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‘Marcus is my business partner, my godfather and a long-time family friend.’ A slight smile curved the sculpted lines of that wicked mouth and Rosie felt her stomach turn over. A lump of irrational disappointment lodged behind her breastbone; she had hoped he was just another employee, more on her level, not a member of the wealthy, exalted clan she and her poor dead mother had been excluded from. Though why she should think that way, she had no idea. Except—
To her shame she felt another of those wretched blushes crawling over her face and dipped her head so that her hair, which had finally escaped its ponytail, fell forward and hid her burning cheeks. Trust her to have silly thoughts about a man who was so far out of her reach he might just as well be inhabiting a parallel universe, a man who had the kind of looks which only existed in female fantasies!
Sebastian grinned with wry amusement. Females who moved in his social circles didn’t blush when spoken to. They bridled, pouted, husked, and sent explicit messages from calculating eyes. Rosie Lambert’s reaction to him was a new and intriguing experience. And she had beautiful hair. It fell around her face like a waterfall of softest, palest silk and a curl of string, presumably used to tie it out of the way, was tangled up in the silky strands.
Ignoring the impulse to pluck the string away—she would probably faint like a Victorian virgin if he so much as touched her—he heard her mumble, ‘I’ll get out of your way.’
Her slight body was trembling as she turned back to her bucket, her spine rigid with tension. Unaccountably, he had a compelling urge to ask why she was so uptight, try to help. Sensibly, he ignored it. She would probably run a mile if he became personal on such a short acquaintanceship. It would have to wait. Instead, he said blandly, ‘No, please carry on with your work. It’s got to be done and you won’t be bothering me.’
Somehow Rosie found the strength to turn and look at him. He was shrugging out of his leather jacket, revealing a torso of utterly perfect proportions covered by a dark, fine wool sweater. And he had endless legs; sexily narrow hips. Her mouth ran dry and she couldn’t breathe, because there was the strangest, most unnerving sensation of heat deep inside her.
And, for a big man—he had to be well over six feet tall to her diminutive almost three inches over five feet—he moved with surprising grace, she noted as he walked to the vast hanging cupboard to stow away his jacket.
Sebastian Garcia was the first man who had ever made her feel this weird, almost as if she no longer had any control over her body or her thoughts. But thankfully he hadn’t noticed the way she was gawping at him or suspected the effect he was having on her, she told herself as she finally turned back to her bucket and dropped down on her knees.
As he’d said, her presence in what was obviously his bedroom didn’t bother him. Why should it? She attacked the few remaining drops of dried paint with a violent surge of energy. She was just a cleaning lady—someone who, if she wasn’t being given instructions, became completely invisible.
So admitting, even to herself, that he really turned her on, would be stupid. As stupid as coming here in search of a father who had never wanted her.
CHAPTER TWO
ROSIE sat on the edge of her bed, her shoulders slumped dejectedly. It was her birthday and she had never felt so lonely.
She had no problem with the fact that she had spent the whole day on her hands and knees; she was being paid as a cleaner, after all. She didn’t want fuss or fanfares or piles of gift-wrapped goodies, nothing like that. It was the long evening ahead she dreaded.
She and Mum had always made birthdays special. There had been no money for fancy gifts but there had always been something extra nice for supper, a candle on the table and a bottle of inexpensive wine to share—an innovation that had appeared on her sixteenth birthday.
It was her mother she missed so dreadfully, her tired features magically seeming youthful and carefree again in the candlelight, her chatter and laughter.
A hard knot of anger turned her stomach upside down. It needn’t have been like that, her mother taking any menial job she could find to support them, scrimping and scraping, making light of hardship, while her father lived in the lap of luxury here, completely unconcerned as to the fate of the girl he’d seduced, their baby.
As the anger threatened to pull her slender frame to pieces, she leapt to her feet and began to pace the small attic room she’d been given.
