiling face.

      Dipping down, she reached into the freezer to pull out the boxes of ice cream. The air in the kitchen seemed to have frozen harder than the ice cream in the tub.

      Whatever happened next, she wasn’t going to be railroaded into making any decision that didn’t feel right. She might have everything to learn about being a landowner, but Doña Anna had taught her not to be silent and accepting, but to question everything.

      ‘Vanilla,’ she announced, prising the lid off the tub. ‘And Doña Anna’s favourite—fresh strawberry. I picked the fruit from the garden this morning—’

      ‘I haven’t come here to eat ice cream,’ the towering monument to privilege and wealth currently occupying her kitchen coldly stated.

      He hadn’t expected Rosie to be so relaxed on this second meeting, Xavier realised. She’d had time to think about things, and must surely realise the hopelessness of СКАЧАТЬ