The Housekeeper's Awakening

‘Why, do you like wild parties?’ he challenged.

‘No.’

‘Me neither,’ he said unexpectedly.

‘So how does that work?’ she asked, with a frown. ‘When you throw them on a regular basis. The house is always full of people. Why, you could almost employ a full-time party planner.’

‘I agree—they have become something of a habit. A hangover from my racing days when wild parties were de rigueur, but recently I have grown bored with them.’ His bare shoulders rose in a shrug. ‘I find that they are all exactly the same.’

Carly blinked. How peculiar. She’d thought he’d loved the crazy gatherings which all the locals talked about for weeks afterwards. When hordes of the rich and beautiful converged onto his country estate—some of them travelling from as far as Paris and New York. The women were usually the generic blondes he was so fond of, with their tiny dresses and seeking eyes. On more than one occasion, Carly had been standing making pots of coffee at four in the morning, while some poor creature sobbed her eyes out over the kitchen table, because Luis had taken some other woman to bed instead of her. On another memorable occasion, she had opened the door to the drawing room and found a French supermodel lying completely starkers on a fur rug, waiting in vain for Luis and not realising he was already on a plane which was heading for Morocco.

‘There.’ Carly stopped massaging at last, suddenly aware of the slow trickle of sweat which was sliding in a path between her breasts. Was it the heat which was making them feel so much bigger than usual? Making their tips feel so uncomfortably hard and prickling against her uniform so that she found herself wanting to rub at them. And why was she suddenly looking at the golden gleam of his bare back and thinking it was so physically perfect that it would work as an illustration in the pages of an anatomy book? She swallowed. ‘Feeling better?’

‘I’m feeling...good,’ he said indistinctly.

Hastily, Carly wiped her hands on a towel. She had to stop thinking like this. She had to start regarding him with the impartiality she’d always had before now. ‘I think that’s enough for now, don’t you?’ She kept her voice brisk. ‘We can have another session before...er, before you retire for the night. You can get up if you like, Luis.’

But Luis didn’t want to get up. Or rather, he didn’t feel capable of getting up, not in the way that she meant and not without making it very clear that he was having very erotic feelings about her. He could feel the hard throb at his groin and the sharp aching in his balls and found himself in the unthinkable position of being aroused—by Miss Mouse. And he still wasn’t sure how that had happened. Surely it couldn’t just be because she was touching him, because if that was the case then he would have felt something more potent than irritation towards Mary—the physiotherapist he had just sacked.

The aching intensified, but his impatient squirm only made the hardness worse, instead of relieving it. He scowled into the stupid scented doughnut of a pillow. Weeks of doing nothing had driven him close to crazy with no work, no play and no sex. Worse still, his confinement had left him with time to think and he was a man who preferred to do. Stripped of his constant need for action, he was forced into the unwanted position of introspection.

His incarceration in hospital had made him stop and take a look at his life and realise what a circus it had become. He’d thought about his different homes dotted around the world and the swollen entourage who accompanied him everywhere, and it had been like looking at the world of someone he didn’t know. When had he managed to acquire so many hangers-on? He remembered their barely disguised shock when he had sent them to his main base in Buenos Aires, with Diego at the helm. And the strange calm which had descended on the house once they’d gone, leaving him alone with his mousey housekeeper.

He shifted his thigh a fraction as he thought how efficiently Carly had slotted into her new role as temporary masseuse. It seemed she was as proficient at rehabilitation as she was at running his house for him. Minutes before his massage, she had overseen the daily ballet exercises intended to strengthen his damaged pelvis. She hadn’t made any predictable jokes about men doing ballet, but had simply stood beside him, counting the small elevations of his legs, with a look of fierce determination on her face.

‘How about a swim now, Luis?’

Her soft voice ruptured his disturbing thoughts and it was with a sense of relief that he realised that his erection had subsided.

He yawned. ‘Is that a suggestion?’

‘No, it’s an order—since you seem to respond much better to those.’ She pulled up the blind and peered outside. ‘Oh, dear, it’s raining again.’

‘It’s always raining in this damned country.’

‘That’s what makes the fields so green,’ she said sweetly. ‘Never mind. At least we can use the indoor pool.’