Growing up, she’d learned not to ask about her father. She had always got the same answer. ‘We loved each other so much. But it wasn’t to be.’ Which had told her nothing, so she’d stopped asking, primarily because whenever she brought the subject up her mother looked so sad.
But a few days before her death, as if sensing her end was near, her mother had confessed, ‘Your father never knew of your existence. I was still living with your grandparents and I left home as soon as I knew I was pregnant. He was married and if I’d told him I was expecting you he would have been put in a terrible position. So, as far as he was concerned, I just disappeared. I thought it best for all of us.’ Her eyes had flooded with tears. ‘I don’t want you to think badly of him; I couldn’t bear that. He was a fine man.’
Rosie hadn’t believed that. She still didn’t. She really would like to, but she couldn’t. She was pretty sure her mother had been trying to put her lover in a better light just so her daughter wouldn’t spend her life bearing a grudge against the man her poor mother had so obviously still loved.
Unconsciously, she put her hand to her breast. She could feel the pendant through the faded fabric of her T-shirt. Proof of her identity, she supposed, should she ever try to use it.
Her face went pale as she recalled how her mother had asked her to pass her the small tin box she’d found at the bottom of her underwear drawer and had opened it to reveal a dazzling starburst of sapphires and diamonds on a heavy gold chain.
‘Your father gave it to me all those years ago, as a token of his love, so it’s very special. I want you to have it.’
‘Is it real?’ Rosie’s face had felt so tight she’d barely been able to get the words out, and her mother’s radiant, dewy-eyed smile had cancelled out her immediate and uncharitable thought that the glittering thing was just as much a tawdry sham as his love had been.
‘It’s very valuable, darling. So you must take great care of it. He told me it had been in his family for many years.’
Then you should have sold it, made life a bit easier for yourself—but Rosie had bitten the words back. She really couldn’t be so cruel when the wretched ‘love token’—or pay-off?—had meant so much to her mother.
Coming up against the dressing table, Rosie met her stormy eyes in the looking glass and vowed that if she ever got to meet her father she’d give the pendant right back to him. He could give it to his new wife, she thought furiously. She didn’t want the hateful thing!
Screwing her eyes shut, Rosie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The situation was really getting to her. She wasn’t a vindictive person; on the contrary Jean had always maintained that she was too trusting and anxious to please for her own good. So she would stop thinking nasty thoughts about the man her mother had loved, the man she was in no position to judge, and get on with what she’d come here to do.
Though precisely what that was she had no clear idea. Coming face to face with her father had been her objective; in his absence all she could do was explore the house that his family had inhabited for many generations and hope, somehow, to pick up some clues to his personality.
There were four bedrooms and a bathroom on the attic floor. Sharon had grumbled. She didn’t see why they should be stuffed up there when there were loads of unoccupied grand bedrooms on the first floor. She fancied living in luxury for once in her life. ‘I only took this poxy job to get some cash for when I move into my boyfriend’s pad in town. I’ve had it up to here with being stuck in this village—it’s a one-horse dump!’
Privately, Rosie thought that the rooms they’d been given were lovely. Full of character, with their sloping ceilings, uneven plaster and dipping floors and pretty sprigged curtains at the windows set high beneath the eaves. And from the little she’d seen of the village it was lovely, too, and she was looking forward to Sunday, her day off, when she could explore and find the cottage where her grandparents had lived all their married lives and see where her mother had been born and raised.
But she’d kept her opinions to herself because—short though their acquaintance had been—she’d quickly learned that when Sharon grumbled she wasn’t to be argued with.
Picking her way down to the first floor, she stood for a while listening to the silence. She had the house to herself.
Sharon’s boyfriend had picked her up as soon as they’d finished supper. She’d been dressed in a purple mini skirt and a glittery black sweater, neither garment doing anything to disguise her bountiful lumpiness. Mrs Partridge, rising from the table to stack the dishwasher, had reminded her, ‘I lock up at eleven and, no, you can’t have a key, Sharon, so don’t bother asking. If you’re not back by then you’ll be locked out.’ To Rosie, when the other girl had swung out of the room with a defiant toss of her startlingly red curls, she’d added, ‘Feel free to watch television and make yourself a hot drink if you want one. I’m off to my own quarters to put my feet up.’
