Modern Romance Books September Books 5-8. Annie West

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СКАЧАТЬ straightened and stared at her for a few seconds longer than was comfortable and Sofia had done what she always did when her boss made her feel uncomfortable—she gritted her teeth and stared down silently at the floor until he lost interest.

      Which he had, having reminded her of the thousand other things she was charged to do in their absence, from sorting out the gardener to cleaning the proverbial silverware. So, twiddling her thumbs? What a joke. That was the one thing she could never be accused of having done and certainly not when she was staring at a list of instructions.

      The blazing sun was sinking into a violet sky when, finally, the intercom went and a disembodied voice announced the arrival of the gardener.

      ‘You’re late,’ Sofia said, not bothering to mince her words. The man had spoken in English and she had replied in same. A nomadic life had made her fluent in it and it helped that the people currently employing her refused to speak Spanish. ‘I’ve been hanging around waiting for you to show up for the past two hours.’

      She could scarcely make out the figure on the visual display. She was keen to get him in and out of her way because she had a busy evening lined up with her accountancy books. It was hard enough finding the time to study without wasting precious hours with her ear to the buzzer.

      ‘Who am I talking to?’

      ‘This is Señorita Suarez and I’m to show you the ropes while the Walters are away.’ There was a brief pause, and for some reason Sofia felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, but the moment passed—to be replaced with mounting irritation, because a minute in and the man was already beginning to get on her nerves.

      ‘Are you going to let me in?’

      Sofia bristled. ‘I will need to ask you some security questions.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Excuse me?’

      ‘Why?’ Rafael repeated.

      Sofia looked around her at the massively expensive furnishings. ‘El señor de la casa,’ she intoned with saccharin sweetness, ‘is a little cautious when it comes to allowing strangers into his house. He’s fond of his possessions remaining on the premises.’

      ‘El señor,’ Rafael drawled in response, ‘has nothing to fear. I very much doubt there’s a single thing he possesses that I could possibly want.’ He held up the introductory letter David had handed over to him some days ago. He had barely been able to contain his amusement at the thought of his high-powered and much-feared godson slumming it with a lawn mower and taking orders from someone he didn’t know. ‘Peer carefully and you’ll be able to see that I am exactly who I say I am. Name is Rafael and I’m here to look after el señor’s garden for a couple of weeks. Rest assured, I won’t be leaving with his lawn mower and the pruning shears.’

      ‘You’re Spanish?’

      ‘So it would seem. Now, open the gate. I’ve spent hours travelling. It’s been a hellish trip. I’m hot and tired and I’m not prepared to spend the next half an hour sweltering out here while I answer pointless questions that don’t need to be asked.’

      Sofia could scarcely believe what she was hearing. For one very wicked moment, she almost wished that James and his stuck-up wife were here so that they could experience a cocky, arrogant hired hand who wasn’t afraid to speak his mind.

      But they weren’t, because they were busy having fun on the slopes. No, she was here, working, as always, beyond her brief. She buzzed open the iron gates and waited until she heard the sharp ring of the doorbell, immediately followed by the thundering of the lion-head brass knocker, as though the man outside couldn’t wait the seconds it might take her to answer the door.

      She sprinted and yanked open the front door, letting in the fragrant smell of grass and trees and the soothing orchestra of twilight insects, and then stopped dead in her tracks.

      Just for a few seconds. Just as she registered the guy towering in front of her, his hand raised as though about to bang the knocker again.

      Drop-dead gorgeous. The breath left her in a whoosh, as though she’d been punched in the stomach. Her eyes widened and she instantly went into self-defence mode, taking one step back, arms folded, although this time, unlike when her boss turned lascivious eyes on her, it was for an entirely different reason.

      This time it was because the sudden bloom of sexual awareness shocked her.

      She wanted to stare and just keep on staring. His black hair was slightly too long and swept back from a face that was chiselled to the sort of perfection no camera could ever fully capture. Midnight-dark eyes were fringed with lush dark lashes, his nose was aquiline and his mouth wide and crazily sensual. Every single thing about the man emanated the sort of fierce, aggressive sex appeal that made her heart beat a little faster and sent liquid heat pooling between her thighs, dampening her underwear.

      It was an immediate reaction that infuriated her because Sofia knew that she should know better.

      From the age of thirteen she had known what it felt like to be the unwilling object of attention from the opposite sex. She had fought off unwanted, uninvited advances and then, when she’d been fifteen, one advance in particular from a married friend of her mother’s had made her realise that her looks weren’t a blessing in disguise. They were a curse.

      Since then, she had been at pains to guard herself against men, holding out for ‘the one’ but not caring all that much if ‘the one’ never came her way—just knowing that she would never, ever sell herself short or settle for anything less than what she thought she deserved.

      And she would certainly never allow looks to define her the way they had her mother.

      ‘You’d better come in,’ she said, a little more sharply than she’d intended. She stood back and the guy brushed past her. And there it went again...that tingle of sexual awareness that seemed to bypass all her natural defence systems.

      She inched back when, having surveyed the impressive hall, he spun round to look at her.

      ‘Where are they?’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘The Walters. Where are they? Shouldn’t they be here to meet and greet?’

      Sofia was torn between marvelling at the sheer audacity of the man and bristling at his arrogance.

      He was looking at her, his dark eyes veiled and lazily assessing.

      ‘I don’t think they were planning on deferring their skiing holiday to give the temporary gardener the red-carpet treatment.’

      ‘Nice house.’

      ‘Is that all you’ve brought with you by way of luggage?’ She eyed the battered hold-all.

      Rafael shrugged. ‘I like to travel light.’

      ‘Can I get something for you to drink? Eat?’

      ‘Is that your job here? Housekeeper?’

      Rafael knew exactly what the woman did. In fact, he knew a great deal more about her than she ever could have imagined, because he had done some extensive СКАЧАТЬ