‘But I don’t like the indoor pool,’ he growled. ‘You know that. It’s claustrophobic.’

‘And this room isn’t?’

‘I’m not planning to swim in here,’ he snapped. ‘So why don’t we just go outside and use the big pool? Live dangerously for once.’

Carly turned back from the window, her mouth flattening with a disapproval she couldn’t quite hide as she looked at him. She knew that was the kind of crazy thing he did. She’d witnessed people diving into his rain-lashed swimming pool, fully clothed, and she’d come down early the next morning to find glasses full of rain and champagne. Once she had even found a pair of knickers hanging from one of the flagpoles and one of the gardeners had been forced to shin up and get them back down again. What must it be like to live a life as decadent as his? she wondered.

‘Because I don’t like to live dangerously,’ she said repressively. ‘And perhaps if you didn’t, then you wouldn’t have ended up occupying a hospital bed for so long and probably blocking it for someone who really needs it. As it happens, the grass is absolutely sodden and the tiles around the swimming pool will be wet and slippery.’

‘Sca—ry,’ he said sarcastically.

She didn’t react to his taunt, even though he seemed to be spoiling for some kind of fight. What was the matter with him today? He was even more bad-tempered than usual—and that was saying something. She set her lips into a disapproving line. ‘So unless you want to risk falling over and complicating your recovery, then I’d advise playing safe and using the indoor pool, which was designed with rainy days like these in mind.’

‘Don’t you ever get tired of being the sensible voice of reason?’

And don’t you ever get tired of being the perennial bad-boy playboy? It was only with difficulty that she stopped herself from saying it out loud as she turned to face him. ‘I thought that’s what you were paying me for.’

‘That, and your cooking.’ He paused, his thick black lashes half veiling his eyes. ‘So you don’t like living dangerously?’

Emphatically, Carly shook her head. No, she certainly did not. On the contrary, she had always wanted to live safe. She had craved a security and stability which had always eluded her. But Luis didn’t really want to know that, did he? He was asking the question in that throwaway way he sometimes did, like an owner throwing his dog a scrap of food from the table. He wasn’t interested in her as a person; she was just a tiny cog in the giant wheel designed to keep his life running smoothly. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘You do enough danger for both of us.’

He gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Okay, Miss Sensible—you win. The indoor pool it is. Go and find your swimsuit and meet me in there.’

But his mocking was ringing around her head as Carly ran upstairs to change into her costume, because he had touched a nerve. Being sensible wasn’t something most people aspired to but she’d always been that way. At school she had been the reliable first choice if you needed someone to help with your science homework, or to spend a whole playtime looking for a lost charm from somebody’s bracelet. Careful Carly, they had called her and as a nickname she hadn’t particularly liked it. It wasn’t cool to be careful—it was just the way she’d been made.

She reached her room at the top of the house and shut the door behind her, leaning against it to get her breath back. The attic space was large, with sloping ceilings and a dramatic view over the gardens and the fields beyond. Up here she was among the treetops. Up here you could see the most amazing sunrises and sunsets, which filled the room with a rich red light. There was a little desk, on which she did her studying, and on the wall above the small fireplace hung the little watercolour her father had painted, the year before he’d become too ill to hold a brush any more.

Sliding open one of the drawers, she fished around and found her swimming costume, knowing that the last thing she wanted was for Luis to see her in it. She was too fleshy. Too pale. Too everything. And although she knew that comparison was pointless, she couldn’t help thinking about the women who usually shared the pool with him. Leggy supermodels, wearing tiny bits of string which they called bikinis. She shivered as she stripped out of her bra and pants, her skin cold and resistant as she tugged on the one-piece. She thought how faded it looked and how, rather alarmingly, it seemed to have shrunk.

The rain was bashing hard against the window and some of the showier plants in the flower beds had been flattened to the ground. The dark blue petals of the delphiniums lay scattered on the sodden earth, as if some exotic bird had recently had its feathers plucked. Carly found herself remembering that expression her mother used to say: Fine feathers make a fine bird.

But now wasn’t a good time to remind herself why her doll-like sister had always been given the cream of the crop, while she had been dressed in more practical outfits. After all, why would ungainly Carly be given the delicate clothes favoured by a thespian mother, desperate to create a mini-me image of herself?