And, in spite of the Spaniard’s saying that he was here to oversee the mammoth spring cleaning exercise, Rosie hadn’t clapped eyes on him since that encounter in his bedroom. From what she could gather, from Sharon’s gossipy chattering and probing over the meals they’d shared with Mrs Partridge, Sebastian Garcia had had a call from the London head office of Troone and Garcia and had made a swift exit.
Which was just as well, Rosie thought, with a wry smile for the sheer immensity of her folly. He had just about knocked her for six at that initial, brief meeting and she wasn’t here to embarrass herself by mooning over someone so completely unattainable and show herself up for the naive and foolish creature that she was by blushing and stammering whenever he was around.
So she had her father’s unnervingly large, rambly and upper-crusty home to herself. It was the sort of place whose interiors she’d seen in the quality magazines she’d flicked through in the dentist’s waiting room. Her legs beginning to shake because she was feeling like a sneak thief all over again, she turned her back on the narrow stairs that led down to the kitchen regions and headed for the main polished oak staircase.
Creeping down, she had to remind herself very sternly that she wasn’t doing anything wrong. She had a right to be here—well, a sort of right, surely? And all she wanted to do was soak up the atmosphere and see if she could find out from the books he read, family photographs, maybe, what kind of man her father really was.
The main hall was lit by a solitary table lamp and the glow from the dying fire, and just as she set her feet on the massive flagstones a grandfather clock chimed the hour of eight from a dim and shadowy corner and made her jump out of her skin.
She’d been about to scurry back to her attic room, and her hand shot up to steady her bumping heart. It was the shape of the pendant beneath her T-shirt that gave her the courage to go on. To stiffen her spine and cross the floor to open doors and flick on lights. Large rooms led to much smaller, tucked-away ones, the furniture shrouded against the depredations of the departed and unlamented decorators.
At last, descending two worn stone steps, she thrust open an ancient door of highly polished broad oak planks and found herself in what had to be Marcus Troone’s work room. Her eyes widened as she took in the book-lined study with its low, heavily beamed ceiling. It had been brought into the twenty-first century by the addition of a long custom-built desk which housed a computer system, fax machine, a bank of files and two telephones.
The book-filled shelves drew her. Beautifully bound classics—both ancient and modern—tomes devoted to viticulture, the poems of Wilfred Owen, masses of biographies, three yards worth of paperback whodunits and a whole tranche of gardening books. And, what she’d been looking for, right at the far end of one of the lower shelves: a bulky photograph album.
Her mouth going dry, Rosie carried it to the desk. Her hands shook as she opened it to a series of wedding photographs. Her father? A blond, craggily handsome young man with a beautiful dark-haired girl wearing a dream of a wedding dress, posing outside a small weathered stone church. Lots more—she flicked through the pages, met the smiling eyes of the dark-haired girl holding the reins of a pony, a small grinning boy on top. The same girl in a wheelchair, apparently directing operations while a middle-aged man was planting a tree. Could it be her grandfather? It was difficult to tell.
So far there were no more photographs of Marcus Troone: presumably he’d been behind the camera, she decided frustratedly. Until, right at the back of the album, a threesome standing in front of a huge greenhouse. Her grandfather, the stern features she remembered from her childhood relaxed and happy, her mother, a slender slip of a girl, clad in a checked shirt and old corduroy trousers, her blonde hair blowing in the breeze, her smile radiant. And Marcus Troone—her father—standing at her side, smiling down at the vitally lovely young Molly Lambert. Her mother.
Rosie felt sick.
Her mother had looked so happy back then. She would have had no idea what the future held for her on that long-ago summer’s day.