When she’d been old enough to buy her own clothes, she had become more adventurous, until that disastrous night which had ended up with her at first wanting to die and then to just fade into the background. And she had become very good at doing that.

She thought about the questions Luis had asked her. Intrusive questions about her sex life or, rather, the lack of it. For a moment she forgot the indignation that her employer should be arrogant enough to question her about something like that. Suddenly she got a glimpse of her life as others must see it. As someone who never went out and never had boyfriends. Who lived in the billionaire’s house and polished and cleaned it even when he wasn’t there. As someone who lived in a staid little world which kept her safe, but which now seemed to mock her.

And Luis didn’t know about her ambitions, did he? He didn’t realise that behind her dull image was someone who was going to do good some day. Someone who could hopefully use the brain she’d been given and not have to rely on her looks to better herself.

Pulling on a towelling robe, she hurried down to the pool to find Luis waiting for her and she couldn’t help the instinctive shiver which ran down her spine. Silhouetted against the enormous curved window which overlooked the woods, he was wearing nothing but a moulded pair of swim-shorts and, from where she stood, Carly thought he looked almost completely fit again.

Despite the severity of his injuries, he had certainly regained his physical strength very quickly—probably because he had been at the peak of fitness before the accident. His dark body still looked immensely tough, despite the crutches he was leaning on. Wavy black tendrils of hair kissed the base of his neck and he seemed lost in thought as he stared out at the Indian Leaf trees whose summer blossoms were creamy-white against the greyness of the day.

He turned as she walked in, and something very peculiar happened to her as their eyes met across the turquoise pool. It was like the disorientation she’d felt when she’d massaged him earlier, only it was worse. Much worse. She stared at him across the echoing space and there was no sound other than the quiet lapping of water and the unnaturally loud pounding of her heart. She could feel her breath drying in her throat and suddenly her chest was tight and she was having trouble breathing. It was happening again and she didn’t want it to happen. She didn’t want to look at a man like Luis and desire him. She didn’t want to feel this hot little ache at the pit of her belly or the sudden warmth which had started flushing over her skin. Why him, and why now?

Was it because she had touched him in an intimate way and broken a taboo which had haunted her for such a long time? She had run her fingers over his almost naked body and had been able to do so because everyone knew that the massage was a kind of healing.

But maybe she had been wrong. Maybe it had been more than that. What if that touch had woken something she’d thought was dead, but which had been lying dormant all this time? Something which was now assuming a life of its own and making her look at him with a terrible and tearing kind of hunger.

She blinked, wanting to clear her vision and make everything go back to how it had been before. She wanted to go back to thinking of Luis as a generous but extremely arrogant boss. She wanted to be troubled by nothing more onerous than trying to get her head round the book on quantum physics she was currently reading. Because she didn’t do desire and all the dark stuff which came with it. Wasn’t she a total failure in that department? Hadn’t she been told that in no uncertain terms?

She saw him glance across as she slipped off her robe and that glance, more than anything, killed off some of the feelings which had been multiplying like bacteria inside her. Was that disbelief she could read in his eyes? Of course it was. He’d probably never seen a woman who wasn’t a size zero. Looking at her curvy body, he might think that she usually finished up all the alfajores once he’d flown back to wherever was next on his exotic list of destinations. And he would be right.

Forcing a quick, professional smile, she walked towards him. ‘Ready?’ she questioned.

‘I’ve been ready for quite some time,’ he said acidly. ‘But, as usual, you were late.’

‘It took me a while to find my costume.’

‘Sorry for the inconvenience,’ he said sarcastically. ‘Perhaps I should have given you more warning. Written it down in triplicate and signed it first.’

She decided not to react. To just pretend that nothing was the matter, but it wasn’t easy when she was being confronted by a bare and powerful torso which was making her want to squirm with embarrassment. ‘Anyway, we’re here now,’ she said brightly. ‘Just make sure you go backwards down the ladder.’

‘I think I know how to get into the damned swimming pool by now.’