Hands shaking, her heart thumping, she closed the album and carried it back to where she’d found it. But putting it back proved a problem. It just wouldn’t go!
Biting her lip, she got down on her hands and knees and pulled out a book that seemed to be obstructing progress. That last photograph had really upset her; the album seemed to be burning her unsteady hands. She wanted rid of it.
She dropped it and could have screamed her head off when a few loose pictures fluttered to the floor. She shouldn’t have touched the wretched thing. She wished she hadn’t!
Passing through the hall, Sebastian paused to throw more logs on the dying fire. He was tired and hungry. The place felt deserted. Madge would have retired to her rooms. He guessed he could stretch to making himself an omelette and wind down in front of the fire with a glass of wine. Or two.
His tense features began to relax just a little. Driving back had been a nightmare of roadworks and clogged motorways. He should have spent the night in town and now he wondered why he hadn’t. At least he’d sorted out the head office panic over a planning permission hiccup concerning the new hotel complex in Greenwich. And, barring more cries for help from a business manager who should have looked at things more logically instead of flapping, he should be able to get the Troone Manor show on the road.
Just one more chore—checking Marcus’s fax machine—then he could fix himself something to eat. Heading for his partner’s study, he wondered how the new recruits were settling in.
Sharon Hodges had quite a reputation in the village. Bone idle and no better than she should be, so the gossips said. Grinning wryly to himself, he decided she was either lying on her bed eating chocolates or dyeing her hair a new and startling colour and trying to decide which of her current boyfriends was most likely to come up to scratch, whisk her away to the bright lights and keep her in the manner to which she would like to become accustomed.
And the other one, Rosie Lambert. Hadn’t Madge mentioned that today was her birthday? Was she out celebrating with friends? A special boyfriend, maybe? From what he recalled from their brief meeting she was quite a looker. But vulnerable, too. Fragile.
The idea of some callow youth sniffing around her brought his brows down as he opened the door to his partner’s study. Then he held his breath just before his scowl fled and was replaced by a grin that threatened to split his face.
‘This is getting to be a habit.’
On her hands and knees, Rosie froze. She knew that voice. Her slender body was suffused with pleasure, it wriggled with sharply sweet sensations all over her. But, oh my goodness, what would he be thinking? That she had no business being in this room?
‘I’m sorry.’
She had to grit her teeth and force herself to her feet, clutching at one of the loose photographs she’d been scrabbling around to retrieve. Her face felt hot and she felt such a fool, especially when he gave her that slow, sexy smile and said, ‘Don’t be.’
He could get used to opening doors to be met by the sight of that curvy little backside, clad tonight in shape-hugging worn denim!
He smiled into her anxious eyes, hiding a stab of annoyance. ‘Surely you’re not still working?’
What was Madge thinking of? Granted, there was a lot of hard physical graft to get through here, but making this delicate little creature work overtime was way out of order and he’d make damn sure it didn’t happen again!
Butterflies were rampaging around in Rosie’s stomach and she couldn’t get her lungs to work properly. She’d tried to stop gawping at him but how could she when he was so gorgeous? The sharp grey business suit he was wearing did nothing to disguise the raw power of his magnificent physique and, try as she might, she couldn’t help wondering what would happen if he kissed her.
She’d probably go into a terminal swoon, she thought in dire agitation and managed, finally, to give him the answer he was waiting for. ‘No. I knocked off ages ago. I was looking for something to read,’ she mumbled, uncomfortably aware that her face was bright scarlet. Lying to him made her feel horrible, but what choice did she have? She could hardly tell him the truth.
And she’d have to explain away the photograph she was holding. Bend the truth again. And the way those sultry, smoky eyes were pinned on her wasn’t helping any. She felt as if she were drowning in wicked sensation. Her throat strangely tight, she croaked out, ‘I was clumsy, I knocked that off the shelf—’ she gestured jerkily to the album on the floor ‘—and photographs fell out.’