Carefully, she took the crutches from him and propped them up against the wall. ‘I was only trying to—’

‘Well, stop trying,’ he snapped. ‘I’m fed up with people trying. I’ve been doing this damned regime for weeks and I think I’ve just about managed to get my head round it. Next thing you’ll be teaching me how to cut up my meat using a knife and fork. Or maybe even start spoon-feeding me.’

For Carly, it was the final straw. Coming on top of the insecurity she was feeling at having to stand in front of him, shivering half to death in an unflattering swimsuit, and the fact that she had been shoehorned into a role she didn’t want, something inside her flipped. She turned and glared at him. ‘Do you have to be quite so bad-tempered, when I’m only trying to help you?’

There was a pause as their eyes clashed in a fierce and silent battle. She felt herself tense to find herself caught in that intense black spotlight and she wondered what snapped insult he was about to come out with next. And then, unexpectedly, he sighed.

‘I know you are,’ he said. ‘It’s only frustration which is making me so unbearable. The aftermath of this damned accident has gone on for weeks and sometimes it feels as if it’s never going to end.’

‘Yes.’ She chewed on her bottom lip. ‘I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.’

He raised his brows. ‘Unless you’re about to tell me that I am pretty unbearable generally?’

Quickly, she glanced down at his bare feet, thinking how pale and perfect his toenails looked against the dark olive of his skin. ‘That isn’t for me to say.’

‘No instant denial, then, Carly?’ he mocked. ‘Leading me to conclude that I am unbearable?’

She lifted her head then and met the mocking challenge in his eyes. ‘You aren’t exactly known for your sweet and even temper,’ she said, and to her surprise he actually laughed as he lowered his powerful body into the pool.

‘No, I suppose I’m not. Come on, Carly—aren’t you coming in?’ he questioned, hitting the surface of the water with the flat of his hand so that an iridescent little plume of spray went showering upwards and fell in tiny droplets which gleamed against his dark skin. ‘Mary always did.’

I’ll bet she did, thought Carly as she slipped into the water beside him. Yet wasn’t she doing exactly what Mary had been guilty of doing? She was having some very inappropriate thoughts about her boss, only she was also being a bit of a hypocrite, because hadn’t she disapproved of the physiotherapist’s behaviour?

She waded further into the water and shivered as the cool water reached her tummy. Goosebumps iced over her skin and she felt the tips of her breasts hardening again, just as they’d done earlier.

In an attempt to conceal it, she leaned back against the tiled wall and splashed water over her arms. ‘You’re supposed to do ten lengths.’

‘I know I am, but I’m planning to do twenty.’

‘Do you think that’s wise?’

He gave her a hard smile. ‘Let’s find out, shall we?’

She watched as he struck out, making no concessions towards his injuries as he cleaved through the water like a golden-dark arrow. He swam with the same energy and determination which he applied to everything in life, but after twelve lengths she could see that he had grown pale and his mouth was tight with tension.

‘Stop now,’ she said, as he came up for air, his black hair plastered to his head like a seal. ‘For heaven’s sake—slow down, Luis. You’re not in some kind of race.’

But he was stubborn, of course he was, and for him life was a race. She wasn’t surprised when he shook his head and continued but when he’d finished, he was exhausted. Hauling his body out of the water, he propped his elbows onto the edge of the pool and rested his head on them, saying nothing until he had regained his breath.

At last he looked up at her, his eyes gleaming blackly from between wet, matted lashes. ‘How was that?’

‘You know exactly how it was. You did twenty lengths—double that recommended by the physiotherapist. You want praise for disobeying her instructions?’

‘Sí. I demand praise. Heaps of it piled high onto my head. So why don’t you wipe that disapproving look off your face for once, and tell me how good I am?’ His mouth curved into a provocative smile. ‘You know you want to.’

Carly stiffened as something unfamiliar prickled over her skin. Was he flirting with her? She stared at him, her eyes blinking. Surely not. Unless flirting was almost like a reflex action for him, a bit like a goldfish gasping for air if somebody tipped its bowl onto the floor. It’s just sweet-talk and it doesn’t mean anything, she told herself fiercely. So don’t act as if it does. ‘You probably overextended yourself, but, yes, you were good,’ she agreed grudgingly. ‘Actually, you were very good.’

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