‘No damage done.’
Sebastian’s dark brows met. Dio mio—why was she so nervous? She looked like a puppy waiting to be beaten for some minor misdemeanour! Was she accustomed to being chastised for the slightest accident? A powerful surge of anger tightened the muscles of his shoulders. He’d like to meet the brute who had done that to her!
Madre di Dio!—her soft, full mouth was trembling now! He made a conscious effort to stop frowning—it was obviously giving her the jitters—relax his shoulders and approach her slowly.
‘May I?’
Sebastian plucked the photograph from Rosie’s suddenly nerveless fingers and his gentle, velvety tone made a wave of startling heat wash right through her. Her breath coming in short stabs, she tried to come to terms with the weird effect he had on her. It was a new phenomenon as far as she was concerned and one she could well do without, she decided grittily, as she felt her breasts lift beneath their thin cotton covering and crossed her arms over them to hide the embarrassing evidence.
His lips curved as he glanced at the image he held in his long fingers. ‘This brings back memories—my aunt Lucia giving me my first riding lesson.’
Silvery eyes met hers, inviting her to share, and, desperately afraid that he would guess that she was helplessly attracted to him and laugh his socks off, she obliged and stared at the picture of the lovely young woman, the fat pony and the grinning little boy.
He would have been about six or seven, she thought moonily, then made herself snap out of it and tried to sound borderline intelligent as she hazarded, ‘Your aunt was Sir Marcus’s wife?’
‘She was.’ A flicker of sadness darkened those sultry eyes as he bent and slotted the loose photographs back in the album. ‘Lucia was a truly beautiful person, both inside and out. But unlucky. Shortly after that snapshot was taken she was diagnosed with MS. It progressed rapidly. The unfairness of it used to make me angry. Still does, whenever I think about what her life became.’
Watching him replace the album in its original position, Rosie felt decidedly queasy. He would be absolutely furious if he ever discovered that his godfather and present business partner had betrayed the aunt he had so clearly idolised and that she, the humble cleaning lady, was the unfortunate by-product of that long ago affair!
She lowered her eyes in humiliation. She knew she ought to scrub her plans for making herself known to her father before any real damage was done, and yet part of her stubbornly yearned to find out if Sir Marcus really had loved her mother, to discover whether she could trust him or if she should despise him. She couldn’t help wanting to be accepted, to have someone she could call family.
‘You OK?’ Sebastian swept her drooping figure with narrowing eyes. He held out the book she had obviously selected, leaving it leaning against the lower shelf when she’d dislodged the album. British Military Swords seemed a strange choice for such a scrap of a kid. ‘You’re very pale.’
‘I’m fine,’ she mumbled, mortified, clutching the book to her heaving breasts, hoping against hope that he hadn’t noted the title and marvelled at her supposed choice of reading matter and wouldn’t start to ask awkward questions, like how long had she been interested in the subject.
She looked far from ‘fine’, Sebastian decided. And she wasn’t a scrap of a kid, either. She was twenty years old today, he remembered, and said warmly, ‘Happy birthday, Rosie.’
The commonplace salutation evoked a response way out of proportion to its significance. But it had been worth it to see those drowning sapphire eyes dance as they met his, and her sudden radiant smile was so lovely it took his breath away.
‘How did you know? No one else does.’ It was the first birthday greeting she’d had all day, and coming from him it was very special, making up for the fact that she’d not had a card from Jean, who had never—ever since she’d been little and shopping at the mini-market with her mother and Jean had told her to choose from the exciting selection of sweets on offer—forgotten to mark the day.
‘Madge happened to mention it,’ Sebastian offered gruffly, his veiled eyes lingering on the flush of wild rose colour that deepened the clear deep blue of her fantastic eyes. In his experience, such genuine pleasure was a rarity in the female of the species. It would take more than a birthday greeting to get a reaction like that from the female sophisticates who moved in his circle—would take something in the order of a suite of diamond jewellery or a new car!
He felt strangely humble and not a little proprietorial as he commanded a touch thickly, ‘Share a bottle of wine with me to mark the occasion.’
Now where had that come from? He was as surprised as Rosie looked. After the twenty-four hours of aggravation and frustration he’d just had he’d wanted nothing more than a simple meal and the chance to relax.
Her soft mouth had dropped open. She had to clamp it shut and clear her throat before she could say a single thing. She stared at his knock-’em-dead features, the taut bones beneath the smooth bronzed skin and gulped shakily, ‘No, thanks. There’s no need, honestly.’
The invitation had been the very last thing she’d expected and she knew he’d only asked because he felt sorry for her, the birthday girl with no party to go to.
He probably gave to every beggar he came across and rescued stray cats and dogs—and, as far as she was concerned, spending time with him, drinking wine with him, would be disastrous. She’d only go and give herself away and he’d end up knowing what up to now he couldn’t even suspect—that she fancied him rotten!
If he’d wanted a let-out he’d been handed one on a plate. But, perversely, he wasn’t going to take it. All traces of tiredness had fled. Obviously her birthday had gone unnoticed, Sebastian thought with a stab of annoyance. Remedying that would be his good deed for the day, he decided, finding he rather like the idea.
‘You’d be doing me a favour, Rosie. The last twenty-four hours have been hectic. I want to unwind over a glass of wine and I don’t care to drink alone.’
That had got her, he thought on a surge of satisfaction as he saw her brilliant eyes widen with sympathy, her delicate brows peak. Find the weak spot and go for it was a rule that worked well both in business and personal relationships. He knew little about Rosie Lambert, but his gut instincts told him she had a soft, sympathetic nature and would always answer a cry for help.
He pressed home his advantage. ‘Please?’
That dark drawl, the honeyed Spanish accent, sent quivers of something fiery racing down her spine, making her gasp. She met the smoky sultriness of those black-fringed eyes and her mouth ran dry. At least his invitation hadn’t sprung from pity, he was asking a favour, and that gave her the confidence to push out croakily, ‘OK, if that’s what you want.’
‘Gracias.’
His smile made her head spin, and when he put a casual arm around her shoulders and led her from the room it was all she could do to stay upright. The touch of his hand through the thin fabric of her T-shirt scorched her skin right through to the bone and the heat of her body’s instinctive and immediate response curled and tightened low down in her pelvis.
Get a grip! she snarled silently at herself as she sternly resisted the pressing temptation to sag against him, lay her head against that wide chest, slip a hand beneath that beautifully tailored jacket and feel the warmth of his body beneath the crisp fabric of his shirt.
So, OK, Sebastian Garcia was lethally attractive, and without even trying he could make things happen to her body that had never happened before, but he wouldn’t look twice at the likes of her, she reasoned as he disappeared to fetch the promised wine after guiding her to one of the squashy sofas in front of the glowing hall fire.
She sat gingerly in one corner and tucked the book under a cushion out of sight. She’d have to replace it in the morning. Bedtime reading—as if! He must think she was pretty strange!
Dismissing it from her mind, she tried to relax. She’d drink one small glass of wine, toss a few aimless remarks in his direction and keep her eyes firmly fixed on anything other than him. Looking at all that masculine perfection would be her downfall. She would never survive the humiliation if he guessed she was hopelessly attracted to him.
He was taking much longer than she’d expected and with every minute Rosie got more uptight. Had he got sidetracked, forgotten all about her? Unlike him, she was easy to forget, she thought on a sickening surge of shame. She felt a real fool, sitting here like a lemon, and was about to slink off to bed when he re-entered the hall.
Her heart jumped and she forgot to breathe as he put two glasses and an opened wine bottle on a side table, then turned to her. In the dim light his smoky eyes mesmerised her. She could drown in those silvery depths, she thought helplessly, forgetting her earlier clear-headed decision not to look at him if at all possible.
